The impact of enterprise digital transformation on financial performance—Evidence from Mainland China manufacturing firms

Abstract Focusing on digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises, this paper investigates the relationship between digital transformation and financial performance of manufacturing enterprises through descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis, multilayer linear regression analysis, and group testing of the impact of digital transformation stages on the financial performance of enterprises, taking listed manufacturing companies that implement digital transformation as a sample. The research results show that there is a significant positive impact of digital transformation on financial performance of manufacturing enterprises; the more digitalized the information technology (IT) architecture is when enterprises undergo digital transformation, the closer to hybrid cloud platform + agile manufacturing, the higher the inventory turnover rate and total asset turnover rate of enterprises will be; in the early stage of digital transformation of enterprises, the profitability performance of enterprises will be reduced. However, as the digitalization process of enterprises deepens, the net sales margin and total asset return of enterprises will gradually increase, which may be due to the reason that the impact of enterprise digital transformation on profitability performance has a certain lag.