THE IMPACT OF DIGITALIZATION ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTI-CRISIS FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT OF UKRAINIAN SMES

Abstract

The article addresses the digital transformation of anti-crisis financial management in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine amid high uncertainty, intensifying crises, and a changing business environment driven by digital technologies. The relevance of the research topic is determined by growing financial risks, limited resource capacities of SMEs, disruptions to established business and logistics linkages, the consequences of the full-scale war, and the need to ensure the financial resilience of enterprises. At the same time, the digitalization of financial management in Ukraine remains uneven and predominantly fragmented, underscoring the need to develop approaches for its systematic integration into anti-crisis management. In this context, the study aims to develop theoretical and methodological foundations for digital anti-crisis financial management of small and medium-sized enterprises in Ukraine.

The article examines contemporary approaches to defining digitalization and digital transformation, and their roles in ensuring enterprise adaptability and financial resilience. The approaches of foreign and Ukrainian scholars to identifying the factors determining the success of SME digital transformation, the digitalization of financial management, financial security, and the development of dynamic managerial capabilities are systematized.

Based on the findings of leading international and Ukrainian researchers, the article proposes an original interpretation of the digitalization of anti-crisis financial management of small and medium-sized enterprises as a managerial process of transforming an enterprise's financial system through the use of digital technologies, data analytics, automated information systems, and intelligent decision-making support aimed at timely identification of crisis threats, forecasting financial risks, optimizing financial resources, and ensuring long-term financial resilience.

An organizational and economic mechanism for digital anti-crisis financial management of SMEs is substantiated based on the continuous digital management cycle principle. The mechanism integrates digital-technological, information-analytical, managerial, economic, and control components into a single adaptive financial decision-making framework. Its structure comprises seven interrelated blocks: target, organizational, digital-technological, information-analytical, managerial, economic, and control. The practical significance of the research findings lies in the potential to apply the proposed mechanism to improve the responsiveness of financial management, the soundness of managerial decisions, enterprise adaptability, and financial resilience in crisis conditions.