Results of an Empirical Analysis of Digital Maturity in Retail: Competency-Role Model, Barriers, and Areas for Transformation

The article examines digital maturity of Russian food retail with a focus on roles in digital transformation. Two groups of actors are considered: decision makers (DM), who launch and approve digital initiatives, and implementers (IM), who develop and deploy solutions. The study is based on twenty anonymous surveys and semi-structured interviews. A competence-role model is built, linking competence profiles of DM and IM, their assessments of digital maturity in key domains, and groups of barriers. The results show that differences in competences and maturity assessments are connected with which barriers respondents see as critical and which initiatives they view as priorities over the next 12–18 months. The article presents aggregated findings: a domain maturity map, a ranked list of barriers and a set of priority directions. The proposed approach can be used as a basis for diagnostics and planning of digital initiatives in food retail.