Business Models
Globalization of services, even in relatively small companies (e.g. Netflix, Twitter, Instagram)
Increasing separation between service and delivery (e.g. Uber, Alibaba, Airbnb)
Rapid change especially in services
Digitalization
Digitalization has turned into one of the most important drivers for innovation in recent decades. Changes in economy and society triggered by digitalization keep accelerating faster and faster. Much of the business world is undergoing radical change: The “New Economy” which was promised in the 1990s has already become a reality in many areas. This technological change doesn’t affect only business processes, but also entire areas of industry and even societies.
Digitalization is therefore a difficult concept to grasp since it actually has 2 meanings. Both of these are often combined:
DIGITALIZATION AS CHANGER OF ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
Digital change with regard to the social change of economy and society is characterized by a number of different themes:
Customer relations
Direct sales channel to end customers (e.g. online shop systems)
Direct marketing to end customers (e.g. social media marketing)
Increased transparency in comparisons of products and services
Data
Intensive use of available data (comprehensive and current) to make decisions in business processes (e.g. recommendations in online shop systems)
Use of available data to develop forecasts which are in turn used for decisions in business processes (e.g. predictive maintenance)
Data protection and data security are once again becoming relevant themes.
Media
Resolution of media disruptions in end-to-end business processes (e.g. online management)
Smartphone and app as on-site office, always available from anywhere
DIGITALIZATION AND USE OF IT TECHNOLOGIES
Digitalization is often thought of as the implementation of new IT technologies in a company/business division or in an organization. Technology can then also be a catalyst for repositioning processes or business models. The most important technologies which drive this change include:
- Consistent use of web and mobile first technologies
- Fixed and mobile broadband Internet
- Virtualization and cloud
- Big Data
- Artificial Intelligence
- Agile software development
- Script languages & web frameworks
MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF DIGITALIZATION
These changes as well as the multitude of new themes pose a huge challenge to companies and public institutions. Meeting the challenge of digitalization means:
- Seeing and implementing digitalization as a comprehensive approach for changing society, technology, markets, organizations and processes.
- Project visions must look at least 2 – 3 years into the future so that a solution isn’t already obsolete by the time it’s implemented. This means a vision must take technical advancements and societal changes into consideration.
- Promoting the use of agile solutions in designing products, all the way up to implementation of IT systems, and actively pursuing the maturation of results.
- Promoting disruption on all levels in areas where change will produce clearly recognizable advantages.
- Learning from mistakes and quickly providing for change for solutions which cannot fulfill their expected goals.
- Making organizations fit for rapid changes, since technology and related innovations are being developed faster and faster.
Our experience shows that digitalization can quickly overtax any organization. Everybody wants to join in – but it’s often not easy to bring about an actual benefit for one’s own business. For over ten years, we’ve followed the approach of combining business and IT into one, to generate added value for our clients.
The experts at Spirit in Projects are always ready to help you when you want to implement digitalization to make your business sustainable. This includes analyzing and re-positioning your processes and implementing IT technologies so they run in an optimal manner.
More about our consulting approaches to digitalization
BUSINESS ANALYSIS AND BUSINESS PROCESSES
We integrate IT requirements with business process management to achieve maximum value and efficiency for our customers.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
We combine extensive experience in managing complex projects with in-depth technical know-how.
Enterprise Architecture
We see enterprise architecture as a informatics method for proactively shaping businesses.
Demand and Program Management
We focus on selecting the right methods and processes based on project goals, resources and framework conditions.