6 Expert-Backed Tips For Driving The Adoption Of Enterprise Technology In Your Organization

The Tools For Growth

As your organization grows, your ability to scale relies heavily on automated processes, data, and technology to ensure that people across all roles within the team are supported and enabled to work more efficiently.

The solution? Customer lifecycle technology platforms.

Enterprise technology platforms make day-to-day account maintenance easier along with enabling accurate reporting and scalable automation. But, sourcing, selecting, and implementing technology is the easy part. Getting your team to use that technology – consistently and effectively – is the biggest challenge facing many enterprise organizations. 

In this article, we share 6 expert-recommended tips for ensuring the successful rollout and adoption of your enterprise technology solution so that you can drive efficient and scalable growth.

Start With Your Key Stakeholders

When thinking of efficiency, enterprise technology platforms offer a wide range of capabilities, such as:

• Eliminating the need for redundant updates across systems 
• Codifying the approach to working for both new and existing hires 
• Offering guidance and direction over day-to-day tasks allowing for better self-management
• Bringing insights to the forefront that enable decision making and action

Leaders often approach “efficiency” based on what they think about how their teams do their jobs versus how they actually perform their jobs. As you are vetting new technology, make sure that you perform discovery with your entire team (not just managers and high-performers) to see what could potentially make their jobs easier. Only after you understand their challenges will you be able to ensure that the technology you are vetting will meet their needs. This is the easiest first step to garnering buy-in for what can potentially be a long road ahead.

6 Tips To Ensuring The Adoption Of Your Enterprise Technology

1. Take Note Of The Temperature

Historically, take stock of past organizational change management efforts. What went well? What didn’t? How can you adjust your rollout strategy to account for these learnings? For example, if adoption of a previous tool waned over time, determine the reasons why and what workarounds the team employed to accomplish the tasks that needed to be done.

2. Get To The “WIIFM” Moment

Before communicating the vision, rationale, and capabilities of your new enterprise technology (e.g. how is this going to make your life easier, no need to make multiple updates anymore, etc.), you must first develop a thorough understanding of how your team actually works today. Without this knowledge, you will not be able to develop a solid case for change. The initial discovery process mentioned above will be immensely helpful in this regard. Think specifically about the tasks that the team performs today. Ask questions to understand how and where the task is performed and take note of workarounds and repetition of the same task across tools. You can also Include the team in your tool evaluation and selection process. If it’s down to two vendors, demonstrate how the tool can be used and ask your team to weigh in. Make it real enough so that they can see and understand your vision clearly.

3. Roll Out Slowly And Deliberately

Plan your roll out in phases with milestones in place so that the team can adjust to the process change, ask questions, and provide feedback before additional process changes are put in place. Think thoughtfully about what these milestones are as well as the overall challenges of migrating from one process and system to another process and system. For example, consider a crawl, walk, run approach to your rollout as well as the number of processes or tasks that require migration. Rank the complexity of these processes and tasks from easiest to most difficult and plan your milestones from there. One area that often gets overlooked is the difficulty of using two systems at the same time. Be prepared to offer reminders to the team so that they know what to do, when to do it, and which system to use.

4. Make Adoption Metrics Visible

What percentage of the team is adopting the change? Use your weekly team meetings to show high-level adoption metrics. Metrics can include the migration of a process from the old system to the new or the number of tasks completed in the new system.  The goal isn’t to single anyone out in a public way but to show the team that progress is being made. Consider gamifying the ask; a little friendly competition will help team members encourage each other to get the task done.

5. Incorporate Technology Adoption Into Your Performance Evaluation Rubric

If the change you seek is ultimately a fundamental behavior that is important to your future state, consider including it as a part of the performance evaluation process. While this will be helpful in ensuring the long-term adoption of your enterprise technology solution, it’s important to remember that this shouldn’t be incorporated in performance evaluations from first implementation – you need to allow time for the team to adopt the change and learn. Consider your current performance evaluation periods and select a future evaluation period to goal individuals underneath a specific performance category. Use the current evaluation period for learning and adjustment, and use the next period as the official evaluation start. Creating a performance category called “Productivity Tools” or “Technology Alignment” can help to encompass tool use as well as the other areas that are important to you (e.g. QBR completions, account contacts, timeline tracking, etc).

6. Offer Ongoing Training & Feedback

Designate a coach on your team who is responsible for training as well as offering 1:1 help as needed. If you are using a phased approach with milestones as a part of your rollout, consider creating checkpoints two weeks after each milestone is reached. During these checkpoints, ask your coach to reach out to individuals to gather feedback about the entire rollout in the form of surveys, and in some cases, direct interviews. Questions involving ease of use and clarity of process can help determine where additional training, coaching or communication is needed. Establishing office hours can help make it easier to gather feedback in a relaxed setting as well as set time aside to take questions on the fly. After gathering feedback, revise and then codify your training in an LMS to benefit both new hires and the existing team for ongoing training and development.

Leverage The Full Potential Of Your Enterprise Technology Investment

With the right approach, you can ensure the successful adoption of your enterprise technology solution and make the most of your investment. When implementing a new technology, you must consult with all stakeholders, employ change management best practices and offer ongoing training and enablement. With a robust rollout plan, you can ensure the successful adoption of your enterprise technology investment, streamline your processes and maximize efficiency for both your team and customers.