Caribbean Digital Transformation Program Workshop

The Digitalization of firms is key to productivity

• Productivity is at the center of sustained economic progress and the digitization of firms can substantially increase productivity (World Development Report 2016, World Bank)

• Digitalization process advanced during the past decade but…

• Progress was uneven across industries • Much higher in knowledge-based industries (e.g., nearly 90% of employees in OECD countries connected to digital devices in 2019). • Low in food and accommodation (barely 31% of employees connected). • Differences between knowledge-based and more traditional sectors are even wider in middle-income countries. • Progress lagged among SMEs • SME digitalization is most advanced on marketing, electronic invoicing, and interactions with government (e.g., paying taxes) but still small in many countries (e.g., in 2018, only 6% of SMEs used e-commerce in Chile). • Gaps are much larger for enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management and more complex technologies (e.g., in Chile, 26% and 6% of large and SMEs, respectively, used ERP prior to Covid-19).

Official Use