Are We Ready for Digitalisation? A Study of the Challenges and Barriers to Digitalisation and Technology Use in the Turkish Maritime Sector

With each passing day, maritime organisations are equipped with more technology, and these systems form a structure that creates international networks. Digitalisation will have implications and effects on value creation, business models, horizontal and vertical integration, services and work organisation. While digital technologies in the maritime sector reduce risks owing to transparency, adaptability, traceability, flexibility and scalability, can also give discernible improvements in terms of operational processes, cost reductions, etc.. In the developing maritime sector, there are a variety of digital technology-related challenges that remain to be overcome, but there is no structured overview of the main types of challenges/barriers encountered by specialists. In this study, we explore the challenges/barriers to digitalisation in the maritime sector and how these are perceived by employees in this sector. The aim of our research is to identify these challenges/barriers and understand the relationships between them. To categorise the challenges/barriers, the DEMATEL approach was used. As a result of the analysis, it is seen that the main hindrances to digitalisation in the maritime sector are the problems of complexity, integration and interoperability. In contrast, the difficulties of performance appraisal and scalability emerge as the least important issues affecting the implementation of digital technologies in this area. Our results indicate that economic problems exert a significant causal influence on the other challenges/barriers.