West Monroe report gives tips for how to create a digitally agile organization
By implementing cultural, structural and talent-based changes, the report suggests that companies can improve their digital agility.
A new report suggests that one way a company can improve its return on investments is to improve its digital management. According to a study by West Monroe, a management consulting company, companies with better digital management do better on the market and are more resilient in the face of economic changes than companies with poor digital management. Importantly, the ability of employees to respond to new digital initiatives is a key aspect of a company’s overall digital agility.
The report is based on a survey and 1:1 interviews done with more than 300 leaders across the globe. It identifies four key areas in which successful companies excelled at digital agility. Those four areas are risk-taking, meaning the company has implemented a fail-fast culture in which employees felt safe taking risks; collaboration, meaning the company has measures in place to recognize collaboration between employees; development, meaning there is a defined strategy in place for employees to enhance their digital skills; and retention, meaning the company has or is working towards high employee retention.
The ability to hire talent, career movement, and a flexible organizational structure are also noted as important factors contributing to digital skills.
Kim Seals, a Senior Partner in Human Capital Management at West Monroe, writes in the report of the findings, “In today’s market, it’s a business imperative to have threads of digital woven throughout the organization to enhance culture, transform talent, and optimize structure to best position the right people in the right roles, with the necessary tools to grow and succeed.”
Eric Johnson, from the Product Experience & Engineering Lab at West Monroe, notes, “There is a wide spectrum of digital maturity. Most organizations are in the middle of their journey.”
But by implementing cultural, structural, and talent-based changes, the report suggests that companies can improve their digital agility.
Read more: Managing a human-digital workforce in 2022 and beyond
Other findings of the report include that higher-performing companies have HR teams that use more types of data and use them more often than lower-performing digital companies; higher-performing companies balance hiring new employees with developing existing workers; and most high-performing organizations have a flexible organizational structure.