Why Your Tech Projects Fail (And How Adoption Fixes It)

Adoption Is the Multiplier: How Finance Leaders Turn Technology Investments into Real ROI

In episode four of our Finance Focus series, First Focus CEO Ross Sardi and Jarrod Morris from Bolden unpack a simple truth that matters to every Australian business: technology only delivers returns when people use it. After exploring forecasting, tech stacks, and the evolving finance function in earlier episodes, this discussion zeroes in on the most important driver of ROI: adoption. If you want real impact from AI, automation, and digital transformation, you need a clear plan to lift usage, overcome resistance, and embed new ways of working across the organisation.

Key takeaways

• Actual ROI is a function of usage: ROI x adoption rate = real-world ROI.
• Measure adoption early and often so you can adjust quickly when uptake stalls.
• Treat poor adoption as a product signal, not a people problem. Improve usefulness and ease of use.
• Involve end users in discovery and design. Change lands better when people feel ownership.
• Lead from the front. Executives must use the platform, not just demand outputs.
• Use the Technology Acceptance Model. Raise perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.
• Identify resistors early and channel them into constructive roles like steering groups.
• Favour iterative launches over big bang go-lives. Keep improving post-implementation.
• Assign an ongoing product owner to track vendor roadmaps and drive quarterly enhancements.
• Apply zero-based budgeting and vendor rationalisation to sustain ROI year on year.

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Why adoption is the real multiplier

Many finance leaders do the hard work up front: define the business case, pick the tools, and set the targets. Yet the promised benefits can stall if the new workflows do not stick. As Ross puts it, the first metric that matters is usage. If adoption is zero, ROI is zero. That framing helps leaders prioritise the right early measurements, surface friction quickly, and accept feedback from the frontline as rich input, not as resistance to be blamed.

For Australian organisations navigating tight labour markets and rising technology costs, this matters even more. Every dollar spent on platforms, AI pilots, or automation must translate into faster cycles, better data, or tangible cost reduction. Adoption is where these gains become visible in the P&L.

Measure adoption early, adjust quickly

Adoption needs the same discipline as cash flow or pipeline. Track usage from week one. When the numbers are soft, treat it as a design or enablement problem, not a user attitude problem. Key questions to ask:

• Usefulness: Does the workflow actually help people achieve their goals faster or more accurately?
• Ease of use: Is the experience intuitive enough for busy teams to complete in two or three steps?
• Messaging: Have we clearly explained the why and linked it to KPIs the team cares about?
• Model for adoption: Are we rolling out in logical phases with the right training, champions, and feedback loops?

When those answers are unclear, refine the process before you escalate comms. People will try something once or twice, then move on if it does not deliver. It is much harder to regain trust later.

Build with users, not for them

Jarrod is blunt: you do not give people a stack. You bring them into the process. Involve end users in discovery and prototyping so their real workflows shape the design. When people see their fingerprints in the solution, they are more likely to own the change and champion it across peers.

Practical ways to do this in an Australian mid-market context:

• Discovery sprints: Sit with payroll, accounts payable, sales ops, and IT support to observe real tasks and exceptions.
• Co-design sessions: Test short demos against live scenarios, not just slideware.
• Champion network: Nominate respected practitioners from each function to influence adoption and escalate friction.
• Feedback rituals: Weekly forums with action logs broadcast in Teams or SharePoint so progress is visible.

Lead by example: executives must use the platform

The fastest way to kill a rollout is for leaders to ask for outputs while ignoring the inputs. If timesheets, sales opportunities, or forecast updates matter, executives should complete them too. Signals travel quickly through a business. When the CEO and finance leaders use the platform properly, on time and in the same place as everyone else, the standard is clear.

In practice this looks like:

• Shared rituals: Leadership reviews that rely exclusively on the new dashboard, not spreadsheets on the side.
• Simple rules: If it is not in the system, it does not exist for approvals, pipeline, or cost control.
• Public compliance: Leaders complete their own actions in full view to normalise the behaviour.

Use the Technology Acceptance Model to your advantage

The Technology Acceptance Model has been around since 1989 for a reason. Adoption improves when people believe a tool is useful and easy to use. Those beliefs are shaped by many variables: user training, interface design, social proof, incentives, and how visible success is across the team.

Translate TAM into practical levers:

• Perceived usefulness: Lead with outcome-based demos. Show time saved, errors eliminated, and cycle times reduced.
• Perceived ease of use: Cut steps, simplify forms, prefill data, and add inline hints. Fewer clicks win.
• Social proof and image: Celebrate teams who use AI or automation well. In 2025 it is not cheating. It is capability.
• Voluntariness vs incentives: Use light forcing functions. For example, commissions or approvals tied to system-recorded data.

Internal and external adoption are different. Plan for both

It is easier to embed new tools with new customers than with long-standing ones. When a client joins your managed service, you can bake your portal and comms into onboarding. For legacy clients, behaviour change requires a stronger value promise and clear communication. The same pattern shows up internally: new starters adopt faster because how we do things here is still forming.

Tips that work in Australian MSP and services environments:

• Onboarding packs: For new clients and hires, include portal login steps, short how-to videos, and SLAs up front.
• Value refreshers: For existing relationships, run outcome-oriented sessions that show what has improved since last year.
• Micro-training: Five-minute videos embedded in SharePoint or the portal beat one-off training marathons.

Make resistors part of the solution

Every organisation has voices of caution. The key is to distinguish cultural misfits from constructive sceptics. The latter are invaluable. They find the edge cases others miss. Involve them early in a steering group, pair them with high performers, and give them visible wins when their feedback improves the design. When a known sceptic becomes an advocate, the social proof is powerful.

Guidelines:

• Identify early: Managers usually know who will be vocal. Invite them into discovery, not just training.
• Bound the scope: Do not chase perfection. Solving the critical 80 percent can unlock immediate P&L gains. Leave the remaining 20 percent for later iterations.
• Recognise impact: Publicly connect their input to the improved workflow. Ownership rises with recognition.

Always be launching and keep improving

Avoid the set and forget trap. Most vendors ship features quarterly. Without an internal owner, platforms stagnate and benefits decay. Plan for multiple small launches, each tied to a measurable improvement. You do not need a fully polished suite on day one, but you do need enough quality to prove value and maintain trust.

Establish this operating rhythm:

• Product owner: Name a business owner for each core platform who owns adoption, training, and improvements.
• Quarterly roadmap review: Scan release notes. Shortlist features that improve cycle times or remove manual steps.
• Mini-releases: Bundle two or three features into a monthly or quarterly update with clear what is new comms.
• Usage gates: Move from pilot to scale only when adoption and accuracy targets are met for two consecutive cycles.

Zero-based budgeting and vendor consolidation

When adoption becomes part of finance governance, budgeting gets sharper. Zero-based budgeting forces a fresh look at each subscription and module. If two vendors overlap, rationalise. If one tool is widely adopted and another is not, double down on the former. This discipline turns technology from a cost centre into a compounding asset.

Checklist for Australian finance teams:

• Reset to zero each budget cycle. Re-justify every platform on outcomes and usage, not legacy.
• Consolidate where functionality overlaps or where usage lags persist.
• Tie renewal approvals to adoption metrics and observed business benefits.

Link adoption to the why with metrics people care about

Adoption is not just training. It is culture. The most effective change stories tie the new way of working to a clear why: faster debtor collections, fewer compliance errors, shorter quote-to-cash cycles, or less rework across projects. Be specific, and connect the dots to KPIs teams feel personally.

Examples you can use in comms and town halls:

• AP automation: We are targeting a 40 percent reduction in invoice cycle time and two fewer touchpoints per invoice.
• Sales opportunity hygiene: Accurate stages feed our resourcing plan. No entry, no allocation.
• AI drafting for client emails: We expect 20 percent faster response times with no drop in quality, reviewed by the sender.

A practical adoption plan for finance-led transformations

Use this structure to move from announcement to sustained usage:

• 1) Define success: Choose two or three adoption metrics that reflect value, such as percent of payables auto-processed, percent of pipeline updated weekly, time-to-close.
• 2) Map the moments that matter: Identify the exact tasks users must complete, the systems they touch, and the blockers they face.
• 3) Co-design and pilot: Bring champions and constructive sceptics into a short pilot. Capture friction in a shared log with owners and due dates.
• 4) Train the way people work: Replace long webinars with short, searchable clips. Embed tips where the work happens, in the app, in Teams, or in SharePoint.
• 5) Launch with leadership: Executives demonstrate usage in live meetings. Reports and approvals come from the system, not side channels.
• 6) Incentives and rules: Align commissions, SLA tracking, or approval flows so they rely on system data.
• 7) Iterate quickly: Ship fixes and small improvements weekly during the first month, then monthly.
• 8) Sustain: Quarterly roadmap reviews, refresher training, and a clear owner accountable for adoption metrics.

Metrics that keep everyone honest

Keep the dashboard simple and public. For finance systems, typical measures include:

• Usage rates: Active users weekly, task completion rates, records updated on time.
• Cycle times: Quote-to-cash, procure-to-pay, month-end close duration.
• Quality: Error rates, rework percentages, audit exceptions.
• Business impact: DSO, cash collected, cost per invoice, margin variance.

Publish these in your BI tool or SharePoint site so progress is visible. Celebrate improvements. Treat dips as signals to investigate, not as blame events.

De-risking AI and automation rollouts

AI is now part of everyday work in Australian organisations, but reputations rise and fall on execution. Keep risk in check with controlled pilots, documented guardrails, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, and clear guidance on acceptable use. Normalise the image of AI as a capability builder, a way to draft faster, summarise accurately, and free time for more valuable work.

Practical steps:

• Provide approved prompts and examples relevant to finance, procurement, and client communications.
• Set standards for accuracy checks, tone, and sign-off, especially for external emails or board materials.
• Track AI-assisted tasks as part of your adoption metrics to quantify time savings.

Common pitfalls to avoid

• One-and-done training: Without reinforcement and shortcuts in-app, usage tails off quickly.
• Shadow systems: If leadership accepts spreadsheets for now, the old process never dies.
• Over engineering: Chasing every edge case delays benefits that could be compounding today.
• No owner: When everyone is responsible for adoption, no one is.
• Unclear messaging: If users cannot explain the why in one sentence, the change will not stick.

Sustaining the gains across Australian operations

Whether you are a national MSP, a professional services firm, or a mid-market manufacturer, the pattern is the same: adoption drives ROI. With distributed teams across Australia, lean into short training, embedded help, and platform rituals that travel well across time zones and roles. Make the system the path of least resistance. Keep your cadence of small launches, and treat each improvement as another compounding step in your digital transformation.

Episode four underscores a leadership mindset that works: respect the adoption metric, listen to the frontline, and keep improving. Do that, and your investments in cloud, automation, and AI will deliver the returns you forecast, and then some.

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