Blog: Digital Maturity
Unlocking business success with technology: A guide to digital maturity for UK SMBs
This invaluable article provides information to unlock success for your business in the digital age. Read about how to thrive in today’s market and take your business to the next level with this essential guide.
What is digital maturity?
Digital maturity is the ability of an organisation to use digital technologies to its advantage. It is a measure of how well an organisation can adopt, adapt, and use digital technologies to improve its business processes, operations, and customer experience. Assessing the right technologies to use underpins the success of a strategy for digital maturity by helping to create, process, store, secure and exchange data to meet the needs of customers that can be at a lower cost and overhead.
Why digital maturity is important to UK businesses?
In today’s digital age, digital maturity is essential for UK businesses. The digital landscape is constantly evolving, and businesses that are not digitally mature are at a competitive disadvantage. Some of the business benefits of becoming a digitally mature business are:
Improve customer experience:
Digital technologies can be used to improve the customer experience in a few ways, such as by providing self-service options, offering personalised recommendations, and making it easier for customers to contact customer support.
Increase productivity:
Digital platforms, applications and services can be used to automate tasks, improve efficiency, and free up employees to focus on more important work. This can lead to increased productivity and profitability.
Reduce costs:
Building an integrated system of appropriate digital technologies can streamline operations, reduce waste, and save money.
Grow market share:
Using digital technologies innovatively and proactively can help an organisation reach new customers, expand into new markets, and grow the business.
How to assess where your business is on the path to digital maturity?
There are a few ways to assess where your business is on the path to digital maturity. One way is to use a digital maturity assessment tool. These tools can help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses in terms of digital maturity and provide recommendations for improvement.
Another way to assess your digital maturity is to compare your business to other businesses in your industry. This can be done by looking at industry reports, benchmarking studies, and other sources of information.
Choosing and working with the right managed IT support partner
Once you have assessed your digital maturity, you may need to consider working with a managed IT support partner. A managed IT support partner can help you to implement and manage the IT solutions that you need to improve your digital maturity.
When choosing a managed IT support partner, it is important to find a partner that has experience working with businesses in your industry. You should also make sure that the partner has a good understanding of your business needs and goals.
What can digital maturity improve for your business operations and success?
Digital maturity can improve a few aspects of your business operations and success. These include:
Customer experience:
As mentioned above, digital technologies can be used to improve the customer experience in a few ways. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.
Productivity:
Exploiting the underlining power and purpose of digital technologies to automate admin-heavy tasks, and improve efficiency in development and production – freeing up employees to focus on more important work. Delivering a measurable increase in productivity and profitability.
Costs:
Using digital technologies in ways that are suitable for your needs and future success can streamline operations, reduce waste, and save money. Leading to increased profits and an improved cash flow.
Growth:
Harnessing the data and analytical capabilities of digital technologies can be used to better understand your market, and opportunities and show new avenues in which you can reach new customers, and expand into new markets to grow the business.
“According to Accenture, 90% of companies will take assistance from third-party service providers to help them with at least one element of business digitisation.”
Raconteur, April 2023
How outsourcing can change your business for the better
Common barriers to digital maturity
Small to medium businesses in the UK can find there are a few common barriers to digital maturity.
Lack of resources:
Some small to medium businesses may not have the IT resources to invest in digital transformation, such as time, money, or people.
No active support from leadership:
It can be challenging for small businesses to gain support from their leadership team for the time, effort and budget required to create and implement a plan for digital transformation.
Limited specialist knowledge:
Small businesses with fewer than 80 employees often rely on a single IT lead or a small IT team, who may not possess the necessary knowledge and expertise to successfully implement new digital technologies while still delivering on their day-to-day tasks.
The internal culture:
Certain organisations may have a culture that is resistant to change, which can make it difficult to implement a digital transformation project at scale.
The top benefits when undertaking the journey to digital maturity
Digital maturity can improve a few aspects of your business operations and success. These include:
Using technologies in a more innovative way to deliver your products and services can improve the customer experience, which can lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.
Removing admin-heavy manual tasks via harnessing the power of digital automation and sophisticated digital workflows can improve efficiency and free up employees to focus on more important work – producing increased productivity and profitability.
Effectively utilise technology to streamline operations, resulting in a reduction of waste and expenses. Ultimately, this can lead to higher profits and better cash flow.
Efficiently collect and analyse data at a faster and more secure pace than any human. This can greatly aid in making better-informed decisions.
Innovatively utilise available resources to create new products and services and speed up time to market. This helps to grow and compete effectively against other businesses.
In conclusion
In today’s digital age, achieving digital maturity for UK businesses goes beyond simply possessing the right technology. It involves understanding how to utilise technology to your advantage, both internally for enhancing your people, processes, and economic resilience, and externally for staying relevant in your market and ensuring that your customers can easily conduct business with you.
Getting advice from a team of experts who can recommend the best technology solutions for your business needs is a crucial step toward improving how your company operates. This technology can enhance your employees’ and customers’ experiences while also ensuring that your systems remain relevant in the future.
We take our time to listen to your needs, current ways of working, and future goals. Making sure we understand the industry you operate in and the demands of your customers.
If you’re seeking ways to enhance your technology stack and optimise IT budgets, why not contact us today to find out how we can help?
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