WalkMe 2022: A year in review

As we come to the end of 2022, now is a great time to look back on what’s turned out to be an eventful and jam-packed year for DAP. This year, WalkMe celebrated 10 years since creating the first digital adoption platform (DAP), a momentous achievement for the company and the technology category. 

Indeed, the DAP industry is currently at a tipping point, where leading tech research firms are recognizing the power of digital adoption to accelerate digital transformation and change management programs. At WalkMe, we continue to be at the forefront of digital adoption innovation, as evidenced by the variety of product releases, new partnerships, awards won, and analyst recognition over the last 12 months. 

With that said, let’s dive into 2022’s highlights:

How WalkMe’s DAP evolved in 2022 

This year’s product releases included Workstation navigation updates, new analytics capabilities, and improved search capabilities. WalkMe customers now benefit from the following new product features:

• The new Workstation – Instantly find information, automate tasks, and initiate workflows all from a centralized hub.

• Multi-language integration – Seamlessly automate translation processes with Lilt. 
• UI intelligence – Gain actionable insights into how users engage with forms in apps. 
• Activity board – Get key data to understand and analyze the performance of WalkMe activities.  
• Digital Transformation Intelligence – Plan, prioritize and optimize transformation initiatives, adoption projects and software investments (Beta).
• AI search – Improve menu search results with WalkMe’s AI search algorithm, which automatically generates keywords from item names

New partnerships with leading global enterprises

This year, WalkMe partnered with Deloitte Canada to help streamline technology adoption solutions for Canadian enterprises. In the words of Emily Boudreau, Transformational Change Practice at Deloitte Canada, “Driving ROI on digital transformation projects for our clients is a key priority of Deloitte. We are pleased to align with WalkMe to help us continue to bring the best solutions and innovative approaches for our clients to accelerate adoption of new technologies”.

We continued to expand our partner ecosystem by joining forces with Celonis, the global leader in execution management. According to Gunther Rameseder, Senior Vice President Solution Engineering at Celonis, “Our collaboration with WalkMe combines Celonis’ ability to reveal and fix process inefficiencies with WalkMe’s seamless user experience and automation capabilities. Customers deploying Celonis and WalkMe will be able to accelerate business transformation, drive value and achieve higher levels of performance.”

Lastly, in November, WalkMe joined the UK Government’s G-Cloud Digital Marketplace, becoming the first ever federally-accredited digital adoption platform. G-Cloud provides the public sector with a centralized marketplace for the procurement of cloud-based services and technologies that meet the government’s rigorous security standards. It is designed for government, non-profit, education, defense, and emergency and health service providers.

Global businesses that used WalkMe in 2022

Our customers span geographies, use cases, and industries. We’ve celebrated and featured their success in various initiatives – from traditional case studies and events to industry analyst reports and media features.

Here are some of the highlights:

• See how LeaseAccelerator slashed training costs by 75%, improved customer experience, and created a new revenue stream with WalkMe.
• Discover how Nestlé delivers digital adoption and transformation at scale for 270K+ team members across 80 apps with WalkMe.
• Learn how W.L. Gore & Associates slashed 400+ meeting hours, doubled user satisfaction, and increased seller productivity with WalkMe.
• Find out how Blackwoods transforms workflows, reduces time to proficiency by 50%, and boosts productivity with WalkMe.
• Uncover how GOJO seamlessly transitions to Salesforce Lightning and saves thousands of employee hours with WalkMe.

The rise of the DAP professional

It was a big year for people making DAP their career. One key milestone was the official establishment of the annual DAP Professionals Day on the last Thursday in July, which recognizes those who practice digital adoption in their organizations.

Just two months later in September, the first-ever Top 100 DAP Professionals list, the DAPP100, was published. Nominations poured in from all over the world. The winners, who reside in 16 countries across four continents, were announced in the new-and-improved WalkMe World Community, and then celebrated from the mainstage at Elevate a few weeks later. A new list will be published annually, so keep an eye out for the DAP pro you’d nominate next year!

Increasing analyst coverage of the DAP space

2022 saw the DAP industry reach a tipping point, in which digital adoption moved from being a niche concept to a necessity for enterprises looking to streamline their digital transformation processes. Throughout the year, leading research firms highlighted DAPs’ benefits. Specifically, we saw: 

• IDC TechBrief: Digital Adoption Platforms – In its first TechBrief covering the DAP sphere, IDC detailed how digital adoption platforms can help enterprises increase returns on their technology investments. Specific points included how DAPs can help create strong user engagement through frictionless digital experience;, how improved application usage can renew focus on high-value processes; and the way DAPs can help realize the full value of application features, functionality, and integration.  
• The Forrester New Tech: Digital Adoption Platforms, Q2 2022 – Here, Senior Forrester Analyst Vasupradha Srenivasan dives into how DAPs can be leveraged to improve adoption and usage of enterprise software, streamline digital transformation, and boost application usage. The report also details the different types of DAP providers, with WalkMe included in the pure-play and product insight platform functionality segments.   
• Everest Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) Products PEAK Matrix® Assessment – This year, Everest named WalkMe the leading digital adoption platform vendor for the third year in a row. As the leaders in providing actionable and independent research on IT services, Everest’s recognition of WalkMe reinforced our position as the only scalable enterprise-ready DAP solution. In addition to detailing WalkMe’s product capabilities, Everest made special mention of our role in spreading awareness of the DAP market and how we help clients establish DAP centers of excellence (CoE).  
• Gartner® Market Guide for Digital Adoption Platforms – In this market guide, Gartner details how organizations can accelerate their digital transformation programs with DAP. The report details how DAPs like WalkMe help organizations boost employee digital dexterity to increase productivity; provide insights into how employees get work done to improve efficiency and accuracy; and drive ROI by enhancing usage of existing assets and eliminating duplicative technology. 
• The Forrester New Wave™: Digital Adoption Platforms, Q4 2022 – In this report, Forrester provides a key resource for tech executives searching for a DAP provider. They recognize WalkMe as a Leader in DAP, with specific mention of how “WalkMe has a comprehensive solution and future-ready platform”; “WalkMe is best fit for large enterprises needing insights-led orchestration for digital adoption”; and “WalkMe’s customers love its smart walkthroughs, tips and launchers, and willingness to drive improvements based on feedback”. 

WalkMe analysis

In addition, WalkMe’s own reports helped shed some light onto how organizations can develop their digital adoption strategies, as well as the current state of digital adoption. 

• The State of Digital Adoption 2022-2023 – Our State of Digital Adoption report is based on a survey of nearly 1,500 business leaders and how they manage digital adoption. The report provides a benchmark for organizations developing their own digital strategy and covers a variety of topics, including digital transformation spend, employee digital dexterity, planned digital investment, and digital adoption management. 

• Digital Adoption for Dummies – This report dives into the fundamentals of digital adoption and how it can further digital transformation initiatives. Specifically, we refer to why older digital transformation solutions are no longer able to meet the needs of modern enterprises and how digital adoption is the best way to realize the full value of your tech-stack. 
• 360-degree Digital Adoption – This report, written in partnership with Everest Group, details the benefits of a holistic vs. a siloed digital adoption strategy when it comes to unlocking the full value of enterprise tech-assets. Additional details include focus areas and drivers of 360-degree digital adoption, key ways DAPs serve organizations, how to choose the right DAP partner, and how to implement your own 5-step DAP journey.     

WalkMe in the news

This year also saw a variety of stories detailing various companies and their digital adoption journeys with WalkMe. Highlights include:

• My TechDecisions – Learn about how Mindbody was able to accelerate its time to market and improve training and onboarding processes for customers as well as employees after onboarding WalkMe. 
• Dataversity – This case study dives into how Mindbody was able to optimize its digital transformation strategy with WalkMe, helping users adapt to software with custom processes specifically geared towards their customer base.   
• Diginomica –  Learn how Tobias Washington, Systems Director of Digital HR and Employee Experience at Christus Health is using WalkMe to streamline and scale digital HR processes so employees are free to work without excessive paperwork and other bureaucracy.  
• My TechDecisions – W.L. Gore & Associates recently partnered with WalkMe to increase enterprise application adoption, streamline departments, and train end-users to drive better business decisions.  
• Intelligent CXO – In this cover story, Greisy Flores, Senior Global Product Manager of the Digital Adoption Platform at Nestlé, details their WalkMe implementation, how she created Nestlé’s Technology Learning Center,  and the overall impact on employee training and application adoption.  

Bringing people together with DAP 

Realize 2022: Drive user experiences. Transform digital outcomes.

 

Who can forget the biggest digital adoption event of the year?! Realize22 was a free to register, 2-day, fully virtual event celebrated on April 5-6 2022, that brought together the global WalkMe ecosystem to inspire and enable attendees on realizing exponential value from their digital investments.

Realize22 served over 80 sessions to more than 2,300 attendees and for the first time ever as a global event, spanning Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. 

Our partners and customers took center stage at the event with over 15 customers represented as co-speakers of our sessions and 6 partners sponsoring the virtual event. 

We also hosted the second edition of our now annual Realizer Awards, spotlighting companies and industry leaders that are using – and evangelizing – digital adoption to realize the full potential of technology in their respective spaces.

Learn about all categories and our winners here! 

Elevate 2022: Go beyond as a DAP professional

 

Elevate22 was a 3-day hybrid event hosted in our transformed WalkMe office in San Francisco this October, with over 100 in-person attendees and 1200 DAP professionals joining us virtually to celebrate the growth of the industry and the profession. It was the first ever large-scale hybrid event for WalkMe. 

Check out these key highlights:

• The new DAP Professional Survey data & infographic was unveiled.
• We announced the launch of the new WalkMe World Community, available to all (no login required!).
• Our new User Group Program is live. Sign up for virtual & in-person events based on shared interests.
• 3 new certifications through the DAI were available exclusively at Elevate. Watch for their virtual launch in 2023!

Elevate22 featured expert DAP speakers from Stripe, AB InBev, WL Gore & Associates & KPMG (check them out here) and DAP best practices and product roundtables for in-person attendees.

And who can forget the DAP DemoJam, where 5 finalists demonstrated their innovative WalkMe solutions. Congratulations to Krishna Saw from Splunk who took home the top prize. The top 10 DemoJam submissions are streaming now in the community.

A special thank you to our Elevate22 participants who helped pack over 100 backpacks for The Kids in Need Foundation.

Taking home the trophy

2022 was a big year for recognition. In March, WalkMe’s UI Intelligence (UII) won Business Intelligence Group’s Artificial Intelligence Excellence Award in the pattern recognition category. In light of the fact that this award recognizes organizations, products, and individuals who use artificial intelligence (AI) to solve real-world problems, this is a great honor. 

In April, 2022, WalkMe was named as a winner of the InfoWorld 2022 Technology of the Year Award. Each year, InfoWorld recognizes the most innovative software development, cloud computing, data analytics, and machine learning products on the market.

Then, in June, WalkMe’s UII won again (twice!) – this time, honored with a 2022 Gold Globee Award for Artificial Intelligence in the 17th-annual IT World Awards® with the vote of 170 industry expert judges. This was followed up by the Remote Tech Breakthrough’s Overall Remote Tech Solution of the Year, an award previously granted to WalkMe’s Workstation in 2020.

To top it all off, we were named one of San Francisco Business Times’ Best Places to Work in the Bay Area. 

See you in 2023!

While topping 2022 is going to be tough, that’s exactly what we plan on doing in 2023. Stay tuned for exciting WalkMe announcements and see you next year!