The Digital Chasm between an Idea and Its Implementation in Industry 4.0—The Case Study of a Polish Service Company

Abstract

Digitization in Industry 4.0 is a key trend in a modern company’s development. However, business practice shows that digitization can be associated not only with the prospect of development but with numerous limitations that a company may struggle with. The goal of this manuscript is to verify the existence and identify of the management gaps that lead to formation of digitization problems in companies under the conditions of Industry 4.0. Management gap is understood here as a set of discontinuities, identified within management functions, which result in specific problems in the implementation of digitization projects. In general, this aspect is omitted in the literature on the subject, which focuses on benefits of implementing Industry 4.0 technology. The chosen goal of the manuscript is part of the research trend related to the identification of general digitization problems and to a company’s development, taking into account the use of technological solutions, as well as to the scope of research on the problems of implementing ICT projects. The development of an enterprise is understood as the ability to improve an organization both in the face of internal challenges and the environmental with maintaining innovation potential. The research structure is based on the construction of a conceptual model of management gaps and its empirical verification. In the theoretical part, the chosen research method is analysis of literature from the last 20 years and in the practical part analysis of a business case supplemented with an in-depth interview conducted among the management of the analyzed company. In the theoretical part, the article defines basic concepts related to Industry 4.0 and digitization of companies. It presents the place and role of digitization and its impact on the blurring of boundaries of traditional management layers. Based on these considerations, a conceptual model is developed defining management gaps within which problems of digitization of enterprises are indicated. The practical part of the article presents an empirical verification of the existence of the formulated management gaps on the basis of a business case analysis. The case study describes a mass, geographically dispersed implementation of the application for 34,000 users, which is the result of the implementation of the digitization strategy. Conclusions were formulated in the last part of the manuscript. On the theoretical ground, the analysis confirms that the process of digitization in an enterprise under the conditions of Industry 4.0 is related to blurring the boundaries of operational, tactical and strategic management. The premises of the said blur are identifiable and appear in each of the above-mentioned layers. On the practical ground, the existence of reasons for blurring the boundaries of management is related to the need to adapt the organization to the new operating conditions related to Industry 4.0. The strategic activities should be targeted at determining the directions of company improvement, which should precede the efforts to implement advanced solutions in the field of Industry 4.0. This approach allows providing a sustainable company development with the possibility of creating short-term effects and maintaining a long-term growth perspective.