Structural levels of global economic system and digital transformation of Vietnam’s coffee industry

Agriculture is one of the eight important sectors of the economy identified by the government of Vietnam as requiring digital transformation, according to Decision 749/QD-TTg dated June 3, 2020, as an integral component of the digital economy development strategy amidst globalization. Coffee is an agricultural product that has high economic value and is a keyexport product, with an annual export turnover of over $3 billion for the Vietnamese economy. The stakeholders involved in the coffee industry, namely coffee farmers, coffee companies, and the government, are key players in the process of digital transformation. Each stakeholder possesses different resources in terms of capital, technology, labor level, production, and business goals, but there are always intermediate levels between them, closely linked by economic interests in the development of the coffee industry. To implement the digital transformation of the coffee industry in Vietnam, it’s necessary to identify the factors affecting the implementation process. Thus, the purpose of this research is to analyze the relationship between the major structural levels of the system under consideration, the resources and goals of participants, as well as intermediate levels in the global economic system, to identify factors influencing the digital transformation of the coffee industry of Vietnam. The results of the study indicate that for Vietnam’s coffee industry to continue to develop and achieve digital transformation, it is necessary to focus on the nano-level of the economy and to have special requirements for the consistency and goals of the economic and social policies of all levels of government. Serious obstacles to digitization for farmers need to be eliminated through the effective implementation of policies that support preferential loans for the purchase of machines and technologies for coffee production. To apply digital technologies effectively in production, it is necessary to have a sufficiently large land area and to encourage farmers to cooperate. A policy should be written to encourage the development of agricultural cooperative models to expand the area of coffee plantations in accordance with high-tech applications; large enterprises should enhance their collaborations and provide greater assistance to coffee farmers to establish a sustainable source of premium-quality raw materials.