How does a performing-arts organization expand its audience without changing its physical space? What is the best way for a bank to streamline its digital acquisitions across 20 countries? How should an online gaming company use web analytics to increase sales? These are some of the questions that Digital 20/20, now known as Ignite, is helping to answer.
“Digital 20/20 takes McKinsey’s most effective diagnostic assessments on digital and analytics and integrates them into one single solution, giving C-level executives a holistic view of their company’s digital opportunity,” explains Matt Brown, global solution leader. “Having worked with 700-plus companies over the last three years, we’ve seen many invest significantly in digital and analytics initiatives without getting the hoped-for ROI,” says Matt. “Often times, they approach their transformation with little understanding of which areas to focus on.”
Insights from our current assessment tools—such as Digital Quotient, Analytics Quotient, and Agile 360—show that only 15 percent of companies have fully integrated analytics into their business processes, and many CEOs are struggling to deliver on a digital strategy. “And so we asked ourselves, ‘How can we give clients a better big-picture view of where their digital opportunity lies?’” recalls Matt.
Developed as one integrated online survey, Digital 20/20 assesses an organization’s digital and analytics capabilities across six critical functions—from strategy to technology to culture—and benchmarks them against peers and best practices. “We then deliver a report that includes an overall capability score, a detailed explanation of best practices, and a list of the prioritized initiatives needed for a digital transformation,” explains Björn Münstermann, a partner of Digital McKinsey. The solution draws on a decade’s worth of collected data. “This is coupled with on-the-ground walkthroughs and/or workshops,” he adds.
The idea for Digital 20/20 grew out of on-the-ground research that we conducted over two years. We interviewed 100-plus thought leaders across the top digital companies worldwide—including digital natives Amazon, eBay, and Google, as well as legacy companies, to learn what their magic formula was. “High-performing digital winners are orchestrating their strategy across the entire organization,” explains Tanguy Catlin, a senior partner. “They’re not just looking at one department but rather ensuring there’s integration across several critical ones, like strategy, analytics, technology, marketing, organization, and operations.”
High-performing digital winners are orchestrating their strategy across the entire organization.
At the same time, the team looked at how different advisory firms were providing digital strategy to companies. “You’d see a software systems integrator come in with a set of interventions focused solely on tech, or market-research firms providing benchmark data on IT cost with little insight into overall business performance. It was very fragmented,” says Matt. “We wanted our clients to see the whole picture of their organization but realized our current offerings were fragmented too—that was the aha moment that led to the creation of Digital 20/20.”
“It allows us to offer clients a streamlined view across the entire organization, with the ability to drill down and identify granular-level opportunities in specific business and functional areas,” explains Tanguy. When it came to the performing-arts organization mentioned earlier, we did just that. Insights from Digital 20/20 focused on bridging its physical and digital functions, developing partnerships with external tech players, and building digital capabilities in data analytics. Within a single year, a series of concert webcasts launched, reaching over 150 countries and racking up nearly 3 million views.
We wanted our clients to see the whole picture of their organization—that was the aha moment that led to Digital 20/20.
“You can’t really succeed in a digital transformation by just, say, assessing a company’s talent without ensuring that the right IT infrastructure is in place or that agile methods align with business objectives,” states Matt. “Marketing has to talk to IT, which needs to talk to Strategy, which needs to align with Organization, and so on.”
The bank, referenced above, hit the nail on the head by developing a set of global key performance indicators and dashboard standards for its acquisitions across 20-plus markets. The result—$700 million captured in annual revenue within 18 months.
As for what’s next for Digital 20/20, the goal is to offer it as a self-serve model with on-demand features. “We want to empower clients to easily log onto the platform and get the needed assessment at the click of a button,” says Matt. “They'll be able to continuously get support with planning, tracking, and executing their digital aspirations.”