Is Digitisation Really a Technical Discipline?

Until a few years ago, I as the trainer of my fistball team printed the players’ licences and gave them to the referee to verify my players. Today, this is all done online. No licences can be forgotten and hence also no disciplinary panel results for that reason.

A simple example of digitisation? Definitely not rocket science as digitisation is in general. Wikipedia provides the following explanation: “The term digitisation generally refers to the changes of processes, objects and events occurring as a consequence of the increased use of digital devices.”

In fact, digitisation is no new phenomenon. Some talk about the digital revolution having especially technologies like

• Augmented Reality,
• Machine Learning,
• Artificial Intelligence,
• Independently learning programmes
• Products like Hololens

in mind. I rather talk about a digital evolution since companies are becoming more digitisation-oriented with increasingly available, affordable and easily implemented technologies.

And these technological leaps also provide the long-awaited added value for companies. Companies should always consider the following aspect in their digitisation projects: No digitisation project just for the sake of digitisation, only to be considered modern. The benefits are what matter!

And these technological leaps also provide the long-awaited added value for companies. Companies should always consider the following aspect in their digitisation projects: No digitisation project just for the sake of digitisation, only to be considered modern. The benefits are what matter!

We roughly differentiate between 4 areas where benefits should occur: products, employees, customers and processes. Without generating any added value in one of these areas, digitisation is only one thing: an end in itself!

This leads us from the technical aspect to the economic and social understanding. Time and again, there is the understandable and certainly justified demand for employees having increased technical knowledge, which, however, woefully neglects one talent: The ability to develop new business models, new forms of cooperation in development, changed working models or previously not established processes. Topics which are only marginally connected with technical skills.

Since only the talent of reflecting on the working world of others and thus tapping potentials in cooperation with different processes, finding relief for employees or understanding customer processes and connecting them to the company more closely is what makes new technologies what they should be: guarantees of progress.

This means that soft skills, social intelligence, competence and empathy become more and more important. And this considering the “new” digital opportunities.