Capturing the Business Case for Digital Transformation Projects in a Company

Abstract

Digital Transformation comes first in almost every company. To justify their investments, businesses need to carefully assess the benefits, risks, and costs associated with digital transformation projects and create a compelling business case. Making an investment decision in digital transformation projects represents two major challenges for small and medium enterprises. Firstly, the extent and scope of the transformation is often underestimated or not perceived. Secondly, it is difficult to include all the intangible benefits and risks of digital transformation in the case of business because they are not quantifiable or difficult to quantify. The goal of this research project is to create a business framework for digital transformation that helps companies address these challenges and enables them to convince for or against digital transformation initiatives. As the focus was on applicability and integration with the current ABILI methodology, the development and evaluation of the artefact was enriched with experts from both fields of knowledge, finance as well as the ABILI expert team. The results of the research show that the framework is a suitable method for building a business case for digital transformation for SMEs and for integrating the framework into the ABILI toolbox. The framework successfully provides an indication of whether companies can benefit from digital transformation initiatives.