Digital Investment and Firm Performance: Evidence from Moroccan Companies
摘要
Digital investment remains a challenge on the mind of every manager, especially after the Covid-19 crisis. It changed the business landscape, overturned organizations’ classification, and consumed an interesting amount of budget and resources. Indeed, more than US$3.22tn are invested in digital in a worldwide range. However, the return on this investment remains fuzzy. Moreover, there is no definitive answer on the impact of digital investment on firm performance. This article aims to clarify the relationship between digital investment and organizational performance. Based on a survey of 312 companies and 74 interviews, our findings highlight that digital transformation has not a powerful impact on organizational performance. Indeed, Moroccan companies are still in the infancy of their digital adventure, which explains the reduced impact of digital investment on performance. Moreover, digital investment seems irrelevant for Moroccan companies since they think that it has a greater impact on the international level than the national one. Miscommunication, the lack of digital competencies, inertia, the company’s environment, and managerial myopia limit digital investment in Morocco. Unable to see the real weight and importance of this investment, Moroccan companies do not invest sufficiently and are not expecting interesting results from their digital adventure.