How to assess your organization's digital maturity?
Digital transformation has become an imperative for companies seeking to remain competitive in an ever-changing world. But how do you assess your level of readiness? That's where the notion of digital maturity comes in.
What is Digital Maturity?
Digital maturity represents an organization's ability to respond appropriately to the emerging digital competitive environment. In other words, it's your ability to fully integrate digital technologies throughout your business and operations.
Why measure your digital maturity ?
Financial performance
The most digitally mature companies outperform their competitors. They generate more revenue per employee and are better valued on financial markets. Measuring your digital maturity enables you to identify areas for improvement to maximize your profitability.
Differentiation and innovation
Using data to differentiate yourself from the competition is essential. Data-driven use cases need to be deployed, and the information gathered exploited to identify disruptive players and take preventive action. A case in point is uberization, where a player integrates itself into your value chain by capturing customer data, and in the process takes part of your added value.
Corporate culture
Digital maturity must be anchored in your company's culture. It must be a structuring element, supported by ethical rules on the use and exploitation of data. The decompartmentalization of professions and the implementation of mixed IT - Data - Business organizations also favor this transformation.
How can you measure your company's digital maturity?
One approach is to complete a forms covering 6 themes:
Business Models
For example, how are data used to generate new business? Is there a real-time approach to data processing?
Customer, partner and ecosystem knowledge
Identification of customers and partners, 360° view of customers, exploitation of product data, competitor monitoring, use of IoT, social network intelligence: these are just a few examples of the points assessed in this theme.
Transversality & Operational efficiency
Points covered include: recognizing data as a strategic asset, using data to improve quality and processes, managing data skills.
Data Strategy & Governance
Topics covered include, for example, the use of data in real time for value-added business use cases, decompartmentalization between company teams: business IT DATA, API portals enabling data to be made available internally, formalization of data quality expectations, consideration of legal and regulatory constraints.
Ethics & Compliance
The evaluation will concern, for this theme, the formalization of ethical rules for data use, the consideration as an opportunity of the ethical aspects of data use, the localization of data to comply with regulations (RGPD).
Tools & Solutions
Topics covered in this theme include the tools used to share and make data available, real-time data capture tools, interoperability, and the implementation of big data tools and architectures.
For each of these themes, a series of questions will help you assess your level of maturity. These questions will, of course, need to be adapted according to the activity and size of the organization.
Because of the specific skills required to tackle these different points, you will also need to ensure that you have the right people in your organization, or that you call on external expertise. data as a strategic asset, using data to improve quality and processes, managing data skills.
The assessment methodology can be divided into several stages
1. Stakeholder identification: Identify the key people in your company who will be involved in the assessment process.
2. Data collection: Distribute the questionnaire to the identified stakeholders and collect their responses.
3. Analyze results: Use the questionnaire responses to assess your company's digital maturity in each area.
4. Interpretation of results: Compare the results with established digital maturity standards and identify areas where your company can improve its performance, and deduce the action plan to implement.
The benefits of calling in an outside consultant
Calling in an external consultant to assess your company's digital maturity can offer a number of advantages:
- Expertise and objectivity: External consultants often have specific expertise in the field of digital maturity, and can provide an objective assessment of your company's situation.
- Outside perspective: External consultants can bring an outside perspective to your company, which can help you identify opportunities and threats you might not otherwise have seen.
- Skills and resources: External consultants often have access to specific skills and resources that can help you implement your action plan, including assessment tools, training and advice on data governance.
- Reducing risks and identifying opportunities: Bringing in an external consultant can help you reduce the risks associated with digital transformation, by helping you to identify and control them. Similarly, it can help you realize the opportunities generated by digital transformation.
In short, assessing your company's digital maturity is an essential process for staying competitive in a constantly changing world. The assessment methodology can be structured around six key themes, and the results of the assessment can be used to develop an action plan. Using an external consultant can also offer a number of advantages, such as expertise, outside perspective, skills and resources, and risk reduction.