While the country is beginning to reopen after the destructive impact of Covid-19, the pandemic has led many companies to assess how they will manage their organizations after all this has passed.
Today, most companies have adopted at least some level of digital transformation. To succeed, however, you need to achieve digital maturity.
Technologies are revolutionizing the world. And that doesn't just mean that the future as we're used to imagining it may be closer than ever.
Read also
- Gastronomy and Culture: A Meeting That Transcends Tastes
- Nationalvox is honored by ALESC for its 20 years of innovation in digital marketing
- NVX 20 years: A history of innovation, partnership and success in digital
- Digital Transformation in Cuiabá Companies: Benefits and Challenges
- Social media trends for 2024: platforms that are shaping digital marketing
For people and companies who want to become relevant in this era of digital revolution, technologies create a new environment in which you need to learn and rethink the way to add value to your business.
Today's market is a race accelerated by digital maturity, digital transformation and digital adoption.
And the reason is simple: digital technology gives enormous competitive advantages.
In this context, a new concept called digital maturity was developed some years ago and has been actively discussed in different business models.
Before anything else you have to understand: the company that is in full digital maturity is more than just a user of technology. Everything she develops and employs in new resources every day must take innovation as a priority.
That word “innovation” it is of extreme value and uses in a broad way to compete in the market with other organizations in the same sector, ensuring its differentiation.
Digital maturity goes hand in hand with digital transformation. As businesses start to have access to new technologies, for example Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, is the way they seek in this technology the solutions to problems, which make them digital.
In this article, I will try to explain digital maturity in a simple way, so you can find out if it's something your company or business really needs or just a new word of fashion, that everyone will soon forget.
What is digital maturity ?
If you search for “digital maturity” on Google, you will find many definitions that sometimes cover different scopes, or they mean opposite things.
Many think that to be digitally mature, a company only needs to invest in new technologies.
Others, in the middle of 2020, still insist that there are no digitally mature companies nowadays, so that point still remains inaccessible while some businesses are just crawling.
It is difficult to find a modern organization that does not acquire some digital tools and services from time to time. But that doesn't mean that almost all companies are digitally mature.
Many still invest in software development only when it is the only option or because certain processes can no longer work without specific applications.
However, there are companies that show a truly impressive level of awareness in terms of attitude towards digitisation.
The search “Digital Transformation in Brazil 2019“, led by E-Consulting in partnership with the Standard Intelligence Center, he outlined an overview of the impact of digital transformation on large companies.
To measure digital maturity, the study developed a ruler that shows the rhythm of this transformation. Among the most mature are Google, Apple, Uber, 99, Amazon and Netflix. Check out the 50+ ranking here.
The journey of digital maturity
Believe me, the journey to digital maturity is long, but feasible. In particular, to be considered digitally mature, an organization needs to meet some requirements:
- Understanding the value of innovations and having a technology-centric culture
- Having a digital transformation strategy and being ready to invest in its practical implementation
- To be data-oriented and own an IT ecosystem
- Automation of routine activities: allows human resources to be allocated to more strategic functions within organizations
- Monitoring metrics and KPIs through data analysis software
- Technological transformations are not restricted to the IT sector of the company
- Having an innovation department, responsible for concentrating all the needs of the various areas of the organization and making digital transformation happen in practice
- Digitally mature companies adapt easily to changing scenarios and predict trends through data
Why digital maturity is important:
There are several reasons, but I will quote the most important: higher efficiency, increased revenue, better quality of products and services that your company offers, improved quality.
Of course, there are market forces that make companies adapt and invest in digital, so as not to lose space. Because no matter what your business niche, new players always come out playing the same slices as you.
Companies that were born in this highly digitized era are focused on technology by default.
According to Forbes, 55% of startups have a digital business strategy. That is why traditional companies must understand once and for all: either adopt innovations and remain competitive or go after the most successful rivals.
What are digital maturity levels?
BCG (The Boston Consulting Group), an international consultancy specialized in digital maturity, points out four levels of maturity that a company can achieve. Studies are used as benchmarks for companies to plan their growth plans.
Understand at what level your company can be on the digital maturity scale:
- Born: Marketing campaigns mainly use external data and direct purchases, with limited links to sales.
They have digital presence, such as a website or e-commerce, but they still do not use the data to generate analyses or base decision-making. They usually use third party data in their marketing campaigns for generating new businesses and do not calculate the ROI (return of investment) of your actions.
- Emergent: They make use of their own data in automated actions with optimization and single channel testing. They refine metrics, but do not use data for tactical and strategic decisions. They have a considerable amount of data, but they have no governance over them.
- Connected: Data integrated into tools and activated with links demonstrating to ROI or sales flows. They work with data predictions, through scenarios.
- Multimoment: They use technology to offer unique and personalized experiences, with dynamic multichannel execution. The customer individuality in efficient delivery, allows cost reduction and revenue increase.
How to achieve digital maturity?
I suggest five steps that have already been tested and approved in various business models:
- Evaluate your current digital maturity
Analyze whether you have deliberately and efficiently integrated new technologies into your organization and whether they help achieve business results. Think about what digital tactics you have and whether they're giving you a strategic advantage over competition.
- Get Leadership Adherence
Your company's high-ranking staff must be involved in this process. Digital transformation requires strategic planning and decisions. That's why leaders need to be aligned and looking for results to make it happen.
- Reconsider your organizational structure
We need to ensure that your organization's structure is ready to become digitally more mature. What does that mean? Digitally mature companies are not protected by hierarchies. Exists Multifunctional teams, a lot of collaboration and a high tolerance for risks.
- Develop a digital transformation strategy
It involves looking to the future and determining where digital technologies would have the greatest impact. For example, would implementing Artificial Intelligence increase your customer response capacity? What insights would you get with Marketing BI, Like what?
- Start small
Your biggest chance of success may be in the small projects. Don't try to face something huge when starting a digital transformation. Remember that smaller projects are more manageable. What is important to remember is that the small project should offer lessons on how to handle a larger project. Do not choose a small project for an easy win. Once again here is worth the experiment of testing and testing.
Conclusion
What we can conclude from all this is that digital maturity is not about theorization, but about practical measures to create a balanced and comprehensive digital ecosystem.
This moment of coronavirus crisis has been a hard learning for companies that have not had initiatives to become more digital before, but it is never too late to begin.
Keep in mind, that people's behavior is changing along with technology, so companies cannot expect to re-operate in the same way as before, because when the pandemic passes, customers will have changed.
In this dynamic scenario, digital marketing agencies, with data, experimentation and creativity, can point out possible ways to overcome the crisis and understand the new consumer movements.
Rather than providing services, we can be an important ally in understanding this new normal. Count on NVX to accelerate your business or business' digital maturity.
Talk to me. Here.
Until the next post!
