The days of choosing whether to engage technology solutions for your business are long gone. If you don’t keep up with your clientele’s 21st-century expectations, they may seek services from your more tech-forward competitors.
You could be left behind or, worst case, join the 50% of small businesses that fail within the first five years.
Not only should you want to stay in the business tech race, but there’s something to be said for being at the front of the pack. Research by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows that digital leaders achieve 1.8 times higher growth than digital laggards.
If adopting innovative tech — and doing so as soon as possible — is a must, why not do it the right way?
The secret to achieving a substantial ROI for new software is to invest in solid implementation guided by experts.
Let’s dive in to:
Having the ambition to move your business forward with the help of technology is feasible, but the pragmatics can be intimidating.
While a Deloitte study showed that 70% of small businesses plan to increase their use of digital tools, BCG reports that just 30% are successful in achieving sustainable change when implementing new technology.
There are several common reasons business leaders run into difficulties with the details.
It may be tough to fathom how today’s workforce, comprised of people who carry tiny computers around in their pockets, could come up short on digital skills. However, according to McKinsey research, 87% of companies already have a digital skills gap — or will within a few years. It can be scary to commit to a new platform when you don’t have complete confidence that your employees will be able to reap its full value.
If you choose the right platform, it will profoundly impact your business processes — and your team has to be ready for that. While you may have assembled a great group of leaders, they could be inexperienced in responding to and managing fundamental changes to your company’s workflow, project management, team responsibilities and client interactions.
Many decision makers worry about bearing the load of software implementation internally. Allocating your precious resources, especially your employees’ time and energy, to tech adoption can temporarily reduce their effectiveness in other areas — and, subsequently, your revenue.
Similarly, creating a new position isn’t realistic for most small businesses. The average annual salary of an implementation specialist is $76,389. Outsourcing to a specialized tech consultant can get prohibitively expensive, too.
Your team may have had frustrating experiences with previous employers’ technology choices, or they could be worried that they might not be tech-savvy enough to adapt to a new system. Especially if you’ve already established a trusting and transparent workplace culture, it can be risky to require that your team jump on board with a sweeping change that will shake up their daily responsibilities.
Despite these potential hurdles, leaders like you are pushing forward into digital spaces now more than ever. In 2020, the world experienced what McKinsey deemed “the quickening.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted that his company had experienced two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months. Two years later, small businesses are still trying to catch up and keep up.
Luckily, there is a way around the forces that might be working against your rapid software adoption goals: Use the implementation team that’s already trained on the system you’re adopting.
Instead of spending exorbitant amounts of time and money trying to adapt your internal operations to the software you’ve chosen, it’s much simpler to utilize the team that already knows that platform inside and out.
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While implementation and training services often require an additional investment, it’s far less than the money your business could bleed trying to get by without them in this über-competitive climate.
Allowing the experts to handle implementation is wise because it:
Even with a professional implementation team’s guidance, there are ways to prepare your business for a smooth software adoption process.
Choosing new tech isn’t just about helping your team learn how to click around in a new system. Instead, you should aim for true digital transformation.
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Everything about implementation is easier when you don’t have to do it over and over. The fewer rounds of software implementation your team has to go through, the lower the risks and the greater the rewards.
Choosing one platform that’s built to help you manage your client work — from the moment you start speaking to a new prospect through the moment they pay an invoice (and beyond) — offers clear advantages.
You’ll reduce the amount of time your team spends learning new systems and escape the pressure to pay a dedicated implementation specialist to manage multiple platforms.
Schedule a demo of Accelo to get a taste of what it’s like to use a packaged solution with total implementation support.
