How Do We Prepare For a Digital Future?

Those who sail downwind of digital transformation and use it correctly can actively shape future changes and head towards a promising future. It is not surprising that companies are advancing in their digital transformations. But how do you get the most out of digitization? And how to navigate the sea of ​​digital disruption?

Resilience In The Wind of Change

Digitization is a fundamental part of today’s and tomorrow’s systems, something we also saw during the pandemic. Companies that focus on digitization are doing much better. And the journey continues. The opportunities presented by digitization are too great, and the risks too high to approach the issue opportunistically or inconsistently. Here, it helps to formulate a digitization strategy with a vision of your goal that addresses the relevant areas. Digitization champions consistently cover the following areas:

• Configuration and development of digital products and services to entirely new business models and digital ecosystems
• Digitization of communication and customer retention
• Optimize core processes through operational efficiency/excellence
• Organizational and cultural transformation, including skills development
• The use of new technologies and infrastructures, such as data analysis, AI or cybersecurity, is a crucial enabler of digitization.

Value Creation Thanks To The Centrality of Data

The winners of today and tomorrow are companies with a data-centric culture and way of thinking. But what does it mean in practice? Data is at the core of the digitization strategy and is firmly embedded in the business: all processes, decisions and products must be based on a solid foundation of data. For a long time now, data is no longer “nice to have” but the basis of all business activities, from developing new market strategies, through process optimization, to recruitment. But data alone is not enough: data centrality requires the democratization of the tools that turn data into information critical to a company’s ability to compete in the marketplace.

Innovations Create An Advantage

Digitization is how companies constantly connect their processes to obtain information on data flows in real-time and open new value chains. While manufacturing companies optimize their production processes using the Internet of Things and predictive analytics and design new products using digital twins, cities and municipalities carry out innovative smart city projects with the same technologies.

The Path To An Optimal Customer Experience

Sailing in the wind of change is the intelligent thing to do. As much as charting the right course. While ancient sailors oriented themselves on the high seas using the position of the sun in the sky, the fixed point for companies trying to navigate various challenges must be the needs of their customers. In practical terms, it means constantly digitizing customer processes and analyzing touchpoints to anticipate their problems and wishes better. With this information, highly personalized customer experiences are possible at all touchpoints, providing customers and users with genuine added value. Daimler shows what this looks like in the auto industry with its networked vehicles. Many companies are turning to advanced analytics solutions with AI capabilities to create new business models and gain insights from the customer data they have collected.

Bringing All Partners On Board

Why do 70% of transformation projects fail to meet their goals? In addition to a non-existent or unsustainable digitization strategy, 93% of employees report skill gaps among their own IT staff. This makes it even more important to bring in partners who have industry knowledge, a broad portfolio, proven experience in transformation and security, and who know how to combine the advantages of digital technologies and sustainability strategies. There are also other essential factors here. As products and services are developed in partner ecosystems and dominate platform business models, co-innovation methods help bring different capabilities together. In addition, competitors can also be considered partners. Instead of working against each other, they must often cooperate to ensure their success and defend their markets. With a robust framework for co-innovation and cooperation,

What Is Beyond The Horizon?

Digitization has long helped open the doors to a better quality of life. For example, doctors can have more time for their patients because, in the future, AI will take care of all administrative tasks. Service technicians can reclaim valuable family time by being able to support machines remotely. The quality of life in cities can also be raised to a new level with holistic IoT and imaginative city concepts in terms of intelligent traffic control or intelligent energy concepts. And with fast mobile communication standards and secure IoT solutions, the quality of urban space is increasing and care in hospitals.