Exploring the drivers of digital transformation in Indian organisations: a multi-sector study

Digital transformation (DT) has presented tremendous opportunities and challenges to organisations. By leveraging continuously emerging digital technologies, organisations are increasingly pursuing to make their business models efficient and smart. Consequently, research on DT has gained significant momentum in academia and practice. Although many studies present insights about DT as a phenomenon, the underlying factors encouraging such transformations are not frequently evaluated and discussed, and less so in Indian context. This study addresses this research gap by conducting a multiple case study of six organisations engaged in DT and identifying primary reasons driving the organisations towards DT. These factors are broadly classified into four categories - business innovation and process improvement, business sustainability, internal digital aspirations, and unplanned external exigencies. The study empirically identifies the drivers of DT that beginner organisations can use to address 'where to start for DT'. The well-established organisations can use these drivers as a baseline to assess, contextualise and strategise their DT efforts to improve the success rates of their DT endeavours.