Digitalization in the Fashion field

Abstract

Digital Tranformation is a fundamental concept that should be studied in order to comprehend better how companies work and adapt to change and how consumers react and behave. Digital Era is characterized by innovation, growth, fast development and disruption. Companies that want to remain competitive and survive must be able to adapt to the digital world and also stimulate innovation itself. For some companies, it is easier to embrace digitalization and digital transformation, but for others it is more challenging. This paper aims to investigate the barriers to digital transformation and to understand what drives the adoption of it by Italian firms in the Fashion field. In particular, we will focus on the use of E- commerce and Social Media. They represent an important issue that needs to be explored in today’s business world. It allows companies to connect in a new way with customers and to gain a more competitive advantage. Most researches focus on them from the consumer’s perspective, there are very little empirical studies that consider this argument analyzing the firm’s point of view. The purpose of this paper is thus to review the academic literature on factors that drive the adoption of E-commerce and Social Media by Italian firms in the fashion field and examine if the use of Social Media Marketing (SMM) and e-commerce affect in a positive way firms ‘performances. This research will try to answer these key questions: (1) What is the Impact of Digital Transformation on company’s performances? (2) What are the barriers to Digital Transformation? (3) What are digital networking capabilities and how can firms develop them? (4) What are the factors that drive Italian firms to adopt e-commerce and social media and what are the benefits by using these tools?