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Top1. Introduction
The information technology (IT) revolution has had a tremendous impact on the socio-economic development of not only individuals and organizations but countries (McLean, Oliver, & Wainwright, 2010). Van Zon and Muysken (2005) explain that information technologies influence productivity through its forward and backward linkages with the rest of the economy, through improving work processes of the non-ICT sector, improving market processes, and facilitating the creation of new knowledge that enhances productivity. This tumultuous change has brought about a modern technology that spans many sectors, including agriculture, healthcare, education, governance, entertainment, business and other crucial areas of a nation’s livelihood (Fletcher-lartey & Caprarelli, 2018; Precious, Long, Blok, & Omta, 2018; Salahuddin & Gow, 2016).
Thus, it is worth noting that digitalization represents the transformation resulting from the implementation of information technologies in all areas of society (Parviainen, Jukka, Tihinen & Teppola, 2017). Therefore, digitalization denotes the use of digital tools by a company to convert existing products, facilities and services into digital variations that are far better (Bhimani & Willcocks, 2014).
For example, in the banking sector, one of the objectives of using information technologies is to bring banking closer to customers while improving the relationship between customers and their bankers. This has resulted in the quest for the adoption and deployment of innovative and interactive means to reach out to customers in their digital banking needs. Digital banking connotes the rendering of banking services through technologically mediated media such as mobile phones (Guibaud, 2016). In other words, digital banking defines the process of rendering financial and related services specifically by a banking institution through digital platforms and is regarded as the key driver of competitiveness and economic growth (Zimmermann, 2018). However, the underlining motivation among the various descriptions ascribed is the process of providing the task of services through the use of IT.
Also, in Healthcare, for example, IT has the potential to contribute to the improvement of access to medical care and reduction in the total cost of rationalizing operational expenditure in the health system (Cline & Luiz, 2013). The driving force behind the use and adoption of IT heavily falls on its ability to make work processes easier by limiting the complex nature of legacy and paper-based systems, efficient management of patients and their data all via an improved capacity of health systems (Lorenzi & Riley, 2004). IT in healthcare also ensures the availability of information vital for the provision of more efficient and enhanced security around patient information confidentiality (Otieno, Hinako, Motohiro, Daisuke, & Keiko, 2008).
Again, in Africa, some major obstructions to improving agricultural productivity among the work of farmers include the access, efficiency, and affordability of agricultural information (Mottaleb, 2018). The presence of IT has created a possible headway to solve these problems. Different innovations that assimilate IT into the spreading of agricultural information to farmers have been developed to be used by farmers. They have currently demonstrated a promising field of new research and application in e-agriculture whilst bringing new sources of information and new tools for local knowledge dissemination (Muriithi, Bett, & Ogaleh, 2009). They are increasingly enabling farmers to focus on their work as well as, searching and extracting useful and up-to-date market information.