How to make it easy for businesses to adopt new tech products

The 2023 Insight Intelligent Technology report (conducted by IDC InfoBrief and commissioned by Insight Enterprises) highlighted the reality that we’re entering into a new era of innovation – with tech developments accelerating across industries. There are loads of positives to this, but we want to focus on one key finding that reflects a concern many businesses are experiencing: 

That falling behind the curve of digital transformation can have a more serious negative impact on a company than a recession. 

Of the 1,000 business leaders included in the survey (all working in large commercial businesses with over 1,000 employees, across a range of industries), 52% said operational resilience is one of the most pressing challenges they need to overcome imminently, and 34% indicated plans to invest in digital transformation to scale distribution and monetisation of products and services over the 12 months following the study; while 33% planned to invest in achieving ‘deeper digitalisation’ of the customer experience. 

A majority of organisations said they believe they need to become a digital business, and 61% said they expect to achieve an impactful ROI from digitalisation within a year. 

When they were asked about the obstacles to achieving digital transformation, the picture looked like this: 

• 53% were concerned about data privacy and security challenges.
• 39% cited a lack of key technology skills.
• 39% said they had insufficient resources for change management.
• 48% said that scrutiny of digital initiatives from C-Suite leaders had increased over the year leading up to the survey.
• 49% of failures of digital transformation projects were down to IT infrastructure integration issues; while 46% of respondents said legacy technology or technical debt was holding back their strategy. 

Businesses know that failing to innovate and keep up with technological advancements across industries will put them at a serious competitive disadvantage. But it’s not easy to adopt new technologies and integrate them into existing operations – so organisations are grappling with the balance of transformation vs the pressure to keep up day-to-day operations. 

Tech providers: make it easy for businesses to adopt and integrate your products and services 

For tech companies, we think this offers a clear call to action. Don’t just create great products and services – create them and make it as easy as possible for businesses to adopt them. 

An important aspect of this is integration. Wherever possible, businesses need access to products and services that they can integrate seamlessly into their existing operations – so adopting new technologies doesn’t force them to completely overhaul every aspect of their operations. 

Beyond that, if you want to lower the barriers to entry to your tech products and services, you can: 

• Design products with UX as a key focus. Products should be user-friendly, easy to navigate, and easy to understand – so new users don’t have to invest significant time and resources into learning and training.
• Provide onboarding and training packages along with sales, to improve training efficiencies for new users.
• Offer gradual rollouts. It’s easier for businesses to integrate new tech in phases – for example, utilising one new feature at a time to minimise the overwhelm of a tech transformation.
• Offer personalised and ongoing support packages. Organisations can adopt new tech more confidently if they have access to dedicated support teams that understand their specific business needs and use cases.
• Develop flexible pricing models. Not every business wants to jump in at the deep end – so create options that enable them to start small and increase their usage when they need to.
• Create change management resources that are easy to access. Tools and guidance that guide businesses through the transition to your tech products or services, including how to make the cultural shift from old working practices to new, can reduce the workload that comes with adopting a new technology.

And finally, make sure that the support you provide to clients doesn’t stop once they’ve successfully implemented your tech. Support should be ongoing, including a two-way feedback and update system, and give companies the confidence that your tech can adapt as their business evolves.