Page - 142 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

their operations to offermore customer interaction and collaboration. Furthermore, the research indicated that engagingwith customers at everyvalue creationpoint in the relationship, companies can differentiate themselves from competitors. However, there are also threats related todigitalisation andoneof these is losing customers in this process (Matzler et al. 2015) as not everyone is satisfied with transformation of traditional services into digital ones. The switching costs related to customer changing the supplier can be divided into three categories: financial costs, procedural costs and relationship costs. These switching costs can originate fromfinancial aspects, and time and effort relatedmatters or fromold relationships ending and new ones beginning. Multiple studies (e.g. Hsu et al. 2011; Molina-Castillo et al. 2012) found that switching costs occur when a customer changes fromoneproduct to another, andcustomers considering to switch compare the revenue and costs of switching, and decide to staywhen the costs of changing would become higher than the original costs. Additionally, Burnham et al. (2003) relate switching costs to switching intentions andbehaviour. Further, it is proposed that companies can avoid switching costs by strategic planning and trying to minimise the negative affects of the change on customers. According to Bentley (2012) modern economies, different industries and gov- ernments aswell as societies relyon thehelpof computers and thedigital formatof text, audio and pictures and themodernworld could not operate in theway it does without digitalisation any more. Grönroos (2006) sees one of the threats of digi- talisation in the low level of knowledge that regular employees have of the tech- nology theyuse.As theusingnew technologyandcomputers havebecomesoeasy and intuitive, most people are unaware of the science behind them. Furthermore, Bentley (2012) claims that when technology related problems occur, ordinary employees are unable to fix them and while people with special IT skills are required to help it often takes time andmeans costs for the organisation. Related concerns are expressedbyFosic et al. (2017),who state that ITand Internet are not sufficient by themselves and that human capital is needed for operatingwith these devices. Besides many important opportunities discussed above digitalisation makes peoplemore dependent on technology and thus alsomore vulnerable. The risk of cyber incidents increases significantly and highlights the importance of cyberse- curity.The Internetof things,bigdata, alteringworkingandbusinessenvironments, fundamental changes in value-added processes and business as such and the inte- gration of digital and physical worlds in a so-called Industry 4.0 bring along new type of risks and threats. There is the fear of interruption and disruption due to the business and human challenges brought upon us by new business models and increasing competition, often coming fromnon-traditional players and ‘disruptive’ newcomers.Withmarket entry barriers coming down and (the impact of) digital- isation speedingup, organisationsfind themselveswith the challenge to perform in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment (I-Scoop 2016), and therefore businesses have no option but to be innovative and agile. The Role of an Entrepreneurial Mindset… 147