Digital Leadership Barometer shows companies’ digital steps

Authored this year’s Digital Leadership Barometer: Claude Meier (left) and Urs Jäckli. (Images: HWZ)

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The Digital Leadership Barometer was founded in 2018 and carried out for the second time in 2020. He is supported by various partners. These include the Swiss Master Builders Association (SBV), Raiffeisen Enterprise Center (RUZ), SUPSI’s Dipartimento tecnologie innovative (DPI) and HWZ Alumni. 205 people completed the 2020 questionnaire in full. Almost 70% of the participants belonged to the middle or upper management. Study authors are Dr. Urs Jäckli and Dr. Claude Meier (picture).

Gap between theory and practice

“The respondents rate the strategic importance of digitization as very high with 81 out of 100 possible points. However, companies see themselves as being less advanced in the implementation of digitization, ”says Dr. Claude Meier, co-author of the study and head of the business methodology department at the HWZ. Its co-author, Dr. Urs Jäckli, study and project manager at the HWZ adds: “The current study shows a positive influence of digital training of employees on the digitization progress in the company.”

The Digital Leadership Barometer is rising …

As far as the structures for controlling digital activities in Swiss companies are concerned, a marked increase was noted in all areas, with a focus on digital projects. In 2018 around 33% of the participating companies did not have any such structures; today it is around 22%. 55% are working on digital projects today, an increase of 8 percentage points compared to 2018. Other structures for controlling digital activity often mentioned in the results of 2020 include exchange groups across departments and committees.

The strategic importance of digitization in companies increased slightly from 2018 to 2020. This also applies to digital progress in companies. However, there is still a discrepancy between the perceived progress of digitization in one’s own company and the strategic relevance assigned to the topic of digitization, but it is becoming smaller.

Progress thanks to digital education

In the HWZ study on digital leadership, a statistically significant connection was found between the digitization progress of a company and digital literacy. In particular, those companies are developing positively that provide their employees with resources and training, familiarize them with handling digital applications and working methods and thus significantly increase their own level of digitization.

Those: HWZ