Software rollout is something that every enterprise is familiar with, considering the sheer number of technological solutions companies deploy, year on year. However, simply investing in an application without really having a software rollout plan in place, can be disastrous.

Organizations are having questions like how to rollout new software or what is the ideal software rollout process to follow. Questions like this can only be answered by having a proper software rollout checklist or plan.

Thankfully it is not difficult to have a strategy in place. We at Apty have drafted a well-planned software rollout strategy following which any business can avoid some obvious pitfalls but before delving deep into the strategy lets understand the best practices.

Top 7 Software Rollout Best Practices

Software rollout guide to ensure a successful software rollout plan

1. Establish a Clear Objective

Your organization must establish a clear objective before investing in any new software. Having a proper roadmap will empower any organization and all its departments to meet its goals.

You might know and understand why your business needs a new software but your employees might not be on the same page. It is better to discuss and share the vision upfront. Involving employees at this stage will increase pan-organizational buy-in which usually becomes difficult in later stages of the rollout process.

2. Identify Current Business Roadblocks

It is the responsibility of the implementation team to run an audit in collaboration with an external consultant to understand the current state of your business process vis-a-vis your organization’s objectives.

A few things you need to look into are:-

Answering these questions will identify the gaps in your existing system. It would be ideal to involve stakeholders from respective departments to understand the issues they have faced in the past.

All these insights will help you to overcome the challenges and have a contingency plan in place, to track back if anything goes wrong or goes out of hand.

3. Set a continuous business process improvement strategy

The business world is dynamic as it has to face a lot of challenges because of internal and external factors. Organizations can plan for internal aspects to some extent but preparing for external factors can be a herculean task.

So, it is clear that the preparations must be in place to handle the situation even after a successful software rollout.

When a shift happens then the business process undergoes change for which organizations must invest in tools that can help them uncover the trend and empower their users to immediately adopt it.

During such cases, traditional training is not feasible as it would consume a lot of time. The agenda of the business is to make employees immediately familiar with the processes and make them leverage the new features within the software to the fullest.

The organization can use an application like a Digital Adoption Platform that will help them uncover the user behavior trend within the application. It also helps users to learn new processes and various features of the applications while they are on the job.

It also acts as a tool through which you can communicate the change that happened within the application and guide them throughout the process. It is one of the few tools that determine the post-rollout success of software.

4. Understand User Needs

Prior to designing a software training curriculum for the employees, it is necessary to understand how each user group uses the software.

Modern DAPs have a feature called Application analytics where you get the following insights:

The answers to all these questions will guide you to design customized training for each user group and their sub-groups. Also, business processes can be altered based on these insights, if needed.

It will ensure a great user onboarding experience for your employees and in turn higher engagement rate.

Here’s a definitive guide on User Onboarding.

5. Make Software Training a Priority

Just rolling out an incredible software will not ensure success. Having a state-of-the-art technology in place but not being able to utilize the same to its fullest potential will fail the project and, in turn, the investment.

Equip your employees with the right tools and skills to operate the software and find their way through the new process.

The traditional form of training consumes time but is essential to get an overview. However organizing multiple training sessions consumes a lot of man-hours, and resources which could otherwise be put to better use.

Having a contextual training solution like DAP (Digital Adoption Platform) will be useful as it houses all forms of content within the application. It guides the user in real-time and saves valuable time.

Having an in-app guidance solution that houses content in multiple formats at their helm will reinforce your users’ knowledge and boost their productivity.

6. Communicate with Stakeholders

Software rollout is not a one-man show. Key decisions have to be taken by involving relevant stakeholders from each department.

You might wonder why it is essential?

Well, they know their day-to-day job better than the management.  Understanding their perspective could open numerous doors of opportunity to improve the implementation process. As eventually, they are the ones who will be using the new software.

Each of these stakeholders understand the end goals that they want to achieve via the new implementation. They know what the solution should look like and where the problems could occur. Their feedback at this stage could make your software-rollout plan smoother and more effective.

Collaborating from this stage will allow you to understand what their expectation is from the new deployment. It will help you to adjust the goals and objectives to be in line with their expectation.

Doing this will also make your employees motivated and their participation increases by many folds.

7. Hire Consultants and Service Partners

Rolling out new software even with a tech-savvy team could be a herculean task. Your organization must hire Consultants and Service Partners to meet the desired goal.

Consultants are the representatives of the organization who are hired for their expertise and Service Partners are third-party companies that enable the deployment of new applications across the organization to achieve the goal efficiently.

Applications like Salesforce, Workday and ServiceNow may take a period of 14-18 months to go live and businesses have to go through a tornado of change in this period.

The expectation of the organization has to be conveyed properly to these Service Partners to realize the company’s goal and this job is done by the Consultant. Moreover, a Consultant is a subject matter expert who helps to design the business processes.

On the other hand, Service Partners understand the product in and out and customize it to the expectation of the organization. They are the ones who develop and deploy the solution.

Collaboration across all fronts is essential to see success out of the deployed solution.

8. Maintain Decision logs and Documentation

While the new software is being customized, designed, and developed to meet the organization’s demand, many decision-makers participate in this process.

As a result, numerous decisions are taken. If the organization wants to solve any issues and wants to track back to the owner of that decision, it would be difficult unless you don’t have a decision log. In this log, you generally enter the name of the owners, the type of decision taken, and the stage of the process.

Documentation is equally important, as most companies prefer customization of the software to match their needs. So, the structure of the software becomes very different from the default ones and the default documentation becomes useless in such cases.

The documentation must be the responsibility of the Consultant which must be created in collaboration with Service Partners.

9. Create Champions

A person must be selected to represent different stakeholders and they must be trained right from the development stage. They must be the Point of Contact between the external stakeholders and internal stakeholders.

They should become the power user by the time the deployment phase begins and can be called ‘Champions’ as most of the heavy-lifting from the organization’s end is done by them.

An internal Champion will ensure the success of the latest deployment as anyone from the organization can reach out to them for any clarifications or training requirements.

They could help the Team Leads and L&D Team to design the training module. Their presence reduces dependencies on external stakeholders.

Few Champions are essential in a company to boost the adoption of the software and safeguard the investment.

10. Test in Control Group

Once the software is designed as per the requirement, it should be deployed within a small group of people. This group of people could be handpicked or selected randomly. The main motive is to check the efficiency of the deployed application in a testing environment.

If the software does not meet the expected standards, it is sent to the development phase. But if it delivers the desired outcome, the software is rolled out in a much bigger group and eventually across the organization.

The main motive of the control group is to identify any bugs in real-time and improve upon it. It saves a lot of time and effort.

11. Seek Feedback

You could have the best analytics system in place, but at the end of the day what matters is how users perceive the deployed software.

New software generally tends to have some flaws in it. It should be the prime duty of the respective Managers to gather feedback and convey the sentiments of their team members to the management

Feedback can be gathered via multiple channels like:

12. Monitor Usage Analytics

To know how the newly rolled out software is performing, business analytic tools like Apty can prove highly beneficial.

It gives you two types of insights:

All these data points will guide you to identify the gaps and improve the training and business processes.

The software has to be updated every now and then to match the industry standards and the organization’s goals. To do it properly, continuous analysis is key.

13. Ensure Business Process Compliance

Business process compliance is a series of steps performed by the users to accomplish a defined goal. Each step has to be completed in a certain way or format and adds up to the bottom line of the organization.

When it comes to using software, organizations want their workforce to use it in an intended manner. So, they create rules and regulations which is known as business process compliance. These processes are the building block for organizational success and any issues could impact the ROI.

So, the organization needs to enable employees to enter the information within the application in the correct format. It will help the business to receive clean data which will intend help to become business process compliant and make crucial business decisions.

Conclusion

Software rollout is not a one-time thing, it is a continuous process. There is no good in doing things hastily. Rather, it pays to be practical and make your decisions wisely, based on data.

Be open for feedback and always test before deploying new software and its updates. You can make most of it if you have a proper strategy, effective communication & collaboration, customized training, and a well-defined roadmap in place.

It is common for business to spend indecent amount of dollars on procuring new tools to improve their processes and performance. But what if these tools are not providing the expected or desired value? The potential loss of such a case is extremely high.

This is why it is of paramount importance that you are cautious in selecting the right tool. Not only that, it is also crucial to have all necessary measures in place to help you derive maximum value for the money spent on the tools.

Many organizations assume software success begins and ends with deployment. In reality, ROI depends on whether employees use software effectively to drive real business outcomes.

Typically, while assessing a tool or software application, company management has certain expectations from it, like:

It is very likely that your employees might face challenges with the new tool initially. But this doesn’t mean that the tool isn’t perfect. The reason for their discomfort might be they are already accustomed to another tool, or multiple tools.

It is up to the management to make the employees feel at ease with the software. Understanding the difference between Software usage and Software adoption is necessary to expect a better ROI from the purchased tool.

This understanding can determine whether your organization merely uses software or unlocks its full potential to reduce errors, increase productivity, and drive process completion at scale.

Apty redefines this transition with its AI-powered, outcome-focused digital adoption platform. Instead of relying on passive training or documentation, Apty enables employees to interact with the software through intelligent walkthrough software, driving immediate performance improvements and eliminating guesswork.

Before we get to understanding them better, let’s take a look at the steps that are involved typically in the purchase of any software:

These are the steps followed by a majority of companies. Each step involves lots of research work. Here, we are going to concentrate on step 6 in which, the role of enterprise software adoption and usage comes into play.

With Apty, the focus extends beyond implementation. It ensures your onboarding software is not just a checklist but a continuous learning experience tailored to each user’s journey. Apty’s automated onboarding software capabilities reduce drop-offs and support tickets while boosting software proficiency across departments.

Every day when we get to the office, we all have our to-do list ready. We leverage software just to make our work easy & accomplish our tasks faster.

What is Software Usage?

Software adoption rate is a measurement of how well a software is being utilized as intended by its users. Software usage doesn’t always equate to software adoption since different users have different requirements from a system and the context of software usage matters, to measure adoption.

But we do have certain problems here, such as:

The end-user might have such doubts and might be hesitant to raise their concerns with the management. Their reluctance will have a direct impact on their performance. It is the management’s responsibility to identify those pain points in software usage and address it.

Using an AI-powered Digital Adoption Platform like Apty can help capture usage data and reveal where users struggle, before these inefficiencies hurt your bottom line.

Let’s look at an example. Consider a company with about 10000 employees.

Application: Salesforce

Assume all 10000 employees use Salesforce to perform various tasks. Every individual has their pre-defined tasks and they expect Salesforce to support & enable them to accomplish their tasks.

Two scenarios might occur:

Scenario 1:

Why is communication important in change management?

Scenario 2:

Scenario 2 needs to be addressed.

Even though they somehow manage to complete tasks, efficiency is compromised.

When software is used inefficiently at scale, it creates organizational drag. The business ends up losing time, increasing support tickets, and underutilizing investments.

The Takeaway:

Technically, Salesforce usage is high (10000 employees daily) but whether they use it to the fullest capabilities is where the difference lies?

Imagine if 2-3 applications are involved to complete a task and all 10000 employees face a similar issue with all the applications – That is a problem you don’t want!

Here’s what you can expect from such a situation:

Difference between Software Usage and Software Adoption

Learn how enterprises moved from usage to adoption with Apty in our case studies.

By now, you would have understood that purchasing and adopting enterprise software are two different entities, which is the real gap between usage and software adoption.

How To Increase Software Adoption

Now that you know the difference between software usage and adoption, here are the ways you can increase software adoption at your enterprise:

The Cost of Not Prioritizing Software Adoption

When software goes underutilized, the costs are staggering.

Organizations waste thousands of hours and millions of dollars every year in:

• Prolonged training cycles
• Low data quality from skipped steps
• High IT support volumes
• Lost productivity from process inefficiencies

With Apty, companies have:

• Reduced onboarding time by 50%
• Improved process completion by 45%
• Decreased support tickets by 30%
• Achieved a 3.4x ROI in the first year

Explore how Apty compares to WalkMe and Whatfix in driving business outcomes.

Bridge the gap with Digital Adoption

Digital Adoption paves way for businesses to maximize their employee proficiency on the existing or new enterprise software. Encourage your employees to not only use the software but also to ensure that it is being utilized to the fullest potential.

The practical difficulty lies in measuring and getting insights about software usage. No enterprise application will give you the intricate details lying in usage because they want to showcase that their software is highly effective and useful.

But reality and data might not always agree with them.

This is where Apty DAP stands out from the others.

Apty delivers business impact, not just adoption. Unlike traditional DAPs, Apty focuses on measurable outcomes like reduction in error, , process optimization, and productivity growth.

Apty, the highest-rated Digital Adoption Platform for customer satisfaction, is your go-to tool for addressing all the adoption-related challenges. Apty provides

To maximize returns on your Enterprise software and to realize software adoption, invest in a Software Adoption Platform like Apty. This will lead your company to unleash the full potential of all your enterprise software.

For any business, Employee Performance is the key to success. Every individual employee must work toward the company’s vision and mission. There is no overarching mantra about employee performance – it is all about how businesses manage, upskill, and motivate their employees.

According to SHRM’s 2020 Report, more than 85% of Employees are not engaged in their Workplace. So, businesses need to find a way to ensure employee engagement, which in turn leads to employee productivity.

Many companies struggle to answer questions such as:

What is Employee Performance?

Employee performance is a measurement of how well or how poorly an employee conducts their required job duties and how promptly they meet their deadlines or requirements

Measuring employee performance can help you identify possible faults in your employee training program and guide you as to how you can improve.

How to Measure Employee Performance?

Employee performance can be calculated from 3 sources:

What are the Factors Influencing Employee Performance?

The key factors that influence employee performances are:

Employees won’t perform in a vacuum. Certain factors like the employer, personal preferences, and many other external factors affect employee performance. We are not going to consider factors that hinder employee performance like personal problems because the organization cannot eliminate these types of factors.

Alternatively, we are focusing on factors that have a positive impact on employee performance. Companies being thoughtful about how to engage their employees can make all the difference. There’s no simple or easy way but there are certain key areas that can create powerful outcomes. The mantra is simple since we know the factors that have a positive impact on employee performance focusing on these factors will eventually increase employee productivity.

Common ways to improve employee performance is to identify underperformance issues and match them according to your employee skills. You must enrich two-way communication to have a positive work environment. Set clear goals and achievable milestones and effectively train employees to stimulate growth and achieve effective employee productivity and performance.

Let’s discuss the three primary factors that companies should emphasize to improve employee performance.

1. Training and Development

Training focuses on immediate improvements such as mastering a change in your business software whereas development focuses on long-term objectives. Employee performance depends on the training he/she gets from the company. Companies have different levels of training and employee performance expectations depending upon the situation.

Investing in training can increase your profit margin by 24% or more because it makes your employees better at their jobs. Training also helps improve retention and decrease turnover. In a recent survey, 68% of employees say training and development is the most important company policy so leaders must understand every individual and provide appropriate training to retain their workforce.

Moreover, training doesn’t end at onboarding. If employees receive no training after their first few weeks on their job, they will feel like the company isn’t investing in their development. Companies must provide a seamless learning environment for employees which fosters employee career advancement.

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them”– Aristotle

Similar to Aristotle’s saying, a modern digital adoption platform makes your employees learn by having hands-on experience with the product (in-app training) by creating interactive walkthroughs. This innovative method decreases the time spent on training by 70% and improves employee performance.

Factors that affect work performance

2. Employee Engagement

The Workplace Research Foundation (WRF) found a 10% increase in employee engagement investments can increase profits by $2,400 per employee per year.

Though the numbers overwhelmingly prove employee engagement plays a vital role in revenue generation.

Employee Engagement = Greater Productivity = Better retention = 21% higher profitability

Since we got to know the positive side, let’s look at the other side of the coin. According to Gallup, actively disengaged employees cost around $450 to $550 billion every year in lost productivity.

Factors that affect employee engagement and motivation

3. Company culture

Employee engagement doesn’t happen all of a sudden — company must focus on employee needs & wants over time and should drive a strong culture. Recognizing consistent effort through a fair rewards system can also play a key role in keeping employees engaged over time.

What is puzzling still is that how does company culture affects employee performance? Let’s have a look at some facts and discourse the buzzword company morale and culture

According to the Glassdoor’s Culture Survey, 2019 report over 77% of adults across four countries (the United States, France, UK, Germany) consider a company’s culture as the priority while applying for a job and more than 50% of respondents said that company culture is more important than salary when it comes to job satisfaction.

While unique perks and high salaries once may have been the keys to attract top talent, but now the situation has altered. Companies must understand that salary alone cannot make your employees happy, culture matters a lot.

“If you get the culture right, most of the other stuff will just take care of itself” – Tony Hsieh

Companies that have strong cultures saw a 4 times increase in revenue. Culture is the backbone of the company that helps in employee retention and motivates your employee performance. Company culture empowers employees to defy the odds and achieve greater performance.

Also, culture needs to be cultivated regularly for long-term benefits, it’s not a one-time objective to achieve. The more the company invests in culture the more employees become engaged. Company morale and culture go hand in hand with performance.

Company culture = Employee happiness & Satisfaction = Employee performance

Impact of employee motivation on employee performance

If you are trying to grow and improve the productivity of your employees, and your business as a whole, focus on growing a culture that champions employees, employee health, perseverance, and productive leadership. A great way to promote employee performance and productivity is to motivate your employees and provide them with ongoing training.

Employees who feel confident and excited about their work are those who are going to stick around. Your turnover will be lower and you’ll have employees who truly know what they’re doing. If employees aren’t motivated to do their jobs well, then their performance will suffer and they’ll spend more time goofing off than actually working productively.

What factors facilitated work performance?

As we discussed above, the factors that can improve employee performance—training and development, which focuses on improvements. Second is Employee Engagement, which must be prioritized as they are the front lines of every business.

Lastly, Company culture. The company should focus on employees’ needs and wants over time. Culture is the backbone of the company. It helps motivate employees to perform.

According to David Farkas, Founder & CEO at The Upper Ranks

“Give your staff precise goals and targets for each activity, and then assess their productivity based on how effectively they contribute to the company’s goals. Monitoring productivity can also assist managers to modify the organization. It’s easy to ignore the quality of your workers’ work while measuring productivity. But you must assist staff to fulfill productivity targets without compromising quality.”

In order to know if your development efforts are working, you’ll want to define the goals at the start. From there, you can work backward to build the steps that will take your organization from where it is today, to where you want it to be. Set realistic timeframes to achieve milestones and involve your department leaders so you get buy-in and support all along the way.

Employee Performance Management

As a company develops plans to improve company culture, they also need to plan for employee performance management. The five steps involved in employee performance management are:

1. Planning- Plan your work before you proceed
2. Monitoring- Set expectations and continually monitor
3. Developing- Develop the capacity to perform
4. Rating- Periodically rate your employee performance
5. Rewarding- Reward and motivate good performers

Rewarding is of two types,

1. Intrinsic Rewarding- the personal satisfaction an individual gets from the job itself.
   1.1 Achievements
   1.2 Job satisfaction
   1.3 Personal growth
   1.4 Informal recognition
2. Extrinsic Rewarding- the external rewards that come from an outside source(management)
   2.1 Incentives
   2.2 Promotion
   2.3 Bonus
   2.4 Fringe benefits

Make employees happy

According to talent-works, happy employees are 31% more productive and show 3 times more creativity than their unhappy counterparts. Happy employees are more resilient and more likely to stay in the same company for a longer period.

Furthermore, happy employees do more work and they are the ones who drive the company toward long-term goals by being more productive and efficient.

Watering the tree of happiness begets employee productivity.

Company culture, co-workers, personal problems, management expectations, and many other things have an impact on employee happiness. Companies must take initiative to make their employees happy by knowing what they want and provide them with the right tools that enhance employee skills.

We hope the above-discussed techniques will be helpful to effectively improve employee performance. To enhance employee engagement and performance even further, you can leverage employee engagement software along with digital adoption platforms. Try Apty today to see how this versatile tool fosters employee productivity, engagement, and overall performance.

ServiceNow makes work simpler by using a workflow engine powered by AI. It provides solutions through workflows for IT, Employees, and Customers. On top of that, with the Now Platform, you can build own enterprise workflows that you need. However, implementing ServiceNow can be challenging, particularly for organizations new to the platform or needing more IT expertise.

One of the biggest challenges of ServiceNow implementation is ensuring that the platform is configured to meet the organization’s specific needs. This involves understanding the organization’s business processes and workflows and customizing ServiceNow to automate and optimize these processes. This can be a time-consuming and complex process, particularly for organizations with complex IT environments or legacy systems that need to be integrated with ServiceNow.

Another challenge of ServiceNow implementation is ensuring the platform is properly integrated with the organization’s IT systems and applications. This involves identifying and resolving compatibility issues and ensuring data is transferred seamlessly between systems. This can be particularly challenging for organizations with large and diverse IT infrastructures, as they may have to integrate ServiceNow with multiple systems and applications.

Overall, implementing ServiceNow can be challenging and requires careful planning, expertise, and resources. However, with the right approach and support, organizations can successfully implement ServiceNow and realize the benefits of streamlined IT operations and enhanced service delivery.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in demand for ServiceNow implementation across various industries. According to a study by Future Market Insights, the global ServiceNow market size is expected to grow from $4.4 billion in 2020 to $13.2 billion by 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.8% during the forecast period.

This growth can be attributed to ServiceNow’s numerous benefits, such as improved efficiency, streamlined workflows, and enhanced collaboration. As more organizations recognize the value of ServiceNow, the demand for its implementation is expected to continue to rise.

Let’s examine some of the most common ServiceNow challenges while implementing and fully adopting ServiceNow as an IT service management (ITSM) solution.

Here are the nine common challenges faced during ServiceNow Implementation:

Let’s discuss some of the most common ServiceNow implementation and adoption strategies used by digital centers of excellence (DCoE) to overcome common pitfalls when rolling out an IT service management (ITSM) solution. Knowing these missed steps allows organizations to better prepare and plan for a successful ServiceNow implementation. Here are the nine common challenges faced during ServiceNow implementation:

1. Internal Requests:

When you implement ServiceNow for one of the modules in a department, other departments raise requests for the implementation. Creating customized solutions for each department will delay your implementation. The whole purpose of using ServiceNow is to maintain a seamless flow of information across the teams.

If organizations start entertaining these requests and go off the track with their vision, it creates chaos and affects the whole implementation process.

Solution: Maintain a seamless flow of information across the teams and look into overlay low-code software to speed up software change management.

2. Over Customization:

Excessive customization can make your ServiceNow installation difficult and expensive to maintain. Customizations can make expanding ServiceNow to new departments or organizational units challenging. It also makes updates to your system more time and labor-intensive as you have to ensure your custom code will work with the new version. 42% of consumers are annoyed when content isn’t personalized.

Solution: Prioritize features that meet business OKRs and digital transformation goals that affect revenue and business-critical processes.

3. Complicated Workflows & Outdated Processes:

The more complicated your workflows, the harder time you’ll have to adopt an ITSM solution like ServiceNow. Users need help to complete and understand complicated workflows; mapping them out in your software system is just as challenging. ServiceNow is designed to streamline your processes, but you can only reap the benefits if you create simple workflows. You’ll also need to update and integrate your processes with all relevant data points.

Without proper integration, the data flow across the teams could be affected. If one of the system is not integrated with the other, we might lose some valuable insights due to data silos. 94% of corporate company executives would prefer to utilize a unified platform to integrate their apps and implement process automation than rely on several platforms.

Solution: Do not build ServiceNow to accommodate current outdated processes. Use it to improve and transform, even if that means changing business processes. Monitor and track processes post-implementation for data-informed process optimization solutions.

4. Lack of Expertise:

ServiceNow has a vast range of featured solutions for each IT, Employee, and Customer workflow. Having the right knowledge and skills to accommodate those features might lead to better execution. An organization’s resources may be limited due to the constraints on its activities. While investing in the platform, companies should allocate the resources for training or outside consultants to ensure a smooth implementation without affecting ongoing projects.

Solution: Allocate resources for training to ensure smooth implementation.

5. Generic Training:

Generic ServiceNow training might not be tailored to your business and processes. Companies often make the mistake of training people on the software, but it is more appropriate to prepare the relevant team on how they can leverage the software to their advantage. Make sure your training fits how they’ll use the platform. According to 92% of employees, well-planned employee training programs have a favorable impact on their level of engagement.

Solution: Prepare teams on how to use the software to their advantage with personalized in-person and in-app training tailored to their job role and business use cases. Decrease digital friction with helpful self-paced guidance.

6. Resistance to Change:

ServiceNow revolutionizes businesses, but users may resist change because they’re tied to old processes that they feel more comfortable using. While ServiceNow can bring many benefits to an organization, getting employees to adopt the new platform is often challenging. This resistance to change can be due to several factors.

First, employees may be comfortable with their existing system and may feel that ServiceNow is an unnecessary disruption to their established routine. Additionally, employees may be concerned about their ability to use the new platform effectively and may resist learning new processes or systems.

The implementation revamps the way a business operates.

• The transformation it brings to the IT experience,
•  The automation it provides to the HR, and
•  The acceleration to the security,

But the users are reluctant to change. Most of us can’t handle that much change in a shorter interval. In a survey of 3,000 executives, McKinsey and Company found that 70% of all organizational transformations fail, and 70% of those failures can be attributed to the inertia of culture and mindsets.

Solution: Create a digital adoption center of excellence (CoE) to include all stakeholders before implementation to evaluate and address company culture. A change management CoE can also offer assistance hereafter implementation.

7. Implementation costs:

One of the significant challenges of ServiceNow is its implementation cost. ServiceNow is a complex platform that requires significant resources, time, and money investment. Organizations need highly skilled professionals to implement this platform successfully. Therefore, the implementation cost of ServiceNow can be a significant challenge for many organizations.

Solution: Purchase through a partner that includes consulting and implementing software add-ons that are known for their positive ROI and proven payback cycles.

8. Limited Integration Options:

Another challenge organizations may face with ServiceNow is the limited integration options. ServiceNow offers integration with other tools and platforms but may only integrate with some of the tools and platforms an organization uses. This can disadvantage organizations that rely heavily on other tools and platforms.

Solution: Take full advantage of all the software features and functionality by looking for cloud-based application overlays that don’t require immersive integrations to aid in your digital transformation goals.

9. Periodic Maintenance:

ServiceNow is a highly customizable platform that requires regular maintenance. Organizations must keep their ServiceNow instance up-to-date and ensure the platform runs smoothly. This can challenge organizations that need more resources or expertise to maintain the platform regularly.

Solution: Look for software admin experts within your organization and externally to maintain the software effectively. This is where a CoE comes into play.

ServiceNow is a powerful platform that can help organizations streamline their ITSM and business processes. However, it comes with its own set of challenges, such as implementation costs, limited integration options, and regular maintenance requirements. Organizations need to weigh the benefits and challenges of ServiceNow before implementing it in their operations.

Importance of overcoming ServiceNow adoption challenges:

To fully reap the benefits of the powerful ServiceNow platform, organizations must address the challenges that may arise during implementation. Implementation can lead to low adoption rates, employee frustration, and wasted resources. However, organizations can increase their chances of success by planning carefully, avoiding unnecessary customizations, and partnering with experienced ServiceNow providers.

To further enhance adoption rates and overall productivity, organizations can leverage digital adoption platforms like Apty. With Apty, employees can receive personalized guidance and support while navigating through ServiceNow. This not only reduces employee dissatisfaction but also increases efficiency and ROI.

Successfully implementing ServiceNow can improve efficiency, cost reduction, and better decision-making, giving organizations a competitive edge in meeting customer needs quickly and effectively. With careful planning, collaboration, and the use of effective digital tools like Apty, organizations can maximize the potential of ServiceNow, resulting in better business outcomes.

Overcoming ServiceNow Challenges to Adoption with Apty:

Investing in the latest technology can be tempting for organizations looking to streamline their processes and improve productivity. However, simply purchasing a new platform like ServiceNow doesn’t guarantee success. Implementing and adopting the technology effectively is essential to see any real benefits.

One of the most significant challenges to successful technology adoption is employee resistance. Employees may be hesitant to learn a new system or process, especially if they are comfortable with the existing way of doing things. This can lead to low adoption rates, ultimately hurting productivity and ROI.

Apty offers a range of features that can help organizations increase adoption rates and improve overall productivity when using ServiceNow. One such feature is the ability to create interactive guides that provide step-by-step instructions for employees navigating the platform. These guides can be customized to meet different teams and departments’ unique needs, reduce employee dissatisfaction, & increase confidence in using the new system.

Apty also allows organizations to track user activity within ServiceNow, which can help identify areas where additional support or training may be needed. This data can then be used to create targeted training programs and improve the overall user experience. Apty can help address this issue by providing customized training and support materials tailored to an organization’s specific use of ServiceNow.

Furthermore, Apty’s analytics dashboard provides real-time insights into how employees use ServiceNow, allowing organizations to quickly identify and address any issues. This helps ensure that the platform is used to its full potential and that organizations achieve their desired outcomes.

In summary, implementing and adopting new technology like ServiceNow can be challenging, but it is essential to realize the full benefits of the platform. Apty DAP can help organizations overcome these challenges by providing real-time guidance and support, customized training, support materials, and many features to increase adoption, improved productivity, & business outcomes.

Salesforce. A name that needs no introduction. A brand that redefined Enterprise software. A force that has been reigning supreme for the last two decades. Even though the concept of CRM has been in existence since the launch of Goldmine in 1989, and several players came and went since, the one solution that stood the test of time is Salesforce.  

These are possibly why the entire business community agrees in unison to the famous saying that goes: 

“If it’s not in Salesforce, then it doesn’t exist”. 

This phrase could be interpreted in multiple ways. It is used by sales operations managers to inspire discipline in their team.  The same phrase is used by sales enablement to inculcate a sense of responsibility among their colleagues in order to receive clean and reliable data. It is used by the C-suite executives to receive a better forecast. 

In short, decision-makers want their employees to enter information in the CRM to have a better understanding of what is happening in the organization.  

But over the years many organizations have struggled to show the real importance of Salesforce to their employees. This has resulted in dummy entries, the inconsistency of data and many such problems, as the employee gets irritated by doing a job, they didn’t sign up for in the first place. 

This brings us to an important question – what should be in Salesforce to make it exist?” 

Well, the answer is In-app guidance.  

Now, one may wonder how is it going to solve the problem? 

In-app guidance tools like Apty have several features to guide an employee through a number of steps to complete their tasks. 

Here are few such features that make in-app guidance a must:

1. Walkthroughs for Smooth Completion of Tasks

If your employees get stuck in a step then in that case usually, they would look for help from guides, manuals, videos or from their colleagues. Sometimes employees out of shyness never seek help and spend a hell lot of time searching for documentation. All this consumes a lot of time and productivity of an individual. To counter all this hustle “Walkthrough” acts as a savior.

In this method, users are usually guided through each and every step to complete the task. Employees are informed with bubble tips that indicate what is to be done. After completing what is asked for in the bubble it takes the user to the next step. Likewise, the whole process is completed.

2. Announcements for better communication

Let’s say the management wants to communicate a change in process or want to convey about new rollout across the organization then, in that case, communicating it becomes difficult. This becomes even more difficult if the size of the organization is more than 1000.

In most of the case, Emails are not an effective channel for internal communication as the open rate is low. So, any crucial change that could impact the organization’s revenue, if not communicated well could result in some serious damage.

So, Apty has this announcement feature where a new change with respect to software, application, process or organization can be communicated whenever the application is log on by the user. They cannot do any other functionality in the application until the message is acknowledged by the user.

This is one of the most important features. The announcement ensures better communication and makes it effective. What is communicated via email could be reinforced using announcements.

3. Data Validation for Clean Data

Negligence while entering data could create duplicate or messed up data.
Validation of data is a vital part as this ensures authentic and clean data. This way employee is shown what type of data is accepted in a particular field and in what format.

This format is set in accordance with the organization’s regulations. Clean data helps organizations get clearer insights on past, current and future performances.

4. Tooltip to Understand What should be Done

Tooltips help a new user to know how to utilize some relevant features by pointing the cursor on the information icon. It usually guides users on how to fill the field and why to perform a particular action within the Salesforce application.  

Here the organization can give a link to a document, policy, or to the guidelines that one has to follow. Though Salesforce has tooltips, the tooltips that are created using the Digital Adoption Platform(DAP) has its perks. The admin can customize the tooltips without interfering with the Salesforce application and also these are better than the default tooltips. 

These tooltips could provide elaborate information precisely which is not possible with inbuilt application tooltips.

5. Salesforce In-app Guidance to Assist Employees

Once the Digital Adoption Platform is deployed within the Salesforce application, it empowers the employees with in-app guidance that has a ‘Help’- widget. It helps them to access the knowledge –content in pdf, ppt, workflow, video, or ppt format.

They can use this content or launch the Workflows as and when they want within the application without bothering their colleague or support. Eventually, it reduces the support cost as the employee becomes self-sufficient. 

For admins, creating content in multiple formats is simple with Apty as you can convert and export the workflows in Powerpoint, PDF, Video, or even in SCORM format for the LMS

6. Predictive User Help Pop-Up

In the background, Apty analyze the user behavior and understand the touchpoints, if the user is not active over a period of time then based on their interactive history the help pops-up.

All these features help to:

How can businesses leverage the Technology Adoption lifecycle?

The technology adoption lifecycle can help businesses categorize their employees into the 5 adopter groups. Once you understand where they fall, try to reduce the number of employees stuck among the late majority and laggards. Possibly even move early majority members to the early adopters.  

To do this, you need to boost your adoption rates. Companies are starting to leverage digital adoption platforms—often in combination with expert support such as a Node.js consultancy when rolling out JavaScript-based enterprise tools—to drive adoption with the help of on-screen guidance. With these tools, driving technology adoption becomes more manageable.

To leverage the technology adoption lifecycle, first understand the adoption stage of your organization and use that data to improve adoption rates. 

How Technology Adoption Works

Technology adoption isn’t a once-and-done task. It’s an ongoing process with several phases:

Driving technology adoption involves navigating through these phases methodically to ensure all employees are effectively utilizing the new technology.

Why should companies focus on the Adoption of new technology?

Technology is going rapidly and there are new tools keep coming into the market. These technologies can help companies simplify the business process, increase overall performance, boost employee engagement, and can give the best return on investment. Driving technology adoption is essential for staying competitive.

If companies are not making any technology uptake, in the long run, their performance comes down significantly, and end up in losing their customer. Companies cannot provide seamless customer experience, outperform their competitors, and ensure business continuity without leveraging the latest tech. Driving technology adoption is crucial to avoid these pitfalls.

Importance of Technology Adoption

Adapting new technology facilitates making your company more effective and productive, but only if the employees within your organization actually leverage the new technology to the fullest potential.

Whenever there is a new technology introduced in the organizations, your employees can face a problem in adoption. To help those employees, digital adoption strategies are created. There are several aspects of these strategies and they can also be used differently every time.

Business Benefits of Improving Adoption Rates

At this point, you may be thinking that technology or product adoption sounds like a lot of work. You’re not wrong. Successful technology adoption does require a lot of planning and commitment. Is it worth the effort?

Yes! Technology adoption has several benefits from improving your ROI on your technology investment to increasing the productivity of your workforce. Driving technology adoption can lead to these significant benefits.

Technology Adoption Strategies

Familiarize yourself with the technology so you can see firsthand how it has applied in other organizations and industries, for example – technology adoption in healthcare. This way, you’ll approach the technology from a perspective that considers your specific needs.

Generate an internal champion to lead the initiative for the successful adoption of new technologies within your company. Drive technology adoption by empowering this champion.Once you have found someone who will support this project, provide them with all the needed resources they need to build momentum for successful adoption of new technologies within your organization such as resources and training opportunities.

For instance, tools like online signature platforms can ease the transition to paperless workflows, supporting seamless document management and signature processes across departments. Driving technology adoption through well-supported internal champions is key to success.

Advantages and Importance of Technology Adoption

Technology Adoption Challenges

A. Employee Resistance

Most often, employees are comfortable with the status quo, and bringing in new technologies can cause resistance. This resistance could be due to a fear of the unknown or a change in the status quo. They may dread the process of learning new systems. Whatever the reason is, leaders need to understand the causes of resistance early on, before it hinders adoption. Driving technology adoption involves addressing these challenges proactively.

Communicate the benefits of the new tech to the employees and help them understand the reason behind the change.

B. Insufficient Onboarding and Training

Poor training leaves employees confused about the new software and drastically reduces your software adoption rate. Employees forget more than 70% of what they learn within a day of training.

Due to this, traditional classroom-style training methods are proving to be ineffective in the long run. It removes the employees from their work environment and separates them from the tools that they use for their work. It also takes up their time that could otherwise be spent being productive.

When onboarding employees to new systems, use a digital adoption platform that guides users step by step through the new processes and workflows. Driving technology adoption with effective training tools is essential for success.

C. Measuring the Rate of Adoption

What is not measured cannot succeed. Figuring out how to track and measure the success of your digital adoption initiatives is one of the biggest challenges to adoption. Simply viewing when a user has logged into a system is not an accurate measure of the adoption rate of your system.

How do you know if your employees are using the software for its intended purposes? You need to find out which features of the software are used by employees and if they are completing processes as intended. As a start, you can track where users are dropping off, what processes have a high drop-off rate, the completion rate of processes, etc. Driving technology adoption requires accurate and meaningful metrics.

D. Poor Leadership & Communication

Leaders have a responsibility to ensure proper technology adoption at the organization. They must clearly understand the changes required in their team’s daily work and guide each employee to embrace the new changes. Without proper communication from leaders, team members will be confused and demotivated, hindering software adoption rates. Driving technology adoption hinges on strong and clear leadership.

Leaders have to deal with employee resistance, change communication, and advocate for the new technology at the organization. Without effective top-down and bottom-up communication channels and strategies, there will be no transparency, leading to assumptions and misunderstandings, and thus poorer adoption. Driving technology adoption effectively means fostering an environment of open communication and strong leadership.

Steps to Successful Technology Adoption

Companies can find ways to accelerate employees’ technology adoption curve and implement it effectively. The following are some steps that can ensure successful technology adoption,

1. Proceed one step at a time

In a technologically backward environment, it’s not uncommon to see construction organizations try to digitize every operation at once or purchase a slew of equipment that will go unused. The key to successful technology adoption is to take small steps at a time.

If it’s new software, the implementation should be done gradually, module by module, once the technology has been chosen. By breaking technology adoption down into steps, everyone may go at their own pace and integrate technology into their daily lives.

A pilot project can also be an excellent way to get started with a new product because it allows you to pick the people and procedures that will be engaged in the initial deployment. The findings can then be utilized to establish the best course of action for rolling out the technology across the organization.

2. Develop a training approach early

One of the major reasons for the failure of technology adoption is the lack of sufficient and customized training. Introducing new technology is not easy. It is important to monitor whether the adoption needs to be in stages or not. Also, your employees should be prepared and trained to manage the new technology.

For successful digital adoption, structure, and awareness are important. That is why it is important to create an effective employee training structure within an organization to help in training, decision-making, managing risks, and issues, etc.

3. Coordination of technology and strategy

Adoption of new technology necessitates early and frequent communication with your employees. You must first identify all of your new hires before you can communicate with them.

Each person’s present work methods, or processes, should be documented. It is necessary to identify and describe the effects that new technology will have on them. It’s also important to disclose how your company plans to mitigate any negative consequences for employees.

Remember that cultural change is also critical when adopting new technologies into an organization or facility – showcase success stories where applicable and encourage others to use the new.

There’s nothing like acknowledging your employees’ efforts to boost motivation and dedication. Celebrating team and individual accomplishments helps to create a favorable attitude toward new technology, which encourages adoption.

4. Highlight progress and celebrate victories

Change is unsettling for the majority of individuals. From the beginning to the end of the technological implementation, you must constantly encourage and positively reinforce your employees.

HR professionals recommend preparing the implementation of new features so that employees can immediately experience modest wins to facilitate the adoption of any new technology. To do this, the organization could create measurable, specific, and attainable adoption goals.

Remember that cultural change is also critical when adopting new technologies into an organization or facility – showcase success stories where applicable and encourage others to use the new.

How to Drive Technology Adoption With A Digital Adoption Platform

If you want to improve your technology adoption rates, consider using a product adoption or digital adoption platform. This growing category of SaaS providers focuses on helping users navigate and adopt web-based applications. Driving technology adoption can be significantly enhanced with these tools.

The features of each digital adoption solution can vary, but most of them include:

A product adoption tool shows users where to click and what to do next. They can help users complete their work instead of just reading how they should do their job. These tools are essential for driving technology adoption effectively.

Advantages of a Digital Adoption Solution

Digital Adoption Platforms offer several benefits when implementing new technology. They can help you realize the benefits of your new technology sooner.

Apty Adoption Platform

If you have any challenges on how to increase the adoption of technology and how to drive technology adoption, consider using Apty’s advanced Digital Adoption solution. Apty helps companies adopt new technology faster and makes technology easier for your users. Adoption challenges Apty can solve include:

Apty provides the tools and support necessary for driving technology adoption, ensuring that your organization maximizes the benefits of new technologies efficiently and effectively.

FAQs on Technology Adoption