Digital Maturity Explained
On a very basic "surface-level", digital maturity could be seen as the ability of an organization to respond and adapt to, or create, technological developments and disruptions that change the way things are done. A company that is considered digitally mature learns how to respond appropriately to the emerging digital competitive environment, whether it leading change itself, or has no control over them at all.
Great examples of companies successfully adapting or leading change in the digital sphere of their industry, include giants like Nike, Ikea and Lego to name a few.
The Nike Case
Nike has many amazing projects in digitization, proving their amazing maturity. Among others, they have created a mobile application that helps choose the best type of shoe based on a foot scan. By scanning the feet, the application creates a map of them based on 13 data points. Data collected from scans are also used to create better shoes going forward, making it a win-win for Nike and its customers.
Another important project of the company is the NIKE + program, which rewards the most active loyalty program members, using a lot of personalization features to create even better customer relations. The NIKE SNKRS application has also been successful, using storytelling to build engagement and increase sales.
Even more impressive, the company's digital approach has led to the modernization of internal operations. By digitizing more than 6,000 footwear materials, company design teams can work faster and more efficiently. This directly affects the speed of response to market needs as well as product development and time to market.
While a large number of market forces are driving the need to become digital, many companies are just embarking on complex digital transformation journeys - encompassing all aspects of their business - to redefine how they operate.
The Nike case proves a certain point in the importance of the level of digital maturity in all its differents components. Deloitte did an amazing job in 2018, breaking the components down into five core dimensions: Customer, Strategy, Technology, Operations and Organization & Culture. As the image below shows, they had these dimensions divided into sub-dimensions, providing a more holistic view in assessing digital maturity.
Source: Deloitte, Digital Maturity Model - February 2018
Transformation vs. Maturity
While digital transformation is primarily reactive, digital maturity focuses on businesses being proactive. A digitally maturing business is one that achieves success by being truly customer centric, focusing on cultural change, providing the right setting and tools for constant digital innovation and implementing a value-based approach to recruitment.
If successful in increasing your digital maturity, you will have a better foundation to stand on starting your digital transformation.
"Digital transformation is not just about implementing more and better technologies. It involves aligning culture, people, structure and tasks."
Where are you right now?
Before jumping into your next digital project - aiming to transform your business, process or culture - Take a moment to see where you are and assess. The above model from Deloitte can be used in each phase of digital transformation to help identify where there are gaps, establish key areas to focus on, and where to start.
To simplify we've made our own example below, where you can try and fit your organization into the bigger picture. And if you need any assistance, let us know and we'd be happy to help guide you!
Source: Roaring, Digital Maturity, 2021
