Embracing digital transformation used to be a strategic choice for companies looking to gain a competitive edge. However, in the rapidly changing work landscape, software adoption is no longer an option. It’s a must.

Central to this is digital adoption – the process of empowering staff to embrace, utilise, and optimise new tools and technologies.

But digital adoption isn’t about spending more hours working with software – it’s about achieving improved outcomes through more productive technology use. Simplifying software enables employees to work smarter, not harder, enhancing their overall work experience.

This makes successful digital transformation more than just a tech issue – at its core, it’s a people issue.

Sizing up the digital adoption challenge

Poor digital adoption is a challenge that very few organisations have conquered. Not only does it damage productivity and employee satisfaction, but it can actually increase unnecessary IT expense and stretch internal resources. This is the opposite of what software investments are supposed to achieve.

Our most recent State of Digital Adoption report shows that the average UK enterprise has spent nearly £1.8 million on new software over the last year.  Despite this, almost all (91%) of reported at least one of these investments had failed outright. We saw similar results when we asked the same of German enterprises.

There is rarely a single reason for a failed software investment; typically it results from a combination of people and technology-related challenges, including employee resistance, inadequate planning and communication, and integration issues. It’s at this intersection of people and technology that a strong approach to digital adoption becomes so important.

Prioritising the digital employee experience

When digital adoption hits a roadblock, it takes a toll on employees. Even though more than half (53%) have increased their software usage in the past year, nearly everyone (90%) faces challenges with new applications at work.

The impact is significant: the survey revealed that the average UK employee loses 2.33 hours weekly due to these challenges, with 53% losing over an hour weekly. A quarter have felt overwhelmed or stressed. This is worrying, as 68% of employees connect stress-free software usage to their overall workplace happiness and 90% link it to productivity.

Moreover, many feel their company needs to improve how it communicates digital transformation plans and delivers training support for new software.

All these of factors contribute to a poor digital employee experience – something which should be of major concern to businesses looking to retain their top talent.

Making software simpler

While most business leaders (85%) are prioritising digital adoption, almost all (94%) said they struggle to improve it. There are a couple of big reasons for this.

One is that it’s often difficult to know who is responsible for improving digital adoption. According to our research, most organisations put pressure on their IT teams to make sure software is being used effectively, despite digital adoption not being solely a technology issue. This inevitably leads to costly, short-term solutions, such as increasing IT support desk capacity or paying for additional training resources.

The other main reason is that you can’t successfully improve what you can’t measure. While 96% of businesses try to track the impact of digital adoption, our research found no dominant or common approach. Just over a quarter (26%) track efficiency gains, cost savings, or revenue growth, with a similar percentage focusing on improvements in employee productivity and output (24%).

Here are some quick tips to enhance digital adoption in your business today:

1. Implement digital adoption as a company-wide strategy. It shouldn’t be just the IT department’s domain. Allocate internal resources and create dedicated task forces, including representatives from IT, HR, L&D, and other departmental leaders, to drive forward your digital adoption initiatives.
2. Foster clear communication with employees. Understand their digital needs and select appropriate products to ensure stronger buy-in. Failing to consider their needs will create resistance to change, unnecessarily complicating digital adoption.
3. Offer various software training options. These must be adapted to individual learning styles, combining traditional and leading-edge techniques. Employers are increasingly leaning toward more interactive, employee-led options, such as interactive virtual training (42%), simulations or virtual environments (42%), and gamification (40%).
4. Consider using a digital adoption platform (DAP) with web-based applications. This enables interactive, embedded training to encourage independent learning and reduce training costs.
5. Measure digital adoption. Introduce a reporting system that gives you a single, unified view of digital adoption across hundreds of different applications. HEART, an analytics framework developed by Userlane, considers five key data points:

• Happiness: Measure employee sentiment across applications to identify and resolve points of frustration.
• Engagement: Analyse usage in real-time to discover how to unlock the full potential of your applications.
• Adoption: Set and measure adoption targets to maximise the impact of your software spend.
• Retention: Boost productivity and help your people form meaningful habits.
• Task success: Track task completion to uncover and lessen critical process risks.

Understanding which apps are in use (and how successfully they’re being used) is essential for business leaders – especially CIOs who need to identify opportunities for optimising their tech budget and, crucially, minimise the number of underutilised and redundant software licenses,

Digital transformation is a long and complex journey. But by focusing on digital adoption, you’ll put your people in the driving seat, helping you to reach your end destination faster.

Hartmut Hahn is CEO of dig adoption platform, Userlane.