Business Relationship Digitization: What Do We Need to Know Before Embarking on Such Activities?

Managers involve their companies in different types of business relationships for various reasons. These include but are not limited to efficiency gains, innovation, and influencing other organizations. In the age of digitization, managers have witnessed new ways to manage business relationships as the number of digital and electronic commerce tools have mushroomed. Business relationships digitization is an under-researched area, and therefore, the purpose of this article is to illustrate how relationships are digitized and what managers as well as academics should know about this emerging phenomenon. With the help of an extensive literature review, this article presents an overview of basic features and types of digitized business relationships. The author outlines a model that tackles critical factors while digitizing business relationships. In addition, a case example depicting the digitization process of a business relationship is presented. The article concludes with a description of the contribution of the study and presents suggestions for further research.