The rapidly growing world of digitalisation opens the doorway for the new era of
automation that plays a crucial role within the industry. Furthermore, technological
innovations that are emerging every day are disrupting traditional business processes
especially within small and medium size manufacturing enterprises (SMEs). The current
industrial revolution pioneer for profit maximisation with cost reduction shows a
significant refinement in improving sustainability that drives forward digitalisation.
Evidence shows that industries have identified digitalisation as a priority in the upcoming
years as the global supply chain is equipping itself with the digital world in the current
industrial revolution. Economic growth is dependent on SMEs around the world where
small and medium size Manufacturing Enterprises (SMMEs) play a vital role in the
current competitive world while they are not able to manage their supply chains
effectively and efficiently due to a lack of optimisation of digitalisation. They identify
that technological innovation is evident for transforming themselves with digital supply
chain, while global market leading organisations are positioning themselves with the
world of digitalisation to their end consumers in their supply chain utilising technological
innovation virtually driving towards a new era of a digital ecosystem.
This research aims to investigate the impact of technological innovation to foster and
promote digital supply chain within SMMEs. Due to the exploratory nature, this study
adopted a case study approach where the data is collected using a semi-structured
interview across 4 cases from three various countries. The findings indicate a lack of
framework for the digitalisation of supply chains within SMMEs, in addition to a lack of
technological innovation and financial constraints that served as limiting factors for
digitalisation of supply chain within organisations. Further, a framework has been
developed consisting of five elements that have been identified from empirical data as
being critical for Digital Supply Chain (DSC) transformation. The theoretical
contributions of this research are the identification of problems faced, limitations of
technological innovation, and an improved understanding of how digital supply chain
transformation can be initiated and achieved in the context of SMMEs. The practical
contribution of this study is imbedded in the developed framework in the form of
recommended strategies for SMMEs for digitalisation of supply chain
