Master Defence of Julian Heckmann

Julian Heckmann, business informatics student at the University of Rostock, has completed his master's thesis on the topic of Impact factors and success criteria for digitalization projects. Supervisor and expert was Prof. Kurt Sandkuhl from University of Rostock.

The defense took place on 21 September 2018. 

 

Abstract:

The German politics are trying to foster the digitalization of enterprises. While the implementation of digitalization is less successful, the success factors are often questionable.
The goal behind this research is to have a look at the factors of success for the digitalization. These factors shall show the problems of enterprises while working on digitalization projects.
The underlying hypothesis is the existence of different problems for enterprises of differing sizes. Small companies have the ability to react on changing environment, while larger enterprises have more experience with the project management.
The methods to verify this hypothesis are: A structured literature analysis, for an overview of the field of digitalization. The next step is to work on the main terms in the field of research. Following that is an interview study with five different enterprises and three experts on the field of digitalization. The answers of the interviews overlap in most categories. The answers show trends. The interviews point out problems like the absent of motivation from most employees, the lack of competence from employee and employer, also too few contact persons in small enterprises. Another point for some small Enterprises is the lack of a strategy and insufficient infrastructure.
On the basis of the results it recommended to create a survey for more results. This new data should be representative and can be used for further research. The employee perspective on digitalization projects is also interesting.
Key words: Digitalization, Digital Transformation, success factors


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