What's the right digital transformation maturity model for your business?

Are you on the road to digital transformation? In this post, you'll learn how to determine the optimum digital transformation maturity model that’s conducive for you as a business owner. 

The International Data Corporation (IDC) reports that the global investment in digital transformation will top $6.8 trillion between 2020 and 2023. To get the most from this investment, companies need to determine their current level of digital maturity and use that knowledge to build a roadmap for their future. 

Read on to learn more about digital transformation, digital maturity, and understanding your company's current digital maturity model.

Key takeaways

• Pursuing a digital transformation journey is necessary to grow your business and increase revenues and profits

• Use a digital maturity model to determine where your company is on the path to digital transformation 

• There are four key stages in a digital majority business model: Nascent (crawling), Emerging (walking), Connected (running), and Multi-Moment (flying)

• The stage your company is on suggests a roadmap towards further digital maturity and where you can improve your business process

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology to reinvent how a business operates and delivers value to its customers. Successful digital transformation involves all areas of a business and requires a substantial investment not just in technology but also in processes, operations and company culture. 

There are several goals associated with the digital transformation process, including:

• Gaining actionable insights from data and intelligence that determine your digital capabilities

• Improving the customer experience

• Improving the employee experience – and employee productivity

• Increasing revenues and profits

• Growing the business over the long term

Businesses that are further along the digital transformation path – that have a higher level of digital maturity – are more profitable and have higher growth rates than less digitally mature companies. Deloitte reports that of those companies classified as highly digitally mature, 43% see both significantly higher net profit margin and higher net revenue growth.

Image Source: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/digital-transformation/digital-transformation-survey.html

What is a digital transformation maturity model?

To determine how and where you should focus your company's digital transformation efforts you need to know how digitally mature your organization currently is. This is accomplished by examining a digital transformation maturity model, such as the one developed by Google and the Boston Consulting Group. 

The purpose of a digital maturity model is to evaluate your company's current performance and provide a roadmap for your future digital transformation. The more advanced you are within this framework the more efficient and effective your company's digital efforts. 

Google's digital maturity model consists of four primary stages: 

• Nascent, what some call the "crawling" stage, is where the organization is just getting started with digital transformation. In this stage, the company doesn't yet trust relying on data and has difficulty getting different departments to collaborate. 

• Emerging, also known as the "walking" stage. The organization is more comfortable collecting and using quality data, with a focus on improving technology-driven processes and connecting previously siloed departments.

• Connected, often called the "running" stage. In this stage, data transformation is well underway with data-driven business practices integrated across multiple departments and channels. The organization can now connect and use both online and offline data and begin to recognize a measurable benefit from the digital transformation process.

• Multi-Moment, referred to as the "flying" stage. This final stage sees digital transformation focusing on individual customer transactions and business outcomes. The organization can now use data-driven insights to pursue incremental efficiencies across multiple channels and functions.

Image Source: Created by author 

It's important to know that the path to digital maturity is not linear – and not necessarily the same from industry to industry. To reach a higher level of digital maturity, your organization must use digital technology to improve both efficiency and effectiveness.

All organizations strive to reach the Multi-Moment stage – but you're probably not there yet. Identifying where your organization currently lies within this progression is key to determining what you need to do to achieve the next stage in development.

The following video discusses how to achieve greater digital maturity:

How to assess your organization's current stage of digital maturity

The key to assessing your organization's level of digital maturity is to determine your ability to adapt to disrupting technologies, trends and events. A less digitally mature organization reacts slowly to major occurrences and has difficulty adapting to them. A more digitally mature organization is more aware of the marketplace, can react quicker to major events, and is more flexible in adapting to them. 

To determine which stage of digital maturity your business is in, consider the following questions:

• Do your digital marketing campaigns drive significant business growth?

• Do you view customer behavior and engagement across multiple channels?

• Are your functional teams – marketing, sales, and service teams – aligned with your customer data?

• Do your digital marketing activities provide a real strategic advantage over the competition?

• Does your organization easily and decisively integrate new technologies?

• Do you achieve significant business results from integrating new technologies?

• Are new technologies aligned with your key performance indicators?

• Do you regularly evaluate the impact of new technologies?

• Is your team comfortable with altering strategies and tactics based on evolving business intelligence?

The more questions you can answer with a resounding yes, the more advanced your progression in the digital transformation maturity model. You should know, however, that progress will be gradual; digital maturity doesn't happen in a single step. Your initiation of digital transformation can and should start small, by focusing on one area of your business, mastering that transformation, and then progressing step-by-step to related areas. 

The bottom line

Digital transformation is essential to the continued success of your business. Since technology is constantly changing, however, you may never achieve perfect digital maturity. As each day passes, your business will be in a constant state of digital transformation – but always further along the path to digital maturity than you were the day before. 

Let Optimizely help you choose the right digital transformation maturity model for your business

Optimizely helps you determine your organization's current level of digital maturity and points the way towards true digital transformation. We'll help you better understand your company's current capabilities, benchmark your company against competitors, and determine the right path forward. Get started by taking our Digital Maturity Assessment – it will only take about 10 minutes of your time. Based on those results, we'll work with you to develop a step-by-step plan to achieve digital maturity – and unlock your organization's true digital potential.

Learn more about digital transformation maturity models – download Optimizely's Digital Maturity Model Report today!