You probably know that digital and data maturity is a key factor in achieving your organisation’s goals, after all the concept has been around for over a decade and it’s only becoming more and more ubiquitous. Organisations often focus on the impact on staff and internal goals but if you take a step back, it ultimately serves your clients. When you have a good level of digital and data maturity, your clients’ experience with your organisation becomes extremely easy, interactions are logical and they trust you. Your organisation thrives.
So let’s look into the ins and outs of digital and data maturity, why it matters, a major factor that affects cohesiveness and finally, how your organisation can self-evaluate. After all, if you don’t know where you stand it’s hard to take a step in the right direction.
What is Digital and Data Maturity?
Developed in the wake of the technology boom of the 00s, Digital Maturity Models (DMMs) aim to measure an organisation’s ability to mesh systems, data and platform capabilities in order to achieve goals. These DMMs rank the organisation according to pre-defined grades and then provide actionable steps to improve your ranking.
Completing an assessment gives an organisation an understanding of where their technology might be letting them down and what they can do to address these gaps, and of course considers AI readiness and capability as well. Typically, DMMs look at your digital capabilities, identifying any gaps, providing a roadmap to fill these gaps, and measuring progress along that roadmap to digital and data maturity.
DMMs look at a range of dimensions including technology infrastructure, data management, “customer” experience and organisational culture. Digging a bit deeper, this could be looking at how integrated your systems are, what your data management policies are, whether you have a central source of truth for your donors and/or clients, and whether you have a culture of innovation and experimentation or not.
For many For-Purpose organisations, DMMs typically identify:
- A lack of a centralised system: many For-Purpose organisations have donor and client data spread across multiple, disparate solutions from spreadsheets and Outlook to point solutions solving one organisation problem (like case management OR volunteer management, but not both).
- Siloed organisational processes with little collaboration and communication between teams, hindered by a lack of integrated solutions.
- Challenging decision-making with a lack of clear frameworks and processes.
- “Messy” data with multiple duplicates, dispersed information about the same person across multiple “systems” leading to an inability to really know your stakeholders.
- Complicated heavily manual processes taking valuable staff time away from your core mission.
- A culture of always being “too busy” to really affect positive change.
While undertaking an assessment, you will inevitably note the measures that affect your organisation and begin thinking about how you could improve them.
Why do they matter?
As a general rule, a low score on a DMM equates to poor performance and outcomes, while a high ranking suggests excellent performance. In the commercial world, performance is typically about revenue, but in the For-Purpose sector, that’s really about achieving your mission.
If your tech and data are working FOR you, you can achieve better client outcomes, do more advocacy work, raise more money to fund the research you’re doing….whatever your “thing” is.
If your organisation hasn’t completed an assessment as yet, don’t be concerned. The Australian Government’s Department of Finance released its first Data Maturity Assessment in 2024. Agencies self-assessed and as a whole the Australian Public Service entities received an average score of 2.02 out of 5 = ‘developing’. Read more here.
Not just tech - let’s talk about people
Anyone who has been in organisation long enough knows that without the right people, things can be tougher than they need to be. And while your organisation adapts to rapid tech advancements in software and AI, it would be remiss to neglect the people working alongside you in pursuit of your goals.
Less well-addressed by many organisations is the concept of organisational wellness. Team cohesion, morale, feelings of belonging as well as utility, learning, education and viable career pathways are essential to a happy team member. Without them, we can feel ignored, lost, burned out or useless.
No organisation wants to lose their team through disengagement. Utilising a staff survey can identify how your organisation can meet employee expectations of their work and lead to increased wellness. Check out the work of Five to Flow, started by someone working in tech who saw people being ignored time and again.
People, Process, Technology…plus Data
There’s no point in excellence in one of these areas while forgetting the rest. A truly mature organisation understands how important the real intersection between people, process, technology and data is, how they all contribute to and enhance each other.
Does it matter where your organisation sits?
In an ideal scenario, we would be firing on all cylinders 100% of the time. But the reality is in most cases we elect to tackle specific areas in order of organisational necessity.
There’s no right or wrong however change fatigue is real. It’s important to be cognisant of how your people view the work ahead in a professional capacity, as well as how they feel about where the organisation is going from a personal perspective.
Change management plays a crucial role in bringing them with you into the new vision for and the new reality of your organisation.
Start here! Free tools for self-assessment
There are numerous tools available online. Below are some free tools we recommend and have used ourselves.
Five To Flow’s Wellness Wave
The Wellness Wave is Five to Flow’s confidential diagnostic survey that measures employee perspectives on the five core elements of organizational wellness.
Gartner Digital Maturity Model
Gartner IT Score is a comprehensive assessment tool developed to help IT leaders assess IT maturity, prioritize areas of improvement and set forth actionable improvement plans.
AgentFix Assessment Tool
Discover your organization’s AI readiness including risk assessment, industry benchmark and personalised AI roadmap, and unlock your transformation potential.
If you haven’t yet heard, AgentFix is the new AI-focused branch of SalesFix. We collaborate with your team to uncover opportunities, assess readiness, and align AI solutions to your goals through structured workshops, tailored roadmaps, and practical use cases.
How SalesFix can help
SalesFix is more than hands on keyboards. Yes, you’ll get some incredibly useful tools for your organisation, but our only reason for doing the work we do is to get a better outcome for you, your organisation and your mission. The effectiveness and specificity of those tools is made possible by a really thorough discovery and development process, and the working knowledge and experience of our dedicated team in building incredible solutions for the Australian and New Zealand NFP sector.
Bethany Smith
SalesFix For Purpose
Subject Matter Expert
Bethany is one of SalesFix’s Not-For-Profit Subject Matter Experts, dedicated to helping organisations create greater impact with Salesforce over the past four years.
With a background working inside
Not-For-Profits, she brings genuine understanding and passion for the sector’s mission and challenges.