Hitachi Vantara uses WalkMe to drive digital adoption, boost sales productivity across technology stack.

The Solution

Consistent digital experience across the entire sales cycle

McKittrick had worked with WalkMe’s Digital Adoption Platform at a previous company and immediately saw the opportunity to broaden its use at Hitachi. “Hitachi was already using WalkMe on our partner portal to guide our partners around in certain parts of the experience,” he says. “I knew immediately I wanted to expand it out to our sales experience.”

McKittrick and his team used WalkMe’s Digital Adoption Center to understand the day-to-day user experience of his sales reps. The DAP Center is a single portal that allows McKittrick to view employee engagement across his tech stack and quickly identify adoption challenges and underutilized apps.

“What would normally take us a bunch of cycles of shadowing salespeople we were now able to do with the DAP Center” he continues. “From there I was able to build solutions to show our executives how we could build WalkMe solutions to get the most value from our investments.” But the true value of WalkMe, McKittrick points out, is its ability to work across applications as an organization-wide change management solution.

McKittrick and his team started to think bigger about WalkMe as being able to guide across the experiences – even starting from a user’s desktop. “Using WalkMe Workstation, we put all the content that a salesperson needs in one place on their desktop,” he says. That included access to not only the 9+ sales tools but also other critical employee support tools like HR platforms and IT support applications. “All sales reps can access any piece of technology they need directly from their Desktop. Whether it’s time to close a deal or prospect a new customer, our salespeople have access from their desktop, and then WalkMe nudges them toward the right tool at the right time.”

McKittrick and his team implemented WalkMe Automation to improve efficiency and reduce errors. “So, when a salesperson goes to a particular stage, like doing a proposal, we automatically open up a window that takes them to the next app and automatically picks up the guidance on the next app for them,” he explains. “We take out a lot of the empty clicks so that they know right where to go, and get there faster.”

The Results

Realizing value from investments through better insights and productivity

WalkMe’s DAP Center has become a critical tool in McKittrick’s work. “I now have a way to digitally follow what’s going on with our sales teams and then anticipate and even shape what we do in the future to implement new processes, new go-to markets, new quoting options,” he says.

“WalkMe allows us to quickly show value out of what we drive. So rather than saying we need three months to go develop a new feature or to turn something on, we’re often able to use WalkMe to just guide people to new things or make people aware of new features. It helps us scale, and it helps us be innovators and add value to the business.” It also means an estimated 86% reduction in training time.

As an invisible layer on top of existing software, WalkMe allows McKittrick to quickly and simply make workflow adjustments. For example, McKittrick used WalkMe to disable a legacy feature, instead of paying the CPQ vendor thousands of dollars to remove the same button.

Since implementing WalkMe guidance through the entire sales cycle, McKittrick has seen digital adoption increase to over 75% from 40%. WalkMe has been able to force users into the desired workflows, and to actually prevent less-desirable behaviors. “WalkMe really helps us get people more effective and impactful with their customers straight away,” he says. That means sales reps spend less time struggling with technology and more time selling.

By creating a digital hub that sits on every sales rep’s desktop, WalkMe stitches Hitachi’s digital employee experience together from beginning to end. WalkMe Workstation allows Hitachi to be flexible to accommodate for COVID-related disruptions in their training process, such as the end of in-person bootcamps. Importantly, WalkMe has given them the potential to onboard new hires completely remotely, support them in the flow of work, and have visibility into their interactions with the technology.

Importantly, Hitachi has seen an 88% increase in the digital adoption of digital sales tools by their salespeople. “They know that they’ve got the WalkMe tool to guide them through the most complex processes or to show them content that they didn’t know where to find,” McKittrick says. “One salesperson just told me, ‘Where has WalkMe been the rest of my selling life? This is awesome.’”