APPLICATION OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR PROJECTING THE DATA IN THE SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES IN OMAN AFTER THE COVID- SCENARIO

APPLICATION OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR PROJECTING THE DATA IN THE SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES IN OMAN AFTER THE COVID- SCENARIO

A Research Proposal

Presented

bySukhwinder Singh

Student ID: 47976

Submitted to the Research Committee at the

Swiss School of Business and Management

July, 2022

APPLICATION OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR PROJECTING THE DATA IN THE SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES IN OMAN AFTER THE COVID- SCENARIO

A Research Proposal Presented

bySukhwinder Singh

Student ID: 47976

Approved as to style and content by:

Name, Department Head or Dean as appropriate

Department Name

ABSTRACT

TENTATIVE TITLE

APPLICATION OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FOR PROJECTING THE DATA IN THE SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES IN OMAN AFTER THE COVID- SCENARIO

Digital transformation is very much beneficial for managing the overall operations of the research process. In this research, the background, problem statement and research aims and objectives are described in this proposal. On the other hand, the literature review is also playing a major role in assisting the researcher to provide better findings of the research work. Different types of journal articles are being analysed in this research paper to get the importance of the research paper, different issues of digital transformation and strategies. Along with that, in the research methodology, philosophy, approach and design are being used. Along with that, designing, data collection and analysis are also being used in this research work.

Directed by: MENTOR NAME

CHAPTER 1

1.1 Introduction

The term digital transformation has different quotations for different people. For some people, the digital transformation known as artificial intelligence has been used for different types of customer service at the time of offering better support. For some people, it could be the cloud base technology that is beneficial for optimising different types of logistics services for a particular organisation. Currently, most organisations all over the world are transforming their operations towards different types of digital technology that help the organisation to be more efficient in their productivity. As illustrated by Albukhitan (2020), the application of digital transformation helps to involve a better expansion that provides better support in the volume and velocity of the organisation. This aspect is one of the major challenges for the companies as they require different types of successful data integration and efficient analysis for ensuring and prioritisation of privacy. Sometimes, this aspect can be very challenging for many organisations all over the world. For using the digital transformation, the management needs to integrate different types of successful data integration and efficient analysis for prioritising and ensuring the privacy of the data.

However, the digital transformation created different types of new security risk that majorly leaks a higher amount of data from the organisation related to the sensitive data such as personally identifying information or intellectual IP. Among the major elements that create major digital disruption is cloud computing. As depicted by Vial (2021), cloud services have become an integrated part of the modern IT system as they provide the companies with a higher rate and a potential for increasing their efficiency. However, the digital transformation also involves different types of thread as per the sensitive data and need to update the security system continuously under the debate scenes their emergency. With the growing number of cyber security protocols such as firewall, passwords and others, different cyber crime and data is being mined and monetized. Due to this issue, the customers are getting more irritated and upset due to the leakage of their potential data to the unauthorised factors. These incidents are also creating different types of financial reputational and legal damages to the companies for managing the sensitive data effectively. Therefore in the current scenario, data security is among the major factors that create an important challenge for every organisation that underlines strict regulations and consequences. In the case of data loss, data protection is one of the major factors that the IT department needs to maintain for its strategic business security. Different countries all over the world such as Oman are also reacting to the increased security in the potential data of the customers through different types of legislation and regulations. Therefore, the data protection loss needs to be very much focused on to help the organisation to maintain all kinds of ethics and security in a proper way which introduces new compliance requirements for the organisation. Therefore, through the application of this research, the importance of data protection at the time of digital transformation is going to be analysed as per the operation of small and medium businesses in Oman.

CHAPTER 2

2.1 Problem Statement

Cyber security issues are one of the biggest for all kinds of business organisations due to the higher rate of data leakage. It is rising again and again and being fiercer than ever in the current scenario. All over the world, there are a total of 450000 malicious software in the world that target all kinds of users starting from individuals to the government (Gearhart et al. 2019). Data Breaches in these organisations, not only affect the users but also create major damage to the reputation and financial consequences of the organisation. This issue can also create a major amount of damage to the physical substances and strained diplomatic relationships.

Due to these issues, a huge number of countries have developed cyber security committees and teams for protecting the data of the organisation as well as all over the countries. Analysinga large number of countries, Oman has managed to become the third most prepared country all over the world when it relies with cyber attacks. Oman has developed its defense army and cyber security centre in the year 2020 that help the small and medium-sized organisations to take counter-measures and protective actions. However, after developing a better security system, the organisations of the country have faced different types of issues due to a large number of cyber-attacks in a particular location. Among the biggest cyber-attacks, Oman United insurance has failed a huge amount of attacks that lost their potential data from 10th December 2019 to 1st January 2020 (Zawya, 2021). Another major attack has been faced by the common-based organisation Muscat that affected them to lose a large amount of money and the shares of the bank have been dropped by 10.5% of the estimated earnings. In the year 2018, this organisation reported that around 430000 cyber attacks have been attempted 2018. Along with that, the global cyber security community said that around 2482 financial malware attacks are being seen in the first half of 2021 (Dally, 2021). In most of the cyber attacks, the small and medium-sized business organisations are majorly being targeted to leak different types of potential information about the organisation. Maintaining the customer's data confidentiality is the prime factor that provides a better amount of support to manage different types of operations effectively. Cyber security issues are among the major barriers that have been faced by organisations all over the country that affected their operations hugely. After the analysis of the overall attack, around the person cybercriminals are using different types of dangerous complicated malware attacks that affected the overall operations of a particular organisation. As illustrated by Kraus et al. (2021), digital transformation is one of the biggest technological supports that assist the organisation to generate higher rates of revenue all over the world. Due to the development of technologies, the majority of the organisations are using different types of advanced technology that help them to gain a large amount of brand image. That helps the organisation to face around 27% fewer malware attacks in the year 2020. As per the analysis of the global trends, cybercriminals are planning to invest a very less amount of money in the mainstream of different threats. Currently, they are famous for investing in new mobile malware that creates complexity while featuring new ways for leaking different types of users' banking and gaming credentials. They have also hacked different types of personal information of the users that affected the overall operation of the organisations in a particular industry.

In every country, small and medium-size organisations or businesses are facing a huge amount of issues due to the attacks of cybercriminals. In the small organisation, the management did not apply proper security protocols to protect the potential data of the employees as well as customers (Sun et al. 2018). Therefore, the cyber attackers are primarily targeting these small and medium organisations to leave their potential data at the information of the consumer in a particular way. Profile leakage of different data from the employees and customers can create a major amount of issues that affect the overall operation and the brand reposition of the organisation in front of their customers.

Proper integration of different types of advanced technology can provide better support to manage different types of work activities. Currently, organisations are using different types of advanced equipment such as AI and IoT that help them to get a better amount of revenue in managing the operations of the organisations (Van Rijmenam, 2019). Similarly, the application of cloud-based systems along with different security systems can be beneficial for the organisational management to reduce the issues of cyber security and their threats in a particular organisation. Proper management of different technologies and integration of high-quality security systems can provide a better advantage that manages the work operations effectively. Similarly, the application of digital transformation can manage work ethics and implement the application of different platforms. The application of security protocols can assist the management to get a better infrastructure that helps to analyse different types of factors of the customers and provide the proper products to the employees (Abd EL-Latif et al. 2019). Thus, it can be depicted that conducting this research can be very much beneficial for the management to analyse proper issues in the organisation and provide better support in managing the cyber issues. Therefore, this research is going to be conducted by the researcher to analyse different types of facts of the cyber security issues in Oman and identify the proper solutions that help to mitigate different issues in the small and medium-sized organisations. It also helps the organisation to analyse different types of facts about the importance of digital transformation on the cyber security issues of small and medium-sized organisations.

CHAPTER 3

3.1 Objectives

All over the world, a large number of organisations are using different types of cyber security protocols to get a better brand reputation and image. Currently, among the major organisations, small and medium-sized businesses are integrating cyber security embedded technologies in managing their activities. Therefore, the management of organizations at the time of using several types of security protocols can assist to manage a better amount of strategies that apply to the overall operation. In the current scenario, proper application of different types of technologies can provide better support in managing different types of operations that helps to maintain security in the organisation. Implementation of digital transformation can provide a higher rate of opportunities that helps the organisation to integrate different advanced equipment such as AI, cloud-based system, security protocols and others that help to mitigate different types of issues in a particular organisation. The major objectives of this research paper are described below.

To analyse the major impact of digital transformation on the small and medium-sized organisations' data-related issues in the organisationTo evaluate different types of data-related issues faced by the management due to the improper security and technological advancement

To recommend a better strategy that helps to mitigate the issues of the cyber security in small medium-sized organisations

CHAPTER 4

4.1 Preliminary Literature Review Objectives

Importance of digital transformation in the Small and Medium organization

Digitalised platforms are among the advanced technologies that help a particular organisation to achieve a high amount of revenue and customers all over the world. Currently, a large number oforganisations are investing a huge amount of money in digital transformation to help them to get a better amount of revenue in the international market. In a particular industry, a large number oforganisations are facing several types of issues that affect them to gather a higher amount of profitability in the international market. As depicted by Verhovnik and Duh (2021), there are two types of pillars in digital transformation that include disruption and innovation. The organisations must be attentive to different types of changing landscapes of the sector and be sure by identifying the right employees to identify revolutionary business models. Disruptive forces are playing a major role that helping the business organisations to maintain their proper training and correctly retain existing talent.

Digital transformation is among the major applications of digital abilities that help to maintain process products and acids that help them to enhance efficiency and include the customer value appropriately. As illustrated by Teichert (2019), digital transformation is one of the major applications that increase the digital capabilities of procedures, policies and assets. For adopting the technology support, organisations need to maintain the fundamental changes in the way to operate and manage the cultural change properly. The application of digital transformation is a global process that helps to maintain sales marketing and support efforts that assist the management to maintain their changes in a particular organisation.

Digital talent is highly essential to the exploitation and transformation of business strategies. In this digital transformation, the management needs to develop a better infrastructure application and employees as an independent entity to maintain the consideration of their interconnected systems and cross-cutting. The client is the major code of a particular strategy. Personalization plays a big role in production and personalisation. Different types of organisations in a particular industry are implementing several statistics like security protocols and different types of artificial intelligence that allow the company to automate their product instantiation and properly maintain the task. Therefore, it will benefit the management to manage all operations properly. As illustrated by Fahmi et al. (2020), digital capabilities and talents are a major role in the transformation that exploits different types of business studies opportunities. In the current situation, personalisation is also playing a major role that helps to maintain consumption and provide a better product for the same everyone no longer sales. This transformation majorly involves different types of statistics of adopting different digital technology for both external and internal operations including sales, marketing and support efforts.

The proper application of the digital transformation can assist the product to be more adapted to meet the customer's requirements and the way the companies will grab their attention and encourage different types of conversation and brand loyalty. Artificial intelligence and the connectivity of cross-devices allow companies to manage different types of product customization that run their task remotely. In this way, different highly essential facilities and production systems are being controlled virtually. It also helps to allow the companies to compete with the organisation in the economical part of the environment that is revolutionary and changing in response to technological evolutions. Appropriate management of different types of digital turnaround helps companies to get different types of opportunities to access their productive and operational advantages. Proper management of different types of digital turnaround allows companies to access their productive and operational advantages. As depicted by Stonehouse, and Konina (2020), the organisations are now getting different success by creating the smart experience and customer journeys that facilitate and complement different types of people's lives. Companies who will fail in getting the benefit from the technology have a smaller amount of skills among their employees to get a better amount of advantage. Currently, most of the big organisations, as well as small business organisations, are using different types of advanced equipment such as AI or IoT to get a large amount of support to manage different types of work activities properly.

Different types of benefits gained by the digital transformation

The digital transformation is playing a major role that assists the organization to provide an opportunity to combine their practice of doing your result in new techniques of income and skills. Analysing the benefits of industrial digital transformation, there are several types of benefits that have been gained through the application of digital transformation.

The application of digital transformation helps to reduce the cost as a result that also manages the time savings in a particular process. Along with that, it also decentralises production by facilitating remote communication and mobility. It also helps to improve the operational productivity and efficiency of the organisation. As stated by ARTEMIEVA (2019), the application of digital transformation helps to increase and open the door to new business opportunities by increasing their revenue streams and enabling the creation of new services and products. It also assists to increase the speed of response to make the changes in that demand market. The proper application of the digital transformation helps to generate a higher rate of computer advantage in the international market or comparative marketplace that provides better profitability. It also enables the creation of new products and services that generate a large customer base for the organisation.

The proper application of digital transformation drives the culture to get more innovation by preparing the company to manage the anticipation of any kind of disruptions. However, as opined by Agarwal and Nasrin (2018), the proper application of different types of digital transformation also helps to drive the company's innovation by developing the company to anticipate any kind of disruption. It also assists to integrate different types of internal collaboration by enhancing the communication between the departments. It also increases decision-making by doing analysis through the application of various kinds of advanced technologies such as Big data and MySQL. Proper application of different types of security systems such as firewalls, cloud systems and others are playing a major role that assists the management to get a better amount of support to do the digital transformation properly. The proper application of digital transformation can help to improve the collaboration among the employees in different departments by facilitating their communication. Proper application of renewal transformation can also help the employees and the management to identify that new talent and foster the recognition of a better system that helps to provide a better idea about the customer's future expectations from the interest of specialised professionals. Therefore, it can be depicted that the application of different types of digital transformation can provide an established amount of opportunity to manage different types of work effectively and provide efficient operations to gain a large amount of consumer base.

Importance of data protection in the organisationData protection is among the major factors that the management of the organisation needs to manage to have a better reputation and a brand image in the organisation. Analysing all kinds of factors, around 53% of data breaches are seen among organizations. Therefore, the workplace is playing a major role that helps the organisation maintain a better protection plan. As illustrated by Hjertstedt Lansborg (2020), a large number oforganisations have adopted the proper standard and legislation to safeguard the security vulnerability and use the application of personality identifiable information by imposing different types of science on different business organisations that failed to comply with the proper data connection system in the organisation. As per the general data protection regulation or GDPR, organisations need to include different types of safety and security measurements in the organisation to maintain their standards by incorporating and adequately safeguarding the security of vulnerability. This global regulation can provide a huge amount of support to the basic form external to maintain their data privacy properly. Backup or anti-virus security can also provide a huge amount of support to the business as per the European Union. Proper application of GDPR can help to reduce the risk or issues in data security and manage the overall operation of the organisation in an effective way (GDPR, 2022). It can provide better support to the management of small and medium-size business organisations to get a better digital transformation.

Digital transformation issues related to the cyber attacks

Digital transformation is playing a major role that assists the organisation to manage different types of work activities properly. As illustrated by Habibzadehet al. (2019), different types of cyber-attacks are playing a major role in assisting the organisation in managing the organisation. Cyber attacks are the prime factor that affects the overall operation of the organisation in managing the overall operations. Among the major cyber-attacks, Malware, DOS, phishing, ransomware and others are the key role that assists the management to maintain different types of operations.

Malware

Malware is among the major malware software such as viruses, spyware and others created a huge amount of issues on the organisations that affected the overall operation in a particular environment or industry. As depicted by Aldawood and Skinner (2019), due to the application of malware attacks, cybercriminals are breaching different potential data that affected the customer's image and the revolution of the organisation by huge amounts. The impact of malware is majorly known as malicious software such as ransomware, viruses, spyware and worms. The Malware attack also blocked access to the key network components that affected the overall operation. It also covertly obtains different types of information. Similarly, the malware attack also disrupted the individual parts that helped to make the system operable. At that time, the system managers did not have any kind of duty to manage these unethical operations in a particular organisation.

EmotetThe cyber security agency and infrastructure describe that an advanced and modular banking system is majorly preferred to integrate better technological support to mitigate this kind of cyber security issue. They also continued to be among the costliest and most destructive malware. As opined by Gupta et al. (2020), It is among the biggest cyber security issues that have been faced by the organisation at the time of doing different types of operations. The management of different organisations is using different types of advanced technology to help them for managing various types of work activities in a proper way that helps the management to include a better amount of strategies to mitigate these kinds of potential factors.

DoSThe Denial of service is a major type of cyber attack that affects the system server of the organisation by a huge amount that floods the overall computer or the network for a certain amount of time. The distributed DoS are creating the same amount of impact where the attack is measured originating from the computer network. This majorly used different types of flood attacks to leak different types of potential data of the employees and customers. Different types of techniques have been used by the organisation's management to mitigate this issue in their environment. However, it affected the organisation to create different types of network-disabled systems. The application of botnets is known as the type of this Malware where a million systems can be infected with different types of controls by the hackers. The botnet is sometimes also known as a zombie system that affects the overall operations of the organisation.

MITM

The man-in-the-middle attack is majorly occurring when hackers are inserting different types of viruses into the two-party transactions. After affecting the traffic among the transactions, they can filter and steal potential data of the organisation to manage their work operations effectively. As illustrated by Sarker (2021), this type of cyber attack is majorly occurring when a visitor applied an unsecured public Wi-Fi network. The attackers may include themselves between the network and the visitor. There is the Malware to install different types of malicious software and use different types of potential data maliciously.

SQL injection

The application of SQL injection is also a highly required role that assists the overall productivity of the organisation. The proper application of structure quarry language insertion can provide a huge amount of issues in managing the activities. Proper application of SQL injection in the database affected the overall performance of the organisation by managing different types of activities. It also creates a major amount of impact on the management of the organisation by leaking different types of potential data stored in a particular database. Injecting different types of malicious courts into the system server affected the overall operation of the organisation.

Password attacks

With the application of the right password, cyber-attacks have a higher range of accessibility of different types of potential information about the user. As illustrated by Taeihagh and Lim (2019), social engineering is one of the major types of password attacks that assist cyber criminals to get different types of passwords for a particular data. It also defines every strategy that the car uses to heavily rely on human interaction and is often involved by linking with different types of people with their breaking standard secured practices. Therefore, these are the major cyber-attacks that affected the overall operation of the organisation by a huge amount.

These are the major types of cyber attacks that affected the overall operation of the organisation by a huge amount. It majorly affects the overall information of the user and leaks the potential data of the password secured practices.

Different types of strategies to mitigate the cyber security issues and digital transformation

Currently, most organisations are using different types of cyber security analytics that help the management mitigate different types of cyber security issues. Due to getting a higher rate of customer support, the majority of the small and medium-size organisations are implementing and changing their technological advancement to digital transformation to get a better amount of support. Analysing several types of issues, the application of digital transformation with different types of secured protocols can give a huge range of advantages to the organisation to manage their various range of activities properly. It also affects the organisation to maintain a better amount of support in managing the performance. The major applications of different types of security programs are described below.

Application of a better amount of risk assessment to determine the vulnerability

For mitigating the cyber security issue or digital transformation issues, the application of risk assessment is very much beneficial to mitigate the issue in the organisation. This risk assessment can provide a better amount of support by identifying the potential low fault of the association security control. Evaluation can offer a higher rate of knowledge to the resources that should be ensured for maintaining the security controls at the present set-up. As stated by Lykouet al. (2018), it also directed the want to help the application of IT security group identity. Therefore, it is very much focused on identifying the areas that have been taken first to maintain its operations. Network safety appraisal is among the major methods that help to occur for an ongoing glance of the expression cyber security posture.

Implementation of firewall and antivirus software

Proper implementation of firewall and antivirus software are playing a major role that implies the establishment of safety solutions like antivirus and fireworks. This innovation protection suite offers better safety solutions such as antivirus or firewall to protect potential data of the organisation as well as the employees. The firewall helps is majorly acting as a major buffer that offers an amount of obstruction between the organisation and all over the world. It also helps to protect the system server of the organisation by managing different types of anti-virus software and implementing the firewall.

Implementation of the patch management schedule

Currently, in every organisation, numerous software and different applications are being used to maintain the patches in the organisation. The proper scheduling of patch management can assist the organisation in identifying different types of patches in the system server or computers. Hoffmann et al. (2020) depicted that they can also rapidly decide how to take advantage of different types of the patch in a particular organisation. The management of the organisation needs to keep an eye on the patch release to maintain the anti-virus issues in the organisation. Application of patch management helps to remove the patches in the organisation. Organisations also need to maintain their eye on the scheduling that helps organisations to upgrade their patches in a particular environment.

Continuous monitor network traffic

Proper monitoring of network traffic is playing a major role that helping the organisation to monitor all kinds of network traffic in the system server and organisation. As a result, the application of proactive activity is one of the major strategies that is helping for elevating the cyber attacks. As illustrated by Banga (2020), proper monitoring of network traffic helps to identify different types of unwanted traffic in a particular organisation. Monitoring traffic can provide a better amount of opportunity to manage all kinds of unethical traffic in the organisation. Therefore, it helps to mitigate different types of cyber-attacks that can affect the overall project activity of the organisation.

Improper skills

Digital transformation is depending upon the technological advancements and proper planning of the employees. Similarly, a huge amount of data will be required for managing the whole process of the organisation (Schiumaet al. 2021). Therefore, proper knowledge of analysing the data and collection of potential data of customers is highly required. For doing this kind of operation, a higher range of skills is highly required. However, in the small and medium businesses, fewer amounts of skills are being noticed among the employees that can provide them with a better opportunity to manage all kinds of digital transformation in the organisation.

On the other hand, at the time of digital transformation different types of issues such as improper skills of employees, less amount of knowledge, higher rate of budget planning in efficiency and others are creating a huge amount of impact on the small and medium-size business organisations to transform their traditional business to the online business the operations (Davenport and Westerman, 2018). Therefore a proper development of different types of strategies will be highly required that can offer better suitability to the SMBs to get a large customer base by changing their traditional business operations to the digital ones by implementing different types of technology.

CHAPTER 5

5.1 Methodology

5.1 Introduction

Research methodology is one of the crucial chapters that helps the researcher to manage different types of research work properly. The application of proper methods in particular research work can help the researcher to get a clear idea about the way that can provide a better amount of support to the research to get a clear idea of the research findings. Appropriate management of research findings is the most important fact in particular research that helps to attract consumers. In this portion, Saunders onion is going to be developed to provide a clear idea about the methods in this particular research. Along with that, this research also includes philosophy, approach, design, data collection and analysis and others. The ethical considerations that need to be maintained by the researcher to complete the overall research are also described in this chapter.

5.2 Saunders onions

The Saunders research onion is one of the major models that has been used by the researcher for identifying the status at the time of developing a particular research work. The layers of the onion majorly provide a detailed description of the stages of different types of processes. It is measured in known as the effective progression that can be designed to provide that usefulness in getting the adaptability of the major research findings. In the Saunders onion, a total of 5 stages are being used to manage different types of operations effectively. These five stages are playing a major role for the researcher to idealise the major factors to be used in managing the research effectively. This research is based upon the digital transformation factors of small and medium-sized business organisations. Therefore, the application of proper Saunders onion can be beneficial for appropriately managing such a process to find out the major findings.

5.3 Philosophy

The application of research philosophy is playing a major role that assisting the researcher to get a clear idea about the research finding. As opined by Marsonnet (2019), choosing a research philosophy will be one of the proper methods of research to get a clear idea about the major research finding. The positivism philosophy will be majorly based upon different types of science and logical data. At the time of using the positivism philosophy, a proper type of research data will be required that manages the research ethics. The positivism philosophy will be measured as the best app for the sexual knowledge gained through the application of observations and different measurements. it is also limited to the data interpretation and data collection at the time of getting the major findings.

The positivism philosophy is majorly dependent upon the view of different types of facts. It also includes different types of measurement that is very much trusted by the organisation. The research is majorly limited to different types of data collection and various interpretations that assist the management to get a clear idea. It also depending upon different types of quantifiable observation helps the research to lead to different types of statistical analysis of particular research. As depicted by Ryan (2018), this philosophy is also beneficial for reducing human intervention at the time of managing the overall research process. This philosophy will also be beneficial for the researcher to make bonding between logic and science. As this research depends upon digital transformation which is a science-based application. Therefore, the application of positivism philosophy will be very much beneficial for the researcher to get a clear idea of the different studies used by the small and medium-sized business organisations to get a better idea about digital transformation and data protection.

5.4 Approach

The application of a proper approach can provide a better amount of support to the researcher to manage all their research findings appropriately. In a particular research approach, two types of research approaches are being used by the researcher to get a clear idea about the research finding. Among these two types of the research process, an inductive approach will be used by the researcher that provides a clear idea about the research process. As analysed by Hoelzel and Sceiner (2022), the application of the inductive approach primarily starts with different observations and theories that provide a proper way towards the end of the research process as a result of different types of observation. The application of the inductive approach involves the research of different patterns that have been gathered through the application of observation and the development of explanations. No theories and hypotheses would apply in these inductive studies at the beginning of the research that will be beneficial for the receptor to get a better finding that the application of the inductive approach does not imply different types of theories when properly formulating the research questions. This approach will be also beneficial for the researcher to get the major findings from the topic of the observation. On the other hand, the deductive approach is only based upon the different types of previous research articles. Therefore, this approach will be the best for this research.

5.5 Design

The appropriate application of research design is also playing a major role that assisting the researcher to attract a large consumer base from the large market. Therefore, it is highly required for the researcher to analyse different types of design to get the major fine things and attract the customer base by a huge amount. Analysing the research philosophy and approaches, the application of descriptive research design can be a major type of design that aims to obtain different types of primary information to systematically describe the financial system adequately. it will be the most appropriate strategy for the researcher to get the answer of what fire when and how the question related to the problem statement rather than why.

The application of descriptive research methods can involve the use of minute different types of methods to investigate the major data or variable in the proper research question (Doyle et al. 2020). It employs a large amount of quantitative data along with the qualitative to describe several factors. It is also very much essential to note that the descriptive method affects the researcher and does not control or manipulate the variables. The research variables can only be identified and observed or measured from the other research paper with the application of this design. This research will be based on the digital transformation of small and medium-size business organisations. Therefore different types of characteristics of descriptive research design such as quantitative research, uncontrolled behaviour further research and cross-sectional studies. Therefore, it will be the best design for the researcher to develop this kind of research adequately.

5.6 Strategy

In particular research work, proper application of research strategy is playing a major role that assisting the researcher to get a clear idea about the research topic and the process to gather relevant data. In a particular research process, different types of strategies will be used that can provide better support in managing the research process. In this research, the researcher can use two types of strategies such as quantitative and case studies to collect necessary data for the research. The quantity research strategy major involves different types of collection of numerical data that can be gathered through the application of different secondary sources or survey methods. It is majorly being observed through the identification of different observations. On the other hand, the case study is usually based on secondary literature. The qualitative data are being used in this case study to collect the necessary data. Therefore these two strategies will be beneficial for the receptor to maintain this research by gathering different types of data.

5.7 Data collection

The data collection is the most vital part of the research process. In this part, the researcher needs to analyse a major type of data collection process to gather relevant data for this research. For conducting the research two types of data collection methods are being used such as primary as well as secondary. In this research, the researcher can use mixed data collection to idealize the major importance of data production at the time of digital transformation. The researcher will be planning to use primary quantitative data through the application of surveys and secondary data from different online sources to collect necessary literature. For collecting the survey responses, a total of 10 close-ended questionnaires are being asked by the researcher to get a clear idea about the application of securities in the organisation. A total of 25 close-ended responses will be collected from the employees of the small and medium-size organisations to get a clear overview of the importance of digital transformation. The researcher will be going to ask about the different cyber security technologies that most of the organizations are using to prevent the data leakage issues. Along with that, the researcher will also ask the challenges faced by the researcher. Doing the survey, the researcher will analyse the importance of digital transformation in the SMEs. It will help researcher to gather relevant data about the topic. The application of Google form can be used to get the response. Similarly, for collecting the secondary qualitative data, different types of information are going to be collected from a large range of databases such as Google Scholar, Proquest and others.

5.8 Sampling

Sampling is one of the most important factors that assist the researcher to get a clear idea about the process of collecting the research data. In a particular research, two types of sampling methods are used by the researcher for completing their research based on different types of the research process. As this research will be based upon the survey and secondary data, the researcher can choose both types of sampling methods for gathering the relevant information from the database. Random sampling will be used by the researcher to get the server responsive randomly from a large number of respondents. On the other hand, purposive sampling will be used by the research to get a clear idea about how different data needs to be collected from the databases. The application of these two sampling methods can benefit the researcher to get major data from the databases.

5.9 Data analysis

The application of data analysis is also playing a major role that assisting the researcher to get a major finding from the collected data (Zhou et al. 2018). In analysing the data collection method, primary research along with secondary research can be used by the research. For analysing the survey responses, the application of questionnaire analysis will be used by the researcher to get a clear overview of the realistic data from the employees on digital transformation. On the other hand, a thematic analysis of 5 themes will be used by the researcher to get a clear idea of the research topic.

5.10 Ethical consideration

The application of proper ethical considerations will be playing a major role that assisting the researcher to maintain their ethics properly. The researcher also needs to maintain different types of confidentiality of the research. They also need to maintain a copyright issue at the time of conducting the research work properly. Data security will be also required by the researcher to manage their research ethics. The researcher also needs to provide the opportunity to the respondents to give their responses freely without any kind of pressure.

5.11 Time plan

Figure 5.1: Time plan

(Source: developed by the researcher)

5.12 Research gap

This research is based on digital transformations used by the organizations in the Oman. In this study, primary quantitative and secondary qualitative data are being used by the organisation to manage all kind of data effectively. However, in this study, primary qualitative data is not being used. Similarly, a very less data are being found on the databases about the digital transformation in Oman. Due to this research gap, this research is going to be conducted to analyze the major data.

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