Advancing Capability Maturity

Our research shows a distinct variance within organizations depending on their level of maturity. The following provides a snapshot of such findings:

• At level 1, an organization typically execute some strategic business technology management processes in a disaggregated, task-like manner
• At level 2, an organization often exhibits limited business technology management capabilities, attempts to assemble information for major decisions, and consults their technology group on decisions with obvious business technology implications
• At level 3, an organization is "functional" with respect to business technology management
• At level 4, and organization has business technology management fully implemented across the board
• At level 5, an organization has matured far along enough to know when to change the rules to maintain strategic advantages over competitors who themselves may still be advancing their maturity of business technology management and convergence

In an effort to accelerate Maturity Advancement, BTM Fusion 360 provides:

• The BTM Maturity Model^TM The maturity model for business technology management (BTM) and convergence


• Characteristics of maturity advancement (from level 2 to level 5)


• Guidelines to the key requirements for maturity advancement and the potential pitfalls associated with such approaches


• Self-assessment diagnostic tools to rapidly baseline the current management capability maturity level of an organization

Maturity Model

A maturity model describes how well an organization performs a particular set of activities in comparison to a prescribed standard. A maturity model also makes it possible for an enterprise to identify anomalies in performance and benchmark itself against other companies or across industries.

Developed by the BTM Institute, the BTM Maturity Model defines the five levels of maturity, scored across the four critical dimensions - process, organization, information and technology - for each BTM Capability - and describes the characteristics of a converged enterprise.

In this fashion the maturity model allows measurement of BTM capabilities, secures a starting point, identifies areas most in need of improvement, and specifies the path for change. It is the objective foundation of a BTM Capability Maturity Assessment^TMand a maturity advancement plan. The Maturity Model defines the detailed characteristics for each capability and dimension for the 5 levels of maturity (1 = Initial; 2 = Repeatable; 3 = Defined; 4 = Managed; 5 = Optimizing).

Capability Maturity Self-Assessment

Baselining management maturity is an essential starting point towards achieving business technology convergence. To be effective and meaningful, a baseline (generally defined as "a line or standard by which things are measured or compared") must be inextricably linked to the entire environment being measured; and, it must be built upon a set of critical observations or data used for comparison or a control.

The BTM Maturity Assessment^TM is a web-based, 204-question, self-assessment diagnostic tool that rapidly allows an organization to baseline its current management capability maturity level. The assessment is comprised of questions based on the management capabilities defined in BTM Fusion 360, and arranged by dimension (process, organization, information, technology) in order to capture discrete data for each capability.

Assessment results are anonymous and capture the requisite data needed to compute an individual score for each capability. Individual scores are aggregated and a baseline maturity level is determined according to the pre-defined metrics outlined in the BTM Maturity Model. The BTM Maturity Assessment is a clear statement that identifies areas of strength and those most in need of improvement. It fixes the starting point for improvement, while describing the anticipated outcomes in terms of expected business results. The results of the assessment provide the input to the creation of a maturity advancement plan.

In addition to the determination of an organization's maturity level, the results of the assessment are also compared to the Business Technology Convergence Index. The Business Technology Convergence Index is a comprehensive database of the enterprise-wide business technology maturity levels of approximately 100 public commercial enterprises. The Index shows that there are enterprises of varying sizes at varying levels of maturity, ranging from the laggards, which are just above the initial stage (Level 1), to the leaders, which either are approaching or have reached the managed stage (Level 4). Only a relatively small number of enterprises have risen to the optimizing stage (Level 5).

The Index reveals a striking linkage between success in business technology convergence and an enterprise’s financial and operational performance. Publicly available information of the 30 leaders for the five years beginning in 2002 was gathered, and unweighted averages of the profitability and management characteristics were calculated. This data was then compared to the unweighted average figures for the industry groups of the leaders for a direct head-to-head comparison. The comparison is important, since it serves both to normalize the comparison and to reduce the number of factors that could otherwise account for performance differences.