How Digital Transformation Leaders entrants are assessed

The inaugural Digital Transformation Leaders List is an initiative of The Australian Financial Review and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The list celebrates those organisations investing in digital transformations to generate a lasting and meaningful impact on their performance.

The list highlights leading digital transformations from entrants who submitted a clear set of initiatives and outcomes, alongside investments in their underlying tech platforms and the processes to execute on the strategy successfully. From our research, we have identified six “Key Success Factors” which are the most important determinants of whether a digital transformation will be successful.

This year’s entrants were assessed and scored against the six factors, using an assessment methodology that was shared with entrants and covers:

• Is there an integrated strategy with clear transformation goals? The strategy should describe the why, the what and the how, which are tied to specific, quantified business outcomes and include a clear digital vision.
• Is there leadership commitment from the CEO down to middle managers? The company should have high engagement and alignment from leadership, including often overlooked middle-management ownership and accountability.
• Has high-calibre talent been deployed? Management should identify and free up the most capable resources to drive the transformation program.
• Has an agile governance mindset driven broader adoption? Leaders address roadblocks quickly, adapt to changing contexts, and drive cross-functional, mission-oriented, “fail-fast-learn” behavioural change into the wider organisation. They deal with individual challenges without losing sight of the broader goals.
• Is there effective monitoring of progress towards defined outcomes? The company establishes clear metrics and targets around processes and outcomes, with sufficient data availability and quality.
• Is there a business-led modular technology & data platform? The company should put in place a fit-for-purpose, modern technology architecture driven by business needs to enable secure, scalable performance, rapid change deployment, and seamless ecosystem integration.

A market analysis was not conducted as part of the creation of the list, and only organisations which submitted had their application assessed. Entrants filled out a survey covering their digital initiatives, impact achieved and the Key Success Factors framework.

This information was used to assess entrants and develop the list. An expert panel from BCG and The Australian Financial Review reviewed submissions and selected leaders for each industry category. The members of BCG’s team responsible for assessing this year’s innovations were not involved in work for any of companies on the list.

Each entrant receives a unique benchmarking report with the results of their assessment.