The impact of digital technologies on company restoration time following the COVID-19 pandemic

The global spread of COVID-19 affected societies and economies at large with simultaneous disruptions to both supply and demand. To investigate the implications of COVID-19, this study seeks to inquire into how companies can achieve resilience through performance robustness and how this affects the restoration time (i.e., the time period from the problem occurrence to the time when the company performance returns to the previous operational level). Moreover, it studies how digital technology adoption allowed firms to become more resilient during the COVID-19 outbreak by exploiting high robustness and improving restoration time. Our findings reveal that, among the several performance indicators investigated, only the robustness of Sales is of particular significance in contributing to restoration time. As regards the technologies deployed, Blockchain, 3D Printing, and Artificial Intelligence had a positive impact on firms’ resilience during the outbreak.