Mapping out the maturity within digital transformation/ industry 4.0 at a consultancy firm’s customers and prospects on a European level

Abstract

Exponential growth of technological possibilities has changed the way organisations operate and build relationships with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders (Matarazzo et al., 2021). If organisations wish to stay competitive in the long run, they should adopt digital transformation capabilities to achieve operational excellence, improve customer relationships and optimise their business models (Guo & Xu, 2021). To create value for customers, prospects and 9altitudes, a research was designed to assess how mature European organisations in the manufacturing and supply chain industry are in the field of digital transformation. These insights are to be used for two purposes: a magazine and an online benchmarking tool. Based on this information, the following two research questions were put forward: “How mature are European Manufacturing & Supply chain companies in the field of digital transformation?” “How can digital maturity be measured in order to develop a benchmarking tool?” The conducted research consisted of secondary and primary market research. As secondary market research, a thorough desk research was completed in order to properly draft the primary market research. The aim of the desk research was to create a deep understanding of digital transformation within the manufacturing and supply chain industry. Secondly, different ways of measuring digital maturity were compared. The Spider Chart, which is based on the three domains Strategy, Organisational readiness and Technology (with each three subdomains), was chosen as the measurement model for this research. Thirdly, a clear segmentation for the primary market research was drawn out based on several buyer personas. The primary market research focused on people on decision-making level, active in a European organisation in the manufacturing or supply chain industry. For this, there was a specific focus on the countries were 9altitudes is active: Belgium, Denmark, France, The Netherlands and Slovenia. For the primary market research, a mixed-method approach was used combining qualitative and quantitative market research. Based on the desk research, a questionnaire was developed for in-depth interviews. After three pilot interviews, the final questionnaires for either the interviews and the online survey were created. Customers of 9altitudes were contacted to participate via the sales team and/or recieved an email that was sent out through the CRM system. Prospects were gathered through our own network and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. As an incentive, participants were promised the general research findings, personalised feedback and the chance to win a balloon flight (linked with the 9altitudes “reach new heights” baseline). An overall average digital maturity score of 3,15 out of five was found. This score was calculated based on the average of the three domains of the spider chart: Strategy, Organisational readiness and Technology. For Strategy, an average maturity score of 3,4 out of five was found which was determined by looking at three subdomains: customer obsession, sustainability and business trends. When asked about the strategy in the interviews, a lot of the companies indicated that they are moving forward with a strategy to implement digital transformation. Companies that do not have a good strategy for digital transformation are not able to see the bigger picture. Customer-obsessed organisations use data to respond to the needs of their customers, look at the bigger picture and focus on new and innovative ways to satisfy their customers (Heydenrych et al., 2020). To achieve this, it is important to use tools such as buyer journeys and personas (Halb & Seebacher, 2021). While most companies stated to know their customers’ pain points, less than half implemented these tools. This can indicate that organisations overestimate themselves. In addition, not enough companies actually measure customer satisfaction and the evolution they make over time. A second part of the Strategy that was researched is sustainability, which has evolved to a strategic business requirement according to van Herzelde & Vervecken (2022). Despite the importance, only half of the organisations indicate to consider it as a vital part of their strategy. These organisations are resetting their sustainability goals to improve their supply chain, waste management and overall efficiency. Business trends are the last subdomain of the strategy, which most of the companies pay attention to. A second domain on which digital maturity was measured is Organisational readiness. Evaluating the three subdomains change management, ‘one team, one dream, one goal’ and project-based way of working, results in an average maturity score of 3,3 out of five. Overall, only one third of interviewed companies stated to be completely ready and open for change. Only half of the organisations are using specific change management methodologies for this, while people are the key part of a successful strategy (Claes, 2020). The other half manages change in different ways or do not know how they approach this. These results indicate that some organisations might have difficulties implementing digital transformation and could integrate change management into their daily operations to improve performances. Besides, only half of the companies claim their employees understand the values and the mission of the organisation which are translated into behavioural do’s and don'ts on which people are managed. When asked about the last subdomain, half of the respondents can move quickly and easily in reaction to a changing environment, which is in line with the number of companies implementing change management. This agility empowers organisations to implement digital transformation. Technology is the last domain on which the digital maturity was measured, with the lowest average score of 2,8 out of five. The three subdomains are technology embed innovation, IT architecture and scenarios for the future. A One-Way ANOVA indicated that large enterprises score higher on technology than small enterprises with less than 20 employees. When asked about technologies, organisations allocate high importance to cyber security, RPA and Big data. These are interesting trends for 9altitudes to provide more information about. Both the online survey and the interviews indicate that scenario thinking is not widely implemented. However, companies who think in scenarios for the future, are more able to proactively anticipate on the latest trends and stay digitally agile. Based on data, companies can be proactive instead of reactive. The ultimate goal is to use data to enable scenario thinking so that long-term plans can be made with more flexibility (Viaene, 2020). The fact that not a lot of companies implement scenarios, indicates that there is room for improvement. Most companies indicated people, company characteristics and limited resources as the biggest obstacles when implementing digital transformation. However, qualitative interviews showed that companies are well aware of the importance of digital transformation to stay competitive and improve business performance. The average maturity score of 3,15 out of five is rather high, but there is still a lot of room for improvement, certainly in the domain of Technology. A clear questionnaire was developed considering all nine subdomains of the spider chart. This questionnaire can be used as input for the benchmarking tool on the website of 9altitudes. The answered research questions provided 9altitudes with content to create a magazine and a measurement design to develop the final benchmarking tool for the website. Through these two initiatives customers and prospects of 9altitudes are able to benchmark themselves against their peers. It has been proven that organisations with a high level of digital maturity perform better on revenue growth, time to market, cost efficiency, product quality and customer satisfaction (BCG, n.d.-a). Having up-to-date information about their organisations’ performance allows customers and prospects of 9altitudes to shape their digital transformation journey in order to stay competitive and improve performances. It can be concluded that by launching these two initiatives, customer loyalty and an opportunity to generate leads due to insightful customer and prospect interactions are strengthened.