This is part 2 of 5 in our change management research series. Data presented here was collected via a commissioned market research survey of 320 global IT leaders. Click here to view the full report.
When an organization decides it’s time to implement a new software, whether it’s to replace an existing solution or to meet a new need, focusing on the users affected by the change is the key to success. (Check out our first article in this series for some actionable tips on this.)
By focusing on the users throughout a new software implementation, organizations are likely to see a positive impact on user adoption of the solution, for instance, the retail industry has seen improvements by using blockchain in retail industry, such as being able to track different business departments processes, as well as further securing customer details and automating processes in which these data points would be used, decreasing administrative costs. This should be a key change management strategy for IT leaders, considering the majority (57%) cited high adoption as a top success metric for such projects.
For CIOs, knowing that they want users to use the new software is one thing, but knowing whether users are actually doing so is a separate issue—and one of great importance. In fact, 62% of surveyed CIOs rated “usage analytics” as the most critical offering a software vendor could provide. In other words, a vendor’s ability to demonstrate how, and how often, their product is being utilized (ROI!), is a key selling point. Not surprising.
The disconnect
Despite the emphasis placed on user adoption and usage analytics, nearly 25% of IT leaders struggle with visibility of these metrics, and fewer than 1 in 15 are even tracking them. Not only does this lack of insight make it extremely difficult to determine whether a newly-implemented software is serving its purpose; it also makes it impossible to identify ways users could be leveraging the solution more effectively for a higher impact.
Talk it out
The importance of data has compounded in recent years, with technology companies developing new approaches to collecting and analyzing information about their products to drive better performance. As IT teams work through the software evaluation process with different vendors, it would benefit them to ensure that usage analytics and adoption tracking are included in the package of the partner they ultimately choose. Otherwise, proving the achievement of success metrics like user adoption will prove to be quite difficult—if not impossible.
> You can read the full report on our change management research by downloading it for free, right here.
> And check out our best practices guide for successful software implementations.
