The pandemic and the digitalization of Norwegian enterprises

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought significant global public health and economic challenges. Government-imposed lockdowns and travel restrictions disrupted everyday life. Economically, the pandemic had widespread effects. Job losses and business closures were immediate, especially in sectors like tourism and retail. Several studies have indicated that the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digi-tal technologies, with remote work and e-commerce becoming essential. In this article, we examine how the pandemic impacted digitalization in Norwegian busi-nesses. Our findings reveal that the pandemic notably sped up digitalization pro-cesses. The high level of digital skills in the population, combined with robust mobile and internet infrastructure, facilitated this transition. The rapid shift to re-mote work underscored the necessity of strong digital infrastructure and revealed security weaknesses, which in turn led to increased demand for IT security ser-vices.