Key Obstacles to Digital Transformation Implementation in SMEs

As the business world becomes more digitalized, scholars and researchers explore SMEs' lack of digital transformation (DT). While the SMEs form the backbone of most economies, they have significantly fallen back on digital transformation (DT). This means that SMEs cannot match the competitive advantage of digitalization that more prominent companies possess. This paper examines the challenges SMEs face that prevent them from achieving digital transformation (DT). As a means of setting the scope of the study, the paper introduces the topic of digital transformation (DT) and its application within the context of SMEs. The paper then highlights the challenges of digital transformation (DT) that SMEs face, including a lack of digital skills and resources, poor strategic management, industry and regulation restrictions, stakeholder resistance, and data security. The research paper indicated that while the independent challenges are essential, the more wholesome answer to why SMEs fail to create a proper strategy is that they do not have a holistic approach to the digital-related problems they have. The recommendations presented in the paper's conclusion guide how SMEs can surmount this problem.