Process-oriented digital maturity assessment and how digital maturity influences business performance in the manufacturing industry

Digitalisation is crucial in today's global business world, enhancing effectiveness and efficiency and thus strengthening competitiveness in the long run. However, Germany's manufacturing industry is experiencing a surge in digital catch-up demand, which is inconsistent with the country's strong and long-lasting economic performance. This study analyses the impact of digital maturity on business performance in the manufacturing industry and how industry certifications like ISO 9001 affect companies' digital maturity. As business process management and digitalisation are closely interrelated, this study enhances existing digital maturity models by proposing a more process-oriented methodology for measuring digital maturity and thus contributes to theory. The Spearman rank correlation, the Wilcoxon rank-sum test, and simple linear regressions are applied for the statistical analyses. The results show that business performance increases with the level of digital maturity, and certified companies achieve higher digital maturity than non-certified companies. Moreover, manufacturing companies are provided with reasons to drive digitalisation, corresponding recommendations for action at the process level, and a benchmark for the German manufacturing industry.