Most companies overestimate their digital maturity. That's understandable — it's hard to assess yourself objectively, and "we have a website, use LinkedIn and have bought an AI licence" feels digital enough in a world where your reference frame is colleagues doing the same thing. But the reference frame shouldn't be those doing the same thing. It should be those doing it best.
This scorecard is designed to give leadership an honest, structured picture of where the organisation actually stands — and what the most value-creating next steps are. It's not designed to give a flattering score. It's designed to give a useful score.
The scorecard evaluates digital maturity across five dimensions. Score yourself on a scale of 0-20 points per dimension. Be deliberately honest — overrating gives you a score that doesn't help you.
Dimension 1: Data strategy (0-20 points)
Do you have an explicit strategy for which data you collect, how it's stored, who has access, and how it's used to make decisions? If you score 15-20 points, you have a functioning data warehouse or lakehouse, defined data owners per business domain, and active processes for data quality maintenance. If you score 8-14 points, you have data spread across systems without a unified strategy for integration and use. If you score under 8, data is probably primarily in Excel sheets and individual platform exports — available, but unorganised and hard to act on.
The most important indicator of data strategy maturity isn't whether you have data — everyone has data — but whether you can answer this question in five minutes: "What was our conversion rate from lead to customer in Q3, broken down by acquisition channel?" Can you? If not, data strategy foundation is your most important next step.
Dimension 2: AI adoption (0-20 points)
Are your teams using AI actively and in a coordinated way — or sporadically and uncoordinatedly? If you score 15-20 points, you have a defined AI governance policy, active use cases across multiple departments, an internal knowledge-sharing structure (e.g. an AI guild), and a culture where AI use is transparent and celebrated. If you score 8-14, you have licences and sporadic use, but no coordination and no systematic knowledge sharing. If you score under 8, AI is either unused, or used individually in shadow AI situations without governance.
The most important thing to understand about AI adoption is that it's rarely a technology problem. Companies with high AI adoption almost always have two things in common: psychological safety (people are comfortable experimenting and sharing results, including failures) and concrete use cases that solve real workflow problems. If you score low here, it's likely these two factors that need to be addressed.
Dimension 3: Digital competence in leadership (0-20 points)
This is the dimension that is consistently the most underestimated — and the one with the greatest impact on digital project success. If you score 15-20, leadership can ask critical, precise questions about digital performance, understands the overall mechanisms behind digital channels and AI, and is able to evaluate digital investments without blindly trusting the experts' word. If you score under 8, the digital team and leadership are in two separate worlds talking past each other.
Leadership competence doesn't mean leadership needs to understand technical details. It means they understand the connection between digital activities and business outcomes — and know what questions to ask when something doesn't appear to be working.
Dimension 4: Degree of automation (0-20 points)
Which processes are automated, and which are still manual? If you score 15-20, most repetitive, rule-based processes are automated — reporting, data collection, routine communication, and invoice processing — and your employees primarily spend time on complex, creative or relational work. If you score under 8, many processes still run manually, and there are large variations in how people perform the same tasks.
A simple test: Ask your team what they spend the first two hours of a Monday morning on. If the answer involves fetching data, consolidating reports, or answering routine questions — there's an automation potential waiting to be realised.
Dimension 5: Technological agility (0-20 points)
How quickly can the organisation adopt new technology, change workflows, and respond to new opportunities? If you score 15-20, you can typically pilot test a new technology in under two weeks, roll out in under three months, and you have a culture that sees technological change as an opportunity rather than a threat. If you score under 8, technological changes require lengthy approval processes, and change is consistently met with resistance.
Agility is not primarily a technical question — it's a cultural and structural one. The most agile organisations are those with shorter decision paths, more delegated responsibility, and an explicit acceptance that experiments sometimes fail.
Interpretation of your total score:
Score 0-40 (Digital beginner): Your most important effort is the foundation — data, governance and leadership competence. Don't try to jump to AI adoption or advanced automation yet. Build a solid base to build on. Score 41-70 (Digital transition): You're moving, but your efforts are probably uncoordinated. Your priority is to create coherence between the digital initiatives and a shared direction that the whole organisation understands and supports. Score 71-100 (Digitally mature): Your challenge is no longer getting started — but leveraging your competitive advantage, maintaining agility as you grow, and ensuring that your digital capability is actually reflected in your market position.