Digital maturity check

The market research and consulting company International Data Corporation (IDC) recommends making the decision dependent on the respective digital maturity level in the company. A distinction is made here between five levels. The first level comprises legacy applications and refers to older and thus established solutions and processes such as Excel spreadsheets and on-premises solutions. The solution here lies in the automation of tasks and workflows. In a first step, potential errors can be eliminated, for example by reducing opportunities for data manipulation and policy violations.

Those who automate individual tasks and workflows have taken a first step towards efficient spend management and have thus reached the second stage of automated point solutions. Companies at this stage are well advised to establish a networked platform ecosystem. Decision-makers thus gain an overview of expenditures and also reduce the risk of accepting incorrect applications. If these selective back-office solutions are connected in a system by a networked platform ecosystem, and third-party applications and external data sources are integrated, the third stage is reached. To gain an even better overview, companies should link their applications in an application suite and thus move on to the fourth stage.

If a company has integrated its applications in an application suite, it is already strongly positioned. CFOs have a holistic overview of working capital and can make flexible strategic decisions. Now the end-to-end processes for managing personnel expenses should still be optimized. The fifth and final stage has thus been reached and the foundation laid for the introduction of new solutions.