ifkad articles

Promoting Digitally Enabled Growth in SMEs: a Framework Proposal

Klaus North, Nekane Aramburu, Oswaldo Lorenzo, Iñaki Garagorri

The framework developed in this paper provides guidance to SMEs to sense and seize digitally enabled growth opportunities as well as start a project based learning process to transform the organization in order to remain competitive in turbulent environments. The proposed framework is nurtured from a dynamic capabilities approach as well as from digital transformation studies and mitigates shortcomings of existing frameworks on IT-enabled business transformation. There are few frameworks regarding digital transformation developed until now, which lack a sound theoretical foundation and are less suited to the needs of SMEs. Therefore, the originality of this paper is to propose a framework that could allow SMEs to assess their digital maturity level, and the capabilities associated to each level, that are necessary for promoting a digital enabled growth. The developed framework can be useful for owners and managers of SMEs as a self-assessment of digital maturity as a baseline to assess current position and start coordinated initiatives for digital enabled growth.

IN: Proceedings IFKAD 2018 – Societal Impact of Knowledge and Design
PP: 197-214