Developing a digital maturity model for the sales processes of industrial projects

To support adequate strategic decisions, every digital transformation begins with an analysis of the current state of the company. These analyses often include the use of digital maturity models (DMMs). There are numerous DMMs in a wide variety of industries and application areas. While most of these models primarily address the digital maturity of manufacturing companies as a whole, only a few DMMs focus on particular departments or processes. Thus, there is a research gap in this field of study. This paper contributes to the identified gap by developing a DMM for the sales process in B2B project business. Building on a literature review that identified and examined specific DMMs which have been developed in the B2B context, we conducted a case study using expert interviews at a large German industrial company to develop a DMM of the different phases of the sales process. This DMM shall contribute to the research of maturity models and guide companies of different industries in their digital transformation activities focusing on the digitalization of their sales process.