The importance of digital adoption professionals

Vivek Behl at WalkMe describes one of digital transformation’s unsung heroes - the digital adoption professional

 

Enterprises continue to invest heavily in digital transformation, with spending forecast to hit $3.4 trillion globally by 2026. It may be many years before these projects are finished, but Gartner says CIOs are already coming under pressure to deliver some of the ‘digital dividends’.

 

This means the focus is shifting from not only the buy, design, and build stages of digital projects, but once the tech is actually put into practice. How will it be used, and who will be using it? And does the organisation fully understand their total spending on technology? 

 

Why digital adoption matters

Employee adoption of new digital technologies really matters: our recent study of 1,500 senior business leaders showed that a failure to fully use technology tools costs the average enterprise almost $100 million a year.

 

This massive figure stems from multiple problems including the cost of failing to realise the full value of software investments, digital transformation projects that did not meet their goals because end users did not use the technology as expected, extra support and training needed to compensate for employees’ lack of digital dexterity, and replacing employees who left due to frustration with technology.

 

At the moment, employees are wasting an increasing amount of time figuring out how business software and applications work, the very tools bought to help them do their best work. The rise of remote and hybrid work have made this an even bigger issue than it already was. Naturally, remote work has made technology even more central to the average work day, and it also makes it more difficult to lean over and ask a quick tech-related question to a colleague.

 

Even if employees are familiar with all the different apps and software in their tech stack, just scrolling and clicking between them all can be time consuming. A recent study reported that businesses are left paying a ‘toggling tax’, with employees shifting between applications about 1,200 times each day, adding up to almost a tenth of their annual time at work.

 

All of this shows that rather than being a boost to the employee experience and productivity, technology is overwhelming employees, consuming their time, and getting in the way of them achieving their goals.

 

With technology continually evolving and the tech stack continuing to expand, businesses urgently need to get this situation under control. They need to close the costly digital adoption gap with a strategic focus on digital adoption so that employees can fully harness the technology that was bought to help them and their organisations succeed. 

 

Calling in the professionals

So how can businesses fix the problem? The first fundamental step is to assign responsibility for driving digital adoption. Our research mentioned earlier found almost three quarters of enterprise leaders don’t know who has responsibility for this at present.

 

In recent years the waters have been muddied within many organisations, with some evolving their view of IT from being just an operational issue to a key enabler of central business strategy – which makes it hard to know who should be taking the lead.

 

The World Economic Forum has stated that 85% of the jobs of 2030 don’t exist yet. In just a matter of years new roles will emerge and become commonplace across many enterprises.

 

Take data scientists for example, once a very niche, emerging role, which has now hit the mainstream to the extent that the UK government’s National Careers Service now advises on possible paths to a career in this area. Before long, teachers, parents and students will likely be looking for similar guidance on how to become a digital adoption professional, as increasing numbers of businesses realise how important this role is becoming. 

 

Digital adoption professionals take ownership over the adoption of technology across an organisation. They take the lead on building a consistent user experience across sprawling enterprise technology stacks by guiding users through the digital jungle with on screen walkthroughs, tips, strategically placed notifications, and automation. DAP professionals ensure that  employees know how all the apps and software provided to them work, and can complete tasks easily and quickly.

 

Many of them will use a digital adoption platform (DAP) to put their plans into practice. DAPs enable this custom guidance for employees across an enterprise tech stack, helping them harness technology to excel at their unique roles, rather than having to sit through hours of irrelevant generic training sessions for processes that might not be relevant for them.

 

DAPs can be used in a wide range of industries, from quickly getting temporary workers up to speed with processing food and drinks orders, to helping senior SaaS sales professionals use their CRM to close million-dollar deals.

 

Skills for success

While DAP professionals are not entirely new, demand is booming. Economic volatility has driven businesses to swiftly pursue an ROI imperative. The urgency to maximise value from investments includes technology investments and DAPs and the DAP professionals who use them accomplish this.

 

DAP professionals can harness the technology prowess of DAPs to not only improve the end user experience for employees, but also use automation and data insights to continuously improve workflows and preemptively solve issues to drive business goals. Their work directly impacts companies’ bottom lines. So the question becomes, what exactly should businesses be looking for in the ideal DAP professional candidate?

 

There are several different kinds of DAP professionals and they often go by different titles depending on the organisation. There are program managers who run digital adoption initiatives internally, project leads who own the execution of DAP projects, builders who hands on create on screen guidance, data analysts who inform decisions and validate results using data, designers who own the user experience, champions who communicate the power and value of DAPs, and architects who integrate DAPs into complex tech stacks. 

 

At a top level, all of these roles need a combination of communication and collaboration skills. The effects of these roles reach right the way across an organisation, impacting every individual who uses software – which must be almost everybody in some businesses. This means they need to have a firm grasp of the nuances of effective communication.

 

The ideal candidate will also need management skills and business acumen to successfully run a digital adoption strategy, regardless of area of focus. Many DAP professionals will need to be able to manage different integrations, moving parts and timelines, while working with different stakeholders across the organisation. At the same time, they’ll need to understand how to identify strategic drivers and initiatives, what operational challenges they could face, and ultimately how to define value. 

 

Overall, DAP professionals also need business acumen. This means having a firm grasp of the specific needs of the business, and how a digital adoption strategy and platform can be used to drive desired business outcomes. Ultimately, the person who takes a DAP professional role must be responsible and accountable for ensuring technology brings the business closer to accomplishing its goals.

 

Taking decisive action

Many businesses are now reaching the point where stakeholders are expecting to see some benefits emerging from digital transformation projects, even if they are not complete yet. This means we’ll see an increasing number of businesses investing in digital adoption platforms and DAP professionals in 2023 – with the role hitting mainstream awareness by the end of the year.

 

Whether appointing from within, bringing in somebody new, or team members taking on additional part-time responsibilities, businesses stand to gain tremendously from talented DAP professionals. The need to ensure that individual employees can fully harness and extract the maximum value from their technology tools has never been greater. 

 

Hiring someone with the right business acumen, communication, and project management skills, is a first step towards implementing a far reaching digital adoption strategy  that will put the business on course to reap the many rewards of digital transformation success and improve employee experience and productivity.    

 

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Vivek Behl is Field CTO, EMEA & APAC at WalkMe

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com