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Stages in Digital Business Transformation: Results

of an Empirical Maturity Study
Sabine Berghaus
University of St. Gallen, [email protected]

Andrea Back
University of St. Gallen, [email protected]

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Berghaus, Sabine and Back, Andrea, "Stages in Digital Business Transformation: Results of an Empirical Maturity Study" (2016).
MCIS 2016 Proceedings. 22.
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STAGES IN DIGITAL BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION:
RESULTS OF AN EMPIRICAL MATURITY STUDY

Completed Research

Sabine Berghaus, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland, [email protected]

Andrea Back, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland, [email protected]

Abstract
Managers and decision makers need to transform their organizational routines and structures to meet
the challenges of the digital age. Even though organizational change is by no means a new topic,
many companies struggle to recognize and make sense of the often very disruptive changes affecting
all industries. In order to foster an understanding of the phenomenon and the development of a digital
transformation strategy, this research derives typical stages in a digital business transformation pro-
cess from empirical data. The nine dimensions of the digital maturity model (DMM) provide a more
profound understanding of the relevant levers for managing digital transformation. The DMM was
implemented together with a survey of 547 individuals from 417 organizations in Switzerland and
Germany. Based on the survey data, we used the Rasch-algorithm and cluster analysis to derive five
maturity stages. The findings show that while digital affinity and experimenting with digital technolo-
gy are already prevalent in companies, a strategically planned transformation and usage of advanced
data analytics in business processes are less common. The results from this study yield insights into
how activities in digital business transformation are currently tackled and prioritized and thus con-
tribute to the body of knowledge about organizational transformation.

Keywords: Digital transformation, maturity model, digital strategy, organizational change, transfor-
mation strategy.

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1 Introduction
Digital transformation is a technology-induced change on many levels in the organization that includes
both the exploitation of digital technologies to improve existing processes, and the exploration of digi-
tal innovation, which can potentially transform the business model. Digital innovation, which is de-
fined as the re-combination of digital technologies and physical components to create novel digital
products (Yoo et al. 2010), can be perceived as potentially threatening to the organization (Abraham &
Junglas 2011; Christensen 2006). Digital innovation involves transformational changes in strategy,
processes, and products and thus requires the company to rethink its organizing logic (Yoo et al.
2010). The growing importance of digital technology for organizations is also reflected in the align-
ment between IT and business, specifically in the integration of IT-strategy and business strategy in a
common digital business strategy (Bharadwaj et al. 2013). While a digital strategy consolidates and
aligns the IT- and business-strategy, a digital transformation strategy specifically contains the vision,
planning, and implementation of the organizational change process (Matt et al. 2015).
Digital transformation simultaneously affects multiple areas within an organization and there are many
stakeholders involved in defining a transformation strategy, e.g., marketing, IT, product development,
strategy or HR. All of these groups need to develop a common understanding of the prioritization of
digital transformation activities. Furthermore, digital transformation has different effects in different
industries. Those with a strong customer orientation and business-to-consumer (B2C) relation may
experience the influences of the digital age earlier and with a greater impact than organizations with a
prevailing business-to-business (B2B) focus.
The strategic transformation process involves developing a vision, strategic planning and implementa-
tion (Davis et al. 2010). However, as can be seen from the perceived urgency of this topic among prac-
titioners, many decision-makers struggle in coming up with a viable digital transformation strategy.
Managers from all industries need to define action items for the “transformation roadmap”, prioritize
between different activities, and develop a strategic vision for the digital age. In the course of develop-
ing a digital transformation strategy, managers require an instrument that indicates possible areas of
action, helps them to make sense of the phenomenon, and serves as a boundary object to communicate
goals between the different parties involved (Berghaus & Back 2016). In order to define a digital
transformation strategy, managers need to understand the current state of their organization. Transfor-
mation is not a linear process, but there are different possible courses of action. It would be beneficial
for managers to know about the difficulty associated with these different measures, in order to make
an informed decision about prioritizing between different steps and to lay the foundation for successful
organizational change. Therefore, we need to know more about how companies actually face such a
transformation, what makes them successful (Heckmann et al. 2015), and how organizations approach
their transformation (Hess et al. 2016). A maturity model provides some guidance in this respect, since
it gives an overview of the different areas and maps out typical paths of how organizations go about
their transformation. The research question for this paper is therefore: What stages can be observed in
the process of digital business transformation and what does this tell us about how organizations pri-
oritized different courses of action?
In order to identify the stages within the digital transformation, we chose to design a maturity model,
using the dimensions of the digital maturity model (DMM) that were developed in a previous study
and adopted a quantitative approach to calculate the maturity stages. The remainder of the paper is
organized as follows. Firstly, we present a short overview of the most important concepts in digital
transformation, as well as those in the application of maturity models. Secondly, we explain how the
data analysis was conducted. Thirdly, we describe the results of our survey and the maturity stages,
before lastly discussing these findings and presenting our conclusions.

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2 Prior research
Organizational change and technology-induced business transformation have been of great interest for
researchers of various disciplines for a long time (Palmer et al. 1957). A multitude of theories, such as
Punctuated Equilibrium (Romanelli & Tushman 1994) or Continuous Change (Brown & Eisenhardt
1997) are used to support our understanding of change mechanisms. However, the current debate on
digital transformation (Berman 2012) reveals that the changes induced by the simultaneous and dy-
namic influences of digitization on user behavior, organizations, and industries, constitute a new kind
of transformation that provides new challenges (Matt et al. 2015).

2.1 Digital transformation

The term “digital transformation” can be applied to both changes at the industry and organizational
level. For the purpose of this paper we refer to organizational changes only. Digital transformation
encompasses both process digitization with a focus on efficiency, and digital innovation with a focus
on enhancing existing physical products with digital capabilities (Yoo et al. 2012).
The increasing proliferation of digital technologies has been an important catalyst for organizational
transformation in the past decades (Yoo et al. 2012), enabling organizations to exploit new use cases
(Matt et al. 2015), integrate digital technologies and business processes (Liu et al. 2011), and poten-
tially facilitate key business improvements (Fitzgerald et al. 2013). The term transformation refers to a
fundamental change within the organization, which has a major impact on organizational strategy and
structures (Matt et al. 2015; Kotter 1995) and the distribution of power (Wischnevsky & Damanpour
2006). It therefore requires companies to realign and initiate a change process regarding their internal
structures as well as their business models, which is without a doubt a challenging organizational
learning process (Schuchmann & Seufert 2015). Digital transformation is a change process that is ac-
tively designed and executed (Besson & Rowe 2012), and therefore, it is necessary to understand the
mechanisms of digitization and establish a common understanding within the company.

2.2 Maturity models

A maturity model consists of dimensions and criteria, which describe the areas of action, and maturity
stages that indicate the evolution path towards maturity. Maturity models are a tool that mainly enable
an assessment of the status quo (Becker et al. 2009) and indicate a potential, anticipated or typical de-
velopment path to the desired target state (Pöppelbuß & Röglinger 2011; Paulk et al. 1993). Maturity
models are used in two ways. In their descriptive functionality, maturity models reveal the dimensions
which need to be designed, and in their prescriptive functionality, they enable companies to define
courses of action or capabilities needed to reach the desired stage of maturity. Maturity models are a
topic of growing interest in IS research (Becker et al. 2010). The field of digital transformation is too
broad to enable the use of a maturity model in its prescriptive functionality, since evolution paths in
digitization are not linear, and it is not clear whether a company at the highest maturity stage actually
performs better than its competitors (Mullaly 2014).
For this study we use the maturity model in its descriptive functionality, in order to show the dimen-
sions (e.g. “product innovation”) with which digital transformation affects the organization and to de-
velop the maturity stages from empirical data, in order to derive a typical transformation path. This
path groups activities according to difficulty and should therefore not be understood as linear evolu-
tion towards a fixed target state.

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3 Research Design
In order to answer our research question, we used the Digital Maturity Model (DMM) from a previous
study (Berghaus & Back 2016) and took an inductive, quantitative approach to calculate the maturity
stages (Lahrmann et al. 2011). Instead of defining the maturity stages beforehand, e.g., based on evi-
dence from the literature, this methodology enables us to calculate the stages using the actual response
data of participants and, therefore, provides a better description of the actual criteria prioritization. Our
research design consists of three steps: (1) developing the dimensions of the DMM through a literature
review, expert interviews, and focus groups, (2) an online-survey among 547 individuals, and (3) the
data analysis using the Rasch-algorithm and cluster analysis to calculate the maturity stages. We ap-
plied descriptive statistics to analyze the maturity score for individual participants, as well as results
within the dimensions.

3.1 Dimensions of the DMM

This summary provides a short background on the development of the DMM, which was described
comprehensively in a previous study (Berghaus & Back 2016).The dimensions of the DMM and the
corresponding items were developed through literature analysis, interviews and focus groups. In the
literature review, we analyzed 70 academic publications on digital business transformation, as well as
16 existing maturity assessments. In addition, we conducted exploratory interviews with seven deci-
sion makers and digital transformation leaders. All literature and interview transcripts were open-
coded, which resulted in a set of criteria that were clustered into dimensions. The first set of criteria
and dimensions was evaluated in a focus group with eleven participants. The final nine dimensions of
the DMM are (1) customer experience, (2) product innovation, (3) strategy, (4) organization, (5) pro-
cess digitization, (6) collaboration, (7) information technology, (8) culture & expertise, and (9) trans-
formation management. After finalizing the dimensions based on the feedback, an item pool was writ-
ten up and the first item set collaboratively re-worked by the researchers and the participants of the
first focus group, using an online-document. In a second focus group, the item pool was discussed and
evaluated regarding comprehensiveness, relevance, and completeness. Based on the feedback from the
focus group, the item set was finalized.
After the first implementation of the study in 2015, we updated and revised the item set for this pre-
sent research. These changes were evaluated in another focus group with seven experts from different
Swiss companies. Eligible experts have more than 10 years professional experience, have been more
than two years in their current company, are in a position of leadership, and have a good overview of
the activities related to digital transformation in their respective companies. The internal consistency
of scales was tested using Cronbach’s α, in order to ensure the homogeneity of items within the scale
(DeVellis 2003). The analysis showed good values (>.85) for all dimensions (see Table 1).

Dimension Criteria (Item ID) α

• Experience design (CX1, CX2, CX3, CX4)
1. Customer Experience (CX) .88
• Analytics (CX5, CX6, CX7)
• Business segment extension (PI1, PI2)
2. Product Innovation (PI) • Innovation capability (PI3, PI4) .90
• Customer integration (PI5, PI6)
• Strategic innovation (ST1, ST2, ST3)
3. Strategy (ST) .93
• Digital commitment (ST4, ST5, ST6, ST7)

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• Digital team set-up (OR1, OR2)

4. Organization (OR) • Organizational agility (OR3, OR4, OR5) .85
• Partner network (OR6, OR7)
• Digital marketing communication (PD1, PD2, PD3)
5. Process Digitization (PD) • Automation (PD4, PD5) .89
• Data-driven business (PD6, PD7)
• Teamwork (CO1, CO2)
6. Collaboration (CO) • Knowledge management (CO3, CO4) .85
• Flexible working (CO5, CO6)
• Agile project management (IT1, IT2)
7. Information Technology (IT) • Integrated architecture (IT3, IT4) .88
• IT-expertise (IT5, IT6)
• Digital affinity (CU1, CU2, CU3)
8. Culture & Expertise (CU) • Readiness to take risk (CU4, CU5) .90
• Error culture / No blame culture (CU6, CU7)

• Governance (TM1, TM2)

9. Transformation Management • Performance measurement (TM3, TM4) .94
(TM)
• Management support (TM5, TM6, TM7)

Table 1: Dimensions and corresponding criteria of the DMM

3.2 Data collection

The 60 items of the DMM were presented in an online-questionnaire. The participants were asked to
indicate, on a 5-step Likert-scale, to what degree they agree with the statements, from “0 – do not
agree” to “4 – fully agree”. An additional option “I don’t know” was provided. The questionnaire was
publicly accessible and communicated through various newsletters, personal mailings, and social me-
dia. Data was collected between mid-October 2015 and end of January 2016. Besides the items meas-
uring the maturity criteria, the questionnaire contained general questions about the company size, in-
dustry, position, and country of the participants, as well as questions about the prioritization of activi-
ties in the past two years, and the focus area for the next two years regarding digital transformation.

3.3 Data analysis

For the analysis of data and the calculation of maturity stages, we used a quantitative approach. By
applying the Rasch-algorithm to the survey data we were able to derive a metric for each item that rep-
resented its level of difficulty (Lahrmann et al. 2011; Friedel & Back 2012). The software JMetrik was
used to derive the metrics. The higher the metric score, the greater the difficulty of the item. There-
fore, the easiest items have a negative metric, and a metric score of “0” represents the mean difficulty.
Through hierarchical cluster analysis, we built five clusters of items with similar difficulty that repre-
sent the five maturity stages of the DMM.
For the analysis of the individual maturity scores, we used a combination of two scores (Friedel &
Back 2012): the cluster maturity represents the sequential fulfilment of items. Only when a defined
threshold for each cluster is passed, is the participant assigned to the next cluster. This means that par-
ticipants cannot reach a higher overall maturity by achieving only the difficult items and at the same

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time, neglecting basic requirements. The point maturity represents the overall fulfilment of all items,
regardless of their difficulty. This allows participants who do not pass the threshold in one cluster, but
have a better overall score fulfilment, to skip a cluster. The overall maturity score is the mean average
of point maturity and cluster maturity.

4 Findings
The online-survey was publicly available, and participants were invited personally, through social and
traditional media, and through business networks. We received 555 completed questionnaires. For the
final data analysis, the following data sets were eliminated: questionnaires that only contained “I don’t
know” answers (1); double entries (2); and clearly frivolous or test entries (5). For the calculation of
the maturity stages, all answers for the same company were merged. This resulted in a final data set of
547 participants of 417 companies mainly from Switzerland (69%) and Germany (28%).

4.1 Maturity stages

Through cluster analysis of the weighted items, we identified the following five maturity stages. Un-
derstanding what criteria and activities described in these items were already fulfilled by most partici-
pants, gives us an indication on both difficulty and prioritization, as well as a probable sequence of
digital transformation activities in the participating companies. Items that are already fulfilled by many
participants can be seen as groundwork, while items with a higher degree of difficulty might be more
advanced courses of action that build on previous activities. The following five stages were deduced
from the items in each cluster.

4.1.1 Stage 1 – Promote & Support

The items clustered in this stage are mainly related to strategic prioritization, flexible work, and man-
agement support of digital transformation. Basic digital services for existing products and a consistent
customer experience across multiple channels were initiated. Employees are familiar with existing dig-
ital products. The internal IT ensures the availability of relevant digital technologies and keeps the
infrastructure up-to-date. Digitization has become a priority on the strategic agenda. Digital transfor-
mation projects are supported and prioritized by top, senior, and middle management. Also, flexible
and mobile work that is enabled by digital technology has already been established.

Stage Dimension Item ID Short description of item Metric

1 Strategy ST7 Digital transformation as continual strategic change -1.05
project.
1 Collaboration CO5 Employees work from home or on the move. -0.82
1 Customer Experience CX2 Customer interaction via both traditional and digital -0.77
channels.
1 Strategy ST4 High value of digital business in overall strategy. -0.76
1 Strategy ST6 Promotion and prioritization of digital products. -0.68
1 Organization OR1 Digital product creation across all departments and -0.66
functions.
1 Information Technology IT4 Regular update of IT infrastructure. -0.61
1 Transformation Man- TM5 Top management recognizes the importance of digital -0.6
agement business.
1 Transformation Man- TM7 Senior mgmt. takes responsibility for digital transfor- -0.56
agement mation.

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1 Strategy ST5 Core competencies for commercial success in digital -0.55

future.
1 Information Technology IT5 Internal IT department ensures relevant digital technol- -0.53
ogies.
1 Collaboration CO3 External experts involved to develop knowledge of -0.52
digitization.
1 Culture & Expertise CU3 Employees are familiar with digital products. -0.48
1 Collaboration CO6 Promotion of flexible, mobile work. -0.42
1 Organization OR2 Operational management across channels. -0.41
1 Product Innovation PI1 Product and service expansion with digital services. -0.39
1 Collaboration CO4 Internal experts on digital topics act as contact persons. -0.34
1 Customer Experience CX1 Customer experience is consistent across all channels. -0.26
1 Transformation Man- TM6 Middle management promotes digital transformation -0.26
agement projects. 


Table 2: Items clustered in maturity stage 1

This indicates that an awareness of digitization among both management and employees, which sup-
ports initial digitization initiatives, constitutes the first stage of digital business transformation and is
therefore labeled “promote & support”.

4.1.2 Stage 2 – Create & Build

In this stage, digital innovation plays a more prominent role, both at the strategic level and within
product innovation. The strategic importance of innovation is stressed by explicitly promoting digital
innovation, and systematically evaluating potential in new technologies. This also includes evaluating
internal communication or service processes, in terms of whether they can be improved by digital
technologies. Suitable conditions for innovation are created by strengthening digital competencies,
collaborating more strongly with the internal IT department, liaising with external partners, such as
start-ups or universities, and also by allocating dedicated resources, time, and budget to digital innova-
tion. Considering the focus on ideation and creativity, as well as strengthening digital activities within
the company, this stage is labeled “create & build”.

Stage Dimension Item ID Short description of item Metric

2 Collaboration CO2 Tools with videoconferencing and screen sharing. -0.19
2 Process Digitization PD4 Regularly check core processes for improvements. -0.17

2 Collaboration CO1 Digital platforms to cooperate with internal and exter- -0.16
nal partners.
2 Strategy ST2 Promote digital innovation. -0.15
2 Culture & Expertise CU7 Evaluate errors in order to improve. -0.14
2 Information Technology IT1 Adjust our digital services at short notice. -0.13
2 Information Technology IT6 Internal IT department provides advice to the other -0.11
departments.
2 Product Innovation PI2 New digital business ideas or business model imple- -0.09
mented.

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2 Process Digitization PD1 Digital channels integrated into communications & -0.09
service processes.
2 Product Innovation PI3 Suitable conditions for developing digital innovations. -0.08
2 Organization OR7 Standardized, efficient procedures for cooperation with -0.08
partners.
2 Strategy ST3 Systematic evaluation of technologies and digital inno- -0.06
vations.
2 Culture & Expertise CU2 Digital competencies as important criterion in recruit- -0.06
ing.

Table 3: Items clustered in maturity stage 2

4.1.3 Stage 3 – Commit to transform

The items in this cluster belong mainly to the dimension of culture & expertise, but also to organiza-
tion and transformation management. While in stage 2, the focus appears to be on experimenting with
digital innovations, in stage 3, the digital transformation affects the internal culture and organizational
structure more profoundly. Important capabilities within the company culture are a proactive error
management and the communication of learning from failed projects, as well as willingness to take
risks. Items related to the dimension “organization” describe a flexible organization that collaborates
with partners and that is able to react quickly to changes. A company that is willing to perceive digiti-
zation as more radical change to their organization, needs to define roles and responsibilities for all
processes related to the digital transformation, as well as creating a strategic plan for the transfor-
mation process that the company is willing to follow.
Due to the focus on activities with regard to company culture, changing organizational structures, and
a more systematic transformation management, this stage is labeled “commit to transform”.

Stage Dimension Item ID Short description of item Metric

3 Product Innovation PI4 Our employees regularly contribute ideas for digital 0.03
products.
3 Organization OR4 Able to react quickly to changes. 0.05
3 Culture & Expertise CU1 Digital expertise as core component in developing em- 0.11
ployees.
3 Culture & Expertise CU5 Digital innovation even when financially risky. 0.12
3 Organization OR6 Partner network for digitization. 0.15
3 Culture & Expertise CU6 Failed digital projects are communicated in a proactive 0.15
manner.
3 Process Digitization PD5 Automated routine processes. 0.16
3 Transformation Man- TM2 Defined roles, responsibilities and decision-making 0.16
agement processes.
3 Culture & Expertise CU4 Readiness to take risks with existing business. 0.2
3 Transformation Man- TM1 Digital transformation follows a defined strategic plan. 0.24
agement

Table 4: Items clustered in maturity stage 3

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4.1.4 Stage 4 – User-centered & elaborated processes

The items in the fourth cluster are related to a variety of dimensions. One common ground appears to
be user-centeredness. This is revealed by the involvement of users in innovation processes, the person-
alization of customer experiences, and the focus on customer data when designing interaction. Another
commonality is that digital transformation has progressed and shown results. The company is known
as a digital innovator within the respective industry, and transformation goals, as well as KPIs for digi-
tal channels, are determined and reviewed periodically. Another indicator is digital ambidexterity,
which is the ability to drive day-to-day operations alongside digital innovations (Gregory et al. 2015;
Raisch & Birkinshaw 2008).
For the focus on open innovation by involving users, personalizing customer experiences and process-
es based on usage data, and the improvement of processes by determining measurable goals, this stage
is labeled “user-centered & elaborated processes”.

Stage Dimension Item ID Short description of item Metric

4 Information Technology IT2 Test and modify new products using prototypes. 0.29
4 Organization OR5 Pursue digital innovations alongside usual business 0.31
operations.
4 Information Technology IT3 Connect systems quickly to other services via open 0.31
interfaces.
4 Transformation Man- TM4 Periodically review digital transformation goals. 0.33
agement
4 Process Digitization PD6 Data analysis results guide possible actions and strate- 0.39
gic decisions.
4 Product Innovation PI5 Customers included in the development of new product 0.49
ideas.
4 Product Innovation PI6 Customer testing to improve digital products. 0.51
4 Customer Experience CX3 Digital content designed according to individual user 0.52
situation.
4 Customer Experience CX6 Insights derived from customer and interaction data. 0.52
4 Strategy ST1 Regarded as drivers of digital innovation in industry. 0.56
4 Process Digitization PD2 Goals for digital channels determined and reviewed. 0.57

Table 5: Items clustered in maturity stage 4

Stage 5 – Data-driven enterprise

The items with the highest difficulty metric are clustered in stage 5. These items are related to the use
of advanced data analytics technologies for expenditure planning, collating customer data across mul-
tiple channels, real-time analysis, and personalizing customer interactions accordingly. This data is
often available, however, only advanced companies use it appropriately for decision support or prod-
uct development. Preconditions for the implementation of a data-driven business are internal expertise
for data utilization, appropriate technological infrastructure, and data governance across different
business units.
The most advanced stage in the maturity model has been labeled “data-driven enterprise”, since all
items in this cluster relate to the collection, analysis, and sense-making of customer data in business
processes, and the utilization of measureable indicators for goal-setting or decision-making.

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Stage Dimension Item ID Short description of item Metric

5 Transformation Man- TM3 Digital transformation goals are defined measurably. 0.66
agement
5 Customer Experience CX5 Customer and interaction data collated across different 0.71
channels.
5 Process Digitization PD3 Expenditure planning for communication based on me- 0.72
dia usage.
5 Organization OR3 “Early warning” system to identify relevant technolo- 0.78
gies.
5 Customer Experience CX4 Personalized digital customer communication. 0.85
5 Process Digitization PD7 Expertise in big data used to develop new products. 0.97
5 Customer Experience CX7 Customer data analyzed and acted upon in real time. 1.35

Table 6: Items clustered in maturity stage 5

4.2 Distribution of maturity scores

After defining the maturity stages, we calculated the individual maturity scores for each company that
participated in the survey, as described in Section 3.3. Figure 1 gives an overview of the overall ma-
turity scores of the 417 companies that participated in our survey. The overall maturity score is the
mean average of cluster maturity and point maturity. The majority (>80%) of participants reach ma-
turity scores 2 and 3, with very few companies achieving the highest maturity scores 4.5 and 5.

Figure 1: Distribution of overall maturity scores among participating companies (n=417)

The analysis of results per industry shows that the highest mean maturity scores were reached in the IT
& telecommunication industry (3.22), in retail / wholesale (2.98), and in transportation / logistics

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(2.94). These companies have been affected by digitization early on and therefore, have already initi-
ated programs within their organization. By contrast, the lowest mean maturity scores were observed
with banks (2.42), in the machine industry (2.38), and in the consumer goods industry (2.23). The low
results for banks comes as a surprise, since fintech start-ups have been seriously challenging the busi-
ness model of established banks with digital services. However, these results can partially be ex-
plained by the comparably high participation of smaller banks, which on average achieved lower ma-
turity scores than larger corporate banks.

4.3 Analysis within the dimensions

By multiplying the survey data (Likert value) with the metric, we calculated the degree to which the
maturity criteria in each dimension were achieved. The mean achievement in each dimension also
gives us an indication of which dimensions are difficult to achieve and which are easier. The dimen-
sions with the lowest mean achievement are “customer experience” (37%) and “process digitization”
(41%). This indicates that these are rather advanced activities that might be more difficult for organi-
zations to tackle. By contrast, the dimensions “strategy” (51%) and “collaboration” (56%) received the
highest mean achievement rates. This might either indicate that these dimensions are easier to deal
with for organizations, or that they subsume activities that are started earlier and therefore are more
mature than other dimensions.

Dimen- Mean
CX PI ST OR PD CO IT CU TM
sion achievement
CX 37%
PI .71 46%
ST .62 .83 51%
OR .62 .73 .75 45%
PD .75 .78 .76 .77 41%
CO .52 .70 .64 .64 .63 56%
IT .58 .65 .63 .73 .67 .63 47%
CU .55 .69 .72 .74 .70 .67 .63 47%
TM .56 .70 .80 .75 .72 .70 .67 .74 47%

Table 7: Correlation matrix and mean achievement rates per dimension

We also assessed the correlations between dimensions in order to identify any possible connections
(see Table 7). The highest positive correlations were found between strategy and product innovation
(.83); and strategy and transformation management (.80). The correlation between strategy and trans-
formation management is not surprising. It shows that companies which regard digital transformation
as an important part of their strategic agenda also have management support, define roles and respon-
sibilities, as well as performance indicators for transformation. The high correlation between strategy
and product innovation indicates that companies which make digitization a strategic priority are also
willing to experiment with digital technologies and go about launching new digital solutions early on.

5 Discussion
The findings of the maturity study provide deeper insight into the stages of digital business transfor-
mation. The following conclusions can be drawn from the empirical findings.

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Digital commitment and affinity among employees are important prerequisites for digital trans-
formation that often preexist within the workforce.
The findings of this study show that among the easiest criteria are relatively many items related to dig-
ital affinity and employee commitment, such as the use of digital tools for collaborating with other
employees and external partners, the appointment of internal experts on digital topics, the familiarity
of employees with digital products, and the promotion of digital innovation within the company. This
shows that the workforce is used to using digital technologies in their daily work and they are open
towards digital transformation. In this respect, our findings differ from the experience of some deci-
sion makers, who suspect resistance towards digital transformation, and prior research has shown that
innovation processes are often constrained by resistance, slow accommodation and adoption (Svahn et
al. 2009; Abraham & Junglas 2011). We suggest that when initiating a digital transformation process,
managers can exploit the inherent affinity and openness of the workforce by adapting their leadership
style accordingly and carefully managing the change process. It is evident that management support
and persuasive, effective communication facilitate the transformation process (Kezar & Eckel 2002).
Other research has stated that leadership styles change towards transformational leadership, calling for
employee self-motivation and self-responsibility (Bass 1990). Another leadership style suitable for
organizational change is so-called servant leadership, which is based on considering the needs of the
followers, that is the employees, and gaining their trust, so that they are open to change (Dierendonck
& Sousa 2016; Baldomir & Hood 2016). Adapting their their leadership style enables managers to take
advantage of any preexisting affinity or even enthusiasm towards digital innovation.
The use of digital data requires more strategic collaboration between IT and business.
Our findings show that items related to big data analytics and usage are among the most difficult items
at maturity level five. This indicates that – while the exploitation of big data for value generation is
high on the agenda of many managers – real time analytics of customer data and acting upon these
insights remains difficult for most companies. The results also show that the difficult items include
both technical tasks, such as the actual collection of customer data across different channels or con-
necting systems using open interfaces, and business tasks, such as designing personalized content ac-
cording to the individual user situation. There are many available sources of digital data, such as from
customer interaction, but they are often not properly used and exploited. All data-related activities re-
ceive the lowest achievement rates in our survey. It seems difficult to form organizational practices on
how to use the available data, who takes ownership, and how to set-up these new workflows and gov-
ernance structures. The integration of several systems where this data is stored is a challenge for IT,
and in many large and globally operating companies, the exchange of data across organizational and
regional units is unsatisfactory. In many organizations, the corporate IT has a mainly executional role
as opposed to a strategically thinking and innovative one.
This calls for a more strategic collaboration between IT and business departments, since research indi-
cates that the IT department is no longer entirely in charge of digital innovation, and employees out-
side IT also innovate with digital technologies (Tumbas et al. 2015). Since a good understanding of
possible fields of application of digital technologies is fundamental to innovation, the IT department
and business departments need to collaborate more closely on digital transformation, e.g. by strength-
ening business-capabilities within IT (Bassellier & Benbasat 2004) or by increasing the IT-knowledge
of executives (Turel & Bart 2013).
Digital transformation seems to be intuitively managed rather than strategically planned.
Many items clustered in the first two maturity stages relate mainly to acknowledging the importance
of digital transformation and experimenting with digital innovation. Defining a strategic vision, roles
and responsibilities, measureable goals, and constantly reviewing the transformation roadmap are
items clustered in later stages. The analysis of overall maturity scores of organizations showed that
industries that were challenged early by digital disruption have achieved higher scores than other in-

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dustries, such as manufacturing, which are also labeled “latecomer industries”. This indicates that at
the beginning of the transformation process, companies tend to experiment with digital innovation or
react to external changes, while only at a later stage does a more systematic planning of the transfor-
mation process evolve. This also shows that consolidating digital initiatives into an organizational
change program is demanding. Some companies deal with the strategic importance of digital transfor-
mation by establishing a C-level role responsible for promoting, communicating and consolidating
activities with regard to digital transformation (Horlacher & Hess 2016), or establish a dedicated im-
plementation team for developing organizational change strategies (Higgins et al. 2012).

5.1 Contribution
Coping with the challenges of digital transformation is of considerable interest to both researchers and
practitioners. Digitalization creates are multiple challenges for organizations, including the alignment
of business and IT (Reynolds & Yetton 2015), new roles of CDO and CIO (Horlacher & Hess 2016;
Weill & Woerner 2013), and the development of digital transformation strategies (Matt et al. 2015).
Understanding the stages of digital transformation contributes to the body of knowledge on enterprise
transformation processes, which entail unplanned and radical organizational changes, as opposed to
evolutionary ones (Kotter 1995). For practitioners, the results may help managers to assess the status
quo of their organization and identify possible new courses of action. This understanding can contrib-
ute to more systematic and strategic change processes, as opposed to intuitive reactions to external
turbulence. Furthermore, even though a maturity model suggests that a more advanced stage produces
better performance, this correlation is not proven and even may not exist at all. The maturity model in
this study is simply used for mapping out the typical stages, but every company needs to decide
whether the activities in each stage are appropriate, feasible, and relevant for the specific industry,
business model, and competitive context.

5.2 Limitations
This research has produced some interesting and useful findings, but we wish to point out some limita-
tions that need to be considered when interpreting the results. First of all, the survey data is based ex-
clusively on participant self-assessment, which might cause a certain bias. In order to mitigate such
risk, further research could complement this survey with expert evaluations, in order to correct any
bias. Also, the survey requires participants to assess their organization, which might be difficult, de-
pending on the level and degree of insight on which a participant can draw. We also acknowledge that
even though the scales have been carefully developed, based on the literature and multiple focus
groups, a final evaluation of the measurement instrument, as demonstrated for example in Raber,
Epple, Winter, & Rothenberger (2016), has not yet been conducted. Lastly, it should be mentioned that
the questionnaire was only presented in one of the four official Swiss languages (German) and there-
fore, the results are limited to this user group.

6 Conclusion
In this research, we set out to better understand how organizations tackle their digital transformation,
by inductively designing maturity stages for a predefined set of criteria. The results from our empirical
study show that understanding the strategic importance of digitization, as well as using digital tech-
nologies for collaboration are already undertaken in the majority of companies. However, creating a
personalized customer experience based on big data analysis or automating processes, is characterized
by lower achievement rates. This indicates that the primary stages of the digital transformation process
are related to creating awareness, promoting the potential offered by digital technologies, and experi-
menting with digital innovation. In the next stages, companies start to go about digital transformation
in a more systematic and strategically planned manner, by creating measurable goals and defining

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roles and responsibilities in the organization. These results help practitioners as well as researchers, in
better understanding the processes by means of which organizations actually engage in their digital
transformation.

7 Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Bramwell Kaltenrieder, Managing Director of Crosswalk AG, for his support
with the data collection and survey setup, as well as Dario Stähelin for his support with the data analy-
sis over the course of his master’s thesis. Thanks also to Brian Bloch for his careful editing of the Eng-
lish.

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