Ways How Digitization Has Affected Different Sectors

Last Updated 07/10/2019

Digitization has changed the way enterprises function. From hospitality to manufacturing, digitization has the potential to create numerous global opportunities for companies across the world. For example, digital competencies can dramatically improve the customer service experience, and eCommerce businesses can also benefit from a better customer-supplier experience.

Yet there is still so much untapped potential at an enterprise’s fingertips – and those advanced technologies are only going to grow, thanks to improvements in automation, analytics, and big data.

A New Industrial Revolution?

The first stage of the digital revolution is here – and it’s set to develop at a faster rate than the Industrial Revolution. You may have heard the word ‘digital transformation’, but trust us when we tell you that is more than just some business jargon.

Digital transformation must take place if you want to compete with your competitors. Take Amazon Business as a perfect example. Launching in 2015, the eCommerce platform enjoyed an incredible $1 billion in sales in its first year.

Digitization is also becoming more affordable for the modern entrepreneur. You only need to look at how 3D printing fell in price by 60% from 1994 to 2014 – and that’s not because it’s not popular, because it is; it is thanks to the decreasing cost of the many new processing technologies, such as advanced robotics.

Industry Impact

Many people believe digitization may only affect the likes of eCommerce businesses or marketing companies, but they couldn’t be more wrong. The new industrial revolution is taking place in most industries across the world.

The oil and gas industry is a perfect example. For instance, automated production control has the potential to either prevent or lessen disastrous events from taking place in the oil and gas industry, whilst improving production efficiency. Also, tracking can enable applications to monitor the condition of equipment, whilst offering support predictive maintenance and automated operation shutdowns. While radio frequency identification tags equipment to track their activity.

A Shift in Mindset

A digital transformation is not limited to the implementation of new technologies. For a strategy to be successful, a company has no choice but to develop a digital mindset, which must be backed by the business leaders. It is important to ease any concerns a manager or employee might have about a digital future, because they may fear their role could be replaced with technology. So, showcase the many advantages of the digital strategy, so they will become more passionate about a digital future with the company.

Improved Collaboration

Creativity and innovation is the cornerstone of modern business. With improved technologies, such as workflow automation, improving a company’s efficiency, whilst platforms allowing employees to work on documents simultaneously, it has never been easier for departments to collaborate on various important projects.

Digitization is happening and it is happening right now. While it might seem a little daunting, it has the potential to offer so much value to a business, customer, and stakeholders, which is why many people are turning to the likes of bizagi.com to develop a strategy.

Economic Growth

At the top level, computers, broadband, and networks have been instrumental in relaxing constraints and allowing economic sectors to grow rapidly. Traditional sectors such as raw materials or distribution channels, growth have been constrained by limited access to resources. So, digitization in this context has provided a way for businesses to scale, fulfilling additional demand and creating an increased need for factors, namely labor. 

At an aggregate level, economists have estimated that a 1% increase in a digital ecosystem index, yields a 0.13% increase in per capita GDP growth, the relation is much higher for OECD countries than emerging economies. 

Impact on Job Creation

The result of the first wave of digitization has already a significant contribution to employment. research has allowed the positive impact of digitization from mitigating resources constraint to increased demand for labor. The job creation effect of broadband seems to concentrated in service industries, (e.g. financial services, healthcare, etc.) although researchers have identified positive impacts on manufacturing and education as well. According to the study conducted by Shideler in 2007, for the state of Kentucky in the United States, county employment was impacted positively to broadband adoption in few sectors including manufacturing and service sectors. 

That being said, some studies have found certain industries undergoing digitization of their production, compared to creating jobs. For examples, in 2010, Katz et al discover that hotels and foodservice industry undergoing broadband adoption in the United States was found to reduce its number of jobs.

Social Welfare

Over the years, the implementation of national household surveys has allowed researching the impact on social welfare by the adoption of the first wave of digitization. A study conducted by De Los Rios in 2010, form 2007 and 2009 found that, during these two years, internet adopters experience significantly income increase relative to those households that did not have the service. 

The second explanation for the income increase is that broadband has a positive effect on worker productivity. In competitive markets, higher wages equal marginal productivity thus labeled the “productivity effect”.

Conclusion

In summary, research on the social and economic impact of digitization indicates a significant impact on growth and optimization. So, if you want to grow a company, it is time to grow your digital operations.