The level of interest in business platforms in the B2B space has rapidly grown. Platforms are more viable and relevant today than ever. The platform’s ability to offer multiple values will influence many of the client’s adoption decisions over the choices their business will engage with.
I wrote a recent article on my ecosystem and platform posting site, “Exploring points of value in adopting business platforms.”
I suggested in this post, “Platforms allow you the opportunity to innovate in very different ways. They can add value through collaborations that can add more to the internal efficiency options through learning and sharing. Platforms help manage the difficulties of transitions we are all undergoing and change how we see the world through a broader collaborative set of lenses.”
Recently in Stanford Social Innovation Review, an article on the “Adoption of Innovation” by Benjamin Kumpf & Emma Proud is well worth the read as adopting any innovation process is a tough, slow one.
They take a position on looking at behavioural approaches suggesting when behavioural insights have been adopted, innovation has ceased to be “innovative.” When a method, technology, or approach to a problem has moved from the experimental edges of an organization to the core of its work: no longer a novelty but something normal and institutionalized. My fear here is this becomes “static” and losses its dynamism.
So, I think their argument works if you take a standard way to design and implement programs. This means they suggest “that innovating is no longer a novelty requiring a burden of proof; adopted approaches become part of the organizational (repeating) toolbox. People know what they are, when and how to use them, and who to ask for help in doing so”, but I am uncomfortable with that.
Innovation needs to be constantly adapting, adjusting and reconfiguring. We have established structures and stages to go through in innovation of course, but suggesting “when behavioural insights have been adopted, innovation has ceased to be “innovative.” I question.
Maybe I got the gist of the article wrong.
I feel they miss the recognition of dealing with one of the worst obstacles for innovation to be understood: the constant “need to change“, the people managing innovation, the process of innovation discovery, or the metrics to judge success or failure. Innovation needs to function in a constant state of flux as what is going on impacts what is around them. This is constantly changing, being impacted by new technology, different combinations and ways to collaborate and innovate, new insights, knowledge and competitors.
We live in a world of relentless change, and adoption needs some really important “sticky” aspects to gain attention and be adopted. Also, in the world of business platforms, the mindset needs to be far more one of “achieving a level of fluidity.”
Adoption or even following a decision process is a really tough nut to crack.
The writers in this article suggest there are five adoption factors, which are establishing, a clear mandate, having in place a culture of collaboration and learning, having a clear context (my post on learning the mantra of context relates), collaboration through networks, and built-in capacity to explore and perform in innovation.
The Stanford Social Innovation review article really builds upon the amazing work of Everett Rogers on his Diffusion and Adoption theories for innovation with some fresh observations in their research.
For me, the work of Everett Rogers stands the test of time. I wrote the three-part series on “Exploring Diffusion and Adoption for Innovation (part one here, then read on if of interest.).
Innovation is undergoing a significant change; it has moved from within one company or institution to needing a network of relationships, today, this is highly reliant for success, and business platforms form the base to leverage all the connectors required. So figuring out the adoption process of business platforms becomes important.
Reading the article did trigger “adoption thinking.” and my need to apply this in the business platform adoption space.
I want to relate adoption back to business platforms and anchor it in the process.
Today business platform adoption is a struggle. It needs a clear revisiting of the theory of diffusion and adoption to extract the relevant points of necessary practice.
What is vitally needed is the recognition that deciding on adopting a business platform approach has five stages or decision points to go through.
So often, platform providers automatically go to the assumption that their platform will be adopted. It simply will not without working through and gaining confirmation the five stages of adoption are clarified. Again I reference Everett Rogers here as my base.
The five stages for business platform adoption.
Each of these needs a definitive engagement process by the business platform provider. Passing through the five stages of adoption needs relevance, identification and building out the relationship to pass through all these as distinct cascading steps.
Awareness and Knowledge – refer to a customer’s acknowledgement of the presence or existence of the new business platform and where they form a general perception of what it might entail. The intersection of need recognition often drives it through consistent education and marketing communications to show client value, not the platform provider’s prowess. This is the point of being inspired to find out more.
Persuasion and Interest – this occurs when a client processes the available information associated with the platform and considers the product or service’s appeal on this and its relevant value or potential to them Here, the client actively seeks out information and details and begins engagement. The critical point for any platform provider to manage well.
Decision and Assessment – Considering the persuasion factors, the client will decide whether to adopt, delay any decision, or reject the platform. Their activity in seeking advice, gathering data and comparing or making different assessments happen clearly here and need the contacted platform provider to understand the level of assessment and the issues. Here, costs begin to really kick in, considering the switching costs, and fresh investment needs and weighing the advantages up. This is the hardest stage to understand. The ability to build a solid business case at this point is essential. My recent post, “Exploring points of value in adopting business platforms,” has some relevancy here.
Implementation and Exploration – These are the series of activities to put the platform to use in exploring its (multiple) points of value and validating these. The client employs the platform to a varying learning degree. The usefulness, impacts, and costs are determined, and they may search for further support or relevance value about it. Here the business platform provider needs to be really “on the case” in strengthening the engagement and anchoring it into more of a forward-looking partnership but working in parallel on this learning path, as adoption is a gradual journey, yes, a behavioural one as suggested by the Stanford article if it is structured and follows.
Confirmation and Adoption– is mostly concerned with post-adoption behaviour exhibited by the adopter, reinforced by the platform’s actual delivery against the relative advantage ‘claims,’ its complexity and compatibility on their understandings. The individual finalizes their decision to continue using it and makes that ultimate investment in forming an ongoing, long-term partnership for extending its use to its full potential.
Develop this five stages process of engagement in any adoption of business platforms
If these five stages are not followed in the business platform adoption process, then there is a higher probability of poor engagement, lost time in chasing leads and being distracted and not getting the end result intended or stated or offering (compelling) value.
So I would always recommend understanding the theory of diffusion and adoption offered by Everitt Rogers, it is as relevant for Business Platform adoption today as when he offered this for “straightforward” innovation.