The last two decades have been characterised by a dynamic development that has come to be known as the fourth industrial revolution as well as the era of knowledge management and digitisation. Against this background, the aim of the paper is to present theoretical and practical premises and effects of digitisation of business processes, with particular emphasis on research and development (R&D) activities. A repre-sentative example of an industrial enterprise, i.e. KGHM Polska Miedź SA, was used in the empirical layer. It is a company with a strongly hierarchical organisational structure in which attempts have been made over the last 15 years to implement several digitisation projects in R&D activities. The article describes the R&D digitalization process in KGHM, both in historical and programmatic terms, which is part of the cur-rent strategy of the corporation. The final part of the paper presents not only the benefits achieved, but also the experience gained in the process of implementing one of the projects.