Keywords

1 Introduction

Digital technologies have enabled firms to break out of their traditional paradigms of doing business and be open to the digital world. This is due to digital technologies that have the potential to transform traditional business models into digital business models [1]. Such transformation involves fundamental changes in business processes [2], operational routines [3], and organizational capabilities [4]. It is necessary for firms to possess new digital capabilities to improve their efficiency and agility, and to optimize relations with new customers and increase the speed of response to customer needs, especially where information plays a key role [5].

A Gartner survey conducted in 2017 reveals that 42% of CEOs have begun digital business transformation in their organizations. Furthermore, 47% of CEOs are being challenged by their boards of directors to make progress in digital business, and 56% said that their organizations have benefited from digital improvements through expanded profits [9]. According to Boulton [10], top-performing businesses which digitalization is already woven into their planning processes and their business models, are spending 34% of their IT budget on investments in digital transformations, with plans to increase that to 44% by 2018. Driven by consumers accustomed to such technologies such as mobile apps, smart appliances, and connected cars, the digital business shift is gaining traction.

Bock et al. [11] affirm that organizations which have undergone successful digital transformation, also known as “digital leaders”, performed better than organizations that lagged behind i.e. the “digital laggards”. This gap between digital leaders and laggards effectively creates a “digital divide” across organizations. This is a result of a significant capabilities possessed by digital leaders and the lack thereof in digital laggards. These transformations modify the processes and structures within and among businesses and other organizations, increasing the relevance and important role played by digital capabilities.

Recent studies have defined Digital Capabilities as the capabilities that build and develop an organization’s capacity to develop, mobilize and efficiently use the organizational resources and improve its processes, (e.g. management of customers relationship, development of new products and collaboration) through the use of digital technologies [6]. In this study, we focused on two of these digital capabilities: Visualization and Responsiveness. Visualization is defined by Lyytinen et al. [7] as the capability to display visual business information and allows the organization to reduce the information complexity and uncertainty, delivering data and information in an appropriate format and with quality, thus improving the quality of information flows. Responsiveness refers to the managers’ capacity to integrate, build and configure internal and external competencies to respond to environmental changes [8].

According to Aaker [12] and Yoo [13] companies are interested in the discussion on transformation in the digital age, thereby leading IS research to advance theoretically. However, there is still a lack of in-depth discussion regarding the skills and capabilities that can help organizations cope with these new challenges. Therefore, our study empirically examines the impact of two digital capabilities—visualization and responsiveness—on the business performance of e-commerce companies.

To fill this void, our research presents the results of the qualitative phase of a broader research program that has been conducted. The research objective of this study is to examine the relationships between key digital capabilities and digital business performance. Our study is expected to make several contributions. First, we complement the concept of digital capabilities based on the information systems literature. Second, our research advances in identifying the key digital capabilities required to make a digital business model successful, proposing a preliminary conceptual framework based on previous work. This research will be of practical value to executives in emphasizing the importance of digital capabilities in digital business performance.

In the next section, we present the theoretical development and initial propositions. This will be followed by the method, results and conclusions.

2 Theoretical Background

Digital capabilities have been associated with several theories including the theory of Dynamic capabilities (DC) which refers to the ability to integrate, reconfigure, gain, and release resources to match and even create market change. Dynamic capabilities explores the velocity of information, presenting its relationship with organizational processes and people [14]. In fact, Karimi and Walter [8] suggested that dynamic capabilities are positively associated with building digital capabilities. As such, the first step of this study entails a thorough examination of the literature with both the concepts of digital capabilities.

2.1 Literature Review Process

In developing our theoretical background, we conducted a full-text search for articles containing the terms “Digital Capability” and “Digital Capabilities.” We followed the procedures suggested by Wolfswinkel et al. [15]. The search and selection of the papers occurred from July 2–18, 2017. The following search parameters were utilized: publications in the last 20 years and academic articles published on the Association for Information Systems electronic library (AISel), which is a central repository for research papers and journal articles relevant to the information systems academic community. During this step, each paper’s abstract, keywords, and introduction were carefully read. In determining the inclusion/exclusion criteria, for an article to be included in the study, it must have been published in an IS journal and mentioned the keyword “digital capability” or its variants.

As a result, we identified 97 papers in the first round and excluded nine articles due to overlap, resulting in 91 papers. The second step was to verify the context of the studies. In our review, we only focused on papers situating their study in the business context. Subsequently, 37 articles were found, and after removing the duplicates, nine articles were disregarded, leaving 28 that were scrutinized.

Once the papers have been chosen, Wolfswinkel et al. [15] suggest to proceed to the analysis step, as well as to prepare the structure of the results. In this study, we used the software N’Vivo to support our analysis. First, we read all the papers, and then employed open coding to create tentative labels for chunks of data from the selected articles, to summarize our understanding. In particular, we paid special attention to articles discussing the definitions on digital capabilities, the capabilities required by digital business, the challenges for a digital business, and digital transformation.

During our review, we encountered many articles that only mentioned the term “digital capability,” but do not offer definitions or further implications for this study. While we noted the articles for record, these papers were excluded from the final analysis. Next, we began axial coding to identify relationships among the open codes, and then we moved onto selective coding to identify the core variable that includes all the data. From these processes, we were able to relate the concept of digital capabilities with extant theories and understand the importance of visualization and responsiveness on digital business performance.

2.2 Digital Capabilities

From our review, we found five papers which provided an actual definition for digital capabilities among all the articles, most of which mention the term “digital capability” or “digital capabilities” without specifying the actual meaning of these capabilities. Of these five papers, Yoo et al. [16] defines Digital Capability as the organizational ability “used throughout the organization to support its different functions based on digital technology platforms.” It is a business capability developed by the interaction of technology with a variety of complementary assets, such as process redesign, training, and incentive structures, that can be considered as sources of business value [17].

For Westerman et al. [18], digital capabilities are skills needed to go beyond pure IT to include specific technologies, such as social media or mobile, as well as analytic skills to drive value from big data. On the other hand, digital capabilities can be conceptualized as services that one system provides to another through value-creating, provider-user interactions [19].

The fifth definition presented by Tams et al. [6] suggests that digital capability is “an organization’s focused deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs), abilities to develop, mobilize, and use organizational resources effectively, for instance, customer relationship management, new product development, and knowledge collaboration.”

As can be observed, the conceptualization of digital capability is quite broad and there is no standard definition. However, we notice that a commonality among these definitions is that digital capabilities allow organizations to give instant feedback, either internally or externally, by using digital technologies and digital platforms that generates value for the business.

From the five definitions of digital capability in the literature, we propose a new definition based on the analysis of these definitions with the objective of providing a synthesized definition which can be used in future studies. To do so, we enumerated the list of definitions found in the extant literature. Then, we conducted a cross-comparison of what has already been defined to formulate a precise, comprehensive definition for the term “digital capabilities.”

Subsequently, we made a note on the terms which were considered key to constructing the definition in bold letters, as described next. From this analysis, we noticed that it is not clear whether the mere acquisition and possession of packages of resources will be adequate for a firm to achieve superior performance, especially when most of the firms have access to markets with similar factors. On the contrary, organizations should develop new capabilities by adding resources that would make them more valuable and inimitable. Several authors use the term “digital capability” and others the plural form, “digital capabilities.” Digital capabilities can be better understood with existing theories in particular that of resource based theory and dynamic capablities theory. According to these two theories, a firms’ capacity to integrate, build, and reconfigure the capabilities and internal and external resources to create superior capabilities that are incorporated into their social, structural, and cultural context [20, 21]. The mobilization of resources and new organizational capabilities becomes vital, focusing on people, facilities, structures, to ensure quality, speed, storage, and information flow, which will enable improvements in processes and client relationships and, thus, superior performance in the digital world.

Based on prior studies and these theories, we define digital capabilities as: “the combination of skills and processes of a Digital Business to develop, mobilize, and use organizational resources supported by Digital Technologies to respond to the environment and add value to the organization”. This definition indicates that digital capabilities allow organizations to give instant answers either internally or externally by using digital channels that contribute to value generation for the company. These capabilities permit improvement in processes and customer relationships, thereby refining digital business, impacting operational and strategic fields [18], as we demonstrate in the following propositions.

In determining which resources and capabilities, when integrated and reconfigured, encompass digital capability, we examined the role of visualization and responsiveness on Digital Business Performance as suggested in the literature.

There are several ways to measure the performance of a business, for this study we follow the authors Rai et al. [3] that emphasize three areas of analysis to measure performance which should be observed about the relation of the performance of a company about its competition:

  • operational excellence;

  • revenue growth, and;

  • the relationship with customers and other stakeholders involved in business processes.

Operational excellence is defined as the ability of a company to respond to customers and productivity improvements about its competitors [3]. To illustrate, one could cite the integration of the supply chains of e-commerce companies to improve the competitiveness of a firm based on time, compressing cycle times which improves business performance. The supply chains integrated into the business provide visibility, coordination, and streamlined flow of goods that shorten the time interval between a customer’s request for a product and its delivery [22].

The relationship with customers and other stakeholders involved in business processes is an essential performance indicator [3]. Prior studies affirm that the decrease in time impacts the relationship with clients, and it is possible to broaden this view, with the satisfaction of all the actors involved in the processes both internally and externally.

Finally, the financial performance is also an indicator of performance. This performance can be analyzed by revenue growth, but also, by the return on investments and by the relation between the operating profit, as observed in the study of [23].

2.3 Visualization

According to Lyytinen et al. [7], digitization makes it possible to reconfigure and transform nearly all industrial-age products’ design and production. From a digital capability perspective, a crucial capability which supports this reconfiguration and transformation is visualization. Visualization refers to the capability of a firm to represent their assets digitally. For instance, one specific function which supports the visualization capability is that of displaying business information and representing the information in a way that is readable, comprehensible, in the most efficient and effective way possible [16]. Further, visualization capability allows the organization to reduce information complexity and uncertainty, presenting data and information in an appropriate format [24].

Visualization also helps digital businesses deliver data and information about competitors, market trends and customers necessities in the proper format and time enabling business to compete in a digital world [25,26,27]. In addition, the visualization capability allows the organizations to maintain continuous contact, through new levels of digital sensing and tracking, producing big data that represent behaviors that were heretofore invisible [28].

Kohli and Grover [16] complement this idea and reiterate the importance of a “quick sense-and-respond to market demands by pricing, designing, sourcing, manufacturing, and distributing a product.” Also, Drnevich and Croson [29] highlight the importance of monitoring competitors’ actions and how it can improve business performance.

Considering the value of information for business, visualization capability allows the organization to reduce information complexity and uncertainty by delivering data and information in an appropriate, quality format, thus improving the quality of information flow [7].

Thus, the critical strength of Internet and digital technologies is the ability to provide information across time and space [30]. As defined in this capability’s concept, it enables integration and reconfiguration of digital resources, contributing to better digital business results, thus maintaining the highlighted aspects of the dynamic capabilities theory. Therefore, we make the following proposition:

Proposition 1 (P1): Visualization is a digital capability that positively relates to digital business performance.

2.4 Responsiveness

Kohli and Grover [16] underscore responsiveness as a digital capability, defining it as the capacity to respond quickly to the firm’s internal and external demands. Consequently, this digital capability can meet the digital economy’s challenges [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. Digital capabilities are a foundation upon which other firms can develop complementary products, technologies, and services [28]. In this context, responsiveness is an ability that requires velocity and flexibility of processes in an organization to allow the organization to quickly respond to a new customer need.

Tams et al. [6] citing the studies of Lavie [31] and Peppard et al. [32] emphasize that “Digital capabilities and practices have become increasingly important for organizations to improve organizational agility and responsiveness. As a result of the improvements in agility and responsiveness, firms can achieve greater performance and competitive advantage, even sustainable competitive advantage.”

Müller et al. [26] also highlight the importance of being responsive to market responses, consumers, and other stakeholders and suggest the use of platforms and cloud computing. Fernandes et al. [33] emphasize that the organizations’ response speed can imply an improvement in their performance. Therefore, we propose:

Proposition 2 (P2): Responsiveness is a digital capability that positively relates to digital business performance.

2.5 Conceptual Framework

Finally, what follows is the conceptual framework that illustrates the relationship between the Digital Capability propositions and Digital Business performance.

As observed from our proposed conceptual framework, visualization and responsiveness are two digital capabilities that relate to the digital business performance of a digital business. This model emphasizes that a digital business requires extreme responsiveness and visualization [7, 24]. Next, we present the methods used in this research.

3 Methods

To answer our research question, we adopted a qualitative research method to explore our proposed model on digital capabilities. To do so, we conducted interviews with 31 managers and specialists who work in Digital Business. We selected respondents from native digital companies and traditional ones that started working with digital, such as e-commerce. This sampling of different-sized organizations from distinct industry sectors contributes to the study’s analytical generalization [34]. The respondents are executives in IT, business, and company strategy.

3.1 Data Collection and Analysis

The interviewees were asked a series of questions based on a semi-structured instrument that was developed as Myers [35] suggests. Before the interview, we prepared an interview protocol with a list of questions derived from literature and our research question. In order to validate the protocol, we hired three specialists who went through the interview questions and conducted a pilot interview before initiating data collection.

The pilot interview was conducted at a multinational retail company headquartered in South Brazil. This company is the most significant retail clothing company in the country and with the best financial result in the last years. Three managers were interviewed with experience in digital business, the CIO, the director of E-commerce and director of Digital Marketing. Only after both the interview protocol was validated and the pilot interview was conducted did we begin to collect data.

Subsequent participants were obtained through a snowball sampling of these participants, as well as an advertisement made to the community of a university located in one of the state capitals in South Brazil. We were able to reach out to the authors’ networks and reach participants from around the country and made a subsequent snowball sampling of all those contacts. All interviewees participated voluntarily without compensation.

In addition to the experience with digital business, we took into account the characteristics of the companies that work. Companies were chosen according to the following rank: profit, revenue, and market share. In the e-service companies and the IT consultant, it was observed whether the companies served met the representativeness indicated above.

The interviews were audiotaped, professionally transcribed, and analyzed, according to the procedure described by Walsham [36]. The average interview length was 45 min, with interviews ranging from 28 min to 1 h and 17 min. The first author conducted all the interviews. The average experience of the interviewees is 12 years in the area of IT or digital area, being the interviewee with less time has six years and the most experienced, 27 years. The descriptions of our 31 interviewees are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Characteristics of respondents
Full size table

Finally, we analyzed the results by utilizing the content analysis technique [37]. We analyzed the dataset with the use of the qualitative analysis software N’VIVO. This analysis was performed by all the researchers, following a qualitative coding analysis protocol developed for this research, which due to lack of space, could not be included here.

In summary, the data analysis codes were initially grouped into inductive themes based on the literature, while the data analysis revealed new categories. The analytical categories were established based on this set of issues. For this paper, we employed the categories that correspond to visualization and responsiveness. Next, we present our results.

4 Data Analysis and Results

This section presents the results of our analysis of the interview data. The evidence of each digital capability is described through the interviewees’ quotes, reinforcing the ideas of each category. Although many codes emerged from our analysis, we present themes that are mentioned frequently in the interviews. To do so, we consider the general theme, not literally the same words, but the general idea and the subcategorization using N’Vivo.

To examine the relations proposed in our conceptual model, we considered the digital business performance indicators presented in Sect. 2, and evaluated the relationship between the digital capability and each indicator. Thus, to help the analysis and discussion we named each of them as DBP1 - Operational excellence, DBP2 - Revenue growth, and DBP3 - The relationship with customers and other stakeholders.

4.1 Visualization and Digital Business Performance

In the Household Utensils Industry, it was possible to observe the managers have hourly sales reports, SMS, and e-mail. The IT Manager (Interviewee 15, i.e. I15) mentioned that every morning, he and other managers have access to all the previous day’s sales volume, and those reports have graphs and are displayed on the managers’ iPads. It helps to plan the actions to increase the sales and consequently increase the Revenue growth (DBP2).

In the banks, information visualization is essential for managers and clients. The interviewee I29 says “the bank has developed solutions for clients and our internal team.” The Sales Manager pointed out they are always analyzing the market and says that “we need to provide information in an adequate format, because the FinTech’s exists, and their DNA are digital, we need to be able to compete in the same level, showing the data and information the clients need”.

Another aspect of visualization is information visibility. As an example, in the bank, for every transaction the client receives an SMS, so he can confirm if transactions actually went through, which increases the confidence of the client in the firm. This in turn improves the operational excellence (DBP1) and the relationship with customers and other stakeholders (DBP3).

In the Shoes Industry and E-Commerce, the CIO said that everyone involved in the ecosystem has access and, through the system could provide and receive input, participate and view information flow according to each role in the ecosystem, such as product development. I17 and I18 gave the same example: a Design Director went to a shoe fair in Milan. During the fair, he watched the trends, such as design and colors, and immediately sent photos from his cell phone to an internal communication system, where discussions to develop those shoe and color trends began along with participation from employees. The participation from everyone reduces time, costs and improves productivity. So, it the Shoes Industry and E-Commerce the visualization improves the digital business performance (DBP1, DBP2, and DBP3).

In another digital business, we find evidence for proposition 1, i.e. visualization improves digital business performance. In the E-business Ecosystem and marketplace, the CIO said he accesses information to the internal and external environment. According to I12 “we get clippings and various types of information from market analysts, BI, analytics area and social media. Also, some tools are used for each unit for monitoring customer and competitor actions”. This way the managers at different decision levels and can act accordingly to the situation. Again, the DBS 1 and DBS 3 are improved by having the capability to perform visualization.

The evidence indicates that visualization is the capability to display business information visually, presenting data and information in an appropriate format, as defined by Yoo et al. [16]. Moreover, data and information are available in all adequate platforms such as laptops, mobile devices, and websites [38,39,40]. The relation to performance is evident in the declarations made by the CEO of Shoe E-Commerce. The bank directors also corroborated this finding.

The results from the observations and the respondents suggest that organizations are dealing with the challenges of the digital economy and the significant shifts that digital technologies have brought about. Hence, it is essential to monitor the market, customer demands, and any other data that can be useful for the business.

The relationship of visualization with digital business performance is evident, especially with performance indicators such as operational excellence, revenue growth and the relationship with customers and other stakeholders. The evidence and observations show the importance of monitoring the environment and displaying the data and information internally and externally, to the customers and stakeholder. I1, I4, I7, and I14 corroborated with this idea; they understand that analyzing the market and displaying the data and information is a critical business driver because it enables the surveillance of market trends and new technologies to sense and seize opportunities to show the data and information in the digital business [17].

4.2 Responsiveness and Digital Business Performance

I12 said that in the E-business Ecosystem and marketplace, his company tries to be fast in responding to clients and to adapt to the broader market. The company must capture the latest trend to beat competitors. Similarly, I13 affirmed that responsiveness is an important factor for digital business performance: “We have an area that looks at the client and another market intelligence area that looks at the competition. When we look at them internally, the latest trend must pass through various other sectors, such as styles, purchases, production, and even suppliers”. We observed that the supplier must receive this same information in a nutshell since they must produce with agility and quickly make the product available to the client to ensure customer satisfaction. This way responsiveness capability improves customer satisfaction and this in turn improves business performance (DBP1 and DBP3).

In the private bank, the responsiveness capability is present in many ways including friendly navigation for mobile app and a responsive site. To I27, the Digital Business Manager, “we brought improvements to the user’s navigation area and consequently the stakeholder users are more satisfied, and we measured that our sales through mobile and found that they increased by a significant amount.” Again, the DBS 1 and DBS 3 are improved by the visualization.

In the Shoes Industry and e-commerce, we observed that the responsiveness of the companies in this industry requires the change in culture, when they seek to digitalize processes. One CIO (I17) gave an example, he said that “one of our clients decides to open a virtual store, so they need to load our products’ data, such as images, videos, among others. Thanks to the agility that our resources provide, we can transmit all these data instantly, and [the data] can load up onto the site quickly and safely, without losing data, which demonstrates our excellent performance, helping our sales”.

The CEO of an E-business Ecosystem and marketplace company pointed out that “a digital business must be agile and must always provide the client with a better experience, that’s why we can obtain and deliver product information at any moment through systems and programs or BackOffice personnel.” Additionally, we observed the documents and statistics that indicate they increase the revenue (DBP2) and improve the relationship with customers and other stakeholders (DBP 3).

Thus, as mentioned by Kohli and Grover [17], responsiveness refers to the capability whereby organizational process are adept and flexible which allows fast implementation of operational changes. Responsiveness is the ability to respond to both the market and internal dynamics of the company, according to Setia et al. [5] and Barenfanger and Otto [38].

We observed from our analyses that responsiveness, for both external facing and internal business processes, improves digital business performance. To illustrate an external facing responsiveness, the CIO and Director of Clothing and Accessories Retail E-Commerce, mentioned that a physical store can change its display window each season or, at most, once a month. A digital store varies every minute according to each client’s characteristics. It is an example of the operational excellence and the relationship with customers, this way it is possible to improve the performance.

The IT Manager of Retail E-commerce company accessories (I4) complements this example by citing another example on customer service. In the past, clients had to go to the store in order to report an issue or make a complaint. With the digital transformation, the client can achieve the same goal by visiting the store’s site. Given that digitization has enabled consumer empowerment, which has also facilitated the potential of negative sentiments among clients to go viral in seconds. Thus, a company who wants to have a strong brand will have to be more careful and agile, capable of responding instantly, immediately to the client’s needs, whether good or bad. Again, it is another example of how to improve the relationship with customers and other stakeholders

Internally, responsiveness is often observed across the business such as decision making. A situation that exposes this internal agility is one related by the CIO, who said that on the day iPhone 7 was launched in Brazil, online sales were not being converted. The e-commerce platform’s systems analysis verified that the clients were not buying because of delivery time, which was longer than that of the competition. Immediately, the CIO contacted the CEO and logistics Director and found an alternative to decrease delivery time, which was done on the site, and, minutes later, sales began to increase. All these activities reveal how responsiveness is a digital capability related to business performance, particularly in the factors operational excellence, revenue growth and the relationship with customers and other stakeholders.

4.3 Synthesis of the Findings and Contributions

From this study, we find that organizations are dealing with challenges arising from the digital economy and managing the changes that digital technologies have brought. These organizations find it essential to monitor the market, customer demands, and display the data that can be useful for the business.

From our analysis, we identified evidence supporting the relationship between the two digital capabilities and digital business performance. All digital capabilities analyzed are related to the performance indicators used in this study, operational excellence, revenue growth, and the relationship with customers and other stakeholders [3, 22, 23]. So, we find initial evidence for the proposed propositions, and that each capability influences more than one type of of business performance.

Most respondents highlight the importance of stakeholder integration and the ERP which is still the core technology. It is crucial to spot the market trends, to know the competitors, to monitor the environment and to look for business opportunities. The same way it is necessary to display the data and information with rapidly and precisely. Responsiveness increases all the stakeholders’ satisfaction, mainly the clients, and speeds up decision making. This capability contributes to internal collaboration and improves the quality and security of data and information.

The contribution of this study is that we propose a preliminary conceptual framework between two digital capabilities and digital business performance, and demonstrates preliminary evidence from qualitative data to support our model. In particular, we find that visualization capability allows the companies to display business information visually, showing data and information in an appropriate format, helping the managers in many processes, such as decision making. Moreover, data and information must be available in all adequate platforms such as laptops, mobile devices, and websites. Responsiveness is also essential because digital business must respond quickly because it is necessary to know precisely the market demands, so visualization capability is fundamental to the responsiveness. Consequently, the relation of these two capabilities with the business performance is presented in many responses of the IT managers interviewed.

Thus, the findings contribute to companies that are considering their journey from traditional to digital businesses and those extant digital businesses, to improve their performance. While the investments in digital appear substantial, the results presented in this study suggest that digital business performance is associated with visualization and responsiveness capabilities.

In doing so, we hope that future research will be able to test our model with another kind of digital business and, improve it to check more digital capabilities.

5 Conclusions

To sum up this study, we aimed to examine the relationships between digital capabilities in digital business performance. Preliminary findings from this study show that visualization and responsiveness are digital capabilities which will drive digital business performance. Visualization capability is the capability to display business information visually, presenting data and information in an appropriate format. Moreover, data and information must be available in all adequate platforms such as laptops, mobile devices, and websites, as the evidence showed. Responsiveness capability is the ability of the company to act quickly which leads to the client’s satisfaction and reduces operating times and costs.

Thus, it is essential for a firm to be connected and integrated into a digital ecosystem, which allows it to monitor the environment, to respond to the market and customer through business process supported by technology in order to achieve operational excellence and to achieve a satisfactory relationship with customers and other stakeholders, and consequently to have revenue growth.

This study contributes to the field by presenting an initial conceptual framework (Fig. 1) and preliminary results from testing this framework through a qualitative approach. The practical implication of this research rests on demonstrating the relationship between two specific digital capabilities, visualization and responsiveness, and the digital business performance. Additionally, this study may provide some insights for firms interested in sustaining their business and surviving in the digital economy.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Conceptual framework

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One of the primary limitations of this study is that our results cannot be generalized as our interviewees were mainly based in the e-commerce industry in Brazil. Another limitation is that in this study, we are not able to capture the construct of digital capabilities quantitatively. Therefore, in future studies, verification of the model through quantitative research that identifies each digital capability’s level of impact on Digital Business performance is suggested. It is also recommended that future studies examine other digital businesses and in other countries.