Whether in politics, business or in everyday private life – the word digitization is on everyone’s lips. Hardly any other megatrend has influenced companies more, at least not since globalization changed companies’ value chains. Digitization now affects almost all industries, sometimes radically so. Not only through changing products, business models and work processes; but also by driving and influencing customer demands, our social environment, as well as the way we work together. Businesses and authorities are either planning massive investments or already investing in order to adapt to the changes and to prepare themselves for the future.
There is still a long way to go. For instance, according to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as of June 30, 2020, only 242 million euros of the five billion euros provided by the federal government for digital teaching were approved. What’s more, only 15.7 million euros have actually been paid out. Over one year after the start of the federal digitization initiative for schools in Germany, this corresponds to an approval rate of 4.8% and an actual pay rate of 0.3%. The current COVID-19 Business Impact Survey conducted by the consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) assessing large companies in Europe, North America and Asia indicates a similar picture. Only a small share of the 300 executives surveyed stated that their company has highly automated business processes (23%) and key partnerships in a digital ecosystem (21%). Both are perceived as essential drivers for digital products and a digital customer experience. Consequently, only 25% of the surveyed executives confirmed that their company could offer a digital end-to-end customer experience.
If you believe the current expert opinions, the global COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the digitization efforts of businesses and authorities. More than 90% of the executives surveyed in the TCS study stated that, despite massive losses in revevenues, they have maintained or even increased their investments in the digital transformation of their companies during the crisis. The The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently attested that during the pandemic the central role of digitization in the context of emergency measures has pushed many cities to systematically use smart city tools.
These and other examples indicate that a huge reprioritization of digitization and the associated measures has already taken place. While measures such as the automation of business processes or the digitization of the product portfolio would have been classified as “nice to have” and postponed a few months ago, they are now perceived as essential. The fact that these investments are still being made despite the poor financial situation in business and authorities indicates that the reprioritization and rethinking is not only taking place superficially. On the contrary: Classic patterns of thinking and behavior, which would most likely have led to savings programs in the current situation, are being broken up.
Rethinking also affects companies and authorities in terms of content. Until recently, it was unthinkable to some customers that production, test and development environments could share a single physical infrastructure or that data would leave their own data center. Today, we discuss the use of current infrastructure, platform or software as a service products from the cloud. Automobile manufacturers and suppliers, both classic representatives of the manufacturing industry, suddenly start defining and differentiating themselves through software, hiring armies of software developers and establishing partnerships with their strongest traditional competitors. Telecommunications companies, which for years have defined themselves through the quality of their mobile and landline infrastructures, suddenly start exploring business models with partners, offering a mobile music streaming experience to their customers, and establishing themselves as TV providers and media producers. From IT operations over the product portfolio to corporate strategy – rethinking is taking place everywhere and at all levels within the private and public sector And it is expanding the horizons that have been taken for granted for years.
The opportunities are both numerous and versatile. They range from the development of new revenue streams and markets; to improving employee and customer experience; to more traditional factors such as standardization, increasing operational excellence and improving corporate efficiency.
It is often not that easy, however, to break out of old thought patterns. As a consulting company, we fully support our customers in this rethinking process — in structuring it, providing essential guidance, and driving it in terms of content and management. Due to our interdisciplinary understanding and consulting portfolio, we not only provide support as experts for individual topics in management and technology consulting, but also take on the role of a mediator between versatile experts in terms of content and organization. And in doing so, we have the privilege of playing a key role in shaping the digital transformation of our customers.
The world is undergoing a digital awakening – despite or precisely because of Corona. We would be happy to support you in the course of your individual digital transformation. Get in touch with us.
Bornheimer Str. 127
53119 Bonn, Germany
Bornheimer Str. 127
53119 Bonn, Germany