{"id":1761,"date":"2019-11-04T12:15:04","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T11:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=1761"},"modified":"2019-11-04T12:41:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T11:41:34","slug":"unpacking-digital-transformation-and-its-implications-for-business-and-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/unpacking-digital-transformation-and-its-implications-for-business-and-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpacking digital transformation and its implications for business and policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In our latest blog post, Dr Dylan Henderson outlines Cardiff Business School\u2019s research on the growing presence of digital technologies in business, policy, and wider society.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Understanding the idea of \u2018digital transformation\u2019 is said\nto be increasingly crucial to appreciating how modern small businesses operate,\nand how they can be helped to thrive and grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital transformation, broadly speaking, refers to the\ngrowing pace by which businesses are integrating technologies such as cloud\ncomputing, e-commerce, video conferencing into their practices, and finding new\nways of delivering value to customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has been accompanied by growing awe at the positive and\nnegative implications of the transformation and their impact on jobs, sectors\nand everyday life more generally. It has also begun to gain widespread currency\namongst policymakers and supporters of small businesses in business schools,\nwith transformation viewed as having significant implications for business\ncompetitiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, whilst the growing prevalence of digital adoption\nis evident in data, the danger of language like \u201ctransformation\u201d is that it can\nput undue emphasis on the role of technology in driving change, at the expense\nof the agency of businesses and employees themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As sociologists point out, the use and adoption of\ntechnologies is shaped by the choices, beliefs and actions of business and\nindividuals that use them. In addition, focusing too much on those who do adopt\ndifferent digital technology solutions can underemphasise the persistence of\nthe material aspects of business processes in small businesses elsewhere. This\nis something that business experts and practitioners have to be wary of\noverlooking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Cardiff Business School\u2019s Welsh\nEconomy Research Unit (WERU)<\/a> we have been studying small and\nmedium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their adoption and use of digital\ntechnologies, enabled by broadband, through annual longitudinal survey analysis\nand case studies of business practices<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur research points out the general growing take-up of digital technologies over time and highlights some of the benefits that businesses have been able to gain in areas such as turnover, employment and innovation.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The emergence of such benefits, however, is often gradual\nand highly uneven, and varies greatly between businesses in different sectors\nand geographical regions. The rate of this adoption is further shaped by\nbusiness resources, such as access to broadband, funding and the skills and\ncapability to make use of digital technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WERU’s research also suggests that, rather than being a\nrapid, all pervasive process, technological adoption is more of a transitionary\nprocess, where digital technologies are melded with existing analogue\nactivities like face-to-face communication, physical retailing, and material\naspects of production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These processes unfold in more complex and uneven ways than\nis often implied when we talk about the power and effects of digital\ntransformation at present, and looking at analogue processes alongside digital\nones may represent a more insightful way to understand what aspects of business\npersist over time, and how others are integrated with digital processes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could include examining the reasons why small\nbusinesses resist digitisation, and tracking the experiences that small\nbusinesses have of using digital technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role of government in business digital adoption is a\nfurther area which is only now beginning to be explored. While policy makers\nhave placed significant emphasis on ensuring digital networks are available\nacross regions globally, WERU’s research on the Cardiff City-Region<\/a>\nhighlights the dangers of such investment in infrastructure further\nexacerbating socio-economic regional differences, and the need for\ncomplementary policy action to prevent sub-regions falling further behind their\nmore prosperous counterparts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Policy makers are also seeking to support businesses through\ndedicated advice on digital adoption. Such developments will require policy\nmakers to give careful consideration of the true cost and benefits of digital\n(e.g. websites, video content) and analogue forms of business support (e.g.\nworkshops of face-to-face advice) and services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDigital may have a role to play in many public services, but our research suggests that we should not assume that digital support alone is always best for all businesses and societal groups.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This emerging research agenda suggests that whilst the\nnotion of digital transformation helps to cast some light on the growing\npresence of digital technologies in business, policy, and wider society, it\nleaves us in danger of assuming that small businesses will inevitably be able\nto take part in this process, and it ignores the ways business in different\nsectors may struggle with or resist the change, or even simply use it in ways\nwe hadn\u2019t previously identified or considered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our research shows that SMEs are responding to the\nchallenges and opportunities associated with this transition, and are finding\nnew ways of working, and integrating digital technology into work, business,\nand new policy thinking is emerging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This cannot be reduced to a purely technological process and\nrequires those who support small businesses to consider the contexts they\noperate in, and appreciate the ways traditional analogue processes, new digital\ntechnologies, and the people at the heart of small businesses interact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research reported in this article is part-funded by the Superfast Broadband Business Exploitation Programme<\/a>, part-funded by European Regional Development Funds<\/a> through Welsh Government<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Dylan\nHenderson<\/strong><\/a> is Senior Research Fellow at the <\/strong>Welsh\nEconomy Research Unit<\/strong><\/a> in Cardiff Business School.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published by the Small Business Charter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Jones, C., Henderson, D., 2019. Broadband and Uneven Spatial\nDevelopment: The Case of Cardiff City-Region<\/a>. Local Economy 34 (3), 228\u2013247<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OECD, 2017. OECD Digital Economy Outlook\n2017<\/a>. OECD Publishing, Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WERU, 2019. Digital\nMaturity Survey for Wales 2019<\/a>. Cardiff University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In our latest blog post, Dr Dylan Henderson outlines Cardiff Business School\u2019s research on the growing presence of digital technologies in business, policy, and wider society. Understanding the idea of […]","protected":false},"author":1677,"featured_media":1771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[387],"tags":[9,28,100,809,389,1150,808,406,95,98,1149,1152,110,397,1151,810,44],"class_list":["post-1761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-economy","tag-business","tag-cardiff-business-school","tag-cardiff-university","tag-cloud-computing","tag-digital","tag-digital-transformation","tag-ecommerce","tag-european-regional-development-fund","tag-policy","tag-policymakers","tag-small-business","tag-small-business-charter","tag-smes","tag-superfast-broadband","tag-video-conferencing","tag-welsh-economy-research-unit","tag-welsh-government"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-sp","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2019\/11\/Electronic-payment-transaction-in-shop-1-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1761"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1767,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions\/1767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}