How to Choose the Best Digital Adoption Solution

Choosing the right digital adoption solution is no small matter.

It takes careful research, analysis, and planning.

Below, we’ll cover the essential steps you should follow when choosing a digital adoption solution.

These include:

• Understanding the problem that is driving your digital adoption initiative
• Determining organizational readiness, change readiness, and digital readiness
• How to research, evaluate, and choose a digital adoption solution

There is no one-size-fits-all method for digital adoption planning.

But by following the steps below, you’ll be able to develop a digital adoption plan that fits your own situation.

The steps below are not necessarily chronological – they inform one another, so it’s best to pursue them simultaneously.

1. Evaluate Your Business Problem

Before you choose a digital adoption solution, it’s necessary to understand your business problem.

This business problem, after all, is driving your action.

For example, are you trying to boost sales productivity?

Do you want to implement a new customer service platform?

There are many reasons a company may choose to implement new technology.

A few common reasons include:

• Pursuing growth opportunities
• Enhancing business processes and metrics
• Increasing employee productivity
• Boosting customer engagement
• Gaining a competitive advantage

Or, in many cases, businesses simply need to keep pace with the market.

When evaluating the business problem, you need to:

• Define the problem or opportunity
• Set goals
• Understand what your solution needs to accomplish in order to achieve those goals

As mentioned above, the steps listed here are best followed concurrently.

For instance, you may be analyzing your business problem and researching products at the same time.

In many cases product vendors will provide much of the educational content that can help you understand your problem.

However, before you can even consider evaluating product vendors, it’s critical to follow the next step…

2. Analyze Your Organizational Readiness

Every organization has different capabilities.

This means that every organization is different when it comes to their:

• Size
• Technical capabilities
• Workforce
• Culture
• Digital adoption budget

Among other things.

These differences will have a direct impact on which digital adoption solution they choose.

During your research and analysis, make sure that you understand these capabilities in detail.

Here are a few important areas to evaluate:

• Change Readiness – How ready are employees to change? What preparations does the organization need in order to move forward?
• Enterprise Change Capability – How sophisticated is your change management department? Does your company have a track record of change projects?
• Digital Maturity – Where does your organization stand when it comes to IT and technology? Understanding your digital maturity can help inform many of your key decisions during this process.
• Innovation – Is your company conservative or progressive? Are they open to new ideas or closed?
• Budget – How much is your organization prepared to spend? Do they understand the ROI of digital adoption?

These questions can help you:

• Define your change management approach
• Cecide on a digital adoption solution
• And choose the right product for your needs

Now, let’s look at how to research and choose a good solution.

3. Research and Choose a Digital Adoption Solution

Researching products and solutions usually comes after you identify your problem.

However, the steps mentioned here do overlap.

By the time you start researching specific products, you should already understand:

• Your organization’s capabilities and readiness
• Budget and time constraints
• What changes need to be made

This knowledge can, in turn, help you identify the right digital adoption solution for your needs.

Here are a few things to look for when reviewing products and vendors:

• Features – Do they actually solve your problem? Solutions with great UI and fancy features won’t help much if they don’t address your issue.
• User-Friendliness – What is their learning curve? This will impact employees’ time to competency and their overall productivity levels.
• Costs and ROI – Does the solution fall within your budget? And will it deliver its promised ROI? The cost is vital, but remember that every digital adoption solution is designed to deliver returns … it should not be perceived solely as a cost center.

These types of questions can help help you choose the right digital solution for your needs.

Final Thoughts

Digital adoption and transformation are normal in today’s economy.

They have become so common, in fact, that entire industries have sprung up to support these changes.

As you research digital adoption solutions, also look at ways to improve the adoption process.

In other words, how you adopt can be as important as what you adopt.

A better digital adoption process means:

• Higher employee engagement and productivity
• Improved learning curves and time-to-competency
• Decreased costs for adoption projects

Following the steps listed above is an excellent way to help achieve these results.

Also, consider optimizing your approach to adoption.

Here are a few ways to do that:

• Use digital adoption platforms to improve every aspect of your adoption program
• Implement structured change management approaches
• Analyze data, learn from that information, and adapt your program as you go

As mentioned, digital adoption has become an everyday occurrence for many companies.

Streamlining this process just makes good business sense.