Even before the COVID-19 pandemic started taking control of our way of life, the world was already shifting towards all things digital. Everyone, from your workforce to your customers, is getting increasingly comfortable with digital technology and the transition to working, socializing, and shopping online.
And now with the coronavirus crisis ravaging humanity, with lockdowns enforced in most countries, businesses have had no choice but to go fully remote in their operations. That is, the already rapid transition to extensive use of digital tools and online subscription software, also known as digital transformation, has only been furthered by the pandemic.
Simply put, digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas (people and processes) of your business, fundamentally revamping how your employees work and deliver value to your customers. This means leveraging software to optimize your business operations, leaving behind the traditional ways of pen and paper.
However, merely bringing in a new tool without empowering your employees to make the most of its features and capabilities isn’t going to do you much good. Enter digital adoption.
So, What Is Digital Adoption?
It is one thing to purchase the license of a digital tool that will help your team with project management, and it’s totally another to leverage all the features offered by that tool so your team can maximize the business output.
Simply put, when you attain an organizational state in which every employee is able to use the available digital tools to their fullest capabilities, you’ve embraced digital adoption successfully.
As you’ll see later in the post, digital adoption is important for both internal and customer-related activities. Successful digital adoption will make your business more efficient and lead to greater profits and faster growth. In fact, startups having a digital-first strategy can grow their revenue by a whopping 34%.
If you still need convincing, here are three concrete reasons why you must embrace digital adoption for your business.
Digital Adoption Allows the Automation of Repetitive Tasks
Time is money for businesses and squandering it away on completing repetitive tasks isn’t wise. By successfully leveraging modern digital tools, you and your team can automate various internal processes and everyday tasks so that the focus can be on doing real work that improves the business’s bottom line.
For instance, routine activities like invoicing and inventory management can be easily automated using software like Wave and Orderhive, respectively. That being said, make sure your employees are adept at using these tools say, with knowledge of useful in-built shortcuts. Essentially, using business software to its maximum capability is what digital adoption is all about.
In the same vein, proper usage of enterprise software like Workday allows you to automate HR activities like payroll, Employee Onboarding, training, and much more. However, your workforce may have trouble adopting complex enterprise-grade tools such as Workday, so you must consider using a Workday adoption tool that uses reinforcement training to empower employees on Workday.
By automating all such repetitive tasks, digital adoption boosts productivity as the team can then spend more time doing work they love doing instead of tedious administrative work.
Digital Adoption Enhances Teamwork and Task Management
It’s not unusual for employees to wear multiple hats and juggle various tasks at once. In this case, it’s easy to lose track of what needs to be prioritized.
Introducing a project management tool like Basecamp and then ensuring every employee uses the software efficiently can be great for prioritizing tasks. Assigning tasks, tracking deadlines, and maintaining accountability can all be streamlined in one go.
Moreover, the already growing trend of remote working is now almost mainstream thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tools like Slack or Skype facilitate seamless instant communication and teamwork regardless of the geographical differences. Thus, digital adoption is key to becoming a successful business that operates remotely.
Digital Adoption Helps Improve Customer Experience
Digital adoption is crucial not just for optimizing your business’s daily operations, but also for your improving the customer experience (CX).
CX comprises all interactions between your business and your customers. Each positive or negative experience that individuals have with your business directly affects the likelihood of them becoming your loyal customers. In fact, a recent report from Forrester suggests that businesses that improved their CX had almost doubled their conversion rates.
As people are increasingly gravitating to online shopping using smart devices, businesses striving to improve their CX must concentrate on improving their digital user experience (UX). This means leveraging reputed digital platforms like Shopify Plus to design a modern, functioning, mobile-friendly website complete with a chatbot that serves as a helpful virtual assistant, guiding the visitors throughout their buyer’s journey.
Furthermore, using customer feedback and analytics tools (like HubSpot), you can make use of customer data to provide a more personalized experience to your customers which, in turn, will translate to higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
Clearly, outstanding customer experience can only be rendered with effective digital adoption across all fronts of your business.
Your Move
Long story short, digital adoption is critical to your business’s present and future success. Sure, achieving full digital adoption of your business does require some investment in terms of time and money, but it won’t be long before you start witnessing the ROI of it all.
From managing remote teams and automating routine processes to improving the customer experience and boosting productivity, embracing digital adoption is pivotal to put your business on track for greater profitability in the long haul.
Author Bio:
Gaurav Belani is a senior SEO and content marketing analyst at Growfusely, a content marketing agency specializing in content and data-driven SEO. He has more than seven years of experience in digital marketing. He likes sharing his knowledge in a wide range of domains ranging from marketing to human capital management and much more. His work is featured in several authoritative business publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter at @belanigaurav.