Measuring the Success of Digital Transformation in German SMEs

Q3 Business, Management and Accounting

Journal of Small Business Strategy Pub Date : 2023-04-25 DOI:10.53703/001c.39679

Paul Pfister, Claudia Lehmann

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

The pace of digital disruption in firms is omnipresent and has been accelerated by the emergence of COVID-19. Using digital technologies requires financial resources to create value. As these resources are limited in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and digital use cases and best practices are not well known, the purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how SME managers are adding value and achieving a measurable return on investment (ROI) by using digital technologies. The study reviews a range of literature and models relating to digitisation impacts within SMEs. Further, it entails in-depth qualitative research on digital transformation in SMEs to explore the usage of digitisation and measurements of the added value and return. By inductively performing a multiple-case study of eight German SMEs, the researchers provide evidence to determine the usefulness of data analytics in SMEs. The study delivers a rich overview of added value, benefits and ways SMEs can use various ROI opportunities. Five benefits are revealed: increased revenue, improved customer satisfaction, improved employee satisfaction, efficiency and productivity. In addition, the case studies yield 25 significant positive ROIs in numerous use cases where data analytics solutions are implemented to improve revenue or cut costs. The weighted ROI average in this study is 13.44. Thus, most of the investments are highly worthwhile.

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衡量德国中小企业数字化转型的成功

数字化颠覆企业的步伐无处不在，COVID-19的出现更是加速了这一步伐。使用数字技术需要财政资源来创造价值。由于这些资源在中小型企业(SME)中有限，并且数字用例和最佳实践并不为人所知，因此本定性研究的目的是调查中小企业管理者如何通过使用数字技术来增加价值并实现可衡量的投资回报(ROI)。该研究回顾了一系列与中小企业数字化影响相关的文献和模型。此外，还需要对中小企业的数字化转型进行深入的定性研究，以探索数字化的使用以及附加价值和回报的测量。通过对八家德国中小企业进行归纳性的多案例研究，研究人员提供了证据来确定数据分析在中小企业中的有用性。该研究提供了丰富的附加值，效益和中小企业可以利用各种投资回报率机会的方式概述。五个好处揭示:增加收入，提高客户满意度，提高员工满意度，效率和生产力。此外，在实施数据分析解决方案以提高收入或降低成本的众多用例中，案例研究产生了25个显著的正roi。本研究的加权ROI平均值为13.44。因此，大多数投资都是非常值得的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Small Business Strategy Business, Management and Accounting-Strategy and Management

CiteScore

3.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

4 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Small Business Strategy is an applied research journal. Manuscripts should be written with the small business/entrepreneurship educator, small business consultant in mind. Both conceptual and empirically-based papers are encouraged, but they must have an applied focus. All papers must have a significant literature review, be properly documented, with citations from research-based works rather than popular press or web sites. Since JSBS is an applied research journal, each article should include a substantial "Discussion and Implications" section that details how the research findings are relevant for the journal''s readers. Authors are discouraged from submitting manuscripts with extremely complex statistical analyses and/or a purely theoretical orientation. Case studies are acceptable if they contribute substantial to the understanding of small business strategy and include a significantly to the understanding of small business strategy and include a significant literature review that underscores the issues in the case. We do not accept teaching or pedagogical cases.