The methodology used by the IMD World Competitiveness Center to develop the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking also applies to the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking and the IMD World Talent Ranking, with certain nuances. The 2024 edition of the WDCR ranks 67 economies worldwide. The final score for each economy is computed by using the perceptions of executives together with statistical data.  This is designed in order to use different types of data to measure quantifiable and qualitative issues separately.

As in the case of the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, we assume that digital transformation takes place primarily at the enterprise level (whether private or state-owned) but it also occurs at the government and society levels.

The methodology of the WDCR defines digital competitiveness into three main factors: Knowledge, Technology, and Future Readiness. In turn, each of these factors is divided into three sub-factors which highlight every facet of the areas analyzed. Altogether, the WDCR features nine such sub-factors.

These nine sub-factors comprise 59 criteria, although each sub-factor does not necessarily have the same number of criteria (for example, it takes more criteria to assess Training and Education than to evaluate IT integration). Each sub-factor, independent of the number of criteria it contains, has the same weight in the overall consolidation of results, that is approximately 11.1% (100 ÷ 9 ~ 11.1).

Criteria can be hard data, which analyze digital competitiveness as it can be measured (e.g. Internet bandwidth speed) or soft data, which analyze competitiveness as it can be perceived (e.g. Agility of companies). Hard criteria represent a weight of two thirds in the overall ranking whereas the survey data represent a weight of one third.

The 59 criteria include 22 indicators that are only used in the assessment of the WDCR ranking. The rest of the indicators are shared with the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking. In addition, three criteria are for background information only, which means that they are not used in calculating the overall competitiveness ranking (i.e., Population, GDP, and Exchange Rate).

Finally, aggregating the results of the nine sub-factors makes the total consolidation, which leads to the overall ranking of the WDCR.