The Bucharest University of Economic Studies Publishing House
Abstract
Our general investigation is about the degree of understanding of the new economy, "digital economy", in Romanian companies, with a narrow focus on understanding the needs and uses of Big Data technology. We used a structured interview with 30 owners, CEO, IT managers, and Marketing Managers from Romanian companies and applied descriptive statistics on all data collected and content analysis on the open answers. The key findings are that Romanian managers are half aware that the digital economy will dramatically reshape business models and increase the competition. However, around one-third of them don't understand the basic concept of digitalization, digital transformation, and the need for digitalization. The most important department the Romanian managers think they should digitalize is marketing, but some big businesses don't think and want digitalization. One of the main obstacles to the digitalization of Romanian companies is the lack of human resources with proven expertise in the field. In order of Industry 4.0 components, only a few implements and use CRM, ERP, or another form of integration with customers or suppliers. Big Data is poorly known and used, but where it is used, it is a strong competitive advantage. Romanian managers do not understand how public institutions are digitalized to help the private initiative. They expect the public institutions to take the initiative to start digitalization in all society, including companies. The implications of our findings are extremely different from other public studies that suggest Romanian companies are strong in digital transformation. Our study shows the need for further investigation, if not measures to increase support for the digitalization of Romanian companies to remain/become competitive. Our findings are that only a few managers/companies are aware of the new digital economy with increased competition, and the initiative of digitalization, even in the private sector, should be from public institutions
