Incumbent organisations need to develop their own employees’ digital skills to be able to undergo and offer new products and services. The paper analyses this process in one anonymous Italian multinational company and highlights some key points.

The three main mechanisms that enable the digital skills mobilisation process are:

(i) Unearthing dormant digital skills(search phase): this phase involves discovering employees who have digital skills unrelated to the job they have thanks to personal interests or hobbies;

(ii) awakening digital skills holders (access phase): this phase involves the formal appointment of individuals to the role of digital champions;

(iii) disseminating digital skills (transfer phase): this phase involves nurturing, developing and diffusing digital skills within the organisation.

The most fundamental ingredient for digital transformation in a company is the so-called ‘digital champions’, deemed necessary to act as intermediaries between the employees and digital technologies. These digital champions are formally recognised by their company as individuals with advanced digital skills and the motivation to help them undergo digital transformation. In the specific case analysed by the paper, the champions were found through a survey and a series of interviews. They were used to create a digital company culture, leverage digital opportunities for the company’s benefit, and rejuvenate the organisation.

The study is structured as follows:

• In the first part, there is an analysis of the relevant literature about digitalisation, digital skills and resource mobilisation

• The second part explains the methods utilised for data collection and analysis

• The third part explores in-depth the digital transformation process in the case study

The impact of digital transformation on the future of the working environment is a crucial topic at both the business and national economy levels. Many employees view digitalisation and automation as threats to their jobs, with the digital skills gap being a significant barrier to implementing digital strategies in companies. The study, probably the first one using bibliometric methodology in the field, aims to understand research on personnel training in digital transformation globally and in Latvia by statistically analysing thousands of papers from 2000-2023.

The analysis identified five clusters:

• Digital transformation and technologies;

• Human resources and innovation;

• Education and learning;

• Higher education and the Pandemic;

• Information technologies and competencies.

Additionally, the authors reviewed 41 doctoral dissertations from Latvian universities (2012-2023), finding a disconnect between practical solutions and research focus, highlighting the need for further investigation into productivity, motivation, and resistance in digital business transformation.

It was found that there are relatively few studies in Latvia dealing with specific topics such as “skills” and “technology” within one study. Most of the selected dissertations focus on human resource management and business development, focusing more on the human factor and internal business processes than on aspects of technological skills and employee training in terms of digital transformation. This shows a research gap and indicates that more research on the role of technology in improving skill development is needed.

Staff shortages in cyber security and skills shortages are among the main concerns for both economic development and national security. Looking at the issue, ENISA identified Europe’s need for a comprehensive approach to define a range of cybersecurity roles and competences that could be exploited to reduce the shortage of staff and skills. ENISA has worked on the development of this framework, the European Cybersecurity Skills Framework (ECSF), which aims to strengthen the European cybersecurity culture by providing a common European language among communities, taking an essential step towards Europe’s digital future.  The ECSF provides a practical tool to support the identification and articulation of tasks, competences, skills and knowledge associated with the roles of European cybersecurity professionals. The main objective of the framework is to create a common understanding between individuals, employers and learning programme providers in all EU Member States, making it a valuable tool to bridge the gap between cybersecurity skills and learning environments.  The framework describes the most important requirements to be met in the context of cyber security work, defining a set of 12 professional profiles typical of cybersecurity. These profiles provide a common understanding of the key cybersecurity missions, tasks and skills needed in a professional cybersecurity context, making it the perfect reference for the profiling skills and knowledge needed by cybersecurity professionals. The framework is designed to be easily understandable and comprehensive enough to provide appropriate insights into cybersecurity and flexible enough to allow customisation to suit each user’s needs. Incorporating all stakeholders’ perspectives, the framework is applicable to all types of organisations and supports the development of all cybersecurity professions.  The ECSF is the result of the work carried out by ENISA’s ad hoc working group on the European Cybersecurity Competence Framework, consisting of experts representing various opinions. The developed framework is based on an analysis of existing frameworks, results and results of research on market needs and expert agreement. User case studies and indicative examples, inspired by various working and learning environments, demonstrate the practical implementation of this framework and support this work.  The main benefits of using the ECSF were: 

• ensure common terminology and shared understanding of cybersecurity professionals across the EU; 
• identify the critical skills set required from the workforce’s perspective in the cyber security sector to support its further development and improvement; 
• promote harmonisation in education, training and development of the cyber security workforce. 

This ECSF User Manual provides a comprehensive overview of the main scope, framework principles and application opportunities of the ECSF. The main purpose of the manual is to make CESF easily accessible, understandable and usable by all stakeholders with an active role or the need for adequately qualified cybersecurity professionals.