The Acceleration of Digital Maturity during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Retail Industry in Sri Lanka

The recent saying is that COVID-19 pandemic had the most exerted influence in the world after the Second World War. Developing countries, such as Sri Lanka, are no exception. The pandemic brought various digital initiatives to cope with limitations that lead to a much-accelerated digital transformation. The retail sector continued to undergo digital transformation in Sri Lanka with a particular focus on advancing the customer experience by digitally creating, delivering, and capturing value. We interviewed top management in various areas in the retail industry in Sri Lanka and followed a hybrid research methodology for analysis combining the grounded theory and the framework-based approach. We described the gap between the focus of the literature's digital maturity models in the past 10 years and the top management's needs throughout the accelerated digital transformation during the pandemic as follows: the difference in the percentage of the expression of common dimensions in digital transformation and maturity models and the percentage of the expression of dimensions in the managers' interviews. Our findings call for the attention of academic research to dedicate more attention to further integrate more dimensions related to technology, cloud and data, digital marketing, and products into the digital transformation and maturity models.