Adaptation Strategies to Increase Business Competitiveness in the Digital Era: an Empirical Study of Local Freight Firms in Thailand

Digitization plays a significant role in shaping modern business operations. The notion of digitalization is also included in Thailand’s recent national economic development policy, known as Thailand 4.0. Under the policy, rooted in the industry 4.0 concept, the country promotes economic growth with innovation and creativity and tries to move towards the digital economy. This paper presents an empirical study examining the business adaptation of local family firms facing opportunities and business challenges caused by the Thailand 4.0 policy and the digitalization motivation. It delivers empirical evidence on entrepreneurship development in local Thai cross-border freight family businesses trying to change to innovative firms. The researchers employed a qualitative research approach to investigate five purposively selected firms from Nakhon Phanom province of the North-East region of Thailand. The research data was collected using documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with the owner-managers of the selected firms. Study results are delivered under two themes: developing innovative family entrepreneurship and digitalization in local cross-border freight firms. The results show that digitalization is adopted to improve three primary areas for strategic improvement in the transportation industry, including inventory, transport, and location strategies. Family power and control are founded to positively support the family business transformation towards industry 4.0 via business digitalization. Trained employees to gain sufficient knowledge related to digital transformation is also essential. The paper also identifies areas requiring further improvements, including systematic support from public authorities and reliable technology to help widen and sustain domestic and international business partnership networks.