Anderson MacGyver research brings insights into digital transformation progress

European management consulting firm Anderson MacGyver has offered critical support in the development of a new tool that helps organizations measure their progress across key digital transformation capabilities.

The survey tool, which will be available for anyone to use on Anderson MacGyver’s website later this year, is being developed in collaboration with Laura Bröring, a master’s student at the University of Utrecht. Anderson MacGyver has looked to collaborating with universities and young students in their efforts to translate academic research into practical tools that can be used by their clients.

The imperative of digital transformation

Organizations around the world are increasingly recognizing that digital transformation is no longer a choice but a necessity for survival and growth. As technology advances and customer expectations evolve, businesses must adapt or risk becoming obsolete.

Digital transformation is essential for companies that want to improve efficiency, create new revenue streams, foster greater business agility, or – in some cases – to simply remain compliant with new regulations. It empowers organizations to streamline operations, make better use of data, and build stronger, more personalized connections with their customers.

“We see that digital is becoming increasingly important for businesses to create value. We help organizations to harness this value with practical solutions that are grounded in academic research,” said Robbert Petterson, management consultant at Anderson MacGyver.

“To effectively drive a digital transformation, it is important to understand where in the journey you are and what you still need to do. A measurement instrument would therefore be highly valuable. We were happy that Laura Bröring wanted to dive into this topic and based on academic literature and interviews devised a practical measurement instrument that takes the perspective of the organization’s digital transformation capabilities.”

Capabilities of digital transformation

Measuring the progress of digital transformation included various capabilities that the research found to be most important:

• Digital strategy: The ability to align IT and business strategies in order to create a clear vision to drive digital transformation across the entire company.
• Business agility: The ability to adapt and respond swiftly to changes as an organization.
• Top management support: The ability of senior management to provide guidance and support to drive digital transformation efforts.
• Digital ecosystem: The ability of an organization to select, attract, link, and engage a diverse set of network stakeholders like customers, suppliers, and third parties to encourage platform value generation and growth.
• Digital culture: The ability to encourage a business culture that enables change by transforming it into a digital culture.
• Digital skills: The ability to attract, develop and apply digital skills to implement the digital strategy.
• Innovation: The ability to identify, develop, and implement new technologies, products, and/or services.
• Data: The ability to generate insights, make evidence-based decisions, and make predictions using data.
• IT infrastructure: The ability to develop and maintain robust and secure IT systems that supports flexibility, standardization, and operational stability.

Getting digital transformations right

Any time an organization moves to make big changes, it exposes itself to risk. The truth about digital transformations is that the majority end up failing – some estimates put the percentage of failures as high 70%.

The research done in collaboration with Laura Bröring shows that to succeed in their digital transformation, organizations need to focus on more than just the technology itself. Other capabilities – like skills, culture, strategy, and more – need equal attention as well.

“One interesting insight of Laura’s study was that digital leaders are often familiar with the digital capabilities in their organization, but they often struggle to engage other senior executives with the topic of digital transformation, its importance, and its implications,” added Petterson.

“An instrument that measures digital transformation capabilities may therefore facilitate discussions with senior peers and board members and helps to create a common understanding.”

And while many different digital transformation initiatives will have general criteria in common, context of an organization’s specific industry or business ecosystem can impact the progress as well.

In order to account for this, the tool that Anderson MacGyver will launch on its website is designed to ask about the external factors that drive the need for digital transformation, like changing customer behavior, a changing competitive landscape, or new regulatory requirements.

The consulting firm is looking to use the survey tool to measure strategic decisions organizations make with regards to their digital agendas.

“Besides measuring the digital transformation journey and contextual questions, we also include questions with regards to strategic investment decisions,” says Petterson.

“Respondents who have filled in the survey will get a link to a portal where their results can be visualized. The scores of all other participating companies (of course anonymized) will also be shown. In the future, we want to offer extra insights in this portal.”