Author(s): Tlou Maggie Masenya
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in the digital economy and are generating employment, contributing to innovation and global economic development. Digital transformation is revolutionizing many enterprises, globally and is putting immense pressure on small and big businesses, to reflect on their current business operations, strategies and develop new business model innovation. The emerging trends such as big data analytics blockchain, cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) are regarded as one of the most prominent tools with a significant impact on business innovation, transformation and performance, and are used in a number of industries including Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The integration of these innovative technologies into all areas of business leads to new business innovation models and value creation. Although business model innovation is considered key to achieve sustainability in small and big enterprises, however, many SMEs are slow to adopt innovative technologies in developing new business innovation models, and have therefore not fully grasped the potential beneï¬ÂÂ�ts to be gained from technologies such as big data analytics. This study thus reviewed literature on digital transformation of SMEs through the adoption of big data analytics, with a view to highlight how these technologies can support the development of Data-Driven Business Model Innovation (DDBMI) applicable to SMEs. The study revealed that big data analytics has the potential to revolutionize SMEs’ processes, practices, performance and enhance competitive advantage