ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF A DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY UNDER WARTIME CRISIS

Abstract

The article presents a comprehensive assessment of the economic efficiency of implementing an enterprise digital development strategy in the practice of an information technology company operating under the wartime crisis caused by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The purpose is to evaluate the economic effect of the strategy through return on investment, payback period, and net present value, to deploy a scenario assessment of the expected effect under different developments of the crisis, to apply machine-learning forecasting of financial and operational indicators, and to summarize the dynamics of key performance indicators before and after implementation. The methodology integrates financial analysis, probabilistic scenario modeling, and an ensemble of machine-learning models for revenue forecasting; the monetized reduction of risk is reported separately from the cash flow to avoid double counting, and the riskiness of the environment is captured through scenario probabilities and the discount rate. Three scenarios were defined, namely pessimistic, base, and adaptive-recovery, with assigned probabilities. The expected economic effect amounted to 287.5 thousand euro against 96 thousand euro of investment, which corresponds to an expected return on investment of 299.5 percent, a payback period of about three months, and a net present value of 246.4 thousand euro at a discount rate of twelve percent, remaining positive under sensitivity testing at eighteen and twenty-five percent. Labor productivity rose by 28.1 percent and the operating cost ratio fell from 0.74 to 0.66, while the forecasting ensemble reached an average error of about eleven percent. Unlike a deterministic appraisal, the proposed framework separates realized cash effects from risk exposure and demonstrates how scenario probabilities, discounting, and forecast accuracy can be jointly used to support investment decisions under wartime uncertainty. The practical value is a reproducible, scenario-aware toolkit for justifying digital investment under deep uncertainty. The approach can be repeated by using the same input groups, scenario probabilities, forecasting metrics, and financial indicators, which makes the assessment transparent for managers, investors, and reviewers. It also clarifies how crisis-driven benefits, such as avoided downtime and preserved revenue, can be converted into comparable investment indicators without overstating the cash effect.