Bičkauskė, Daiva

The impact of technological advances is being felt in all industry sectors; thus, there is no doubt that digital transformation will significantly affect the Lithuanian manufacturing sector. In order to assess the extent to which companies in the Lithuanian processing industry are digitalized, an in-depth descriptive analysis of installed digital technologies in these companies was executed. The goal of this analysis was to determine whether Lithuanian companies in the processing industry have been sufficiently digitalized and are ready to completely adopt the principles of Industry 4.0 in the installation of digital solutions within all segments of value-chain creation. Research on the digital tools and technologies that have already been applied in these companies was performed during the phase of analysis. A comparative analysis of EU countries was also performed, during which countries were analyzed by criteria such as changes in production outputs and number of employees, changes in the share of manufacturing in GDP, share of high-tech sectors in total manufacturing output, level of capacity utilization, share of employees in the manufacturing sector in total employment, personnel costs, and wages. There was also an attempt to define the most digitalized processes of operation and the least (or non-) digitalized processes of operation in companies. After the assessment of the current digitalization level in the company, there was an attempt to clarify the strengths and problematic challenges as well as the underlying reasons for these challenges. After the above-mentioned data was collected, recommendations on which additional tools and means to apply in order to encourage the process of digitalization in these companies were formulated and passed on to the companies.

During the COVID-19 crisis, there were many restrictions placed on transportation. Due to this, a significant disruption in the food supply chain emerged. The transportation of fresh food and maintaining its quality from farm to the table, or distributing and then collecting from warehouses and delivering to the consumer, has become crucial. Technologies, and especially the IoT, have become the primary tools to fight this. The research objective is to analyze and create new knowledge about digital technologies used to improve and make more effective food supply chain processes. An exploratory case study methodology helps to investigate a large consortium based on IoT technologies, implemented in pilot cases at the farm level and measuring their performance over a period of four years. This is an interpretative study, and the method of semi-structured interviews and document review for collecting the data was used. The results show IoT-connected sensors and systems in food and beverage supply chain logistics offer real-time visibility and data-driven analytics, allowing stakeholders to improve performance, cut operating costs, conduct predictive maintenance to avoid downtime, and even decrease energy usage or reduce negative environmental impacts.

The digital transformation is now a reality in Moldova, as Moldova has begun to transfer social, legal, and civil service delivery online. Sped-up digitalization can be expected to create new business models and opportunities for digital jumping in traditional industries. The Coronavirus crisis has highlighted the need for support and investments in digital transformation and effective digital governance, especially to guarantee the continuity and delivery of core government functions. The digital transformation is changing not just business models but the methods of production and distribution and the industry's competitiveness. Further analysis has been made to generate specific steps/recommendations regarding the digitization of the Moldova industry. The interview with experts who work closely in digitalization or competitiveness was done, and the SWOT analysis was done. Based on the research made, the recommendations for Moldova were prepared and presented in this article.

During the COVID-19 crisis, there were many restrictions to transportation. Due to that, a significant disruption in the food supply chain has emerged. The transportation of the fresh food and maintaining the quality, from farm to the table or distributing and then collecting from the warehouses and delivering to the consumer, has become crucial. Technologies and especially IoT, have become the primary tool to fight it. The research objective is to analyze and create new knowledge about digital technologies used to improve and make more effective the food supply chain processes. An exploratory case study methodology helps to investigate a large consortium based on IoT technologies, implemented in pilot cases on farm level and measuring their performance over the period of four years. This is an interpretative study, and the method of semi-structured interviews and document review for collecting the data was used. The results show IoT-connected sensors and systems in food and beverage supply chain logistics offer real-time visibility and data-driven analytics, allowing stakeholders to improve performance, cut operating costs, conduct predictive maintenance to avoid downtime, and even decrease energy usage or reduce negative environmental impacts.

This article discusses the links and dimensions of social business and other activities as a form of social enterprise. In addition to the theoretical discussion, the practical benefits of social business are analyzed. The benefits for social business were assessed using social performance and impact assessment studies, which assessed changes in key areas such as a change in income, change in housing, change in criminal activity, change in health, and change in income. The benefit-cost ratio and return of social business were determined by conducting the following studies: evaluation of the results of work in a social enterprise using two questionnaires, evaluation of the impact of work in a social enterprise using two research groups, and two questionnaires. The cost-benefit analysis made it possible to assess the benefits and costs of social business and to assess the benefits or value of one euro spent on social business. In this study, the benefit-cost ratio was calculated. The article aims to substantiate the impact of social business on the country's economy, which allows us to calculate the benefits of social business according to the established criteria. Research has shown that work experience, housing, and family and dependents have led to a higher probability of employment, and convictions have significantly reduced the likelihood of employment. Meanwhile, other characteristics such as income level, gender, age, and native language did not have a significant impact on the likelihood of employment in social business. Assessing the averages of different variables in the primary and secondary (secondary) survey, their difference shows a positive result of work in social business. The results of the study also revealed that working in a social business enterprise significantly changed the attitude of employees to work as a social institution and increased their positive attitudes towards the future. The impact assessment study, based on the double-difference method, confirmed the data obtained in the results study and was used in the cost-benefit analysis. The significant positive increase in gross income and labor income over the last month, as well as the number of avoided arrests and changes in stable housing and reduced number of persons counseled on alcohol and drug addiction, led to a positive current net benefit per person employed in the social enterprise for all groups. It amounts to EUR 1.63 per year, with a return of EUR 0.63 per euro spent on social enterprise support.

The combination of faster increase of labour costs than the increase of productivity, together with the dominance of low-tech sectors in the Lithuanian manufacturing structure, put significant pressure on the competitiveness of Lithuanian manufacturing sector. In order to strengthen digitalization processes, it is imperative to study existing cases of industry digitalization in other EU member states. Comparative analysis of EU countries was made. Countries were analyzed by criterions such as changes in production outputs and number of employees, changes in the share of manufacturing in GDP, share of high-tech sectors in total manufacturing output, level of capacity utilization, share of employees in manufacturing sector in total employment, personnel costs and wages. The aim of this paper is to present the outputs of selected statistical data analysis, to analyze the trends in manufacturing output and to provide insights.

Leidinyje apibendrinti autorių moksliniai tyrimai žaidimų industrijos plėtros srityje. Lietuvos žaidimų industrijos kelrodis yra skirtas identifikuoti pagrindinius sektoriaus plėtrai kylančius iššūkius, kuriuos lemia globalios tendencijos, taip pat nustatyti sektorių apjungiančius tikslus ir apibrėžti unikalias plėtros kryptis artimiausiu 10 metų laikotarpiu.

Technology has been completely revolutionizing the present era and digital transformation is expected to have a major impact on almost any industry. Agri-food industry SMEs which face everyday problems and which could be possibly solved by digitalization. Considering the fact that other industrial sectors are often more advanced in digitalization than the agricultural sector, this article aims to analyze the challenges existing in the process of digital transformation by SMEs in the agri-food sector in Lithuania. Considering that, hackathons have become increasingly popular in recent years as a modern tool for innovation, the research is based on HackAgriFood’19 hackathon use case. It has attracted the attention of more than 60 SMEs acting in the Agri-food industry actively. As a result, challenges of adaptation of digitalized products and services by Agri-food sector SME’s were identified and they are presented in this article.

The impact of technological advances in all industry sectors is being felt and, thus, there is no doubt that digital transformation will have significantly affect Lithuanian manufacturing sector. In order to assess the extent to which Lithuanian processing industry companies are digitalized, an in-depth descriptive analysis of installed digital technologies in these companies was executed. The goal of this analysis – to determine whether Lithuanian companies of processing industry has been sufficiently digitalized and are ready to completely adopt the principles of Industry 4.0 in the installation of digital solutions within all segments of the value-chain creation. The research on already-applied digital tools and technologies in those companies was made during the phase of analysis. There was also an attempt to define the most digitalized processes of operation and the least or non-digitalized processes of operations in those companies. After the assessment of a current digitalization level in the company was made, there was an attempt to clarify the strengths and problematic challenges as well as the underlying reasons for its challenges. After the above-mentioned data was collected, recommendations on which additional tools and means to apply in order to encourage the process of digitalization in the companies were formulated and passed on to the companies.