How the Next Normal is Redefining Digital Adoption for Growing Enterprises

Like most businesses, you’ve transitioned your physical work operations into a virtual setting due to the COVID-19.

You’re forced to learn online processes and methodologies and use online tools that you’ve seen only recently, all so you can continue running your operations virtually.

Unless you accelerate your digital adoption so you can transition to the next normal seamlessly, you run the risk of causing irreparable business damage.

Find out how the “next to normal” redefine your digital adoption strategies to preserve your business health.

What Does the “Next Normal” Mean?

If you’re wondering what the “next normal” is, it refers to the post-COVID-19 period.

Coined by McKinsey & Company, the term presumes an era before and after the virus emerged, impacting industries and other sectors worldwide.

Before COVID-19, these industries went through a digital transformation at different speeds.

With the next normal, industries can no longer treat digital transformation as a process or goal — but as a requirement shaping how they can endure the new era.

Adopting Digital Solutions

According to McKinsey, businesses must do four things to thrive in the next normal. One of these is hastening digital adoption.

Digital adoption is a condition where digital tools are used according to their purposes and optimum.

The user masters modern technology and executes its digital processes successfully for specific intentions.

It is a change and learning instrument where individuals:

• recognize the prospect of digital resources
• adopt and use these resources to attain goals
• and most fully leverage every technology for innovation and process optimization

It also happens when technology is deeply ingrained into the user’s lifestyle, acting as an extension of oneself.

Take your smartphone, for instance. Older generations use it often for calling people only, but teenagers operate it to write notes, create videos, organize their calendars, and more.

Users should learn and maximize the technology’s capabilities to catch up with the dynamic digital environment.

Significance of Digital Adoption

Digital adoption is vital in the post-COVID-19 era as business activities move from physical to virtu, disruptingin the methods and tools your customers and employees habitually use to complete tasks.

As a growing enterprise, that disruption can wreck your business health, slowing your operations, problem resolution, and other aspects of your performance.

Before the COVID-19 emergence, face-to-face interactions and physical systems were the norms for finishing assignments. Customers go to banks, grocery stores, and other places and direct inquiries at physical front desks.

But with the protective measures forcing people to do things virtually, lessening as much physical contact as possible, they need smoother transitions to get used to completing tasks with digital tools.

This makes digital adoption more than simple technology implementation. It’s about the users — primarily your customers and your staff — and their human experiences.

For your customers, digital transformation and adoption focus on their shopping or other transactional experiences.

Learning how to use your solution and maximizing its features for different transactions saves your customers time, money, and effort.

It makes their experiences more pleasant and convenient — especially in the post-COVID-19 period when dynamic, restrictive measures are still in place.

You’re a bank with a mobile app letting clients check balances, transfer money, process payments, and more.

No matter how robust and many your app functionalities are if your clients struggle with transacting on your app, they’ll go to your bank, risking virus contamination.

Multiply that by a hundred or thousand of your clients, and you’ll find that your app has little use and your digital adoption plan failed.

Your app research and development resources are also wasted, eating up portions of your budget and income.

For your employees, digital adoption is when they have a meaningful user experience.

This is crucial since the service quality offered to your customers correlates directly with the working experience created for employees.

When your staff masters your adopted technology, they can finish tasks and serve your clients more smoothly, boosting customer satisfaction, problem resolution, etc.

With the right digital tools fully adopted in your growing enterprise, you can maintain and improve the efficiency of your operations, customer interactions, and team collaborations, among others.

When that happens, you bolster your customer patronage, the cost-effectiveness of your resources, and your business performance and profitability.

Redefining Digital Adoption Strategies

To attain genuine digital adoption, people must grasp the role, advantages, and practicality of digital processes and why there’s a need for digital transformation.

Center your digital adoption strategies on your users — your employees and your customers.

Radically change your staff’s mindsets and your enterprise’s processes and adoption strategies to meet your customers’ needs in the post-COVID-19 period.

Onboard and train your users thoroughly about the solution’s essential and advanced capabilities. Provide technical support before, during, and after rolling out the tools.

Encourage them to operate the whole collection of features for various activities and simplify their adoption. Upgrade skills as well to match the new interfaces and tasks.

This guarantees that the digital solution empowers and streamlines your staff’s transition and adoption –instead of hindering it — for smoother customer transactions and engagement.

Digital Adoption Platforms

One of the best ways to ease your digital change programs is through digital adoption platforms (DAPs).

DAPs are sophisticated AI programs that integrate with enterprise software apps and provide real-time user support and step-by-step guidance.

They function as built-in personalized trainers and virtual assistants providing contextual and on-the-spot training.

By doing so, DAPs prevent forgetting and unproductive learning curves, where the staff fails to absorb and apply the transferred knowledge after the training and when they need it.

DAPs also offer visibility into your software expenses and practical insights into which applications are used and not. They even fulfill critical functions that save costs, boost profit, and minimize risk.

DAPs are scalable and ideal for remote workers in the post-COVID-19 period, when physical training and mentoring are minimal.

Finally, by streamlining your execution of digital adoption strategies, such as training and onboarding, DAPs reinforce your qualities as a modern entrepreneur managing your growing business in the post-COVID-19 era.

Final Thoughts

The uncertainties of the next normal don’t have to stop your enterprise from growing steadily and lagging behind your competitors.

Plan and pursue your digital transformation and adoption, redefining strategies for your staff and customers, so you can continue thriving in the post-COVID-19 era.