Digital maturity is a combination of digital intensity and digital transformation management intensity. The digital intensity considers customer engagement and internal operations. On the other hand, transformation management intensity involves vision, governance, engagement, and IT-business relationships. For contemporary businesses, it is essential to engage in the digital market environments and further use the available digital technology to improve the business operations.
Digital Maturity And Digital Transformation
With digital transformation, it is possible to change manual processes and workflows into digital processes. The digital maturity of a business determines the magnitude to which such transformation can happen. Digital transformation includes a set of actions taken by an organization to go digital. It can sometimes be as simple as increasing the internet speed, but checking the current speed on either Speed Test or PTCL to improve employee productivity. On the other hand, digital maturity forms the organization’s characteristics. It helps improve the efficiency and operations of the business.
Moving towards digital transformation without having a clear outlook of digital maturity results in unnecessary roadblocks. It can result in the loss of money and time. A proper data-driven digital maturity model is the key to proper digital transformation.
Why Does Digital Maturity Matters For Organizations?
The path to digital maturity differs for different companies. Reports have indicated that companies that have a strong digital intensity can generate more revenue from the physical assets of their companies. Furthermore, companies that work towards stronger transformation management are more profitable than others, and even their market valuations are higher.
The digital intensity dimension, which is managed intensively by the companies, can derive more revenue from the existing assets of the organizations. By focusing on digital intensity, a company can manage more gain from the existing physical capacity. On the other hand, companies that have a mature transformation management intensity can roll more revenue.
Any company that is more mature in the digital intensity dimension or transformation management intensity, generally performs better than the companies.
The Different Stages Of Digital Maturity
There are four stages of digital maturity. In the Digital Starter stage, the organization is just at the beginning of digital maturity and has no clear plan for digital transformation. In these stages, business functions and IT work together from time to time. Digital Literate, the second stage, is where the organizations understand the importance of digital transformation and decide to invest in it. A roadmap is created in this stage. In the third stage of Digital Performer, the digital mindset of the organization becomes more robust. There are proper data and talent platforms in the organizations. This stage also holds many successful digital initiatives.
The final stage is the stage of Digital Later. In the last stage of digital maturity, the digital elements get embedded through the entire organization. It further invests in research and development, innovation, strategy development, and digital technological adoptions. Companies that have reached the last stage outperform their competitors, especially in meeting the key digital metrics. Stages of digital maturity can also be divided into incidental, intentional, integrated, and optimized. It is possible to undergo the different stages of digital maturity to reach the final process by outlining processes, defining opportunities, setting goals, and minimizing the digital gaps. It is essential to involve different stakeholders in the process.
Measuring Digital Maturity
The beginning of digital maturity begins with discovery of the digital transformation journey. The digital maturity stage can be answered well by asking a few vital questions. The first question that needs to be addressed is whether your organization has a proper vision, strategic direction, and objective. Other questions that require serious answers include the plans to undergo digital transformations, comparing those transformations with other organizations, and the disruptive digital force working in the organization. There is no standard scale to measure digital maturity. However, with these answers, you can easily place your organization in one of the four stages.
The Higher The Digital Maturity, Higher The Value
As seen above, digital maturity directly impacts the company’s operational efficiency and can open doors for new business ventures. Digital maturity considers both the internal and external stakeholders, customers, and the business and develops a digital technology strategy accordingly. Firstly, it is important to understand the existing digital technology and then develop a roadmap for it. To move to the final stage of digital maturity to increase the organization’s valuation, it is critical to lay a strong digital foundation.
