What is digital maturity?
Digital maturity refers to a company's ability to leverage digital technologies and capabilities to transform its business processes and operations, drive growth and innovation, and enhance customer experiences. In addition, it measures the organisation's digital readiness, agility, and effectiveness in performing its digital strategy.
Let us explore the role of digital maturity through a simple example: imagine you are setting up your smart home.
When deciding on functions and devices a smart home needs, you come across the question: what is better? Will adding more sensors, detectors, automated systems and solutions, or just installing the things that actually make your life easier? There may be exceptions, but most people would choose the latter.
The same applies to digital transformation. There is no need to introduce everything immediately just because it is trendy, smart, or has worked for someone else. The key criterion should not be the technology itself, but the value that it brings to the company and its customers. Unfortunately, in digital transformation, it is a common practice to introduce as many advanced solutions as possible before the ‘foundations or walls of the house’ are even built.
How to measure digital maturity?
Before you can foster digital maturity, you need to understand where your organisation actually stands. A digital maturity assessment model is one of the most reliable ways to do that. The model evaluates an organisation's digital capabilities and helps set an appropriate improvement plan.
The digital maturity assessment model covers the following key areas:
- Strategy and implementation.
- Channels, their purpose and compatibility.
- Technology, tools, and integrations.
- Usability and ease of use.
- Data analytics, and monitoring.
- Personalisation, optimisation, and automation.
The digital maturity assessment shows an organisation's actual maturity level, allowing it to take a more strategic approach to digital transformation and improve competitiveness. Moreover, it provides valuable insights into existing digital capabilities' strengths and weaknesses, benchmarks against peers, identifies new growth opportunities, and sets an action plan to enhance the customer experience and increase efficiency.
At Baltic Amadeus, we conduct digital maturity assessments tailored to each client's industry, size, and strategic goals, helping businesses move from assessment to action with confidence.
What are the main levels of digital maturity?
Depending on the breadth, depth, and, most importantly, proficiency with which an organisation has mastered its digital capabilities in these areas, we can identify five primary levels of maturity.
- Emerging. The lowest level of maturity applies to businesses that are just starting their digital journey or have been stuck in one place for a long time. Their digital channels are mostly limited to their website and email system.
- Basic. A little higher are organisations that have an e-shop or self-service portal but are slow to exploit other digital opportunities.
- Established. Businesses that deliver a seamless digital experience by using digital opportunities, heavily investing in technologies, and systematically striving to improve the user experience. These businesses have usually implemented the multichannel concept. Yet their customer experience has not reached the highest level because their channels focus on the business process rather than the user.
- Optimised. Organisations that effectively execute the omnichannel concept can deliver an immersive, optimised digital experience. They masterfully manage and coordinate channels to ensure strong customer connections and leverage technologies to drive business growth and greater efficiency.
- Advanced. Exceptional digital experiences are delivered by innovative organisations that have created new business models and managed new ecosystems. In many cases, the global market is also open to these businesses.
Of course, this is a universal model. There are many different trajectories of maturity or even targeted strategies focused on the depth of one or several competencies. For example, depending on the industry, competitive environment, and business model, an organisation may focus less on the development and usability of its digital channels and more on data analytics, and personalisation.
Developing a company's digital experience unsystematically can lead to low or slow returns on IT investments, stagnant business growth, and poor customer satisfaction. Therefore, thinking holistically, evaluating alternatives, and justifying your priorities are vital to successfully implementing digital experience initiatives.
Why is digital maturity so crucial for companies?
Reaching a high level of digital maturity is essential for organisations seeking to prosper and maintain a competitive edge in the digital economy. It also plays a vital role in enabling successful digital transformation and delivering various advantages.
Global research confirms the importance of high-level digital maturity in enabling better customer experience. For instance, Deloitte experts estimate that organisations with a strong focus on customer experience achieve 60% higher profits than competitors who do not.
Focusing on customers, their needs, and their experience shopping or using a company's services delivers actual financial returns. For example, McKinsey's research shows that the top 10% of digitised enterprises capture as much as 80% of their industry's digital revenue. These benefits can range from cost optimisation to increasing customer loyalty.
As you progress towards digitisation, it is essential to clearly understand the current situation and your future aspirations. You can get to where you want to be by having a good idea of where you are.
Simply having high digital maturity levels does not guarantee a successful digital transformation. It is essential to have a comprehensive digital transformation strategy that enables making difficult choices regarding interpreting customer trends and generating value. A strategy is vital – no digital maturity model or tool can dictate where a business should invest, how to read customer trends, create value, or allocate resources.
How Baltic Amadeus can help
Baltic Amadeus is a leading IT services and digital transformation partner with decades of experience helping organisations across the Baltic region and beyond. Whether you are at the Emerging stage or ready to unlock Advanced-level capabilities, our team of experts can guide you through a structured digital maturity assessment and build a clear roadmap to your goals.
Ready to find out where your organisation stands on the digital maturity curve? Contact Baltic Amadeus team today to start your assessment.
