MODERNIZATION
7 Traits of a Digitally
Mature Company
MODERNIZATION
7 Traits of a Digitally Mature Company
If you want your company to succeed in today’s digital-first economy, the single-most-important thing you can do is to help your company begin its journey towards becoming digitally mature.
What Is Digital Maturity?
Digital maturity measures a company’s ability to create value through the use of digital technology. It has absolutely nothing to do with how much technology a company has at its disposal or how much money it spent in buying that technology. Think of it this way: If a company has spent thousands of dollars on new technology, yet their employees don’t use it because it’s too complicated, you can’t really consider that company as digitally mature.
So, what exactly does a digitally mature company look like? How does it function differently from those companies that might be struggling on their journey towards digital maturity or, worse, those that haven’t even started yet? While all companies will certainly vary in terms of size, industry, and business objectives, by and large, the majority of digitally mature organizations possess the following seven traits:
1. Digital Business Strategy & Execution
In short, the company is a well-oiled, digital maturity machine. All of the company’s data and business processes are seamlessly connected across all of its silos via a carefully-considered, well-communicated business strategy and execution plan. Every person in the company knows why the decision was made to make digital maturity a corporate imperative and, more specifically, the role they will play in helping the company achieve its goal.
2. Customer Experience Management
Digital maturity allows the company to see everything with new eyes and what it sees with those new eyes is possibilities. The company works with its clients in completely new and unexpected ways, both through new channels and new digital products and services. Digital maturity has also inspired team members to not only bring more ideas to the table but to develop those ideas faster.
3. Information Assets
Before beginning its journey towards digital maturity, the company yielded a tremendous amount of data, as well as the associated analytics-driven insights that went with that data. Unfortunately, the data was never utilized to its fullest potential. Now, that data is a whole lot more than just spreadsheets full of numbers. Thanks to now being a digitally mature organization, that data is now an information asset that’s not only being sold to clients but is a major contributor to the company’s overall financial success.
4. Business Model Agility
The idea behind digital maturity is to place companies in a better position to anticipate and adapt to change. It seems that our company is going through some change of its own. In fact, the company’s business model is now constantly morphing and developing at a pace that is not only ahead of external changes in the marketplace, but ahead of traditional and non-traditional competitors, as well.
5. Innovation Culture
Digital maturity has woven its way into the very fabric of the organization; everyone has bought into it. So much so, that the company doesn’t just have a burgeoning culture of innovation internally but externally, as well. The company now innovates with outside partners as well, and with competition at unprecedented levels, the importance of these alliances has never been greater.
6. Digital Leadership
Culture is the biggest barrier to digital business success. So, it’s safe to say that if corporate leadership didn’t buy into digital maturity and embrace it to the degree that it has, they would not be experiencing the success that they currently are. After all, breaking down silos and driving cultural change requires a very different approach and mindset to leadership. Fortunately, the leaders of the company have not only gone all-in on digital maturity but have taken the time and made the effort to evangelize it consistently and completely throughout the organization.
7. Digital Workplace
Striving for digital maturity has empowered the company to reinvent itself into a true “digital workplace” so it can better thrive in the digital economy. Doing this hasn’t just been good news for the company’s bottom line but also for its employees. Team members have discovered new, more effective ways of working that not only raise employee engagement and agility but better align with consumer-oriented styles and technologies.
Digital Maturity: Priority 1
You don’t put “Strive for digital maturity” on your corporate “to do” list and get around to doing it when time allows. Transforming your company into a digitally mature organization is as critical to your success as acquiring new customers and selling more products or services. In other words, when it comes to digital maturity you don’t really have a choice.
To continue down the well-worn path of how your company currently operates in the digital world is a path fraught with risk. The good news is that there’s another path. Just keep in mind that this isn’t a sprint but a marathon. Worry not though because when it comes to digital maturity, the journey truly is the destination.
Want to know even more? Get all the details and a step-by-step guide by downloading our latest eBook on this very subject.
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