Initiating digital transformation in SMEs - process, challenges and opportunities ; Initiierung der digitalen Transformation in KMUs - Prozess, Herausforderungen und Chancen

Digital transformation creates customer value and economic welfare in companies of all sizes. This involves making existing business processes more efficient and fulfilling customer needs more effectively. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must embrace digital transformation in order to meet customer needs through better products and services and at a lower cost than competitors. Digital transformation may also involve fundamental changes to existing business models through disruptive digital technologies. SMEs can also use digital transformation to be perceived as a unique business partner as they stand out from the standard solutions of large companies. However, SMEs often fail to implement digital transformation due to a lack of concepts, guidelines and action plans. Furthermore, opportunities related to digital transformation are overlooked because the focus tends to be on existing day-to-day business. SMEs often also lack the necessary skills with regard to digital technologies in SMEs. Last but not least, digital transformation requires significant financial resources. The aim of this master thesis is to provide guidance on how to manage these and other challenges arising from the need for digital transformation in SMEs. It discusses how to best exploit the opportunities of digital transformation. A selection of procedures and blueprints to initiate and manage digital transformation in SMEs is presented. A literature review was chosen as the research method. The Master Thesis first explains SMEs and their contribution to the economy. It also defines digital transformation, digital business transformation and the corresponding technologies. It then reviews the status of digital transformation in SMEs and, for comparison, in large companies. The literature indicates that companies of all sizes are lagging behind in terms of digital transformation. Even worse, SMEs are behind large companies by about 40%. The biggest challenges for SMEs are mainly IT security, financial hurdles and a lack of ...