7 steps toward successful technology adoption across the insurance enterprise

Step 1: Remember— digital transformation is organizational change

“When we ask CEOs how their transition to digital is progressing, they often respond with a list of initiatives under way across the business — building a new tech platform, launching new products, or investing in infrastructure, to name a few. But when we ask them to quantify the impact on the bottom line, there’s usually a long silence.”²

Why the “long silence?” It stems from an approach to buying technology that does not fully recognize that digital transformation is, first and foremost, organizational change.

Strange as it may sound, putting the focus on technology can be far less challenging than putting the focus on people. Which is why firms tend to adopt a technology-first approach in the purchase process. For their digital transition to add value, change leaders must begin that transition with a change strategy in mind, investing time early in the process to ensure that everyone — from C-suite leadership to front-line employees — is not just on board, but fully engaged.

Step 2: Identify and engage all stakeholders

A common misperception concerning stakeholders is that stakeholders are users. They’re not. A stakeholder is any individual who is impacted by a decision. When identifying stakeholders, cast a wide net, including employees. After all, they will be the primary users of the new product or system. Their adoption of new processes is critical to success.

Stakeholders who are not fully involved often fail to understand the importance of buying into the change or what their part should be in making the change successful. They simply understand that a change is happening “to them,” and not “with them.” Instead, they need to clearly understand the purpose of the investment, why change is necessary, how it aligns with the firm’s strategic business goals and how it will achieve an overall enterprise-wide, net-positive gain. It’s a known fact that adoption and productivity rates increase when employees are involved early in the discovery and conceptualization phases of organizational change.

Step 3: Speak the same language

Begin by speaking the same language … a shared vocabulary. Each stakeholder’s tech fluency, their interaction with the considered solution, and the goals they seek to achieve with its use, are unique. Some will focus on features, such as interface. Some will focus on interoperability. Others will focus on the proposed solution’s alignment with, and impact on, the enterprise-wide achievement of business goals.

Regardless of their functional area, whether marketing, human resources, operations, or finance, all participants in the process must understand how the proposed change impacts the overall business and the bottom line. Leaders must, therefore, help stakeholders — with language they understand — to look past any initial barriers to change and buy into the bigger vision.

Without that understanding, what happens for example, when marketing introduces a CMS (Content Management System) that will not integrate with the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) technology used by sales? Failure to achieve "buy in" from all stakeholders across the business, and aligning the considered technology with agreed-upon business outcomes, can lead to a mismatch in solutions that is both costly and disruptive.

Step 4: Agree upon measures of success

Arbitrary definitions of success can and will hinder progress. Automating a process by 50% could be deemed a success by some, while considered a failure by others. ROI, key to measuring the value of any tech implementation, is nearly impossible to calculate when stakeholders have varying definitions of success.

Transformation is a dynamic process and can be influenced both unexpectedly and significantly by internal or external forces at any moment. It isn’t enough, therefore, to simply set the transition in motion and hope the desired result is achieved. Agreed-upon KPIs that quantify the desired business outcomes should be monitored regularly. Like any journey, it’s always a good idea to frequently consult the roadmap.

Step 5: Avoid SOS (Shiny Object Syndrome)

Breakthroughs in technology are occurring on an almost daily basis. And it’s human nature to wonder if one should, perhaps, shift one’s focus from yesterday’s solution to today’s. SOS most often occurs when leaders are managing (and distracted by) multiple initiatives, underestimate the complexities of executing the transformation, or fail to fully involve all stakeholders.

What’s the best way to avoid SOS from the start? Set clear, measurable, agreed-upon, and achievable goals. Use goal setting both long-term and short-term goals and measure success on a regular basis. Unfortunately, bright, shiny objects can be a welcome alternative to making hard choices and staying on task.

Step 6: Make the best use of user stories

Business leaders have the opportunity, and responsibility, to provide their perspective on business needs at the beginning of the technology procurement process. Here, user stories can be quite effective as they 1) guide the buying team along their journey toward vendor partnership, and 2) articulate in a simple way the “who, what, and why” of the desired outcome. Consider:

• Who are the various users and what are their unique needs?

• What needs to happen to achieve the desired outcome? What technical capabilities are required? What processes are needed, or need to be changed?

• Why is this change a priority? Why is it important to the business as a whole?

Step 7: Transform user stories into use cases

Once the user stories have been captured, distill them into use cases that include all stakeholder parameters, goals, and benefits. Then, eliminate any that are incompatible with existing technologies or lack clarity in measurement, identifying those use cases that are aligned to short-term versus long-term goals.

Ideally, your use cases represent the most business value, drive consensus within the buying team, and can then be taken to vendors. Much can be learned from vendor collaboration, such as insights gained from past engagements. Ideation workshops, for example, can be useful; not only validating the vendor’s expertise, but also helping to identify any unrealistic expectations or false assumptions. Now is the time to ask vendors to show you how their solutions deliver against your needs through detailed demonstrations, not simply answering “yes or no” questions.

Build consensus and accelerate tech adoption

As financial institutions, such as insurers, continue to accelerate their technology investments, the need for a more structured and rigorous consensus-building process will grow with it. C-suite leaders can spearhead a successful tech adoption with a consensus-building process that eliminates the silos that hamper collaboration; a process that is inclusive, collaborative, and capitalizes on the knowledge and experience not only of employees, but vendors, as well.

What does success look like for today’s insurance provider? It all comes down to intuitive tools and intelligent information management. At Ricoh, we believe there is no such thing as too much information — unless the processes needed to transform that information into actionable insights are not in place.

Through our suite of managed services, we unlock the power of information and processes to help insurers effectively evolve and provide the best possible experiences in a sector that’s quickly becoming more digital.