The effect of businesses' digital transformation on export performance: A study on foreign trade businesses in Bağcılar district of Istanbul

This study aims to examine the effects of digital transformation on the export performance of businesses and focuses on exporting foreign trade businesses in Istanbul Bağcılar district. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how digitalization strategies can increase the efficiency of exports by revealing the effects of digital transformation processes on business performance and export success. Today, the use and integration of digital technologies transform the business processes of businesses, affecting a wide range of areas from production to sales. Digitalization offers many advantages to businesses, such as increases in sales and productivity, reshaping customer interaction and creating value. This transformation allows businesses to restructure their business models and become more suitable for customer needs. Export is a critical strategy, especially for businesses that want to expand into international markets, and the effective use of digital technologies is of great importance to ensure that businesses are competitive at the international level by using their resources in the most efficient way. Adoption of digital transformation processes and innovative strategies play an important role in increasing the export performance of businesses. The main purpose of the study is to determine the impact of digital transformation on export performance and to measure this impact. For this purpose, 402 employees of exporting foreign trade enterprises in Bağcılar district of Istanbul province were reached by questionnaire on the basis of convenience sampling on the basis of volunteerism. The regression analysis conducted with the obtained data to determine the effect of digital transformation on export performance was found to be statistically significant (F=202,089; p=0,000). A significant difference was found between the demographic variables status and digital transformation and export performance at p<0.05 significance level. There is a significant difference between the frequently used social media and the level of technology used by the business and digital transformation and export performance at p<0.05 level of significance. There is a significant difference between educational background and digital transformation at p<0.05 level of significance. Keywords: Digital Transformation, Digitalization, Export performance