Is the digital transformation of the world in full swing?

At the end of September I attended a cloud conference in Munich. The conference was sponsored by various manufacturers, and as expected the commercial orientation of the presentations could not be overheard..

The keynote - by Dr. Bruno T. Messmer from CSC - impressed me nevertheless.

What was the lecture about? The digital transformation of the world is unstoppable and all organizations urgently need a digital agenda. This rapidly progressing transformation or even revolution would have disruptive effects on technologies and entire business models… according to Dr. Messmer.

Okay? What’s going on? Der zunehmend digitale Lebensstil der Menschen erwartet interaktive Dienste überall, jederzeit und personalisiert - das erwarten wir ja heute bereits über die Apps auf unserem Smartphone. Allerdings wird diese Interaktivität zukünftig über alle Kanäle, nämlich Mobil, Sprache, Gestik und erweiterte Realität (Augmented Reality) verfügbar sein. Diese Revolution wird durch folgende Technologien befeuert:

• Artificial Intelligence

• Speech Recognition

• Virtual Reality

• Machine Learning

Due to the rapid change in technology, new business models emerge virtually overnight and spread in a few weeks. The new “players” in this market - the emerging digital competition of existing organizations - are becoming stronger and stronger, and born in the cloud, they have a clear advantage and transform the value chain quickly and radically - so the theory goes. We know them: Google, Uber, Tesla, amazon, Blockchain, FinTech, etc.

Are humans the new horses? At the end of the day, the rise of the machines and the automation of almost 50 % of all jobs are achieved. What do these 50% of the no longer working population do then? Do the new business models generate new jobs? Probably not! The provocative question arises: “Are humans the new horses”? - Will our skills only be used for leisure, entertainment and sport in the future? Do adaptive robots take over our tasks and carry them out faster or better? Very recommendable in addition: Humans need not to apply

Everything sounds logical and impressive - but I’ve been in the business for more than thirty years now and so far I’ve found that not all developments and technologies are as rapid as predicted or “desired” (some not at all).

At the end of the day I had taken many food for thought with me and wanted to share the interesting insights with you.

It greets you cordially

Falk Birkner