Towards a Sustainable Digitalization Roadmap for SMEs

Digitalization has become a megatrend in the modern manufacturing industry. While the digitalization of production and supply chain operations arises as a challenge even for large companies, for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) the task is downright daunting. Many such firms turn to consulting firms, or academic/research institutions in the hope of finding a roadmap to the promised land. However, a review of the academic and practitioner literature leaves much to the imagination. In this paper, we present a summary of the key existing works on digitalization roadmaps, and through use of a single case study, present a more holistic, descriptive roadmap that can be used by SMEs to guide their sustainable digitalization efforts more systematically.