Information subsystem of agri-food enterprise management in the context of digitalization: the problem of digital maturity

Abstract

In modern conditions of market economy development, the role of the agri-food sector in ensuring national security is growth. After all, enterprises in the agri-food sector provide a significant share of exports and affect the level of food security of the country. Despite the significant number of competitive advantages, national agri-food enterprises face considerable challenges, especially with increasing competition in both domestic and foreign markets. Therefore, agricultural enterprises are constantly forced to look for ways to ensure a high level of competitiveness and sustainable development. The sustainable development of these enterprises currently depends on the speed of business processes digitalization, as the introduction of digital technologies allows achieving productivity growth and ensuring competitiveness. One of the necessary stages of digitalization is to determine the level of digital maturity of the enterprise, which makes it possible to increase the speed and efficiency of digitalization of business processes of agri-food enterprises. The purpose of the research is to develop tools to determine the level of digital maturity of agri-food enterprises in Ukraine. In order to assess the digital maturity of the information subsystem of agri-food enterprises management in the context of digitalization, we have proposed model consists of the four components assessment: strategic, technological, analytical, and competence (STAC model). The assessment results of four components allowed to distribute digital maturity at the following levels: zero, initialization, conscious, controlled, and optimization. This model for assessing the digital maturity of the information subsystem of agri-food enterprises management in the context of digitalization is developed using the following methods: sequential approximation (Kohonen Network), observation, mathematical modeling, questionnaires, and statistical generalization. Reporting documents of 77 enterprises of the agricultural sector of Ukraine located in Luhansk, Cherkasy, Donetsk, Kyiv, Poltava, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Zakarpattia oblasts and the city of Kyiv served as an information base. The results of approbation of the STAC model for assessing the digital maturity of the information subsystem of management of agri-food enterprises in the context of digitalization made it possible to determine the digital maturity of 77 agricultural enterprises. The research shows a disbalance in the development of individual components and some differences in digital maturity among these enterprises. The analysis of the discrete components of digital maturity reveals the reserves of their development. So, gaining the balance between the discrete components can accelerate the process of digitalization. Also, according to digital maturity indicators, the agri-food enterprises were clustered into three clusters. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that 2.6% of the enterprises belong to the cluster with a controlled level of digital maturity, 46.8% of the enterprises belong to the cluster with the initial level of digital maturity. The cluster with a conscious level of digital maturity is the largest in number and includes 50.6% of the agri-food enterprises. Therefore, a significant number of enterprises should pay attention to the formation of digitalization strategy, the development of enterprise information infrastructure, and the creation of staff training system. The influence of individual components of the model on the level of digital maturity may be the subject of further research. The method tested by the authors made it possible to assess the level of digital maturity and the readiness of 77 agricultural enterprises to implement innovative types of information technologies. The use of the Kohonen network made it possible to distribute these enterprises into clusters and visually show the level of digital maturity of enterprises. The model proposed by the authors is suitable for practical use by agricultural enterprises in order to diagnose digital maturity and on this basis to develop proposals to improve information security in the context of digitalization.