Title : DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION BARRIERS IN FRENCH SERVICE SMES – A RESEARCH TAX CREDIT PERSPECTIVE
Author(s) : Salma Zouaoui, Ioana Filipas, Punita Raj, François Marmier, Bertrand Rose
Abstract : This study investigates the barriers to Digital Transformation (DT) in French service SMEs. As literature on DT of service SMEs is scarce, this study uses a combination of a literature review analysis of barriers to DT in SMEs and a thematic analysis of the challenges to DT encountered by 26 service SMEs. The research identifies six main categories of barriers: technological barriers, business and strategic barriers, process and operational barriers, organizational barriers, human and talent barriers and security and compliance barriers. This paper highlights that service SMEs highly underestimate the barriers related to human and talent barriers and slightly underestimate organizational barriers while overestimating business and strategic barriers. This paper emphasizes the inadequacy of existing DT strategies designed for larger corporations and raises the need for research in the DT of service sector and particularly of service SMEs. The study also discusses the potential biases inherent in the data collection from reports intended for tax administration and the limitations of the sample size.
Key-words : barrier, challenge, digital transformation, qualitative analysis, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, thematic analysis
JEL Classification : L8; L80; O3; O30
