A digital maturity assessment framework for businesses

Why an assessment framework?

Businesses' digital transformation needs are often expressed as a request for software: accounting software, a customer tracking tool or an online sales channel. Yet the same request can correspond to very different needs in two different businesses. In one, the real problem is scattered records; in the other, it is that employees cannot use existing tools efficiently. The current situation of the business should therefore be established with a consistent method before moving on to software selection.

This study sets out a digital maturity assessment framework developed jointly by the Research and Strategy Directorate and the Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence Directorate. The framework aims to enable businesses of different sectors and sizes to be assessed against the same criteria, to make results comparable, and to link the assessment directly to a transformation roadmap.

Assessment dimensions

The framework addresses a business's digital capacity in six complementary dimensions. The dimensions correspond to the core areas that determine whether digital tools create benefit in a business's daily operations:

• Processes: The extent to which core workflows are defined, repeatable and recorded
• Data: The extent to which customer, inventory, order and financial data are held once, kept up to date and accessible
• Tools and integration: The suitability of the digital tools in use for the work, and data transfer between tools
• Skills: Employees' capacity to use tools, solve problems and adapt to new tools
• Customer interaction: The use of digital channels to manage the customer relationship from quotation to after-sales
• Information security and continuity: Practices relating to access rights, backup and the protection of personal data

In defining the dimensions, the core benefits that SMEs expect from digital tools were taken as the basis: doing work with fewer errors and in less time, accessing information when it is needed and managing customer relationships in an orderly way. Information security and continuity is treated as a separate dimension because it is a precondition for these benefits to continue without interruption.

Maturity levels

Each dimension is assessed at four levels. The levels describe not how much technology a business uses, but the extent to which digital tools contribute to business results:

• Level 1, Initial: Work depends largely on individuals; records are kept on paper, in scattered files or on personal devices.
• Level 2, Basic: Digital tools are used for the main tasks, but the tools are disconnected and the same data is entered in more than one place.
• Level 3, Integrated: Core processes are defined; data is transferred between tools and management decisions are based on regular reports.
• Level 4, Advancing: The business regularly monitors process and data indicators, and identifies and implements improvement opportunities on the basis of these indicators.

Although the levels form a sequence, not every business needs to aim for the highest level in every dimension. The target level is set separately for each dimension according to the business's size, sector and strategic priorities. Moving from one level to the next is defined by meeting the decisive indicators of the next level, not all of its indicators. This approach prevents the assessment from becoming a rigid checklist and allows the business's circumstances to be taken into account.

Indicators and method of application

Each dimension and level is defined through observable indicators. Indicators are chosen so that they rely not only on the manager's statements but on an examination of workflows and documents. In the data dimension, for example, the assessor looks at how many different sources a customer's order history can be retrieved from, and how long this takes. Sample indicators by dimension are as follows:

• Processes: The share of core processes with a written workflow; how many hands a transaction passes through before it is completed
• Data: In how many different places the same information is held; the time taken to prepare periodic reports
• Tools and integration: The number of manual data transfer steps between tools
• Skills: The share of employees who can use the tools without needing support; the frequency of support requests
• Customer interaction: How quotations and customer requests are recorded, and how quickly they are answered
• Information security and continuity: The regularity of backups and whether restoration from backup has been tested

The assessment is carried out through structured interviews with the manager and process owners, on-site review of sample workflows and examination of existing documents. The assessor records the supporting evidence for each indicator, so that the result can be measured again with the same method in subsequent assessments.

For consistency, each indicator is used together with definitions that explain which situation corresponds to which level. The ability of different assessors to reach similar results for the same business is a fundamental condition of the framework's reliability. To this end, the framework has been designed together with application guidelines for assessors that include sample cases.

The assessment profile and its link to the roadmap

The result of the assessment is not a single total score but a profile that shows the levels of all six dimensions together. A single score hides imbalances between dimensions, yet it is often these imbalances that determine transformation priorities. In a business that is at level three in the tools dimension but remains at level one in the skills dimension, employee support should take priority over a new software investment.

In the Digital Transformation and Productivity Programme, the profile is used as an input to the transformation roadmap. Priority work packages are selected from the weak links in the profile by assessing benefit, cost and ease of implementation together. After a limited pilot, a second assessment using the same framework allows the situation before and after implementation to be compared.

It is also important to interpret the profile together with the business's management. The assessment results are shared in a feedback meeting with the business owner and process owners, and priorities are set in line with the business's own goals and resources. In this way, the roadmap ceases to be a recommendation from outside and becomes a plan owned by the business.

Limitations and areas for development

The framework offers a general structure that can be adapted to different sectors; however, additional indicators may be needed in some sectors. Areas such as machine and production data in manufacturing businesses, or appointment and capacity management in service businesses, can be covered by sector-specific indicators. Assessment results are specific to the business and do not provide a benchmark for the sector as a whole. The assessment also reflects the situation at a given point in time; staff changes, new tools or fluctuations in business volume can change the profile within a short time. The assessment therefore needs to be repeated at intervals throughout the transformation process. The framework's indicators are reviewed periodically in the light of findings from its application and feedback from businesses.