Publicação
Assessment of the organizational readiness level to maximize the results of a digital transformation in SMEs
| Resumo: | The role of Digital Transformation in economic development is a vital and recurring point of research. It is particularly relevant if we consider the high percentage of Digital Transformation initiatives that fail to deliver the expected results, particularly in Small and Medium Enterprises. This thesis analyzes what is needed to make this transformation successful from an implementation perspective and, simultaneously, from the standpoint of obtaining the company’s expected results. This phenomenon is even more critical to decipher and understand when we look at the Small and Medium Enterprises that face more significant challenges due to the scarcity of resources and needed skills. Throughout the past decade, we witnessed a drastic increase in the level of research carried out in the field of Digital Transformation, which aligns with the pace of the overall sociological development that has been accelerated due to the development of digital technologies. This fast pace of development has helped many organizations increase their competitiveness and improve their market positioning. At the same time, it has also pushed other organizations out of the market. Significantly, the startup ecosystem is contributing to the disruption of businesses that could have managed to keep that pace of development. This scenario is theatrical for Small and Medium Enterprises that need to maintain their relevance against the startups while increasing their speed of adoption of digital technologies and models. However, these companies need help in terms of resources and knowledge. It is a paradox that cannot be solved without support and immediate action. In a fast-paced environment, there is a tendency to be brutal to the ones who need to prepare to keep up with that fast-paced pace. We see that in so many disciplines, such as professional sports. In sports, being the best in the preparation does not guarantee the win, but it likely gets us closer to winning. The opposite is true as well. The ones with the worst preparation have a more considerable risk of failure. In business, it is the same, especially in the context of the incredibly rapid development of technology and the possibilities it brings to organizations. The risks to the ones that need to be prepared to win are rising by the day. Small and Medium Enterprises are at the forefront of those risks, mainly because they need more resources and knowledge to keep up with the needed changes to get that level of readiness. While those companies benefit from greater agility, that is yet to compensate for the gaps. These companies need tremendous support from the scientific community. The need to identify where they should focus their attention and, more importantly, what their north star and what they should be chasing is primordial, making that one of the critical challenges to be solved within the Small and Medium Enterprises' research area. Our research work reviews a large variety of models through an extensive Systematic Literature Review that assesses the readiness and maturity of the Digital Transformation of enterprises, with a focus on Small and Medium Enterprises, with its primary objectives being (1) to review the existing studies and models that assess an organization’s maturity and readiness in the context of Digital Transformation, focusing on Small and Medium Enterprises; (2) to Identify if there are gaps considering the importance of the Small and Medium Enterprises; (3) Propose a standardized set of dimensions that should always be considered in a DT assessment and (4) to design and develop a model capable of assessing the readiness level of organizations (SMEs) in the context of a digital transformation. The outcome of the Systematic Literature Review provides an essential contribution by identifying apparent gaps in the assessment of Digital Transformation in Small and Medium Enterprises and proposing a scalable and standardized set of categories and subcategories that can be used across any future assessment model. These contributions are even more relevant when referencing minimal deep research on Small and Medium Enterprises and Digital Transformation. In addition, our research aims to deliver a game-changer approach to help these SMEs solve the said paradox. By developing a model that assesses the organizational readiness to maximize the Digital Transformation's results, we created a model (Digital Organizational Readiness Assessment Model – DORAM) entirely focused on the isolated dimension of readiness, taking the employee as the center of the equation. It is a model that is not intended to inform companies how good their technology is but rather how embedded the critical behaviors needed to take the best out of the technologies and newer business models. Lastly, our work provides a fundamental step towards that by running an exploratory study with twelve Small and Medium Enterprises, assessing their digital organizational readiness level through the lenses of the "Digital Organizational Readiness Assessment Model" (DORAM) model. This study provides precious insights into the structure of the Small and Medium Enterprises and, above all, provides excellent insights into the value of the model and its ability to scale and be leveraged by more companies as a tool to improve their competitiveness through a maximal outcome of Digital Transformation. The contributions delivered by this research differ from previous work by clearly focusing on Small and Medium Enterprises and, more importantly, by clearly treating the state of being ready as a fundamentally different dimension of the execution status. That is the most significant difference between readiness and maturity, and our work provides a clear separation and definition of that split, delivering the whole assessment with a clear focus on readiness. |
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| Autores principais: | Silva, Rui Pedro Araújo da |
| Assunto: | Digital Organizational Readiness SMEs Digital Transformation Behaviors Success factors |
| Ano: | 2024 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | tese de doutoramento |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da UTAD |
| Resumo: | The role of Digital Transformation in economic development is a vital and recurring point of research. It is particularly relevant if we consider the high percentage of Digital Transformation initiatives that fail to deliver the expected results, particularly in Small and Medium Enterprises. This thesis analyzes what is needed to make this transformation successful from an implementation perspective and, simultaneously, from the standpoint of obtaining the company’s expected results. This phenomenon is even more critical to decipher and understand when we look at the Small and Medium Enterprises that face more significant challenges due to the scarcity of resources and needed skills. Throughout the past decade, we witnessed a drastic increase in the level of research carried out in the field of Digital Transformation, which aligns with the pace of the overall sociological development that has been accelerated due to the development of digital technologies. This fast pace of development has helped many organizations increase their competitiveness and improve their market positioning. At the same time, it has also pushed other organizations out of the market. Significantly, the startup ecosystem is contributing to the disruption of businesses that could have managed to keep that pace of development. This scenario is theatrical for Small and Medium Enterprises that need to maintain their relevance against the startups while increasing their speed of adoption of digital technologies and models. However, these companies need help in terms of resources and knowledge. It is a paradox that cannot be solved without support and immediate action. In a fast-paced environment, there is a tendency to be brutal to the ones who need to prepare to keep up with that fast-paced pace. We see that in so many disciplines, such as professional sports. In sports, being the best in the preparation does not guarantee the win, but it likely gets us closer to winning. The opposite is true as well. The ones with the worst preparation have a more considerable risk of failure. In business, it is the same, especially in the context of the incredibly rapid development of technology and the possibilities it brings to organizations. The risks to the ones that need to be prepared to win are rising by the day. Small and Medium Enterprises are at the forefront of those risks, mainly because they need more resources and knowledge to keep up with the needed changes to get that level of readiness. While those companies benefit from greater agility, that is yet to compensate for the gaps. These companies need tremendous support from the scientific community. The need to identify where they should focus their attention and, more importantly, what their north star and what they should be chasing is primordial, making that one of the critical challenges to be solved within the Small and Medium Enterprises' research area. Our research work reviews a large variety of models through an extensive Systematic Literature Review that assesses the readiness and maturity of the Digital Transformation of enterprises, with a focus on Small and Medium Enterprises, with its primary objectives being (1) to review the existing studies and models that assess an organization’s maturity and readiness in the context of Digital Transformation, focusing on Small and Medium Enterprises; (2) to Identify if there are gaps considering the importance of the Small and Medium Enterprises; (3) Propose a standardized set of dimensions that should always be considered in a DT assessment and (4) to design and develop a model capable of assessing the readiness level of organizations (SMEs) in the context of a digital transformation. The outcome of the Systematic Literature Review provides an essential contribution by identifying apparent gaps in the assessment of Digital Transformation in Small and Medium Enterprises and proposing a scalable and standardized set of categories and subcategories that can be used across any future assessment model. These contributions are even more relevant when referencing minimal deep research on Small and Medium Enterprises and Digital Transformation. In addition, our research aims to deliver a game-changer approach to help these SMEs solve the said paradox. By developing a model that assesses the organizational readiness to maximize the Digital Transformation's results, we created a model (Digital Organizational Readiness Assessment Model – DORAM) entirely focused on the isolated dimension of readiness, taking the employee as the center of the equation. It is a model that is not intended to inform companies how good their technology is but rather how embedded the critical behaviors needed to take the best out of the technologies and newer business models. Lastly, our work provides a fundamental step towards that by running an exploratory study with twelve Small and Medium Enterprises, assessing their digital organizational readiness level through the lenses of the "Digital Organizational Readiness Assessment Model" (DORAM) model. This study provides precious insights into the structure of the Small and Medium Enterprises and, above all, provides excellent insights into the value of the model and its ability to scale and be leveraged by more companies as a tool to improve their competitiveness through a maximal outcome of Digital Transformation. The contributions delivered by this research differ from previous work by clearly focusing on Small and Medium Enterprises and, more importantly, by clearly treating the state of being ready as a fundamentally different dimension of the execution status. That is the most significant difference between readiness and maturity, and our work provides a clear separation and definition of that split, delivering the whole assessment with a clear focus on readiness. |
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