By Khadim Batti, CEO and co-founder, Whatfix

In the next three years, global spending on digital transformation is slated to reach $3.4 trillion. The adoption of new software and digital platforms is not a decision CIOs should make lightly, as approximately 70% of all digital transformation projects fail to achieve a positive return on investment. Digital transformation and enterprise digitalization is a significant financial investment for an organization. In an economic climate wrought with uncertainty, investments will be scrutinized closely for the outcomes they produce. However, analytics and tracking key data can help ensure organizations can extract the most value out of digital investments to maximize ROI and create a better digital experience for employees.

To take digitalization initiatives a step further, organizations must consider how effectively they are operationalizing new tools, solutions and platforms and how successful users are engaging with them. Where are users spending the most time? How successfully are users leveraging key features? Where are users running into roadblocks? Which features are being underutilized or used incorrectly? Armed with analytics and product data, CIOs and business leaders can proactively adjust adoption strategies to address existing shortcomings and help create a more positive digital software experience. There are critical metrics that organizations should watch closely to inform future technology acquisition and adoption decisions to avoid downstream difficulties and ensure the success of digitalization efforts.

Tracking specific data enables executives to maintain visibility into what is working and where problems are emerging. Two types of data are most relevant in this situation: IT metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). IT metrics help companies assess the performance of their technology initiatives, including digital transformation strategies or cybersecurity protocols, for example. KPIs define the metrics that help organizations achieve a specific business goal. Together, IT metrics and KPIs can help determine how to best use technology and data to meet revenue goals, build and expand customer relationships, and boost employee productivity.

To illustrate the value of this level of analysis, the global recruiting agency, Hays, recently deployed a digital adoption platform (DAP) to help with software adoption. By tracking KPIs including support ticket views and software walkthrough participation, the company was able to determine that application-related queries had been reduced by 75%. Using its DAP, Hays was able to analyze the success of its recent software rollout to highlight that employees had become more adept at using its latest software tools in a shorter time than with previous rollouts.

Following the same approach as Hays, there are several best practices enterprise executives should consider as they realign strategies to integrate more data and analytics. These include: 

Determine the most relevant metrics and KPIs

Determine the metrics and KPIs your organization must track to account for the needs and values of the business, its employees, and its customers. Consult with business leadership, key employees and other stakeholders to identify the metrics that will give the most visibility into the challenges and opportunities for technologies that impact the digital experience. These can include user engagement, usage frequency and feature adoption.

Set clear goals and define success

Without goals, a strategy lacks purpose. Executives need to tie each tactic that will help support your digital experience strategy to a goal, which may in turn translate into several metrics such as conversions and user sign ups that you can use to define success. Defining these goals will keep IT and business initiatives on track with the expectation that data will be collected and analyzed regularly and used to inform future strategic decisions.

Automate data collection

Automated data collection can save hundreds of hours per year in place of manual queries and analysis. Create a framework to choose the right collection tools and processes that accounts for the solutions already part of your existing tech stack and integrations already in place. This will enable teams to access data regularly for ongoing analysis of the most recent and relevant information. Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) can help gather information and track how users are engaging with content, so teams can easily monitor data.

Set regular data reviews

Because digital transformation projects can take time to implement, review analysis regularly so projects are kept on track and leaders can make improvements as needed. This will enable teams to identify issues with new technology adoption or transformation initiatives as they arise and then pivot as needed to ensure success. For example, teams seeking to improve user adoption of a new digital tool should review user engagement data on a regular basis to ensure that employees are increasing their use of the tool and that attrition is decreasing.

Use visualizations

Data visualizations help communicate facts in a way that all stakeholders can understand, particularly when sharing data like metrics and KPIs. There are tools with built-in reporting functionalities to easily turn tracked metrics into charts, graphs, and filterable reports. For maximum impact, teams should look for solutions that provide clean, quick overviews of data to incorporate into visualizations. Many DAP solutions offer this functionality as part of their services, making it easy to compile this information.

Ensure data accuracy

If data is inaccurate, analyzing metrics and KPIs is useless. The key to ensuring data accuracy is ensuring that information is organized and consistent. Organizations must plan for how they will track and analyze data so resources can be allocated appropriately to build integrations, test collection capabilities, and document best practices for data maintenance.

Address bottlenecks and inefficiencies

Errors and challenges, like user attrition and feature underutilization, must be addressed immediately to avoid escalation into larger issues such as misuse or lack of use of the applications. The more closely you track your data, the easier it will be to identify abnormal and undesirable outcomes. For example, a drop in user engagement within a customer relationship management (CRM) system can indicate a variety of issues - a bug, a lack of product training, or a poor user experience. Analysis of this data will help uncover the root cause of potential problems and, ultimately, preserve the ROI of the CRM investment.

Positive digital experiences are critical for organizations to achieve maximum ROI. If users find new tooling and solutions difficult to use, they are less likely to continue using it, which strains the resources and budget expended to deploy the tool in the first place. To achieve the desired business outcome then, in this case, widespread tool adoption, leaders must turn to analytics to guide their decision-making process and help pivot as needed.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Khadim Batti is the Co-founder and CEO of Whatfix. Khadim co-founded Whatfix with Vara Kumar in 2014 with the mission of empowering individuals and organizations to freely use and experience the maximum benefits of technology. An entrepreneur at heart with an engineer's mind, Khadim is also giving back to the start-up community by sharing his passion, knowledge, and mentorship with aspiring talent for over a decade and a half.