By disrupting the traditional businesses, technology start-ups have accelerated than ever before. You need to know that mature technology is why the first phase of digitalization came from. India is on the cusp of digital transformation, having at least 500 million internet users and approximately 340 million smartphone users. All we say is that millions of people are shaping them into the digitally empowered community. As per recent research, done by companies such as PwC (Price Waterhouse Cooper) claim that to achieve higher operational efficiencies and provide a better customer experience, many businesses are adopting digital technologies. The government has started to give push to the various digital technologies that helps in proving the delivery the public services.
In the current world, it has become essential for the businesses to adapt to digital measures, that helps the businesses to increase their performance overall. Digitalization can help businesses to restore their employment and improve the solutions. Also, with the help of digitalization, it helps the businesses to optimize the resources in a way that results in lesser wastage and better utilisation.
Important things to know about digital adoption in the current times:
Ideally, digital adoption is a process through which a person acquires the ability to master new technology successfully and carry out digital procedures for some purposes. The process is a change and learning mechanism which allows people to learn about the potential of digital resources, utilize and accept some help to achieve some objectives, and leverage technology to the fullest to conduct innovation and optimize procedures.
People need to understand both the functionality and benefits of digital processes to achieve real digital adoption; by doing so, they can ultimately be onboarded on the most advanced features of software applications. We say that people need to learn about the role of digital processes and the reasons behind the change.
Digital Adoption and Change Processes:
There is no second thought to these change processes that revolve around digital transformation, but it is way more than just the simple implementation of new technology. In simple terms, you need to know that digital disruption is about people and their human experience. The digital transformation focuses on customers and their experiences along the customer journey, while on the other hand, change is about creating a meaningful employee experience. It is about the quality of service you offer to your customers, which is linked directly to the knowledge you provide to your employees.
The change management mainly focuses on the change in mentality and approach, while to support successful disruption, digital adoption requires organizations to restructure their internal processes. Suppose employees don’t tap into the full range of features. In that case, there is no meaning in introducing new technology and techniques to optimize operations and create frictionless transactions for the customer. Digital adoption processes focus on improving employees’ workflow, and some focus on communication if they require effective change programs. Digital adoption becomes even more critical to optimize internal productivity and customer experience for companies that deal with employee-facing and customer-facing technology and digital processes.
Digital Adoption in Enterprise Companies:
Companies need radically change mentality, processes, and strategy to meet customers’ requirements in the digital era when it comes to implementing modern technology that supports the new business goals. Businesses also need to face a digital workforce whose skill set is perfectly aligned with the new direction besides dealing with internal resistance to change. To implement an effective knowledge transfer strategy and cope with the skill shifts required to carry out new tasks and interact with new interfaces and the emergence of the disruptive cycles and introduction of the latest technologies, companies now need introductory measures to cope with the varied skills.
Today the companies need to prioritize activities that onboard new employees quickly, upskill existing employees, and handle the challenges with regards to data processing, customer intimacy, speed, and customer journey optimization. To provide and make sense of data in real-time, automation, ML, and AI require a new ecosystem of integrated applications that share and exchange information. There is a plethora of benefits of these platforms. Still, companies need to ensure that the interaction between humans and machines is as natural as possible to make the most digital adoption and boost a digital skillset.
The elements that will boost the shift in skills and workforce needs are automation and artificial intelligence. Over the next ten years, advanced technological skills will become even more critical, and the fastest-growing category is the demand for digital skills.
The shift in mindset and digital adoption:
Unfortunately, the verdict is not very pleasing as it is a case of doing or die. In simple terms, companies will either flourish, or they’ll perish. Plenty of companies believe that if they don’t transform, they will become obsolete.
To gain a competitive advantage within the next five years, at least two-thirds of them expect a digitally enabled competitor. When it comes to solutions that support the strategy, almost all the businesses still feel like they are missing the mark. Resistance to change, compliance, continuous training, and legacy culture as some of the biggest challenges connected to digital adoption.
When companies try to implement new digital frameworks, the first point of failure is a mismatch of culture and skills.
How Digital Adoption Helps Businesses to Enhance Employability
There is a common notion that with digital adoption, there will be fewer jobs, but rather the reverse is true of that. Since there is immense advancement of technology and digital adoptions, there becomes an instant need to train the employees, and also there is an added workforce that is required to keep up with the competition. In order to survive in this cut-throat competition, businesses have no choice but to have people on the duty 24*7, hence this means more number of people in the company as compared to the previous number of work force.
How do companies evolve to Drive Digital Adoption?
You can say that continuous training is the key to successful digital adoption. Companies that have implemented a lifelong learning culture successfully and have the right technology that promotes constant learning and development are known as winning companies. Firms now need a workforce that can quickly adapt, show flexibility, and execute new strategies as unrelated fields become unitary interdisciplinary categories.
Companies that invest in developing their workforce exhibit the highest growth as the key driver of successful disruption is the modern talent management approach. The needs and expectations of the consumers tend to change frequently, due to which work will continue to evolve to meet such moving goals.
What is the role of digital adoption platforms?
Digital adoption strategy needs to be integrated with change management programs if the company wants clear communication, benefits, and cultural changes. When change processes are uncoupled from digital adoption plans, they tend to fail most of the time. The resistance to change is always there but continuously learning is entirely different by allowing people to master a new digital framework. Companies need to implement an agile-solution to provide continuous performance support because people are dealing with cloud solutions and infrastructure-as-a-service, which feature frequent updates and changes. Additionally, the traditional software can’t match the speed at which technology evolves.
In terms of modern support that guarantees productivity and a great employee experience, the digital adoption platform becomes an essential instrument having interactive guidance and analytics. When it comes to employees who aren’t digital natives, organizations face more resistance as some employees might even doubt their ability to master an entirely new digital framework. Employees are more familiar with the things they know, and it goes the same for customers also as they aren’t excited to interact with the business, which is new for them. The process of overcoming such a steep learning curve, breaking through barriers and obstacles connected to push-back is digital adoption. Above all, anyone can be proficient with any new digital process without strenuous training.
The digital adoption impact you need to know about:
You need to know that digital transformation and disjointed change processes tend to form a digital adoption strategy that either fails or yields a pretty low return on investment. In their personal lives, people are becoming increasingly familiar with digital assistants, and thanks to the introduction of Digital Adoption Platforms, people witness the same phenomenon. The best part here is that automated onboarding, training, and support are offered by the new software category, which helps employees and customers deal with new digital processes without training. The natives of digital automation can instantly master a new CRM solution and work in the new platforms (adopted by companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, Tesco, Amazon, Activision etc). Above all, they also comply with new requirements in their surroundings. All we can say is that digital adoption is a basic necessity of transformation and change processes.
Wrap up:
As the digital reach permeates almost everything, we do the digital technologies are recasting the relationships between customers, workers, and employers. All we can say is that digital transformation is vast enough to reinvestment, trade, jobs, and skills of any nation, and it is not a one-time event. Instead, it is phase-driven digital progress. The range of advanced technologies, including Big Data/analytics, Internet of Things, robotics, and artificial intelligence, aims to improve overall human productivity and efficiency. Above all, you need to understand these technologies significantly impact, which allows in leveraging the economic benefits and minimizing social anomalies.
Digitalization strengthens the delivery of public services, including healthcare and education on the social front. It allows the automation of business processes on the economic development, which causes operational efficiencies like reducing manufacturing costs. Digital products services will derive the future economic growth.
Written By : Dr. Gobinda Roy
Designation : Assistant Professor – Marketing,
Chairperson – Social Media,
Branding and Website
Dr. Roy has obtained his Ph.D./MBA from VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur and completed his B.E. in Electronics and Telecom from Jadavpur University. He has over 16 years of experience in industry, research, and teaching. Before joining IMI Kolkata, he has conducted MDP and FDP in OP Jindal University, JSPL, and JPL Raigarh and delivered guest lectures in VGSOM (IIT Kharagpur), IIFT Kolkata. He has published several scholarly articles in leading international journals such as Journal of Internet Commerce, Journal of Marketing communication, Global Business Review, etc.
