Why you need to know your Digital Maturity Index score

Following the events of the past 20 months, businesses across the world have come to realise the need for digital transformation. Not only does it help organisations remain agile, but it also offers long term sustainability and business success. As recovery from the pandemic continues, more companies are aiming to become digitally mature in order to remain competitive. But what is in place for business heads to measure this? We measure everything in a business - profitability, customer satisfaction, efficiency measures, and much more. Now, it is also possible to measure the digital maturity of a business.

What is the Digital Maturity Index?

Utilising two key solutions to assess the progress of digital transformation for businesses, we are able to support hundreds of organisations with an essential set of executive KPIs that help to measure digital transformation progress and success. The first is the Digital Maturity Index (DMI), a comprehensive and accessible digital maturity model and methodology that analyses digital maturity levels across six core dimensions, before providing an organisation’s personalised score.

The six dimensions include customer, operations, innovation, people, governance, and technology. Each dimension includes around 20 topics, which are assessed in collaboration between the customer’s team and digital transformation expert consultants. Jointly, a very comprehensive 360-degree business review is conducted.

Every single DMI engagement creates more than 1000 data points and with hundreds of measurements, years of experience, insight, and rich benchmarking capabilities, the database is rich in data. This maximises the value we can bring to customers, by accelerating digital transformation and amplifying business impact. Digital transformation means business evolution, making the invisible visible. Ultimately, what’s measured gets done.

Once the assessment is made, the Digital Maturity Platform (DMP) - which supports a number of leading digital maturity models - provides real-time reporting and dashboards for organisational maturity and industry benchmarking.

DMI in Action

But what is the true impact of a DMI? Arzum is a Turkish company in food preparation, cooking, frying, Turkish coffee making, and hair care. The brand came to Digitopia after investing in its digital transformation through internal resources for approximately three years - cultivating its ‘Digital Eyes’ movement. Digital Eyes consists of a team of 10 to 15 people, working directly within the company’s internal digital transformation and project management office. The offices work together to predetermine the trends that the company as a whole will focus on each year. As a result of this work, Arzum has increased technological literacy within the company, however, something was still missing.

Digital Eyes had been working, but Arzum was unable to benchmark its progress. It did not have any knowledge about where it was in the market, where it stood in comparison to its competitors, or whether competitors were focusing on similar areas. It soon realised that a digital maturity study was necessary. By measuring digital maturity, Arzum would be able to explore the possibility of even better digital outcomes for the company’s future digital transformation success.

The Digitopia delivery team took its time to understand the organisation’s inner dynamics before starting the first initiative. Digitopia internalised Arzum’s distinctive business model and managed the process accordingly.

Applying a coach-like style, Digitopia empowered Arzum to evaluate the company in a very short period of time by asking the right questions to the right people. Focusing on the six different dimensions, Digitopia conducted separate studies for each vertical. In this way, Arzum could evaluate its digital transformation efforts in terms of where it was in the market, and where it wanted to go. Digitopia brought the six separately held sessions together and generated a roadmap, outlining Arzum’s priorities.

Arzum has since increased the efficiency of the digital transformation process by following Digitopia’s suggested roadmap - starting at the executive board level. The evaluation work with Arzum has created both a top-down and a bottom-up approach, enabling the board and the team to achieve efficient common ground for mutual success.

As soon as the DMI had been completed, Arzum was able to comprehend clearly how it should act on its digital journey moving forward. This understanding came in especially useful while preparing budgets and company strategy. The Digital Eyes initiative continues, and is now pursuing Arzum’s digital transformation in a more enriched and focused environment.

Seeing Tangible Business Value in 2022

For the past two years companies and executives have been talking about and reporting their digital maturity scores. Similar to quarterly or annual reports, which usually focus on sales and financials, some advanced companies are proud to talk about their successful digital transformation journeys.

Those leaders who talk about and report their digital maturity scores, have seen tangible impact on their company’s market valuation. In a world of trillion-dollar valuations such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Tesla, everybody wants to get a slice of digital capability, that seems to make all the difference. On the other hand, incumbents, legacy businesses, digital deniers, and naysayers will suffer in the worst case, most of them will be rendered obsolete.

Digital is here to stay. Those who embrace it will have a competitive edge above those who don’t. The choice seems easy, but the transformation is difficult. Execution will make the difference. After all, digital transformation is a team sport and it is encouraged that we feel a sense of urgency around it. 2022 has a lot in store and there are a few points to consider: establish the guiding coalition; define a digital vision; communicate to the whole organisation; agree on common objectives; onboard all possible digital heroes and volunteers and encourage and empower action.