Digital transformation: a challenging opportunity for the food industry companies
ISSN: 0007-070X
Article publication date: 15 November 2023
Issue publication date: 9 April 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Common availability of digital technologies encouraged companies in almost all industries to focus on exploring various ways of benefiting from their adoption and thus taking steps toward their digital transformation. This paper aims to describe the digital transformation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as a challenging opportunity and identify ways in which companies from the food industry address it.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents empirical evidence based on a case study of the Polish freeze-drying market and companies operating on it. This study adopted a single case study research method to describe the digital transformation journey of SMEs. The sample constitutes a single sectoral case study with more than one unit of analysis – sixteen companies. The undertaken approach follows an embedded case study design and allows for an extensive and multidimensional analysis of rich empirical data.
Findings
The results of this analysis allowed to identify four significant trends describing human resources involvement in the digital transformation of freeze-drying companies in Poland (i.e. visionary top-down, cooperative task-oriented, persuasive bottom-up, chaotic), a detailed catalog of outcomes of digital transformation from the perspective of food industry companies grouped in seven categories and a list of main barriers to digital transformation.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to expanding knowledge on the practices of food industry companies in addressing challenges posed by the development of information technology and the dynamically changing environment after the COVID-19 pandemic. It contributes further to the discussion related to context-, industry- and country-specific barriers to digital transformation, identifying time-related constraints as an essential barrier to digital transformation.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper forms part of a special section “Digitization and innovation of the food and beverage industry in the post-pandemic era: challenges, drivers and opportunities”, guest edited by Vincenzo Corvello, Ciro Troise, Alberto Michele Felicetti and Paul Jones.
This paper is based on the outcomes of the research project entitled “Digital transformation and sustainable development of European SMEs” funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education under the “Excellence Initiative – Research University (2020-2026)” program (New Ideas 2A in Priority Research Area V; University of Warsaw).
Citation
Marczewska, M. (2024), "Digital transformation: a challenging opportunity for the food industry companies", British Food Journal, Vol. 126 No. 5, pp. 2027-2040. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-01-2023-0065
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited