Marcelo Mangiacavalli, Head of Corporate IT / CIO, Grupo Chacomer
Let’s imagine the following story: A few years ago, I sat in a boardroom where a senior executive confidently said: “We’re now digitally mature, we just signed the contract for our new ERP cloud platform.”
The room applauded. The investment was significant. The buzzwords were all there. But months later, after go-live, the operation hadn’t changed much. Decisions were still delayed. Processes were as manual as ever. Teams were still siloed. The only thing that had evolved was the software bill.
This is the uncomfortable truth: you don’t buy digital maturity, you build it.
What Digital Maturity Isn’t
Let’s start here, because the confusion is real.
Digital maturity is not about how many tools you own, how much you spend on cloud licenses, or how many dashboards your team can open at once.
• Buying a McLaren doesn’t make you a Formula 1 driver.
• Owning 10 licenses of cutting-edge AI software doesn’t make your company more digital.
Yet, I see organizations (especially in retail, distribution and manufacturing) falling into the trap of “tech = transformation.” They think that by onboarding a big platform, they can check off the “digital” box and move on.
The problem? The business stays the same. Only the interfaces change. The decisions, the bottlenecks, the processes, the behaviors, untouched. The fancy tool becomes another layer over legacy habits.
As I explained in other articles in Digital Transformation the “Technology” comes at the end of the road, it is a means to an objective.
The Maturity Illusion: Why Money Progress
Analysts call this “the maturity illusion.” According to McKinsey, 70% of digital transformations fail to deliver expected outcomes, not because of tech, but due to lack of real organizational change.
Gartner puts it more bluntly: “Most organizations confuse digital investment with digital transformation.”
Digital maturity shows up in how a company thinks, acts, and adapts, not in what tools it owns 
Just because you moved to the cloud doesn’t mean you’ve modernized your operations. Just because you deployed an ERP doesn’t mean your teams collaborate or make decisions faster. Just because you generate reports doesn’t mean you’re data-driven.
You can throw millions at software and still have:
• Fragmented processes
• Shadow IT
• “Excel-on-top-of-SAP” culture
• KPIs no one reads
• Change fatigue masked as digital enthusiasm
Why? Because digital maturity is a capability, not a collection of tools.
What Digital Maturity Is
Digital maturity shows up in how a company thinks, acts, and adapts, not in what tools it owns.
Here’s what it actually looks like:
False Maturity vs Real Maturity
• “We bought an AI solution” vs “We restructured our process to embed AI into decisions”
• “We rolled out Power BI” vs “We trained the team to ask better questions with data”
• “We moved to the cloud” vs “We cut approval times by 40% by redesigning workflows”
• “We implemented CRM” vs “We now respond to leads 4× faster, and conversion improved”
The shift is from tech acquisition to behavior transformation. That’s the real maturity curve.
Maturity Without Mindset Is Wasted Budget
The tools are only as effective as the mindset around them.
You can install Microsoft Dynamics Insights or Salesforce, but if your teams are still forwarding Excel sheets by email, nothing changed.
You can set up automated workflows, but if approvals still depend on “who shouts loudest,” you’re not agile, you’re loud.
You can deploy AI, but if no one understands the logic behind its suggestions, it’s a black box, not a co-pilot.
“Digital maturity is cultural first, procedural second and technological last.”
5 Signs You’re Moving Toward True Digital Maturity
Here’s how you know you’re on the right path:
1. Your leaders talk about value before features. Tech is no longer an end, it’s a means to unlock business outcomes.
2. You measure adoption, not just activation. Dashboards aren’t enough. You track who uses them, for what decisions, and how often.
3. You simplify before you automate. No “paving cow paths.” You fix broken processes before throwing tech at them.
4. You invest in skills, not just software. You build digital confidence: training, storytelling, governance. Tools are teachable; behaviors are coachable.
5. You celebrate use cases, not rollouts. A “go-live” isn’t success, a business win using the system is. Show me what changed.
You Can’t Download Maturity
Digital maturity isn’t something you download from a vendor portal. It’s not an invoice you sign, or a license count you negotiate. It’s a discipline you build, project by project, decision by decision, team by team.
If your strategy relies on “buying your way into transformation,” be careful. You may end up with great tech, poor adoption, and no change.
On the other hand, if you focus on people, clarity, process, and leadership, even simple tools can produce extraordinary results.