DEi Expands to Score Industry Sectors

In June, we announced SNG’s popular new offering: the Digital Economy index scorecards.  A composite score of how businesses and organizations use seventeen (17) online practices, or “e-solutions,” the Digital Economy index (DEi) is a unique assessment tool that can be used at any industry, sectoral, or geographic analysis of businesses and organizations to drive productivity and competitiveness.

DEI enables businesses and organizations to see where they stand relative to their peers. SNG personalizes the value of online practices to individual businesses and organizations by producing customized scorecards that show where improvements can be made to be more productive and competitive an increasingly online economy.

As SNG’s DEi is a composite score of how organizations use online practices to drive productivity and competitiveness, DEi can also be shown strengths and weaknesses within industry sectors.

As we’ve just completed our latest work in North Carolina, let’s take a look at the DEi results by industry and sectors for North Carolina. The overall median DEi for all organizations surveyed in North Carolina is 6.99, with 50 percent of organizations falling between a DEi of 5.34 and 8.45. These scores compare utilization of e-solutions between industry sectors and we’ll explore what that means below.

Opportunities for increasing DEi scores, with the accompanying economic benefits, can be identified and prioritized for action by businesses and organizations.

For example, in North Carolina, the Construction industry (DEi = 6.17) and Information Services industry (DEi = 8.16) have among the lowest and highest median use of 17 types of Internet applications or processes.  The average DEi for North Carolina was 6.99 (high is better).

Some of the differences in the DEi score reflect unique characteristics of the structure of that industry. For example, the Construction industry has very high use of certain applications, such as supply chain management and document transfer, while having low use of tele-working.

One interesting example of using the DEi is a comparison of the Education industry (high DEi of 7.96) and Health and Human Services industry (low DEi of 6.60). Comparing these two industries highlights the extent to which the Education industry has pioneered such Internet uses as direct service delivery and remote counselling, while Health and Human Services lag significantly in these areas.

SNG’s proprietary DEi benchmarking capability is a critical tool for proponents of broadband and economic development because DEi shows where organizations and industries are leveraging broadband – and where they should be adopting online practices that will keep them competitive and relevant in a digital economy.