Digitalisation in times of COVID-19 - the behavioural shifts in enterprises and individuals in the Sector of Bioeconomy

Abstract

Although our daily life within a modern society is unimaginable without the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), the COVID-19 crisis really highlighted the ways we can maximise the use of digital technologies in optimising our work in distance working conditions with limited ability to contact each other physically, make direct sales and ensure the physical document rotation. All these limitations have pushed the governmental organisations, enterprises, and households to utilize numerous means of digital services and digital transformation aspects that had been started to be used, but the last year has rapidly pushed forward such aspects of digitalisation as digital sales, distance work using co-working platforms and cloud storage, electronic signature of documents and others. This study aims to assess the trends in online sales and use of e-tools from the perspective of enterprises and individuals in Europe in the sector of bioeconomy with the focus of the Baltic States and Latvia that could be used to strengthen the digitalisation component during and post COVID-19. In this paper, the authors have reviewed the scientific literature, policy planning documents, analysed relevant statistical data, performed statistical analysis, and estimated the tendency of the use of eSignatures in Latvia by applying the Holt's two-parameter model of exponential smoothing. The main results indicate a significant increase in motivation towards digitalisation that has increased rapidly in line with the necessity for an online shopping and distance work setting. Authors suggest supporting this tendency also in the after-COVID life, which would have a great impact on the overall digital transformation and potential to unlock new markets for bio-based products.