Digital Maturity

Digital maturity is a concept that's re-shaping the business world, creating exciting new opportunities across every industry sector and market. It has already helped businesses outperform their competitors, enabling them to generate significant growth and deliver enhanced brand value. Understanding the mechanics of this transformational business approach – and how to apply them – are critical to your own sustainable success. 

Our digital maturity assessments

Our team has completed a substantial number of assessments across various global markets, collecting an extensive array of data points across all levels of digital maturity. Our process is straightforward: we start by working with you to tailor our bespoke survey which we then share with your organisation. The responses are collected, analysed, and benchmarked, giving us your business's level of maturity. The collated responses form the basis of the report, along with our recommendations and next steps.

Where we distinguish ourselves is in our end-to-end process, which allows our team not only to make recommendations but also to provide our clients with detailed, step-by-step instructions, tools, and assets to expedite the maturity journey.

Digital maturity: what’s all the fuss?

The concept of digital maturity has grabbed attention in the business world over the last decade. But what does this term really mean? And why does it matter? Let's go back to 2007 when the launch of the original iPhone created a genuine paradigm shift. We entered an early adoption phase of disruptive technologies, such as wireless sensors, cloud computing, big data processed by Artificial Intelligence - all in a handy pocket-sized device, the 'smartphone'. This novel combination of technologies that made the iPhone possible – together with a radically different user experience focused on what people really wanted to do – changed consumers' behavior overnight. And it continues to do so today.

Many businesses emerged from this early phase – like Airbnb and Uber – to exploit the opportunities of connected devices and allow consumers to interact in new ways. The maturity of this initial phase leads on to the second phase of massive adoption of digital maturity. An organisation that puts employees or consumers at the centre of its business – and one that incorporates products or services that add genuine value for users – will have a major advantage over its competitors.

What is digital maturity?

Digital maturity measures an organisation's ability to create value through being digital. Sounds great. But what does it mean in practice? In essence, digital maturity measures the level at which a company is using digital thinking to achieve its goals. It signals the ability of a business to create new sources of value – for example from data-driven insights, new consumer touch points and experiences, cross-functional collaboration and other digital-first innovations. Digitally mature organisations are demonstrably better at putting digital thinking into action, turning a digital-first mindset into tangible commercial value. What's more, businesses with a higher level of digital maturity are effective at applying digital thinking right across their entire operations.

What is Digital Thinking?

Digital thinking takes a people-first approach to understanding and optimising processes, collaboration, data and overall business strategy. Let's look first at the 'traditional' approach to tackling business challenges. To achieve growth you might look to introduce a new product, reduce costs, or maybe invest in reaching new audiences through sales and marketing efforts. In other words, your efforts are 'inward focused' and centred around the immediate needs of the business.

Digital thinkers, by contrast, start by looking outward. Their first thoughts are about people. They're totally focused on customers' relationships with the business, and with other individuals and groups. Digital thinkers want to know more about customers and their online lives - their social interactions with others, and their needs, desires, habits and motivations. Starting from this 'outward focused' perspective will open up transformational opportunities for a business to innovate and do things differently. Rather than focusing solely on 'here and now' business issues, digital thinking takes a much broader, more constructive view of creating positive outcomes rather than just outputs.

Can you afford not to think digitally?

The need to be digital touches every kind of business, large and small. The commercial landscape is undergoing fundamental transformation across every industry sector. In recent years we've seen many high-profile examples of large international brands vanish, seemingly without warning. Frequently, it's because of their reluctance – or refusal – to think digitally. Miss or delay the opportunity to centre all your operations around the experience of employees, consumers and users... and get ready to fail.

Aligning your business mindset
Aligning the team and collaborating openly is crucial to building a digital-first culture in your market.

Here are some important pointers to help your team focus on what matters:

1. Digital thinkers and doers look outward first.

2. They understand that focusing on the consumer/customer allows them to explore new ideas and processes.

3. They always keep an open mind... and an eye on the future.

4. They think about people, their needs and motivations.

5. They measure, build insights and understand the value of data.

6. They take account of all viewpoints and look for evidence.

7. They understand that communication and collaboration is vital.

8. They want to build a culture where opportunities can be realised.

Take it to the next level

We've identified five natural levels of digital maturity, with Level 1 ('Producers') being the least mature and Level 5 ('Visionaries') employing the most mature practices. To evaluate the digital maturity of a business, we survey these five key topics:

Strategy
To what level are we focusing on digital initiatives to transform our business and increase our competitive advantage? Is this approach woven into our overall business strategy?

Consumer (Users)
As an organisation, are we delivering an experience that makes consumers/customers view us as their digital partner to share intelligence and resources? And are we using their preferred channels effectively to interact with them, both off- and online?

Culture & Organisation
Is there a true 'digital first' culture in our organisation? To what level are we using digital thinking and methods to drive innovation and progress?

Operations
How effectively are we using digital technologies to get things done, to support strategic management, and to make the business more effective and efficient?

Technology
How well do we create, process, store, secure and exchange data to meet the needs of our business – and of our customers and other parties?

Benchmarking these topics across several data points provides a digital maturity level for the business.

Transforming challenges into opportunities

Levelling up as an organisation requires everyone to work together. The first step in making this happen is to benchmark where the organisation is right now, and then plot a path towards where it needs to be as a business.

Here are a few more tips to help you as you move forward:

1. Keep learning: The digital landscape changes rapidly. Keep up with the latest trends, tools, and techniques.

2. Embrace change: Be ready to pivot and adapt as needed. Digital maturity means being agile and responsive.

3. Collaborate and communicate: Share knowledge, ideas, and insights across your team and wider organisation. Remember, we're stronger together.

4. Celebrate successes: Recognise achievements, both big and small, to keep morale high and motivate your team.

Your journey towards digital maturity has the potential to transform your organisation in ways you can only imagine right now. Embrace the journey, and you'll be amazed at where it can take you.

Remember, the future is digital. It's not a matter of if your organisation will need to adapt, but when. The sooner you embrace digital thinking and begin your journey towards digital maturity, the better positioned you'll be to thrive in the digital age.

So, are you ready to take the next step towards digital maturity? Your journey starts now.