As part of our white paper “Adoption of Oracle Tools in the Age of Cloud and Artificial Intelligence”, we conducted a study with 61 members of the Association des Utilisateurs Francophones Oracle (AUFO).
While the barriers are well identified, participants shared nine best practices drawn from their own projects, demonstrating that successful adoption primarily relies on governance, transparency and human engagement.
On the agenda:
- Involving business key users from the very beginning of the project
- Maintaining transparent communication throughout the deployment
- Rolling out change progressively
- Building dedicated project teams with clearly identified HR, Finance and IT sponsors
- Leveraging trust and mastery as direct drivers of performance
- Delivering continuous training led by business teams and system integrators
- Using user support as a key lever for adoption and data quality
- Addressing the still overly technical organisation of user support
- Moving towards proactive and contextualised support
a. Structure and Governance
1. Involving Business Key Users from the Very Beginning of the Project 🔑
Acting as a bridge between IT and operational teams, these internal champions (trained and empowered) play a crucial role in the success of a project. They translate technical challenges into everyday language, support users, and ensure continuity between the design, deployment and operational phases.
“In our organisation, end-user training is delivered by business teams, not by system integrators. If someone cannot use the tool, it means we missed something.”
Their role is twofold: transferring knowledge and adapting the message to each user’s level of expertise. As one participant pointed out:
“You need to reassure before you train. When a user feels confident in their ability to use the tool, they perform better.”
The connection between confidence, skills and performance was unanimously highlighted.
In organisations where this model works well, communication flows more smoothly, training is more targeted, and overall user satisfaction is higher.
2. Maintaining Transparent Communication Throughout the Deployment 💬
Many organisations underestimate the importance of communication. Projects often suffer from a lack of transparency, or from communication that is too late, too top-down, or too technical. Yet explaining the reasons behind the change, sharing the project roadmap, and highlighting key milestones significantly strengthens engagement.
“When employees understand why the change is happening, they are far more willing to accept how it will happen.”
3. Rolling Out Change Progressively 🧩
A gradual rollout is also seen as a key success factor. Rather than aiming for full functional coverage from the outset, the most effective organisations start with a limited scope, deploy it, stabilise it, and then progressively expand the perimeter.
“We are often too ambitious at the beginning. Users need time to get used to a new tool. It is better to move forward step by step.”
Participants shared a common conviction: adoption is not a sprint, but a living process that must be sustained over time.
4. Building Dedicated Project Teams with Clearly Identified HR, Finance and IT Sponsors 🏆
This principle also applies to governance. Effective governance requires clear roles, committed leadership and transparent communication.
“Good governance is when leadership carries the message: we are moving to the standard of the tool, and we stick to it.”
The organisations that succeed most are those where leadership is publicly engaged, sponsors are visible, and the transformation is clearly explained, owned and embodied by the organisation.
b. Training and Support
5. Valuing Confidence and Mastery as Direct Drivers of Performance ⚖️
When employees feel competent and legitimate in using their tools, they gain autonomy, take initiative and become active contributors to change. Conversely, doubt or fear of making mistakes slows adoption and reinforces dependence on support teams.
This confidence is built progressively through a supportive environment, accessible resources and guidance that encourages experimentation. The objective is no longer simply to train users, but to provide meaning and context, embedding the right habits into everyday work.
This approach fundamentally transforms the relationship with technology: users no longer endure the tool, they take control of it. By strengthening user confidence, organisations naturally improve operational performance: fewer errors, smoother processes and stronger collective engagement.
Mastery therefore becomes a strategic lever, where technical competence and emotional confidence come together to drive sustainable and effective adoption.
6. Continuous Training Delivered by Business Teams and Integrators 🧑🏫
In a constantly evolving cloud environment, training cannot stop at go-live. It must combine three key elements: continuity over time, contextual relevance, and a mix of internal and external expertise. While training delivered by key users is often perceived as more accessible, it is not sufficient on its own. Effectiveness relies on a balance between business and solution experts, a combination of in-person and digital learning approaches, and materials tailored to the organisation’s context.
“Following our move to the cloud, our training initiatives to support adoption have evolved. We introduced a digital assistant to provide contextual help directly within Oracle (on a specific page, button, etc.).”
Training materials and procedures must therefore be designed with long-term use in mind so they can be transferred into the run phase: “Training is effective at launch, but the learning curve means we cannot rely solely on this measure. That’s why I selected so many support mechanisms in the survey. Moreover, as Oracle continues to evolve, we must continuously train users and communicate about updates and bug fixes.“
c. A Rethought User Support Model
7. User Support as a Key Lever for Adoption and Data Quality 🔒
The link between user support and the adoption of digital tools is no longer debated. In environments where solutions are not perceived as intuitive (particularly by non-expert users) guidance becomes essential to ensure proper adoption. As one manager summarised: “User support is essential for proper adoption. The tool is not intuitive enough to leave users, especially non-experts, without support.” Moreover, when users encounter a difficulty, they often assume it is a technical issue, without considering that the problem may stem from their own actions or from the quality of the data entered: “There is often an assumption from users that when there is a problem, it must be a mechanical issue. They do not instinctively think that it might be related to their business action or the quality of the data they entered — that the problem might actually lie somewhere between the chair and the computer.“
This need goes far beyond usability considerations. Support has a direct impact on the reliability of both data and business processes: “If users do not know how to answer a question, they will often choose a default option that can create more serious downstream issues, for example during the closing process.” This challenge is even more critical in contexts of standardisation (such as single-instance rollouts or Oracle Cloud deployments), where processes must then be adopted, understood and consistently applied across the organisation.
8. A User Support Organisation That Remains Too Technically Focused ⚙️
In many organisations, user support still focuses primarily on technical issues, while user needs increasingly relate to business usage. Some participants highlighted this imbalance: “In a project team of 80 people, there isn’t a single accountant. Only a few support staff truly understand the processes and the ‘why’ behind them, the others rely mainly on their technical expertise. There is a paradox in business transformation: there are no business representatives within the team supporting that transformation.“
The reliance on key users remains widespread, but their workload, or their departure, can undermine the continuity of support: “As long as they are there, users are satisfied. Once they leave, the expertise erodes and practices deteriorate.“. Outsourcing can sometimes amplify these limitations, with responses that are standardised, poorly contextualised, and lacking a clear understanding of internal processes: “User support performs well from a technical perspective (incident management), but less so from a business perspective (usage, release management, etc.).“.
9. Moving Towards Proactive and Contextualised Support ✅
The shift to the cloud has transformed expectations: frequent updates require support that is closely connected to business needs, responsive, and continuously trained. User support can no longer remain passive, it must anticipate, guide and support users proactively: “Tools evolve every quarter. User support must therefore be a partner that has the same level of information as the business teams and acts proactively. It can no longer simply follow.“
In this context, organisations are moving towards more integrated support models that combine responsiveness, business expertise and continuous knowledge sharing. The objective is no longer only to resolve issues, but to prevent friction points, safeguard data quality and strengthen user autonomy.
This evolution towards more proximity, pedagogy and proactivity in support is becoming a key lever for sustaining long-term adoption in constantly evolving Oracle environments.
