Digital transformation and digital maturity models: a blueprint strategic decision-making framework

Focusing on businesses, digital transformation has a significant impact on various sectors. It enables innovation practices, new or improved designs and processes, and new business models, restructuring the business value chain. Digital transformation is not just about development through adoption of new technologies. Even though organisations differ regarding their digital transformation process, there is a need for digital maturity models in order to assess the status quo of their digital transformation. Therefore, there is a lack of understanding on which are the critical elements that organisations need to take into consideration for their digital transformation journey. The purpose of this paper is to propose both a scientific and practical framework for designing, developing, and implementing a digital transformation journey. Many different digital maturity models have been examined and analysed implementing a three-phase literature review methodology. Based on the prior literature of digital transformation maturity models, a conceptual framework is proposed and tested with a case study. As a result, the synthesized framework could serve as a blueprint of strategic decision-making in digital transformation. This research spreads light on the field of digital transformation by expanding the role of digital maturity models. It is stated that more research needs to be done aiming to gain a deeper understanding of this topic.