Abstract:

Digitalization is an indispensable driver of competitive economic development, particularly in the context of systemic transformations brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In recent years, the European Union (EU) has implemented numerous digital development strategies, encouraging member states to foster digitalization across all sectors, from local administration to education and the creative industries within the digital environment. Against this backdrop, our research aims to highlight the progress of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) Member States, with a particular focus on Romania, through a case study based on a comparative analysis. This assessment is grounded in the summarized indicators from the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which track Europe’s digital performance and monitor the progress of EU countries. We rely on the reports published by the European Commission for the 2014–2023 period. Our analysis seeks to contextualize Romania’s advancements relative to the EU average and other CEE states. The selected indicators focus on the digital transformation of the business environment and include: SMEs with at least a basic level of digital intensity (assessed based on the adoption of at least some of 12 selected digital technologies), companies using electronic information sharing (measuring enterprises that employ ERP—Enterprise Resource Planning—software to facilitate data exchange across functional areas such as accounting, planning, production, and marketing), big data analytics (assessing the use of technologies, techniques, or software tools designed to extract patterns, trends, and insights to improve decision-making and enhance performance), and artificial intelligence (measuring the adoption of AI technologies by enterprises). Our primary conclusion is that, while Romania has made sustained progress throughout the post-accession period, additional efforts are required to accelerate digital development in the industrial sector, particularly through investments in R&D and cutting-edge technologies. A key limitation of this research stems from the availability of data for certain indicators—such as AI adoption by European companies—which are only accessible for the 2021–2023 period.