The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on digital transformation within South African technology start-ups

Abstract

In 2020 the world got faced with the coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic, which brought upon changes that affected many organisations. This study investigates how Covid-19 affected the digital transformation for technology start-ups within the fintech industry. In achieving the objective, the study followed a qualitative approach and interviewed 15 business owners, managers and executives from different fintech companies. The key findings of the study is that fintech companies are digitally matured organisations and had implemented digital initiatives as a result of Covid-19, and these initiatives will be sustained moving forward and set a new trend for the fintech industry. The study has concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of technology start-ups within the fintech industry through numerous digital transformation initiatives that were implemented. This study recommends that further research should be done on finding interpretative models and frameworks that could be used to evaluate digital transformation within technology start-ups.