Research Findings

Analyzing the data from the above-presented questionnaire will prove the hypothesis if there is a dependency of the efficiency of strategic decisions and the digital set up for decision making in organizations. Based on 351 requests, feedback of 67 participants of the questionnaire was given, a return rate of 19%. The age of the participants was from 26 to 67, on an average of 44.2 years. Asking for the gender, a pattern with a male dominated structure in senior management positions was given – in numbers, 82% of the answers were male, 18% were female. The allocation of company size is displayed in table 2 "Organization's Structure" by revenue and employees.

Table 2: Organizations Strucutre

Revenue Distribution (quantity & percentage rate) Employee Distribution (quantity & percentage rate)
0 € to 2 mio € 3 4.5% 1 to 20 employees 5 7.5%
over 2 mio € to 10 mio € 7 10.6% 21 to 100 employees 13 19.4%
over 10 mio € to 50 mio € 12 18.2% 101 to 300 employees 6 9.0%
over 50 mio € to 200 mio € 12 18.2% 301 to 1.000 employees 10 14.9%
over 200 mio € to 1.000 mio € 16 24.2% 1001 to 10.000 employees 19 28.4%
over 1.000 mio € 16 24.2% over 10.000 employees 14 20.9%
Total 66 100.0% Total 67 100.0%


Starting the analysis from an overall view, question 11.a. will give a major first impression of digitalization effects in the supply chain process. "Agreement" to the statement of "process efficiency by digitalization" is given by 56.9%, "Disagreement" is answered by 23.1%. This analysis shows a strong trend in organizations toward digitalization and the attention for it. The correlation of "Agreement" to "company size" shows a constant pattern over all company sizes. Hence all organizations are focused on the topic digitalization and agree to an improvement for digitalization. The disagreement rate is only between 21% and 33% for all organizations.

Analyzing the process in detail, the author will start from the first step, with the incoming customer order. An overview over the typical statistical key figures is displayed in table 3 "Statistical Evaluation of the Questionnaire". Comparing the individual process steps, outbound data from customers (forecasts) shows the smallest digital characteristics with the highest rate of a manual process. Once the data are in the organization, an increase of digital processing is obvious which is shown with an increased agreement of a digital workflow. Material management is showing an increased mean compared to customer forecast, but lower than the remaining process steps. This trend is ongoing to production planning and inventory management. The climax mean is shown in the process step of customer order confirmation, with a value of 3.39. The overall process is rated with a mean of only 2.8, which interprets that interviewees have a less opinion of their entire process compared to each single process step. The same trend is shown in the "b-section" of all questions, where interviewee had to evaluate the decision type (automated vs. decision support) für each process step. Despite the same trend between "a- and b-section" of questions 3. to 8., the "a-section" answers are showing a higher mean per each question. This shows that the first step of digitalization is realized is many organizations, but the full effect of digitalization with autonomous processes is not realized yet. The correlation of a-section with b-section (questions 3 to 8) exhibit an value of 0.9, which means, that a more digital process supports an automated decision making process. It seems, that digitalization of processes is the foundation for the next development step of autonomous decision making of these processes.

Table 3: Statistical Evaluation of the Questionnaire

Statistical Key Figure 3.a. Customer forecast data processing – manual or digital 3.b. Customer forecast data processing – automated decision or decision support 4.a. Data transfer into material management system – manual or digital 4.b. Data transfer into material management system – automated decision or decision support 5.a. Data transfer into production planning system – manual or digital 5.b. Data transfer into production planning system – automated decision or decision support 6.a. Data transfer into inventory management system – manual or digital 6.b. Data transfer into inventory management system – automated decision or decision support 7.a. Data transfer for customer order confirmation -manual or digital 7.b. Data transfer for customer order confirmation – automated decision or decision support 8.a. Overall evaluation of the process – digital or manual 8.b. Overall evaluation of the process – automated decision or decision support 9.a. Goal of cost reduction 9.b. Goal of working capital reduction 9.c. Goal of revenue growth 10.a. Achievement of cost reduction 10.b. Achievement of working capital reduction 10.c. Achievement of revenue growth 11.a. Overall: have you reached by digitalization a more efficient process? 11.b. Effects of digitalization on industry
Maximum  5 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Mean 2.68 1.92 2.82 2.47 3.00 2.58 3.08 2.69 3.39 3.03 2.80 2.33 1.82 2.09 2.55 2.72 2.84 2.94 2.57 3.26
Stand.Dev. 1.14 0.97 1.35 1.32 1.37 1.38 1.45 1.39 1.29 1.28 0.96 0.88 0.93 1.08 1.18 0.96 0.96 1.13 1.13 1.29
Variance 1.30 0.93 1.81 1.73 1.88 1.90 2.10 1.94 1.66 1.63 0.93 0.78 0.86 1.17 1.39 0.92 0.93 1.28 1.28 1.66
Median 3 2 3 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 2 3
Mode 3 1 2 1 2 1 5 1 3 4 2 2 1 1 2 3 3 3 2 3

Focused on the objectives of digitalization of decision making, cost reduction is the key focus in organizations with a value of 77.3% agreement, followed by working capital reduction with a value of 70.3% and revenue growth with a value of 53.0%. This result shows a clear target of digitalization for organizations and their managers. The further effects of this trend on organizations should be analyzed in a further research because it implies a change in organizational structures. Achievements of these objectives are on a lower level, which exhibits that digitalization is in the scope of management but not fully executed yet. Achievement ratio of cost reduction is 44.6%, working capital reduction 35.9% and revenue growth is 36.9%. The overall achievement of digital decisions in organizations is on a level of 56.9%; undecided is 20.0%, hence a minority evaluate digitalization, not as an efficiency possibility in organizations. The correlation of organizations which have a digital supply chain flow (question 8.a.) and a more efficient supply chain workflow (question 11.a.) is 0.54. It shows a relation between digitalization and increased efficiency in strategic decisions.