Examining Digital Transformation Trends in Austrian and Hungarian Companies

The contemporary discourse focuses on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its impact on companies. The research is based on a quantitative questionnaire survey of 101 business leaders in Hungary and on 54 in Austria. It was considered important to analyze these two neighboring countries, which have similar histories and cultures but different industrial and economic advantages in terms of labor costs/skills and technology. The aim of our study is to assess how ready companies are for Industry 4.0 and what key factors they take into account when implementing Industry 4.0 initiatives. To complement our quantitative analysis, we conducted four semi-structured interviews with two Hungarian and two Austrian CEOs. Based on both the quantitative and qualitative survey, we conclude that there are relevant differences in digital maturity between the two countries at both macro and micro levels, with Hungarian companies lagging behind Austrian companies in the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies. Hungarian managers were most concerned with achieving higher profits from the adoption of an Industry 4.0 strategy, while Austrian companies were most concerned with improving their market position. Our analysis also revealed the main areas where Hungarian and Austrian companies show similar performance and improvements in line with Industry 4.0.