Singapore partners with BCG for a second Digital Acceleration Index

COMPANIES in Singapore have been working on digital transformation projects to climb the digital maturity curve for the better part of a decade now — and the government is keen on helping them assess their progress.

Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has partnered with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for a second time to have companies in the country review the state of their transformation through the Digital Acceleration Index.

The Digital Acceleration Index analyses companies through six key building blocks.

The first is an assessment of the organization’s vision, ambition level, priorities and alignment, and digital roadmap. The second involves an evaluation of the degree of digital maturity along the core value chain from customer offer and go-to-market, to operations, and to support functions.

While the two seem to be the most important, other key areas that the index evaluates include the development of new digital products and services, digital culture and governance, training opportunities, future-readiness, and digital-related partnerships.

In the first Digital Acceleration Index program, Singapore managed to enlist more than 2,000 companies of all sizes, across multiple sectors to review their progress with digital and compare themselves with peers in their industry and the country.

The second Digital Acceleration Index program is currently accepting applications and will be sending out invitations early next year based on interests received online.

Overall, BCG and IMDA’s index categorizes digital maturity into four stages:

# 1 | Digital Starter

Digital starters, according to the index, are simply those that are in the early stages of their digital transformation.

The biggest challenge that digital starters face is that they usually lack collaboration within business functions and IT which causes digital implementations to be haphazard.

# 2 | Digital Literate

The most important hallmark of a digital literate organization is that the management of the company understands the importance of going digital.

As a result, the business is usually in the process of digitizing its operations and workflows, creating efficiencies in various departments.

Although digital literate organizations do better than those that are comparatively less digital, they usually struggle to break down silos within their departments and scale implementations across the board.

# 3 | Digital Performer

Digital performers are obviously businesses with a strong digital mindset and a clear path defined to digital adoption.

Performers usually either have access to or are looking at acquiring digital talent and capabilities to transform their business.

Further, the organizations usually have had a taste of success with digital projects, having successfully scaled up a few implementations to create value across the business.

Many of Singapore’s large organizations rank within the digital performer stage on the digital acceleration index.

# 4 | Digital Leader

A digital leader is an entity that clearly understands the value of going digital and invests significant resources in research and development of tools, technologies, and solutions.

Digital leaders also foster collaborations and partnerships with other businesses in a strategic fashion in order to transform their present and future digital capabilities.

Obviously, digital leaders outperform their peers in key digital metrics and see digital as an essential and primary driver of the company’s value.

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