Know Yourself

The core definition of the Davidic Growth Paradigm is a "mindset of preempting advantages from becoming liabilities and reframing disadvantages to become opportunities". On the other hand, the whole process of digital transformation for a business revolves largely around identifying technology that may be harnessed to enable growth opportunities to prosper. The main task of the framework then is to identify growth opportunities either by finding out how an advantage can become a liability in order to preempt it from happening, or to examine disadvantages more deeply to see if they can be turned around into opportunities.?

It is also important for a business to assess its digital maturity and the readiness of its people before embarking on a digital transformation journey. A digital maturity assessment provides the company with a baseline for its aspirations. It also identifies opportunities for technology to be introduced into the organization without causing overwhelm. Making the employees aware of their own readiness and preparedness for digitalization also creates a sense of inclusivity. This is a big factor in reducing employees' resistance to technology and change.

Normally, digital transformation frameworks define digital maturity stages in four or five stages. The Davidic Growth framework presents it in six to create a more gradual transition in digitalization. This approach which provides a smoother gradient in moving from one stage to the other is part of the Davidic Growth's goal of preventing technology overwhelm. This also ensures a more successful introduction of technology because it paces it in such a way that is not "too much too soon".

The six Davidic Growth stages of digital maturity are as follows:

1. Minimal Awareness. This is the stage where the organization has a minimal understanding of digital transformation and is aware that it is something desirable for them. Nevertheless, no formal initiative has been taken to start the company in effecting digital transformation.

2. Sporadic Initiatives. At this stage, the company has initiated some attempts at harnessing technology to benefit them, but it is mostly sporadic. More of fits and starts, rather than a smooth and continuous run.

3. Intermittent Success. This is when the company is able to achieve some quick wins in some areas. The use of technology has provided them with some level of success in some areas while still experiencing failure in others. There is still a lack of clarity in their direction because the goals of their digital transformation journey have not yet been fully defined.

4. Define Objectives. When a company is at this stage, there is a better understanding of the need for digital transformation and objectives have been identified on how to possibly achieve them. A roadmap is not yet evident at this point, but their defined objectives can be translated into an implementable roadmap. A clear identification of projects to be undertaken to meet the defined objectives is also necessary for them to move to the next stage.

5. Committed Execution. At this point, the organization has identified the projects that they need to implement in order to achieve their defined objectives, and thus get them on the path to achieving digital transformation and exponential growth. To a certain extent, they may also have already started some of those projects. What is important is that a clear roadmap has been set and the organization is committed to implement the projects as they have been identified.

6. Sustainable Implementation. The whole goal of the Davidic Growth Paradigm is to get an organization on track into achieving a digital transformation that will create for them new and sustainable competitive advantages. With proper monitoring and implementation, and a feedback mechanism to gauge and periodically re-calibrate the execution of their digital transformation projects, the path towards exponential growth is what this stage is all about.

The company is presented with a set of spreadsheets that they need to accomplish. The spreadsheets assess their digital maturity across the three core business functions of Marketing, Operations, and Finance and Administration. Under each business function, the six Davidic Growth areas of governance, processes, resources, innovation, technology, and culture, are evaluated. Once the sheet is accomplished, it gives a score that represents the respondent's digital maturity assessment of a particular category. If there are several respondents, the scores obtained from them are averaged to arrive at an overall enterprise digital maturity assessment.

Watch the following video to see how it works.

*Cover image by chenspec from Pixabay .

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