Where do you stand on the ladder?

Every leader has been asked where their company stands on digital transformation. Almost no one answers it honestly. The honest answer isn’t a mood or a budget line — it’s a position. A rung on a ladder. And most companies are sitting a level or two below where they believe they are.

The ladder has seven rungs, and they run in one direction.

The seven levels

• Level 0 · Ad hoc — analog by default. Spreadsheets are the system of record. Process is manual and person-dependent.
• Level 1 · Emerging — pockets of experimentation. A CRM here, a tracker there. No shared vision; success rides on individuals.
• Level 2 · Defined — a strategy takes shape. Budget, roles, intentional tool choices. Legacy systems get named as blockers.
• Level 3 · Integrated — systems talk to each other. Data flows across silos instead of being re-keyed. Work runs end-to-end.
• Level 4 · Data-driven — decisions by evidence. KPIs are trusted, debated and acted on, not just collected.
• Level 5 · Predictive & automated — AI and automation handle routine decisions. Effort shifts from doing the work to handling exceptions.
• Level 6 · Adaptive — continuous reinvention. The company senses change and reconfigures in real time. Maturity becomes the metabolism of the business.

Nobody starts at the top

The point of the ladder isn’t to shame anyone for being on a low rung. Everyone starts low. The point is to know which rung you’re actually on — because you can’t climb from a position you can’t see.

And here’s the uncomfortable part: maturity was never about budget. You can own the latest stack and still operate at Level 1 — decisions by gut, data unused, teams working around their tools instead of through them. Maturity is behaviour, not spend.

The trap in the middle

Most companies stall between Level 2 and Level 3 — between having a strategy and actually integrating. They buy platforms but don’t change process or incentives. Expensive tools, bolted onto the old way of working. The slide deck says “transformed.” The day-to-day says otherwise.

Climbing out of that trap isn’t a bigger tool. It’s a method — a way of running the company that connects the systems you already have and carries you up one rung at a time.

Find your rung

You can’t improve a position you can’t see. So before the next initiative, the next platform, the next AI pilot — answer the question honestly. Where do you actually stand?

See the full ladder and locate yourself: Where you stand.