How can my organisation become digitally mature?

How can my organisation become digitally mature?

At Hart Square, we have the privilege of working with a range of different organisations right across the non-profit sector. Recently many of them have been placing a strong emphasis on improving their digital capabilities and their all-round use of technology.

Against this backdrop, one question arises regularly: how do organisations become ‘digitally mature’ or a ‘digital first’ organisation?

Understanding what being digitally mature means can be a challenging first question, and it will mean different things for different organisations.

McKinsey Consulting, in their article “What Does Digital Mean” defined it as:

Digital is less a thing and more a way of doing things

So how can your organisation develop its level of digital maturity and reach a place where you’re happy with your way of doing things? There are several elements which an organisation should consider, and we will analyse a couple below.

Critical factors in this are the culture and skills within the organisation.

In a digitally mature organisation, there needs to be a focus on developing people’s skills, allowing experimentation to take place and creating a culture that values the learnings that come from failure. Of course, skillset is an important aspect but equally important is the culture of your organisation. Conditions need to facilitate new ways of working and giving people the tools they need to push the organisation forward.

This is acknowledged in the 2019 Charity Digital Skills report by Zoe Amar, where 56% of charities are asserted to be taking active steps to improve their culture so digital can flourish.

Customer experience and understanding your audiences are other important factors.

This does not necessarily mean you should just have the latest digital ‘fad’ but instead understand how and where your audiences are engaging. To ensure you can continue to respond to your customers’ needs, you need to put the right infrastructure and processes in place to implement a continuous cycle of development which evolves over time.

Each organisation will have their own way of judging if they are ‘digitally mature’ but in a rapidly changing digital ecosphere the goal posts will continue to move.

That is why its more critical than ever to put in place the right processes, people and infrastructure that will allow your organisation to flourish and evolve. If your organisation can do things in the right way, it will be more than capable of reaching and sustaining the digital maturity you desire.