| Abstract |
In the context of the new economy, organizations are forced to learn and to reinvent themselves in order to become more competitive. Don Tapscott (2015, p. 17) states that the new economy is characterized by the use of exclusively digital information and it represents "a knowledge economy based on the application of human know-how to everything we produce and how we produce it". Thus, new economy means the digitalization of companies on a structural level: human resources management, R&D, marketing, IT security, e-management and e-business integrative models. This implies a new shift in the organizational design, rethinking of operational processes, m-marketing strategies, digital competencies, analytical and mobile technologies. Florina Pinzaru (2016, p. 27) indicates that, we must acknowledge that we are now at the crossroads and that managers should think of the mutations that we start to face as the world rushes to become digitally interconnected". Our research is based upon the following fundamental question: the Romanian business environment is ready for this type of digital maturity and what are the main challenges that it faces at this point? In order to answer these questions, we used a double approach: on the one hand, we used content analysis based upon the articles from Romanian business newspapers (Capital, Financial Magazine, BIZ Magazine); on the other hand, a qualitative approach, through the interviews with various managers in order to see if the Romanian business environment is ready for this type of digital maturity and what are the main challenges that is facing at this point. Despite this positive trends, we noticed major disruption between industries concerning investments in IT & research and development. When it comes to embracing new business models focused on driving innovation through sharing knowledge and information, multinationals from Romania follow the global strategy, whereas Romanian companies lack collaboration with local hubs or platforms for developing new ideas and products. |