How Better Digital Onboarding Can Boost Adoption Success

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Consumers have gone digital and so should businesses. However, while it has become increasingly convenient for consumers adopt new technologies, businesses aren’t finding digital onboarding easy.

According to Dell, nine out of ten companies are reported to be having issues with going digital. Data protection, resourcing, skills, culture, and compliance rank among their top concerns.

Fortunately, successful digital adoption is possible. Business leaders have to understand that going digital is a process. It requires a well-planned strategy, meticulous execution, and follow-through. What’s more, most key concerns, especially those pertaining to skill development and building a technology-first culture, can be addressed with proper digital onboarding.

Rethinking Digital Onboarding

When going digital, businesses can be overly focused on the bells and whistles of their newly acquired solutions. As a matter of fact, some tend to overlook the fact that tools are only as effective as their users. Therefore, they often give less emphasis than they should do critical aspects such as proper digital onboarding.

Moreover, companies fail to take advantage of digital onboarding as a means for staff members to develop fundamental competencies with using the new technologies. As a matter of fact, some digital onboarding programs are limited to the token training sessions that technology vendors provide prior to implementation. However, rather than depending solely on the training vendors provide, companies should take a more active role in educating their staff.

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Truly effective digital onboarding employs structured programs that provide longer-term development of knowledge and skills. It can also be designed to explain to staff members the rationale behind the company’s move to the new technology, and it can encourage them to buy into the effort. Such digital onboarding programs deliver key benefits that help organizations succeed in their digital adoption efforts.

Using Digital Onboarding to Help Workers Be More Functional and Productive

Proper digital onboarding allows users to be productive more quickly. That’s chiefly because today’s technologies, by design, make work more efficient. But this is true only if users know how to properly use those technologies in the context of their work. Therefore, be sure that training sessions are grounded in the real scenarios your workers deal with.

When you do, workers will gain practical knowledge of the new technology’s uses. They will see how it will make their work easier. Help employees understand how they will benefit, and their resistance will diminish. This paves the way for smoother implementation.

Companies can also use digital adoption platforms to enhance the onboarding experience. When integrated with applications, these platforms can walk users through how to use the tools’ functionalities and perform tasks step-by-step. Such platforms can display helpful callouts and instructions right on the applications’ user interfaces. This leads to a smoother digital onboarding process by creating a more immersive learning experience.

Reducing Chances of Error

Proper onboarding also minimizes the chance of staff errors. While lapses are understandable when workers are learning something new, mistakes with technology can be costly. As a matter of fact, inadvertent and unintentional human error causes as much as 92.5 percent of data incidences.

Given how modern applications now gather and process important information such as intellectual property or customers’ financial and personal information, slip-ups in their use can have serious ramifications for companies.

What’s more, security incidences and exposure to cyberattacks can cause downtime. It can even result in the loss of intellectual property. Also, governments require companies to publicly disclose these instances. This can bring about negative publicity and damage to a company’s reputation. Moreover, strict data protection laws and regulations are making companies accountable for such mistakes. And noncompliance with regulations like the GDPR can result in hefty fines.

Digital onboarding should cover these risk areas. Further, it should illustrate the potential issues that carelessness and improper use can cause.

Technology vendors can use sandbox environments or virtual labs during the onboarding phase. This gives users the opportunity to tinker with the solutions. When companies approach digital onboarding in this way, workers can make mistakes early without causing any harm to actual work data or the workplace’s infrastructure.

Maximizing Investment

Digital adoption isn’t cheap for most businesses. As a matter of fact, Gartner estimates that global IT spending will reach $3.8 trillion in 2019. Naturally, all this investment is taking place because business leaders are hoping to gain a competitive edge.

However, overall success of digital adoption hinges upon how well users actually buy into the effort. Additionally, it will depend on how well employees maximize these tools in their work. Proper digital onboarding helps by ensuring that workers know how to properly use new technologies while minimizing the potential for costly lapses.

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source https://www.business-opportunities.biz/2019/04/11/digital-onboarding-success/