Deloitte Romania launches Digital DNA, a solution for assessing companies’ level of digital maturity based on 23 characteristics that define their structure, operations and behaviour. Digital DNA addresses mainly SMEs and can be a starting point in setting the digital transformation strategy. The solution is based on a methodology created by Deloitte’s global network of experts based on extensive research conducted by analysing hundreds of studies and articles in the field.

“The 23 characteristics that define in Deloitte’s view «the digital DNA» include, among other things, the democratization of information, new ways of working, a permanent skills adjustment, being open to accept failure throughout the process, which is inevitable in an agile way of working, even changes in hierarchies. Most organizations simultaneously focus on no more than three or four of these characteristics, according to our analysis. For many business leaders, it is a revelation that digital transformation is only partially related to the actual implementation of technology solutions and that, in reality, this process refers to the company’s structure, skills, governance, organizational culture and human capital. In other words, it depends on the way the company is organized, operates and behaves,” explains Vladimir Aninoiu, Technology Director within the Consulting practice of Deloitte Romania.

According to the methodology, the digital maturity of a company begins with exploring digital, a phase in which traditional technological solutions are only leveraged to automate existing capabilities, but without any significant effects on the organization. The next level of digital maturity is doing digital, when technology contributes to extending existing capabilities, but the organization maintains its previous structure, operations and behaviour. Companies in this phase live the “illusion of digitalization” and risk to get stuck in this stage, emphasizes the Deloitte methodology. Organizations in the third phase of maturity are those that become digital, when they notice significant changes in structure, operations and behaviour, and the most mature companies are digital, which means the business is profoundly changed by the technological solutions implemented and optimized so as to exploit these solutions as efficiently as possible.