Technological Readiness and Adoption of Technological Innovations in Companies

Digitalization and technological innovations are key drivers of enterprise transformation in the era of the Fifth Industrial Revolution. This study examines the degree of implementation of selected technological innovations in Slovak enterprises and compares them with the perceived importance of these innovations for future business development. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 711 respondents representing enterprises of various sizes and industries. The analysis focused on innovations aimed at customers and employees, including digitalization of analog and biometric data, digital interaction platforms, data analytics, and GDPR-related solutions. The results revealed statistically significant gaps between perceived importance and actual application for most innovations, with importance ratings consistently higher than implementation levels. These gaps were most pronounced in micro and small enterprises, suggesting persistent barriers to transforming innovation awareness into practice. Comparisons between customer-oriented and employee-oriented innovations showed limited differences in implementation, with biometric data usage being more advanced internally. Furthermore, Kruskal-Wallis tests confirmed that implementation levels increase with enterprise size across all analyzed innovations. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for paired comparisons of importance and implementation, while size-based differences were examined using Kruskal-Wallis tests with post hoc analysis. The findings provide a comprehensive insight into the technological readiness of enterprises and underline the need for targeted support measures to accelerate digital transformation, especially among smaller firms.