Technology has become increasingly more important to companies during the pandemic. Without an IT infrastructure, businesses cannot allow their employees to work remotely and customers cannot use your services. Organizations can create an ideal environment for a technology roll-out post COVID-19 by considering the following four suggestions:

Discuss with your internal team why you want to invest in the technology. Will it allow you to operate more efficiently, provide a higher level of service to your customers, save money or gain a competitive edge?

Everyone involved should understand why the new technology is vital for both the company and its customers. Explore how long implementation typically takes for organizations of comparable sizes and business models.

Consider when you want the technology up and running and what tools will be needed to make a launch successful. Establish a timeline and communicate with stakeholders to properly set their expectations. It unites all contributors so they can see the end goal.

Be mindful of what will be impacted by new technology. Determine if other IT systems will be impacted. Chances are this new technology integrates with other systems or combines with the organization’s tech stack to offer even more benefits to customers.

Decide what processes need to change. What training is required? How much disruption will this cause for your employees and for your customers? All these considerations impact customers even before they are onboarded.

A tech implementation does not end once it is rolled out. An accurate gauge of success includes the rate of adoption. To build these goals, consider how many employees and customers you want to test with and ultimately how many you want using the technology and when. This also helps with the adoption timeline.

Establish employee and customer adoption milestones such as the percentage of users or usage per customer at defined time intervals. Communicate frequently with employees and customers to ensure that you meet your adoption goals.

Technology providers are an invaluable source of information during steps 1-3. They can offer benchmarks, goals, and best practices from other implementations to ensure success, as well as provide you the teams and resources to help make sure you have thought of everything.

Whenever a company is adopting new technology, you have results in mind: launch new services, increase profit, keep up with the competition. However, the company’s benefits do not necessarily translate to customers.

If your implementation is customer-focused, then the benefits are much easier to identify and share with your staff members on the front lines.

When the question arises, the conversation can switch to a discussion on how the technology will help the customer reinvest saved time or gain more insight into their business. A crucial part of this step is to ensure employees feel empowered.

First, employees should have the training and support needed to master the new technology. Providers can help with this step through training and on-demand resources. Ultimately, employee confidence will inspire more significant results when it comes to onboarding clients to technology.

Next, employees should understand the benefits and be comfortable having that conversation with customers. Why should customers invest the time to learn the new technology? What successes have other customers realized by doing so?

Companies that keep the focus on their customers at every step of the technology onboarding process will be better prepared to proactively provide advice and guidance to ensure that the organization meets its goals. As with any initiative, communication is the key to success.

We will continue to update you on new developments. Please visit our COVID-19 Resource Page for more alerts.

Feel free to contact any member of our team at (610) 828-1900 (PA) or (732) 341-3893 (NJ) with questions. You can contact me at Donald.Kaiser@MCC-CPAs.com and Marty at Marty.McCarthy@MCC-CPAs.com. As always, we are happy to help.