Abstract
The covid-19 pandemic has posed massive challenges to every actor of our social system. In Southeast Asia, businesses are no exception; well-established corporations moved toward digital transformation faster than others. With a prescriptive objective in mind, this study explores the acceleration of the digital transformation in the retail industry in Sri Lanka upon the Covid-19 pandemic. Taking a qualitative research approach, the paper describes different approaches for DT. Business leaders from banking, telecommunication, and fast moving consumer goods were interviewed. Some business leaders had a strategic vision towards digitalization, not because they anticipated the pandemic coming, but rather because of its advantages. Managers saw that digital transformation would bring two main advantages. One is through disintermediation, by reaching out to clients directly, and that customers can reach out to businesses anytime anywhere. Second, in terms of the cost factor, digital implementations were conceived comparatively cheaper in the long run. The ‘new normal’ of businesses keep changing its ways every day as the virus variants evolve, warning us, this could be a situation that we have to deal with for longer than anticipated. This makes investing in digitalization and further keep the impetus of agile implementation worth the effort.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Blackstone, A.: Principles of Sociological Inquiry – Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Saylor Foundation, University of Maine (2012). https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/139
Berghaus, S., Back, A.: Disentangling the fuzzy front end of digital transformation: activities and approaches. In: Thirty Eighth International Conference on Information Systems, South Korea. ICIS 2017 Proceedings. 4 (2017). https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/254097/
Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O., Pavlou, P., Venkatraman, N.: Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights. MIS Q. 37(2), 471–482 (2013). https://www.jstor.org/stable/43825919?seq=1
Braun, V., Clarke, V.: Thematic analysis (2012). https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-23864-004
Charmaz, K.: Constructing Grounded Theory. Sage. (2014). https://books.google.co.jp/books?hl=en&lr=&id=v_GGAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=charmaz+2014+grounded+theory&ots=YXSuK7yFm5&sig=3t7i79Ai-NVWRcL9xg4YesZCRPs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=charmaz%202014%20grounded%20theory&f=false
Chuang, S.-H.: Co-creating social media agility to build strong customer-firm relationships. Ind. Market. Manage. 84, 202–2011 (2019)
Ensaria, M.Ş, Karabay, M.E.: What helps to make SMEs successful in global markets? Proc. Soc. Behav. Sci. 150, 192–201 (2014)
Gunawardene, N.: Digital transformation in Sri Lanka: opportunities and challenges in pursuit of liberal policies. Friedrich Naumann Foundation Sri Lanka (2017). https://www.rticommission.lk/web/images/pdf/DigitalTransformationinSriLankareport-FINAL-30Nov2017.pdf
Gunther, W.A., Mehrizi, M.H.R., Huyasman, M., Feldberg, F.: Debating big data: a literature review on realizing value from big data. J. Strat. Inf. Syst. 26(3), pp. 191–209 (2017). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963868717302615
Haffke, I., Kalgovas, B., Benlian, A.: The transformative role of bimodal IT in an era of digital business. In: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa Beach, HI, pp. 5460–5469 (2017). https://128.171.57.22/handle/10125/41822
Hansen, R., Sia, S.K.: Hummel’s digital transformation toward omnichannel retailing: key lessons learned. MIS Q. Execut. 14(2), 51–66 (2015)
Huang, J., Henfridsson, O., Liu, M.J., Newell, S.: Growing on steroids: rapidly scaling the user base of digital ventures through digital innovation. MIS Q. 41(1), 301–314 (2017)
IFPRI: Timeline of Covid-19 of Sri Lanka – key measures for Covid-19 containment and management of food supply chains (2020). https://southasia.ifpri.info/files/2020/05/Table-2.pdf
Iivari, N., Sharma, S., Ventä-Olkkonen, L.: Digital transformation of everyday life – how COVID-19 pandemic transformed the basic education of the young generation and why information management research should care? Int. J. Inf. Manage. 102183 (2020). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401220310264
Kane, G.C.: The American Red Cross: adding digital volunteers to its ranks. MIT Sloan Manag. Reven. 55(4), 1–6 (2014). https://search.proquest.com/openview/6199cff475a182573c5ec51bb35888e0/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=26142
Klötzer, C., Pflaum, A.: Toward the development of a maturity model for digitalization within the manufacturing industry’s supply chain. In: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa Beach, HI, pp. 4210–4219 (2017). https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-50/in/digital_supply_chain/5/
Markus, M.L., Robey, D.: Information technology and organizational change: causal structure in theory and research. Manage. Sci. 34(5), 583–598 (1988)
Mithas, S., Tafti, A., Michell, W.: How a firm’s competitive environment and digital strategic posture influence digital business strategy. MIS Q. 37(2), 511–536 (2013)
Nolen, A., Talbert, T.: Qualitative assertions as prescriptive statements. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 23(2), 263–271 (2011). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10648-011-9159-6
Oestreicher-Singer, G., Zalmanson, L.: Content or community? A digital business strategy for content providers in the social age. MIS Q. 37(2), 591–616 (2012). https://www.jstor.org/stable/43825924?seq=1
Piller, F.T., Vossen, A., Ihl, C.: From social media to social product development: the impact of social media on co-creation of innovation. Swiss J. Bus. Res. 65(1), 7–27 (2012). https://ssrn.com/abstract=1975523
Tan, B., Pan, S.L., Lu, X., Huang, L.: The role of IS capabilities in the development of multi-sided platforms: the digital ecosystem strategy of Alibaba.com. J. Assoc. Inf. Syst. 16(4), 2 (2015). https://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol16/iss4/2/
Vial, G.: Understanding digital transformation: “A review and a research agenda”. J. Strat. Inf. Syst. 28, 118–144 (2019). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0963868717302196
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hemachandra, S., Sharkasi, N. (2021). Digital Transformation Induced by the Covid-19 Pandemic. In: Martínez-López, F.J., López López, D. (eds) Advances in Digital Marketing and eCommerce. DMEC 2021. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76520-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76520-0_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76519-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76520-0
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)