Special Issue "Digital Technologies and Digital Transformation: Recent Progress and Present Challenges"

Dear Colleagues,

To do things that go beyond current needs and requirements: that’s what success means in today’s world. In a couple of years, it might be too late. Addressing new topics, tasks, talents, and their development requires courage, patience, a clear vision, and trust.

Current trends in digital transformation are based on technologies that have a major impact on customers’ behavior and on the ways that business transformation is conducted. In the 1990s, digital products and services were used only by the companies that were operating in selected industries such as music and entertainment and the development and sales of electronics. Digital infrastructure and digital products providers have laid the foundation for improving efficiency and productivity across multiple functional units of businesses, from finance to supply chain and human resource management. The turn of the millennium brought new services of electronic business and electronic commerce. The increasing use of the internet caused the increase in consumer demand for new digital products and services. Wide access to information and the opportunity to be online have led to a transformation of all sectors. Digital transformation applies to all businesses and sectors—what customers or consumers easily use in one sector also demand from another. Therefore, increased orientation of companies and organizations towards consumers and users is the result of the digital transformation.

A number of existing and new digital technologies play and will play a key role in the transformation of businesses and entire sectors of the national economy. The nature of some jobs is changing. This change will certainly continue in the future. New jobs will be created and therefore, in addition to employment developments, necessary skill levels to work with digital technologies need to be examined. Digital transformation also applies to products. In many cases, these products are provided free of charge and their value is not included in official statistics of measuring economic performance.

Finding the answer to a number of questions is the challenge for today. How can the potential of digital technologies affecting the economic subjects be explored? What methodological approach needs to be applied in order to explore the potential of the digital economy? What do the digital products have in common? What is their value? How is business productivity and performance changing? How are countries' GDPs changing as a result of digital transformation and the mass use of digital technologies? How to capture the impact of digital products, which are provided free of charge and which benefit people, in official measurements of indicators associated with the determination of the performance of national economies?

In order to address the present challenges and questions, we welcome studies, research results, and case studies as well as methodological papers that provide diverse approaches, experiences, and perspectives on the application of digital technologies and digital transformation processes in different geographical areas, sectors of the economy, and activities or processes.

Prof. Tatiana Čorejová
Prof. Ing. Radovan Madleňák
Prof. Jenny (Pagge) Pange
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• digital economy
• technology
• transformation
• digitization
• indices
• impact
• employment
• product
• enterprise
• business models
• e-learning
• skills
• competencies