When asking the question, „what does digital transformation mean to you“, many answers came into my mind. So I took the chance and asked some people in my area the same question. And everyone else I was talking to, explained somehow differently. For example, there were the librarians who told me, digital transformation means that clients can now rent the books online via the internet. Or my neighbor who, at the end of her work day, she can order dinner for the family with an app on her cell phone and the meal is being delivered at a given time. One of my friends (he’s an HR manager) said, that recruiting is now much easier and more effective than ever with their new online application portal. But to cut the long story short, digital transformation seems to make people happy. Today, digital services are available in literally every industry: banking and finance, at the airport, public utility, the shopping mall, healtcare, administration and the list goes on and on. For my personal life, a couple of years ago it all started with email and online shopping. And today, for me, digital transformation means that the right information and services are available in realtime and at the right place. In general, I think that digital transformation concludes three areas. First, IT and its technologies can certainly help us to ease our daily life whether at work or at home. And beyond, from a service view it also helps us to improve our customer‘s experience. Second, , the deployment of new technologies in companies can help sustaining the competitiveness. And this is as well an important factor for employee engagement. And third, Digital transformation can encourage us to take on new challenges and create new business models. For example, the smart factory concept along with IoT yet can give us nearly inconceivable insight and enhance the effectiveness of any process related to the supply chain. Besides new types of security threats, in my opinion, one of the greatest challenges is to overcome and break accustomed manners in daily business. There might be a bunch of processes in every company that must be subject for critical examination. Perhaps there are appliances or systems that you could first virtualize and then transform into a cloud service along with other software in your environment. Therefore, it is always a good idea to consider the crowded knowledge of the employees to promote innovations and enhance security in your business. For sure, there is quiet a lot more to tell. And as the term „digital transformation“ implies, it is rather an ongoing process than a condition. The future will remain both exciting and challenging as ever.
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