Solving the Digital Adoption Crisis

What good is a tool without someone to use it?

No good at all really, a hammer can’t build much of anything without someone to swing it.

And vice versa, a person can only do so much without proper tools, at least in an efficient manner.

Simple enough of an idea, without a hammer and nails it can be awfully hard to build a house.

That same thinking should be applied to digital tools as well, but it rarely is.

This idea of The Golden Triangle is something I think a lot about, striking the perfect balance between technology, people and processes.

The problem is that the piece that usually gets all the attention is technology.

Technology is new, it’s exciting, grabs headlines, but technology doesn’t solve problems. People using technology do.

The most advanced solutions in the world aren’t good for much without the people and processes in place to use them.

Digital adoption is so important, especially today when digital transformation is such a significant investment.

Technology can be complicated though, and often very misunderstood. Many people don’t embrace digital solutions because they think that eventually it could lessen the impact of their role or even make it redundant.

Also, something that isn’t talked about often enough is the realities of change management.

Sometimes processes are too rigid, and a new technology can cause friction and pushback, or recognizing that if something has been done a certain way for 10+ years, learning a completely new system or process without proper support is daunting.

The truth is though that a digital solution isn’t going to take your job or lessen the impact just as much as the hammer didn’t put the builder out of business.

Instead, new technologies change the scope of work, and open the door to a more efficient and polished final product or service, but the transition must be managed correctly.

That’s why the first step to successful digital adoption is to address the people aspect.

Breaking down and understanding what the technology can (and can’t) do and what it’s for, so that everyone is on the same page, is the foundation of any successful project.

You can’t Manage what you can’t Measure

Once everyone is on the same page, the next step is measurement.

Equally as difficult as the first step, and sometimes might seem intangible but it’s crucial to get this step right.

After all, one of my favorite sayings is: you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Data reporting is everything in today’s business world, especially when dealing with technology’s ROI and adoption.

So, step two is addressing the process aspect. How many people are actually using the solution? Are they using it correctly? Are they getting all of the possible value out of it? What additional training or support is needed?

These are all questions you have to ask constantly. Otherwise, you’ve wasted significant investment on a solution that may check all of the boxes on paper, but that no one knows how to – or wants to – use.

Digital Adoption Takes Center-Stage

Improving digital adoption is no easy task, but the ones worth doing never are. That’s why myself and the rest of the JAGGAER team have been working on a special project.

Coming soon in our new release we’ll be rolling out JAGGAER Adopt!

The goal of Adopt is simple: increase the ROI of your digital investment by accelerating the adoption of JAGGAER solutions by your users. Adopt will provide intuitive visual building blocks to design, deliver and perfect onboarding and training by giving guidance when and where your users need it most.

Cutting down on support needs by offering intelligent guidance to empower your teams sounds pretty good to me.

Adopt is also built with measurement in mind. It provides 360° visibility into user interactions, feature utilization and compliance with company-defined processes.

JAGGAER Adopt focuses on driving adoption as an ongoing activity, with product usage analytics that show how individuals, teams and other groups are leveraging (or are not leveraging) the capabilities that let them work smarter and more efficiently.

You can also pair our metrics with your own to develop custom KPIs that are important to you, while helping to identify and eliminate process bottlenecks and underleveraged capabilities.

A big part of any successful digital initiative is ROI, but delivering continuous ROI depends on successful change management, driving high adoption and utilization.

JAGGAER Adopt is here to help you always get the most from your solutions.

The first step in realizing procurement’s full strategic potential is diving headfirst into innovation and digital transformation.

Technology allows you to work smarter and faster, but change is hard, and the biggest roadblock to overcome is often digital adoption.

In a world so focused on the next big technology breakthrough, the real secret is using technology to empower your people.

If you can get the people aspect right, everything else will fall into place.

In part 3/4 of this journey, we’ll explore how revolutions in smart assistants and natural language processing might be the missing piece in unlocking procurement’s full potential.

You can find part 1 here, kicking off our revolution to change how procurement is thought of.