What is all the hype around digitalisation and are we not already a digital economy? The numbers tell us that we haven’t even started yet on this digital roadmap.
83 percent of people in Europe have access to the internet in their homes, and 76 percent say they use the internet regularly, so are we not already heavily invested in digital technologies?
4 out of 10 high street banks are seen to be at risk of displacement by digital disruption in the next 3 years (Digital Vortex Research, June 2015).
The reality is that Europe has a long way to go to fully tap the potential of digitisation. There is a low adoption of companies using digital to redefine business processes and labour forces and this varies greatly among countries, sectors, and companies.
The UK is in the midst of a digital transition driven by consumers, thriving digital hubs, and some world-beating digital firms but we have only realised 17 percent of our potential when it comes to Digitisation (see graph from McKinsey Digital Europe Report, June 2016). If more is done to adopt, diffuse, and use digital, tremendous economic value could be captured!
Some good UK examples of digitisation in business;
- Football coaches are using big data to monitor player’s fitness during a live game and scout new talent.
- Retailer John Lewis is bringing 3D printing and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to allow customers to get a digital snapshot of what different fabrics look like on sofas – ‘Any Sofa Any Fabric’ platform.
- Burberry fashion have invested in digital technology to drive their e-commerce business to increase by a third of revenue over the next 3 years.
- Online grocery giant Ocado is processing 100+ terabytes of data to help make business decisions like predictable consumer spending habits and efficient delivery routes – all thanks to big data and cloud-based computing.
(McKinsey Digital Europe Report, June 2016)
These examples demonstrate how technology is the engine fuelling business growth and Digitisation is the key and connections are everything. To succeed in digital will require a fundamental expansion of the role of IT and the network.
Watch again the opening keynote from Cisco Live in Las Vegas, where Chuck Robbins discusses Cisco’s vision and strategy for helping you succeed and lead Digital Transformation.
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