A business transformation model to enhance the sustainability of small-sized family businesses

Technological changes that come with industrial revolution have largely affected businesses, as well as society. With the current technological shift and Fourth Industrial Revolution, many questions arise regarding the impacts and effects on current ways businesses operate. This study presents a retrospective analysis and overview of previous industrial revolutions. The aim of the retrospective analysis is to identify common characteristics that may lead to lessons learned for the forthcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution and thus complement the current debate on technological change. All previous industrial revolutions have led to change in business environments and new challenges for managers and owners. The findings show that all previous revolutions have led to increase in the number of service jobs created. The key approach of successful countries during the times of industrial revolution has included education as the source of new skills and knowledge necessary for adaption. Countries that were able to produce high skilled people could not only invent, but also adapt to new technologies sooner than others. Similarly, these approaches included introduction of new managerial practices in order to be able to utilize new technologies and new skilled workers effectively. The research article processes secondary data together with literature review on this topic.

In the modern world, developing countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and several others in the African continent have been encouraged to reform their public expenditure management systems through computerization of the entire public sectors in response to the increasing volume of data or information that need to be processed. There are, however, various factors to be considered prior to the implementation of the public expenditure management information systems. This paper undertakes a theoretical review of the critical success factors that impact on the implementation of an Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) with a view to identify factors applicable to the Migori County of Kenya. The paper, then, identifies the key factors to be incorporated in the proposed IFMS framework. The proposed framework draws from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) and the Work Around Theory (WAT). The paper fuses these theories towards a successful adoption of use of modern technology within the public sector IFMS. The key factors include technical, organizational, environmental, cultural and ethical behavior. These factors could improve efficiency and transparency through direct payments to suppliers and contractors, reduced prices due to gains based on the time value of money, as well as the comparative analysis of market rates and advanced relations across the numerous organizational units within government on execution, reporting, and thoroughness of budget transactions.

The paper deals with the assessment of the socio-economic development of Ukrainian regions using Data Science methods and multidimensional analysis, including taxonomy, n-dimensional classification, and ensemble decision trees methods. The methodological bases of economic regions devel¬opment by the economic and mathematical modeling methods were investigated. The necessity of improving and further developing estimation models of the regional economic development using business analytics tools and multidimensional scaling methods was investigated.
The ensemble decision trees methods was applied for the classification model of economic development of the Ukrainian regions according to the conceptual base of the research on regional econom¬ic development. It will increase the quality level of administrative decisions making on regional de¬velopment asymmetry equalization. It is determined that in Ukraine, there is a significant imbalance of regions clusters with high and low economic level. Here was investigated the relationship between the two groups of economic development indicators – the indicators of the economic development regional performance and the group of economic potential. The results of the classification model allow identifying the set of indicators that have significant impact on the overall economic development. The developed ensemble model allows carrying out qualitative recognition and prediction of the state probability of economic development. It will improve the quality of decision making pro¬cesses on equalization of regional development asymmetry.
The further research gives the possibility to develop the system of levers directions of regional development imbalance equalization, to determine priority vectors of sustainable development of both the regions and the country.