Companies with greater digital maturity are more productive and offer better salaries

n Nova SBE's side, the research was led by Digital Experience Lab (DEL), researcher and professor João B. Duarte, and the support of Nova Junior Consulting and Business and Economics Master's students. The document "The Road to a Bionic Portugal: The digital maturity of the business fabric in Portugal" was based on more than a thousand national companies from 15 different sectors.

According to the Digital Acceleration Index (DAI), created by BCG to assess the digital maturity stage of a country's economic fabric based on the current and desired level of digitalisation of its companies, it was revealed that Portugal is in the second of four levels of digital maturity, consolidating itself as "Digital Literate", below the European average, which is at the "Digital Performers" level. The nation is still far from the title of "Digital Leader", the highest level of the scale.

These data become especially relevant as the research concluded that there is a direct relationship between digital maturity, productivity and salary level in companies.

‍

Digitalisation, Productivity and Remuneration

The investment in digital transformation is a factor of acceleration and higher productivity for the Portuguese economy. Looking at the relationship between the digital maturity reported by companies and the performance indicators, it is observed that the most mature companies are the ones that offer better salaries to their employees and also the most productive. Each additional DAI point is, on average, accompanied by a 1.5% increase in the average salary, and statistically explains a 2% increase in company productivity.

‍

In addition, for each level of digital maturity increased in an organisation, productivity, on average, increases by 50%, and so do salaries, which increase by 37%. It is also concluded that companies with greater maturity are also those that invest more in digital.

"The DAI allowed us to create the largest and most complete database on the digital maturity of the Portuguese economy, namely of its agents, public or private, national or international, operating in the country. It is crucial that companies continue to participate in this type of initiatives, because only then can we have clear data on something that we are seeing has a great impact on productivity. There is also a second relevant point: we have to work to reduce the gap, compared to the European benchmark, namely, to be able to translate strategies into actions, which make organizations more focused on data and client, and less on product and intuition", stressed Duarte Silveira, Head of The Digital Experience Lab at Nova SBE.

Other relevant findings

The pandemic has impacted online traffic in retail very significantly as the need to stay home has forced many to embrace digital channels. The study reveals that there was a 61% increase in food and 47% increase in banking in the pre and post March 2020 confinement periods.

The findings also show that medium-sized companies are the ones leading the digital transformation. Small and micro companies face the greatest resistance and difficulties in this process, and it is "important to help them step up their digital maturity", pointed out José Ferreira, BCG's Managing Director, during the presentation of the report.

Companies in the food industry and trade sectors (wholesale and retail), are the ones dispersed in the maturity stages. Those operating in the IT, media, telecommunications (TMT) and services sectors are leading the way in digitalisation. In turn, the TMT and hotel and tourism sectors can be compared with international standards, being well positioned in terms of international competitiveness, while on the contrary, construction and heavy industries are at the bottom of digital maturity.

These sectorial differences give us "an indication that there is not a structural problem", "because in Portugal there is very little capacity to lead and to be ahead of the future. And when you do not lead in a transformation like this, you are reacting. And when we are reacting, we are already late," said Daniel Traça, Dean of Nova SBE. "You need to turn leadership towards the future. And this is something that is culturally difficult, because we are a country that reacts, but lousy at planning. And this is something that, in an environment of accelerated change where we must always be thinking about the future, is an extraordinary handicap. We need to work on leadership and make Portugal a talent centre that is not only Portuguese, but also international."