Objective: Through an empirical analysis of the performance of SMEs undergoing digital transformation, this study attempts to identify the influencing factors that determine their sustainable development to provide reference for academic researchers and industrial decision makers. Method: This study first uses an interview method to investigate the impact of SMEs’ three main resources on digital transformation: digital technology, employee digital skills, and digital transformation strategy. Second, we assess the impact of digital transformation on financial performance. Using the structural equation model, 335 valid questionnaires were recovered through the questionnaire method, and the key factors were identified using SPSS and SPSSAU tools. Results: In the Chinese context, digital transformation affects SME performance, and the three resources mentioned above are positively correlated with SMEs’ digital transformation. Digital transformation is positively correlated with performance, and it is the mediator of the impact of digital transformation strategies on performance. Conclusion: For SMEs, focusing on investing in digital technologies, employee digital skills, and digital transformation strategies are three key factors that are beneficial for digital transformation, thus helping to improve performance and maintain their sustainable development.

The ultimate goals of digital transformation, which is the only means of realizing the sustainable development of current enterprises, are to achieve cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and innovation for enterprises. However, there are limited empirical quantitative studies on the investment costs and impact of organizational performance related to the digital transformation of small- and medium-sized listed companies. This study first uses Excel VBA to sort the digital transformation panel data of 319 small- and medium-sized listed companies in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets from 2007 to 2020. Thereafter, Stata, a general-purpose statistical software package, is used to analyze the impact of digital transformation on the performance of small- and medium-sized listed companies. The results show that the digital transformation of small- and medium-sized listed companies has a positive correlation with operational performance, and an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation performance; however, the U-shaped relationship with financial performance is not significant. For small- and medium-sized listed companies to promote digital transformation, first, it must help the organization to improve its internal operational efficiency; second, it can optimize and improve the organization’s financial efficiency; and finally, through innovative efficiency, the organization can continue to develop steadily and improve its organizational resilience.

Cold chain transportation guarantees the quality of fresh agricultural products in people’s lives, but it comes with huge environmental costs. In order to improve transportation efficiency and reduce environmental impact, it is crucial to quantify the routing planning problem under the impact of carbon emissions. Considering fixed costs, transportation costs, and carbon emission costs, we propose a mixed integer linear programming model with the aim of minimizing costs. However, in real conditions, uncertainty poses a great challenge to the rationality of routing planning. The uncertainty is described through robust optimization theory and several robust counterpart models are proposed. We take the actual transportation enterprises as the research object and verify the validity of the model by constructing a Benders decomposition algorithm. The results reveal that the increase in uncertainty parameter volatility forces enterprises to increase uncontrollable transportation costs and reduce logistics service levels. An increase in the level of security parameters could undermine the downward trend and reduce 1.4% of service level losses.