THE MAJOR CHALLENGES FACING ORGANISATIONS TO CREATE TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED VALUE IN THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: A DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES PERSPECTIVE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to create value in the current dynamic, globalised, interconnected, and ever more complex business and technology environments. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR) is set to increase these challenges as a result of the increasing complexity and dynamic changes in market, societal, and technological trends. While current technological trends potentially offer great value to organisations, emerging technological implementations and transformations often fail to realise the desired value-creation outcomes. Following an exploratory study with qualitative interviews, it was determined that most of these challenges to technology-enabled value-creation initiatives, in the current FIR related environment, can be linked to a dynamic capabilities perspective of strategic management. This perspective encompasses the enabling capabilities and strategic alignment between the external environment, an organisation’s strategies, its strategy execution, and its capability creation, adaptation, and management.