What should we communicate to encourage platform adoption?

Communicate a practical reason for each participant to change, a manageable route to participation, and answers to the human concerns that a long-term technology promise cannot resolve. Make near-term benefits clear and build understanding and consensus rather than relying on technical advantages alone.

An immediate reason to change

Give each participant a near-term reason to adopt the platform, not just a vision of a transformed ecosystem. Work on a blockchain-powered platform for global cargo data illustrates the challenge: the platform needed a critical mass of shippers, freight forwarders, port authorities and customs officers, while established working practices still included fax machines. Long-term benefits had to compete with familiar ways of getting daily work done.

Break the transformation into discrete, practical changes. Explain the immediate benefit of each change alongside a relatively painless route to achieving it, so participants can understand what moving away from established practices involves.

A 2025 Boston Consulting Group survey of enterprise IT decision-makers in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific found that, when considering platform switching, 75% were concerned about technical migration, 64% about productivity loss and 63% about downtime. Adoption communications should address the practical disruption participants anticipate, alongside the value the platform promises.

Sources: How to Succeed at Digital Transformation: Influence Many Different People

A credible path for people to follow

Explain a manageable path to participation that acknowledges doubt, resistance and inertia. Adoption requires changes in human behaviour as well as technology, so communication needs to build understanding and consensus step by step rather than present a complete transformation journey as a prerequisite for starting.

The launch campaign for IBM Garage stressed how its approach reduced some transformation risks through agile collaboration on individual business challenges. In work for an automation client introducing local-store fulfilment, a narrative addressed multiple retail stakeholders, while an online experience guided visitors to insights and practicalities relevant to their company and role. The useful principle is to make the route relevant to the person being asked to act, not merely explain the technology.

A 2025 Boston Consulting Group survey found that 62% of IT buyers among enterprise IT decision-makers in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific expressed concern about lock-in with digital platforms. A credible participation narrative should acknowledge concerns about commitment as well as explain the next practical step.

Sources: How to Succeed at Digital Transformation: Influence Many Different People

How The Frameworks helps

Encouraging shared platform adoption

You need organisations across your ecosystem to understand your platform's role and be willing to change how they work. The Frameworks uses research-led positioning to address the relationship between those organisations, your business's enabling role and the established practices that participation would replace. It works with you to frame adoption as a decision involving people across separate organisations, not simply a case for the technology, and to give your business a clear place in that decision.

The Frameworks develops positioning that defines your role in the ecosystem, messaging that makes the case for participation, and campaigns and content that bring that case to the audiences whose support matters. Films and social campaigns can make your enabling role visible beyond a technical explanation. You gain a consistent basis for adoption communications across organisations, with a clear account of what your business contributes and why participation matters to each audience.

Let’s talk about encouraging platform adoption 

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