Digitaliseringsgradens måttstock: En analytisk diskussion om nyckeltals potential att estimera digitalisering i svenska börsföretag

Abstract

The advent of digitalization has significantly redefined the operational landscape of businesses worldwide. Given the influence of digitalization on organizational performance, it is essential to effectively quantify and comprehend its level within a firm. ’Digital intensity’ – the degree to which digital technologies are integrated into a company’s processes, operations and strategies – serves as a vital measure of a firm's digitalization and its potential competitive advantage in the digital era. This thesis aims to explore the potential significance of estimating a connection between the key financial indicators, namely Property, Plant, and Equipment Turnover (PPE Turnover), Revenue per Employee, and Tobin's Q, and the digital intensity of companies. The research was structured as a cross-sectional study employing a multiple linear regression analysis on a broad array of companies in different sectors. Data, encompassing financial and market variables, was exported from Retriever Business and Capital IQ, followed by cleaning, standardization, and integration with each other and the BearingPoint index for analysis. The result showed a significant relation for most variables, the outlier being Tobin’s Q. PPE Turnover indicated a negative relation with the index, while Revenue per Employee carried a positive relation. Moreover, a robust positive relationship was found between the combination of PPE Turnover and Revenue per Employee, and the BearingPoint index. These findings suggests that PPE Turnover and Revenue per Employee in relation can be used to estimate the extent of a company’s digital intensity, but further research with focus on specific sectors or a different approach to standardizing the values would contribute further to the quest of establishing a set of key figures for measuring digitalization within companies to stakeholders.