Commerce & retail

How to make digital maturity a boardroom priority in retail

Digital maturity is critical in retail, but securing board buy-in is harder than ever. Learn how leaders can reframe the conversation and build confidence in digital investment decisions.

February 10, 20262 Minutes to Read
With insights from

Laurence Smith

Managing Director Retail

Richard Lim

CEO, Retail Economics

Most senior leaders recognise that technology, data, and AI will shape future competitiveness in retail. And yet, many still struggle to secure board or leadership approval for the investments required to move forward.

The issue isn’t awareness. It’s that the internal conversation about digital maturity has become harder – more complex, more scrutinised, and more exposed to risk than ever before. Retail leaders are often caught between the urgency to act and the responsibility to justify investment in an increasingly uncertain environment.

Drawing on our recent research with Retail Economics, this article looks at why that conversation so often stalls and how retail leaders can approach it more effectively.

Why digital investment faces greater scrutiny at board level

Retail boards today are operating in a far more demanding environment than even a few years ago. Softer consumer demand, rising operating costs, and sustained margin pressure mean that every investment decision carries greater weight. As Richard puts it, ‘there are just so many waves of disruption. Retailers are having to weigh competing priorities and decide where investment in digital infrastructure fits among them’.

Digital investment now competes with a wide range of strategic pressures, from AI and social commerce to pre-loved models, international expansion, and regulatory change. Often, all at once. In that context, it’s natural that boards apply a higher level of scrutiny to any large digital transformation programme.

There’s also a legacy of ‘overhyped moonshots’. Many retailers invested time, money, and effort in technologies that promised radical change but failed to deliver meaningful commercial impact. Metaverse initiatives, VR experiences, and blockchain are often cited as examples where results failed to live up to the hype.

In this light, board-level scrutiny isn’t resistance to digital maturity. It’s a signal for retail leaders to be clearer about where to focus, what trade-offs they’re making, and how value will be demonstrated over the short, medium, and long term.

What actually helps secure senior buy-in

Boards and senior leaders rarely want more enthusiasm. What they are looking for is evidence, prioritisation, and a credible route to value, especially when margins are under pressure and capital is constrained. In our view, three things can help move the digital maturity investment conversations forward.

  • 1. Use peer evidence, not hypotheticals

    One of the biggest challenges in board discussions is moving beyond opinion or aspiration. Even well-reasoned projections can feel abstract when the operating environment is uncertain.  

    What tends to resonate more strongly is peer evidence, providing a clear view of how comparable retailers are performing and what differentiates those that are pulling ahead. When you can anchor the conversation in what is really happening across the market, it becomes easier to move from debate to decision. 

    This is where a broader market perspective helps. For example, our joint research with Retail Economics benchmarks 100 leading European retailers across digital capabilities and illustrates how digital maturity correlates with commercial performance over time. The pattern that emerges is consistent – retailers that have invested in digital maturity are not only more resilient but also performing better financially.

    Chart illustrating Digital Leaders have grown revenues at 8.6% annually between 2019-2024, almost double the pace of less digitally mature peers.

    What’s also interesting is that the most digitally mature aren’t winning by chasing every new technology. Instead, they are executing consistently, with clear intent to turn digital capability into advantage. 

    Discover the 5 European retailers that stand out as digital leaders and find out what their choices reveal about turning digital investments into real impact.

    Get the insights

From scrutiny to confident decisions

Digital maturity is not a technology question alone. It’s a leadership challenge that requires senior teams and boards to make informed decisions amid uncertainty. 

In today’s retail environment, board scrutiny is inevitable. Margins are tight, disruption is constant and the cost of getting major investment decisions wrong feels higher than ever. But scrutiny doesn’t have to stall progress. When digital maturity is framed around resilience, competitiveness, and risk management all the while being supported with credible peer evidence, the conversation changes. 

The retailers pulling ahead in terms of digital aren’t doing so because they’ve eliminated risk. They’ve done it by prioritising what matters most for their business, pacing investment through iterative delivery, and proving value early rather than promising it far out. 

For retail leaders trying to secure board buy-in, the goal isn’t to sell a vision of digital transformation. It’s to provide the clarity, evidence, and execution discipline that allow confident decisions to be made.

Explore the full findings of our research with Retail Economics

Download the full report on the state of digital maturity in European retail – including the data, benchmarks, and insights behind this analysis.

Get the report

Explore more Insights

Discover all Insights