The mid-market segment in Türkiye — companies broadly between ₺200m and ₺5bn in revenue — accounts for a disproportionate share of the country's economic output, its private-sector employment, and its export capacity. It is also the segment where the gap between digital-transformation rhetoric and operational reality is widest. We surveyed 312 mid-market companies across nine sectors over the second half of 2025, supplemented by 48 in-depth interviews with CEOs and chief digital officers, to map where the segment actually stands and where it is going.
1. The maturity picture, by sector
Digital maturity in mid-market Türkiye is bimodal. A small cluster of sectors — financial services, telecoms, e-commerce — has converged with European peers. A larger cluster — manufacturing, construction, retail, professional services — sits 5–8 years behind. The aggregate national picture masks this dispersion.
2. Where the spend is going — and where it isn't
Digital spend in the mid-market has grown faster than any other category of capex over the past three years, but the composition of that spend is telling. The bulk goes to applications — ERP upgrades, CRM, e-commerce platforms — while the foundational capabilities that determine whether those applications produce value (data architecture, integration, change management) attract far less. The pattern is consistent across sectors, and it is the single best predictor of underperformance.
The laggards spend on apps and call it transformation. The leaders spend half their budget on the foundations that determine whether apps produce value.
3. The leadership gap
Spend composition is a symptom; leadership composition is the cause. Among the mid-market companies we surveyed, only 31% have a CDO or equivalent role with P&L authority. Another 28% have the title without the authority. The remaining 41% manage digital through the CIO or a delegated business function — which produces the application-heavy spend pattern shown above.
The companies pulling ahead are almost without exception in the first category: a CDO (or CEO with digital fluency) with the authority to allocate the spend across all five categories, not just the application layer. The next two years of catch-up in the mid-market will be driven less by technology choice and more by who is sitting at the table when the spend is allocated.
4. What the 20% do differently
Five characteristics distinguish the leaders. None of them is a technology choice.
They put the CDO on the executive committee. Without exception, the leaders in the sample have a senior digital leader who reports to the CEO and sits on the operating committee. The decision rights on cross-functional digital programs go to that person, not to the function that "owns" the underlying business.
They invest in data foundations first. 22% of leader spend is on data architecture and platforms. 10% in the laggard sample. The gap is the single biggest line-item difference and the single biggest predictor of forward maturity.
They run fewer concurrent programs. The median leader has 3 active enterprise-scale digital programs; the median laggard has 9. The leaders deliver more transformation per year despite the smaller portfolio.
They retire technical debt deliberately. 17% of leader IT operating budget is allocated to deliberate decommissioning of legacy systems. The laggard figure is below 4%. The compound cost of carrying obsolete systems is the silent drag on the laggards.
They build internal capability rather than buying it. Leaders run a 60/40 internal-to-external mix for digital talent; laggards run roughly 25/75. The dependence on external delivery shows up in cycle time and in the inability to maintain systems after the consultants leave.
5. A playbook for the next two years
For a mid-market CEO or board sitting on a digital strategy that is not delivering, four moves to consider before adding more software to the stack.
1. Audit the spend composition. If application spend is more than 40% of total digital, the allocation is wrong. The diagnostic is straightforward; the political conversation that follows is the hard part.
2. Put a CDO at the table. If the current digital lead does not sit on the operating committee, the structural problem will defeat any specific initiative. Fix the seat at the table before you fix the strategy.
3. Shorten the portfolio. Pick the three transformations that matter. Kill or de-prioritize the rest. The shortened portfolio will move faster than the long one — every time.
4. Build internal capability. If you are spending more than half of your digital budget on external delivery, you are renting the transformation rather than acquiring it. Reverse the ratio over 18–24 months.
The mid-market is two-track. The top quartile has converged with European peers and is now compounding. The bottom three quartiles are spending without translating spend into capability. The structural moves above — leadership, allocation, portfolio discipline, internal capability — are unsexy and effective. They are also still available; the window is open for another 24–36 months before the gap becomes uncatchable.
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