Digital Transformation in Montenegro – Current Status, Issues and Proposals for Improvement

Abstract

WHAT IS Covid-19 teaching us?Chinese word CRISIS consists of two ideograms: the first means DANGER, the second means OPPORTUNITY. Most people perceive the coronavirus as a DANGER manifesting itself in its worst forms. It causes drastic behavior change, quarantine and social isolation. It creates panic, shortages and anxiety. It dramatically reduces economic activity, destroys stock markets and paves the way for recession. Schools, colleges, even kindergartens are closed. Sport events, concerts, competitions and championships are canceled. An overstretched health system is bursting at the seams. Borders are closed, traffic has stopped, and airlines, cultural institutions, tourism and the entertainment industry are suffering huge losses. Concerned heads of government hold press conferences on a daily basis to portray the murky reality, offer increasingly drastic measures and increasingly restrictive solutions. Immersed in such a deep crisis, is it at all possible to see the coronavirus as an OPPORTUNITY, as we try to do in this paper? First of all, we should stop and rethink. We should question our values and try to get rid of false myths we are surrounded with. We should also question personal priorities, the meaning of life, work and all our activities. We should better understand the risks of global connectivity and the complexity of all the consequences. We should better grasp the necessary balance between personal freedoms and restrictions that are imposed on us by the interest of common good. We should compare how a deep crisis is addressed by different political regimes and learn from the mistakes. Finally, we should draw lessons from all this by initiating faster and deeper reforms of the (global and local) political, educational, health, social and, of course, economic systems. Apart from these abstract and philosophical gains, there are a number of concrete positive consequences of the coronavirus crisis. The trend of teleworking will accelerate. The need for openness and transparency in media and political discourse will grow and the tendency to produce "fake news" will be reduced. Sensitivity for older and more vulnerable sections of the population who are neglected and marginalized will increase. The perception of "private space" will change and the overall hygiene habits will improve. The text that follows is based on a field research on Digital Transformation in Montenegro during the Covid-19 pandemic. It explores the current status, and deals with issues and proposals for improvement, focusing in particular on a set of recommendations and proposals for companies, enabling them to cope with the challenges.

The Present and Future of a Digital Montenegro: Analysis of C-ITS, Agriculture, and Healthcare

“…Most of these case studies focus on specialized topics of development. Digital transformation as a whole is addressed by Golubović et al [33]. Beyond the challenges and the opportunities, the authors also draw conclusions regarding the new mindset in the Montenegrin organizational culture, education, customer satisfaction, and other social impacts.…”