ABSTRACT
COVID‐19 has caused major disruptions to agricultural supply chains around the world. Researchers and policy‐makers are interested in identifying means to reduce the disruptive effects caused by the pandemic. We investigate the impacts of COVID‐19 on the operation of e‐commerce stores (in short, e‐stores) specialising in agricultural inputs. The difference‐in‐differences method (DID) is employed to estimate the causal relationship between COVID‐19 and online sales of agricultural inputs using data from 54,244 agricultural input e‐stores registered in 118 prefecture‐level cities across 15 provinces and hosted on two major Chinese e‐commerce platforms. The results show that COVID‐19 led to a substantial growth in monthly sales of agricultural input e‐stores, and this growth of online sales varied across store scales and by types of agricultural inputs. In particular, e‐stores selling seeds and seedlings experienced a larger growth in sales than stores selling agricultural machinery and implements, and the mid‐ and larger‐scaled e‐stores experienced more growth of sales than micro‐ and small‐scaled e‐stores. Further analysis reveals that the growth of online sales of agricultural inputs was driven mainly by an increase in the quantity of customer orders (QCO). The findings of this paper underscore the importance of e‐commerce in ensuring the resilience of the agricultural supply chain during the pandemic period.
ABSTRACT
Over the past twelve years, cloud systems have significantly changed business processes in all areas of business. Companies are using cloud services as a key factor in completing their digital transformation, and the COVID pandemic has further accelerated this task. The cloud is emerging as a top management agenda item as companies move from a separate approach to a more holistic, end-to-end digital transformation driven by the cloud. Cloud services save businesses time and money by increasing productivity, improving collaboration, and driving innovation. Now—during the coronavirus crisis, more than ever, cloud services are vital to help companies re-discover, reinvent and overcome uncertainty. Cloud services range from data storage to functional software, including accounting software, customer service tools, and remote desktop hosting. These services can be divided into three groups: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). This article is devoted to an analytical overview of modern digital cloud services, and the services they provide that can be applied in all areas of business. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Over the past twelve years, cloud systems have significantly changed business processes in all areas of business. Companies are using cloud services as a key factor in completing their digital transformation, and the COVID pandemic has further accelerated this task. The cloud is emerging as a top management agenda item as companies move from a separate approach to a more holistic, end-to-end digital transformation driven by the cloud. Cloud services save businesses time and money by increasing productivity, improving collaboration, and driving innovation. Now—during the coronavirus crisis, more than ever, cloud services are vital to help companies re-discover, reinvent and overcome uncertainty. Cloud services range from data storage to functional software, including accounting software, customer service tools, and remote desktop hosting. These services can be divided into three groups: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). This article is devoted to an analytical overview of modern digital cloud services, and the services they provide that can be applied in all areas of business. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The article analyzes the change in the quantitative composition of the agricultural machinery fleet of the most significant segments for agriculture - tractors and combine harvesters, as well as the reasons that served as a prerequisite for these changes. The implementation of state support programs for the reproduction of the material and technical basis of agricultural production is considered, namely: State Program for Agricultural Development and Regulation of Agricultural Markets, raw materials and food until 2025 and the Strategy for the Development of Agricultural Engineering in Russia until 2030, as well as changes related to the requirements imposed on Russian mechanical engineering organizations for the transportation of products and requirements for industrial products, presented for the purpose of its attribution to products produced in the territory of the Russian Federation and aimed at stimulating the production of components within the country. Until 2020, the equipment was recognized as produced in Russia, if a certain set of technological operations was performed domestically, starting from 2021, the manufacturer needs to score 30% of the maximum possible points. Taking into account the increase in the minimum threshold by 5%, the degree of localization by 2025 should be 80% of the maximum possible number, which currently seems to be a difficult-to-achieve task. Data of changes in the agricultural machinery market over the past 5 years is given, special attention was paid to the period of pandemic of new coronavirus infection of CoViD-19, paradoxical trends of sales growth in domestic and foreign markets, which occurred during this period, were revealed, an attempt to identify the reasons for the implementation of such a scenario was made. The assessment of the effectiveness of the procurement of new equipment as part of preferential subsidies in the regions of the Russian Federation was apprized.