Digital maturity is not just about the technology—it’s about ensuring your technology (and your workforce) align with your organizational goals.
Are your processes and team members adapting to your new tech in a way that drives long-term success? In this guide, we’ll explore what digital maturity means, why it’s crucial, and provide actionable steps to assess and boost your organization’s maturity level.
What Is Digital Maturity?
Digital maturity refers to how well your organization can use your digital tools and strategies to meet its goals. It goes beyond the technology— to how it’s integrated into the culture, people, and processes to deliver impactful results.
Digital Maturity vs. Digital Transformation
While digital transformation often centers around replacing manual processes with new technologies and building your tech stack, digital maturity is about true integration and application. The key question is: have you fully embedded your technology into your organization’s operations, strategies, and core ethos? That’s where maturity comes in.
The Stages of Digital Maturity
Now that you know what it is, how do you achieve it? People typically pass through these five stages on their path to becoming digitally mature. Consider these stages to identify where you stand in your journey.
- Defined: Awareness and early exploration of digital tools.
- Organized: Basic digital processes and initial tools in place.
- Integrated: Adoption of digital tools across departments.
- Optimized: Data-driven decision-making and continuous process improvement.
- Digital: Innovation driven by technology, with processes fully integrated.

The Digital Maturity Checklist: 10 Steps to Progress
Ready to move closer to being digitally mature? Check out these 10 steps to get started:
- Define Digital Maturity for Your Organization: Align your team around a shared definition of digital maturity based on your goals.
- Evaluate Business Processes: Identify manual tasks and areas that can be optimized or digitized.
- Assess Your Digital Foundation: Review existing technologies for its capabilities, scalability and determine if it supports your needs
- Examine Your Digital Landscape: Audit your tools and workflows for process gaps or inefficiencies.
- Focus on Customer Experience: Ensure your technology enhances customer interactions across all touchpoints.
- Evaluate Your Security Posture: Protect your data and assets with robust security and vendor vetting processes (check out this webinar on best practices for vetting software vendors).
- Innovate Continuously: Encourage ongoing innovation and stay ahead of trends.
- Measure Success with Metrics: Use frameworks like Deloitte’s DMM or BCG’s Digital Acceleration Index to track progress.
- Empower Your Workforce: Upskill your team to maximize the value of your technologies. Not so technical? Check out this blog to help get them there.
- Create an Action Plan: Develop a roadmap for advancing through the digital maturity stages.
Examples of Digital Maturity in Action
Here’s how some of our clients in Higher Education and Nonprofits are truly leaning into their tech stack to embrace digital maturity.
Higher Ed Getting Smarter with Tech
In higher education, one powerful example of digital maturity is using historical data to predict which students are at high risk of dropping out. With these insights, schools are creating personalized support plans to improve retention rates, helping students stay on track and finish strong.
Meanwhile, automation is simplifying the admissions process. By automating workflows for inquiries and responses, colleges are not only speeding up the process but also offering a more seamless and engaging applicant experience.
Nonprofits Maximizing Resources with Tech
On the nonprofit side, we’re seeing organizations use digital tools to track campaign results and donor engagement in real time. With data analytics and visualizations, they’re able to adapt quickly and make more informed decisions about their outreach efforts.
Nonprofits are optimizing the connections between their interest forms and volunteer management platforms to create more efficient connections between volunteers and opportunities. By matching volunteers with the right roles based on their skills and interests, organizations can boost engagement and make the most of their valuable resources.
Tools to Assess Digital Maturity
Tools to Evaluate Digital Maturity
To truly understand where your organization stands in its digital maturity journey, take advantage of available free resources. Several models can help assess your readiness for digital transformation, each offering unique insights.
For example, Deloitte’s Digital Maturity Model (DMM) focuses on your organization’s culture and innovation readiness, helping you gauge how well your environment supports digital growth.
BCG’s Digital Acceleration Index (DAI) shifts the focus to the effectiveness of your digital tools in driving business outcomes, assessing whether your investments are yielding the results you expect.
Additionally, the European Digital Innovation Hubs Network offers a Digital Maturity Assessment tool to help pinpoint weaknesses in your processes.
Combining insights from these resources provides a clearer, more complete picture of your organization’s digital maturity.
Reaching Peak Digital Maturity
Getting to the peak of digital maturity isn’t something that happens overnight—it’s an ongoing journey. It takes consistent effort and a mindset that’s open to change. Here’s how to make it happen:
Start by fostering cultural shifts that encourage innovation and experimentation. When a company’s culture embraces new ideas and doesn’t shy away from trying out new tech, it creates the perfect environment for digital maturity to take root.
Leadership buy-in is also crucial. Digital maturity thrives when leaders not only support the transformation but actively guide and champion the process. It’s the commitment from the top that helps turn a vision into a reality.
But it’s not just about top-down direction—cross-departmental collaboration is key. Breaking down silos and encouraging different teams to work together ensures that everyone is aligned and working toward a common goal.
Regularly evaluating and adapting your strategies is another pillar of digital maturity. It’s not enough to implement changes and hope for the best. Constant review and refinement keep your organization on the path to improvement and make sure you’re always adapting to new challenges.
Finally, don’t forget to commit to both your people and technology. Ensure your team is continuously educated and equipped with the latest skills because even the best technology can’t do its job without a skilled workforce behind it.
Digital maturity is a journey, not a destination. By assessing where you stand and following the steps outlined above, you’ll set your organization on a path toward lasting growth and success in a digital-first world.
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