Achieving Digital Maturity

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Digital Transformation Strategy (145-slide PowerPoint presentation). Digital Transformation is being embraced by organizations across most industries, as the role of technology shifts from being a business enabler to a business driver. This has only been accelerated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Thus, to remain competitive and outcompete in today's fast paced, [read more]

Also, if you are interested in becoming an expert on Digital Transformation, take a look at Flevy's Digital Transformation Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can you stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.

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Digital Transformation is a matter of survival now for all organizations particularly businesses.

Altering organizations to cater to the progressively digital market environments and gaining benefit of the digital technologies to enhance operations are vital objectives for virtually every modern-day business.

Digital Transformation is typically more difficult than any Change or Transformation program that an organization may undertake.  Most organizations struggle to make the fundamental alterations that are essential to bring about Digital Maturity.

Digital Maturity—the way organizations methodically get ready to constantly adapt to continuing digital change—is difficult to achieve for most of the organizations on the Digital Maturity bandwagon.

We can measure the Digital Maturity of an organization by the 7-stage Digital Maturity Model.  To achieve Digital Maturity, our organization should be in either phase 6 (Transform) or 7 (Improve) of the model, as illustrated in the slide.  These 2 stages capture the “Run” phase of Digital Transformation and Maturity.

Each phase can be characterized by defining objectives along both technology and KPIs.   By Digital Maturity, organizations are utilizing extremely sophisticated technologies, many involving Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, and Robotic Process Automation.

Attaining Digital Maturity is a continuing exercise.  It is a process that requires time but can raise the chances of an organization’s survival and progress.

A small number of businesses seem to be making the deep-rooted changes their leaders consider indispensable to attain these goals.

Research comprising of a survey elucidated Digital Maturity of 3,500 business executives, managers, and analysts from organizations all over the world; 15 key informant interviews of executives and thought leaders were also conducted as part of this study.

The study on identification of Digitally Maturing companies was carried out by the MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte research, by asking business leaders questions that represented different areas of Digital Maturation.

• Leaders were asked to envision a perfect organization and rate their organization accordingly.
• Query regarding “importance of making business digital and how their companies were progressing towards that ideal” was posed to the leaders.
• Question regarding use of technology by their companies to conduct business in fundamentally different ways was also inquired from the participants.
• Top most challenges and mistakes were revealed in response to query from participants regarding what their organizations should do differently so as to improve their Digital Maturity.
• Probe about percentage of the mix of small-scale digital experimentation and company-wide digital initiatives revealed interesting statistics.
• Role of Organizational Structure in attaining Digital Maturity was also touched upon in the research study.
• Importance of Cultural change was also discussed, particularly aspects of collaboration and aversion to risk were highlighted.

Leaders were asked to envision an ideal organization transmuted by Digital Technologies and capabilities that enhance processes, connect talent throughout the organization, and push new value-generating Business Models.

They were then requested to rate their own company on a scale of 1 to 10.  These key informant interviews yielded the following 3 groups:

• Organizations at an Early stage of Digital Maturity had a rating of 1-3.
• Digitally Developing companies were given a rating of 4-6.
• Digitally Maturing businesses had a rating of 7-10.

“How earnestly are organizations endeavoring to become Digitally Mature?” was the main and significant question in the joint MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte research.

Interested in learning more about organizations with Digital Maturity?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Digital Maturity Primer here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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Digital Transformation is being embraced by organizations of all sizes across most industries. In the Digital Age today, technology creates new opportunities and fundamentally transforms businesses in all aspects—operations, business models, strategies. It not only enables the business, but also drives its growth and can be a source of Competitive Advantage.

For many industries, COVID-19 has accelerated the timeline for Digital Transformation Programs by multiple years. Digital Transformation has become a necessity. Now, to survive in the Low Touch Economy—characterized by social distancing and a minimization of in-person activities—organizations must go digital. This includes offering digital solutions for both employees (e.g. Remote Work, Virtual Teams, Enterprise Cloud, etc.) and customers (e.g. E-commerce, Social Media, Mobile Apps, etc.).

Learn about our Digital Transformation Best Practice Frameworks here.