Parent: What do you want to be when you grow up, Jimmy?
Jimmy: Oh boy, I would love to work in IT.
Parent: Do you even know what that means, Jimmy..?
Well Jimmy, IT might not be what it used to be, or better said: it’s dying. Well, at least in the traditional sense. IT used to be all these nerdy guys behind laptops fixing something that can’t physically be touched. Nowadays however, we’re working more towards the digitalization of everything, the Internet of things and last but not least, big data.
So, Jimmy, when you mean you want to work in IT, you actually mean that you want to facilitate the world becoming a digital one. Nowadays, almost all companies start digital, or, are shifting to (also) exist digitally. This, in turn, shifts the way companies interact with customers and partners. They even influence all five forces of Porter’s model of five forces of industry competition. What’s that Jimmy? You don’t know who Porter is? Let’s stop talking about him then.
In any case, the digitalization disrupts the way current business are set up, but also makes way for a whole new (niche-)market: the field of digitalization. In this field, mostly consultants are at work as they facilitate this transition between analog and digital.For business going digital, there are numerous advantages. For example: they stay competitive, can reach more people and they are more effective.
However Jimmy, when you grow up, chances are that there is a whole new concept regarding digitalization. The only thing that never stops innovating is innovation itself. If we look back to when the Industrial Revolution took place, back in 1820 and 1840, or even closer, the start of world wide web in the 1980’s and comparing it to the world as we know it now, a lot has changed. From being able to digitally access the yellow papers to making millions of dollars on a website in just thirty years.
Can you imagine, Jimmy, what the world would look like in thirty years?
Sources:
http://www.balboapress.com/WriterWisdom/Publishing/FiveReasonsToGoDigital.aspx
Hi Yuri Ave! Thank you for your insights regarding digitization. The writing style of this article makes it also very interesting to read.
I appreciate the benefits of digitization that you have stated. You have mentioned that digitization could ”shift the way companies interact with customers and partners”, but I think this is only the case if the digital technology provides enough value-producing opportunities.
In this article you emphasized the economic benefits of digitization, for example that business would compete better with other companies if they use digital technology. I think that is the reason why digitization is so popular. But the future of digitization goes beyond the economic industry. The education industry is also affected by it. Coursera is an educational technology company which works with universities to make some of their courses available online. This platform is becoming increasingly popular nowadays and it might be the future for education. With this platform, students have the opportunity to take online classes from universities from all over the world. This is only possible because of the digitization. Thus, I consider that future digitization will change not only the business environment. It also affects other environments such as the education industry.
References:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digitization-education-great-change-teaching-learning-jahir-kameel
Dear Rashani,
Thank you for your comment! Great to read your view on this matter, I do agree that value-producing opportunities are necessary, but then I also believe that people will always find a way to be creative and thus create value-producing opportunities. It’s great to read that it’s affecting education as well, I hope the next will be implementing this in less-developed countries so the gap between educated and less-educated becomes less big.
Thanks again for your comment!