Digital Maturity is the New Swiss Army Knife for Digital Leaders.

Digital transformation is an exploding powder keg. Everybody is talking about it. Many are working on it, engaging in running or leading such transformation programs. All of this is easier said than done. Satisfying business expectations, balancing investment portfolios, motivating project teams, keeping track with emerging trends and technologies, all at the same time, is not easy. You should have a clear plan, the right capabilities, and your keep your goals and priorities straight.

Powerful executives lead their teams toward a digital vision.

Primarily, you must have a clearly defined and agreed upon vision for your digital transformation. Why do you do all those projects and investments? There must be a clear answer to this question, and preferably all stakeholders should be able to relate to it and understand it.

Measuring your digital maturity, especially the way Digitopia does it, will enable you to reach consensus for your digital vision. You will not only learn your current digital maturity score, additionally you also determine your future targets. The summary of your targets and your priorities are the best input into vision setting and strategy design.

We have unmistakable evidence that companies and executives who have a clear digital vision are five times more likely to succeed with their digital transformation programs. How can you expect anyone following you when the direction is not set? Do not miss this opportunity to get a few steps closer to digital transformation success.

Alignment: Admired leaders empower their teams.

Interestingly, companies and especially executive leadership teams very rarely spent focused time together. Leaders must discuss where they are, where they would like to go, and what it requires to get there. Sometimes you gather for executive off-site meetings, strategy workshops, or quarterly review retreats. But usually, those are more formal reporting and reciprocal informative sessions.

That does not necessarily contribute to team building, nor alignment. While it is obvious that in turbulent circumstances, alignment on every level is super critical. Transformation is complex anyway. With a mis-aligned organisation, it is impossible to succeed. So, do not allow your teams to drift apart.

Digitopia conducts very engaging sessions with your management team in a very structured way. These discussions uncover facts, expectations, disputes, misinformation, and similar, among your teams. Settling these helps to mutually understand each other, empathise with each other, and agree on shared commons. Admired leaders are strong in empowering their teams, which naturally leads to better alignment. This naturally increases your chances of success within your digital transformation journey.

Focus: Change makers know what is important.

At every company we visit we hear related stories about too much workload, insufficient capacity, and ever-changing priorities. Unfortunately, we have further sad news for you. This situation will get even worse. The competition is always getting stiffer, the world is getting more complex, and the consumers are getting more demanding.

So, what is your solution to this? Hiring more people? Spending more money? Putting all demand in your backlog, and then hope they might forget them? The theory of constraints is telling this story in a scientific way. Corporate governance is telling this story from a management practice perspective. Both are insufficient. The true answer is priorities and focus.

A digital maturity assessment study, the report Digitopia will share with you, and the prioritisation workshop will help you define what is most important and focus your initiatives on these priorities, and nowhere else, as much as possible. Remember John Kotter’s A Sense of Urgency: create a guiding coalition and a shared vision that all leads to empowered action. If you truly follow this approach, the likelihood of success will increase ten-fold.

Value: Digital leaders add to their brand value.

We were not aware of this. One CEO told us a year ago. Suddenly, it made perfect sense. Yes, digital maturity adds to your market value. That CEO was incredibly happy with the outcome of their digital maturity assessment. They put it in their annual report and update it every year. It changed the thinking in the company and improved the perception towards digital transformation.

Digital born companies are scaling faster than industrial ones. They are becoming unicorns within a few years. Some of them grow even further and dominate their digital verticals. Why should you not be able to capture additional market value in the digital world? It is possible.

Digital maturity assessments show you where you are, compare you against your peers, and help you prioritise your digital investments. Six sessions of engaging discussions, and one executive presentation will change the way you look at your digital transformation journey. We suggest that it is worthwhile to try it out. All the companies we have come across, continue their relations with Digitopia and see their digital maturity progress over the years, and how it contributes to their brand value.

Act: Doing good is good for your business.

Sustainability is the single most essential trend we must pay attention to. Otherwise, there will be no future for humankind. Digital transformation has huge benefits in terms of climate impact. Saving on travel, no commuting due to work from home, efficiencies in the value chain, in the warehouse, in the factory, and many other advancements help to reach net neutral targets.

Although digital has its own carbon footprint, the benefits of digital platforms and capabilities outweigh the cost by far. All of us should have an awareness, how we can reduce travel, commute, packaging, and waste as much as possible, in all aspects of life.

Measuring digital maturity shows you where you are. If you take carbon neutrality seriously, you will prioritise initiatives having the best possible positive impact. Digitopia experts will help you identify these actions, to agree on a balanced portfolio, advancing you digitally, and reducing your climate impact. Sound compelling? It is.

And many more properties…

When we work with customers, we get a lot of incredibly positive and constructive feedback. We take all feedback profoundly serious and try to improve our service, methodology, underlying platform, and the way we deliver it all. It pays off.

Learning is an especially important side benefit. Learning about digital transformation is happening across six sessions, during the delivery of our DMI assessments. If we consider that our current digital maturity database average is 2,8 on a scale from 1 to 5, this means that there is huge room for improvement. It will take years or even decades to get somewhere close to 5. Listening and learning about the higher digital maturity levels enlightens and educates executives and participants about the possibilities and requirements.

During these sessions, a lot of internal discussions are also taking place. We discover that many participants do not know exactly what is going on in various parts of their companies, and what is already available or not, planned or not, possible, or not. This is priceless, since these discussions usually happen under tense circumstances when the business unit is demanding stuff from the technology or digital teams, and they need to juggle all the incoming requests.

One Tool – Multi-Purpose and Multi-Benefit

If you go camping, you try to optimise your load. The same is true for armies when they go to war. This is how the Swiss Army Knife was invented. One tool with a lot of features and capabilities, small enough to fit in your pocket. That is why it is still beloved and used by many people.

Exactly because of this property we compare the digital maturity assessment with the Swiss Army Knife. You get many benefits with just one exercise.

May the digital forces be with you, but always keep your tool in your pocket.