Digitizing Collections: Strategic Issues for the Information Manager (Digital Futures Series) 1856044661, 9781856044660

Table of contents :
Digital Technology – The World Of Our Own
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DEDICATION
Chapter 1: Ancient Tale
Chapter 2: What Is Digital Technology
Chapter 3: Examples Of Digital Technology
Chapter 4: Digital Transformation
3 Key Areas of Enterprise Digital Transformation:
The Benefits of Digital Transformation:
1. Continuous build and test
2. Continuous deployment
3. Predictive service management
4. Continuous feedback
5. Continuous exploration
6. Service onboarding and consumption
Myth 1: DX is all about technology.
Myth 2: People are eager for change.
Myth 3: Everybody is doing it.
Myth 4: Failure is bad.
Myth 5: DX is the same for everybody.
Digital Transformation Strategy: Ten benefits for success
HealthTech:
4.Pre-Sales
5.Sales
8.Analytics
9.AI Analytics
9.1General solutions
9.2.Specialized solutions
9.3Customer Service
11.Data
12.Finance & FinTech
13.HR
14.Tech
15.Operations
16.Autonomous Things
6 digital transformation budget tips
1. Identify the project and participants
2. Identify the budget holders
3. Build the business case
4. Stay agile
5. Market the project's value
6. Measure success
1. Conduct research into digital transformation
2. Identify and analyze the specific ways DX could improve the business
3. Brief senior management on results of the initial research
4. Obtain senior management support to prepare the budget and strategic plan
5. Collaborate with key stakeholders to create a DX strategy and vision
6. Create a project plan and budget that is adaptable to changing business activities
7. Choose technologies that align with business priorities
8. Enlist the support of employees as part of the collaborative process
9. Develop methods of tracking and validating performance
10. Train, train, train
11. Test, test, test
12. Be prepared for unplanned events
13. Make adjustments to the new systems based on user inputs
14. Regularly review system performance against company business objectives
Building a digital transformation roadmap: 6 steps
1. Perform research and due diligence
2. Prepare DX strategy, and brief senior management and employees
3. Identify technology options, and secure senior management approval and funding
4. Approve project plan, and launch the project
5. Execute migration and transition activities
6. Commence updated business operations and performance management
1. Increased efficiency and productivity
2. Better resource management
3. More resiliency
4. Greater agility
5. Improved customer engagements
6. Increased responsiveness
7. Greater innovation
8. Faster time to market
9. Increased revenue
10. Continued relevancy
#1 Business-technology liaisons
#2 Technologists
#3 Security and compliance specialists
#4 Evangelists
#5 Financial stakeholders
#6 Project managers
#7 Marketers
#8 Implementation leads
1. Increased pace of deployment of digital transformation systems
2. Temporary deferral of digital transformation initiatives
3. Increased use of customer-friendly apps to meet customer expectations
4. Access security for remote workers enhanced
5. Patch management rises to top priority
6. Increased use of self-service apps speeds customer data collection
7. Shifts in supply chains spur more use of advanced e-commerce platforms
8. More collaboration between HR and IT to improve employee experience
9. Increased use of AI in data analysis confers competitive advantage
10. Evolution of CIO role
Chapter 5: Digital Technology – Advantages & Disadvantages
(Untitled)
Chapter 6: Digital Disruption
1.Customer:
2.Corporate culture:
3.Convenience:
4.Competition:
5.Communications:
6.Consistency:
7.Creative content:
8.Customization:
9.Coordination:
10.Control:
The latest digital disruption trends:
The top digital disruption programs
What’s the impact of digital disruption in transforming a business?
1.New business models appear
2.Customer relations have changed
3.Internal structures are reinvented
4.New production channels and systems are used
5.New economic models arise
Some questions to ask to find position during a disruption:
5 aspects of digital disruption
1.Change of mentality
2.A new way of working
3.A new market
4.A different way of dealing with customers
5.New disruptive phenomena
Use these tips to help you navigate and survive in this digital challenging environment.
1. Accept that change is inevitable
2. Watch other industries
3. Be curious about your own industry
4. Learn how disruptors disrupt
5. Explore new channels
6. Get close to your customers
7. Collect and use data
8. Find partners
1. Disruption is a bad thing
2. Disruption is an overused, meaningless buzzword
3. Any change is a disruption
4. Disruption is only a technology issue
5. Disruption is only for the digital giants
6. Digital disruption happens only in consumer markets
7. The most hyped disruptions are the most disruptive
8. Innovation, transformation, and disruption are all the same
9. Disruption is someone else’s problem
10. We don’t have to worry about disruption. We are unassailable.
6 Realities about a Digitally Driven Workforce:
Chapter 7: Digital Governance
Features:
Benefits:
Chapter 8: Digital Dexterity
Step 2: Baseline and Benchmark Your Numbers
Chapter 9: Digital Technologies Sectors
4 Benefits of a Digital Transformation in Banking:
1. Trustworthiness is gained online :
3. Personalized Offering:
4. Enables Innovation & Adaptability :
Machine learning use cases in finance:
1. Great Customer Relationships
2. Streamlined Operations
3. Adaptability and Flexibility
4. Improved Brand Reputation
5. Integration of Apps, Data, and Processes
6. Coherent Reporting Capability
7. Maintain Compliance
1. Improving Customer Experience
2. Smooth Organizational Processes
3. Leadership and Political Will
Key factors driving digital transformation in banking:
1.Importance of customers
2.Operating model
6.Modernized infrastructure
7.The power of data
8.Complete digitally-driven market
1. Start-ups, Disruption, and the Need for Forward Thinking
2. Customer (Experience) is King
3. COVID has Added Fuel to the Fire
4. No Time for Rest and Recuperation
5. From Cutting Costs to Improving Productivity
6. AI as the Game-Changer in CX
7. No Compromise Allowed on Privacy / Security
1.A shift to cross-functional teams
2.Adoption of cloud ERP
3.Enhancements in merger and acquisition activity
4.Strong focus on supply chain collaboration
5.Improved adoption of data standards
Benefits of an SCM solution in healthcare
1.Ease of use
2.Scalability and superior service
3.Supply chain methodologies
What are examples of digital solutions in the real estate industry?
Why there is no digital future — specifics of creating real estate listings?
1.Use Rich Media Visualization to Improve Customer Experiences
2.Collect Property Data with Internet of Things (IOT) Devices
3.Embrace Building Information Modelling
4.Employ AI-Powered Data Analytics for Transformative Insights
5.Streamline Workflows with Digital Image Classification
1. Digital Presentations and Tours
2. Mobile Property Search
3. Drones for Inspections and Marketing
4. Big Data and Advanced Analytics
5. Smart Contract Management
The pillars of digital transformation of real estate business:
1. Customers
Embracing Manufacturing 4.0 in Real Estate:
The 6 Best Digital Insurance Providers of 2022
Step 1: Identify the right use cases
Step 2: Digitalize the core operations
Step 3: Create a portfolio of digitalization initiatives
Step 4: Build a strategic blueprint
Benefits of DX (Digital Transformation) to Insurance Companies
Technological Trends in Insurance:
Below are the top-5 digital transformation challenges that insurers face today:
1. Grow Business Through Great Experiences
2. Speed Time-to-Market and Beat Insurtech Competitors
3. Deliver Seamless Experiences Across Countries
4. Ensure a Connected Digital Ecosystem
5. Maintain Legacy Systems and Address the Increasing Backlog
What are the challenges of digital transformation in automotive?
1.Search engine optimization
Top 12 Digital Marketing Transformation Strategies:
1.Audience: Identifying and engaging the right people
2.Assets: Offering the best possible customer experience
3.Access: Maximizing the reach of your messages
4.Attribution: Measuring the value of each point of contact
5.Automation: Simplifying operations and improving performance
What are the key technologies and trends enabling digital transformation in marketing?
4.Marketing automation
1. Build New Business Models
2. Digitalize Core Operations
3. Develop an Internal Digital Foundation
Technologies that help in digital transformation of retail industry are:
1. Data Analytics
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
3. IoT
Types Of Digital Options in Trading:
Digital Options vs Binary Options in Trading:
1.Connectivity links real-time data from across the value chain
2.Artificial Intelligence (AI) turns big data into insights
3.Mobile enables faster, smarter decision making
4.Cloud computing enables faster implementations, better access, and greater flexibility
5.Blockchain enables collaboration across the entire value chain
Policy recommendations for a swift recovery in Digital Trading:
4. Leverage Modern Technologies
1. Cybersecurity Plan
2. Available Capital
3. Learning Curve
4. Rigid Infrastructure
5. Employee Reluctance
6. Outdated Systems
A brief Market Overview about digitization in Oil & Gas:
Key Trends in Digital Transformation in the Oil and Gas Industry:
1.Reducing Operating Costs
2.Increasing Efficiency with Advanced Analytics
3.Increasing Resilience with a Remote Workforce
4.Improving Environmental and Safety Profile Proactively
1.Implementing across global oil & gas locations
2.Slow rollout, fast obsolescence
3.Technology phases in and out
4.Data fails to influence decision making
5.Low digital maturity rating
6.Archaic and clunky workplace practices
7.Lack of technical expertise and leadership
8.Going through a successful digital transformation
1.Use Case 1: Cost Estimation Process
2.Use Case 2: Satellite Image download process
3.Use Case 3: Velocity Model Building process
4.Use Case 4: Service Request and Work Order Release for Maintenance
5.Use Case 5: Leave and Delegation Process
6.Use Case 6: Tender Management Process – RPA as a Service
Myths and truths of the digital oil field:
1. Integrating technology in schools
2. How technology is changing education
4. Important aspects of digital learning
5. Which application is best for online teaching?
6. How digital standardized testing affects students (Online SAT And ACT)
1. Using Technology to Enable Classroom Coaching
3. Transforming the EdTech Models
4. Transformation in Teaching & Learning Methodologies
1. Changing student needs
2. Website redesigns and content migration
3. Content strategy, management and governance
4. Improving organizational processes
5. Creating a culture of digital transformation
3. Ecosystem challenges
4. Technology trends
1.Reporting and Analytics
2.Requirements Management
3.IP Protection & Export Control
4.Engineering Data Management
5.Product Design for Aerospace & Defense Suppliers
6.Software Management
7.Additive Design & Manufacturing
8.Supplier Collaboration & Management for Aerospace & Defense
9.Technical Publishing
10.Assembly Manufacturing Engineering
11.Manufacturing Data Management
12.Advanced Manufacturing for Product Realization
13.Electronics Manufacturing Planning
14.Factory Layout, Line Design & Optimization
15.Production Planning & Scheduling
16.Integrated Quality Management
17.In-service Data Management
18.Maintenance Planning
19.Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul
20.Integrated Program Planning & Execution
21.Model Based Product Definition
22.Verification Management
23.3D Massive Model Visualization
24.Product Design & Engineering in Aerospace & Defense
25.Product Service Planning & Management
26.Intelligent Manufacturing
27.Electrical Compliance
28.E/E Systems Development
29.Model Based Systems Engineering
Chapter 10: Digital Technology – Technical Trends
1. Open Source Software : The Beginning Of A New Era
2. Open Source Database : Virtue Or Vice?
3. Open Source ETL-The Prodigy Kids
1. The World Of Agile: Incarnation Of DevOps
[https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/732184]
1. BigData Analytics - Solution Or Resolution?
[https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/732673]
8. Hadoop
9. Qubole
10. HPCC
11. Cassandra
12. MongoDB
13. Apache Storm
14. CouchDB
15. Statwing
16. Flink
17. Pentaho
18. Hive
19. RapidMiner
20. Cloudera
21. DataCleaner
22. Openrefine
23. Talend
24. Apache Samoa
25. Neo4j
26. Teradata
27. Tableau
1. Cloud Computing - Reign Of Access
[https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/733213]
1. Master Data Management
[https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/733433]
(Untitled)
Advantages And Disadvantages
1. Apple ARKit
3. Wikitude
4. Kudan
5. MaxST
6. Google ARCore
7. EasyAR
8. ARToolKit
9. Onirix
10. Pikkart AR SDK
11. DeepAR
12. HoloLens
14. DroidAR
15. AR.js
16. HP Reveal Studio
17. BlippBuilder
18. AugMara CMS
19. Amazon Sumerian
20. Augmented Pro
21. Augment
1. Unity 3D
2. Unreal Engine 4
3. Blender
4. Amazon Lumberyard
5. CryEngine
6. AppGameKit
7. Oculus Medium 2.0
8. Google SketchUp
9. Tilt Brush
10. Vizor.io
11. JanusVR
12. React 360
13. A-Frame
Key differences between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML):
Popular sources for Machine Learning datasets
1. Kaggle Datasets
1. Identify Why You Need a Data Warehouse
2.Data Warehouse vs. Data Lake
(Untitled)
3. Have an Agile Approach Instead of a Big Bang Approach
4. Analyze and Understand Your Data
5. Analyze How Frequently You Need to Load Data
6. Define a Change Data Capture (CDC) Policy for Real-Time Data
7. Prefer ELT Tools Instead of ETL
8. Choose Whether You Want it On-Premise or in the Cloud
Chapter 11: Digital Transformation – Business Process Management
Chapter 12: Conclusion
Chapter 13: References
ABOUT BINAYAKA MISHRA

Citation preview

Digital Technology – The World Of Our Own By Binayaka Mishra Copyright 2022, Binayaka Mishra Smashwords Edition This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Furthermore, this e-Book is solely based on my findings on Digital Technology from my professional and personal work experience via working on different sectors and different projects. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Table of Contents Acknowledgements Dedication Chapter 1: Ancient Tale Chapter 2: What Is Digital Technology Chapter 3: Examples Of Digital Technology Chapter 4: Digital Transformation Chapter 5: Digital Technology – Advantages & Disadvantages Chapter 6: Digital Disruption Chapter 7: Digital Governance Chapter 8: Digital Dexterity Chapter 9: Digital Technologies Sectors Chapter 10: Digital Technology – Technical Trends Chapter 11: Digital Transformation - Business Process Management Chapter 12: Conclusion Chapter 13: References About Binayaka Mishra

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This e-Book is for informational purposes only. THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITH NO WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, NONINFRINGEMENT, FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR ANY WARRANTY OTHERWISE ARISING OUT OF ANY PROPOSAL, SPECIFICATION, OR SAMPLE. The author of this paper disclaims all liability, including liability for infringement of any property rights, relating to use of this information. No license, express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise, to any intellectual property rights is granted herein. Furthermore, this e-Book is solely based on my findings on Digital Technology from my professional and personal work experience via working on different sectors and different projects. I would like to personally thanks the various Informational Journals as furnished on “Reference” to aid me produce such quality content and also let me learn new ideas.

DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this manuscript to my lovely mother Mrs. Sakuntala Mishra. Needlessly say, I would like to be your child in every new life after this, as you have flourished me everything in all the ways. I shall not thank you as that would diminish your love and care as you have gestured every time, perhaps that’s why someday, I shall make you proud. Lots of Love!!

Chapter 1: Ancient Tale John Vincent Atanasoff, OCM, was an American physicist and inventor who is best known for building the first electrical digital computer. He lived from October 4, 1903 to June 15, 1995. In the 1930s, Atanasoff created the first electrical digital computer at Iowa State College (now known as Iowa State University). In the midtwentieth century, American engineers began inventing digital technology. Enhanced fibre optics facilitated the development of digital communication networks in the early 1980s. Digital technology replaced analog signals for many telecommunication forms, particularly cellular telephone and cable systems. Between the late 1950s and the 1970s, the Digital Revolution began. It is the transformation of technology from mechanical to digital. Digital computers and digital record keeping were commonplace during this period. The first digital electronic computing device, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), was given a patent in 1964.

Figure 1.1 John Vincent Atanasoff John Vincent Atanasoff was born in 1903 to a family that emphasised education and hard labour, and he excelled in school. He graduated from high school at the age of 15 and went on to get a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering with an A+ grade point average. His PhD in theoretical physics would not be the end of his scholastic path; he was a professor of mathematics and physics at Iowa State College

when his fixation with creating a device capable of swiftly and accurately solving huge, intricate equations grew stronger. During his graduate studies, he depended significantly on the Monroe Calculator; he was aware of its limits and desired to develop a superior gadget, but he was unable to fully comprehend his thoughts. One evening in 1937, frustrated by his failure to organise his thoughts into an usable design, he went on a drive... but not just any drive. This specific drive would have a profound impact on the world as we know it. At the time, Iowa was a dry state, and Atanasoff craved a drink to alleviate his angst. He departed without a plan and wound up nearly 200 miles away in Rock Island, Illinois, where he was finally able to order himself a cocktail. As he sat down, he realised the trip had cleared the clutter from his head. Four distinct concepts began to collide, and he scrawled his thoughts on a cocktail napkin. He subsequently stated, "It was during an evening of scotch and 100 mph vehicle drives when the thought arrived...". Electricity would be employed as a medium to offer speed, and the binary number system would be used to ease the calculating process. Direct logical action computing would improve precision while keeping memory and computation distinct, and employing regenerative memory would lower the cost of manufacturing the machine. Atanasoff presented his concept to Iowa State College and was awarded a grant to fund the development of his invention. Clifford Berry, a bright graduate student, was employed by him in 1939. Berry had also hastened his schooling; he was nearing the end of his PhD studies in physics when Atanasoff recruited him. In the fall of 1939, the two collaborated to prototype the AtanasoffBerry Computer (ABC), which they continued to improve until 1942, when Atanasoff left for a post in the Navy. Berry also went for a career in defence shortly after Atanasoff left. Iowa State College demolished the experiment after the two had departed, without alerting Atanasoff or Berry. The ABC weighed over 700 pounds and was capable of solving up to 29 simultaneous linear equations. It didn't have a central processing unit (CPU), but instead relied on 280 dual-triode vacuum

tubes for digital calculation. Its memory was made up of 1600 capacitors grouped into 32 bands that spun once per second on a shared shaft within a pair of drums. This enabled the ABC to compute at a rate of 30 actions per second. Data was represented as binary integers with a length of 50 bits. Some of its design principles are still employed in modern computer products. Iowa State College recruited a patent lawyer, Richard R. Trexler, to assist with the patent procedure, but it was never finished for unknown reasons. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) received a patent in 1964 and was considered as the first digital electronic computing device. Its creators, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, were given credit for its invention until a 1973 federal court judgement concluded that "Eckert and Mauchly did not initially develop the automated electronic digital computer, but rather derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff." As a result, the ENIAC's patent was rendered null and void.It wasn't until Atanasoff testified at the trial (Clifford Berry did not testify since he died suddenly in 1963) that it was discovered that Mauchly had spent substantial time and had multiple lengthy discussions regarding the ABC with Atanasoff and Berry. Mauchly had even stayed at Atanasoff's residence for five days in 1941, during which time he had access to the ABC's handbook. The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) began in the mid-twentieth century and was marked by a rapid epochal change from conventional industries founded by the Industrial Revolution to an economy based mostly on information technology. Between the late 1950s and the 1970s, the Digital Revolution began. It refers to the progression of technology from mechanical and analogue to digital. Digital computers and digital record keeping were the standard at this period. The arrival of digital technology altered the way humans communicated, which is today done through computers, cell phones, and the internet. The Information Age was ushered in as a result of this change. The breakthrough transistor, invented in 1947, is credited with

spreading the seed for future digital technology. Many governments, military forces, and other institutions were already employing computers by the 1950s and 1960s. Soon after, the computer was introduced for home use, and by the 1970s, many households had personal computers. This happened at the same time as video games became popular for both home systems and arcades. The spread of digital technology even resulted in the development of new occupations. As firms transitioned to digital record keeping, the demand for data input clerks increased. The 1980s saw the introduction of computer-generated imagery in films, robots in industry, and automated teller machines (ATMs) in banks. By 1989, one-fifth of all homes in the United States possessed a computer. In 1991, analogue mobile phones gave way to digital mobile phones, and demand skyrocketed. This was also the year when the internet became widely available to the general population. By the end of the decade, the internet had become so widespread that virtually every business had a website and nearly every country on the planet had a link. When the twenty-first century began, cell phones were commonplace, and high-definition television replaced analogue television as the most frequent transmission medium. By 2015, about half of the world's population had consistent internet access, and smartphone and tablet ownership rates had nearly surpassed those of home computers. The ability to store data has risen tremendously, with terabyte storage now readily available. The underlying technologies, including Babbage's Analytical Engine and the telegraph, was created in the latter part of the nineteenth century. After the introduction of the personal computer, digital communication became affordable for mass usage. In his groundbreakingly 1948 essay, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Claude Shannon, a Bell Labs mathematician, is credited with laying the groundwork for digitalization. The digital revolution transformed technology from analogue to digital. This enabled the creation of replicas that were identical to the original. In digital communications, for example, repeating hardware was able to amplify and transmit the digital signal with minimal loss of information. The capacity to effortlessly shift digital material across media and

access or disseminate it remotely was also critical to the revolution. The transition from analogue to digitally recorded music was a watershed moment in the revolution. During the 1980s, optical compact discs progressively displaced analogue formats such as vinyl records and cassette tapes as the most popular medium of choice. While working at Bell Labs under William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain produced the first operational transistor, the germanium-based point-contact transistor, in 1947. This paved the path for increasingly sophisticated digital computers. Universities, the military, and companies began developing computer systems in the late 1940s to digitally recreate and automate previously laborious mathematical processes, with the LEO being the first commercially accessible general-purpose computer. Other significant technological advances included the invention of the monolithic integrated circuit chip by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959[9] (made possible by Jean Hoerni's planar process),the first successful metaloxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, or MOS transistor) by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, and the development of the complementary MOS (CMOS) process by. By 1964, MOS integrated circuit chips had achieved better transistor density and cheaper production costs than bipolar integrated circuits, thanks to the invention of MOS integrated circuit chips in the early 1960s. MOS devices grew in complexity at the pace anticipated by Moore's law, eventually leading to large-scale integration (LSI) with hundreds of transistors on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s. The use of MOS LSI devices in computing provided the foundation for the first microprocessors, when developers realised that a full computer processor could be packed on a single MOS LSI chip. Federico Faggin, a Fairchild engineer, advanced MOS technology in 1968 with the invention of the silicon-gate MOS chip, which he eventually utilised to construct the Intel 4004, the first single-chip microprocessor. It was introduced by Intel in 1971, and it provided the groundwork for the 1970s microcomputer revolution. MOS technology has resulted in the creation of semiconductor image sensors for digital cameras. The

charge-coupled device, created by Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith at Bell Labs in 1969 and based on MOS capacitor technology, was the first of its kind.

Figure 1.2 "Atanasoff Berry Computer". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons When a message was delivered over the ARPANET in 1969, it was the first time the general public was exposed to the principles that led to the Internet. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, packet switched networks such as ARPANET, Mark I, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet were established utilising a variety of protocols. The ARPANET, in particular, influenced the creation of internetworking protocols, which allowed numerous distinct networks to be linked together to form a network of networks.In the 1960s, the Whole Earth Movement campaigned for the employment of new technologies.The home computer, time-sharing computers, the video game console, and the first coin-op video games were all released in the 1970s. Space Invaders launched the golden era of arcade video games. As digital technology developed and the transition from analogue to digital record keeping became the new norm in business, a relatively new job description, the data input clerk, gained popularity.

The data entry clerk, who was recruited from the ranks of secretaries and typists in previous decades, was responsible for converting analogue data (client records, bills, etc.) into digital data. During the 1980s, computers became semi-ubiquitous in industrialised countries as they found their way into schools, homes, business, and industry. Automated teller machines, industrial robots, computergenerated imagery (CGI) in cinema and television, electronic music, bulletin board systems, and video games all contributed to the 1980s zeitgeist. Millions of consumers bought home computers, making early personal computer makers such as Apple, Commodore, and Tandy household brands. The Commodore 64 is still widely regarded as the best-selling computer of all time, having sold 17 million units (according to some estimates) between 1982 and 1994. The United States Census Bureau began collecting data on computer and Internet use in the United States in 1984, with their first survey revealing that 8.2 percent of all U.S. households owned a personal computer in 1984, and that households with children under the age of 18 were nearly twice as likely to own one, at 15.3 percent (middle and upper middle class households were the most likely to own one, at 22.9 percent ). By 1989, 15% of all U.S. homes had a computer, and over 30% of those with children under the age of 18 had one as well. Many firms were reliant on computers and digital technologies by the late 1980s. In 1983, Motorola introduced the first mobile phone, the Motorola DynaTac. However, this device utilised analogue communication; digital cell phones were not commercially available until 1991, when Finland's 2G network was launched to meet the unanticipated demand for cell phones that had emerged in the late 1980s. According to Compute! magazine, CD-ROM would be the focal point of the revolution, with many home gadgets reading the discs. The first real digital camera was produced in 1988, and the first were launched in Japan in December 1989 and in the United States in 1990. They had surpassed conventional movies in popularity by the mid-2000s. In the late 1980s, digital ink was also created. Disney's CAPS system

(developed in 1988) was utilised in a moment in 1989's The Little Mermaid, as well as in all of their animated films between 1990's The Rescuers Down Under and 2004's Home on the Range. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web. That June, the first public digital HDTV broadcast was of the 1990 World Cup, which was shown in ten theatres in Spain and Italy. Outside of Japan, however, HDTV did not become a norm until the mid-2000s. The World Wide Web, which had previously been restricted to government and institutions, became publicly accessible in 1991. Mosaic, the first web browser capable of showing inline images and the foundation for succeeding browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, was unveiled in 1993 by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. In October 1994, Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first financial organisation to provide online internet banking services to all of its members. In 1996, OP Financial Group, another cooperative bank, became the world's second online bank and the first in Europe. The Internet grew swiftly, and by 1996, it had been ingrained in popular culture, with many firms including websites in their advertisements. By 1999, practically every nation had a link, and nearly half of Americans and individuals in a number of other countries utilised the Internet on a regular basis. However, "going online" required sophisticated setup throughout the 1990s, and dial-up was the only connection type accessible to individual users; the current mass Internet culture was not viable.

In 1989, around 15% of all US homes possessed a personal computer. In 1989, approximately 30% of families with children possessed a computer; by 2000, the figure had risen to 65%. By the early 2000s, cell phones had become as common as computers, with movie theatres starting to run advertisements urging people to turn off their phones. They also become much more sophisticated than phones in the 1990s, which mostly simply accepted calls or allowed for the play of rudimentary games. Text messaging was available in the 1990s, but it was not generally utilised until the early 2000s, when

it became a cultural phenomenon. The digital revolution also became really global at this time; after altering society in the rich world in the 1990s, it expanded to the masses in the developing world in the 2000s. By 2000, the majority of U.S. homes had at least one personal computer, and by the following year, the majority of households had internet connectivity. In 2002, the majority of survey respondents in the United States reported owning a mobile phone. By late 2005, the Internet's population had surpassed 1 billion, and by the end of the decade, 3 billion people worldwide had mobile phones. By the end of the decade, HDTV had become the standard television transmission format in many nations. Luxembourg and the Netherlands were the first nations to entirely convert from analogue to digital television in September and December 2006, respectively. In September 2007, the majority of poll respondents in the United States reported having broadband internet access at home. According to Nielsen Media Research estimates, approximately 45.7 million U.S. households owned a dedicated home video game console in 2006 (or approximately 40% of approximately 114.4 million) and by 2015, 51 percent of U.S. households owned a dedicated home video game console, according to an Entertainment Software Association annual industry report. By 2012, over 2 billion individuals have utilised the Internet, which was more than double the amount in 2007. By the early 2010s, cloud computing had reached the mainstream. In January 2013, the majority of poll respondents in the United States claimed possessing a smartphone. By 2016, half of the world's population was connected and by 2020, that figure was expected to climb to 67 percent. The metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, or MOS transistor), which is the most extensively produced device in history, is the fundamental building block of the Digital Revolution. It is the foundation of every commercially available microprocessor, memory chip, and communications circuit. MOSFET scaling (rapid shrinking of MOS transistors) has been a major contributor to the realisation of Moore's law, which predicted that transistor counts would

rise at an exponential rate. Following the invention of the digital personal computer, MOS microprocessors and memory chips, with their continually growing speed and storage capacity, allowed computer technology to be implemented in a wide variety of products ranging from cameras to portable music players. The advancement of transmission technology, such as computer networking, the Internet, and digital TV, was also significant. 3G phones, whose social penetration rose tremendously in the 2000s, also played a significant part in the digital revolution by providing ubiquitous entertainment, communications, and internet connection. Positive implications include increased interconnection, better communication, and the exposing of knowledge that in the past may have been more readily repressed by authoritarian governments. Michio Kaku argued in his book Physics of the Future that the failure of the Soviet takeover of 1991 was primarily due to the presence of technologies such as the fax machine and computers that disclosed secret material. The uprisings of 2011 were assisted by social networking and smartphone technology; yet, in retrospect, these revolutions mostly failed to achieve their aims, since hard-line Islamist administrations and a civil war in Syria have developed in the absence of the dictatorships that were demolished. The economic effect of the digital revolution has been extensive. Globalization and outsourcing, for example, would not be possible without the World Wide Web (WWW). The digital revolution fundamentally altered the way people and businesses interact. Small regional businesses were suddenly granted access to much bigger markets. Concepts such as ondemand software services and manufacturing, as well as rapidly declining technological prices, enabled advances in many parts of business and daily life. Following early fears about an IT productivity paradox, evidence is growing that digital technologies have considerably enhanced corporate productivity and performance. The digital revolution enabled technology to continually adapt, resulting in a boost to the economy and a rise in production. The digital revolution has produced a need

for new work skills as technological breakthroughs have increased. Retailers, haulage businesses, and banks have all made the economic move to digital formats. Furthermore, the development of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin facilitates quicker and more secure transactions. Information overload, Internet predators, types of social isolation, and media saturation are all negative consequences. In a poll of prominent members of the national news media, 65 percent said the Internet is hurting journalism more than it is helping by allowing anyone, no matter how amateur or unskilled, to become a journalist, causing information to become muddier, and the rise of conspiracy theory in ways that did not exist previously. In certain circumstances, firm workers' widespread use of portable digital devices and work-related computers for personal purposes— email, instant messaging, computer games—was found to, or was perceived to, diminish productivity. Personal computers and other non-work-related digital activities in the workplace have therefore contributed to more severe kinds of privacy invasion, such as keystroke tracking and information filtering apps (spyware and content-control software).

Figure 1.3 A Brief History of Digital Revolution Digital history may be roughly defined as a method of investigating and portraying the past that employs modern communication technologies such as the computer, the internet network, and software systems. On one level, digital history is an open arena for academic production and communication, involving the creation of new course materials as well as initiatives to gather scholarly data. On another level, digital history is a methodological approach defined by the hypertextual potential of modern technologies to create, define, query, and annotate connections in the human record of the past. To undertake digital history is, of course, to digitise the past, but it is much more than that. Its goal is to use technology to provide a framework for people to experience, read, and follow a debate on a key historical issue. In January 2004, the late Roy Rosenzweig foresaw the need for this

shift during an event he planned before to the 118th annual conference of the American Historical Association called "Entering the Second Stage of Online History Scholarship." For Roy emphasised the need for a more lasting transition from experimenting with digital scholarly tools and ideas to something more permanent. This second step will need multidisciplinary cooperation, something that most historians have yet to embrace; collaborative ventures including historians, programmers, information architects, designers, and publishers. Libraries are already putting in place the infrastructure to collect, manage, explore, and manipulate these sources, as well as to support and sustain the various forms of "new-model scholarship" that may emerge from them; historians must join in on this critical next step, or risk losing our scholarship to the "dustbin of history," as Abby Smith, the historian warns. Timothy Mahoney, a 19th-century U.S. urban historian, has created a complex tapestry of "spatial narratives" in his book Gilded Age Plains City: The Great Sheedy Murder Trial and the Booster Ethos of Lincoln, Nebraska (http://gildedage.unl.edu). Beginning with a peer-reviewed study he produced on the topic, Mahoney created Great Plains City to immerse the reader in the complicated narrative of the murder of a legendary "sporting man," gambler, and city booster. Mahoney's initiative enables for self-directed investigation of the trial's social, cultural, legal, and political problems, offering insight into the beginnings of Progressivism and modernity. The opportunities for successful leaders are limitless for those who can see huge potential and comprehend the digital economy. New jobs are being developed, such as a chief digital officer (CDO), and its duties will include the formulation and implementation of digital plans. If top-level personnel do not adapt to the digital transformation, they will lose sight of what it takes to keep a high position, and experience will no longer be a valuable asset. The digital future necessitates digital leadership abilities that are not restricted to operations and finance.

When Alec H. Reeves was working for the International Telephone and Telegraph Co. in France in 1937, he devised pulse-code modulation (PCM). In 1938, he received a French patent, in 1939, a British patent, and in 1942, he received a US patent, number 2,272,070. PCM was utilized by Bell Labs in the secret SIGSALY telephone encryption system from 1943 until 1946. After the development of integrated circuits made such use practical, the first commercial use of PCM was in telephone transmission in 1962; the analogue voice sound wave within the telephone bandwidth of 4000 Hz was sampled at 8000 pulses per second and each pulse was encoded with a digital value; the digital values were multiplexed for transmission as a linear series of identical pulses and each pulse coded with a sampled amplitude at a particular point in time on the voice. 1939 - John V. Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry construct the first electronic computer using a drum storage mechanism that uses capacitors on the surface of the drum to temporarily store data that is then processed by separate logic circuits. They programmed the computer using the binary algebra of George Boole (1815-1864), a 19th century mathematician who discovered that simple equations may be expressed as either true or false. The Atanasoff-BerryComputer (ABC) featured two drums with capacitors on each to store 30 integers, each in 50 bits. In his 1942 MIT master's thesis, "Automatic Control by Arithmetic Operations," Perry Crawford developed a magnetic drum that could be used to store electrical digital information, independently of Atanasoff. The evolution of the computer, as well as the ability to record data on magnetic drums, discs, and tape, would be critical in the development of digital audio. During World War II, the first telephone "hot-line" employed vacuum tube frequency inversion to code messages between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. The electrical equipment dubbed SIGSALY resulted from Bell Labs research and was one of the first implementations of PCM. The artwork in London was so huge that it took all the basement area of Selfridges.

In August 1946, Engineering Research Associates (ERA) utilized pieces from captured German magneto phones to manufacture magnetic drums and discs for the Navy as part of Project Goldberg (Task 1-H to decipher encryptions). The ERA magnetic drum would be employed in computers produced in the United States during the following several years by Harvard, IBM, Remington Rand, the National Security Administration, and the National Bureau of Standards. William Shockley and his colleagues displayed the germanium transistor for the first time privately on December 23, 1947, at Bell Labs. However, manufacturing issues hampered its practical use. The innovation was kept secret for 7 months until it was developed, and no patents were submitted until 1948; the first public statement was made on June 30, 1948. Raytheon was the first to mass-produce transistors in 1952, as well as the first to commercialize a transistor-based device, the hearing aid. Shockley relocated to a Quonset hut at 391 San Antonio Road in Mountain View, near his Palo Alto home, in 1955, and became one of the pioneers of "Silicon Valley," a hub of digital research and development in California. In 1957, a group of engineers known as the "Traitorous Eight" left Shockley to create Fairchild Semiconductor, a company that makes transistors. Robert Noyce would patent the technology for producing IC chips at Fairchild. In turn, engineers would leave to start other firms, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc., LSI Logic Corp., Teledyne, Rheem, National Semiconductor, and Intel. 1948 - On June 21, 1948, the "Baby" computer at the University of Manchester executed the first stored programmed, utilizing outdated radar CRT tubes to store 2048 bits per tube. For supplementary memory, a magnetic disc invented by Andrew Donald Booth was introduced in April 1949. Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Atanasoff-Berry

Computer Drum Memory, 1939 The UNIVAC was the first computer to use a magnetic tape storage method, which was introduced in 1951. Kurt Vonnegut's book Player Piano, set in a future society where employees have surrendered all autonomy to managers and computer-controlled robots, was released in 1952. The main character loses his work, goes to a pub, begins a player piano, and finds that there is no human musician, just his ghost preserved in the piano roll's holes. 1953 - Jay W. Forrester at MIT installed the first magnetic core memory in the Whirlwind computer; the small magnetic rings were developed after 1949 and tested in a 16x16 array in May 1952 (Munro Haynes independently tested core memories the same month in an 80x12 array at IBM); Whirlwind was developed initially as a flight trainer for the Navy beginning in 1943 but changed to an air defense system after the Russian A-bomb of 1949 and was installed in MEWS Apr. 1951, From 1956 until 1984, IBM created computers for the SAGE air defense system that utilized magnetic core memory and magnetic drum storage. The core memory would be utilized until the 1970s, when it would be replaced by integrated circuits. SAGE had a significant impact in propelling IBM ahead of Remington Rand and establishing it as a global leader in computer R&D. 1954 - In October, IBM created the model 604 computer, its first using transistors, which served as the foundation for the model 608, the first solid-state computer for the commercial market, which delivered in December 1957. Tom Watson, Jr., campaigned for the use of transistors into all future IBM computers. In the 1960 experiment, Schawlow adjusts a ruby optical maser at Bell Labs, as C. G. B. Garrett prepares to shoot the maser flash, from AT&T; Archives.

In December 1957, IBM and TI inked an arrangement for TI to provide IBM with semiconductors. In May 1955, IBM announced the first commercial magnetic disc, RAMAC ("random access method of accounting and control"), which could store 5 million bits (in 7-character words) on 50 aluminum discs, each two feet in diameter, coated on both sides with magnetic iron oxide (similar to the paint primer used on the Golden Gate Bridge), and using a single read/write head. This massive disc unit weighing a tonne was offered as part of the IBM 305 system in September 1956. 1958 - Arthur L. Schawlow published his paper "Infrared and Optical Masers" in the Physical Review in December 1958; this was the key paper that started laser development; the term "laser" had not yet been coined, rather the term maser was used to refer to semiconductor light amplification and modulation; after Dec. 1957, he worked at Bell Labs with Charles H. Townes of Columbia. General Electric created Magnetic Ink Character Recognition in 1959 for the Bank of America in California in order to automate check processing. 1959 - Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments patented the first integrated circuit in February; Kilby had produced his first germanium IC in October 1958; in early 1959, Robert Noyce of Fairchild utilised the planar method to link components inside a silicon IC; Fairchild's first commercial IC chips were released in large quantities in 1961. Noyce would subsequently co-found Intel with Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove in 1968; the first commercial device to use IC was a hearing aid in December 1963; and General Instrument produced an LSI chip (100+ components) for Hammond organs in 1968.

1961 - The IBM 7030 computer pioneered the 8-bit character word length (a "byte") in April 1961, as a result of an Air Force contract awarded in October 1958 after Sputnik to build transistor computers for the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS). 1962 - MIT's Tom Stockham started making digital audio tape recordings using a huge TX-0 computer and an A/D-D/A converter from EPSCO's Bernie Gordon. In 1963, he assisted Amar Bose in the invention of the corner 2201 loudspeaker. He left MIT for the University of Utah in 1968, and in 1975, he co-founded Soundstream with Malcolm Low (the L in KLH), developing a 16-bit digital audio recorder. The Mellotron electronic music sampler produced musical sounds on tape loops for each key of a keyboard in 1963. Unlike the 1920 Theremin, which could only make oscillations, and the 1935 Hammond electronic organ, the Mellotron could produce realistic sounds of various instruments such as a clarinet or violin. It was utilized by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin to generate the flute sound at the beginning of Stairway to Heaven in 1971. Music samplers could not record digitally until Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie created the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument (CMI) in 1979, which utilized 500k floppy discs. Wendy Carlos used a Moog synthesizer to create the electronic music album Switched-On Bach for CBS in 1968. When Robert A. Moog met musician Herbert Deutsch in 1963, he was developing and marketing transistorized Theremins. By August 1964, the two had cooperated to design an electronic synthesizer employing patch cables. Wendy Carlos worked as an engineer at Gotham Recording Studio, and she improved the Moog/Deutsch machine by adding fixed filter banks and other changes to produce her Bach recordings. MIT was founded in 1969. American Data Sciences (later Lexicon) was founded in 1971 by Dr. Francis Lee and engineer Chuck

Bagnaschi to produce digital audio devices based on Lee's digital delay unit for medical cardiac monitoring. Barry Blesser created a 100ms digital audio delay line and, with the assistance of Steven Temmer at Gotham Audio, supplied digital reverberation and effects processors to recording studios before launching the OPUS digital audio workstation in 1988. 1971 - IBM released the first 8-inch flexible plastic "memory disc," which Al Shugart created to store computer code for the IBM 3330 Merlin disc pack. It had a capacity of 100 KB on one side at first. Many manufacturers rapidly embraced the "floppy disc" with its protective coating as a simple means of transmitting programmers and data. Gary Kildall built his successful CP/M operating system in 1974 to employ floppy disc storage rather than punched cards, which were used by most big computers at the time. 1971 - Intel manufactures large scale integrated (LSI) circuits that are utilized in the first digital audio device, the digital delay line, as well as Sony, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, JVC, and Philips compact disc digital audio processors. 1971 - On November 15, Intel unveiled the 4004 microprocessor, which had a word length of four binary digits (bits) and was suitable for calculators but not alphabets (required min. 6-bit). In September 1972, Philips exhibited their optical videodisc technology, which used a laser pickup on a 12-inch glass disc; an updated form was displayed at the Berlin Radio & TV Show in 1973. 1972 - Nippon Columbia Co. developed a PCM recorder with a dynamic range of 87 db for mastering soundtracks recorded on videotape. IBM created the first sealed hard disc drive with two 30-MB disc

platters in 1973. Because project manager Ken Haughten owned a 30-30 rifle, it was dubbed the "Winchester" drive. 1975 - Sydney Alonso, Jon Appleton, and Cameron Jones created the Synclavier digital synthesiser at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and the following year founded the New England Digital Corporation (later Demas) to market the system to the professional recording industry. 1976 - The Santa Fe Opera produced the first 16-bit digital recording in the United States using a handcrafted Sound stream digital tape recorder designed by Dr. Thomas G. Stockham. Wozniak and Jobs debuted the Apple II in 1977, according to Apple's History. Al Shugart created the 5.25-inch floppy disc drive for Wang Laboratories' desktop computers in 1976. The original capacity of a single-sided single-density disc was 100 KB. 1976 - In April, Steve Wozniak demonstrated the Apple I personal computer at the Hombrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, and the following year, with Steve Jobs, began selling the Apple II with a plastic case, a built-in speaker to reproduce sounds, the ability to display colour, and the addition of a floppy disc drive in 1978. 1977 - Nintendo of Japan started manufacturing computer games that stored data on chips within a game cartridge that sold for approximately $40 but only cost a few dollars to produce. It released its most successful game, "Donkey Kong," in 1981, followed by Super Mario Bros. in 1985. With just 850 people, it was making a $1 billion profit each year by 1989, controlling 85 percent of the home video game industry, selling 50 million game consoles by 1992 and 1 billion cartridges by 1995.

1977 - AT&T launched fibre optic transmission of telephone signals in downtown Chicago's Chicago Loop. The first intercity fibre optic line was established between New York and Washington in 1983. TAT-8, the first transatlantic fibre optic telephone connection, was inaugurated on December 8, 1988. 1978 - RCA introduced the Selectavision videodisc, which had taken 15 years and $200 million to develop since the 1964 decision by David Sarnoff's son, Robert Sarnoff, to develop a low-cost consumer recorder; Selectavision used a 12-inch vinyl disc at 450 rpm that held 200 times more data than LP, read by electrode on a stylus that sensed change in capacitance; played 2 hours with signal-to-noise of 46db; CED 1978 - PCM consumer audio recording debuted in June with the release of the PCM-1 14-bit Betamax attachment, which allowed for the recording and playback of digital audio with an 80db dynamic range. The Philips/Sony compact disc standard was completed in 1980. The Philips research started in 1969 with the efforts of Dutch scientists Klaas Compaan and Piet Kramer to capture holographic video pictures on disc. In 1972, they developed a prototype that utilised a laser beam to read a track of pits as the coded FM visual stream. Philips' Lou Ottens had helped design the compact audio cassette and insisted on the video disc being tiny in size. The FM signal was replaced with a digital PCM code, and the disc was 115mm in diameter and tracked from inside to outside. In March 1979, another prototype was shown. Sony has committed to work with Philips to create standards. The compact disc, which would be offered to the general public for $15, would be constructed of plastic covered with a layer of aluminium and protected with a final coating of lacquer, with a manufacturing cost of less than $1. The master disc was manufactured of glass, covered with photo emulsion, laser-etched,

and then etched in a chemical bath to leave pits in a spiral groove. The CD revolved at rates ranging from 200 rpm near the edge to 500 rpm towards the middle. The dimension would be 120mm, with a sampling frequency of 44,100 per second and 16-bit encoding. The maximum playing length would be 74 minutes, which would be long enough to include Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The partnership between Philips and Sony terminated in 1981, and each business developed its own devices based on the 1980 standard. The Sony CDP-101 compact disc player was released on October 1, 1982 in Tokyo, in Europe in the autumn of 1982, and in the United States in the spring of 1983. The first CD pressing factory in the United States was established in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1984, which had been a hub of shellac record manufacture since the nineteenth century due to limestone resources. 1980 - Sony launched the 3.5-inch floppy disc, dubbed a "diskette" due to its stiff plastic case's inflexibility. 1981 - Dave Smith and Chet Wood from Sequential Circuits presented a paper on the Universal Synthesiser Interface at the AES October meeting, which became the basis of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) protocol, which was adopted in August 1982 and demonstrated at the first North American Music Manufacturers show in Los Angeles in 1983. In 1983, Roland and Sequential Circuits released the first MIDI keyboards, as well as the Yamaha DX7. Tom Jung employed digital audio to produce direct 2-track recordings in 1982, and his DMP label published the first jazz CDs. He would subsequently pioneer 20-bit recording in order to fully use the CD's 16-bit dynamic range with the additional recording headroom of 10dB and minimise noise at lower amplitudes. 1984 - Sony introduced the D-5 portable compact disc player at the Japan Audio Fair and in the United States, using the same VLSI chip and miniature laser from Sony's auto CD player, thus bridging the portable personal music player world from the magnetic tape

Walkman of 1979 to the DAT Walkman TCD-D3 of 1991 to the digital Discman of 1999. 1985 - Sony and Philips developed the standard for Compact Disc Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) computer discs, which would employ the same laser technology as the audio CD. 1986 - Sony/Philips introduces Digital Audio Tape, or DAT, as a consequence of the R-DAT consortium's attempts to produce a recordable version of the optical compact disc. Due to copyright issues, electronics companies postponed the development of consumer goods, and DAT remained a high-priced professional medium. Dolby Pro Logic encoded surround channel information for home speakers using low-cost integrated circuit processors in 1987. 1988 – CD sales surpassed LP sales for the first time, leaving CD and cassette as the two dominant consumer formats; more than half of TV households own a VCR; the first transatlantic fiber-optic cable carried up to 37,000 telephone transmissions and began to replace satellites for telephone communication. Sony released the D-88 Pocket Discman in 1988, which was capable of playing 3-inch compact discs (CD-Singles) debuted in 1987. 1990 - Sony and Philips create the Recordable CD-ROM standard (CD-R).

1991 - The Alesis Corporation of Los Angeles introduced its new ADAT machine on January 18 at the National Association of Music Merchants show, recording 8 tracks of digital audio to a standard S-

VHS videocassette using the same helical scan technology that created the videocassette boom in the 1980s; with a list price of $3995, and cassettes at $15, the ADAT made multitrack digital recording affordable for the small studio, with the ability to connect together up to 16 A-VHS In October 1992, The Electronic Musician said that "ADAT is more than a technical marvel; it's a social force." 1991 - On October 16, Philips introduced the Compact Disc Interactive, or CD-I, player, which plugged into a TV and played music and video from an interactive on-screen menu; Polygram Records released one of the first CD-I discs for $14.95, the "Louis Armstrong: American Songbook," playable on a regular CD player but also with text, interviews, and lyrics cued to the music, and two unreleased tracks; Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web (W 1992 - Sony begins selling the MiniDisc, which was introduced on May 30, 1991. The MD was a recordable magneto-optical disc wrapped in a plastic cartridge that had the same 74-minute capacity as the CD but was half the size and compressed more. The MD was designed to be a replacement for the CD and compact cassette. "Sales of cassette tapes had been falling since 1989, and Sony thought that the compact cassette system was reaching the end of its format life," according to The Rewritable MiniDisc System. IBM and Toshiba merged in 1992. In July, a partnership was created to produce flash memory cards. Toshiba announced a data storage device named Solid State Floppy Disk Card (SSFDC) at the Las Vegas COMDEX conference in November 1995, employing 16 megabit (Mb) NAND flash electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM). 1993 - Teac's Tascam subsidiary released the DA-88 digital 8-track recorder for $4,499 in February, the first modular digital multitrack (MDM) recorder to utilise Hi-8 videotape; see TASCAM: The First 25 Years.

In October 1993, the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance chose Dolby AC-3 to offer digital surround sound for the future digital television technology. In August of 1994, Fox Network started airing the full NFL season in Dolby Surround. 1994 - In October, SanDisk debuted the Compact Flash memory card, which could store music and video data on cards little bigger than a matchbook and containing up to 4-106 MB of data. SanDisk and Siemens AG patented the MultiMediaCard, which is the size of a postage stamp and holds 2-16 MB, in 1997. 1995 - Sony and Toshiba signed an agreement in September to produce a common DVD standard by the end of the year rather than continuing to develop rival DVD devices. 1995 - The DVD-Video and DVD-ROM formats were introduced in December. "It asks for a 5-inch (12cm) thick CD-sized disc with an MPEG2-compressed storage capacity of 4.7 gigabytes per side (7.5 times that of CDs) and an average transfer speed of 4.69 megabits per second (three times faster than CDs). DVD-Video will give LD-like images while playing for 133 minutes each side, making it ideal for movies and concerts. Its music will support eight languages and 32 sets of subtitles. For computer data, a DVD-ROM can handle large programmes, provide stunning images, and manage hybrid software for many operating systems." (From the Pioneer) Sonic Solutions was employed by Walter Murch for the first digitallyedited Hollywood picture to win an Academy Award in 1996. By 1998, Lost in Space had become the first big Hollywood film to include an entirely digitally generated soundtrack.

1996 - At Right Track Recording in New York, the AMS Neve Capricorn completed the world's first 24-bit digital recording for The Pat Metheny Group's album "Quartet." 1996 - The FCC adopted a digital TV standard, including HDTV, on December 24, 1996. DVD players were first sold in Japan in 1996, then the following year in the United States. Panasonic and Sony establish the DV (Digital Video)/miniDV standard in 1997. 1997 - On April 2, 1997, the FCC held an auction for two Digital Audio Radio Service licences (DARS) 1997 - Norsam Technologies created the HD-ROM, which uses a 50nanometer laser beam rather than the typical 800- and 350-nanometer lasers to store 165 gigabytes on a single CD-size disc. In 1997, San Diego's Michael Robertson launched MP3.com in November, with 3,000 songs accessible for free download. Within a year, it had become the most popular music website on the Internet, with 3 million monthly visitors. 1998 - The first MP3 Summit was held on July 2, 1998, at the UCSD Price Center in San Diego, with digital music leaders Scott Jamar of a2bmusic, Xing CEO Hassan Miah, music lawyer Robert Kohn, Gene Hoffman founder of Goodnoise, the first Internet music label, Geffen Records producer Jim Griffen, and Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg, one of the founders of MP3 compression technology, in attendance. 1998 - On August 6, the first HDTV set, a 56-inch Panasonic set built in the company's research and development department in San Diego

and produced in Tijuana, was on sale to the public for $5,499 in San Diego. 1998 - In September, the DVD Forum's DVD-Audio Working Group agreed on the DVD-Audio Format 1.0 requirements. The capacity would be the same as DVD-Video at 4.7/8.5/9.4/17 GB, but the sampling rate will be higher for a frequency response of 0-96 kHz rather than 0-48 kHz for DVD-Video at 44.1 kHz and 5-20 kHz for the audio CD; the Maximum Transfer Rate for Audio will be 9.6 Mbps rather than 6.1 Mbps for DVD-Video or 1.4 Mbps for audio CD. Denon released the first HDCD (High Definition Compact Disc) player in 1998. President Clinton does his shopping online. 12/20/99 1999 - On July 23, 1999, Panasonic released DVHS (Digital-VHS), the first VCR capable of recording all 18 Digital TV formats, including HDTV. Sony debuted SACD on September 30, 1999, in San Diego (Super Audio CD). 1999 - The CA*net3 fibre optic network in Canada became the world's fastest computer network, capable of sending all nine Beethoven symphonies in.065 seconds; see speed comparison table. From 2000 to 2010, The Millennium witnessed the first tangible benefits of businesses that had embraced new digital technology in the 1990s. Companies who had neglected to install digital information storage systems were now in the minority. By 2007, 94 percent of the world's information storage capacity would be digital, a full 180-degree turn from 1986, when 99.2 percent of all storage capacity was analogue. The new digital environment introduced fresh ideas about how customers spend their time. The first blogs appeared, as did MP3

devices such as the iPod, which challenged the CD, and digital audio channels for downloading sports, music, news, and entertainment. Simultaneously, after defeating Betamax, VHS's supremacy in the video format sector was ultimately challenged by the DVD, which was afterwards challenged by Blue-Ray. The launch of YouTube in 2005 changed the way individuals shared videos, absorbed culture, and were inspired by others. The debut of Wikipedia in 2001 shown how far disruption may go and compel firms to adjust their business strategies and adapt to new market requirements. After struggling with CD-ROM after the release of Encarta, Encyclopedia Britannica finally withdrew its printed edition and concentrated on courses, and its subscription website in the face of increasing online competition. Expedia's 2001 debut changed the way people travelled, while Skype's 2003 introduction created a new standard for voice conversations that shocked the telecoms sector. According to Chana Schoenberger and Bruce Upbin's 2002 Forbes says "The Internet of Things," humans "need an internet for things, a standardized method for computers to grasp the actual world." That same year, Jim Waldo wrote in the Journal of Information Systems Frontiers on the rise of machine-to-machine interactions on the Internet: "The Internet is becoming the communication fabric for devices to communicate to services, which in turn talk to other services." Glover Ferguson, Accenture's chief scientist, endorsed the notion in the Harvard Company Review says "Have Your Objects Call My Objects," noting, "It's no exaggeration to argue that a little tag may one day revolutionize your own business." And that day may not be far away." People's shopping patterns started to shift as well. For the first time, electronic payments overtook cash and checks in the United States in 2003. In addition, financial institutions were legally entitled to produce digital reproductions of original checks. During this time, social media entered the mix. The development of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flickr changed how consumers expressed their interests, views, and networking among connections, as well as created excellent chances for targeted advertising and data collecting. Online advertising might overtake newspaper advertising for the first time in as little as four years. In certain circumstances, individuals voted over the internet.

Estonia became the first nation to employ online voting in a parliamentary election in March 2007. The decade came to a conclusion with the arrival of new industry disruptors that would shape consumer expectations till now.

Chapter 2: What Is Digital Technology Electronic tools, systems, devices, and resources that produce, store, or process data are referred to as digital technologies. Social networking, online gaming, multimedia, and mobile phones are all well-known examples. Any sort of learning that employs technology is referred to as digital learning. Massive volumes of information may now be compressed on compact storage devices that can be readily stored and moved thanks to digital technology. Data transmission rates are also increased as a result of digitization. People's communication, learning, and working practises have been revolutionised by digital technology. Which of the following is an example of digital technology? It may occur in any curricular study area. The term "digital" is derived from the Latin word digitus, which means "finger," and alludes to one of the earliest methods for counting. When information is stored, transferred, or conveyed in digital format, it is turned into numbers, or "zeroes and ones" at the most basic machine level. In the context of this chapter, the word refers to technology that is based on the usage of microprocessors; hence, computers and computer-dependent applications such as the Internet, as well as other devices such as video cameras and mobile devices such as phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). The use of this information for practical purposes, such as in digital communications and social media. The supply and use of electronic technologies necessary for the installation, integration, and usage of STEM and other technological systems. Working concepts, methods, and standards that apply to the technology sector are also part of digital technology. Websites, smartphones, blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 5G data, voice interfaces or chat-bots, robotics, drones and missiles, gadgets, e-Books, and video streaming are examples of electronic devices, automatic systems, and technological resources that generate, process, or store information.

Students are used to using digital technology; they blog, produce videos for public viewing on the web, generate and download music, and contact with friends and family through instant messaging. While today's children are technologically proficient, possibly more so than their professors and parents, they may not understand how to read and utilise digital tools and materials legally and ethically. Teachers must understand the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of digital technology in schools, and then apply that understanding to help students become technologically responsible, ensuring that they, the workers of tomorrow, have the critical thinking and communication skills to match their technical skill. Digital technology refers to any information that is utilised or communicated on a computer. Digital technology has the potential to improve the degree of creativity and information delivery... "computer programmes and software; web pages and websites, including social media; data and databases; digital audio such as mp3s; and books are examples of digital media," according to www.icliteracy.info. AU41: URL Validation failed because www.icliteracy.info does not exist (connection error "HOST NOT FOUND"). In this research, the phrase "Digital Technology" or "Technology" refers to any software, hardware, or network solutions that allow, expand, or support business operations. Similarly, it covered webbased or mobile-based, paid or free software solutions such as Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Point of Sales (POS), Inventory Management, Accounting, Business Social Media Platform facilities, HR and Payroll Management Software, ChatBot, Communication Apps, and so on. The term "digital technology" refers to any electronic instruments, automated systems, technical gadgets, and resources that produce, process, or store data. The distinction between analogue and digital technology is that in analogue technology, data is turned into various amplitude electric rhythms, while in digital technology, information is translated into the binary system, i.e. zero or one, with each bit representing two amplitudes. The relevance of digital technology in marketing is that it allows you to easily document and assess

campaign execution and results. This is due to the fact that when digital marketers invest their time and money in creating effective ads, they want to see the results of such initiatives. It makes it straightforward for them to record their initiatives, allowing them to acquire acclimated and decide better results. Digital technology is a process that starts at the bottom and works its way up. Digitized information is stored in binary code, which is made up of combinations of the numbers 0 and 1, also known as bits, and represents words and pictures. Massive volumes of information may now be compressed on compact storage devices that can be readily stored and moved thanks to digital technology. Data transmission rates are also increased as a result of digitization. People's communication, learning, and working practises have been revolutionised by digital technology. Digital technology encompasses all electronic instruments, automated systems, technical equipment, and resources that generate, process, or store information. The difference between analogue and digital technology is that data in analogue technology is changed into multiple amplitude electric rhythms, while data in digital technology is translated into the binary system, i.e. zero or one, with each bit representing two amplitudes. Digital Technology includes all forms of digital technology, including data, software, hardware, the School District's network and all components of the School District's network; and digital services of any nature and kind that are based on digital technology and are: • Owned, leased, or licenced to the School District; • accessed by or through Digital Technology that is owned, leased, or licenced to the School District, and that is supplied by the School District. Computers, data, servers, networks, the Internet, mobile phones, beepers, PDA's, modems, voicemail, e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging, user groups, and other related technologies are examples of "digital technology." The term "digital" refers to electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data in two states: positive and negative. The number 1 expresses or represents positive, whereas the number 0

expresses or represents negative. Data transferred or saved via digital technology is therefore represented as a string of 0's and 1's. Each of these state numbers is known as a bit (and a string of bits that a computer can address individually as a group is a byte).

Chapter 3: Examples Of Digital Technology Through online platforms and virtual technologies, digital technology helps to create and expand your company. Online technology may help you grow your firm. Digital technologies are increasingly changing the way we conduct business by providing the most important opportunities in product and industrial development. American manufacturing businesses that are tech-savvy, agile, adaptable, and competent are more likely to advance. Small and medium-sized businesses are ahead of the curve because they can adapt more quickly than large corporations. Supply chain organisations, robotics industry, responsive production techniques, greater customisation, and enhanced procurement and production sector are some of the primary fields where digital technologies are having an increasing influence on manufacturing enterprises. Investing time and money in digital technology can help firms compete in the global market. Digital technologies have a significant impact on today's society. Digitization is having an influence on every sector, including financial planning, job possibilities, and competitiveness. Digitization is not a recent occurrence. For numerous years, this concept has integrated larger technical advancements, notably in information technology. Some formerly connected services and goods, like as transport systems, cinema, music, transformations, and multimedia, are increasingly becoming digital. The influence of digital technology and connectivity, robots, stabilised production, and digital reality: the interconnection of these high-tech innovations creates a cyber-physical environment that necessitates a thorough reassessment of how resources and manufacturing techniques of labour are used. In the age of the digital revolution and virtual era, the influence of digital technologies will be in every sector capable of generating more rapidly, effectively, efficiently, safely, and precisely. The three primary effects of digital technology on the industrial sector are better performance or productivity and flexibility,

massive supply chain rearrangement, and mass customisation. 1. Internet site Websites present us with a wealth of information and have steadily evolved into the most effective means of engaging with your consumers. The internet as a whole is the definition of many other aspects of digital technology, and the website is one of the most popular components of the internet that people use often today. 2. Buying and Selling on the Internet Online shopping will continue to evolve and give consumers with a wide range of alternatives and value. Customers may purchase from a variety of stores from all over the globe, as well as any brand in their own area. Similarly, selling online may be done on a huge scale as a sustainable business or for a little amount of money by selling a single thing that you no longer need. 3. Cellphones The introduction of smart phones revolutionised communication networks, both via voice and text communication. Today, cellphones incorporate many types of digital technology such as calculators, cameras, maps, and so on. Customers' options are expanding thanks to smartphone apps. 4. Blockchain Technology Blockchain technology is a framework that holds the public's track records of transactions, also known as blocks, in multiple records known as "chains" in a system linked by peer-to-peer connections. This kind of storage is sometimes referred to as a "digital ledger." Every transaction in this ledger is authenticated by the holder's digital signature, which confirms and secures the transaction. As a result, the data in the digital ledger is incredibly secure.

5. cryptocurrencies Bitcoin is the most well-known kind of cryptocurrency based on the aforementioned blockchain technology. A cryptocurrency is a kind of money similar to the US dollar or the British pound, except it is entirely digital and based on a virtual trading mechanism. Cryptocurrencies utilise sophisticated encryption technologies to control the growth of financial units and the exchange of cash. Cryptocurrency is a kind of digital money transmission that does not rely on banks or other financial institutions to authenticate transactions. Rather of carrying and transferring physical money, cryptocurrency payments take the form of virtual payments to an online database that verifies the legitimacy of specific transactions. When you send cryptocurrency, the transactions are entered and stored in a general ledger using blockchain methodology.

6. Artificial Intelligence (AI) It is defined as the increasing capacity of machines to learn and perform intelligently and intelligently. In the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligence will fundamentally transform the globe. It is also the driving force behind a number of other digital technology initiatives that are predicted to emerge in the future years. 7. Computing on the Cloud Cloud computing is a system in which large amounts of data are captured, stored on other computers, and accessed over the internet. It has aided in disseminating data and analytics to the general public. Here, data is controlled on smart devices (such as cellphones or smart LCDs); this will be taken to the next level. 8. Data from 5G networks The future fifth generation of telecommunication network technology

will deliver a better, smarter, quicker, and more stable wireless networking system, driving advancements in a variety of other technologies such as more connected devices and richer streams of big data. 9. Chatbots or Voice Interfaces Most of us are now acquainted with how to communicate with computers by just speaking or typing the question. Many companies will choose to engage with their clients using chatbots on their websites or social media platforms, as well as voice interfaces, in the near future. 10. Streaming Video Video streaming may be utilised for a variety of purposes. Digital video streaming is a foundational technology for well-known applications such as social networking, online gaming, multimedia, and mobile phone apps. We may view movies or television series online. We may interact electronically with programmes such as Skype. With the use of live streaming, we can view or stream live shows. Other viewing options for information or pleasure may be found on websites such as YouTube. Video streaming may be accessible through a variety of digital devices such as computers, smart displays, and smartphones. 11. E-books Digital books enable readers to access a range of reading materials from a single, compact and useful tool, eliminating the need to carry about a variety of heavy and bulky paper books. It's easy to change the font size and style to suit the reader's preferences. Furthermore, unlike printed books, there is no need to chop down trees to produce books.

12. Electronic Music

Customers get digital audio in the form of compact discs, which give a higher quality of sound than conventional musical analogue. Today, the majority of music fans get their audio through the internet and buy or download music in compressed audio formats such as MP3. The way music is recorded, edited, and promoted has also evolved. 13. Geographical place The combination of digital technology and satellite refers to the ability to precisely measure the position of a device, such as a smartphone, GPS device, or internet-connected equipment. This data may then be used with other digital tools, such as mapping technologies, to provide users with relevant information based on their location. 14. Blogs Blogs, which are now often seen on websites, have been made possible by advances in digital technology. These are often updated on websites that primarily include individual opinions, generally written in a casual tone. They are also becoming more communicative, with video links and other material, and they are regularly praised by reader comments. 15. Use of Social Media Social media networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram are expected to skyrocket in popularity in the coming years. They bring together a variety of digital technology examples to allow users to connect through text, photos, video, and social groups. Social networking applications rely nearly entirely on user-generated content. 16. Devices Digital tech products, such as laptops, tablets, desktop computers, and other types of computers, depend on digital technology to function. Initially, computers were large and were primarily utilised by large corporations and technical plans to execute challenging designs

and store massive amounts of data. They are now lot more substantial, commanding, and capable of carrying out a wide range of responsibilities. 17. Three-dimensional printing Printers are another another commonplace digital invention. Though information is more likely to be stored rather than printed in recent years, living without these gadgets is hard to value. We should also not forget 3D printers, which are now displaying both the most recent prospects and problems. 18. Self-Scanner Equipment This equipment is growing more common as it becomes more fashionable, and scanning technology like as RFID is gradually replacing barcodes. Self-scanning of shopping products while purchasing at a store is a well-known example, as is travelling through a permission passport at many worldwide airports. 19. ATM Machines ATM machines were invented in London in 1967 and have since spread around the world, providing customers with a fast and easy means to access their bank accounts. Current ATMs may be used for cash withdrawals, deposits, checking bank accounts, and crediting mobile phones. 20. Digital Cameras These digital cameras are much more versatile than older models, especially when combined with other digital technologies. Digital images are easier to generate, save, edit, print, and send. Several digital cameras can also record video. 21. Automobiles and Other Vehicles

Recent automobiles include displays in the centre to monitor and operate the engine, regulate safety systems, and provide a pleasant, easy, and safe operation. Other vehicles, such as boats and aeroplanes, rely even more heavily on screens for their functioning. As technology advances, it will only be a matter of time until self-driving cars become the norm. 22. Clocks with digital displays Digital clocks offer various advantages over traditional analogue clocks since they don't make a ticking noise, are easy to view even at night, and the alarms go off at the precise time that we set. They may also be combined with radios, allowing us to wake up to our favourite programme. 23. Robotics Digital robotic technology is becoming more refined and widely employed. Robotic equipment is still often used in the manufacturing business. They are also utilised for jobs that are more dangerous to people, such as detecting and disarming explosives. Scientists are also working on small nano-robots that may be put inside human bodies to do medical inspections and measurements. 24. Drones and Missiles Digital technology has a wide range of military applications. Drones that combat with flying vehicles and channelled missiles use digital technologies to function well. Drones are often piloted in real time by a remote human operator. Missiles employ digital technology to monitor, steer, and control their flight structures. 25. Banking and Finances Many consumers now do the majority of their banking activity on their computers or smartphones. There are applications for monitoring your credit points and paying your credit card payment, among other

things. Apps such as PayPal allow you to transfer money, accept payments, and pay bills. If you need an app for transferring, investing, saving, or paying taxes, digital technology can accommodate this as well. 26. Military Equipments The military equipments are also fully integrated with digital technology. 27. eSIM The mobile phones are fully developed by the digital technical eSIM with provision of vast modes of functionalities. 28. Digital Currency Bitcoin is the most well-known Cryptocurrency that is built on the previously described blockchain technology. A cryptocurrency is digital money that functions similarly to the US dollar or the Indian rupee, but it is based on a virtual trading system. Cryptocurrency employs novel encryption technologies to regulate the establishment of financial units and monitor the flow of money. Cryptocurrency is a digital money transfer technique that does not rely on banks or other financial organisations to validate transactions. Rather than actual money that is carried forward and transmitted in the real world, cryptocurrency payments are just virtual payments to an online database that examines the authenticity of specific transactions. When you move crypto money, the transactions are logged and maintained in a general ledger using blockchain technology. The Cryptocurrency that is built on the blockchain technology takes the stride a lot. A cryptocurrency is virtual money that functions similarly to the other currency, but it is based on a artificial money laundering system. Based on technologies and monitor the flow of money. The technique that does not rely on any financial institutions to validate transactions. Rather than actual money that is carried forward and transmitted in the real world. The demand for cryptocurrency

makes it payments are just artificial transactions to worldwide and authentic of transactions. When you make payment via crypto money, the transactions are logged and maintained via several technology.

Figure 3.1 Digital Transformation Framework 29. IoT In the new hyper-connected world of hyperconverged edge and public cloud settings, the Internet of Things is developing into a more broadly defined Internet of Everything (IoE). All of these technological advancements are allowing the second wave of digital revolutions in both the B2B and B2C sectors, causing organizations to expand up their IoT installations. Many small and large businesses are transitioning from experimental IoT initiatives and proof of concept to larger prospects powered by data, machine learning, and predictive analytics. You may follow in their footsteps and bridge the OT/IT barrier between your company's operational and IT sides. Finally, this will help you accelerate innovation and become closer to your consumers. 30. Digital Twin A virtual representation that acts as the real-time digital equivalent of a

physical item or process is known as a digital twin. Though the notion was initially proposed by Michael Grieves of the University of Michigan in 2002, the first practical definition of digital twin was developed by NASA in 2010 in an effort to enhance physical model simulation of spacecraft. The generation of digital twins is the consequence of continuous progress in product design and engineering efforts. Product drawings and engineering requirements evolved from handdrawn to computer-aided drafting/design to model-based systems engineering. A physical object's digital twin is reliant on the digital thread—the lowest level design and specification for a digital twin— and the "twin" is dependent on the digital thread to maintain accuracy. Engineering change orders are used to apply changes to product design (ECO). An ECO performed on a component item will result in a new version of the item's digital thread, as well as the digital twin. The use of 3D modelling to generate digital companions for actual items is one example of digital twins. It may be used to see the state of the real physical item, allowing physical things to be projected into the digital world. When sensors capture data from a connected device, for example, the sensor data may be used to update a "digital twin" replica of the device's state in real time. The notion of a digital twin is frequently referred to as a "device shadow." The digital twin is intended to be a current and exact replica of the actual object's attributes and states, such as form, location, gesture, status, and mobility. A digital twin may also be utilized to enhance asset performance and utilization via monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics. Sensory data may be integrated with historical data, human experience, and fleet and simulation learning to enhance prognostics. As a result, complicated prognostics and intelligent maintenance system platforms may leverage digital twins to pinpoint the source of problems and boost productivity. Digital twins of autonomous vehicles and their sensor suite embedded in a traffic and environment simulation have also been proposed as a means of overcoming the significant development, testing, and validation challenges for the automotive application, particularly when

the related algorithms are based on artificial intelligence approaches that necessitate extensive training and validation data sets. The digital twin is causing havoc across the product lifecycle management (PLM) process, from design to production through service and operations. PLM is now quite time-consuming in terms of efficiency, production, intelligence, service phases, and product sustainability. A digital twin may connect the physical and virtual worlds of a product. The digital twin allows businesses to create a digital footprint for all of their goods, from design through production and throughout the product life cycle. Digital twins have a significant impact on businesses with industrial operations. The digital twin serves as a virtual reproduction of near-real-time happenings in the manufacturing process. Thousands of sensors are installed throughout the physical production process, capturing data from several dimensions such as ambient conditions, machine behavior, and work that is being done. The digital twin communicates and collects all of this data in real time. Digital twins have grown more economical as a result of the Internet of Things, and they may influence the future of the industrial sector. Engineers profit from real-world use of items that are virtually developed by the digital twin. Because there is a digital twin of the physical 'thing' with real-time capabilities, advanced methods of product and asset maintenance and management are now possible. By anticipating the future rather than evaluating the history of the production process, digital twins provide significant commercial possibilities. The digital twins' portrayal of reality enables firms to move toward exante commercial practices. The future of manufacturing is driven by four factors: modularity, autonomy, connection, and digital twin. Opportunities for increased productivity are emerging as the steps of a manufacturing process become more digitalized. This begins with modularity and progresses to increased production system effectiveness. Furthermore, autonomy allows the production system to adapt to unanticipated circumstances in a timely and intelligent manner. Finally, connection, such as the Internet of Things, allows the

digitalization loop to be closed, enabling the subsequent cycle of product creation and marketing to be optimized for greater performance. When goods can detect an issue before it breaks down, consumer pleasure and loyalty may rise. Furthermore, as storage and computation costs fall, so do the applications of digital twins. This is especially true when the algorithms are based on artificial intelligence technologies that need large training and validation data sets. 31. Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Both VR and AR are not wholly new; they have been around for a few years and have lately made their way into a variety of industries, including real estate. Virtual and augmented realities have given way to mixed reality, often known as MR, which is not in any way inferior to them. VR technology immerses the user completely in the virtual environment. It disconnects from the outside world and provides a total experience. The user may "teleport" to a wholly or partly different world by employing external equipment, often in the form of a headset. AR technology augments a live vision with multiple digital features. This is commonly accomplished with the use of a smartphone's camera. Did you realized that the Snapchat filters you use every day are part of AR technology? MR technology blends virtual reality with augmented reality to create an experience in which real-world and digital things interact. It is the most recent of the three and is still being developed. One example of MR technology is Microsoft's HoloLens. 32. Voice Assistant A voice assistant, also known as a virtual assistant, digital assistant, or AI assistant, is a software that recognizes natural language voice commands and performs the activities that the user requests. Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon's Alexa, Samsung's Bixby, and Microsoft's Cortana are some notable examples of such apps. Voice assistants are increasingly commonly found in smartphones, enabling users to simplify their lives by doing duties formerly handled by

secretaries. A voice assistant, for example, may set your alarm, remind you of a task, jot down the text you are speaking, and so on. The BBC has announced the development of Beeb, a voice assistant. According to the source, it will not be a physical device, but rather will function on all smart speakers, smartphones, and televisions. 33. Motion UI Motion design or motion user interface (also known as motion User Experience) is much more engaging than static design. In reality, motion design may aid in a variety of elements of communicating with people on your website, including: i)Welcoming Users: You may greet your website visitors with a kind greeting message. ii)Informing Visitors About Actions: You may educate your users about certain parts on your website and explain how they function. iii)Confirming Activities: You may ask your users to confirm certain actions such as deleting an email or uninstalling programmes. iv)Including Entertaining Features: You may include fun elements to make your website visitors' experience more engaging. v)Refreshing Material: You may easily update content in the same way that it is renewed on social networking networks. vi)Feedback Loop: You may provide feedback to your users when they are having difficulty (e.g. inform them that the password they entered is incorrect). 34. Progressive Web Apps Progressive web applications, or PWAs, are webpages that look and feel like apps. Users no longer need to download a mobile app to get all of the information and features; instead, they can just browse the website. PWAs make use of cutting-edge technologies that enable

you to design webpages that perform virtually identically to mobile applications. PWAs are supposed to enhance conversions and page views while retaining people on your website for longer periods of time. Simply said, PWAs are the ideal solution for individuals who do not have the resources to create a distinct app for their company. 35. Smart Dust Sensors Smart dust sensors are a collection of numerous small microelectromechanical systems, such as sensors, robots, or other devices, that can sense light, temperature, vibration, magnetism, or chemicals. Scientific viability in 2022, mainstream viability in 2024, and financial viability in 2027. 36. Memristors The memristor differs from the other three fundamental circuit components in that it stores memory without requiring electricity. It is a novel material that promises computers that are two orders of magnitude more efficient in terms of power than standard transistor technologies, has many petabits of permanent storage, and can be switched to be either memory or CPU in a device the size of a sugar cube. 37. BotSourcing The delegation of physical and online duties formerly done by human agents to a self-contained software agent. 38. Context aware computing Computers that can detect and respond to their surroundings. Devices will contain knowledge about the conditions under which they function

and will respond appropriately depending on rules and sensor inputs. Context-aware gadgets may learn assumptions about the user's present circumstance as well. Today, it is scientifically feasible; in 2017, it will be mainstream and commercially successful. 39. Telepresence A group of technologies that enable a person to feel as if they were there, to give the illusion of being present, or to have an influence at a location other than their genuine location, using telerobotics. Scientifically possible now, mainstream in 2024, and commercially viable in 2025. 40. Cybersecurity & Biometrics The Cybersecurity and Biometrics platforms are hugely developed with the digital technology.

Chapter 4: Digital Transformation Digital Transformation often referred as DX or DT . IT modernisation (for example, cloud computing) to digital optimization to the creation of new digital business models are all examples of digital transformation. In general, it refers to the use of digital technology to significantly enhance or create new business processes. So, what exactly is digital transformation for businesses? It is the process of understanding consumer needs and using technology to enhance the end-user experience. End users may be either customers or workers, and many businesses must consider both. In the marketing department, for example, digital transformation may generate more high-quality leads and help firms get closer to their customers while spending less money than traditional analogue marketing tactics. Aside from experimenting with new technology, digital transformation entails rethinking your current approach to common challenges. A transition does not always have a clear finish since it is an evolution. When it comes to the topic "what is digital transformation," the MIT Sloan Management Review, a journal that focuses on management transformations, noted, "Digital transformation is best viewed of as continuing adaptation to a constantly changing environment." This implies that businesses must always seek methods to enhance the end-user experience. This might be accomplished via increasing ondemand training, migrating data to cloud services, using artificial intelligence, and other methods. The "digital transformation" refer to a worldwide theory. Industries are often just define with multinomial definitions, and there are several ways of addressing the of digital transformations. The term "digital transformation" does not refer to a single concept. Companies are often just concerned with general transformations, forgetting the fact that there are four sorts of digital transformations, which are as follows: 1.Process Transformation: Process transformation focuses on certain components of the business. Changes to business models are targeted at the core building blocks of how value is delivered in a

certain sector. Essentially, firms are using digital transformation to alter old business structures. Netflix's redesign of video distribution and Apple's reinvention of music delivery: iTunes are both examples of business model revolution. Process Transformation is the collaborative effort of your company's employees, processes, and software. It refers to improving your company's business processes, services, and models by using technology that can use your team's abilities, achievements, and prospects. Process transformation introduces new approaches to limitless activities such as data and analytics, as well as APIs. Airbus' shop floor process transformation is an example of excellent process transformation. Airbus has used heads-up display glasses to increase the quality of human aircraft inspection. 2.Domain Transformation: When one organization successfully changes into another, this is referred to as a domain transformation. Amazon, for example, created its own streaming platform (Amazon Prime) as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS), the biggest cloud computing/infrastructure provider at the time. 3.Cultural: Different people utilize different systems; getting everyone on the same page and prepared to accept major changes might be difficult, but it will be worthwhile if your company delivers a better overall experience for your consumers. Experian, a consumer credit bureau, is one of the greatest instances of this cultural/organizational shift. It transformed its company successfully by introducing cooperation and agile development into its processes. Before we can develop a digital transformation framework, we must first define digital transformation. Digital transformation employs cutting-edge technology to improve and enhance existing processes while also introducing new and enhanced goods and services. Digital transformation adds value by changing how a company runs and provides value to its consumers. Digital transformation also implies a revolution in company culture, pushing companies to experiment often, question the status quo, and embrace occasional failure. This shift in perspective entails abandoning methods that have been in

place for aeons because "we've always done it that way." Regardless of size or sector, digital transformation is an essential process for every business or organization (e.g., utilities, manufacturing, retail, banking). So, given that description, what exactly is a digital transformation framework? Simply expressed, it is a set of principles, a long-term plan for guiding firms through the perilous terrain of digital transformation. It is a technique mostly used by organizational executives and consultants to examine a firm in order to assist it in repositioning itself in today's digital economy. These frameworks give a blueprint, a formal strategy that contains checklists, benchmarks, and established sequences to assist a firm in becoming more digitally friendly and continually growing and evolving. Digital transformation frameworks provide considerable advantages to firms operating in the twenty-first century (or attempting to do so!). The rate of digitization is outpacing the rate at which industries can change. Because of this discrepancy, leadership is failing to stay up. Consumers like new technology and seem to be acutely aware of new advances, which they want their favorite companies to embrace as quickly as feasible. Customers will locate another firm if a company does not adapt to the newest and best technological features! Many businesses lack a defined digital transformation plan. Businesses who have them have a substantial competitive edge (harkening back to the second point). Digital advancements aren't solely for the benefit of consumers. New digital solutions have the potential to help organizations become more cost-effective, efficient, and secure. Digital transformation frameworks encourage digital adoption, which assists firms in dealing with IT difficulties such as cloud computing, large data flows, and different endpoints (e.g., tablets, smartphones, laptops, older desktops). Frameworks for digital transformation are reusable. Rather of wasting time, effort, and money developing a transformation plan for each new kind of technology that emerges, executives may just refer to the existing framework. The framework is a "one-size-fits-all" tool that can accommodate any new innovations that emerge. A good digital transformation framework provides these benefits:

i)Provides efficiency and consistency by enhancing performance ii)Improves business process iii)Increases employees’ productivity iv)Facilitates constant communication across all the business departments v)Meets the customers’ expectations vi)Creates coherent business strategies There are many different types of frameworks to choose from, each offering a unique digital transformation approach. Here is a list of eleven features that an excellent framework should include: i)A set of goals for the transformation strategy. These goals are both long and short-term. There is a lot to do, so a step-by-step approach works best. Each completed step represents an achieved goal. ii)A digital transformation team. Digital transformation is a huge undertaking, so it’s best to have a team dedicated to the work. This team is a cross-functional body that guides the company through the digitization process and adopts new operating models. The transformation team can be drawn from in-house personnel or outsourced. iii)Dissect current operating models. The best way to understand how digitization can help your company is by becoming familiar with the current methods of doing things. Break down the current workflow into steps, then see how software and digitization can improve each one. iv)Incorporate a customer enhancement strategy. Companies undergo a digital transformation for two reasons: to streamline operations into a more cost-effective unit and improve customer expansion and retention. Businesses should increase their mobile and web presence, building stronger customer connections and encouraging feedback. v)Explore growth opportunities. It’s time to brainstorm ideas for how to advance the business. With this step, anything goes. Are there new market opportunities or ways of reaching customers? Can any internal processes be reimagined? vi)Create a step-by-step guide for changing the business environment. Massive undertakings need structure. Develop a highly detailed plan

to show how customer interactions and company workflows can be accomplished using appropriate software or other technical solutions. vii)Create a process improvement analysis. This step involves researching the current tech market and software offerings and seeing how they can enhance specific in-house tasks. Does your company’s workflow need tinkering, possibly removing unnecessary steps and automating tasks? viii)Define the business’s required technology. Browse through the many forms of current technology and see which ones are the best fit. These include: Big Data Cloud services Mobile technology The Internet of Things Machine Learning/Artificial intelligence Robotics Additive manufacturing Web technology ix)Create a timesheet and roadmap with key performance indicators (KPI). This step requires a clear timeline filled with specifics. Use KPIs to keep track of performance. This roadmap also covers what software the company will need and what departments get it, how the applications are interconnected, how the new data structure will look, etc. x)Transformation plan execution. Time to get to work. You have your roadmap and your marching orders. However, be prepared for possible changes and course corrections. xi)Perpetual analysis going forward. Use data-driven insights to see how the transformation is progressing. This analysis is essential to keep the company growing. If you want a “long story short” option, your framework should contain three elements: i)Define/explain the nature of the challenge

ii)Create a guiding policy to address the challenge iii)Put actions into effect to carry out the policy Digital transformation is essential for all organisations, from small to large. That message rings loud and clear from nearly every lecture, panel discussion, or study on how firms may stay competitive and relevant as the world gets more digital. What many corporate executives don't understand is what digital transformation entails. Is it just a trendy way of saying "going to the cloud"? What precise measures do we need to take? Do we need to design new jobs to help us create a framework for digital transformation, or hire a consulting service? What parts of our business strategy need to change? Because each company's digital transformation will be unique, it might be difficult to find a description that applies to all. However, in broad terms, we describe digital transformation as the incorporation of digital technology into all aspects of a company, resulting in profound changes in how firms function and give value to consumers. Beyond that, it's a culture shift that necessitates firms constantly challenging the existing quo, experimenting often, and being comfortable with failure. This frequently entails abandoning long-standing business procedures on which organisations were founded in favour of relatively fresh ones that are still being defined. Digital transformation should begin with a problem description, a clear opportunity, or an aspirational aim. "The "why" of your organization's digital transformation may be enhancing customer experience, decreasing friction, boosting efficiency, or increasing profitability, for example," Ferro says. "Alternatively, if it's an aspirational statement, it may focus around being the greatest to conduct business with, using enabling digital technologies that were unavailable years before." Leaders, consider what digital transformation will entail in practise for your organisation and how you will communicate it. "Digital is a heavy term that signifies different things to different individuals," . Digital transformation at Monsanto in terms of client centricity. "We speak about operational automation, personnel, and new business models,". "Wrapped inside those subjects are data analytics, technology, and software - all of which are facilitators rather than drivers." "Leadership and culture are at the heart of it all,". "You may

have all of those things - the customer perspective, the goods and services, the data, and incredibly great technology – but if leadership and culture aren't at the centre of it, it fails." Understanding what digital means to your business - whether it's a financial, agricultural, pharmaceutical, or retail organisation – is critical." The term "digital" has an issue since it implies different things to different individuals. "When I say 'digital,' one person thinks of becoming paperless; another thinks of data analytics and artificial intelligence; another thinks of Agile teams; and still another thinks of open-plan workplaces," she observes. The term "digital" is a jumbled mess. This produces a lot of problems in companies." "Imagine repeatedly ordering a hamburger and receiving anything from a hot dog to a chicken sandwich to a Caesar salad..." she continues. A company may embark on digital transformation for a variety of reasons. The most probable explanation, however, is that they must: It's a matter of survival. Following the pandemic, an organization's capacity to swiftly adjust to supply chain interruptions, time-to-market demands, and fast changing consumer expectations has become important. This fact is reflected in expenditure priorities. Spending on digital transformation (DX) of corporate methods, products, and organizations continues "at a strong pace despite the obstacles provided by the COVID-19 epidemic," according to the May 2020 International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Digital Transformation Spending Guide. According to IDC, worldwide expenditure on DX technology and services would increase 10.4 percent to $1.3 trillion in 2020. This compared to 17.9 percent increase in 2019, "but remains one of the few bright spots in a year marked by severe decreases in total technology investment,". IT professionals agreed at a recent MIT Sloan CIO Symposium series event that consumer behavior has rapidly evolved in many areas since the epidemic began. Optimal automated systems in areas such as supply chain management failed when confronted with fast swings in both demand and supply – a fact that almost everyone has seen on a personal level during the epidemic. It’s too early to tell which long-term improvements in consumer behavior will remain. "Digital has been

increasing in just about all categories" on the consumer side. An crucial issue to observe is how much forced change — three out of every four Americans attempted a new purchasing practice, for example — will be reversed when practicable, given today's focus on staying put. The fast trend toward streaming and online fitness is here to stay. The largest changes, however, were in the food industry. Both home cooking and online grocery shopping — a sector that has typically been resistant to being shifted online — are likely to remain more popular with consumers than in the past. Cashless transactions are also on the rise. Remote selling works in B2B. This implies that quick experimentation is no longer an option for CIOs. This year as "a forced test of many things we had thought about but not attempted." For instance, he remarked, "Many supply networks are poorly understood and are based on paper. We've begun to investigate technologies such as blockchain and IoT." According to Research: "Top IT administrators in today's fast changing enterprises must either keep up with the rate of change or fall behind. That is the existential question at hand in today's digitally-infused world, where daring action must be actively supported by out-of-thebox experimentation and pathfinding. This must be accomplished while dealing with the inescapable daily drumbeat of operational concerns, service delivery, and the distracting vagaries of the unforeseen, such as a big hack or data breach." Improving customer experience has emerged as a critical aim – and hence an essential component of digital transformation. Although digital transformation will vary widely based on organization's specific challenges and demands, there are a few constants and common themes among existing case studies and published frameworks that all business and technology leaders should consider as they embark on digital transformation. For instance, these digital transformation elements are often cited: i)Customer experience ii)Operational agility iii)Culture and leadership

iv)Workforce enablement v)Digital technology integration While each guide has its own recommendations and varying steps or considerations, CIOs should look for those important shared themes when developing their own digital transformation strategy. Digital transformation — the use of technology to dramatically increase corporate performance or reach — is a popular issue for businesses all around the world. Executives in all sectors are transforming customer connections, internal processes, and value propositions by using digital innovations such as analytics, mobility, social media, and smart embedded devices, as well as enhancing their use of older technology such as ERP. Other leaders recognise the need of paying attention to developments in their businesses today, after seeing how quickly digital technology affected media industries over the last decade. Where might you seek for prospects for digital transformation? To find out, we interviewed 157 executives from 50 different companies. These are huge corporations with yearly revenues of $1 billion or more that span 15 nations. To give a balanced viewpoint, half of the interviews were business executives such as CEOs, line of business managers, marketing heads, or COOs, while the other half were IT and technology leaders. The firms we interviewed are advancing with digital transformation at varied rates and with varying degrees of success. Some firms are reforming many aspects of their operations, while others are still accomplishing simply the fundamentals. Others are confronted with organisational concerns or other hurdles that hinder them from effectively transitioning. But one thing was crystal apparent to us. The finest businesses, or Digirati, combine digital activity with excellent leadership to translate technology into change. This is referred to as Digital Maturity. Companies' digital maturity varies, and those that are more mature outperform those that are not. Leading digital transformation necessitates managers having a clear vision of how to adapt their organisation for the digital era. So, where should you look? What digital activities provide strong potential for your company? The analysis of the interviews reveals distinct trends. Executives are digitising three critical parts of their businesses: customer experience,

operational procedures, and business models. And each of these three pillars has three distinct parts that shift. These nine factors serve as a foundation for digital transformation. At the moment, no firm in our sample has completely altered all nine aspects. Rather, CEOs choose from among these building elements to drive their firms ahead in the way that they feel is best for them. In this piece, we will discuss some of the ways in which the organisations we analysed are transforming these nine areas. The three major building blocks with which companies are digitally transforming customer experience are customer understanding, topline growth and customer touch points: 1.Customer Understanding: Companies are beginning to use earlier investments in systems to acquire a comprehensive grasp of certain regions and industry categories. Some are investigating social media to learn what keeps consumers happy – and what causes them to be dissatisfied. Furthermore, businesses are learning how to advertise their brands more effectively using digital media. Companies are also establishing new online communities to advise and promote customer loyalty in the medical, real estate, and financial services industries. Others are developing items that boost brand awareness in lifestyle groups. Many businesses are developing analytics capabilities in order to better understand their consumers. Some insurance firms, for example, are using analytics-based underwriting and pricing to improve their portfolios and cost structures. Other businesses are doing analytics-based trials to influence consumer behavior. In one case, a restaurant chain is actively testing pricing and promotion across a network of franchised locations. The experiment modifies product pricing dynamically based on demand, weather, inventory levels, and approach to closing time. 2.Top Line Growth: Businesses are using technology to improve inperson sales discussions. Financial services firms, for example, are adopting tablet-based presentations instead of paper-based slide decks to make sales pitches. Insurance companies are offering mobile technologies to assist salespeople and clients with analytics-based planning. In-person contacts are being replaced by digital interactions in a medical device sales team. When a salesman visits a doctor's

office, he or she leaves an iPad with video and other information about new items. The goal is to attract the doctor's attention — without bothering the doctor or interfering with hectic office schedules — so that the salesman may have a 10-minute chat when she returns to get the iPad. Better comprehension enables firms to alter the sales experience. Companies are integrating client purchase data in order to give more personalized sales and customer support, as well as to provide customized product bundles. A hospitality firm that employs location-based marketing sends customized mobile discounts to consumers as they approach a facility; the company can then measure adoption in real time. A mortgage firm is using a CRM approach to connect clients with local real estate referrals. This method makes fresh offerings available in real time over the Internet. Other companies are employing concept shops as showcases for their digital selling technologies. For example, a mortgage business may offer investors an integrated process that combines real estate and bank services with third-party services — and then presents the whole process in a concept megastore. Some businesses aim to make their customers' lives simpler by streamlining their procedures using a digital plug-in. One retailer's e-commerce site immediately imports a customer's most recent online shopping list. This shortens the shopping experience and gives buyers more time to look at other things. Customers may then choose between home delivery and a drive-through service with a set pick-up time. 3.Customer Touch Points: Digital efforts may dramatically improve customer service. For example, a bank may set up a Twitter account to promptly respond to customer concerns, allowing clients to avoid physically visiting a branch. This digital effort also made use of an expert network, allowing for crowdsourcing with a number of workers and consumers. Companies with several client touch points are under pressure to create an integrated experience. Multichannel services need planning and executing changes to both the customer experience and internal operational operations. Many businesses now provide home shopping with the option of receiving things by mail or in-store pickup. Customers were unhappy, according to one retail executive, because customer care staff at a store couldn't check online purchase history. Several firms in our survey provide self-

service using digital technologies. These tools save the client time while also saving the organization money. Many businesses are now providing consumer applications to improve client contact points. In one hotel, smartphone apps are connected to the customer's profile, allowing for integration of SMS, apps, and social media activities. A media firm provides geo-localization and augmented reality applications to clients to assist them locate interesting locations to visit and to give special deals via vouchers and e-couponing. The three building blocks of this transformation are digital modifications to the business, the creation of new digital businesses, and digital globalization: 1.Digitally Modified Businesses : "We've learned that if we don't alter the way we conduct business, we're going to perish," one media executive remarked. It is not a matter of altering the way we do technology, but of changing the way we conduct business." The corporation is experimenting with methods to supplement physical services with digital ones, as well as using digital to distribute material across organisational silos. A supermarket store is maintaining committed to its old business while transforming a new growth industry with technology. According to one CEO, "after two years, our e-commerce platform is bringing us 20% of our new customers, while our conventional clientele are purchasing 13% more on average." Other companies are creating digital or service wrappers for conventional items. A national post office is developing a free digital mailbox linked to each physical postal address that businesses may use in place of a person's actual mailbox. A commercial credit organisation is launching a digital business for certain credit products that need less engagement than its conventional high-touch offers. 2.New Digital Business : Companies are also launching digital items to supplement conventional products. A sports gear maker, for example, began offering GPS and other digital gadgets that can monitor and report on a customer's exercise. Other businesses are redefining their business strategies by reconfiguring their borders using digital. A mortgage firm is evolving from a value chain link to a worldwide assembler of financial products. By delivering an integrated multichannel experience that includes information about flight traffic

and bookings, duty-free retail incentives, and other perks, an airport authority hopes to become the owner of a traveller’s end-to-end process. 3.Digital Globalization : Businesses are rapidly shifting from multinational to genuinely global operations. Businesses may obtain global synergies while being locally responsive thanks to digital technologies and integrated information. These businesses profit from worldwide shared services in finance, human resources, and even basic skills such as manufacturing and design. Global shared services increase efficiency while decreasing risk. They even advocate for global adaptability. In response to delays or excess demand, a single manufacturer may transfer production throughout the world with just a few days' notice. 9 ROI(Return Of Investment) considerations for Digital technology: i)To that aim, consider the following when developing a business case that will compete with, example, investment in a new company or product offering: ii)Old systems are a drain on the budget — If you're spending 70 to 80 percent of your IT budget on legacy systems, there won't be much left over to capture new possibilities and propel the organisation ahead. And as technology ages and becomes more vulnerable, this cost will rise. iii)Everything new is developed in the cloud – All new technologies are produced using cloud designs and techniques, while alternatives for monolithic traditional businesses continue to dwindle. What is the long-term benefit of using the most cutting-edge new technology for your company and customers? iv)Missing out on the full potential of technology —Technical relevance is a significant driver driving legacy improvements. "Legacy systems lack flexibility and contain considerable technological debt owing to outmoded languages, databases, and architectures," according to Deloitte. "Many firms are unable to advance and enable analytics, real-time transactions, and a digital experience because of this liability." v)Issues with talent represent a danger — It is becoming more difficult

to locate qualified individuals to run and maintain outdated technology. After all, no one is interested in mainframes, COBOL, or Fortran. What happens when your team aged and retires? And, with a tech environment that can't keep up with competition, how can you recruit today's top young talent — the individuals your firm needs to survive in the digital-first era? vi)Customers want a great digital experience — and they get it from digital-native companies that can improve on the fly as they monitor customer interactions and respond to feedback. This form of iterative client involvement is seldom possible in legacy setups. Your new ROI model should include the effect of a legacy system update on customer experience. vii)The requirement for speed to market —The top reason organisations launched IT changes was to better support product strategy and goals – in other words, to go-to-market quicker. Quarterly releases and 18- to 24-month projects are a thing of the past. The ability to move quickly is a significant competitive differentiation. While the security of cloud solutions remains a concern, it is obvious that older technologies are becoming more difficult to regulate, monitor, and safeguard as security paradigms and solutions improve. How dangerous is your out-of-date technology? viii)Data management and data privacy - A rising number of datarelated legislation and policies are being implemented. It's tough to comply with these standards and controls after the fact, particularly when information is stashed in many legacy systems and data has been mirrored in a plethora of warehouses and data storage. In this sort of setting, your ability to comply with present and future rules is significantly limited. When do you lose the confidence of your customers, regulators, and control functions? ix)New markets and ecosystems — As digital platforms and techenabled ecosystems become more prevalent, organisations are increasingly seizing possibilities to enter new markets, engage and delight consumers, and rethink business models. When your IP is imprisoned in customised legacy systems, this is difficult – if not impossible – to do. In course, technology is a crucial component of digital transformation.

However, it is frequently more about getting rid of outmoded procedures and legacy technology than it is about embracing new technology. It is also about facilitating innovation. More government agencies are on the cusp of realising the cloud model's full potential from cost-cutting to employing cloud for strategic advantage. My research find a list of nine technological trends altering government, and one in particular, the cloud as an innovation engine, will be critical to enabling the future of technology in government," Egts adds. The abundance of legacy technology in corporate IT continues to impede CIOs' ability to start on a successful digital transformation plan. Legacy technology, may become an expensive obstacle to change. "If you're spending 70 to 80 percent of your IT budget on legacy systems, there won't be much left over to capture new possibilities and propel the organisation ahead. And as technology ages and becomes more vulnerable, this spending will rise. Furthermore, she points out that new technologies are produced utilising cloud designs and approaches: "What is the long-term benefit of using the finest new technology for your organisation and customers?" According to a recent poll, technical relevance is a significant driver driving legacy improvements, she notes. "Legacy systems lack flexibility and contain considerable technological debt owing to outmoded languages, databases, and architectures," according to Deloitte. "Many firms are unable to advance and enable analytics, real-time transactions, and a digital experience because of below liability." Here are eight major digital transformation themes to be aware of in 2020 for business and IT leaders: i)Adoption of digital operational models, particularly integrated crossfunctional teams, is accelerating. ii)A reshuffling as those who have invested in big data governance and analytics outperform their rivals. iii)AI and machine learning should be used more effectively. iv)Merger and acquisition activity in the IT outsourcing business is expected to continue. v)New digital alliances are being formed by consultancies.

vi)Adoption of public clouds is growing. vii)New success measures for digital transformation. viii)Greater emphasis on the long-term benefits of digital initiatives. Although digital transformation will differ greatly depending on the specific challenges and demands of each organization, there are a few constants and common themes among existing case studies and published frameworks that all business and technology leaders should consider as they embark on digital transformation. For example, the following digital transformation factors are often mentioned: i)Customer satisfaction ii)Agility in operations iii)Leadership and culture iv)Enabling the Workforce v)Integration of digital technologies While each guide has its own set of suggestions as well as different processes or concerns, CIOs should search for those crucial unifying elements when establishing their own digital transformation plan. Furthermore, she points out that new technologies are produced utilizing cloud designs and approaches: "What is the long-term benefit of using the finest new technology for your organization and customers?" According to a recent Deloitte poll, technical relevance is a significant driver driving legacy improvements, she notes. "Legacy systems lack flexibility and contain considerable technological debt owing to outmoded languages, databases, and architectures," according to Deloitte. "Many firms are unable to advance and enable analytics, real-time transactions, and a digital experience because of this liability." Leaders must measure the return on investment to demonstrate the effectiveness of digital transformation projects. That's easier said than done when it comes to initiatives that span functional and business lines, alter how a firm goes to market, and often fundamentally alter relationships with consumers and workers. A project like redesigning a mobile application may have a quick payback, while other initiatives are looking for long-term commercial benefit. Furthermore, as we have

said, "digital transformation activities are constant and dynamic, which might make conventional company value estimates and financial governance techniques less effective." Nonetheless, measuring performance is critical for future investment. "Implementing the technology isn't enough; the technology must be precisely related to monitoring key performance metrics on consumer insights and business process effectiveness," says Brian Caplan, director at management consultant Pace Harmon. "It's better to adopt a portfolio perspective rather than a project level approach when judging how effectively digital transformation investments are functioning," says Cecilia Edwards, partner at digital transformation consulting and research company Everest Group. To evaluate how well things are going, digital transformation executives must take a holistic picture of digital change activities, much as a mutual fund manager or venture capital company would look at overall performance. This is especially critical so that the underperformance of one project does not reflect badly on IT's overall efforts. It also fosters tolerance for the risks that must be taken in order to accomplish true digital transformation. 9 post-pandemic digital transformation rules : Consider the nine post-pandemic guidelines for digital transformation, as well as the IT and business executives and teams who are carrying them out. 1. The truth is that a digital front end is no longer sufficient: Many organizations had a digital plan in place before to the epidemic, indicating an aim to become digital. When enterprises' in-person customer alternatives were abruptly removed from the menu, it became evident how few had made the effort to allow a totally digital architecture and operational model. "The epidemic revealed companies that could not provide a fully connected customer experience." This was especially noticeable in the retail, financial services, and telecommunications sectors, where in-person interactions were significantly more widespread than digital,". "A digital front-end can no longer hide a lack of back-end investments in fundamental systems." "The most significant consequence of Covid-19 was the speed and surety with which businesses must develop a real

digital presence with their customers." 2. The truth is that slow and steady no longer wins the race: Multi-year, cost-neutral initiatives, which are often found within the IT budget, have given way to shorter-term (one year or fewer) projects. Multi-year, cost-neutral initiatives, which are often found inside the IT budget, have given way to shorter-term (one year or fewer) projects that generate tangible results. Projects that "provide a return on investment of 5 to 10 times and integrate profit-and-loss-level measures that effect top and bottom lines – with a significant emphasis on client experience," according to Sparks-Austin, are given the thumbs up. Yes, self-driving cars and drone delivery services will continue to be multi-year projects. However, "other digital transformation initiatives proceed significantly quicker,". "With easier access to the cloud, as-a-service capabilities, and mobile-first, enterprises of all sizes have been able to swiftly put together capabilities that change their highly manual processes into more efficient digital experiences." 3. The truth is that change management is not an excuse: Change management, legacy technology issues, and transformational risk all become givens during the epidemic, rather than justifications for requiring more time to overcome challenges. "The pandemic was a natural force, and enterprises had to adapt and evolve,". Organizations are beginning to recognize the importance of agility and nimbleness in reacting to demanding business conditions. 4. The truth is that work no longer entails sharing an office: "Many of us were commuting just because that's what you did." "I am a fervent believer that the epidemic irreversibly changed that belief." How much time and money did employees spend travelling to common physical areas prior to the epidemic, and what was the underlying premise that drove their behavior? This is an essential subject to ponder. "The globe had a broadly held idea of work,", "where most people congregated in the same location to get the job done." "Certainly, this is still true and must be for big segments of the economy, but many of us were commuting simply because that's what you did." "I am a fervent believer that the epidemic irreversibly changed that belief.". The widespread use of digital collaboration tools

in 2020 is just the beginning of what is conceivable. Many firms will discover that some degree of remote working is preferable for productivity, sustainability, and employee well-being in the long run. 5. The truth is that automation is not optional: Businesses have been pushed to hasten their digital transformation activities as a result of the epidemic. However, global technology skills shortages will make meeting the need for digital transformation professionals much more difficult. "The new path ahead involves a balanced mix of technology enabling AI-powered automation capabilities and cognitive processing, as well as high-value skills with unique industry and domain experience to assist drive transformation initiatives,". 6. The truth is that business leaders do not always lead change: "Another terrible reality was enterprises recognizing that, although business-IT alignment is vital, in times of dire necessity, the IT team had to step up substantially more than the business," s. "This demonstrated to enterprises the value of the IT group in digital transformation." 7. The truth is that you need Renaissance individuals, not simply specialty experts: The value of a talented digital worker has increased. "Successful digital transformations depend on multi-skilled, flexible individuals who will continually reskill and adapt to the ever-accelerating technological environments,". It is believed that IT executives who wish to attract and educate these renaissance professionals must deliver a meaningful employee experience. "This includes an emphasis on work methods, corporate social responsibility, and total environmental effect." The capacity of any firm to recruit and retain this talent will be the single most significant change of this century." 8. The truth is that digital transformation is important for both knowledge employees and frontline workers: i)More information about digital transition ii)What exactly is digital transformation? iii)What's holding back your digital transformation? 8 Questions to Ponder

iv)Cheat sheet for digital transition v)Dos and Don'ts of Digital Transformation in 2022 vi)Workbook: Transformation need repetition. When it comes to digital transformation, Covid-19 discovered two categories of personnel: knowledge workers and frontline workers. During lockdowns, most firms have digital solutions in place to enable their knowledge employees remain connected, engaged, and productive. Workers in the front lines, on the other hand, were a different story. "These really deskless professionals were often left behind,". "These employees did not have the option of working from home." And, historically, they have been treated as second-class citizens when it comes to digital transformation, missing the necessary collaboration, learning, and support tools. It served as a wake-up call for numerous businesses." 9. The truth is that large businesses can learn from smaller ones right now: Big companies have the most money, people, and resources to drive change, so they should be excellent at it, right? Not so fast, argues West Monroe's Johnson. "The epidemic opened up new opportunities for tiny, scrappy, agile, and imaginative businesses that could pivot on a dime and switch their business model overnight." Today's tiny and adaptable businesses are raising the bar for the speed and effect of change – and serving as inspiration for larger enterprises." Organizations of various shapes and sizes were forced to digitally adjust as a result of the epidemic. Lessons from 8 Digital Transformation Metrics: IT executives may use some hard-won experience to identify how to effectively measure the efficacy of their digital transformation programmed in the future. Some have already become common knowledge, such as the fact that simple uptime or availability statistics have given way to more complex measurements of value such as usability, processing speed, and correctness. Others are a little more subtle. In this section, we'll look at some of the most surprising insights gained concerning digital transformation metrics. 1. Paying off technical debt is insufficient:

Confusion between transformation and debt retirement is a typical blunder, "It's obvious that these two notions are connected since organizations that were not created in the digital era have years of technological debt that inhibits their capacity to stay up with digitally native industry peers," adds Upchurch. "All too frequently, these businesses utilize the phrase 'digital transformation' as a fundraising mechanism to replace historical technical debt." "All too frequently, businesses utilize the phrase 'digital transformation' as a fundraising mechanism to replace historical technical debt." It's a good start, but it's simply digital enablement. "You need corporate involvement and support to change,". "While technology may help, businesses must be willing to change core business procedures or reimagine commercial interactions in the markets they service." As a result, businesses that assess digital transformation by the number of systems decommissioned or transferred to the cloud may discover that their efforts fail to generate business results. "However, they did not 'fail.' "They digitally empowered and raised technological knowledge about the way they conduct business," adds Upchurch. "By including business leadership involvement and strategy, they may progress to digital optimization and ultimately earn the right to digitally change." 2. Cybersecurity must be built in: Many CEOs have long seen cybersecurity as an expense to be controlled, if not a drag on overall performance. Today, however, "the notion that cybersecurity must be included in every debate is more ubiquitous than ever,". "Regulations, which are now in use in many nations, are pushing responsibility to firms, making them accountable for harm to people, consumers, and others." As a result, IT executives must include cybersecurity spending into their digital planning and ROI calculations. "The digital transformation strategist establishes an early collaboration with the cybersecurity organization and integrates them at all levels of the company and technology," adds Bentham. "This integration enables cyber experts who design or interpret cyber policies to do so from a commercial perspective." As more enterprises transition to a cloud-first strategy, security metrics may need to alter as well. "Because the cloud is more dynamic, new metrics like mean time to adapt (MTTA) or mean time to secure (MTTS) will apply,". "Many firms today often take days or weeks to adjust security to new

apps or even cloud changes, providing an unacceptable degree of risk." 3. The company value chain is important: IT executives must also consider the whole scope of digital transformation activities. "Some corporations enter the value chain in the middle to stimulate change." However, doing so may increase pressure both upstream and downstream, causing unnecessary uncertainty and strain,". "When you drive change in one division, it may put pressure on other divisions that interact with or rely on that division." For example, changes in the legal function may have an impact on the product, sales, and finance organizations. As a result, understanding the end-to-end value chain is critical, as is being judicious when achieving great business results that may have a detrimental influence on other sections of the organization. "Be judicious when creating constructive disruption, and enable it to go downstream only in the value chain when feasible," Upchurch recommends. "If you don't, the disturbance becomes uncontrollable, like tossing a stone in a lake." 4. Accountability and transparency are essential: Perhaps you understand the proper measurements, but you're not using them efficiently. Most organizations are already aware of the appropriate digital transformation KPIs, such as operational, financial, risk, growth, customer engagement, employee experience, and speed to market. The issue is that they are not being used efficiently. "What is required is to measure these indicators, hold individuals responsible, and undertake digital transformation programmed that have an influence on these KPIs," Joshi adds. "The measures must be clear, meaningful, relevant, and quantifiable." 5. Assess digital skills : "As businesses adjust their business strategies in the aftermath of COVID-19, those who valued their workers and customers throughout the digital revolution will be the most successful,". Consider measurements such as assessing available staff abilities vs skills required to drive digital endeavors,. In a tight talent market, IT executives must also evaluate how they will acquire third-party talents, which are a crucial complement to internal capabilities. "The digital

transformation strategy who achieves success in this area balances where he/she obtains the necessary capabilities,". 6. Calculate the worth of the environment: In terms of collaboration, "digital transformation also creates unlimited potential to cooperate with new businesses and enter into new markets." "IT executives may consider keeping an eye on REP rates, which indicate the income they've produced with partners in their ecosystem, to monitor and react to progress while forming these new alliances." 7. Extend agile procedures (and metrics) outside information technology: i)More information about digital transition ii)What exactly is digital transformation? iii)What's holding back your digital transformation? 8 Questions to Ponder iv)Cheat sheet for digital transition v)Dos and Don'ts of Digital Transformation in 2022 vi)Workbook: Transformation need repetition. "The most important thing I've learned in the past year and a half is that contingency planning is essential,". "Most businesses had preparations in place to counter natural catastrophes before 2020, but nearly no one addressed the risk of a pandemic." This taught IT executives and their C-suite counterparts the importance of being prepared for the unexpected, no matter how improbable an incident seemed." Consider extending agile procedures, which were first implemented and measured inside the IT group, to the rest of the firm. 8. Improve the people metrics: While measuring the technical development of critical efforts such as new software or IT environments is vital, the effect on the people who use them is the most crucial metric of success. "Digital transformation is about people,". "It's about providing them the tools they need to execute their work better and more effectively." "Too frequently, the emphasis is on selecting the most recent and cutting-edge software or computational technology at the expense of the unique requirements

of the people who will utilize that technology." As a result, the lesson for us is that in order to accomplish a successful digital transformation, businesses must concentrate on their people as much as the technologies they utilize." Employee happiness, user experience, and system adoption must all be prioritized. 5 distinguishing features of digital transition : Consider the following characteristics: 1. A digital-first mindset: It is critical to assess each part of your organization in terms of its digital value. Did you use your own technology to improve the efficiency of your operations, save expenses, or improve the customer experience? Perhaps the same solution might be used to other sections of your company or market sectors. Collect representatives from several departments to uncover any hidden digital treasures you may have, and then confidently think how they may be monetized. Gartner invented the phrase Continuous Next a few years ago to refer to the next generation of digital transformation; today's enterprises must adopt a digital-first or Continuous Next attitude to be more adaptable to change and find new methods to win. 2. A design-thinking frame of mind : To find innovative methods to solve an issue, design thinking employs a people-centered approach. Gather all important stakeholders — end-users, customers, line-of-business executives, and management – to discuss desires, frustrations, objectives, and likes and create digital solutions before undertaking any digital transformation. Once this process is done and a solution has been produced, it may be tested in a design sprint. Because digital transformation is a significant step forward, it needs strategic planning and gradual stages before attempting full-fledged deployment. Because digital transformation is a significant step forward, it needs strategic planning and gradual stages before attempting full-fledged deployment. 3. Change management that is effective: Employees and consumers who are used to doing things in a specific manner may find it difficult to adapt. As a result, regardless of who implements the project, the effort must be owned and conveyed from

the C-suite, and it must address everyone's worries, concerns, and misgivings. Digital transformation may be disruptive; it alters old procedures, responsibilities, and expectations, and it can create havoc in the workplace before it is fully implemented. Employees may be concerned that a digital transformation would result in the loss of their employment, especially if AI or automation is used, thus it is critical to address these concerns and execute change gradually. 4. An company that is data-driven: One of the essential characteristics of a real digital transformer is that it is data-driven and uses analytics to find the insights concealed in that data. In reality, data is at the heart of the majority of digital transformation activities today. Knowing where your company's data lives, how that data may need to be enhanced, and how to use analytics and artificial intelligence to use that data are the first steps toward digital transformation success. 5. Champions of quality: i)More information about digital transition ii)What exactly is digital transformation? iii)What's holding back your digital transformation? 8 Questions to Ponder iv)Cheat sheet for digital transition v)Dos and Don'ts of Digital Transformation in 2022 vi)Workbook: Transformation need repetition. Improving quality – in customer and employee experiences, goods and services, and company image – is a crucial aim of every digital transformation. Ask yourself this critical question at the start of a digital transformation initiative: Can we sustain the highest standards of quality along the journey? This necessitates adopting an incremental approach to the project, testing and verifying results at each phase, perfecting the processes and procedures used to excel, and fine-tuning or pivoting when necessary. Since the days of analogto-digital technology, digital transformation initiatives have evolved dramatically. AI, automation, IoT, cloud migration, and other new technologies are transforming the way organizations function today, necessitating a full corporate attitude, culture, and business model

transformation. Regardless of how you define it, digital transformation is altering business for the better, despite the fact that it is typically riddled with unknowns, risk, and disruption. The profound transformation of business and organizational activities, processes, competencies, and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of a mix of digital technologies and their accelerating impact across society in a strategic and prioritized manner, with present and future shifts in mind, is referred to as digital transformation. Digital transformation is much more than simply disruption and technology. It's about value, people, optimization, and the capacity to quickly react when necessary via the clever use of technology and information. The development of new competencies revolves around the ability to be more agile, people-oriented, innovative, customer-centric, streamlined, efficient, and capable of inducing/leveraging opportunities to change the status quo and tap into big data and new, increasingly unstructured data sources – and service-driven revenues, with IoT as a critical enabler. In markets with a high degree of commoditization, digital transformation activities and strategies are often more urgent and present. Current and future shifts and changes that necessitate the faster deployment of a digital transformation strategy can be induced by a variety of factors, often concurrently, on the levels of customer behavior and expectations, new economic realities, societal shifts (e.g., ageing populations), ecosystem/industry disruption, and (the accelerating adoption and innovation of) emerging or existing digital technologies. In practice, end-to-end customer experience optimization, operational flexibility, and innovation, as well as the development of new revenue sources and information-powered value ecosystems, are key drivers and goals of digital transformation, leading to business model transformations and new forms of digital processes. However, before getting there, it is critical to address internal obstacles, such as legacy systems and process disconnects, since internal objectives are unavoidable for the following phases. Building the right bridges (between front end and back office, data from 'things' and decisions, people, teams, technologies, various players in ecosystems, etc.) in

function of that journey is critical to success. On all levels, the human element is critical: in the phases of transformation themselves (collaboration, ecosystems, skills, culture, empowerment, and so on), and, of course, in the aims of digital transformation. Because people do not desire 'digital' for everything and value personal and face-toface interactions, there will always be a 'offline' component, depending on the situation. However, digital transformation also plays a role in non-digital interactions and transactions by enabling any customerfacing agent or worker. A DX strategy attempts to develop the capability of fully harnessing the potential and prospects of new technologies and their influence in the future in a quicker, better, and more inventive manner. A tiered strategy with a defined roadmap is required for a digital transformation journey that involves a diverse set of stakeholders and transcends silos and internal/external constraints. This plan recognizes that end objectives will shift as digital transformation, change, and digital innovation are all continuous processes. Digital Transformation often referred as DX or DT. The word "digital transformation" is arguably not the greatest way to convey the reality it addresses. Some prefer the phrase "digital business transformation," which is more business-oriented. However, as an umbrella term, digital transformation is also used to refer to changes in meaning that are not strictly related to business, such as evolutions and changes in government and society, regulations, and economic conditions, in addition to the challenges posed by so-called disruptive newcomers. When looking at transformations holistically, it is apparent that changes/shifts in society have an influence on enterprises and may be very disruptive as such. No corporation, industry, economic actor/stakeholder, or societal segment exists in isolation.

Figure 4.1 Digital Transformation – Developing Core Capabilities across business areas The term "digital transformation" refers to a wide range of activities, interactions, transactions, technical evolutions, changes, internal and external variables, industries, stakeholders, and so on. So, whether reading digital transformation advice or reading forecasts and projections, bear this in mind. Although there are similar issues, aims, and characteristics in companies throughout the world, there are also significant distinctions based on industry, geography, and organization. What makes sense in one place may not make sense in another, even if we just consider regulatory settings. This handbook is mostly concerned with digital business transformation. In other words, it is about change in a digital business setting where there is a decentralizing shift of attention towards the corporate ecosystem's boundaries. Customer experience, worker happiness, stakeholder value/outcomes, collaborations, and a clear customer-centric strategy are all components of the customer in the widest sense (external and internal, with the lines blurring between the two).

Marketing, operations, human resources, administration, customer service, and so on are examples of business activities/functions. Business processes: one or more interconnected operations, activities, and sets that work together to accomplish a given business objective, in which business process management, business process optimization, and business process automation play a role (with new technologies such as robotic process automation). Today, most sectors and businesses include a mix of customer-facing and internal objectives, thus business process optimization is critical in digital transformation efforts. Business models describe how a company operates, from its go-to-market strategy and value proposition to how it seeks to make money and effectively transforms its core business, tapping into novel revenue sources and approaches, and sometimes even dropping the traditional core business after a while. Firm ecosystems include the networks of partners and stakeholders, as well as contextual elements impacting the business, such as legal or economic goals and changes. On the fabric of digital transformation and information, new ecosystems are being established between organizations with diverse backgrounds, where data and actionable insight become innovation assets. Business asset management: the focus is on traditional assets, but increasingly on less 'tangible' assets such as information and customers (improving customer experience is a primary goal of many digital transformation "projects," and information is the lifeblood of business, technological evolutions, and any human relationship). Customers and information must be viewed as actual assets from every angle. Organizational culture, in which there must be a clear customercentric, agile, and hyper-aware aim, which is attained by accumulating core skills across the board in areas such as digital maturity, leadership, knowledge worker silos, and so on, allowing the organization to be more future-proof. Processes, business activities, collaboration, and the IT side of digital transformation all intersect with culture. Changes are necessary to get applications to market quicker. DevOps is all about combining development and operations. Change is necessary to make IT and OT operate together in businesses/processes/activities (not only the information and

operational technology, but also the procedures, culture, and teamwork). Etc. Ecosystem and partnership models are evolving, with a growth in co-optative, collaborative, co-creating, and, last but not least, wholly new business ecosystem methods, resulting in new business models and income streams. Ecosystems will be critical to the success of the as-a-service economy and digital transformation. Approaches from customers, employees, and partners People and strategy come first in digital change. Any stakeholder's shifting behavior, expectations, and demands are critical. This is manifested in several transformation subprojects in which customer-centricity, user experience, worker empowerment, new workplace models, shifting channel partner relationships, and so on (may) all play a role. It is critical to emphasize that digital technologies are never the only solution to any of these human issues, from worker happiness to customer experience improvement. In the first place, individuals engage, respect, and empower others; technology is an extra facilitator and part of the equation of choice and essential requirements. This list is not complete, as the many features described are in reality linked and overlap. We examine some less business-related 'digital transformation' phenomena and so-called disruptions, but the emphasis is on the business, which by definition means a holistic digital transformation view in which aspects such as customer experience, technological evolutions, and innovation with a clear purpose, rather than a buzzword, are critical elements.

Figure 4.2 Digital Disruption in Business & Technology However, the Internet of Things, or IoT, which will take us to the next stage of the Internet, is still in its early stages. As a result, the core of the Internet of Things as yet another umbrella word for the connecting of objects with integrated or connected connectivity and data sensing, transmitting, analyzing, and/or receiving capabilities through Internet technology is useless. At the same time, it will serve as the adhesive for the vast majority of transformative evolutions. So yet, the Internet of Things has provided little real value or significant innovation in consumer applications. The major benefit is evident in the Industrial Internet of Things, in which industrial sectors such as manufacturing and logistics are becoming transformation leaders. The latter is also attributable to technologies such as additive manufacturing and sophisticated robotics, which are only scratching the surface of their disruptive potential. Technological advances (caused by technology) that have a greater

influence than ever before. However, once again, it is not technology that is driving disruption or revolution. It is how consumers, partners, rivals, and other stakeholders utilize and adapt it. IoT technologies, artificial intelligence, edge computing, virtual and augmented reality, and blockchain are examples of technologies with strong disruptive potential. The greatest disruptive potential, however, emerges when they are integrated and allow new applications, as we see with the convergence of AI, IoT, and big data analytics. The integration of IT and OT is also a game changer in industrial transformation.

Customer behavior and expectations This so-called customer-induced revolution and disruption has nothing to do with technology. When technology is accepted and transformed into business difficulties, it often facilitates or, as previously said, causes it. A driver that drives digital transformation that is not driven by technology but rather amplified by it in conjunction with other causes is consumer desire for ease of use and simplicity in interacting with enterprises, which is much older than today. It dates back to a period when the Internet did not even exist. In that sense, digital transformation may just be catching up because companies don't have any alternative (it's not as if they didn't see the necessity of making customer interactions and support simple and seamless decades ago). Disruptions on a social level might also have an influence on customer behavior and requirements. Caused by innovation and creativity. Disruptive approaches to human and commercial difficulties, as well as ideas and inventions that create a new reality, whether in science, business, technology, or even a non-technological setting, may be found. What will come next, the development of drugs that will revolutionize healthcare and society (as has occurred countless times in the past), the printing press, the train? Your greatest hope is definitely in life sciences and technological applications inside the human body and mind. Ecosystem-induced. Organizations are components of larger ecosystems, including economic ecosystems as well as the social and environmental ecosystems in which they – and we – exist. Economic changes,

demands from partners who want you to adapt, evolutions toward collaborations in transformational business ecosystems, regulatory changes (consider the transformational impact of the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, for example), geo-political changes, societal shifts, unexpected events such as natural disasters or even a pandemic, all can impact and drive transformation. It is in the degree of interconnectedness and various accelerations, which necessitate profound enterprise-wide change, that digital (business) transformation is to be seen as more than a buzzword, but as a challenge, force, and, most importantly, opportunity for organizations to achieve the core business competencies required to succeed in rapidly changing environments where the speed of change touches on a plethora of phenomena, ranging from the acceleration of change to the acceleration of change. Digital transformation is about more than just technology; it is also about more than just enterprises in technical sectors or the digital startup environment. This is a common mistake that can be explained in part by the fact that such "usual suspects" (Uber is probably the most mentioned – and most contentious – example) are "disruptively" using digital technologies to alter existing models and markets and – at least as importantly – garner a lot of attention. However, it is a mistake to just look at all of the IT businesses that we constantly highlighting as models of digital transformation. While some have been 'disruptive,' forcing larger players to adapt or die, and we can learn from these start-ups and the technology success stories everyone talks about, it's easy to overestimate them, especially when compared to organizations that have been successful at digital transformation in 'less sexy,' but sometimes far more challenging and interesting areas. The media's and tech enthusiasts' focus on disruptors like Uber and other typical suspects is fraught with peril and excitement. Digital transformation leaders may be found in almost every industry and are not always the darlings of people attracted by digital technology and organizations. Digital transformation is industry-agnostic, beginning

with the organization's business objectives, issues, customers, and context. Incumbents are evolving as well, but not all at the same rate, and there are transformative alliances between incumbents and 'disruptive' entrants in various areas such as banking. Last but not least, any future evolution may and will destroy these so-called disruptive enterprises. Their long-term success is not assured, and digital pure players will eventually fulfil the human desire for human contact as well.

Figure 4.3 Digital Transformation - Aspects of Modern Enterprise Taking into consideration the previously noted disclaimer concerning technology and IT, there is, of course, an obvious relationship with

digital technologies. So, let us examine the development of this socalled digital transformation economy. Stage 1: the 3rd Platform and digital commerce : IDC created the 3rd Platform in 2007, which consisted of four technological/business pillars at the time: cloud, big data/analytics, social (business), and mobility. Gartner referred to it as the 'Nexus of Forces,' and, like others, mentioned SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud). Whatever the name, what mattered was that these technologies, and, more importantly, their adoption by consumers, workers, and businesses, their behavior-changing impact, and the various ways they were leveraged to achieve various goals, were dramatically altering the business reality – a digital business reality. Stage 2: the third platform's innovation accelerators: The 3rd Platform, which was preceded by the mainframe and clientserver model eras/platforms, was joined by a number of additional technologies referred to by IDC as innovation accelerators. Robotics, natural interfaces, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, cognitive systems, and next-generation security are among them. So we're still mostly technology here, but with a stronger emphasis on business and consumer innovation (on top of the traditional goals of optimization and so forth). Stage 3: transition from digital transformation to innovation: What we are seeing now, at least at companies that have deployed initiatives with a clear maturity in various areas and a longer term vision, is that innovation (in terms of new business models, ways of engaging customers, building ecosystems of new revenue, and so on) becomes critical as the foundations, goals, strategy, culture, and vision to do so are in place. With digital customer experience, innovation, competition, differentiation, automation, cost reduction, optimization, speed, and stakeholder experiences as business drivers,

the aforementioned technologies and how they are used lead to the well-known next wave or additional layer of innovation and digital transformation. According to IDC, this has led to an innovation stage, and information is required to allow it. Digital transformation requires end-to-end IT and information excellence. Stage 4: Increased innovation and transformation: This stage of innovation, as well as the additional difficulties provided by disruptive business models, will intensify in the coming years. In other words, the pace of innovation and transformation is changing, resulting in a stage where the disruptive impact of digital transformation is about to be felt in every industry as enterprises flip the switch and massively scale up their digital transformation initiatives to secure a leadership role in the 'digital industrial revolution,'. Stage 5: Digital transformation at the heart of a new economy: Finally, it is this 'digital industrial revolution,' called the digital transformation economy or DX economy by IDC, that will place digital transformation at the forefront of growth and innovation plans. They will have a greater and quicker influence on all sectors than we have previously witnessed. And the Internet of Things, cognitive (artificial intelligence), and other innovation accelerators, as well as the 'conventional' backbones of the 3rd Platform (cloud, big data/analytics, mobile, and so on), will be critical in this transformation. As is the case with virtually all significant changes that affect multiple stakeholders, divisions, processes, and technologies (including implementing an enterprise-wide marketing ROI approach, a content marketing strategy, or any integrated marketing approach with CRM, marketing automation, etc. to name three marketing-related ones), there is not only an opportunity for change and a need for. With a better understanding of the importance of data and analytics in digital transformation, there are more possibilities for change and a greater need for change management. This is not a new phenomenon: when

web analytics became popular, for example, their implementation and the connection of different data and analytics "silos" in the customer/marketing space frequently revealed clear needs for digital transformation in many customer-facing and customer-oriented operations, long before the term "digital transformation" was coined. Take advantage of the possibilities and face the problems. Processes and people.

Figure 4.4 Digital Transformation Economy However, change management is clearly first and foremost about the human dimension: internal consumers, stakeholders, and the larger ecosystem in which businesses exist. No institution, industry, government, or non-governmental organisation (NGO) can achieve a deep digital transformation unless it prioritises and engages people. If things change too quickly for people, or if we fail to consider the individuals who are affected, as well as their worries, this may be a formula for failure and, on a larger scale, resistance. There are still far too many holes in the digitization (and automation) of current operations, as well as in the digitalization of data from paper

carriers. Worse, what is often referred to be digital transformation is sometimes referred to as "simply" digitalization (turning paper into electronic information into processes). To optimise in a digital transformation setting, you need digitalization, but digitization does not imply digital transformation. What important is the mix of strategic and prioritised connectivity, as well as the steps you take to accomplish company objectives via digitalization and data fusion. Furthermore, there is a growing chasm between back-office and front-end procedures. This problem may be found in the banking business, where there are severe disconnects between the back-office and the front-end. There are numerous digitization efforts that still need to be completed in many areas of business and society, and we all know and feel it, whether it's in our daily experiences as "business people" or in the often completely unnecessary administrative tasks related to our government-related or finance-related 'duties' and interactions with business where we're forced to use paper, the phone, or channels we don't want to use anymore. Digital transformation, like social business, digital business, and any kind of customer-centric marketing and business operations, need the capacity to collaborate across silos. In many circumstances, digital transformation entails completely rewriting organisational structures, which might include collaborative approaches, Centers of Excellence, and the removal of specialised silos. The discussion about who is responsible for digital transformation as a whole and inside individual roles and processes in the context of true change is outdated, even though it is necessary to hold since Chief Digital Officers, CIOs, and other CxOs all play a role. Again, there is no perfect approach when it comes to responsibility: context is everything. Marketing should learn from IT, and IT should learn from marketing. Customer service from sales, the contact centre from sales, and so forth. A digital-savvy culture is not the aim of digital transformation, but today's CxO must be aware of 1) what others are doing and 2) their experiences, approaches, and skill sets. In terms of accountability issues, various choices exist since "no one size fits all." Frameworks and standards for digital maturity are useful. They imply

that, as previously defined, digital transformation is a journey toward acquiring a set of capabilities and changing a variety of processes, functions, models, and more in order to (be able to) leverage the changes and opportunities of digital technologies and their impact across society in a strategic and prioritised manner. Digital transformation is more than simply a single project, process, or optimization exercise. It's a long-term commitment that doesn't happen immediately. There are several components and intermediate objectives. It occurs in little increments, which is why there are different perspectives on digital maturity. The many phases, processes, initiatives, and so on in the context of digital transformation each have one or more objectives in their own right, but they all fit within the larger purpose that we just defined by referring to (part of) our definition. To put it another way, you have a plan and an end goal in mind. Although it may seem to be a contradiction in terminis, the final aim of digital transformation shifts, transforming it into a journey. New technology, as well as changing market situations, competitive landscapes, and so on, will provide new possibilities and problems. While the purpose of digital transformation is to prepare us for such, that goal is open to change. Change is unavoidable. From the standpoint of a digital transformation strategy, this means that uncertainties, risks, and changes are factored into each incremental step and the broader objectives, but it also means that a digital transformation strategy includes agile options for changing course, thanks to intermediate checks and balances and a 'hyperaware' ability of continuous improvement or change (both are not the same).

Figure 4.5 Digital Transformation Holistic Optimization With digital transformation becoming a de facto very hyper-connected reality on human, societal, and various business and technology levels, linear management thinking and siloed approaches give way to hybrid, integrated, inclusive, and fluid ecosystem views beyond the traditional extended enterprise model. In reality, this implies that CEOs must have a far greater awareness and skill set of the numerous disciplines engaged in digital transformation operations. A CIO must comprehend the concept of customer-centricity. A CEO must be knowledgeable about many aspects of business process reengineering, cybersecurity, information technology, and other topics. The list does not stop there. As the drivers of technological innovation determine the directions in which economies and enterprises move (and vice versa), the capacity to connect the dots and shift away from a linear perspective toward flexibility and hybrid methods is essential. Understanding the effect of

transitions in so many sectors is likely to be one of the most difficult tasks for CEOs. Welcome to a hybrid and fluid world — one that also applies to CEOs. Information is not only a necessary component of digital transformation. It also enters the picture at each stage of the journey toward achieving both specific and enterprise-wide digital transformation goals, such as improving digital customer experience, which is the de facto number one goal of most digital transformation projects today, and improving operations, innovating, or realising competitive advantages, to name a few. When it comes to information in general, the most often stated links between digital transformation and 'information' are Big Data (analytics) and the Internet of Things. Digital transformation necessitates the use of digital and digitised information. It requires data, the linking of information silos, analytics, and adaptability. Digital transformation provides a significant opportunity for information managers (and IT) to make a difference in their businesses.

Figure 4.6 Digital Capability Framework Goals of digital transformation: Customer-centricity entails getting to know your customers and providing the finest information and/or insights to meet their demands. An successful knowledge worker must be able to work with...information, and it goes without saying where that knowledge originates from and how it must be kept, shared, safeguarded, and leveraged. Operational excellence: how else can you enhance your operations and procedures if you don't have the right knowledge and data? Regardless matter the size of a digital transformation project, data and digital information are essential. It is more significant than the technology side of things, together with the people and process components.

Simultaneously, data, information, insights, knowledge, context, analytics, and all other content-related aspects are embedded in all three components of the well-known people, process, and technology/tools triangle. Here they are: 1.People: To accomplish their tasks in a digital economy, those knowledge workers must have access to the proper information. Customers want to be able to access information on their own terms. In order to offer such information, we need data and insights on what these phrases are. And, of course, we must collect their information, digitise it if it is not digital by nature, and utilise it to achieve the desired results and drive the appropriate procedures. Collaboration, decision-making, and a more customer-centric approach all benefit from having the appropriate information, knowing where it is, and using it in automated, quick, and simple ways as required in face-to-face engagements. 2.Processes: One of the primary areas where digital transformation resources are spent is on process automation. Multi-channel collection and processing is becoming more crucial. And it isn't simply about digitising paper. When we speak about multi-channel capture, we mean all information sources and channels that consumers and stakeholders (employees, suppliers, etc.) utilise. The dispersion of sources and channels, together with the massive rise in data (yep, Big Data) and the diversity of data formats, is what drives digital transformations in the first place. Input from several sources generates the data that drives workflows and processes. Consider how a single document or piece of information entering an organisation might affect several procedures and departments. Consider how it would do in today's information-rich and dataintensive digital business context. No surprise, as Harvey anticipates, intelligent knowledge of most, if not all, (information) aspects serving stakeholders will be combined with BPM (Business Process

Management) to support decision making and predictive analytics. Information leads to process, and process leads to information, and innovation, value, and change are all intertwined. 3.Technologies/tools: What else is the Internet of Things but an umbrella word for technology and apps that use data and information to feed processes and fulfil customer reasons, industrial aims, or new experiences? Consider the examples of (process) automation in the automated industry and Tesla – both of which leverage the power of information in novel ways – that Atle Sjekkeland used at the AIIM Forum UK. He reminded us of Tesla's ability to distribute fixes and upgrades to automobiles rather of needing to do a recall. Indeed, as Atle pointed out, the Internet of Things is primarily viewed as a means of eliminating non-value or low-value steps in processes (automation), particularly in the Industrial Internet of Things, which includes not only automotive but also manufacturing, healthcare, transportation and logistics, utilities and energy, and so on. Making use of data and automated procedures. Needless to say, virtually all other so-called disruptive technologies revolve around data and information as well: using it in novel ways, as we can with IoT, to share, create, and consume it differently, to use it for other ways of working, to buy, book a taxi (mobile, location), to add intelligence to home devices, to disseminate and store it (the cloud), and so on. Obviously, we were not the first ones to examine the core of digital transformation and where it now plays the most important role (specifically, the – largely digital – customer experience). Everyone who has worked where IT, business, and information/content collide and who has 'lived' the enterprise's de facto evolutions (and I mean everyone) noticed'something' was happening and, more critically, needed to happen. We needed to drastically change our company practises. In that sense, digital transformation has always seemed logical: it just had to 'happen,' despite all of the other reasons that contributed to it.

Because that is precisely what digital transformation strengthens more than ever: the reality that optimization (in a highly networked and pervasive sense) is no longer an option. Despite the obvious importance of 'digital,' it is critical to concentrate on the term's second word: transformation. And this might signify a variety of things. But it always occurs for a reason, with many stakeholders involved in frequently new, nimble, and inventive ways. Optimisation is achieved by innovation. Or, to put it another way, 'disruptive' (to use a buzzword) innovation only succeeds if it optimises. Consider the consumer experience. What else makes data so vital? What else may cognitive systems be used for? Otherwise, why would anybody be interested in the Internet of Things? Why else do we employ technology from the good old third platform, which has increased the need to optimise for how 'consumers' use them? SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) and all of the technologies we added to the third platform, or, if you prefer, Gartner's Nexus of Forces, only make sense in the context of optimization, with business value and customer value(s) going hand in hand. Business process optimization and customer experience go hand in hand. And, sure, in the viewpoint of the client, cost reductions and contextual relevance go hand in hand. To be honest, corporations continue to prioritise cost reductions and revenue generation, and customer experience is still mostly a matter of lip service. However, if it does not lead to meaning, relevance, context, and optimization, it is meaningless and will become so in the future. To begin with, that evident 'connected optimization' component was and continues to be quite intriguing when it comes to digital transformation for us. Organizations have been doing business in silos since the beginning of time. Connecting dots between disciplines and mapping the linkages between any kind of optimization or innovation is – and should be – a passion for believers in a customer-centric and integrated strategy, as well as for optimization aficionados like ourselves. And it makes no difference which technology is being discussed or which is joining the herd. The ability to innovate and

optimise is a critical component of digital transformation. The (missing) linkages of a hyper-connected world are perceived, constructed, and translated into business reality via digital transformation. Where they become relevant, contextualised, and optimised for the present AND the future. True, going beyond "seeing" the need for a holistic and stakeholdercentric (human) optimization strategy is difficult. It is often simpler for corporations to concentrate on segregated initiatives and continue to function in pristine containers. And it's simple to see why. After all, once you begin to see all of the connections between people, processes, information, data, experiences, emotions, work, market evolutions, business challenges, various divisions, and so on that need to connect, often integrate, sometimes change, and always strive for holistic optimization, the picture can quickly become frightening. However, avoiding truth has never been the greatest choice, because reality is difficult. Fortunately, there are methods to cope with it all and transform it into advantages rather than disadvantages. Consider prioritising, new methods of working together, redesigning systems with an emphasis on speed and integration in relation to the customer and the output, and so on. The word 'information management' is used with care here since it refers to more than just'maintenance' of information. While systems of records are important because they serve as the foundation for information and data activation, systems of engagement and the final mile of the information process are equally important. That final mile might be related to the customer experience, the end of an information-driven value chain, or, increasingly, the point of automated (inter)action when precise information initiates a totally automated linked activity. In an Internet of Things (IoT) scenario, for example, the latter is more common. Information management has traditionally progressed from information collection, digitalization, storage, retrieval, governance, and process optimization to the actual production or use of information in any form, process, system, or relationship with other systems.

We felt that intelligent information activation was the best term to use because it's not just how we manage information that matters (the 'intelligent' part has a lot to do with customer experience, but it's also about something else 'intelligent,' as you'll see below). It's also not about data in and of itself, but rather how that data is utilised to accomplish whatever goal it may serve. You've heard the words "actionable data" and "smart data." Traditionally, such information objectives have included better serving consumers with the correct data at the right time and in the right context. Alternatively, processes may be triggered, fed, automated, and improved. However, as the information and data ecosystem – and how it becomes part of ever more complex and broader ecosystems – increasingly automates data and content exchange (think IoT again), we move towards an economy of APIs, smart information agents (not human), and information connectors, fed by and feeding information-related activities, and at the heart of any digital transformation strategy. The so-called API economy should likewise be seen in this hyperconnected and hyper-contextual perspective. Last but not least, a substantial portion of cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, and the algorithm economy, as Gartner refers to it, must be understood in this context (meaning, mining, automating, understanding and predicting). Because linking systems (which is almost always required in all digital transformation efforts) entails connecting data. That requires more than just a few quick features; it's a difficult task in a complex ecosystem of diverse formats, multiple standards, increasing volumes, legacy systems, and now the addition of ever more elements – including devices – to the Web, the Internet, and the data picture of each organisation, process, and the digital data space as a whole. When we speak about semantics and meaning from data (the Internet of Things is essentially about process and data automation), we're talking about artificial intelligence. This is also why we choose to talk about INTELLIGENT information activation rather than information management, let alone intelligent information management. Obviously, intelligent information activation involves many processes

and elements, but it is apparent that digital transformation and information activation are inextricably linked. It's no surprise that before we discussed digital transformation in its present sense, we discussed digitization: the transformation of information as such, from physical to digital to process. Intelligent information and data activation is critical to the success of digital transformation in a variety of ways and needs attention from a variety of perspectives. Here are a few intelligent information activation essential competencies that you must possess: 1.From distinction and innovation to optimization, speed and agility are essential: Speed has de facto evolved into a distinguishing and even competitive characteristic. The speed with which you can link information intake to process to consequence is just as important as the speed with which you can innovate, optimise, respond, and so on. In a real-time economy, the velocity component of quick data is required. Customers are dissatisfied when procedures and information flows are slow. It is important to note that, despite all of the automation and so on, agility and speed are not only about technology. They are also the result of human judgments, such as where to speed up what for what reasons. Even if something gets automated, human creativity, intellect, and innovation abilities are still required to come up with distinguishing ideas, just as humans are required to create and link what is required. 2.Data security and governance - the commercial and personal human worth of data: We'll focus on security since it can't be overstated. Just as business, customer service, customer experience'management,' and so on need a holistic approach, so do information management and security (and optimization as you can read here). Data and information are critical economic assets (the ownership argument is another storey) that serve as the foundation of the digital economy. Just as customercentric leaders regard customers, employees, and stakeholders as

critical 'assets' (which does not imply dehumanising them, on the contrary), CxOs regard data/information and its 'protection' as key business assets and a corporate responsibility, bringing security into the boardroom de facto. It is, once again, a highly human choice that certainly encompasses more than just financial worth. The ethics of data and privacy matter and will become more important during a time in which we will confront a backlash in many areas, from dealing with data for advertising to laws, as we anticipated and as we can plainly see now. 3.Accuracy and quality – dealing with the repercussions of errors : It's a well-known truth that what goes in must come out. Even though this word became famous in the 1960s in the context of information systems, 'garbage in, garbage out,' or GIGO, is very important. It's simple to understand how poor data and information quality, from the source (feedback, data collection, digitalization, pipelines,...), all the way through the process and all the way to the consequences, is lethal, even literally lethal in certain cases (think healthcare). Errors, expenses, lost productivity, and all the ramifications that come with them. In other words, it is critical to ensure that underperforming and error-prone elements such as manual data entry are replaced, that the methods/goals/strategies of data gathering and processing are correct, and that too many steps between information source and process are avoided (the more steps, the more potential errors, certainly when involving physical actions, just think transportation of documents or how we lose meaning and understanding with each step of passing on narrated feedback). It is important to note that you will require individuals here as well in many parts of the accuracy and quality of the image. Guardians of not just productivity, but also of human worth and blunders that might have far-reaching implications. 4.Decisions and intelligence - the last mile, where individuals matter and care the most : Analytics, such as content analytics or generating meaning from text, and translating data into insight into choices are key success elements

in the final mile, which is ultimately what counts. Whether it's the last mile of customer experience (the last impression matters most) or the last mile in a broader context of disruption regarding value, CX, and other chains, as SAP's Sameer Patel explains very well (and which inspired us to embrace that last mile 'image', we embedded a presentation by Sameer below): it can't be emphasised enough. Although automation and technology (artificial intelligence) are becoming increasingly important in decision-making, it is clear that the creative and innovative, deeply human and emotional, dimension of looking behind the why of intelligence and coming up with the imagination to turn it into brave ideas and innovative ways of doing business and making decisions where machines cannot, remains essential here as well. Human judgments and, certainly, common sense, gut instinct, and (inter)acting are one thing; predictive analytics are quite another. The last mile of experience and intelligent knowledge is not just where people care the most, but also where people matter the most. Take a look at the evolutions in the retail business if you need proof that digital transformation is genuine. The desire to digitise and digitalize, cut expenses, and automate has been high on the agenda of retail organisations, especially since the'retail apocalypse' began approximately a decade ago. These cost-cutting and automation initiatives, which we often see in a digital transformation plan that follows a phased journey, among other things, are required to improve the shopping experience and allow merchants to reinvent themselves. Changes in business models, ecosystem methods, the adoption of new technology, a focus on brand purpose and value, and various ways to communicate with customers are all part of this continuing process. The retail industry's digital transformation drivers among the primary drivers of retail digital transformation are: 1.The changing expectations of the so-called digital or omni-channel shopper, who doesn't care as much about channels as we do.

2.The need to blur digital and physical experiences, with in-store experiences as a critical component, as well as the de facto disappearance of the borders between digital and physical already existing in the consumer's mind, and enabled further by the Internet of Things and immersive experiences in virtual and augmented reality. 3.Challenges at the supply chain level, which is critical but all too frequently under-digitized. The importance of speed, timing, and a clear vision cannot be overstated. 4.Increased financial pressure, as well as competition from digital and total customer experience champions. Fortunately, owing to new digital capabilities, there are several solutions to reduce expenses, including digitalization and supply chain. 5.The implications and prospects in areas like as data-driven optimization and marketing, employee empowerment, and new technology. 6.An appetite from shoppers for a personalised experience, which is difficult to achieve because it varies depending on the context and can range from the need to find and buy things quickly to the exact opposite: having a relaxed and immersive shopping experience with digital technologies available all over the place and used for anything from smart displays to even music and ambiance. 7.The COVID-19 pandemic's uncertainty, which are having a significant influence on the retail business. One thing is certain: transformation and a variety of data-driven and IoT-enabled retail solutions (basically anything that enables the use of data to optimise the business, make shoppers feel safe, protect workers, save/manage costs, and even potentially decide which retail stores to close) play a significant role here. Changes in shopping and retail behaviour: drivers and evolutions: 1.A channel-agnostic buying experience:

The use of digital tools and channels at every level of the purchasing process.This affects normal pre-shopping chores (looking for items or shops, comparing, reading reviews,...), the actual shopping transaction (in-store, through digital platforms,...), and post-shopping (word-of-mouth, reviews, customer service, future purchases,...). 2.Experiences that are seamless – and immersive: The consumer's expectation of a seamless customer and shopping experience across multiple touchpoints and channels, in which the consumer exhibits so-called omni-channel behaviour and seeks experiences that are as easy, fast, and frictionless – but sometimes immersive – as those provided by best-in-class retailers and other companies. 3.Innovation is a new standard: Customers' increasing need for new shopping options and experiences that go beyond excellence but are one-of-a-kind and meet the need that many consumers obviously have for novel brand and shopping experiences BEYOND outstanding customer service. 4.Quick access to information: The information and service expectations that customers have of store employees. In a digital setting, the necessity for product and store information is evident. However, your consumer also expects quick information in-store, which has an influence on your team and the need to provide it with the necessary tools and resources. 5.Self-service: Shoppers are becoming used to self-service, self-checkout, and locating information and help on their own. By 2017, it is predicted that mobile POS or self-checkout would account for 50% of all transactions. The difficulty is that not everyone is as enthusiastic

about self-service, and in many circumstances, such as in an emergency service scenario or when seeking product information, a human touch is preferred. Referring back to the previous point about information, there is a case to be made for not just empowering your store's personnel, but also for relocating information self-service tools at touchpoints where they provide the most value, allowing consumers to quickly enlighten themselves. Such information resources often provide information on product attributes as well as whether or not items are in stock (and if not, where or when they are, information on rebates etc.). 6.Mobility: Even though 90 percent of in-store purchases occur online, retail shoppers utilise digital tools at various phases of the buying trip. Buyers have more methods than ever before to educate themselves, purchase, seek help, and complete any job in the retail trip. That much is obvious. It is not enough for a store to meet the above listed standards if they wish to prosper. Every consumer is unique. Every shopping trip is unique. Last but not least, each psychological, situational, purposeful, and contextual component is unique. You have no idea how a customer will begin his retail purchasing experience. Is he seeking for a product that meets his requirements by putting a search query into Google to identify items that meet his requirements? Is he aware of where he may be able to locate the thing he is looking for? Is he well-informed and just wants to discover the quickest, cheapest, and/or most convenient way to acquire what he wants? In various retail environments, the same problems about individual buyer intent and preferences exist. Personalization is a goal that all merchants should strive towards. However, in a marketing setting, personalisation should not be a fancy phrase for bombarding individuals with additional communications. It is first and foremost a question of helping customers to achieve their objectives, regardless of the stage of their shopping trip, and of making each step of the retail experience as simple, compelling, and successful as possible.

The global retail landscape is rapidly changing, with e-commerce companies like Amazon growing quickly and traditional brick-andmortar retailers experiencing significant revenue drops due to digital disruption, defined as the speed of adoption of new technologies, as John Maxwell puts it in the video on the report's page and which we used for this small list of findings.Convenience is crucial, but pricing reigns supreme. Clear. Both are important, but the function of pricing costs is a difficulty. What if digital transformation could improve both convenience and price? They can, believe it or not. Customers demand more engaging and individualised experiences in-store, thus the in-store customer experience is more important than ever. With shop traffic on the decline, the focus is on conversion. Knowledge is essential: 40% of respondents think sales associates with extensive product knowledge are vital to them (and you can add knowledge of other retail-related information such as inventory status). With 45 percent of respondents admitting that reading thoughts and comments influences their shopping patterns, social media and peer opinions have a significant impact on purchasing choices and perceptions of brand legitimacy (and they are willing to share opinions themselves). Mobile commerce is booming, and mobile shopping is quickly becoming the preferred method of purchasing. Last year, mobile shopping climbed by 8%, and 34% of respondents believe that their cell phone will become their primary purchasing tool. Manufacturing is one of the sectors that has advanced slowly in terms of enterprise-wide and, more importantly, ecosystem-wide digital transformation. Several digital transformation driving factors in the manufacturing business are comparable to those in other industries. Furthermore, global industrial efforts and national initiatives such as Industry 4.0 (Germany and parts of the EU) or the Industrial Internet (Consortium) accelerate changes by using IoT (the Internet of Things) and the convergence of IT and OT as important components. Consumer expectations shift have an influence on the whole supply chain since many manufacturers clearly rely on one another, therefore even firms that do not create customer items are affected by these consumer changes. Furthermore, industrial decision makers have distinct expectations since, at the end of the day, we are all

customers. It leads us to the data-intensive and (semi-)autonomous evolutions in Logistics 4.0, where speed and connection are crucial, with IoT (Industrial IoT) and cyber-physical systems again playing a role. Other drivers include traditional digital transformation goals such as increased efficiency, cost reduction, and, in later stages, innovation and the development of new revenue sources in an age where data – and how it is leveraged – is the currency of automation, optimization, and profound transformation at the core where new business models in a 'as a service' economy are sought. The manufacturing business is clearly diverse, with huge multinationals and smaller manufacturers, as well as industrial manufacturers that produce for industrial partners and manufacturers of items closer to the customer. The manufacturing business, like many others, is varied and evolving at various rates. While in general, a digital transformation plan has been lacking, and attempts have been ad hoc, things are improving in certain sectors, but as we will see, a holistic picture is lacking, and the objectives remain somewhat conventional and isolated. Drivers of digital transformation and the Industrial Internet of Things are comparable. In terms of areas where change is occurring, one can only notice the key role of IoT in the manufacturing industry, advanced data analytics, digital twins, and the various components of the Industrial Internet or Industry 4.0 space, with an obvious place for, among others, advanced data analytics, industrial robots, and collaborative robots, a.k.a. cobots. Manufacturing, as previously said, is not only the biggest sector in terms of IoT investment, but it is also at the heart of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Looking forward to the end of 2016, 2017, and most likely the years ahead, an issue that may not have been the most urgent in previous years but has obviously become critical for the future: geopolitical and macroeconomic situations. On the one hand, the manufacturing sector is experiencing very uncertain times, with uncertainty about consumer spending/confidence, and on the other side, the bigger geopolitical and macroeconomic picture is highly unpredictable. There is a protectionist environment in the United States, and manufacturing is

one of the new administration's primary priority topics. Similar protectionist threats exist in other places. European firms are banding together to push the Industry 4.0 goal ahead even quicker than before, despite mounting uncertainty (not to mention Brexit anxieties). Initiatives are also being launched in other regions of the globe in the face of an obvious reality in which globalisation has gone from a source of evidence for many to a cause of suspicion for many others. Once these efficiencies and the very process-oriented and internalfacing Industry 4.0 or Industrial Internet goals we've just outlined are met, fresh possibilities and efforts are made to focus on customerfacing optimization and innovation. It should be noted that, in reality, these multiple aims may and are pursued concurrently (it is not a gradual processes although de facto prioritisation is essential). Automation, optimization, and efficiency and cost-cutting aims all have a customer-centric purpose. Finally, speed and information-rich, simplified process improvement initiatives are what both end customers and the numerous partners in the manufacturing ecosystem need. Data/information and the Industrial Internet of Things are inextricably linked in an increasingly complex and connected value chain (yet another issue and opportunity for manufacturing) and in the optimization of industrial and business operations. At the same time, both are critical components of the ability to work in a more customercentric manner in a variety of ways, including: improving services (towards consumers or industrial partners, as illustrated in the storey of how ABB Robotics was able to offer far better services to its customers, buyers of industrial robots, thanks to the Industrial IoT), producing goods that are better tailored to customer demand through actionable data and insights, and improving customer experience. A third aspect, which is likewise an unavoidable result of the previous two, is closer to digital transformation at its heart – in business models and the identification of new information-driven and linked income prospects in the 'as a service' development. By 2024, more than 60% of G2000 manufacturing businesses will depend on artificial intelligence platforms to drive digital transformation throughout the supply chain, resulting in over 20% productivity benefits (IDC). The

ancient notion of the extended business is being pushed much farther in the creation of new income streams based on services and information, often in partnership with non-traditional partners. Furthermore, it is critical to understand how digital transformation projects and innovations may be accomplished in the more conventional ecosystem setting of manufacturers with, for example, retail, transportation and logistics, and so on. The most mature manufacturing sector firms are shifting business models or finding new approaches to boost profitability in the dimension of information-based services and 'products.' It is also at this point that top manufacturers become 'disruptive,' which clearly adds an extra – competitive – challenge for other manufacturers that haven't attained the same levels of maturity or 'creative disruption.' In this context, it's worth noting The Boston Consulting Group's research from the end of 2016, which found that while many manufacturers see Industry 4.0 as a priority (many were also unfamiliar with the term, which no doubt influences the outcomes), relatively few consider the possibilities for tapping into new revenue sources, let alone increasing revenues to begin with. There is still a strong focus on productivity improvement, and a comprehensive approach/strategy is lacking. It's the same image we see in other sectors, and it demonstrates why we can't emphasise the necessity of digital transformation strategy and a comprehensive digital transformation viewpoint enough. More on BCG research follows this piece. So, to summarise and read between the lines of our three Industrial IoT and digital transformation drivers, we have the following digital transformation and manufacturing drivers/challenges/opportunities: 1.An unstable macroeconomic and geopolitical environment in which risk must be managed and cost reductions and increased efficiency are unavoidable (read: automation). 2.A more complicated and linked data/information and speed are critical.

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3.The desire to have a deeper understanding of the possibilities and rewards that may be realised. While this is a strategic and information issue, it also necessitates manufacturing companies understanding technological enablers of new opportunities – such as digital twins, robotics, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing, to name a few – within the context of their benefit, use case, and overall context. 4.A changing consumer necessitates not just being more customercentric, but also being more customer-adaptive and inventive. 5.A highly competitive environment in which quicker movers have the potential to acquire an edge and possibly become disruptive. 6.To prosper and, in some circumstances, survive, businesses must diversify and tap into new income streams, using new ecosystems and (connected) data. 7.A lack of a clear vision and a strategy holistic approach to capitalising on Industry 4.0's revenue growth and new income source prospects. 8.The human talent factor in a changing world where technology and innovation play increasingly fundamental roles and neither the people nor the culture are there to take the essential steps (data, industrial IoT, convergence of IT and OT, new business models, etc.). Governments and government agencies throughout the world are adopting digital transformation projects and initiatives for a variety of reasons, including the happiness and experience of a changing population and cost savings. These changes occur at all levels: national, regional, local, and supranational. They also occur in public sector services such as public transportation/mobility and healthcare, as well as across other government agency domains and in regulated, semi-regulated, or state-sponsored services, which vary by nation. Increasing efficiency and transparency, improving and aligning processes, smart government and smart cities, attracting new

investors, bridging the digital divide, transforming government transaction services, data-driven government, better access to and management of information, enhancing citizen satisfaction and trust, meeting the needs of rapidly changing demographics, and balancing costs while optimising efficiency: all of this contributes to the ongoing digitization and transformation. Obviously, adjusting to the shifting needs of a digital information era is driven by more than simply internal causes. In a global economy, being competitive requires digital and information expertise. This is especially true in certain nations when economies migrate away from conventional income sources such as oil and toward revenue streams more characteristic of service economies, as seen in the Middle East.The worldwide scope of digital revolutions in government is not limited to economic movements and demands. Organizations such as the EU and the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) provide legislation or suggestions to (member) states in order to bring their governments closer to people, as the OECD did with its 'Recommendation on Digital Government Strategies.' As you'll see below, the citizen experience is one of the most important drivers of government digital transformation. That comes as no surprise given that it is the equivalent of customer experience, which is a de facto major driver of digital transformation since, at the end of the day, we are all consumers, customers, citizens, patients, and so on. Australia, which formed the Digital Transformation Office in 2015, is one nation that has lately adopted more strategic efforts and measures in the field of digitization and digital transformation. The primary objective is to create a single digital identity that would allow people to access government services digitally via a single login procedure. Another example is the United Kingdom, where a digital transformation programme was started, as described on the establishment of Australia's Digital Transformation Office. In February

2016, the UK government also launched a new advisory group of "digital heavyweights" to assist guide its digital transformation and government digital services initiative. According to many observers, this is something that is required. The 'United States Digital Service' is intended to alter the way the federal government interacts with residents in the United States. Obviously, this is a large challenge in a large nation with glacial IT transitions, but among the projects are programmes to enhance access to government information, Healthcare.gov, and immigration system modernization. The United States Census Bureau granted Accenture a 5-year digital transformation contract (mostly for the website) at the end of 2015, but some projects operate on a more local and customised level. A more recent trend is that governments engage in efforts that go beyond legislation and the like to support digital transformation in the economy, frequently in the realm of enhancing their digital agendas or as relaunch projects. As Barbara Van Den Haute, project manager for the data utility project, noted, an excellent example is how the government of a Belgian area engages in a data-sharing programme to promote innovation and transformation in both a public-private and private-to-private context. We could go on to focus on other nations and specific public services, such as healthcare and public transportation, but it's apparent that digital transformation is high on the agenda of many governments and government organisations. The Fourth Industrial Revolution - source Klaus Schwab World Economic Forum - Davos 2016. It's probably not a coincidence that the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) was omnipresent at Davos 2016, the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum, even in the context of government and civil society. "As the physical, digital, and biological worlds continue to converge," wrote Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, "new technologies and platforms will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts, and even circumvent the supervision of public authorities." Returning to the topic of digital transformation in government and the

public sector. Deloitte is one of several prominent consulting companies, such as Accenture, vying for a piece of the massive digital transformation pie. Digital transformation in government and how challenges like the ageing population, the rise of millennials, and budgetary issues could'reshape the way government delivers services,' providing some advice and data on the journey that digital transformation of government (and all'sectors') truly is. Deloitte outlines some major conclusions from its survey of more than 1,200 government personnel, spiced with interviews with academics and government leaders, in the infographic accompanying the storey. Let's look at the primary drivers of digital transformation in government, as well as how public sector employees, experts, and executives view the need for and evolutions in digital transformation, based on the study and infographic below. Taking into mind the number of nations (70) and the nature of the issue (perceiving disruption as opposed to recognising the promise of continued digitization), consider the following key drivers: Cost and budget constraints, and citizen expectations, respectively, rank first and second for 75% of respondents, with noticeable variances depending on nation and 'domain.' The most significant influence of digital trends is felt in information and communication technology, followed by education, transportation, international affairs, and economic growth. Energy, social services, military, and healthcare are all highly ranked, while law and justice, finance, and revenue are the least 'impacted/disrupted.' According to the infographic, just 41% of public sector executives polled are pleased with their organization's current response to digital trends, which includes optimising procedures, engaging people, and promoting innovative and value-generating service models for residents. The infographic further categorises government entities based on their digital maturity levels (each with its own set of issues) and examines some major roadblocks and success factors. This snapshot is clearly general and does not provide a complete view of the status and problems of digital transformation in government. It doesn't say anything about opportunities and future perceptions, or

how the impact of changing citizens, geopolitical evolutions, and demographic shifts (ageing populations, digital natives, and millennials about to enter government leadership) will be felt, but let's end with another quote from Klaus Schwab at Davos 2016: "Ultimately, the ability of government systems and public authorities to adapt will determine their survival." Schwab, on the other hand, isn't a millennial. The utilities business is one of those confronting significant issues while also offering huge opportunity for digital innovation and change. The task for utility companies is not only to examine, optimise, and alter current processes and business models. It is to come up with wholly new methods to do business. Because the utility chain has multiple actors, the problems, evolutions, technologies, and transformations are not the same for all components of the chain. However, throughout the utility chain, new income models and sources, as well as chances for process improvement from numerous aspects, are ubiquitous. Utility companies encounter a wide range of issues. Thinking forward and appreciating the advantages of "new technologies" is critical in this very competitive and sensitive market with numerous variations in the wider ecosystems, in addition to the intricacy of the utility value chain and fast-evolving evolutions. Among the (many) issues confronting the utilities business as a whole (and ignoring geographical differences): 1.Regulatory issues: The utilities business has a number of regulatory problems as well as possibilities in the short and long term. While some regulatory measures aim to catch up with changing realities and enable innovation, others contain more rigorous laws, such as those governing the environment. Of course, there are variances throughout the value chain, regions, nations, states, and application areas. 2.Typical utility sector concerns:

Include the reality that natural resources are finite, as well as greater emphasis on renewable energy and storage, resilience, sustainability, distributed energy resources (DERs), and other issues, some of which are influenced or affected by laws. Increased competition. Competition has also grown as a consequence of regulatory changes in various locations (but not just that). Furthermore, when so-called disruptive companies join (parts of) the utilities sector, business models as such are under strain, primarily from the standpoint of digital customer experience. Macroeconomic and geopolitical issues In recent years, it has been evident that energy has become more than simply a weapon, and that it is not just utilised as one, but is also the source of many conflicts. Some of these recent disputes are redefining the way nations get energy and reconsidering existing relationships, while others establish alliances that challenge long-standing balances. Technological difficulties. As is frequently the case, digital technologies and evolutions provide both a difficulty (e.g., digital client expectations) and an opportunity. In the utilities business, we tend to see technology as a source of opportunity and enablement. We'll look at some of the technologies, but it's apparent that big data, the Internet of Things, analytics (bringing insight and action to the avalanche of unstructured data), and artificial intelligence are all important.The utility sector uses various tools and technologies to implement digital transformations. IT uses several built-in and virtual technologies that are used widespread to deliver tremandous solutions across several industries.

Figure 4.7 Utility Industry Transformation So, let's have a look at some of the technical advancements that are playing an important role in the utilities market. 3.The Internet of Things (IoT). It goes without saying that IoT (smart grid, energy efficiency management, smart metres, and so on) is a significant deal in the utilities business. According to Gartner's, there were already 299 million IoT devices deployed in the utilities industry in 2015, ranking it second only to manufacturing. According to IDC's 2019 Worldwide IoT Forecasts, utilities will spend $61 billion on IoT solutions in 2019 (out of a total of $745 billion for all sectors and market categories, including consumer IoT). The primary use case is smart networks for energy, gas, and water. The influence of 'electrification' and diverse energy techniques, on the other hand, is seen in a use case that will increase the quickest through 2022:

electric car charging. Big Data (advanced and predictive analytics but also data at the edge). Along with the rise of "smart devices," but also for a variety of other reasons, including the critical role of data in an industry where data is important from all angles, dealing with the volume of data generated and, in particular, converting all of this data into competitive advantages, gained efficiencies, and customer-facing advantages is a top priority in utilities. 4.Computing in the periphery. In the utilities business, analytics are increasingly being performed at the edge. According to IDC's top ten global utilities forecasts for 2019, by 2020, 65 percent of electricity, gas, and water providers will have invested in edge analytics/computing as they seek for operational excellence and the greatest asset optimization. There are, of course, more technologies and digital evolutions in the utility industry, including more 'traditional' ones (cloud, for example) as well as more advanced ones (e.g. digital twins enabling to build replicas of assets in the cloud for optimization of design, engineering planning, maintenance, and so on, de facto requiring a range of other technologies, including mentioned ones such as IoT and artificial intelligence) – the graphic below shows some forecasts. The insurance industry is one of the most competitive and confronts several obstacles. These issues are generated not just by changing consumer expectations and behaviour, but also by the emergence of 'disruptive' organisations from outside the sector, which has been an increasing worry for quite some time. Examples of such 'disruptive' enterprises include InsurTech players (InsurTech is the FinTech of the insurance sector) and, for many years, the efforts undertaken by some of those IT behemoths known as GAFAA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Alibaba). Other problems for the insurance business, in addition to the changing and more digital, mobile, channel-agnostic, and demanding client, InsurTech, and undoubtedly the movements of the GAFAA giants, include:

i)Commoditization is ongoing. ii)It is simple to imitate ideas. iii)Regulatory alterations. iv)Uncertainties in the macroeconomy. v)Reduced allegiance. vi)The necessity to develop a new storey when reaching today's client. vii)Difficulties in digitising business operations (e.g. insurance claims processing). viii)New model innovations in which policy words are coupled with data from emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things. Insurance companies are being disrupted, disrupted, and are undergoing significant digital transformation initiatives, which often focus around the need to enhance the end-to-end client experience. Many insurance companies struggle to process a request that incorporates information from several communication channels and offer the immediate answer that their consumers demand. Instead, they have automated procedures for certain communication channels, such as paper documents and emails, but text and, notably, social media conversations are primarily manual or remain compartmentalised. The rising expectations also pose a problem for the insurance industry's personnel. Aging specialists and massive training needs – it might take up to 15 years for a claims expert to reach the level of senior experience – make meeting policyholder expectations very challenging. As a result, hiring a large number of claims agents, training them, and then retaining just the best performers is not a sustainable approach. It is necessary to find a more gentle approach of moving staff knowledge, optimising process, and maintaining and increasing knowledge bases. There is great demand to optimise efficiency and simplify operations in the highly competitive insurance sector. Most carriers suffer with manual process stages, which include several repetitive duties such as reviewing a claim entry for completeness and seeking missing information such as a police report

from an auto accident. Handling an underwriting request or claim necessitates matching the request with client information, which is often stored in outdated systems. Finding key data, such as customer status and related right to reimbursement, is often a bottleneck for the claims process's end-to-end automation. The storey and message around such insurance products are often centred on the cost component. At the time of writing, the first organic (non-paid) result I receive when putting the keyword "auto insurance" into Google is a web page that enables me to compare affordable vehicle insurance rates. The paid results (advertising from insurance companies who pay the most for the search keyword display first) include phrases like "cheap", "pay less", "lowest rates", and "40% less". Consider what occurs if I search for "cheap vehicle insurances" rather than simply "car insurance." Knowing that such insurance products are increasingly bought online and that consumers who buy them "offline" examine rates online before doing so, the effect is evident. The pricing component is not just important in the message of conventional suspects such as insurance comparison websites, many of which essentially enable you to "purchase" insurance since they partner with numerous insurance providers. In 1996, car insurance and the Internet were introduced. In 1996, car insurance and the Internet were introduced. Some insurance firms have reacted by developing their own internet platforms – frequently as different brands. Others have picked up the same pricing storey. In my search, for example, a renowned insurer and financial services organisation appeared in the top search results with a web page headed "Car insurance at a genuinely great price." What's astonishing is that this hasn't changed in two decades, since we began utilising the Internet for commercial purposes. Just take a look at this MSN screenshot from...1996. The image that says "Overpaying for Auto Insurance?" is prominent. The results may vary depending on the version of Google or any other search engine you use and where you reside, but we observe the same behaviour practically everywhere on the planet. Customer retention and satisfaction have become increasingly important, especially as the choice of an insurance provider is

influenced not only by pricing but also by "tradition" (for example, choosing the same providers as family members) and peer recommendations and word-of-mouth, both offline and online (via review sites and other platforms but also personal interactions). Reduced churn has become a necessity, prompting insurance businesses to consider the customer experience, particularly customer happiness, as a proven approach to enhance client acquisition. Consumers do not want connections with insurance companies for commoditized items, but they do want to safeguard what is essential to them, and when it comes down to it, the claim in the event of an incident is a critical moment of truth. When the unexpected occurs, people consider their insurance provider. Unfortunately, client happiness, service, support, and easy claim procedures are insufficient on their own, even if clever claims techniques are required to make a difference. Acquisition via other channels is still crucial, and since everyone is utilising direct and digital channels, gaining a competitive edge in this area is difficult, putting pressure on expenses and prices. As a result, many insurance firms are attempting to improve their processes and cost structures via automation and digitalization, which is a continuing struggle. However, it causes people to focus more on the primary value proposition. And that value proposition emerges at the crossroads of the underwriter's interests and ambitions on the one hand, and the brand on the other. It's one of the reasons why brand management has grown increasingly vital in many businesses, and why content is so critical in marketing. Content, in the sense of information, has also become critical in the real procedures, cost reductions, and efficiency sought by insurance firms. In this context, insurance carriers are actively monitoring digital technologies and several recent evolutions. While pricing remains central to many insurance companies' marketing, there is a shift in the narrative in which some providers attempt to emphasis on their function as advisers and collaborators throughout the customer life cycle (in this instance, literally the customer's life). This method may work successfully in certain circumstances, especially when it is not

only a question of message but also manifests itself in actions at those indicated times when it actually counts. In other circumstances, particularly for things judged less necessary by customers, the method seems to be less successful. It may make more sense in corporate insurance, where the insurance company provides more than just insurance, for agents close to local clients seeking a more personalised approach, and for particular categories of customers. However, as previously said, customers do not want connections with their insurance providers. Once an insurance policy is issued, there are usually few contacts between the provider and the customer.In the event of an incident and subsequent claim, the relationship dimension often becomes obvious. That moment is likely to be significantly more important from a relationship standpoint than the underwriting, even if the latter occurs in a more personal manner rather than via direct and digital connections and distribution channels. By the way, this is not limited to the insurance industry. In general, consumers do not desire to form ties with brands. What they do want is to get...what they desire, so knowing and validating what that is becomes more vital. Once again, the emphasis is on the customer and optimising the consumer experience. People do not seek insurance. Sure, they seek for them online and in other places, but it isn't their ultimate purpose, and it isn't what they are looking for. As previously said, they want to safeguard something important to them. They purchase a guarantee, a feeling of security and comfort, and a promise. In that way, insurance is nearly as important as the thing they seek to safeguard. That is one of the reasons individuals get insurance when they schedule a trip or purchase a new automobile. That is why they need a warranty with their new PC. They also get insurance to safeguard less tangible assets such as their life, money, family members, and so on. They purchase a guarantee in case anything unanticipated occurs. We may even go a step further: when individuals purchase a house, they don't just buy bricks and mortar; they buy a place to call "home" and so much more. Understanding these emotional and practical components

is an opportunity for insurance providers who go beyond the insurance product (and its qualities like as pricing) and connect their brand, service, content, and so on with the underwriter's ultimate objectives. These personal aims, feelings, and values of the customer cannot be commoditized, nor can they be delivered in actuality by an insurance business. One strategy to mitigate the effect of commoditization is to behave in a customer-centric manner while streamlining processes and controlling risks and cost structures. It necessitates concentration and, honestly, accepting that the impression of commoditization will persist as more competitors, including the Googles of the world, concentrate on pricing. As a consequence of these and other issues, almost all participants in the huge and complicated healthcare ecosystem are speeding up their digitization and digital transformation efforts, but they also see potential in digitally changing healthcare and are investing more in digital health. The 'organisation' of healthcare varies by country, legal framework, political agenda, individual organisation, role in the healthcare ecosystem, and the precise goals of digital transformation within each individual context: from improving patient-centricity in hospitals and improving workforce conditions to new ways of care, such as remote health monitoring by leveraging. When you consider the enormous healthcare ecosystem (with providers and payers as two main sub-ecosystems) and where digital technologies – with a defined purpose in any given context – fit in, you may question what digital transformation in healthcare really implies. Is it about finding new methods to use digital technology to benefit health? Is it about using digital technology to make healthcare more accessible and cost-effective (a universal need)? Is it a matter of finding new money streams, since healthcare must be funded? Is it the digital transformation of an entire sector in countries where healthcare tourism is considered as an important source of income, such as in those countries that were more reliant on oil and are now transitioning to service economies? Is digital transformation also about the digitization of healthcare records (EHR, short for electronic health record, and EMR, short for electronic medical records, as shown in the graphic below, which remains a major investment area in the so-called

digital health space and a topic we've discussed numerous times)? Is it about using Big Data to improve healthcare? Is it about improving patient-centricity, for example, via the use of EHR? What about harnessing the Internet of Things in healthcare to empower people to enhance their health via the use of personal healthcare devices? Or, more specifically, what about the Industrial Internet of Things component, where we view remote healthcare (monitoring) as a crucial IoT use case? Perhaps it's about leveraging technology like artificial intelligence, IoT, robots, and new sorts of sensors to come up with better methods to provide patients with new or enhanced 'tools'? Or how about the financing and structure of healthcare'business models'? All of this and more is what digital transformation in healthcare entails. However, digital transformation in healthcare entails more than simply technology advancements (digital transformation never is about that first). It's about the difficulties we need to solve in healthcare throughout the whole ecosystem and in all areas, about innovation and establishing a sustainable healthcare future by harnessing all of those technologies and massive quantities of mostly unstructured data and information. We list a few (additional) healthcare problems below as they drive digital transformation technology agendas, however certain technologies in healthcare are also influencing how you will live. It's no secret that there are a plethora of such issues. Costs, ageing populations, changing patient expectations, and, let's not forget, the difficult conditions in which physicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals in general (very frequently) must work. On top of the broader challenges – and opportunities – confronting healthcare and driving the need for digitization, digitalization, or digital transformation, there are the "side-effects" that must be considered right from the start: the challenges of security, privacy, and compliance in an industry brimming with very personal data (clearly covered by the GDPR) that will be leveraged in ways you may not know or expect yet, but of which a few examples are provided below.

However, these additional issues, such as patient data security and protection, exist in addition to the digitization picture. It often comes down to organisational issues or the mistakes of a single operator in a larger healthcare ecosystem — and digital transformation also entails organisational issues. Consider what occurred in the United Kingdom during the last several years and was revealed in early 2017. While the NHS (the United Kingdom's national health services) is attempting to become paperless, an NHS contractor was able to keep communication between physicians and hospitals in a warehouse rather than delivering it where it belonged. In total, approximately half a million confidential NHS correspondence would have been stored rather than sent, and while the government claims that there were no risks, it's not difficult to imagine that among all that correspondence with diagnoses, medical test results, and so on, cases with potential patient harm will emerge. Don't believe this is exclusive to the United Kingdom. It is just one of many instances of how things can – and do – go wrong in a non-digital setting, and how, if done correctly, they can be avoided by digitising information carriers, test results, and patient files, with security by design as a requirement. Of course, 'the bad guys' will not ignore the increased digitalization and concentration on data in digital transformation and linked healthcare initiatives. Given the significance of data in healthcare, it is projected that assaults would increase. There is also the difficulty of improving healthcare from the standpoint of patients and other stakeholders. There are healthcare staff, but first and foremost, there are the patients. It's all about them in healthcare. And we are seeing incredible evolutions as a result of new technology. Consider the development of bionic limbs as an example (it just is one of many examples, we could look at all sorts of fields and even specific diseases). People who have lost (parts of) their arms and legs now have access to modern brain-controlled artificial limbs that may improve their quality of life. However, in actuality, these bionic limbs need a significant amount of work from patients and do not come

close to delivering the same possibilities as the 'original.' We've recently spoken with several companies and participants of an innovation initiative in the realm of bionic limbs, and the developments are absolutely remarkable. When you consider how some recent and upcoming innovations, which have yet to be commercialised, will make the lives of people who require bionic limbs so much easier (there is a lot of AI, sensors, and human reflexes going on), the difference between these bionic limbs and current generations is simply amazing. If you've been reading about digital transformation and general healthcare problems, you've probably come across the ageing population. However, we tend to underestimate the simple fact that people are living longer – and will likely live even longer in the future, thanks to...improvements and technological advances in healthcare, as well as the fact that in many countries, growth rates are declining and, even where this is not the case, the age balance is shifting. The number of Americans aged 65 and more is expected to almost double over the next three decades, rising from 48 million to 88 million by 2050. (National Institute on Aging) It is anticipated that by 2050, more than one in every five individuals worldwide would be years or older, with the number of persons aged 60 and over more than doubling since 2000. In fact, in certain nations, more than a quarter of the population is 60 or older. In Japan, 26.3 percent of the population is over 65 (not 60, but 65), 22.4 percent in Italy, 21.4 percent in Greece, and 21.2 percent in Germany. And 2050 is still a long way off. An ageing population also implies that fewer individuals are 'active' and able to contribute to the finance of healthcare systems. This, among other repercussions, increases healthcare expenses while also driving innovative solutions for the less mobile while saving money. It's no surprise that remote healthcare monitoring has been and continues to be the most important area of Internet of Things investment in healthcare globally, albeit there are more reasons for this than ageing populations. But there's more to it. With ageing populations comes a

rise in chronic illnesses that are common among the elderly. "People are living longer, but that does not always imply they are living healthier," says Richard J. Hodes, M.D., head of the National Institute on Aging. Our ageing population brings numerous possibilities as well as some public health issues that we must prepare for." You never know what the future holds, but chronic, so-called noncommunicable illnesses now account for three-quarters of all fatalities worldwide. What is the economic impact? Only five of these ailments, according to the World Economic Forum, would cost the economy 47 trillion (!) USD by 2030. But keep in mind that chronic illnesses aren't only a problem for an older (and expanding) population – and it's not fair to dismiss the 'elderly' as a burden; rather the reverse. There are a lot of misunderstandings about this. We've discussed a number of difficulties, evolutions, trends, and technologies, but what does the near and far future hold? As previously said, data and information are the overarching themes of digital transformation in healthcare and the rising deployment of Internet of Things projects, Big Data, AI/cognitive, robots, and, of course, EHR/EMR, as we progress towards an information-driven healthcare. Of course, most inventions are found here as well, always with those problems in mind. As we said, 2017 is shaping up to be a year in which US healthcare providers AND payers rapidly accelerate their digital transformation implementations. While payers are catching up to providers, we are primarily seeing technology investments in the third platform's pillars and the utilisation of the Internet of Things.

Figure 4.8 Digital Transformation in Healthcare Looking ahead, and based on another IDC report (used in the graphic and mentioned throughout this overview) that contains predictions regarding global healthcare IT and digital transformation evolutions at both payers and providers, we can see how data is heavily used and transformative for the healthcare industry. One clear implication is that cybersecurity is a top concern. This is true not just in the long run, in order to develop a sustainable and safe digital healthcare environment, but also in the immediate term. According to IDC, the incidence of ransomware attacks on healthcare institutions would more than quadruple by 2018. Earlier in this review, we underlined the need of security. We may look at these three sectors independently, but they are plainly linked, with robots as a fourth crucial component in the evolutions of healthcare transformation in the next years. IDC predicts that by 2019, more than 40% of enterprises will be using IoT-enabled biosensors. Furthermore, as previously said, anticipate a rise in wearables (in the

context of care plans, monitoring and Big Data pattern detection although here we talk about other connected medical devices too). Wearables have long been predicted to play a significant role in healthcare. We previously discussed the expanding use of wearables outside of the consumer setting, and healthcare was cited as one of the primary factors (healthcare & medical and fitness & wellness). IDC anticipates that pattern detection will spare up to 30% of clinicians' time by using IoT, real-time location data, and cognitive/AI. That's a lot of information. By 2019, 60 percent of healthcare apps would be able to do so. Another kind of 'automation' that may save resources is the previously stated robots that can do time-consuming chores. Expect many approaches for healthcare payers to integrate premiums and other data with healthcare data. And RPA and process reengineering will save a lot of money. Obviously, there are many more methods to cut expenses, modify payer models, free up resources, and take use of emerging technology. And we haven't even begun to discuss the role of newer technology in health care. There are already several inventions, cures, and so on that are based on modern technology and Big Data. And we haven't even reached the first genuine evolutions in the fourth platform, where the boundaries between human and therefore health on the one hand and digital on the other continue to blur. As previously said, many digital transformation initiatives concentrate around information and data in order to improve certain elements of healthcare, address problems, or develop new healthcare models. The majority of healthcare players are mainly concerned with producing, processing, manipulating, and combining information. It's no surprise that information management is crucial in this situation. Electronic health records (EHR) have been a critical focus point in the broader field of Health Information Management (HIM) in recent years. However, early interest in EHR did not correlate to commercial realities. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, just 1.5 percent of US hospitals had a "complete EHR" in place in 2009, and 7.6 percent had a basic EHR. Despite this, there was agreement that EHR might increase the efficiency of healthcare service providers,

with variations based on the size, location, and scope of the institutions (e.g. big hospitals). Since 2009, a lot has changed in US healthcare, but the acceptance of digital technology among companies and consumers has also changed substantially, resulting in digital transformation initiatives. Consider the phenomenon of consumerization and the mobile revolution, for example. According to the 2009 survey, physician reluctance (36 percent of respondents) was a significant identified hurdle to EHR implementation in hospitals, albeit capital and cost difficulties were the primary impediments. Things have changed quickly since then. According to a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation analysis, the number of US hospitals implementing a basic Electronic Healthcare Record system increased between 2010 and 2012. "Given the size of our nation, that's extraordinary success in a very short time frame," said co-author Dr. Ashish Jha, an associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health. Nonetheless, there was (and continues to be) much work to be done, including the fact that, although 42 percent of hospitals in the United States currently meet federal criteria for collecting electronic health data, just 5 percent meet rules for sharing such data with other providers. Other nations, such as the United Kingdom, have been and continue to prosper in this system of data exchange. It's also a hotly disputed issue where EHR evolutions are taking place. Concerns about security and privacy have remained high in an increasingly digital world and culture. Although the EHR/EMR industry is predicted to expand until at least 2020, it is the slowest growing of all digital healthcare areas. Given the delicate nature of patient information, legal constraints, privacy concerns, and security considerations, the healthcare sector has been somewhat sluggish to embrace riskier technology such as the cloud, for example. However, this is obviously changing as the healthcare business, in the middle of multiple innovation drivers, examines how other industries utilise the cloud, including from a data management standpoint. In the context of electronic health records and healthcare information management, data management, data governance, and data quality are significant

concerns. While data governance is concerned with developing frameworks that allow IT and business to collaborate in a credible and relevant manner, data quality. The electronic medical record, or EMR, is a digital alternative to the good old paper chart, whereas the more commonly used and broader electronical health record, or EHR, is a digital health "file" that is "attached" to the patient's overall health history and is to be connected across the healthcare ecosystem, whereas an EMR was traditionally intended for a single healthcare facility or clinician. Both, however, overlap. Whereas data quality is an enabler ("the how"), data governance is concerned with accountability. However, both are concerned with correctly balancing and merging processes, people, and technology with the purpose of optimising data and information to satisfy business goals. Overall, a few key phenomena, many of which are data-related, drive innovation in healthcare IT. Data management, enabled by data governance (not the same thing), which in turn is facilitated by data quality, is therefore playing a growing role. An intriguing summary of why healthcare providers use EHR systems from their viewpoint and what they wished to see in EHR was provided in a Computing Technology Industry Association Survey on Healthcare IT. Computerworld created an intriguing graphic in a special study on Healthcare IT. The top 5 reasons healthcare providers adopt EHR systems, according to the survey: i)Better patient care. ii)Save time, improve efficiency. iii)Reduce errors or the risks of errors. iv)Improve staff productivity. v)The improvements doctors wanted to see in EHR systems were a lot about speed, effiency and (thus ease of use) too. The top 5 desired improvements by doctors:

i)Increase speed. ii)Easier to use, less complex. iii)Lower cost. iv)Removal of unnecessary functions. v)Greater interoperability with other systems and better remote access. The illustration below also shows the most commonly used EHR software features and the main reasons for not adopting EHR systems. These EHR adoption reasons and desired improvements indeed look a lot like several of the challenges we encounter as drivers for digital transformation in healthcare. Yet, how else could it be? Technologies may and do provide chances for patients to communicate with healthcare staff through video and other means. They allow individuals to better their health or connect with others who are doing the same. However, in the case of remote health monitoring, this also implies the necessity for individuals who can listen, discuss, and grasp the core of care. In today's efficiency economy, we can't help but notice that all too often, staff efficiency and productivity are primarily viewed from a cost and essential care perspective, and even in hospital settings, patients feel as if they are in a factory setting, lacking essential psychological and human support. However, if we do not invest in people who are experts in the human dimension of care and instead focus too much on the digital and efficiency perspective and workers with those new skill sets, we will trade efficiency in healthcare in one area for an increase in costs in another: alongside chronic diseases, mental issues are among the fastest growing, and the latter require more than Big Data, IoT, fast remedies, technology, wearables, remote monitoring, or pills to solve. The financial services sector is undergoing tremendous transformations as a result of changing client behaviour, rising expectations, channel expansion, disruption, inventive use and acceptance of new technologies, and the broader digitalization of

business and society. Cost savings, increased top-line income, and risk mitigation remain significant drivers in retail banking. The digital revolutions occurring in finance are being driven by a number of shared issues and opportunities throughout the sector, whether it be insurance, (retail) banking, or other financial services. At the same time, specific challenges exist in each of those financial industry segments, depending on the level of digital transformation maturity, the region, the overall ecosystem, the customer context (including the use of digital channels), the business scope, and the degree to which digitization has occurred and processes have been connected. Although retail banks are leading in some digital areas, including marketing and customer-facing operations (with fantastic examples of omni-channel banking and mobile banking, for example), retail banking in general still has a lot of catching up to do. Banks, in general, face additional issues that are shared by other parts of the financial industry: The need to integrate/connect distribution channels in order to improve efficiency, minimise costs, and provide consistent service to consumers and prospects. This is the so-called omni-channel imperative, which we've seen in retail and other sectors, and it's indicative of a channel-agnostic, more digital/mobile customer. Improve experiences and (therefore) allow improved customer service and experiences by better identifying opportunities by looking at the full customer life cycle (and critical changes in it). Reduce turnover while improving loyalty. Retail banking clients' loyalty varies. This is due to a number of additional issues discussed below, as well as general shifts in customer behaviour. In certain regions, loyalty is rising, while in others, it is decreasing. Furthermore, loyalty is no longer sufficient. Consider your past experiences. The effects of the 2008 financial crisis and today's shaky. Even while most retail banks demonstrates that there is still digitization, a prerequisite for processes that are sometimes

prioritise digital transformation, reality much work to be done in the areas of digital transformation, and underlying disregarded. In a 2012 research titled

"Digital transformation in 10 building blocks to increase customer experience and ROE," the Efma (a financial industry association encouraging retail banking innovation) and McKinsey said that retail banking was trailing behind in terms of digitalization/digitization. According to the analysis, which is based on data and viewpoints from across the European banking industry, just 20-40% of processes are digitalized, and 90% of banks invest less than 0.5 percent of their overall investment in digital. Below we summarize 12 retail banking priorities, each with their own challenges and opportunities. i)Cost reduction (among others lowering cost per transaction) and increasing sales (cross-selling, up-selling, acquisition), which is a challenge for many. ii)Customer focus: optimizing the customer experience and enhancing customer service in a consistent way: from cross-channel and multichannel to omnichannel. iii)Single customer view: connecting systems and processes to achieve the above with an increasing role for digital channels and (connected) CRM. iv)Developing new offerings, products and services that are adapted to the evolving customer reality, competitive landscape and area of activities. Noteworthy: after the bank crisis in 2008, in many regions, retail banks across the globe looked less at the Western banking system and more at their own markets and strengths/challenges/approaches. Innovation often comes from developing countries. v)Digital and direct banking with a clear role for mobile banking, especially in areas with less branches, high mobile penetration and cost reduction programs vi)Segmentation. Adaptive and agile business models, taking into account customer segments, based on various parameters (more below). vii)Branch consolidation (and innovation), among others for cost reduction purposes, but also to introduce new – cost-effective and customer-adapted – ways to digitize specific processes and tasks

(with experiments to see what works). viii)Analytics and ways to combine all interactions, information and – predominantly unstructured data (also Big Data) to optimize customer service and touchpoints, while having dashboards, enabling cost control. ix)Identifying silos that are omnipresent in virtually all business functions and processes. And finding ways to build cases that enable improved efficiency across silos. x)The use of digital marketing and customer service strategies to acquire, retain and service customers, adapting to the digital consumer but also promoting digital services to reduce costs, both in services and marketing spend. xi)Turning customer experience and customer service improvements into changing customer behavior with real tangible profits and revenue-generating activities such as referrals. FinTech is very strong here. xii)Stepping up the pace towards a digital banking ecosystem as a lack of speed regarding innovation and adapting to customer demands has certainly contributed to the rising success of FinTechs and is a reason for the de facto ongoing collaboration with these innovative and agile newcomers who are not withheld by the slowness of legacy IT systems and master the art of digitalization and of new technologies. Without a question, the primary goal of banks is to keep expenses under control, manage risk, and achieve total cost savings (which is again another reason why incumbents look at FinTech). Even while digital strategy implementation, customer experience optimization, branch role review, replacing outdated systems, and reacting to regulatory changes are all vital, costs and risk management remain critical for obvious reasons. Things are still evolving. The retail banking business is rapidly recognising digitization, digital disruption, and digital transformation as top goals. Controlling costs and managing risk are critical in a very unpredictable global economy with problems and urgent requirements to adapt, among digital and mobile first customer expectations and pressure

from governments and regulators to digitise. Current geopolitical concerns, as well as pressing modernization and innovation needs that must be paid, simply necessitate retail banks keeping a careful watch on expenses and business risks. How could it be any other way? The perceived hazards, on the other hand, are shifting. When discussing the perceived business risks for 2016 and beyond, we stated how, for the first time ever, technological innovation emerged in the top five long-term dangers affecting organisations in the Allianz Risk Barometer 2016. In the financial services industry, cyber events are regarded as the second most serious risk. The most significant perceived risk in financial services is market changes. However, as previously said, this category of risk is increasingly concerned with disruptive forces and business models. Digital technology are seen as both a problem and an opportunity. Branch consolidation is one method for cutting expenses; digitization and digital transformation are two more. Nonetheless, many banks continue to fail to see the connection between digitization and cost reductions. However, as you will see below, there is an obvious connection. Digitizing and automating back office activities, for example, results in cost reductions on levels such as core banking replacement, document management systems, and Business process Management. Furthermore, when done in the context of a powerful customer experience, back office digitalization eliminates the unavoidable expenses of manual labour and paper-based operations while enabling efficiencies that minimise customer support costs and reduce attrition.Legacy systems demand particular attention since they cost banks a lot of money and have resulted in costly failures, as you will see lower down. They are simply not adaptable to modern needs and cannot be replaced by other legacy systems, despite the hopes of some CIOs. In a 2013 survey, Ovum's Rik Turner said, "These [old] systems function, so bank IT officials assume, Why rock the boat?" It's reasonable to argue that the need to rock the boat isn't only about adjusting to banks' changing circumstances; it's also about how, when done correctly, modernisation of IT systems cuts costs. There is a

danger in that 'done properly,' with CIOs who are unwilling to take such chances because they have been depending on the same technologies and systems in a market that was among the first to adopt multiple IT systems and solutions. When asked about their top priorities in the years ahead, according to research conducted by financial software specialist Temenos and the Economist Intelligence Unit and reported on by David Bannister on Banking Technology, the majority of retail bank executives said 'implementing a digital strategy.' In the 2015 version of the study, the execution of a digital strategy so surpassed reacting to regulatory requirements. The more 'direct cost-related solutions score lower', like strengthening customer segmentation by product, service level, or distribution channel rated second. Adapting to changes in the size, structure, and purpose of the branch network is ranked third (where cost savings really play a big role). On four, we find cost-cutting or margin improvement in retail business lines. Responding to regulatory requirements, although still critical, was placed sixth, which was rather surprising. Looking at the reasons for implementing a digital strategy, it's probably not a surprise that it's not simply about adjusting to changing consumer expectations, regulatory pressure, "concerns about competition from new entrants," or establishing the ability to be more responsive, flexible, and inventive. The same is true for improving consumer segmentation and a variety of additional responses. Greater revenues, more competences to survive in the face of all those changes, risk management (for example, from new entrants), and, most importantly, cost savings, which may be achieved via the execution of a digital strategy. But, once again, the signs are clear, especially since, according to Monica Woodley of The Economist Group (quoting Banking Technology), "the surge in interest in digital channel strategies was driven by concerns about competition from new entrants – 35 percent of respondents cited it as having the greatest impact on the industry, up from 22 percent last year, and tech and e-commerce companies are the competitors that banks fear the most."

Figure 4.9 Top Retail Banking Priorities Digital transformation in banking requires integration of front office and back end: It’s in the integration of front end, back end and other areas that true digital transformation often still needs to happen. From a pure digitization viewpoint, in retail banking we often still notice: i)Lots of information-related processes happen manually and leave room for errors. ii)Disconnected systems, resources and – again processes – are time-consuming and costly .

iii)Organizational silos remain huge and different projects and goals live in isolation, thus standing in the way of cross-fuctional optimization. If one of the underlying processes is slowed, this inevitably has an impact on other processes and of course on the overall customer experience, exactly an area where retail banks need to focus on. Olanrewaju rightfully states that, among others, there is a lot of value to gain in the automation of servicing and fulfilment process. From an information and data standpoint, the following factors, among others on the process and channel levels, may contribute to cost savings, greater customer experiences, quicker time to market, reduced risks, and increased revenues and loyalty. Reducing the physical labour that is still used in various back-office operations, as previously indicated. This is not so much a problem of labour costs as it is of the inevitable errors that occur while recording and processing any kind of input or information (from loan applications to customer support concerns). It's a necessary aspect of the process of digitising material. Reducing manual labour, procedures, and workflows is a critical step toward achieving a higher aim, which is automated processes that are linked or integrated with other systems to increase process efficiency and, ultimately, customer and corporate goals. Connecting processes, applications, and digital information flows are inextricably linked in today's digital setting. Information silos are the adversary of digitalization, optimization, transformation, and even innovation. Aside from the classic channels that customers still choose to utilise, such as paper and email, there is a plethora of new channels where it is apparent that today's customer wants instant engagement with unstructured data and information as the primary form of communication. This is not just an issue in retail banking, but it also plays an important role. As such, the growing use of direct and digital channels represents a wide and rapidly expanding problem. The function of the retail bank branch is evolving. It is obvious that branch consolidation and branch closure will continue in many contexts. This shift, which is being pushed, among other things, by the need to reduce costs and invest more in customer experience and

digital transformation, does not imply that branches will disappear. Next, we'll look at the shifting role of the retail bank. Customers want omnichannel service and information on their terms. They want to communicate on their terms as well. With the rise of the digital prosumer, who is used to (and desires) making choices on their own terms, the emphasis of the retail bank branch is altering. This frequently necessitates investment in providing digitization opportunities and digital experiences within the branch, as well as reconsidering the tasks and roles of various branch employees, depending on their typical visitor segments and tasks, which, in turn, are dependent on a broader context (e.g. location). Many retail banks are also experimenting with co-branding, hybrid branches, immersive experiences inside branches, design, and other similar concepts. As previously stated, both trials and genuine modifications in the function of the retail bank branch might result in employment adjustments. For example, if customers have access to more digital tools and services on the spot, the branch's employee mix can shift more toward supportive functions, while offering special spaces and slots for financial advice, even if we see digital evolutions in this area as well, where the 'expert' is not physically present. There are clearly various solutions available, and there is no one-sizefits-all solution. The development of different typical clients, which may be guided with incentives and come with potential education and engagement efforts, will be the major driver. To name a few parameters, it is also clear that digital and physical interaction preferences will change and vary country to country (e.g. existing government-driven digital evolutions, use of mobile in banking and thus penetration), bank to bank (e.g. maturity, connected processes, legacy systems), branch to branch (e.g. rural versus city), and customer segment to customer segment. Finally, the retail bank's nature and larger business ecosystem have a role (compare broadoffer banks with disruptive competitors, internet pure players, and retail bank services provided by postal services and even businesses that do not have banking as a main business, for example). What is certain is that the function of the branch is changing, and this has a

human cost. When Barclays announced 1,700 job layoffs in the UK in 2013, it cited the fact that clients only visit their branch twice a month, while utilising mobile services 18 times. In logistics and transportation, efficiency, optimization, speed, and timeliness have always been critical. It is much more true today, amidst a spectrum of fast evolutions and in a more digital world where digital transformations and the development of IoT are driving the next industrial revolution dubbed as Industry 4.0. We've previously discussed how speed is often a critical distinction in today's 'digital business' setting. When employed correctly, speed may provide a competitive edge. In previous post, we discussed how real-time economic evolutions effect companies. According to research, 76.9 percent of executives agree or strongly agree that the transition to a real-time economy has an influence on their company operations. And, of course, processes are ubiquitous and hyper-connected in transportation and logistics (as well as supply chains). A majority of CEOs believe that the transition to a real-time economy has an impact on their organisational structure and company strategy. This shouldn't come as a surprise, and we're certain that if the same study were completed today (it's from the end of 2013), the findings would be much better. Among the various drivers are, of course, customers, users, or people who want more and are more mobile. This is true for many businesses, but in transportation and logistics, customer experience and engagement are also key considerations. Several evolutions, notably mobility, have permitted a change in behaviour, which is augmented by the experiences customers are used to in settings other than contacts and transactions with your company. It's the wellknown'spill-over effect.' An end customer resides at the conclusion of each supply chain, just as a user, a logistics partner, or any other stakeholder sits at the end of each process. The customer-obsessed operational model, as Forrester refers to it, can be found everywhere. Consider how, in the context of a customer-adaptive organisation, the emphasis has shifted from large data to quick data. Or, in the context

of the Internet of Things, how do we go towards the edge in data analysis (edge computing and fog computing)? (IoT). Or how quickly gathering and processing information is critical (without forgetting the accuracy). Real-time economics may be a misnomer since real-time first identifies a capability. However, we are increasingly seeing it as a reality. Hyper-connectivity is fundamentally associated with acceleration and speed. The interconnection of processes, people, and how they are utilised. So, customer expectations and competitive differentiation require speed and timing, which are drivers of several important changes in transportation and logistics, with speed being a competitive advantage. We mentioned a few examples of when and where speed and timing are crucial in logistics and beyond. Here are a few examples of other areas where they are real game changers: i)Data-driven marketing aims to engage people at the time and in the context which makes most sense and – thus – increases conversions/actions. ii)Information management, more than ever, is about living up to the credo of the right information at the right time for the right process(es), people, context, purposes and so on. iii)Customer service: the demand for fast responses is higher than ever and here as well it is a lot about information and communication (at the right time, etc.) but also because of these increased customer expectations regarding speedy (and accurate) answers in a mobile world. iv)The roll-out of new business models or technology deployments, taking decisions and/or product launches: you don’t want to be too soon nor too late.In the end many of these examples are essential reasons why, as businesses, we’re so fond of big data and in this context certainly fast data and data analytics, delivered by unleashing

artificial intelligence and cognitive computing on sets of data which we need to time so many things right and even in a predictive way as we do with predictive analytics. Businesses don’t want data. They want visibility and dashboards to be fast and timely as they know it’s key in today’s digital transformation economy and realize it won’t change anytime soon, well on the contrary. And it is no different in logistics, transportation and supply chains. Whereas the majority of the preceding instances deal with information and communication, there is also the actual world of pallets, boxes, items, paper papers, the books you just purchased online, and so on. This leads us to the transportation and logistics business, where information management, data, analytics, visibility, and the king customer are all important. After all, with each handling, shipment, or other treatment of commodities, processes, information flows, and interactions emerge. With the barriers between digital and physical becoming more blurred, few sectors are more hyper-connected on all levels than those involved in supply chains. Finally, transport and logistics have one key task: ensuring that any of the aforementioned and other things reach at the correct time and location in the best possible shape. There is always someone waiting for something, whether it is distributors, end consumers, transportation companies, merchants, or any other aspect of the supply chain. Many parties are involved in getting an item from where it is created to its final destination, like in many real-life events in a linked and globalised society. The longer these parties wait, the longer it takes overall, and the more time, resources, money, and occasionally reputation may be squandered when a supplier is late and others must wait. Obviously, these delays have no bearing on the final destination. There is still warehousing, stock management, and supply chain management, which is significantly more sophisticated than illustrated here. Consider all of the steps that one participant in the supply chain must perform (from the reception of an item to shipping it out in its original shape and form or as part of another item at the end of a manufacturing process).

Most good old logistics and supply chain management standards still apply in today's digital business realities, but the stakes are greater than ever. And it just goes quicker and is significantly more integrated, with linked processes and, of course, data from several sources. In fact, if you look at the 7 Rs of corporate logistics, you'll see that having the appropriate data at the proper time, location, and so on is critical. And we're talking about data from sensors (condition, location,...) as well as data and information from a variety of different sources, such as insights based on data analytics or digitised information from throughout the supply chain. Digital business requires digital supply chains. Digitization (document to process) is a must and also changing the game (even if there is still a lot to do). i)Profound digital transformation is occurring in several areas and challenge the status quo. ii)Innovative uses of technologies in areas such as data analytics, the Internet of Things and the cloud are disrupting existing players. iii)Various parties in the supply chain move at different speeds and changing expectations and evolutions in the digital transformation economy (or fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 or whichever term you prefer) simply make digitalization a necessity across the logistics, transport and manufacturing industries where digital and always-on supply chains are becoming the new norm. iv)Although transportation and logistics management is a really broad area (even if we leave transportation people and animals out of the equation and mainly focus on goods here), there are several evolutions which apply to the sector as a whole and de facto lead to digitation and digital transformation as key catalysts and consequences with several digital technologies to make it all possible. The technologies vary based on the 'task' (for example, packing is not the same as real transportation or border process management), but they all have one thing in common: the emphasis is mostly on data and information. Data and analytics are critical for speeding up processes, providing insight to partners and customers, digitising value chains, and developing new business models in the context of digital transformation. At the heart of many sub-segments of

transportation and logistics is the question of disrupting or being disrupted by data and information. This instantly identifies the many digital technologies that have a role in the sector. The majority of them revolve around location, device connectivity (Internet of Things), big data analytics, cognitive computing, and, of course, the platforms where data is captured, processed, and leveraged/accessed, such as mobile platforms, information capture and processing platforms, but also networks and data environments like the cloud. The transportation and logistics sector is data-driven and informationintensive. However, huge data and data-driven traditions are not a guarantee of effective data-driven leveraging. T&L enterprises must improve their data maturity in order to convert opportunities in the Internet of Things and cognitive computing into advantages that allow them to change their operations more quickly than is currently the case. The emphasis moves from data to results and transformations. According to PwC study from 2016, "just 10% of transportation and logistics organisations evaluate the maturity of their data analytics capabilities as advanced." According to PwC, this is lower than in other sectors (source: "Industry 4.0: Building the Digital Enterprise Transportation and Logistics Key Findings"). When it comes to big data (analytics), we can't avoid mentioning the Internet of Things. It is evident that there are many things in T&L that can be advanced by using IoT applications, including supply chain efficiency and data possibilities, as well as visibility and innovative ways.There are several instances of how the Internet of Things is transforming logistics and transportation. While it's important to look ahead to the latest developments and trends (from connected and even 'autonomous' trucks to warehouse robotics and smart warehouse solutions in general, to name a few), the reality is that the Internet of Things has been present in logistics, transportation, supply chains, warehousing, and other industries for quite some time. Let us not forget that the Internet of Things and its roots in RFID began in logistics, warehouses, and the supply chain in general. As you can see below, the Industrial Internet of Things is a critical component of the 'connected logistics market.' Asset management is one of the areas where RFID and IoT have been used as part of end-to-end inventory and asset management systems for quite some time. The

combination of sensors, linked devices, big data (analytics), and mobile/cloud/connectivity technology expands asset monitoring and management options. For example, in addition to merely monitoring your inventory, palettes, crates, shipments, and fleet, information about the status of any linked object, including cars, may be obtained to make judgments in areas such as maintenance. Regardless of the diversity of business processes and services that are outsourced, outsourcing in general is evolving, and many of these developments are not restricted to a certain kind or sector of business process outsourcing. Outsourcing of business processes.Disruptive and transformational elements across value chains and outsourced ecosystems need adaptation in the business process outsourcing sector. A new breed of hybrid and flexible (out)sourcing models is also hitting the market. We are not discussing the hybrid kinds of outsourcing that are known in the context of offshore, nearshoring, and onshoring. In truth, this isn't about offshore at all; it's about business process outsourcing in general, independent of physical location. It is safe to say that the current and future wave of digital transformation exercises, related technologies, and the goals organisations want to achieve by transforming all play an important role in increasing pressure on business process outsourcers (BPOs) to up the ante – and, indeed, transform themselves. Before delving into some of these themes, consider business process outsourcing and how it has grown. As the name implies, business process outsourcing entails entrusting a business process to an external contractor, who is then charged with the various aspects of the business process, with a clear Service Level Agreement (SLA) in place and thus outcome-oriented metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The contractor is in charge of all or some components of the business processes, such as operational aspects, management, duties, control and reporting, and so on. According to Wikipedia, a difference has traditionally been established between back office outsourcing and front office outsourcing. However, as previously said, business process outsourcing, which was once connected with manufacturing and supply chain management, is evolving.

In every way imaginable, back-office and front-end processes are inextricably linked. In reality, digital transformation often entails linking disparate processes, automating them, and using data and IT resources to achieve a single goal. Back office outsourcing is the outsourcing of internal activities such as the digitalization of paperbased information (converting it into digital data that steers and triggers processes) or human resource outsourcing. Front end process outsourcing is customer-facing, with contact centre operations outsourcing being the most well-known example, although marketing and sales operations such as telesales may also be included. As a holistic view of multiple business processes and how they are all interrelated is critical, and because we observe overlap between the actual processes that are outsourced in reality, it's probably ideal to look at business process outsourcing from both a vertical and horizontal viewpoint. Digitizing paper documents (which is often done by document service bureaus, document process outsourcers, scanning service bureaus, or simply BPOs) is an example of a backoffice procedure. However, since information is critical for various front-end operations and digitising paper documents is part of a larger purpose, it must be seen from a different angle. When you look at what a company wants to accomplish via outsourcing, for example, digitalization of paper documents, you will find vertical sectors (one industry domain) such as insurance claims processing or horizontal circumstances (occurring across several industries) such as Accounts Payable (Processing). As previously stated and explored below, there is increasing pressure on business process outsourcing firms, depending on their specialisation, to not only reduce costs and improve efficiency, but also to become more of a strategic partner and add more value to allow organisations to focus on their core business. This allows BPOs to extend their offering, broaden their skillsets and services (closer to the business value, horizontally, vertically, with specific solutions responding to changing business needs, etc.). In some BPO segments, for instance, we see more demand for services regarding compliance and security as digitalization continues and regulatory requirements change. In other BPO segments, there is a clear demand that outsourcing providers are able to offer an end-toend solution, including strategic tasks, so companies can free up

resources to transform, innovate and create value. Therefore they expect the same from their business process outsourcing partners: more value than many traditionally delivered. In that sense it’s important to note that the digital transformation economy almost by definition is one of partnerships and strong ecosystems.Here they are: i)Vertical BPO services. Examples of processes that are typical to specific industries and thus require specialized outsourcing partners, include processes in industries such as insurance, banking, healthcare and IT services. Among these processes: claims processing, health payer business process management and loan portfolio process management. ii)Horizontal BPO services. Examples of business processes that are cross-industry and require a deep expertise of the specific process at hand, include HR business process outsourcing (from payroll to human capital management), Supply Chain Management (SCM) BPO, finance and accounting, document capture and digitization of paperbased processes. Returning to BPO changes and how digital transformations in enterprises affect business process outsourcers. How could it be any other way? Outsourcing cannot function without tight coordination (and, increasingly, strong business-oriented alignment) between outsourcers and clients. Especially because one of the traditional major reasons for outsourcing, cost reducing, is being joined by a slew of other optimization-driven, value-oriented, and sometimes timesensitive business reasons. When businesses are influenced in such fundamental ways as they are in today's so-called (digital) transformation environment, the natural result is that business process outsourcing partners' expectations adapt as well. The change of business processes, models, and skills in the context of increasing digitalization and technological innovation is not the only reason why the business process outsourcing sector must adapt. Far-reaching new regulatory frameworks, financial concerns, changing employee and consumer needs, the need to innovate (which is even becoming a rising customer expectation), and a dearth of 'new' talents that are increasingly necessary in businesses but rare are all equally

disruptive. Although some of these causes are inextricably linked with digital transformation, they existed prior to that. The essence of the issue is that the business component is becoming more important in all senses: the 'B' in 'BPO.' The second letter, the 'P' of Process, is likewise becoming increasingly prevalent, but in a gradual manner. As previously said, connectedness is a crucial phrase here, as is holistic: not just in those processes, but also in functions, technology, corporate objectives, people's requirements, and the next step of business process outsourcing itself. There has been a lot of discussion regarding the "new outsourcing." However, it is often limited to the context of IT outsourcing or ITrelated phenomena like the cloud. The next step of business process outsourcing entails considerably more. It is precisely about a more connected and holistic form of outsourcing in which outsourcers are challenged to broaden their scope and value proposition by speaking with the business, speaking the language of the C-suite, and understanding business areas that previously did not fall under the scope of whatever 'type' of outsourcing they specialise in. This is also not surprising in more than one way. Finally, the key problems of businesses, the consumers of business process outsourcers, are to streamline the company by linking functions, processes, skills, and systems that are and have always been segregated. Digital transformation is a more holistic kind of optimization in which bridges are formed on organisational, information and data, human, process, innovation, and/or cooperation levels – including external partners who become 'less external' and closer to the consumer in the widest sense. So, what exactly does the next level of business process outsourcing entail? Obviously, we must differentiate between various outsourced processes, the size and structure of particular markets, and even the issues that are compelling enterprises to change their requests from BPO partners. Nonetheless, certain shifting BPO realities may be seen in all of these areas. The most well-known and prevalent change in BPO reality is the transition from a cost reduction and performance optimization offer to a cost plus performance plus value proposition, where value and performance may take various forms. Historically,

outsourcing was motivated by the desire to cut costs, eliminate boring (and less value-creating) duties, and improve the performance of the outsourced process/function. Outsourcing was also seen as a means for forward-thinking organisations to satisfy the rising need to concentrate on the main business rather than trying to do everything, as was the case in periods when corporate success was seen to be represented by the size of buildings and employees. Even while all of these variables continue to play a substantial role, the value and performance component has expanded dramatically. Its definition and measurement are likewise evolving. Narrowing it down even further and beyond the context of digital transformation strategy, where there is all too often a hyped focus on the disruptive effect of technologies (which does not necessarily mean there is no such thing as disruptive technology), Charlene said it is a matter of two elements: 1) shifts or change and 2) people. We anticipate a third: trust. People are at the heart of every change or development. This is an obvious statement. Change/transformation is not just a human phenomena, on the opposite. Change is "natural" in certain ways (in our lives). We grow up and occasionally choose not to completely mature. Another aspect of change and transformation, both in personal and professional life, is that it is imposed on us by circumstance or as a consequence of a conscious or unconscious choice. Choosing or being forced to change may be exceedingly difficult, and it can be the consequence of highly powerful causes. These causes are often emergencies. Relationship crises or psychological issues, for example, might occur in one's personal life. For example, in business, macroeconomic crises or a significant increase in consumer attrition. It is more difficult to resist change. At least, that's how it seems. The energy used in opposing change, sometimes for reasons we completely ignore, forget, or just don't notice or choose not to see, may much exceed the advantages of change and the surprise of what is unknown or partly understood, and in fact often does. Humans are the primary disruptive and transforming force in business. People. Who we refer to as the client. Or the potential customer. Customers cause havoc. Businesses have been impacted. Businesses, on the other hand, have the ability to disrupt. People are

required for disruption, and companies are the sum of the people in their ecosystem, even though goods and brands are important. If the key individuals determining how they function fight change when it is disturbed or ignore changes within the ecosystem, they will fail. Smart innovators may make their firms revolutionary if they grasp what people desire and what technology allow from a holistic approach. Customers are the emphasis of customer-centric firms. They are adaptable and pro-active. They have a culture, product, and organisational structure that are considerably more likely to be welcomed by consumers than other firms. They are aware of the importance of the client experience. Customer-centric corporations cause upheaval. Include a technological dimension. Finally, consider how the dread of the unknown, which emerges when faced with change, should not apply to business in this day and age, when significantly more is known than ever before. So, deciding not to change as a business and become far more customer-centric is a deliberate choice or a sign of weakness, lack of care, politics, ego, incorrect budget allocation (e.g., focusing too much on acquisition and not enough on retention/satisfaction, continuing to pump money into legacy systems that aren't fit for the present and future instead of looking for more adapted ones) or a lack of business and customer intelligence (among other possibilities). You now understand the significance of digital transformation and the value of customer-centricity. And you're wondering why your company hasn't yet evolved around a disruptive customer or become disruptive by being completely customer-centric. In digital transformation, the client experience is critical. Or, to put it another way, many digital transformation efforts stem from customer (experience) pain points, business/innovation demands, and growth/transformation imperatives. These are the result of the growing significance of an end-to-end customer experience enhancement strategy, which is, in turn, the result of changing consumer expectations and customer experiences provided by the best-in-class. Organizations may focus primarily at what has become known as the digital customer experience in a digital transformation environment, even if digital transformation initiatives in customer experience undoubtedly (may) extend much beyond the mere digital dimension.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that the consumer is a person, even though it is tempting to focus on the digital customer experience. We could give hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of how customer experience matters in various industries, digital transformation, future growth, and so much more, and perhaps we'll do an overview in a future feature, focusing on some verticals, specific processes and business functions, and some cases. But, for the time being, consider the key reasons why the customer experience, understanding the customer journey, and maximising user experience are critical in a context that every CEO understands: money. Aside from particular situations, there are various pieces of study that look at the effect of a continuous emphasis on customer experience improvement and innovation.. The post's theme is customer experience innovation (which we will discuss later) and the production of mutual value. We may even argue exponential and networked value in these linked times. Where consumer value intersects with corporate value and goes beyond. Customer experience innovation as "creating mutual benefit for everyone in the holistic definition of customer, about any part of their encounter with a solution, with an emphasis on the customer's jobs-to-be-done." Holistic. Enterprise-wide. End-to-end. It's fantastic. "systemic customer experience improvement and innovation were underutilised buildingblocks in the cause-and-effect system of customer experience optimization" in a four-year research. And she adds a good analogy by referring to company-wide improvement and innovation in customer experience (which may be revolutionary, as you can read further in her piece) as the middleware for long-term business benefits. I really adore that picture, and I'll say it again: "the middleware for long-term business success." Integrating the back-end and front-end is just one aspect of a larger transformative issue in terms of technology and procedures. People are by far the most crucial component of customer experience management and a comprehensive customer experience optimization strategy, both internally and, obviously, in terms of the consumer. You can imagine a scenario in which a customer-related digital transformation effort is undertaken to improve the customer experience without the customer using any digital technology in the

process, even if this scenario is becoming increasingly rare as digital becomes more pervasive in the customer journey and experience, regardless of age or segment. When digital customer-facing processes and interactions, as well as customer experiences, are critical to meeting customer experience optimization goals, ensure that these digital touchpoints and "tools" are so valuable that customers WANT to use them instead of the less effective and more expensive ones they currently prefer. Managing and maximising the customer experience (in the genuine sense of planning customer interactions to meet/exceed customer expectations) yields obvious and measurable outcomes for the organisation. Each organisation, however, is unique. It is critical to understand the "why" of maximising the customer experience (patient experience in healthcare, citizen experience in government, etc.). The issue is not just what and how, but also why, apart from the – to me – apparent argument that delighted customers are simply excellent business and that customer service quality and experiences are the foundation. Individual pain points and responses to the "why" might include more customer turnover (why? ), more disgruntled customers (why? ), or anything else with the why being important (and often being related with disruptions in your market, changing customer expectations, increasing competition, a lack of innovation, etc.). To put it another way, refining procedures and digitising to improve customer experiences is one thing, but transition and the motivations for it are quite another. Processes, data, agility, priority, technology, integration, information, business and IT alignment, digitalization, and other factors all play a role in providing superior customer experiences. People, as previously said, are more important than technology and even procedures. None of the above is a guarantee of improved customer experience. They do, however, go hand in hand and operate well when linked towards a same goal. In an AIIM poll, customer experience characteristics such as accurate and consistent customer communication, rapid customer response on all fronts, and offering best-in-class customer experience were highlighted more often than other prospective company success drivers such as process automation.

Enterprise-wide reforms need the use of enterprise-wide measurements and KPIs. In other words, it's difficult to acquire a comprehensive picture among the deluge of data and frequently fragmented customer-related monitoring options. Integration necessitates a focus on shared objectives. It's the same as when implementing marketing ROI programmes: everyone must speak the same language across all marketing-related tasks. Only in this case, it's in the context of a consumer experience. We must be willing to abandon pure transactional and internal KPIs in favour of a combination of KPIs and measures that are intimately tied to the consumer. That is also a part of transformation. NPS (as a system) is one approach; the Customer Effort Score is another that is gaining favour. In practise, a combination is often utilised. Although digital transformation is not limited to client-facing services, it is apparent that the customer experience is a crucial motivator and catalyst in many transformation efforts.The same is true for user experience and user adoption in more IT-focused initiatives. In truth, actual use and acceptance are required for such efforts to thrive. And, of course, in business, everything revolves around the consumer. Given the importance of the overall customer experience and the increasing emphasis on that experience in marketing, it's no surprise that we've begun to talk about digital marketing transformation, which is the transformation of the connected marketing function and operations for a channel-agnostic customer journey with ever more digital touchpoints. In fact, this particular sector of digital transformation receives so much attention that digital transformation and digital marketing transformation are sometimes misunderstood. The limited view of digital transformation in a digital marketing context is unfortunate because it does exactly what we want to avoid: it creates siloed views, whereas digital transformation is about working across, through, and beyond silos while striving to reduce them when we shift – and reverse – the traditional inside-out approaches we have. Given how many marketers look at it in such a limited manner, one wonders whether it's truly the CIO who doesn't care enough about marketing, as some claim. It seems that the contrary is also true. While technology is not the initial focus point in the standard people, processes, and technology triangle, it is very important.

Because of the importance of the customer experience in digital transformation, several analysts have focused on digital transformations centred on the experiences of a connected consumer, worker, and so on. Some investigated what I would term "a subset" of customer experience management: the digital customer experience. This is not to say that digital transformation is just about that, as we are increasingly hearing, as previously indicated. The term is primarily for Altimeter Group's research and the particular sector the firm looks at. Again, emphasising the necessity of customer journey mapping and concentrating on the customer experience of a "digital" consumer. It's unfortunate that not everyone seems to have read that term when discussing digital transformation in this context. In the framework of the aforementioned criteria, the study discovered that 88 percent of executives polled are engaged in some type of (customer experiencerelated) digital transformation endeavour. However, just one-quarter of those polled had created a digital customer journey map. A discrepancy that shouldn't surprise us, except that respondents were presented the previously indicated definition before to the poll. Even still, the findings don't surprise us all that much. Most businesses simply lack the organisation, "culture," structures, and skills, customer-oriented view, and degree of connectedness to have a single customer view, enabling end-to-end customer experience optimization, let alone end-to-end customer experience management possibilities, and let alone a view on the digital customer journey in an integrated manner. Furthermore, having a unified customer perspective is no assurance that digital transformation initiatives to improve the customer experience will take place. It is the action that is important. Organizations must concentrate on customer journey mapping to enhance customer experience. Even if all of the processes, transformations, skills, mentality, adjustments, and linkages are in place, a single customer perspective does not always imply an increase in the customer experience. The capacity to accomplish something and technical preparedness are two different things; a culture and the ability (or will) to act and do something are two different things that need substantial adjustments and a thorough comprehension of the customer journey.

It's one of the problems we see with the growing emphasis on datadriven marketing, which is often lauded (read: marketed) in the context of improving customer experience. Consumer insights and huge, quick, and actionable data allow data-driven marketing and are part of digital marketing transformations, yet they are useless in and of themselves. When it comes to the end-to-end customer experience, marketing is simply one piece of a much larger jigsaw, and when we look at data-driven marketing in reality, we all too frequently see it presented (mostly by vendors) as THE answer to improve the customer experience. No, it isn't. The emphasis remains too on techniques and insufficiently on the consumer. You'll understand what I mean if you've ever been "caught" in an apparently flawless flow of data-driven marketing operations, even requesting your comments and making suggestions but leaving you feeling cold, impersonal, and robotic. That's what data-driven marketing provides when done by conventional marketers who concentrate on technology rather than the much more crucial aspect of "people" (with procedures based on people's needs and defined objectives). Again, the heart of the classic people, process, and technology triangle is people and procedures. While technology and data provide incredible potential, the human aspect should not be disregarded. Although achieving a single customer view, let alone mapping the customer journey, remains a distant ideal for many, those that have achieved it in fact have often avoided digital transformation initiatives. They accomplished something called digitization. Let me cite SAP's Sameer Patel from a presentation he delivered at the CeBIT expo in Germany in 2014: "social CRM promised to tear through the borders between service, support, and sales." But, if we've digitally transformed the way we sell, why is it that 65 percent of a sales rep's time is still not spent selling" (and thus doing completely different things the rest of the time, a chunk of which could have been removed if there was a true digital transformation, focusing on the outcomes of such a transformation, namely...selling more and/or better with the customer truly in mind, taking changing customer realities). The second, and more essential in this customer experience context, part

of social CRM and the promise of breaking down barriers and providing single customer perspectives is service. "We were meant to have a single picture of the consumer, we were going to develop communities where we would bring our customers and where we would interact together," Patel says again. But why do just 7% of customers feel their customer service encounters meet their expectations?"

The critical role of customer experience – and the growing emphasis on the customer journey – is driving numerous changes in the business sector and inside organisations. One of them is the change of digital marketing. Customer (experience) objectives, for example, are increasingly primarily driving digital transformation operations. We notice that digital marketing transformation (not to be mistaken with digital transformation in general, as is often the case) is high on the agenda of many firms looking for a more customer-centric vision of experiences and the full customer journey and life cycle. In this post, we will look more closely at digital marketing transformation. Before doing so, here are some other areas where the customer experience has a transformational impact. And in today’s connected and digital world, they are all closely and increasingly related with digital marketing from the customer experience viewpoint. After all, transformation is a lot about integration around the customer in the broadest sense. The transformations within call centers and customer service departments of organizations: led by increasing customer expectations and the increase of channels and data (and changing customer interaction preferences). The whole discussion about moving the call center to an omni-channel contact center in which there needs to be a clearer role of the contact center in creating customer value instead of being perceived as a cost center is a lot about customer experience optimization (and cost efficiency). The evolution of the IT function: experiences and outcomes first whereby the traditional approach to IT is changing. User and customer adoption, shaped by experiences, are more crucial than ever and the

whole shift towards user/customers even leads to a bimodal view on IT (or, as some – in our view more accurately say – a tri-modal approach). Shifts in the roles and even new roles within the C-suite: the digital customer leads the dance here as well. Also think about the creation of new functions such as the Chief Customer officer, which started a few years ago and, increasingly, the discussions about using customer experience and customer satisfaction metrics as performance metrics to gauge the performance of C-level execs and their teams. Finally, there is a big debate about who is responsible for the results (not the same thing as the ownership) of anything that’s related to the customer experience and even the digital customer experience. Customer satisfaction and customer experience are inextricably linked. I would even go so far as to say that conversion and ROI are inextricably linked. In truth, every single conversion optimization specialist I know, regardless of strategies or channels, is a customer experience or customer-centric champion who, to begin with, understands journeys. They never prioritised the "technical" parts of conversion optimization (such as testing tools, personalisation, search engine changes, or dynamic content) above the human experience, journey, and frictionless flow. The customer now rules (hopefully) and speed is the new currency of business, with an increasing number of marketers considering an entire marketing strategy "under the umbrella of a cohesive customer journey, which we define as all of the interactions a customer has with brands, products, or services across all touchpoints and channels." Customer experience and journey are undoubtedly the leitmotiv and glue of integrated and linked – digital – marketing. A customer journey plan is used by 56% of business organisations (Salesforce and LinkedIn). Salesforce also refers to another study, The State of Marketing Leadership, which was undertaken by Salesforce and LinkedIn and released at the end of 2014. According to the study, 86 percent of senior-level marketers believe that "creating a coherent customer experience is very crucial or very significant." Human-digital interfaces, artificial intelligence (AI), open API

ecosystems, cloud services and infrastructure, digital trust and blockchain, data-as-a-service, DX platforms, and multiplied innovation leveraging the Internet of Things, AI services, and other innovation accelerators are the main IT industry evolutions and technologies enabling digital transformation in 2018 and beyond. The third platform storey is now in its second chapter, unleashing multiplied innovation via platforms, open innovation ecosystems, massive data sharing and modernization, hyper-agile application deployment technologies, an expanding digital developer population, the blockchain-fueled rise of digital trust, richer AI solutions and services, deeper human/digital interfaces, and a much more diverse cloud services world. We had planned to title this piece 'Key information technology evolutions and technologies that allow the next stages in digital transformation and the second stage of the third platform era, as well as the critical background against which to view them and the IDC FutureScape 2018 IT forecasts.' However, that felt too lengthy for Google. Still, you have a general idea of what it is about. In a previous survey on digital transformation in 2018, written before the IDC FutureScape 2018 information technology evolutions predictions, which we discuss here, we urged organisations to adopt a far more interconnected DX approach rather than the current siloed approach that we still see in both digital transformation projects and how we tend to talk about the myriad technologies enabling digital transformation. As users of this site are aware, we prefer an integrated, 'holistic' approach and highlight the need of building connections on several levels in a digital transformation plan. The blend, or junction, as Forrester's comment in that piece described it. Obviously, the exact balance is determined by an organization's setting as well as the context of the whole ecosystem in which it operates. Of course, it's also about the objectives, which might be more immediate and deliver less value, or more focused on innovation and bring more value. That combination, intersection, or, as we like to call it, hyper-connectivity, is not only about technology, but also about people, processes, data, purpose, and so on. It's all of that, plus hyper-connected optimization and invention. Uncertainty is a second factor to consider for the IT business in 2018. There is not just a shift in thinking towards IT and the aims to be achieved; there is also

geopolitical stability, economic instability, the influence of new regulations, and other factors. We will look at technologies first, followed by IT industry forecasts (on a spending and risk level), and we will cover some key takeaways from the IDC FutureScape 2018 worldwide IT industry predictions, IT spending forecasts from Gartner and others, and the – for us – mentioned backdrop of convergence and opportunity, as well as uncertainty and risks against which they are, well, predicted. As you can see, it has a lot to do with what we just said. Let's push hyper-connectivity to the next level in IT. Because it is also about how multiple technologies interact and are exploited in mixed forms to achieve digital transformation and business objectives. It is all connected, as we recently wrote in a piece on the evolutions of public cloud services: cloud and IoT, cloud and digital transformation, IoT and blockchain, AI and IoT and big data analytics, and so on; it is all connected, and that is just the meta level where IT evolutions revolve around higher degrees of interconnectedness. As is customary, the common connection is and will continue to be data, transformed into intelligence and actions for the right reasons - optimization, innovation, you name it, as long as it makes sense. For example, with IoT, we now have access to more data than ever before. Add to that the growth of additional unstructured data and data that has been lying in silos for a long time and is finally being utilised for a purpose. We already discussed life sciences and pharma, where you can also include hospital data and genetic data (and that's a lot of data). The capacity of enterprises to develop, extract, and manage highvalue data for their own use – as well as gain financial leverage by packaging some of that data for the market – will fast become a significant criterion in company valuations (IDC, October 31, 2017). At the same time, we have a lot of data that is never utilised today, even in IoT. Why? Because only a small portion falls within the scope of IoT initiatives. So we have silos, dark data, and even more silos, and we strive to link them all, even though we haven't truly connected the data silos that existed before to the IoT data flood yet. Of course, silos and unused data are nothing new. With IoT becoming such a crucial part in the future stages of this interconnected world, there are still several IoT data difficulties to be handled. That is why blockchain, IoT data

exchange models, and so on are being investigated, and organisations are being encouraged to do more with the data they have, which can then serve higher value generation when used properly in a clear, secure, and contractually sound context, such as that provided by the Industrial Data Space. Looking at the primary information technology evolutions, as well as the IDC FutureScape 2018 IT projections, what you see is basically an industry in which connecting all the disconnected dots, including all the data silos, remains a huge issue. Gateways, interfaces, APIs, the openness and agility of systems in comparison to legacy systems, nuggets of software and interfaces, you name it: what we're doing is – finally – beginning to build bridges on the technological level in the most profound sense in order to achieve the goals that require bridges on the levels of data and information, insights and actions, strategy, and value ecosystems. By 2019, AI services will be used in 40% of digital transformation projects, and by 2021, AI will be used in 75% of commercial corporate applications (IDC, October 31, 2017). Everything else is about interoperability and producing digital business value and useful services in whatever breadth and in more open ecosystems for those who are a step ahead and start getting their data act together. Although you may not perceive it that way, the latter is one of the GDPR's advantages in the EU. Unfortunately, many people have yet to look into it or consider how it may assist them from a 'get your data together' standpoint. What all of this rhetoric about data and silos has to do with the IDC FutureScape 2018 IT projections and the so-called first chapter of the third platform age will become obvious in the near future. Let us first discuss data, its purpose, and how to connect the dots to transform data into actionable intelligence, scalable value, and autonomy, where we will confront the second chapter of that third platform age and even the third – future – chapter of autonomy. Generating, aggregating, and enriching data for a purpose and ecosystems, among other things, entails artificial intelligence, IoT and edge computing, the deployment of data-as-a-service models as clearly seen in IoT, hybrid cloud (workload per workload), more diverse types of cloud for specific purposes (and industry clouds), next-generation 'intelligent' networks and security, containers and

APIs, APIs, APIs. By 2021, more than half of the Global 2000 will have received an average of one-third of their digital service engagements through open API ecosystems, up from almost 0% in 2017. (IDC, October 31, 2017). But don't just think edge and IoT; think ubiquity: connecting technological dots and interoperability is happening at all levels, at the edge, between information and data management platforms, between IT and OT, between various blockchain solutions, and so on. Call what companies are doing or begin doing a search for ubiquitous interoperability and connection that will allow them to eventually progress to more mature degrees of digital transformation. It all looks so obvious, yet it is often misconstrued. There are goals, challenges, and opportunities; then there are technologies and ecosystems to achieve these goals, address those challenges, or capitalise on those opportunities; and finally, there are combinations and connections of technologies, data, processes, and so on that enable all of this at the individual organisation and ecosystem levels. We suggest reading (also between the lines of) the previously stated digital transformation 2018 kick-off survey. We also propose that you read our post on IoT in 2018 where, using our favourite phrase 'holistic,' we urge you to speak less about the technology and even redefine IoT from a what to a why standpoint (and the intersection of IoT and other technologies). If you're still reading, you're probably wondering when you're going to learn about the important lessons from the IDC FutureScape 2018 IT forecasts, as we see them. For starters, we've previously addressed a few crucial conclusions. However, for us, the major takeaway is related to the bigger picture and background against which IDC makes those forecasts, as well as everything we've written so far. The first chapter of the third platform period was all about experimenting with the client-server world's segregated approach. Before stating any forecast in the 'IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IT Industry 2018 Predictions' webcast, it’s explained why the business chose the 10 IT predictions it did in the scope of the DX economy and addressed the general issues that had contributed to these predictions. And, in our opinion, this is the most important takeaway. We have to consider the projections in light of changes in the third platform. To refresh your memory, the third platform and the innovation accelerators are all

technologies (or rather, groups of technologies) that allow digital transformation. The 'third platform era,' firms adopted a very compartmentalised strategy, using cloud, mobile, and other technologies to develop solutions in the same. It dubbed that period the "first chapter of the third platform era," and summed it up in one word: experimenting (remember the term "silos"). This phase, which began roughly in 2007, continued until 2015-2016 for some and later for others. Most companies are still in that first chapter, which is the core of many of the arguments raised above. It's the first time we've heard IDC mention three chapters in the realm of third platform technology. Sure, the corporation has spoken about innovation moving to the centre of digital transformation in recent years (hence all those innovation accelerators), but three chapters? That was fresh. Today (and for some, sooner), we are entering the second chapter of the third platform era, which, in two words, is the time of'multiplied innovation,' according to the IDC FutureScape 2018 IT (industry) projections. Before we join the fourth platform, we have a third chapter that begins around 2022 and is summed up in one word: the stage of autonomy. You can probably guess what it will be about. You can make an educated guess based on how we're already starting to move towards autonomous and semi-autonomous decisions by machines, IoT devices, sensors, actuators, and so on, and all the technology and moving of intelligence to the edge in Industry 4.0, Logistics 4.0, and even building management and power and energy management. By 2020, data-as-a-service will produce money for 90% of major organisations. (IDC, 31 October 2017). Of course, autonomy will be about more than that, but it is bringing us closer to both the fourth platform and the digital era with even more advanced technologies (among others through the cross-fertilization of combined technologies, leading to others), more capabilities, and more connected data because autonomy means decisions and decisions by systems, intelligent networks, devices, and all the rest can only happen when there is intelligence (and we don't mean human intelligence). To gain such insight, you need IoT, which by definition begins at the edge, as well as all other forms of data gathered (including a lot of wasted data) and transformed into actionable

intelligence. Relevant and valuable data will be a critical factor in establishing an enterprise's worth and influence in the world of digital developers and ecosystems. Developing a critical mass of external data sources will also be essential for any AI-powered digital services and solutions. (IDC, 31 October 2017). It's also clear that the transition from the'multiplied innovation' stage to the third chapter, autonomy, will result in even more ethical debates, regulations, security concerns, data ownership issues, privacy debates, and discussion about the next levels of artificial intelligence and robotics than is already the case today, especially as we increasingly start leveraging autonomy within the human body and mind (but not just the future of healthcar. Anyway, we leave that third chapter alone and, to be honest, I only had a few minutes to listen to the webcast and don't know if it was even addressed, and return to the chapter we're shifting towards in the third platform now, multiplied innovation, as it's in that scope that the main IDC FutureScape 2018 IT industry predictions need to be seen. However, let us be clear that this is most likely the most important takeaway: for those who wish to actually innovate, the days of silos are past. Regardless of those IT forecasts, we all know there aren't any, not in data, not in infrastructure and systems, not in how we operate, manage, lead, and change, not in how we support our customers or care for the end-to-end customer experience. There are, of course, the often cited exceptions, in which some will take the lead, and there are ever more ecosystems in numerous sectors and areas of innovation and transformation, but there is still a long way to go for those who want to do there. All of this isn't to say that the global IT industry projections are meaningless; on the contrary, they fit in with the change to this second chapter of the third platform technology world. Yet, for many, this transformation is only beginning, and for many more, it hasn't begun at all. Finally, those IDC FutureScape 2018 IT industry predictions and IT evolutions in the second chapter of multiplied innovation for the DX economy: the shift towards that second chapter is enabled, among other things, by 1) platforms and developers, 2) open API based ecosystems of innovation, 3) hyperagile application deployment

technologies (e.g. containers and serverless computing), 4) an increasingly diverse cloud ecosystem, 5) richer AI services, 6) data exchange and mo. By 2021, corporate expenditure on cloud services and infrastructure will exceed $530 billion, with more than 90% of businesses using various cloud services and platforms (IDC). The result and objective are the same: faster or multiplied innovation, "digitally-enhanced products," ecosystems of innovation, and the next stages in digital transformation journeys for businesses that are ready for them, as well as the end of silos. More information about all of the IDC FutureScape 2018 IT (industry) predictions (and more, as there are ten in total) can be found in the IDC press release, as well as in the quotes and illustration (which show the key IT evolutions and an interpreted adaptation of the three chapters of the third platform as enablers of digital transformation) here. We do hope, however, that the key takeaways, beyond the technological dimensions, make as much sense to you as they do to us: simply put, it's still about connecting the dots, resolving the silo and unused data issues, and progressing to the next stages of digital transformation, which have always been and will continue to be about genuine transformation and innovation at scale, including an ecosystem approach. But, in order to get there, you must be prepared. According to the Global Forensic Data Analytics Survey 2018, data security and data privacy compliance are seen as the most pressing rising concerns (think, among others, indeed GDPR again). Furthermore, cyber intrusions and other IT-related risks and concerns are high on the list. Worldwide IT expenditure is expected to reach $3.7 trillion in 2018, a 4.5 percent increase over 2017. Global IT expenditure growth started to pick up in 2017, with continuing increase projected in the coming years. Uncertainty, though, lurks... Despite this uncertainty, companies will continue to invest in IT since they expect more income, but their spending habits will change (Gartner, January, 2018). These issues cannot be overlooked and have an influence on the IT business. And there are more: geopolitical concerns (e.g., Brexit), a probable recession, currency exchange rates that are, to put it mildly, pretty volatile, more restrictions, less confidence, a greater need for security and transparency, you name it.

Uncertainty and risk are present everywhere. Consider the Deloitte Industry 4.0 executive survey. Although we are, technically speaking, in the merging environment of IT and OT here, it is evident that executives perceive both potential and danger here. CompTIA also highlights a changing environment as the background against which to view IT industry trends and technological evolutions. It’s a backdrop of higher expectations with regards to “business value, security, transparency and equal access to opportunity”. A digital transformation plan, like any other strategy, considers the objectives, existing circumstances, and how to go on a transformative path in a manner that makes sense and connects the dots. A look at the main questions to consider while developing your digital transformation plan. Companies all around the world are undergoing digital transformations as they strive to enhance business processes and build new capabilities and business models. And, since digital transformation is, by definition, comprehensive and necessitates integration and cooperation, a digital transformation plan considers building blocks and the bridges that link them, as well as impediments and new bridges that overcome them. In a business reality where 'the business,' with marketing and the CMO playing a leading (but not exclusive) role, increasingly decides on technology budgets, we see that it's often difficult for IT and information management professionals, who are critical in digital transformation, to speak the language of the CMO or other business executives, who traditionally didn't belong to their 'target audience.' It's one of the reasons why IT corporations are establishing or purchasing 'digital transformation consultants' with origins in marketing/business or even agencies, which may assist them in properly understanding and meeting the demands of these out-of-the-box consumers. More bridges must be built than merely those between the 'IT and information management side' and the 'business side.' We've previously discussed this requirement from the standpoint of information as a bridge builder in the next stage of the information age, in which information bridges must exist between back end and front office, content and processes (integration), human and machine and machine to machine (the Internet of Things), raw data and actionable intelligence, and so on. As previously said, it is vital to

integrate information/content and procedures while keeping the business and knowledge worker in mind. According to Professor Michael Wade, in order to effectively manage digital transformation and guard against digital disruption, all businesses must have three essential capabilities: hyper-awareness, educated decision making, and quick execution. More information is available in the presentation, which we have included below. Information is all around us and is at the heart of digital revolution. Big data quantities, formats, and sources continue to rise at an exponential rate. For top firms, the challenge has become, "How can we transform all of this data into actionable insight in a meaningful, prioritised, and lucrative fashion that leads to new opportunities?" At the same time, information management requires a comprehensive and integrated strategy. From digitising and collecting paper-based information to improving processes, empowering knowledge workers, better servicing consumers, and obtaining the correct information and intelligence when, when, and how it is needed, multiple phases and integrations are required. Achieving end-to-end information management excellence, tailored to the individual goals and challenges of organisations, their customers, their ecosystems, and their goals of optimization, innovation, and, increasingly, digital transformation, is critical, if not the primary pillar, for any digital transformation strategy to succeed. In actuality, removing the gaps and chasms that still exist necessitates the construction of several bridges. Last but not least, moving from information to knowledge and actionable insight requires data/content analytics and (therefore) artificial intelligence. From a human standpoint, there are plenty of bridges to be created. In digital transformation plans, customer-centricity, customer-facing procedures, and the end-to-end customer experience are critical. We demand more and better links with consumers in ways that require more depth and breadth (as well as personalisation) than ever before. A digital transformation strategy also necessitates bridges between leaders and 'their people,' including those closest to customers who frequently feel forgotten and unheard, bridges between various functions, and, increasingly, bridges between business executives and leaders from multiple companies who are building the value

ecosystems required in an economy where new business models and revenue streams increasingly dictate both the business and technology a company uses. The client in the widest sense (external and internal such as workers, not to mention change management) is the driving force behind many bridges to be built and is crucial in their successful construction. In a culture of co-opetition and co-creation, the strength of ecosystems and communities of innovation, cooperation, and outsourcing relationships determines the success of the enterprises that are part of them. Finding new income sources through integrating value systems and constructing bridges is also important, and is made possible by a technological reality that increasingly focuses around data, actionable information, software, and connection. This dimension will grow much more with the interconnectedness of everything and the increased availability of actionable information, which is what the Internet of Things (IoT) is all about. It is clear that, in addition to the various meanings they already have (think internal collaboration, for example), collaboration and co-creation in a digital transformation economy and digital transformation strategy context go beyond the enterprise and existing ecosystems and move towards building new networks and ecosystems where data and actionable intelligence are leveraged for future growth and entirely new business models. Co-opetition may be less well-known, but it is a concept and practise that has existed for many decades. I recommend you to read Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff's from IDC of classic 'Coopetition,' which simply means 'cooperation and competition.' It has always been on our top ten list of business books, and given the comprehensive reality of what business is and what digital transformation is and demands to thrive, it may inspire you as much as it has inspired us. We highlight it because co-opetition is also de facto what we see occurring in various areas where so-called incumbents and so-called disruptive startups recognise that it is preferable to cooperate in fighting for certain markets rather than going in with strictly competitive tactics. A prominent illustration of this is what is occurring in the Fintech industry. Speaking of disruptive companies, it is worth noting that, in addition to describing a game theory strategy that redefines what competition and cooperation are,

co-opetition is based on a specific aspect of the, by definition holistic, industry attractiveness assessment model known as the'six forces model,' in which 'new entrants' are one of the key forces. Another area of focus is the construction of bridges between the capabilities of current and 'new' technologies and the possibilities they provide for the most inventive, who will ultimately win. While many businesses are currently struggling with some of the previously stated bridges, here is where the actual value in an enterprise-wide and longterm digital transformation plan may be achieved (digital transformation needs a longer term view and strategy). We live in an era in which new technologies have evolved (some more recently) and gradually become key components of how we conduct business and live. Their rising maturity, as well as acceptance, has resulted in what Gartner refers to as the Nexus of Forces. On this site, the main technologies are often referred to as the third platform (a name invented by IDC), SMAC, and occasionally SMACIT. Just to refresh your memory, these are cloud computing, social media, mobile (mobility), and (big) data (analytics). SMACIT also incorporates the Internet of Things. None of these 'technologies' are really new, and they often have their origins in earlier technologies that we either ignore or dismiss. New technologies, ranging from 3D printing to what IBM refers to as cognitive computing, are being added to these socalled pillars (and in the end is really about analysis and artificial intelligence). The problem is that we often handle all of these technologies in a compartmentalised manner. Consider the typical third platform representation. We do know that they are interrelated and reinforce each other, not for the purpose of the technologies themselves, but because they are essentially reliant on each other in that Nexus of Forces and simply overlap if you dig deeper. When you look at these various technologies, whether it's from their individual traits and evolutions (books have been written about each one as they cover many underlying realities and are all de facto umbrella terms) and how they are frequently covered, it's easy to forget how they are really part of one single, more holistic perspective, which is defined by the end goals why we 'invented' them and why we use them. However, understanding what you can do with these technologies isn't enough to enjoy the rewards and possibilities. It's

just as critical to understand how they all fit together in terms of your digital transformation plan, actionable information, and possibilities. Most individuals understand how important it is to have a holistic perspective in order to develop new commercial ideas or unique approaches to solving problems of any kind. At the same time, we are compelled to comprehend them separately. Beyond what you assume it is and how essential it will be, you truly need to understand what the Internet of Things is and what it can achieve. So, it is what we attempt to accomplish. However, you should never forget that it is critical to develop bridges between your expertise and the objectives you want to accomplish on the one hand, and bridges between all the technologies that fit in your specific business environment on the other. To do so, you must understand their function in the larger picture of digital transformation, as well as find the glue that binds them and, ultimately, allows you to make a significant impact with your plan. And this is one of the areas where actionable intelligence (what data should become), speed/agileness (what the cloud provides), hyper-connectivity and more data (what the Internet of Things, mobility, and other technologies provide), and the intersection of people, purpose, innovation, optimization, information, processes, value, and business models come into play. Those who will ultimately make a difference, though, will not be technological pioneers. Individuals and organisations will come up with entirely new ways of innovating and creating value by truly understanding how they can leverage the intelligence created in often seemingly unrelated areas by the first movers and, possibly, by adding additional capabilities, and who can build bridges between sources and resources in ways we are only beginning to understand today. And, in order to accomplish so, a holistic perspective, common sense, some distance, and a thorough awareness of how everything may be related in the scope of a singular aim are required. The issue then becomes, where do you begin? The answer is to understand all of the components, technologies, and others mentioned in a survey and to build bridges on the essential levels where they aren't yet but should be in order to achieve that agile and holistic innovation and optimization capacity that extends far beyond the hype of the day and is designed with a longer term strategy in mind. How did you arrive at

that strategy? By constructing bridges. By bringing people together who aren't lost in the cacophony of the day but can see and...build bridges. Between what you need to accomplish now and what you'll need to do next, keep the meaning, context, hyper-connectedness, and purpose of it all in mind – especially in the long run. However, that begins with the here and now and the fundamental operations, processes, and models to be improved and overhauled with an immediate business case, a medium-term one, and a larger roadmap in mind. Digital transformation is not a thing; it is a journey with a goal, but it also need a clear plan and strategy with plenty of flexibility for change in an adaptable manner. Many executives struggle with knowing where they want to go, what they need to get there, and how to ensure they got there effectively with the required (intermediate) controls in place. There are two ways to look at it. On the one hand, we observe that digital transformation is often seen as a collection of initiatives, activities, and exercises to complete, rather than a larger enterprise-wide aim to attain. When you look at it this way, you have to ask yourself why you want to alter something, what that something is, and how you're going to get there, as previously said. Essential project management questions and forecasting methodologies are simply a necessity, even though we have a tendency to overlook them and get engrossed in technology or organisational issues without regard for the final goal. On the other hand, we observe that digital transformation is often seen as a continuous journey that focuses on a continual corporate transformation plan in the context of technical and social development. This is clearly a never-ending quest. It is the development of the ability to act, respond, and, ideally, pro-act as social and technological changes continue to occur, accelerate, and advance. It is not because you have digitally changed in the today that there will not be new opportunities, problems, and opportunities brought about by new technology. The Internet of Things is simply one example since, to be honest, we are still in the early stages. And there will be many more alterations and evolutions. The latter viewpoint explains why it is critical to have a reactive (or agile), knowledgeable, and 'change-aware' capability. Achieving this omni-informed ability to

respond when action is required or desired is also part of digital transformation. Regardless matter how you look at it, as previously said, there is always one critical problem that comes back. It is, however, more pronounced in less project-based assignments. We hear it all the time, whether we speak with experts in a specific domain such as the Internet of Things, CIOs, CMOs, information managers, you name it: there is all too often a lack of attention for the essential questions that also apply in digital transformation or any technological or other project or process. What do you want to accomplish, why do you want it, how do you get there, who do you need, is there a clear and calculated case that supports your aim, and how will you know whether you succeeded or not? While these questions may seem simple, there are a variety of reasons why they are often neglected, and we fail to connect the what, why, and how, or the aim and success. One of the numerous reasons is that we are often, and by definition, working in relatively new ground and are unsure whether we have all of the building elements. That is why it is critical to do VoC exercises and strategy meetings with a variety of individuals. It's also why it's critical to keep learning, cultivate an evolutionary mindset, and prioritise. Last but not least, that is why we need a roadmap that is as informed as possible and, as previously said, has the required room for failure and balanced risk. Contrast this with marketing ROI. A good marketer will always strike a balance between activities with more certain outcomes and proven results and activities with less certain or uncertain outcomes, which could result in unexpectedly high gains or, if it doesn't work out, losses that don't have a significant impact on the overall ROI. Chart the unknowns in the same manner and, depending on the extent and breadth/depth of the digital transformation plan. In practise, we frequently see that the mentioned challenge is not always a matter of uncertainty regarding outcomes, but also a matter of uncertainty regarding the "how": the uncertainty regarding what the outcome will look like (as we do speak about change and this something new) is then reinforced by uncertainties regarding whether all of the (right) building blocks are foreseen and/or in place to get there. This uncertainty of missing or incorrect building components is frequently what causes companies to be apprehensive, as they fear

failure in the accurate mapping of the required building blocks (subprojects, people, processes, information sources, change management initiatives, built-in checks and so forth). Lean transformation with an adaptive case management strategy, an emphasis on the 3Ps, and space for failure and iteration as in a continuous Bèta model (more here) are some approaches to addressing these difficulties. In order to develop their digital transformation strategy, several top 'incumbents' are progressively creating venues that allow for creativity, experimentation, and future-oriented sessions. They welcome startups, newcomers, and typically younger generations of engineers who grasp emerging technologies, as well as their current IT partners (who are equally challenged), to present, collaborate think, locate talent, and prospective future scenarios, and so on. They arrange hackathons, brainstorming session days, and trial launches to prepare for the long term, as they become less reliant on those first moving 'digital transformation gurus' who have been telling the same tales for far too long and far too frequently. This trend and the challenge of several pure digital transformation consultancies, too often operating as islands of limited expertise who begin to feel the need to broaden their scope, can be compared to the evolutions prior to the dot-com bubble, when huge 'e-business' specialists went bankrupt one after the other and only a small portion more or less survived. Many people have forgotten the names of the early participants on the Internet and what was formerly known as 'e-business.' The parallel with that era is not coincidental. We see not only many digital transformation consultancies facing scale and capability challenges, but we also see that in several areas of emerging technologies, particularly the Internet of Things, the narrative is primarily about numbers, which are ultimately meaningless to executives, and about the technologies, from connectivity to hardware and software. This will alter as the market develops, much as it did before to the dot-com boom, when figures, projections, and tech speak dominated conversations, leading to exaggerated expectations and euphoria. Will a new bubble form? There will always be one, you simply don't know how massive it will be or which places will be worst hit.

The main question is: do you build all these bridges and define the goals, set out the strategy and journey, map the required building blocks and barriers, and look at your digital transformation strategy and roadmap in a smart way, regardless of all those frameworks out there and, rather, creating the right conditions to get you going? Unfortunately this is still rarely the case and many don’t have a clear goal and overview of building blocks, barriers and bridges to build yet. Stay tuned as we’ll look deeper into digital transformation strategy and a framework/roadmap that guides your strategy by asking the right questions and connecting the right dots. Here are two things you can already start doing as of right now: i)Get any ‘digital’ expertise and culture out of its splendid isolation and let it penetrate the rest of your organization, ii)Look at where the leaks in your business are and where it’s clear that you’ll need to remove or bridge legacy and necessity, among others in the technologies that are crucial to scale and move faster and better once your strategy is in place. Some digital transformation strategy steps to take into account (and that can be put in the context of the previously mentioned three core capabilities, as well as the, also previously depicted vision, plan, action steps): i)Identify market, evolutions, pain points. ii)Assess/benchmark where you are. iii)Analyze/prioritize significant evolutions. iv)Map current status with major evolutions and opportunities. v)Assess skillset, culture and readiness. vi)Focus on core intangible assets: customers, data. vii)Base strategy on where you are and go. Include external and internal help. viii)Develop a roadmap to get where you need. ix)Design for innovation, optimization, agility and scale. x)Optimize information and data maturity. xi)Connect technologies and data (sources) in function of strategy.

xii)Get clear leadership buy-in. xiii)Gap bridges with customers and stakeholders. xiv)Set goals, KPIs and controls. xv)Build for ecosystems and platforms. xvi)Focus on long term with intermediate goals. xvii)Start where it makes sense (calculated). xviii)Learn, measure, re-assess, scale, innovate. In terms of digitization and digital transformation, the AEC sector (architecture, engineering, and construction) is sometimes seen as sluggish. That's a broad statement, since major AEC firms have just completed meaningful business model reforms, and a few years before COVID-19 disturbed our life, business analysts focused on increasing digiti(al)ization advances in the engineering and construction (E&C) sector. Aside from the acronyms AEC and E&C, you may also come across AECO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation). AECO includes businesses and specialists involved in the maintenance and operation phases of the constructed asset lifespan. With, among other things, the impact of the pandemic, the increasing complexity of building construction and infrastructure works, changing demands of ever more stakeholders, and maturing technologies, things are now changing for many smaller players in the AEC market and even faster for the larger ones, despite the fact that the construction industry faces several challenges at the same time due to several factors, including the pandemic. The technologies that are transforming planning, operations, collaboration, and innovation in the AEC business, in which architects, engineers, and contractors collaborate, are not new. BIM (building information modelling and management) is an obvious example; it was created a long time ago and, although it has not been embraced as quickly as originally thought, in its mature, contemporary form is crucial for digital transformation in the AEC sector (more on the 'why' in a later post). BIM is also developing and will become increasingly more important for stakeholders other than the AECO industry's primary players. Why has digitalization and digital transformation, let alone the transition to what has been named Construction 4.0, akin to Industry

4.0, been somewhat gradual for various actors? After all, the AEC industry isn't exactly tiny. As you can read and see in our review of studies on data strategy in construction, construction accounted for 13.2 percent of worldwide GDP. As is customary, there are various explanations, but the manner in which construction works/was performed is unquestionably one of them. To put it simply, a conventional construction project is normally linear/sequential, with each partner playing their role before passing it on to the next. Olivier Lépinoy's image below depicts the sequential – and fractured – building value chain beautifully. In an survey for Autodesk University, Olivier, who works for BIM leader Autodesk as a member of the business development team for the AEC industry, describes an alternative model with different names for the actors in the new ecosystems that emerge, as well as how he sees the future of construction and Construction 4.0. Collaboration issues, a lack of data management skills and tools (big data analytics and data management are cornerstones of most digital transformation strategies, along with cloud computing and IoT), budget issues (cost pressures, low R&D budgets), and the occasional lack of buy-in for technology-driven change are all impediments. Regardless of how mature the firms are, the sector has a variety of tools and technology at its disposal that allow it to execute quite a few reforms. And, for the reasons mentioned below, the rate of change will undoubtedly accelerate, with data serving as the fuel for many of the – necessary – evolutions. Several AEC companies refer to digital twins as the facilitators of the next wave of revolution in design, engineering, and construction. That seems obvious given that digital twins are, in the end, a natural extension of BIM – and what it is all about. However, we must take a quick look at BIM since it is a cornerstone of change in many nations. We can plainly see how the epidemic supports BIM and the opportunity it provides to go toward a more data-intensive virtual cooperation. The same is true for cloud computing and cloud-based BIM. Furthermore, not all stakeholders in building projects are familiar with BIM. Then there's the reality on the ground: even huge contractors that began using BIM and similar technologies have sometimes stayed in the pilot stage or reverted to outdated methods

of working. Although the building life cycle is complicated and varied, design, preconstruction, cost estimate, bidding, project management, and operations are often separated. This is changing as companies in this industry work to provide a unified perspective of data-rich models that can be used to assure quality, safety, and project execution. In other words, although technologies like digital twins, AR/VR, 3Dprinting, and many others are becoming more significant in the AEC business (particularly digital twins), there are still many organisations that need to comprehend BIM or tackle more basic difficulties in a digitization context. Nonetheless, as the remark below illustrates, the use of digital twin technology is accelerating in several areas, particularly among the bigger businesses. The BIM(Building Information Modelling) market is expected to develop steadily as the industry matures, understanding of the (many) advantages of BIM grows, government requirements for BIM use expand in numerous countries, stakeholder needs alter, and integration possibilities between BIM and more modern technologies expand. IoT, drones, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, 3D scanning (acquiring data from an item, building, or site using a laser scanner to produce a BIM model) and 3D mapping, 3D printing, and many more integrations are examples. The epidemic, as well as the fact that cooperation between stakeholders and solid and information-rich data models are becoming a prerequisite in the scope of intelligent and green building projects, improved maintenance needs, and cost-cutting measures, all contribute to the expansion of BIM. Government mandates and business efforts in places where none exist yet also have a role. Italy, for example, will join the list of nations requiring BIM for government infrastructure projects in 2022. Manufacturers of products and solutions for the AEC industry recognise the growing importance of BIM and are expanding their information-rich libraries of 3D objects and tools with plug-ins for BIM applications, allowing them to improve efficiency, collaboration, and risk mitigation across the entire lifecycle of the building/construction, with additional benefits for facility management and maintenance. At the same time, numerous participants in the AEC business are still primarily in the digitalization stage, attempting to eliminate paper and manual procedures. That leads us to one of the AEC industry's

fundamental transformation challenges: it's a highly fragmented market with various companies in building and infrastructure projects, many of which still operate in silos or specialise in certain areas. Furthermore, it is a market with numerous tiny enterprises that moves at various rates. With the rise of smart buildings, smart factories, smart cities, and so on, we often see new players that master one particular component of a project, generally a more technologically sophisticated one that fits in with the growing need for everything smart/connected (e.g. smart digital locks in hotels). Existing business models are also being disrupted by new sorts of players. Managing all of this is difficult, which is one of the many reasons why robust cooperation, where BIM again plays a part, is critical: bringing all stakeholders together around a shared digital model, right from the outset and throughout the facility's lifespan with explicit agreements. The days of construction being a sequential, even project-based process are coming to an end, and AEC players will need to learn how to be part of ecosystems that develop around virtual, digital platforms and methodologies. The construction sector, too, does not stand alone and must adapt to the progression toward smart buildings and infrastructure – which, in the end, is all about linking data – and is high on the agenda of end consumers, who have their own shifting issues and wants. According to a commercial real estate interview, the fact that end users increasingly seek smart buildings has a substantial market influence.Other transformative changes in customer demand include a focus on sustainability, a desire for integrated systems and dashboards, efficiency gains at all levels, increased flexibility/adaptability (e.g., the ability to change the purpose of a building later on), a greater emphasis on costs, and regulations in a variety of areas. Large providers of AEC solutions are among those driving the agenda toward a more holistic, data-driven, and less linear manner of working. Consider building and energy automation companies, for example. They often develop partner ecosystems with certification programmes to improve the capabilities of these partners, bringing together the proper ones for particular projects and creating revenue for AEC sector participants. By choosing and educating these diverse partners who will become their resellers, they will be able to market their more

sophisticated solutions. EcoXpert from Schneider Electric is one example (with BIM libraries and players in its Schneider Electric Exchange environment). The AECO sector, building automation firms, and suppliers of technologies like as BIM and digital twins are projected to enter a new stage of mergers and acquisitions as the market accelerates and digital transformation accelerates as a result of the pandemic. The worldwide AEC market was worth $7,188.00 million in 2020 and is expected to rise to $15,842.00 million by 2028, at a CAGR of 10.7 percent from 2021 to 2028. (Allied Market Research). Schneider Electric and AVEVA Group, with which it merged in 2018, have been particularly engaged in this field. In 2012, AVEVA bought the Bocad group of BIM firms. Schneider completed the voluntary acquisition of RIB Software in 2020, which provided the first enterprise cloud platform based on 5D BIM with AI integration for construction firms, industrial firms, developers, and project owners. In addition, as previously reported, Schneider partnered with ToughtWire in 2019 to develop digital twins. AECO market participants are also looking for partnerships with specialists in other technologies/solutions that fit into the BIM and digital twin – or advanced data – picture, such as augmented reality, GIS, platforms used in the context of construction projects and workflows, and solutions in emerging'smart' areas or within the scope of the overall building/lifecycle (asset and maintenance, contract management, project information management, energy management, etc.) The same can be said about new entrants in the construction software market, who are also quite active in M&A transactions. Unity's purchase of VisualLive (3D, AR, and BIM workflows) is a prime example. In the present situation, concentrating on cooperation, upskilling, obtaining new competencies, connecting ecosystems, resolving pain points, and accomplishing the sorts of results that have become more crucial as a result of the epidemic will be critical. With changing building needs and regulations, government efforts will play an extra role that extends well beyond BIM. Last but not least, ecosystems will continue to expand as the end client encounters more demands on several levels, which are often amplified by pandemics. Many players in the AEC industry continue to emphasise the importance of starting

small and gradually scaling up, while those who are further along in their transformation journey demonstrate the possibilities of the technologies and platforms enabling that more holistic digital transformation of the industry and, more importantly, what their clients now seek. Because, in the end, change is unavoidable as our perceptions of buildings, cities, transportation, employment, and the built environment shift. Although construction organisations are still in the early stages of their digital transformation journey, they want to use big data and analytics, AI, IoT, and robots to automate and enhance decision making as they deal with more complicated data sets. (IDC). Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to transform existing traditional and non-digital business processes and services, or to create new ones, in order to meet evolving market and customer expectations, thereby completely altering the way businesses are managed and operated, as well as how value is delivered to customers. "Digital transformation is all about creating a digital enterprise—an company that utilises technology to continually improve all parts of its business models (what it provides, how it interacts with consumers, and how it functions," according to Deloitte. As technology advances, so should your company. At this point, it's not so much a question of organisations deciding to convert as it is of determining how to transform. Digital transformation is the process of developing your firm by experimenting with new technology and rethinking your present approach to common problems. A transition does not always have a clear end point since it is an evolution. According to the MIT Sloan Management Review, which focuses on how management adapts in the digital era, "digital transformation is best understood of as continuous adaptation to a continuously changing environment." For businesses, this means always looking for ways to enhance the enduser experience. This might be accomplished through providing better on-demand training, moving data to cloud services, employing artificial intelligence, and other means.

3 Key Areas of Enterprise Digital Transformation: MIT Sloan Management Review highlights three key areas of digital

transformation for enterprises: i)Customer Experience — working to understand customers in more detail, using technology to fuel customer growth, and creating more customer touchpoints ii)Operational Processes — improving internal processes by leveraging digitization and automation, enabling employees with digital tools, and collecting data to monitor performance and make more strategic business decisions iii)Business Models — transforming the business by augmenting physical offerings with digital tools and services, introducing digital products, and using technology to provide global shared services While each digital transformation programme will have its unique set of objectives, the overall aim of any digital transformation is to better your present operations. Companies must develop in order to stay competitive in their business, which necessitates digital transformation. You will lag behind if you do not evolve. According to a Bain & Company report, "just 8% of worldwide organisations have been able to achieve their planned business results from their digital technology expenditures." One of the techniques that distinguishes leaders is that they invest more in changing their companies rather than simply operating them. Digital transformation is critical because it enables firms to adapt to ever-changing sectors and continuously enhance their operations. For businesses, this means always looking for ways to enhance the end-user experience. This might be accomplished through providing better on-demand training, moving data to cloud services, employing artificial intelligence, and other means.

The Benefits of Digital Transformation: While the ROI of digital transformation depends on a variety of factors, the right technology can greatly improve how your business functions and how customers engage with it. i)Increases productivity while reducing labor costs — Using technology to work more efficiently is one of the most impactful ways to transform your business. For example, for enterprises, the time and money they spend training new employees and updating digital resources can quickly get out of hand. With the proper tools, you can keep costs down and productivity up. ii)Improves the customer experience — Tech-savvy customers want a great experience through multiple touchpoints — mobile apps, social media, email, live chat, etc. Digital transformations are the driving force behind improved customer experiences. iii)Drives innovation, keeping you ahead of your competition – Your competitors are looking into digital transformation regardless of whether or not you are. Choosing not to embrace digital transformation is essentially deciding that you don’t mind being left behind. Investing in your organization’s future allows for Maintain the momentum of any project toward your ultimate corporate objectives in order to effectively change. To accomplish so, keep the following digital transformation drivers in mind: digital twin, privacy, culture, augmented intelligence, and digital product management. According to Gartner, CIOs must prioritise these five areas in order to support effective digital transformations in their enterprises. 1. Virtual Twins According to Gartner, a digital twin is a "digital replica of a real-world object or system." A digital twin implementation is an enclosed software object or model that replicates a unique real thing, process, organisation, person, or other abstraction." Digital twins aid digital transformation by allowing for experimentation and the collection of data that allows for more informed business choices. 2. Confidentiality Your digital transformation will fail if you can't manage privacy. Organizations prefer to follow trends that provide more convenience

as more digital solutions become accessible. However, according to Gartner's study, a big number of customers and workers are unwilling to sacrifice safety and security for convenience. CIOs must prioritise privacy. Employees and customers will oppose a transition if they believe it compromises their privacy or the security of their personal data. 3. Traditions Change aversion is a natural human inclination. When you disregard the cultural side of a digital change, you'll immediately run into opposition. In fact, 46 percent of CIOs believe their largest hurdle to transformation is culture. Addressing culture guarantees that your transformation programme has internal support. You may harness the voices of change leaders — ardent advocates of your digital transformation — to propel your campaign ahead. 4. Artificial Intelligence Augmented intelligence (AI) extends beyond artificial intelligence (AI) by enabling people and robots to collaborate. The data collecting and analysis capabilities of AI greatly outperform those of a human worker. However, augmented intelligence is not about replacing humans with computers; rather, AI gathers and delivers data in a manner that enables individuals to supplement their knowledge. 5. Management of Digital Products According to Gartner, digital product management is the transition of thinking from projects to products. These items must be created to enhance the consumer experience and distributed through digital channels. Knowing your industry and building products that serve it is what digital product management is all about. Instead of expecting the healthcare business to align with Apple's products, Apple developed a watch that monitors the wearer's health. CIOs who concentrate on these five main drivers may keep their firms ahead of the competition by consistently improving and developing them. Many factors contribute to the failure of digital transformations, but the majority of concerns can be traced back to one of three digital transformation challenges: people, communication, and measurement. Here they are:

1. People People have the power to create or ruin your digital transformation. Remember that culture is a top driver of digital transformation as well as one of the six pillars of successful ones. Your effort will fail if you do not place enough emphasis on people and culture. Sixteen of McKinsey's 21 elements to digital transformation success include people. 2. Communication An announcement of a digital transformation effort is not the same as speaking about it with your staff. Often, leadership merely orders changes without explaining why or how they are being implemented. Your endeavour will fail if you do not give detailed and practical counsel before, throughout, and even after a transition. You may learn more about changing communication by reading our guide. 3. Measurement You can't have a successful digital transformation if you don't define success for yourself. Companies often believe they can measure success based on the key performance indicators (KPIs) they've previously set for their organisation. However, if you are altering the way you conduct business, you will need to define extra KPIs to track the results. A digital transformation strategy is a plan of action for launching, assessing, and advancing a digital transformation endeavour. Your plan will specify the business objectives you want to accomplish via digital transformation. An successful digital transformation plan will provide you with a framework to guide you through this ever-changing process. But, before you start, you need know what you want to accomplish so that you can set KPIs to monitor along the route. If you're converting users from Salesforce Classic to Lightning, for example, your high-level KPIs for gauging adoption would include login rates, use, data quality, and business performance. In this example, you may go further and track KPIs like: i)Volumes of monthly sales ii)Sales productivity was produced through opportunities (e.g., time saved, volume of sales activity per rep)

iii)Log-in rates of users iv)Prospect account with crucial fields filled in A well-planned strategy will also consider how the transition will influence your customers and workers. Begin by identifying internal change agents who will openly support your transition. Putting trustworthy change agents in charge of announcing and supporting the shift can assist build momentum. Soliciting input from anybody touched by the change on a regular basis can also assist keep the momentum rolling. Remember to incorporate your team's successes in your progress monitoring. Whether you're highlighting a numeric accomplishment, such as a 10% increase in user log-in rates, or a qualitative one, such as Beth creating a Slack group to answer queries about the transition, celebrating milestones along the process is critical. Customers and workers alike will look to the individuals driving the transition for the information they need to succeed. It is your responsibility to offer the essential tools. Those tools may take many forms, but if you're embarking on a digital transformation, chances are there are digital resources available to help you. Will you utilise e-learning technologies to teach your employees? Can videos help people study at their own pace? Remember that transformations are an evolution, so using technologies that can adapt fast, such as digital adoption platforms, will save you time and effort in the long run. The process of employing digital technology to build new — or adapt current — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to satisfy changing business and market needs is known as digital transformation. Digital transformation is the redesigning of business in the digital era. It extends beyond typical jobs like as sales, marketing, and customer support. Instead, digital transformation starts and ends with how you perceive and interact with consumers. With digital technology on our side, we have the opportunity to rethink how we conduct business — how we engage our customers — as we go from paper to spreadsheets to smart apps for business management. There is no need for small enterprises who are just getting started to build up their business procedures and then alter them afterwards. You can foresee the destiny of your organisation from the start.

Building a 21st-century firm on sticky notes and handwritten ledgers is just not feasible. Digital thinking, planning, and building positions you to be nimble, versatile, and ready to develop. Businesses used to keep records on paper. Business data was analogue, whether handwritten in ledgers or typed into papers. You had to deal with tangible documents if you wanted to collect or distribute information – papers and binders, xeroxes and faxes.Then computers became commonplace, and most firms began switching their ink-on-paper records to digital computer data. This is referred to as digitisation, which is the process of transferring information from analogue to digital. Finding and exchanging information became considerably simpler when it was digitised, but how firms utilised their new digital records mainly replicated the old analogue procedures. Computer operating systems were even developed with file folder icons in mind to make them seem more familiar and less daunting to novice users. Although digital data was tenfold more efficient for organisations than analogue data, corporate systems and procedures remained mainly based on analog-era concepts about how to access, distribute, and utilise information. Digitalisation refers to the practise of utilising digitised information to make existing methods of functioning easier and more efficient. Take note of the term used in that definition: Digitalisation isn't about altering the way you conduct business or inventing new ones. It's about staying going, but quicker and better now that your data is immediately available and not locked away in a dusty archive file cabinet. Consider customer service, whether it is in retail, field operations, or a contact centre. By making client records accessible and promptly retrievable through computer, digitalisation transformed service forever. The underlying customer service technique remained same, but the process of receiving an enquiry, seeking up relevant data, and delivering a resolution became considerably more efficient when searching paper ledgers was replaced by inputting a few keystrokes on a computer screen or mobile device. People began to generate ideas for applying business technology in new ways as digital technology advanced, rather than just doing the same tasks quicker. This is when the concept of digital transformation started to emerge. New things — and new methods of doing them — become

suddenly feasible with new technology. Digital transformation is altering the way companies are conducted and, in some circumstances, spawning totally new types of enterprises. With digital transformation, businesses are taking a step back and examining everything they do, from internal processes to online and in-person client interactions. They're asking big questions such, "Can we transform our processes to allow better decisionmaking, game-changing efficiency, or a better customer experience with greater personalization?" We are now firmly established in the digital age, and organisations of all sizes are developing innovative, successful, and disruptive methods to use technology. Netflix is an excellent example. It began as a mail-order service and eventually disrupted the brick-and-mortar video rental market. Then, thanks to technological advancements, large-scale streaming video became a reality. Today, Netflix competes with conventional broadcast and cable television networks, as well as production studios, by providing an expanding library of on-demand programming at ultracompetitive pricing. Understanding the potential of your technology is a critical component of digital transformation. That, once again, does not imply asking, "How much quicker can we do things the same way?" It entails answering the question, "What is our technology really capable of, and how can we modify our company and procedures to maximise our technological investments?" Prior to Netflix, individuals choose movies to rent by visiting to shops and rummaging through racks of cassettes and discs in search of anything that looked interesting. Personal gadgets now provide up libraries of digital information, replete with suggestions and evaluations based on user interests. Streaming subscription-based material to people's TVs, laptops, and mobile devices was a clear threat to the brick-and-mortar video rental economy. Accepting streaming also prompted Netflix to consider what more it might do with the available technologies. This resulted in developments such as an artificial intelligence-powered content recommendation system. What a great way to make the most of your IT department! Similarly, digital innovations have altered the way businesses

approach customer service. The traditional paradigm was to wait for clients to come to you, whether in person or by phoning an 800 number. However, the emergence of social media has altered service in the same way that it has altered advertising, marketing, and even sales and customer service. Progressive businesses see social media as an opportunity to broaden their service offerings by meeting clients on their preferred channels. Of course, using digital technology to improve the efficiency of contact centres and in-store service desks is a good thing. However, true transformation occurs when you examine all available technologies and determine how adapting your firm to them might improve the consumer experience. Social media was not created to replace call centres, but it has evolved into an extra channel (and opportunity) for providing superior customer support. Another fantastic example of a digital transition is adapting your service offerings to include social media. But why should we stop there? As previously said, digital transformation forces firms to reexamine everything, including conventional team and department concepts. This does not necessary imply enlisting your customer service representatives to handle marketing efforts, but it may imply breaking down barriers across departments. Your social media presence might include both service and marketing, which are linked by a digital platform that collects consumer information, produces personalised experiences, and sends client inquiries to your service agents. A comprehensive company transformation is a digital transformation. It's critical to keep this in mind if you're serious about improving your company. It is not just a matter of modernising IT systems and applications. It's a cultural revolution, as well as a reinvention of all of your company's operations and procedures. As previously said, small firms — even those just starting started — may use a digital transformation strategy to instil digital first in their corporate culture. What better way to envisage how digital innovation may assist consumers than to be a digital native in all parts of creating and operating a company yourself? Before we get into how to create a framework for your digital transformation, let's go through some of the signals that your company does, in fact, need to convert. Signs that your company is in need of a digital transformation might

surface in several sectors of the organisation. They may not yell, "It's time to get digital!" or "Why aren't you on Instagram?" Instead, they might materialise as a wide range of commercial issues. If one or more of the elements on our checklist apply to you, it may be time to consider building a digital transformation plan. You're not receiving as many recommendations as you used to. Referrals are increasingly being exchanged online, through social media, apps, email, and texting. If your company lacks a strong, easy-to-share web presence, you may be losing out on recommendations. Repeat business isn't as common as it once was. Customers who don't return to conduct business with you aren't always an indication that your items and services aren't up to par. Losing recurring business might be the result of competition promotions, a lack of follow-up contact on your side, or a variety of other factors. A digital revolution of your communications approach might explain why your repetitions are decreasing. Tried-and-true promotions aren't producing leads anymore. Why aren't your killer promos working any longer? Are you calculating their impact? Print campaigns are difficult to quantify, and even last year's finest digital strategy may no longer be successful. If your promos aren't generating leads, it may be time for a fresh, bottom-up marketing strategy. Cross-departmental concerns about a lack of teamwork and information sharing, teams functioning in silos, and so on are increasing. The notion that sales and marketing are incompatible has gone the way of the dinosaurs. In today's modern company cultures, collaboration is the operative word, and getting your data out of silos and in front of whomever needs it is critical. A strategy to make corporate data accessible and valuable across departments is at the heart of every digital foundation. Your IT systems seem to be outdated, and workers are requesting features similar to those seen in consumer applications. Spreadsheets are useful, but they should not be used for everything. Where it's at is with modern business applications that fulfil particular purposes, interface with one another for data exchange, and provide user-friendly experiences across desktop and mobile. If your present technology does not provide workers with the majority, if not all, of the above, it may be time to consider a new technology platform.

Digging under the surface to discover the underlying reasons of these issues often leads to the realisation that you lack the insight into business data required to make sound choices. Many SMBs are based on a patchwork of programmes that don't communicate with one another. Repairing your technological infrastructure to enable data exchange and analysis throughout your organisation is a critical step toward better, more informed decision-making. Leaders who want to improve organisational performance by using digital technology often have a particular instrument in mind. "Perhaps our company need a machine learning approach," for example. However, digital transformation should be led by a larger company plan. Leaders at Li & Fung (where one of us works) devised a three-year plan for addressing a market where mobile applications were as vital as brick-and-mortar businesses. They decided to concentrate their efforts on three areas: speed, innovation, and digitalization. Li & Fung specifically intended to cut manufacturing lead times, enhance speedto-market, and improve data utilisation in its global supply chain. Following the establishment of precise objectives, the organisation decided on the digital technologies that would be used. For example, in terms of speed-to-market, Li & Fung has adopted virtual design technology, which has allowed them to cut the time from design to sample by half. Li & Fung also assisted suppliers in installing real-time data tracking management systems to improve manufacturing efficiency, and Total Sourcing, a digital platform that combines information from customers and vendors, was created. The finance department used a similar strategy, and as a result, month-end closure time was cut by more than 30 percent, and working capital efficiency rose by $200 million. There is no one technology that can provide "speed" or "innovation." The ideal tool mix for a specific business will differ depending on the vision. "As a result, all of us are progressing at the appropriate rate." That attitude is shared by James Lowey, CIO of TGen, who adds that one of the most difficult aspects of changing a company is keeping a staff current with the skills required to engage in this shift. "Having a superb team that is constantly eager to adopt innovations helps... since the rate of technological development often surpasses the capacity of traditional schooling to keep up," he adds. "I think that having

individuals who are enthusiastic, interested, and driven by the objective is critical to accomplishing meaningful digital transformation." Pitney Bowes started looking at where technology was heading in ten functional areas a few years ago, including mobile, data, analytics, machine learning, APIs, SaaS, and user experience design. "We understood that in order for our organisation to go ahead, we needed to have a people strategy in addition to a clear technological plan,". Curriculums were developed for each of the ten topics, and everyone in the 1,200-person innovation organisation was forced to choose one of the ten tracks and commit to studying it for a year. Fairweather claims that they have made a commitment to their workers to improve their abilities and personal value proposition. This mental adjustment has propelled the organisation ahead. "We had 80 acquisitions in the last ten years, but... having employees pledge loyalty to one of these issue areas has fostered a lot of cross contact and new partnerships as people came to know one other." "We've seen a lot of advantages from undertaking proactive training,". While organisations mention "changing consumer behaviours and preferences" as the main driver of digital transformation, the Altimeter survey revealed that less than half spend in understanding digital customers. "The few that do it right begin with an outside-in strategy,". "They're looking at something that's broken or missing to address a need," and then tying in ROI and key performance indicators (KPIs) to "show progress and success." They are also focused on the consumer experience first and foremost. "They look at the customer journey or sections of the customer journey; in particular, they look at the mobile trip, and they look at repairing anything that may produce more opportunity so they can attach immediate opportunity to it." When the senior management team went on a "tech safari" trip to the West Coast and visited numerous successful organisations to learn about technology "and the art of potential around technology," according to Mohammad. One of the key findings was that they were not always satisfying the needs of their clients. While CarMax has a customerfacing website, implementing a new feature would take weeks or months "because teams weren't managed properly,". "We didn't have a speed framework."

CarMax realised that the opportunity to purchase a vehicle through its website would provide a better experience for customers. To do this, authorities divided personnel into product teams, each with "three crucial, non-negotiable roles": a product manager, a lead developer/engineer, and a user experience specialist. They are reinforced by additional members of development, quality assurance, finance, and operations, totaling seven to nine persons. One experiment that authorities intended to pursue was bringing an automobile to someone's house. One of the product teams created a mobile app with integrated features that allow a consumer to purchase a vehicle from their mobile device and have it delivered to their driveway within a few weeks. "They didn't aim for a flawless answer on day one; they put the capability in the hands of a client immediately and then worked on making it better,". The first automobile has since been delivered in Charlotte, N.C., which is now the only market having that capacity. Each team has a two-week "open house" to give internal transparency and updates on how they're accomplishing company goals and consumer expectations. Now that the teams are in place, the objective is to "provide a brilliant concept in a couple of hours; test it out and see how it works; then improve it." That's a significant change,". The strategy is similar at John Deere, where leaders have developed a roadmap for the future vision, with the objective of establishing a smart connected organisation. The Foundry, a 7,000-square-foot workstation in one of the company's factories, was created with lower table heights to allow individuals to engage more freely. There, new teams will be formed to learn a new agile technique from a group of professionals who will take staff through one cycle of development. "We've adopted agile because we recognise it helps us foster a culture of learning," "so we're now going through sprint cycles" to produce a product every two months. "We've divided our project portfolio and are attempting to execute it in two-month chunks." Instead of waiting months or years before prototyping a new solution, we'll take a step back and ask, 'Did we satisfy consumer expectations?' The next phase will be to assemble teams of workers who will take the jump, followed by a series of seminars to educate them on what this trip would involve. "It's a whole new style of working.

Going ahead, we're attempting to adopt a strategy in which apps, infrastructure, and business [units] all collaborate." External benchmarking and internal interviews were used to inform the strategy for the linked digital organisation, ensuring that IT knew what the CEO and some of Jayaram's counterparts in other functional areas expected of IT. "In the past, we were seen as a cost centre," he explains. "From now on, we'll be front and centre." For the first time in John Deere's history, we are setting the standard for what the business requires. We took the mission and asked ourselves, 'How can we make it a reality for us?'" Digital KPIs are used by CIOs to assess the effect of digital business activities. The KPIs also reset digital models depending on value and performance. "The main restriction [of digital KPIs] is the absence of a well defined digital vision" or plan. "Having a clear notion of your digital objective will provide you with some suggestions for what you should be monitoring to track your success." "You can't measure anything without a measuring stick." Digital KPIs are measurements used to assess the success of digital business efforts. Digital KPIs may assist a company in determining how far it has gone with its digital strategy and how effectively it is improving its digital business results. According to Gartner's Proctor, CIOs should create digital KPIs that focus on two main areas. The initial set of KPIs should evaluate the company's progress in digitising its present business model by monitoring sales, marketing, operations, supply chain, products/services, and customer service objectives. Many businesses in retail, casual dining, and other industries, for example, employ chatbots to digitise order taking. CIOs should examine such digital operations using metrics that measure adoption rates and business effect in comparison to conventional operating modes. A second set of KPIs should evaluate digital platform growth, revenue, market share, and profitability measures. Yard Club was bought by Caterpillar in order to hire heavy machinery via an internet marketplace. Through Apervita's online marketplace, Cleveland Clinic provides algorithms for assessing cardiology and oncology. To analyse their influence on the bottom line, such digital income sources should be examined separately from analogue revenue streams.

According to ServiceNow CIO, senior business executives will complain that estimates of digital readiness are based on anecdotes rather than real evidence. Bedi devised a system that assesses how the firm is going along its digitalization path in order to measure his organization's progress toward automating repetitive chores. According to Gartner, it's a measuring methodology for digital KPIs, albeit Bedi doesn't call it that. The methodology begins with a questionnaire, which is then used by HR, IT, sales, and other business divisions to each operation, such as automating accruals, moving staff from one department to another, or supplying laptops. Responses are color-coded and shown in a graphic heat map that describes the digitization metric for each process, with elements impacting the score such as the use of real-time analytics and machine learning algorithms. A low score results in a level 1 rating, which is defined as "clunky, sluggish, and annoying," while a level 4 grade shows that the organisation uses platforms to automate and execute labour. Companies don't have to worry about being trapped on level 1; the scorecards provide suggestions that business lines may follow to improve their score. Customers of ServiceNow, such as Humana, are using the scorecards. "The framework isn't ideal,", "but having one is better than not having one." Furthermore, businesses may "take it, adapt it, and make it their own." It is developed a diagnostic approach to assist firms in estimating digital KPIs such as operational metrics, speed and cycle time, and Net Promoter Scores based on customer and staff input. This diagnostic methodology will aid in quantifying "real business value." TGI Fridays records daily active users of its website and mobile applications, as well as postings on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms, to discover how its consumers engage digitally with its brand. Fridays also extensively monitors user interactions with its chatbots, including the amount of chats and the duration of the discussions, giving a greater insight of how natural language processing works for consumers attempting to "speak" to the platform. Page views, click-throughs, and the frequency with which a customer completes or abandons his or her checkout round out Friday's KPIs. "It's not always ideal,", "but when you try something and it doesn't work, you learn." Industrial manufacturer Schneider Electric uses

digital KPIs to track everything from the company's cybersecurity posture to the number of employees she categorises as "digital citizens," those who casually consume technology, to "digital disruptors," those who conceive of and champion changes in business processes. ServiceNow, TGI Fridays, and Schneider Electric may be digital outliers; just half of the CEOs polled by Gartner have KPIs to assess digital performance, according to Proctor, who suggests four actions CIOs may take to quantify the value of their digital business. Collaborate with top executives to determine the degree to which their domains will benefit from digitization. A CIO may collaborate with a COO to determine how much of the company's manufacturing activities should be digitalized and what advantages may be expected. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives that outline the digital business journey and refine intended business results. For example, Proctor advises healthcare CIOs to move away from talking about linked healthcare as a vision and instead propose the possible proportion of patient "visits" that would use telemedicine, followed by a description of the predicted advantages of attaining this target. Track your digital journey's development and the commercial value it generates. Some KPIs will be "transitional," while others will become permanent business performance measurements when transformation occurs and digital business becomes regular operating practise. For example, a firm that creates a digital ecosystem may add ecosystem measurements to its continuous business success KPIs indefinitely. Good metrics should have an impact on C-suite decisions including budget allocations, business process enhancements, and cultural shifts. Use KPIs to support particular result expectations, such as "we will gain from an X rise in these business and financial measures if we meet our 2020 target of digitising ABC." KPIs should have an impact on company decisions. KPIs should be used to inform course modifications. For example, when a company approaches 50% of customer calls being handled by an automated system, the customer Net Promoter Score may drop significantly, signalling a need to spend more in the system or change technologies. Good KPIs will alert you to the need for change before any major loss happens.

"The digital KPI is all about identifying where you're earning money or enhancing an existing business model, how to assess it, and working with your non-IT executives to reach new business goals that you've established based on the fact that you're going digital," says Proctor. "Aside from that, all you have is a collection of new initiatives that are employing technology to achieve new things, which is regrettably where most firms are today." The stakes are high for CIOs and their C-suite counterparts in cementing a digital strategy — and even higher in establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge its efficacy. When digital revenue reaches 20% of overall sales, a market is disrupted. "You're toast if you're not [reasonably] digital at that time," Proctor adds. Digital transformations are still popular. CIOs are combining cloud, APIs, and microservices into platforms to improve business operations. They feel that agile architectures assist to simplify processes and better serve consumers. According to study performed by consultant TEKsystems in late 2019, 47 percent of 510 business and technology executives report that their firm is progressing digital transformation goals throughout the enterprise. The unpleasant fact is that such transitions often seem like mirages: nice and enticing from a distance, but less genuine as they develop. The failure to account for the cultural change necessary to bring out enterprise-wide transformation is often the greatest blunder. Being caught off guard by the COVID-19 isn't helping firms on their transformation journeys, but even for those who have the majority of their budgets intact, there are distinct hurdles to accomplishing broad enterprise change. Here are some roadblocks that are impeding digital changes. Failure reasons of Digital Transformation: 1. Shock to culture The cultural shift necessary for transformation may be overwhelming for many firms. According to the TEKsystems research, 39% of firms think their organisational structure is not matched to promote change. "Everyone has access to technology, but understanding how to maximise its potential is difficult,", market research manager at TEKsystems. "That limited perspective — a lack of a shared vision and a failure to consider the full ecosystem — is precisely where

digital projects fail." 2. A lack of CEO support Transformation, at least in principle, begins from the top. However, the absence of a defined transformation plan was mentioned by 35% of executives as a critical impediment to attaining its full digital potential in a 2017 Wipro Digital study, who adds that the CEO is often to fault. "Digital transformation programmes are falling short of their expected ROI, in part because digital transformation is a leadership problem as well as a strategy, technology, culture, and people one,". 3. The issue with silos Thirty-two percent of CEOs polled by TEKsystems mentioned too many conflicting agendas as a transformation roadblock they are unable to overcome. "There's a gap in expectations,". "It's possible that COVID-19 underlined that for many companies." It is vital to achieve agreement among top executives and stakeholders on company objectives." Alignment issues are often caused by silos between corporate divisions, who oversees EY's advisory markets, business development, sectors, and solutions. A product owner who is unable to look into the supply chain due to lack of access will struggle to satisfy consumers. Furthermore, a walled company will be slow to react to a crisis like the coronavirus epidemic. "It's about succeeding in transcending or overcoming organisational silos and constructions in order to alter all of the business processes to get the desired goal,". 4.Difficulties with 'what and how' Assuming they overcome their opposition to change, most firms remain in wait-and-see mode until their financials deteriorate and pressure from the board — and competitors — rises. Despite this, most leaders struggle to determine what needs to change and how to do it,. Indecision may lead to inaction or, worse, poor choices.A key stumbling block for transformations is a failure to grasp the technology needed and the skills required to manage it. Is a new digital operational model required for a business? How many Scrum/agile specialists or DevOps engineers are needed? To bridge these knowledge gaps, business unit executives must collaborate with their CIOs. Because of the rapid rate of digital change, this is a tough but important component of success.

5. The "wait-and-see" trap Companies become stuck because they are unsure about "what and how,". "The single most important determinant of change success is the timeliness with which they begin,". "Digital disruption occurs quickly, and most financial measurements are lagging predictors of potential." While COVID-19 has brought many firms to a halt, it has also hastened breakthrough tech movements in a matter of weeks rather than months, according to Schul. "COVID-19 is propelling us past obstacles," he continues. 6. The technological snare CIOs cannot avoid sliding into the technology-centricity trap, sometimes known as the "shiny new toy mentality," even if they are prepared to change. While technology is an important driver of change, Reeves believes that using technologies that do not assist meet consumer wants or allow new digital business models offers little value. Another issue is selecting favourites, such as cloud computing, predictive analytics, blockchain, artificial intelligence, or the internet of things (IoT). According to Reeves, CIOs might sometimes fall in love with a single item in their toolbox, obscuring basic competitive and consumer issues. "The customers we see that are doing well are less concerned with the new flashy toy or new tech component and more concerned with finding the proper spot to use it," Schul adds. 7. The Big Bang Theory Organizations that establish common ground on a strategy and demonstrate a desire to change prefer to view transformation as a Big Bang rather than a series of incremental adjustments geared to modify the business process. This often leads to "too many expectations on too many outcomes." And, he says, if the culture isn't correct, the approach will fail. "It's about how you build victories on a consistent basis as opposed to that great milestone... that never arrives." 8. A lack of speed Only 4% of respondents to Wipro Digital's poll stated they realised half of their digital investment in less than a year, with the majority indicating it took their organisation two to three years to see at least half of these efforts come to reality. According to LaBerge, the

magnitude and rate of digital acceleration exacerbate the challenges, making it difficult to bridge the gap between incumbents and challengers. Companies who are launching version 2 of a digital service, for example, are competing with disruptors that are on version 78. "Scale or network effects may magnify failure," adds LaBerge. 9. A lack of talent Digital revolutions need the hiring of new people, such as software engineers who are fluent in the newest programming languages and product managers who understand what consumers want in a virtual assistant. Companies are willing to pay top cash for user experience designers, DevOps engineers, data scientists, and artificial intelligence experts if they can find them. According to Hayman, nine out of ten firms feel they need at least some new kinds of talent, and 37 percent believe major personnel structure changes are required for their digital transformation initiatives to be successful. However, demand vastly outnumbers supply, and most businesses struggle to entice seasoned software engineers, product managers, and other IT workers away from Apple, Google, or Facebook. 10. Inconsistency You've seen it before: a CIO's LinkedIn profile changes from "Global CIO of X" to "Global CIO of Y" or, worse, "searching for my next job." The effect of such changes is difficult to assess, but they tend to stall efforts. "Senior executives don't want to inherit a change," adds LaBerge. "They want to start from scratch in order to leave their imprint." LaBerge also claims that turnover among rank-and-file employees and other management is to blame for the problem. Enterprises have little chance of implementing their digital objectives if CIOs and their personnel abandon ship (both freely and involunt. Organizations are undergoing digital transformation as they embrace new and creative business models based on technology advancements. It is the process of radically transforming anything utilising digital technologies, and it describes the adoption of technology and—potentially—cultural changes to better or replace what previously existed. Digital transformation is not a commodity or service that can be bought, but it has an impact on everything IT touches in every sector. We are more affected by technology's

absence (or dysfunction) than by its presence. Our environment is digital, and we want technology to operate flawlessly for us. The majority of the time, it does. From word processing tools to calendars, home energy alerts to transit alternatives, food delivery services to weather predictions, our smartphones contain all of the info we need (and more) to be productive all day long. But we notice technology's absence the most when it doesn't function for us. Waiting in line to pay cash at a toll booth since electronic receivers had not been deployed on the roadway. Visiting the downtown courthouse to get a public record that should have been accessible online. Observing another another failure of conference call technology. That is why firms must invest in technology that serves both workers and customers in the manner we demand. Clouds, mobile applications, and Stuff-as-a-Service need novel storage, analytics, automation, and administration methods. New technology leads to process improvements, which leads to improved goods and services. Then, since they've gotten used to particular experiences in our everyday lives, clients expect even more enhancements. Consider the 3 following of Digital Transformation: i)Products, such as paper-based records in file cabinets, have devolved into bits and bytes in cloud containers; even the file cabinet has been abstracted and software-defined. ii)Hotel stays and rental vehicles have been replaced by spare rooms (more on that later), and drivers are called through your smartphone. iii)Waterfall processes, for example, have developed into DevOps approaches in which teams work iteratively. While not the sole determinant in the success or failure of any transformation endeavour, digital transformation is a significant component of an overall company transformation strategy. The proper technology, when combined with the right people, processes, and operations, enable businesses to swiftly respond to disruption and/or opportunity; satisfy new and changing consumer requirements; and drive future development and innovation, sometimes in unexpected ways. Integrating digital technology and solutions into every aspect of an organisation is what digital transformation entails. This is a cultural as well as a technical transition, requiring firms to make major

changes in how they operate and offer consumer experiences and advantages. Digital solutions may also serve to expand the workforce and contribute to the change of corporate processes and business models. Today's firms face fierce competition and rising client expectations. One of the primary goals of digital transformation efforts is to assist corporate leaders and teams in making their operations more efficient and competitive. New technology (described below) are important in promoting transformation, but so are business processes, business models, organisational culture, and openness to change. Any transformation strategy should consider the following three areas: i)Corporate process transformation entails altering and modifying basic – often long-standing – processes and workflows to suit changing business objectives, competitors, and consumer needs. Despite the fact that the phrases are sometimes used interchangeably, digital transformation is a subset of business transformation in that it establishes a linked, technical framework that underlies and supports process improvements. Improvements in workflow management have enabled evidence of business process transformation to be observed from beginning to finish inside company operations. Businesses, for example, may reduce downtime, simplify production, and boost profitability by using a digitalized, cloud-based supply chain management system. Organization process transformation focuses on workflows and task-related parts of the business, while business model transformation focuses on the fundamental building blocks of how value is provided in a certain sector. Companies are essentially leveraging digital transformation to alter established business structures. Digital technologies enable the car industry to consolidate and automate subscription-based business models and billing operations. Traditional automobile purchase is being revolutionised by subscription-based models as a result of fast changing client needs and a wider cultural shift. "Changes in client preferences, such as a decline in interest in owning physical things, have accelerated the transition to subscription-based offers beyond software and digital services." ii)Organizational and cultural change: A successful digital

transformation should be aligned with the organization's culture and values. Internal disbelief in company culture may have an influence on employee productivity, initiative, and well-being. Adoption of new digital technology that is slow or pessimistic may result in missed objectives and a loss of competitiveness, revenue, and brand value. Organizational change is best accomplished via cooperation and open talks from the top down about how this digital transformation will effect roles and processes and why the leadership teams believe it is worth the risk and effort in the long run. iii)In a challenging business climate, companies need to seize every competitive advantage – and increasingly, those advantages are digital. By 2018, over 89% of executives had adopted a digital-first business policy. And by 2021, that number has only grown. However, as we discussed earlier, many digital transformation projects get stalled by poor communication and planning. Consider these four early steps as you progress on your digital transformation journey, and speak to your software vendor to help you get started with crafting a transformation strategy and road map and learning which solutions are best for your unique business needs: i)Determine your starting point. Audit your existing systems and assets. Which machines are already digitalized? Which ones will require IoT gateways? Is your ERP modern and scalable, or is it still running on disk-based database memory? To give your project an early leg up, look first for processes within your business that are a high operational priority and have the least complicated path to transformation. ii)Define your priorities. Don’t plan a marathon before you’ve even made it around the first block. The beauty of digital transformation is that it does not have to happen all at once. Like building blocks, smart technologies are designed to evolve, scale, and integrate. Ask your software provider about business transformation services (also called transformation as a service) and how they can help you get started. iii)Build your roadmap.  A significant benefit to smart technologies lies in their immense scalability and capacity for rapid adaptation and reconfiguration. A great transformation road map should allow for agility and growth but start with a road map that has a few strong and

attainable goals. Build solid change management and migration strategies into your plan as well – digital transformation is as much a human journey as a technological one. These are important early steps. Look for support from specialized professionals who understand your unique needs and can help chart the best course for your business. iv)Prepare your teams.  Thoreau said, “Things do not change; we change.” Smart technologies can help reduce repetitive and tedious tasks, improve employee engagement, and support collaboration. But these benefits can only be realized when all your people are on board. Don’t spring the news on your teams. Learn from their input and ideas, openly address their concerns, and give them time to change. Digital transformation integrates every level and function in a modern business. Intelligent technologies give organizations the essential tools they need to survive and thrive. Here are some potential impacts of transformation: 1.Delivers deep insights to inform real-time decision-making: For many businesses, assessing performance and ROI has often been a backward-looking process. By the time data is gathered, processed, and manually analyzed, the ship of opportunity has long since sailed. With a modern ERP system and advanced analytics, businesses can see real-time data and customize powerful analysis algorithms to make the best decision in the moment. 2.Improves efficiency and productivity: IoT network devices and machines continually transmit data, machine logs, and performance reports. Through the application of advanced analytics, this data can support predictive maintenance, lowered downtime, and deliver insights for more productive and efficient workflows. 3.Enhances customer experiences: Your customers want their needs met on their terms. Personalization, omnichannel access, customized service plans, and real-time access to data can help you deliver to their ever-changing expectations while increasing leads and driving retention and loyalty. 4.Helps drive business model innovation: There’s no question that changing consumer and market demands are seeing an increased focus on business model innovation as a means of value creation. But

to change and modernize fundamental business models and customer experiences, companies require the ability to gather and analyze realtime data and develop automated and intelligent processes to manage new business, payment, and service models. 5.Supports a robust and competitive corporate growth strategy: When businesses digitalize their operations and optimize their services with connected technologies, they find new ways to connect and collaborate and to streamline future business growth strategies, including: i)Developing new products and services ii)Improving profitability and strengthening revenue channels iii)Attracting and retaining new leads and customers 6.Fosters agility and resistance to disruption: The COIVD-19 pandemic served to shine a light on a lot of vulnerabilities in modern business processes and models. But it was only one of many cultural, economic, political, and market changes that businesses have been increasingly facing in the past few years. Modern companies now look to digital transformation to equip them with the tools for rapid new product and service development, and predictive analytics to help better see disruptions coming, or anticipate market changes and opportunities. They want to be able to scale up and down with ease and have a full suite of cloud-connected solutions that can drive innovation – without having to jump from provider to provider Whether a change attempt is successful or not, the outcomes point to a few common characteristics of today's digital transitions. For one thing, while implementing such changes, businesses tend to look within. The most often mentioned goal for digital transformations is digitising the organization's operational model, which was mentioned by 68 percent of respondents. Less than half said their goal is to develop new goods or services or to communicate with external partners through digital channels. Digital changes are also often broad in scope. Eight out of ten respondents said their most recent change projects encompassed numerous roles, business divisions, or the whole firm. Furthermore, technology adoption is critical during digital transitions. Respondents said their firms employ four of the 11 technologies we inquired about on average, with standard web tools

listed most often and used in the great majority of these activities. Simultaneously, the outcomes of successful transitions demonstrate that these businesses adopt more technology than others. This may seem contradictory, given that a bigger range of technologies may result in more complicated transformation programmes and, as a consequence, greater potential for failure. However, firms that have successfully transformed are more likely to adopt modern technology such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and advanced neural machine-learning algorithms. While many digital transformations, according to respondents, fall short of boosting performance and enabling businesses to maintain changes, lessons may be learnt from those that declare success. The poll findings indicate the following actions that businesses may take to improve their chances of success during a transformation: 1.Consider reimagining your workplace. The findings indicate that success requires both digitally knowledgeable executives and a workforce capable of implementing the changes required for a digital transformation, which is supported by earlier McKinsey studies. Digitization, automation, and other technology changes will have huge workforce ramifications, and businesses will need to invest in and employ for fundamentally new skills and talents. Whether or whether an organisation has already initiated a digital transformation, it is crucial for all firms to consider the ways in which digitization may effect their enterprises in the short and long term, as well as the skills required to stay up. One key step is for firms to define clear workforce plans to assist in determining the digital skills and capabilities that they already have and will need to accomplish their future objectives. 2.Improve the "hard wiring" of the organisation. Because digital needs new methods of working as well as changes to the general culture of the company, workers must be enabled to work differently in order to keep up with the quicker pace of business. These improvements will be supported by the installation of digital tools and process upgrades, as well as the establishment of a more agile operating model—that is, the organization's hard wiring. Leaders, too, have vital responsibilities to play in letting go of outdated traditions (command-and-control supervision, for example). Because not all leaders will have the

expertise to support or conduct such changes, specialised leadershipdevelopment programmes might assist leaders and workers alike in making the essential mindset and behaviour transformations. Modify your communication methods. Good communication has always been a critical success component in conventional change attempts, and it is as crucial in a digital transition. Companies must become more creative in the channels they use in a digital setting to facilitate the new, faster methods of working and the faster mind-set and behaviour changes that a digital transformation necessitates. One change is a shift away from conventional channels that only allow for one-way communication (such as company-wide emails) and toward more interactive platforms (such as internal social media) that allow for open discussions throughout the business. Another way to improved communication is to create more concise—and even tailored— messages for individuals inside the business, rather than longer ones. It is now time for businesses to invest in a digital strategy. Customers are growing increasingly reliant on internet commerce and want to conduct business with firms who make it simple for them. The usage of mobile phones for shopping and working is increasing dramatically. Every customer has used their smartphone to do online product research - frequently while buying in-store! Being able to follow customer behaviour across platforms allows you to provide them with precisely what they need, when they want it. It's the sensible thing to do, but consumers have learned to anticipate and are conditioned to this sort of personalised marketing. Now that any client can use their smartphone to get a cab, pizza, or flower delivery at the press of a button, they demand the same degree of ease from any business with which they engage. Customers will not continue to conduct business with you if they have to phone you, wait for you to flick through an appointment book, send a page to your nearest delivery guy, and then call them back. They expect to be able to assist themselves or, at the absolute least, to get a prompt answer from you. Businesses, however, cannot operate thus swiftly unless they have undergone a digital revolution. They will stay sluggish and bogged down in bureaucracy and paperwork unless they convert to a technology-first, agile corporate environment. Customers not only want a better method to conduct business - one

that is simpler, quicker, and more consistent for them - but companies have a lot to gain from modernising their processes and systems as well. Mulesoft launched a poll in 2018 that found that four out of five organisations projected a negative effect on revenue in the next year if they did not embrace digital transformation throughout the company. The need for change is great, and the advantages are much greater. According to IDC, there is an extra $18 trillion in revenue available for forward-thinking organisations via new client acquisition channels and wholly new digital services. However, money isn't the only reason digital transformation is critical. According to Gartner, 40 percent of organisations are enthused about digitalization because of the possibility to provide better tools to employees, and 39 percent are interested in the cost-saving advantages. Implementing a digital transformation enhances revenue potential, improves employee experience, and lowers corporate costs. Why are you wasting your time? In 2020, practically every organization's list of aims and concerns includes digital transformation. The laws of business – and the public sector – are being rewritten almost every day as a mix of technological breakthroughs, changing consumer expectations, process upgrades (e.g., digitalization), and new business models force executives to reconsider previous IT strategies. The possibility to fulfil these evolving expectations and harness technology to provide distinctive and appealing experiences or results is represented by digitally transforming the enterprise. Digital Transformation isn't usually defined by a single technology or an IT project; rather, it refers to the use of a diverse mix of technologies, frequently in a succession of interconnected efforts. It often begins with an assessment of top corporate goals and requires an internal examination of resources, organisational maturity, and technical gaps. A roadmap and investment horizon are often informed by the junction of these two data sets (prioritised requirements and organisational realities). Finally, choices on how to adapt – by employing modern technology in new and inventive ways – will have a direct influence on differentiation, growth and scale, profitability, risk mitigation, customer happiness, and speed-to-market. Those that choose the proper IT from the right technology partners and then

execute solutions in a realistic, systematic way over time are likely to thrive. Those who do not will almost certainly suffer. That is the extent of the discrepancy. While Digital Transformation touches virtually every corner of the organization, and as a result is often the subject of varying priorities from numerous stakeholders, there are common threads on core objectives. Fundamentally, what organizations are trying to do is move faster, have greater agility, secure what matters most, and leverage insights to drive value. These four core pillars align directly to established – yet historically disconnected – software markets: i)Enterprise DevOps – Users are hungry for “new and improved” today, not tomorrow. Ensure timely software delivery by optimizing value streams from request to business value. Align stakeholder priorities, strengthen collaboration, automate everything, and scale DevOps with confidence. ii)Hybrid IT Management – The IT landscape is a complex, dynamic hybrid of traditional and cloud-based technologies. Simplify hybrid complexity while transforming IT into a true service-driven organization to fully participate in digital business success. iii)Predictive Analytics – Learn more about unmet customer needs, under-funded parts of the business, and emerging business models to drive the top line. iv)Security, Risk & Governance – Safeguard the assets that matter most to the organization: identities, applications, and data. This is important all the time, but perhaps never more relevant than during a period of transition, when processes and technology are evolving. v)Because these initiatives often overlap, organizations today are not just looking for software providers that can deliver these solutions in isolation, but instead can deliver a holistic and integrated set of offerings across these pillars to achieve optimal results over the long run. The benefits of Digital Transformation are many and varying. They can be placed into two broad categories: 1.Opportunities to grow the business are always attractive and can manifest themselves in many forms. Some of the most common

objectives to this end include: i)Boost and sustain revenue – Access to increasing amounts of data and new ways to bridge formerly distinct data silos now enable organizations to achieve actionable insights. As a result, organizations can more effectively act on unmet customer needs, under-funded parts of the business, emerging business models, and more. ii)Drive customer engagement – Organizations are constantly looking for new and better ways to engage customers. With the right investments, they can eliminate intermediaries and employ digital platforms to reach and serve customers directly, closing the loop between data and action and truly understand their customers and better satisfy their needs. iii)Deliver with greater speed – Customer expectations are constantly advancing, especially when it comes to accessing new and emerging benefits. With cognitive search, employees are able to perform knowledge discovery more efficiently; and with smarter functional testing, organizations can deliver innovation (at lower risk) than ever before. 2.With IT budgets under pressure, organizations are often focused on optimizing the enterprise. Some of the most-common paths to lowering risk and cost include: i)Improve quality and delivery – Gaining access to AIOps helps organizations reduce event volumes and get to root cause faster, and emerging service assurance technology combines data from hundreds of tools into a single pane of glass to discover IT resources and dependencies and fast-track problem resolution. ii)Streamline & enhance processes – Organizations that digitally transform are able to better streamline the back office with Robotics Process Automation (RPA), drive intelligent manufacturing with IOT analytics, and automate planning monitoring and scheduling. iii)Detect and prevent risk – Evolving IT and processes helps organizations efficiently manage policies and privileges, identify insider threats, better lock down mainframe access, comply with regulations, and protect consumer privacy. The major buying power has shifted away from the IT department in

many firms. This might result in judgments where the goals of a particular project are accidentally narrowed and mismatched with wider business aims. A manufacturing business unit, for example, may optimise for throughput, which may conflict with legal and regulatory requirements. One of the fundamental reasons why so many highprofile makeovers fail, according to a Harvard Corporate Review research, is that they are "not hard-wired into business strategy and essential operations." A better way to reduce the downstream risk of rework is to build a holistic and integrated picture early on, by ensuring alignment between IT and business unit leaders and setting individual projects within the framework of the organization's overarching objectives. The most common stumbling block arises during the execution phase. At first glance, pursuing Digital Transformation from the ground up — that is, pulling out present technology in favour of cutting-edge software – looks to have value. You are more likely to acquire the precise specs you need if you use this technique. The smart strategy for most, especially with core business processes that have been in place for many years, is to expand on what already exists. These businesses have often developed procedures and intellectual property (IP) that, when combined, function as systems of record and satisfy mission-critical needs. In such cases, pursuing a rip-and-replace method typically involves a degree of risk, as well as having a negative effect on cost and time-to-market that is strategically undesirable. The logical course of action is to upgrade existing technology and extend current investments with software that connects the old and the new. A modernization plan, often known as "smart Digital Transformation," enables firms to maximise savings and convenience while also delivering a far reduced risk profile by avoiding disruption of tried-and-true processes and deteriorating ROI on current investments. Historically, advanced analytics were marketed as standalone services – as a product or as a platform – which artificially limited the advantages they could deliver. Expectations are changing as more demands are put on IT and companies seek new and better methods to integrate previously different data silos. Expect to see artificial intelligence/machine learning incorporated with DevOps, Hybrid IT, and Security, Risk, and Governance solutions to help

provide additional value to the enterprise and manage risk and expense more efficiently. As a consequence of this progress, early adopters will see improved top- and bottom-line outcomes. Once the important parts have been identified, ensure that the business's objectives are well articulated. Uncertain or changing goals are one of the most prevalent causes for IT project failure. If you're working on a mainframe modernization project, for example, improving speed and delivery throughput using DevOps may be a top priority. However, there is a lot more you can do at the same time, such as expanding into new channels and markets by leveraging Cloud deployment models, increasing throughput, and having the ability to surface data that has been locked away for a long time and make it more broadly accessible to advanced analytics. Make sure you draw a large enough circle around what you're aiming to achieve from the start, and then fine-tune your technique appropriately. Then, assess where you are now and where you want to go at a certain point in time, before identifying and prioritising important IT gaps. This will give a meaningful structure from which to develop and will assist you in beginning to crystallise a framework. Equally essential, ensure that your strategy takes into consideration your present IT reality. This is sometimes referred to as a modernization maturity model, and it is vital to strike a balance between ambition and risk reduction. Finally, no attempt to develop will be effective unless time is spent building a team capable of thinking creatively and adapting to change. According to a recent poll, 38% of CIOs believe company digital strategy would fail without an inventive and experimental culture. Make certain that you do not overlook the softer aspects of change management. The terms "digital innovation" and "digital transformation" are often used interchangeably. Both are kinds of digital transformation, yet they each have their own significance. One simple method to tell the difference is to consider who would be affected by the change. The term "digital innovation" refers to a rapid technical shift that is unfamiliar to everyone. It is the creative process that culminates in a whole new method of employing technology to perform something never done before. It is the disruptor who causes everyone to sit up and take attention because they must determine what it means for their company. Or it's a forward-thinking approach that develops a

market that didn't previously exist. Of course, not all digital innovations are as significant as the introduction of the cloud or artificial intelligence. Many of the modifications are minor variations in how organisations have historically done things. Everyone benefits from digital innovation, no matter how large or small it is. Digital transformation, on the other hand, is a technology development that particular firms undertake. It is the process through which a corporation utilises technology to alter the way its people, processes, and current technology operate. It may happen as a consequence of digital inventions acquiring popularity. Other times, it is motivated by changing client wants, security flaws, or changes in how and where personnel work. Whatever the cause of the shift, digital transformation has an influence on individual companies. While digital transformation has received a lot of attention recently, another word for an organization's digital progression is digital modernisation. Although the two concepts are closely similar, they have distinct nuances and should not be used interchangeably. A digital transformation is a dramatic change in how a company utilises technology to conduct its operations. Digital modernisation is a less extreme procedure that involves updating or changing current technologies or systems in order to gain higher efficiency and lower costs. Furthermore, digital modernisation tends to concentrate on operations and infrastructure rather than the broader picture of the company that digital transformation encompasses. Business transformation is a wide word that refers to substantial changes in how a company does business. Changes may be caused by a variety of factors, including changing market needs or a strategy move to explore new markets. One way a corporation might use to accomplish business transformation is digital transformation. It is the use of tools and apps to transform processes in order to enable a change in how an organisation does business. Business transformation may occur without digital transformation – albeit the prospects in this digital era are limited – but digital transformation cannot occur without some sort of business change. Each organization’s needs are unique, and thus an ideal technology partner will fluctuate from company to company. Given complexity, inherent risk, and long-term timeframe typically associated with such

projects, there are a few best practices to consider: i)Prioritize holistic, integrated sets of solutions, so you can innovate faster with less risk. ii)Identify technology that can bridge the old and new, so you can pursue smart Digital Transformation with a modernization strategy. iii)Expect flexibility in deployment and vendor compatibility to remove barriers to strategic initiatives. iv)Look for solutions that are open and integrated, so you can build out an ecosystem that serves your distinct needs. v)Embrace vendors that deliver customer-centric innovation, so you can meet evolving requirements more effectively. There's little doubt that digital transformation is at the top of almost every organization's list of goals and worries as we begin 2019. The laws of business and government are being rewritten almost every day as new possibilities and expectations enter our collective consciousness. If the firm can adapt to these new conditions, it will most likely thrive. Ignore them and brace yourself for a fight. That is the extent of the discrepancy. Much has been written on "why" digital transformation is important for businesses. A convergence of technological advancements, changing consumer expectations, process evolutions (e.g., digitisation), and new business models is requiring IT and line-of-business leaders to make decisions on future steps. Finally, the choices they make about how to respond to these developments will have a direct influence on differentiation, growth and scale, profitability, customer happiness, and time-to-market. That is more than enough cause to prioritise. The "how" is a little less apparent. How can a company adapt in such a manner that it balances speed, quality, and cost? More significantly, how can a company conduct its operations while also transforming in order to reduce risk and assure long-term success? The answer is a little more complicated, but it is still well within the range of possible if we concentrate on the four main pillars of digital transformation. Few things are: 1. Prioritize enterprise DevOps to improve speed. Organizations understand that every day they do not make progress is

another day they fall behind. A lack of tools for swiftly developing and delivering high-quality software creates unnecessary hurdles to success. By prioritising developing DevOps technologies, one may minimise operational friction via automation and improved communication. Furthermore, knowing that quality and security are in plain sight can enhance corporate confidence, while better results may be produced with a degree of constant evaluation and course correction on fundamental business operations. 2. Increase agility with hybrid IT management. Organizations are now functioning in an increasingly complicated IT landscape, where they must choose among several choices rather than just the cloud or on-premise. They must choose software that supports a hybrid infrastructure for maximum flexibility. Enter hybrid IT, which can speed IT resource delivery, boost IT efficiency, and spark creativity and innovation by linking conventional and revolutionary IT services, from mainframe to mobile, corporate to cloud. 3. Use predictive analytics to drive change. Lakes of data are rising by the day as new methods of capturing information (e.g., IoT) emerge. However, data is only important if it can be used to gain insights. Organizations that prioritise advanced analytics will undoubtedly learn more about unmet consumer demands, under-funded portions of the company, developing business models, and other topics. This may naturally help firms improve their bottom line. Predictive analytics is also required in many circumstances to attain scalability, as it may assist organisations in more effectively identifying what data needs to be protected, as well as procedures that can be accelerated, and so on. 4. Protect what is most important, particularly during times of transition. Protecting an organization's most valuable assets – identities, applications, and data – is essential at any time, but arguably never more so than during a moment of change, when previously established standards and policies are put to the test. Without a doubt, the cost of a breach is substantial, and the penalties and punishments for failing to secure data may be large, damaging the bottom line.

Long-term, hidden consequences of failure might be much more costly, including possible litigation, brand damage, and even shareholder value. With so much at risk, "new" isn't as important as "reliable and proven." Organizations that prioritise technology with the latter attributes will undoubtedly reduce risk.Organizations may address the key tenets of digital transformation by concentrating initially on these four important areas of digital transformation. They are then able to expand their investments from there, laying the groundwork for other initiatives and features. In the future, we will be going beyond strategy.Starting from scratch or using existing investments and procedures and then modernising is a common starting point for digital transformation. In the majority of situations, an organisation has made considerable expenditures in IT that are yielding tangible results. The removal of these systems may reduce the ROI on such expenditures and jeopardise vital income (or cost savings/risk reduction). Regardless of an organization's place in the IT lifecycle, a comprehensive plan covering all four main areas of digital transformation is often the winning approach. Businesses may achieve better speed and flexibility with reduced total risk by using and augmenting current investments, as well as addressing where the demand is highest and developing from there. Even the most data-intensive firms employ AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics interchangeably, yet there are tiny, but significant, distinctions between them. Machine learning is a kind of artificial intelligence that allows computers to analyse data and learn on their own without continual human supervision. Predictive analytics makes use of acquired data to forecast future events based on past data. Whatever the application, these advanced analytics have similar threads that may ultimately decide the success of an organization's digital transformation projects. Here are some instances from actual life: 1.Increase and maintain revenue: Big data analytics, maybe the most talked-about use case, has become a technical need for supplementing the bottom line. Emerging streaming technologies, notably sensor data from the Internet of Things, significantly increase total data volume (IoT). Organizations

may now finally bring analytics to the data thanks to new methods for bridging previously different data silos. As a consequence, firms are more effective in gaining precise and actionable insights in order to outperform rivals by acting on unmet consumer requirements, underfunded portions of the company, new business models, and other factors. In fact, with a successful digital strategy, 61 percent of firms are currently seeing greater revenue growth than their competitors (1), which is mostly due to targeted consumer behaviour analytics. 2.Increase customer engagement: Organizations are continually seeking for new and better methods to engage consumers at a low cost, and analytics play an important part in this effort. Organizations often remove middlemen and use digital platforms to connect and service consumers directly, completing the loop between data and action and genuinely understanding and satisfying their customers' demands. By 2022, intelligent systems will drive over 70% of consumer encounters (2), mostly via cognitive search and information discovery, as well as ChatBot technology. 3.Processes should be streamlined and improved: Today, the Internet of Things generates vast amounts of sensor data with untapped potential. Organizations may cut service costs, enhance customer happiness, and establish totally new business models by using IoT analytics at scale. For example, IoT analytics fulfils the promise of predictive maintenance, smart metering, intelligent manufacturing, and other applications. Operations analytics provides automated IT monitoring and remediation in order to decrease MTTR and operational expenses. Instead of sending each data item to an attorney to analyse individually, legal departments utilise predictive coding, also known as technology-assisted review, to enhance and simplify the process of examining billions of data objects for legal concerns. Analytics may even improve cooperation and productivity across departments and continents. This might explain why more than half of firms want to use AI and machine learning in the next year (3). 4.Customers' privacy should be protected: Protecting client privacy is a popular subject in boardrooms throughout the globe right now. While there were prior, smaller-scale privacy

restrictions in existence, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) come into force in May 2018. This movement to safeguard EU citizen data has subsequently spread internationally, as other authorities take similar steps to secure their residents' data. Analytics has once again come into play, since the sheer amount of data to safeguard necessitates a new degree of intelligent categorization. Organizations do not have to safeguard all of their data, nor do they have the means or infrastructure to do so, but rather just the relevant data. File analytics and structured data management systems are crucial in defending firms against penalties, sanctions, litigation, and market reputation degradation. 5.Risk detection and prevention: Enterprise risk manifests itself in a variety of ways, and analytics are essential for addressing almost all of them. Security Operations (SecOps) and Intelligent GSOC (Global Security Operations Center) may benefit from automating large-scale data analysis, which would take SOC analysts months to accomplish on their own. Security teams may explore genuine risks rather than testing ideas or chasing false warnings using proven and focused analytics. User and entity behavioural analytics (UEBA), for example, focuses on user information – irregular logins, time of work, procedures, and so on — to detect these difficult-to-find dangers. By analysing video, text, and audio from CCTV, social media, and sensors, analytics may even provide real-time danger information or physical security. To summarise, digital transformation is upon us, with global investment anticipated to exceed over $2 trillion by 2022. What may be less clear is the vital relevance of analytics in supporting this change across many departments, including marketing, operations, legal, compliance, privacy, and security. Organizations that broaden their digital transformation vision, pursue holistic technology solutions spanning the aforementioned use cases, and ensure these solutions are supported by advanced analytics will be able to more accurately predict and influence outcomes, as well as achieve long-term fiscal health and commercial success. Many people have heard the African phrase, "It takes a community to raise a kid." This expresses the idea of many native tribes that raising

a kid requires a whole community of people to participate in order for the youngster to learn from the collective experience of the community and to develop in a safe and healthy environment. While it still refers to raising a kid, the phrase is now often used to refer to digital transformation (DX). Without a doubt, DX is not easy. It is often done via the culmination of related initiatives that overlap and are driven by a large number of individuals inside the organisation who may have conflicting agendas. Furthermore, DX requires a diverse collection of knowledge and intellectual property (IP), most of which does not exist in-house. As a consequence, In general, when businesses expand, they need assistance from a community in order to benefit from a larger range of expertise, as well as professional guidance in order to advance in an orderly and secure manner. A "village" in the IT sector is equivalent to a robust partner programme. These networks of likeminded firms pool crucial and complementary knowledge and intellectual property to create a value chain that is larger than the sum of its parts. But what does it really mean? How can you find a solid partner programme to help you with your DX strategies? Here are a few key characteristics to look for in an ideal vendor/partner relationship: Portfolio Coverage: Because a DX approach is multidimensional, many businesses will need a wide technology portfolio that spans some (or all) of the four fundamental pillars of DX: enterprise DevOps, hybrid IT management, security, risk, and governance, and predictive analytics. Identifying an ecosystem that can provide depth within one of these areas or breadth across several is an obvious first step. Customer Success Alignment: The path to DX will have some twists and turns, which may need a shift midstream and a crossover to unforeseen new initiatives. As a result, it's critical to choose teams who take the time to attentively listen to client demands (through customer advisory boards, partner summits, and other channels) and are ready to change their road maps appropriately. This form of customer-centric innovation will allow you to develop quicker, with less risk, and more readily fulfil changing needs. DX initiatives often include several components, and one partner may not have all of the skills required to meet all demands in the long term. For example, a project may need strategic consulting skills to decide how to handle

new requirements, a second provider to design the IT architecture, and a third to bring the components together. Look for a wide – and global, if you're a multinational – partner network with experience in all important facets of company transformation. Architectural and integration strategies: It is usual to encounter a software vendor or GSI with a "lock in" approach. They may advise you to go with a ripand-replace technique or to standardise on a deployment model. This strategy often contrasts with standard DX ideas, which strive to provide even more flexibility to the company over time by optimising existing infrastructure and systems, adding new applications, and pursuing hybrid cloud methods. Instead, seek for partnerships that stress flexibility and provide architectural and integration techniques to assist you in bridging the old and the new - eventually achieving maximum organisational mobility. Synergies and Teamwork: A partnership without the "partnering" is analogous to what parenting manuals refer to as parallel playing, in which two children play near one other without... ... but not with each other. With the stakes as high as they are with getting DX right, a company cannot afford to allow two parties fail to collaborate at an ideal level to meet their requirements. An IT vendor and its partner(s) serving a specific client must commit time and resources on an ongoing basis to ensure they are aligned, cross-trained, and have the tools and assets to offer a comprehensive solution. A good DX strategy is not one deed or one project, but rather a sequence of activities carried out over a lengthy period of time, across many years. As a result, it stands to reason to question, "Can I trust this team to remain there in the long run?" If you make a bad decision, you may wind up with unforeseen repercussions such as having to start again, technological incompatibility, and wasted time and money. The investment one side puts in the other is often a leading sign of durability and viability. If an IT vendor shows that it is investing in a partner programme, and partners are actively participating in vendor events and enablement, it stands to reason that they will develop a solid team constructed to offer value over time. While there are various advantages to growing your business to become more technologically savvy, the route ahead isn't always straightforward. Choosing the proper ecosystem of IT specialists to guide you along

the road may often be the difference between success and failure. These "villages" are often crucial in assisting you to achieve a substantial return on investment while mitigating the risk associated with time to value. It recognises and interprets technological trends in collaboration with clients and partners, internal cross-functional teams, and industry thought leaders. His responsibilities include remaining current on developing technologies (cloud, mobile, IoT, big data, data science) and competing market activity, as well as mapping use cases and identifying best practises to assist the capture and production of technological value. Many people feel that 2019 will be a watershed moment in the history of digital revolution. There are practical goals and operational obstacles compelling leaders to reconsider earlier IT plans. The underlying business motive is changeable (for example, increased business agility via DevOps, operational cost reductions through new models such as hybrid IT, and enhanced access, security, and governance), but the core truth remains consistent. Each business must adapt in order to remain relevant, and how one handles this transition – and how successfully they counteract the myopia that often accompanies such undertakings – may mean the difference between continual dissatisfaction and long-term success. The smart road ahead for most firms, especially those with core business processes and technology in place for many years, is to digitally transition via modernisation. These core systems often handle business-critical data, which is why top IT experts predict that 85 percent of these applications will be classed as strategic in the long run1. Furthermore, because of the intellectual property and supporting procedures that are often built up around them, these systems are sometimes the first to be badly affected by new initiatives. This is one of the main reasons why only around one-third of IT project deployments succeed2. With the stakes so high, it stands to reason that maintaining existing procedures, leveraging earlier investments, and employing in-house personnel provides a lower-risk option. When compared to the alternative of starting from scratch with a fully new set of technologies, this is a significant improvement. There are numerous apparent advantages to this at first, such as access to cutting-edge technology and new ways of thinking and solving issues,

which is why it is often the default practise. However, when theory meets reality, most people discover that the net consequence is increased risk, downtime, complexity, re-education, and resource drain. This is why, according to a major industry analyst, "IDC is witnessing a move from a 'tear and replace' strategy toward modernization plans targeted at achieving considerable business value in the form of agility, new business capabilities, and a decrease in TCO and risk." Pursuing a modernization strategy can at first seem daunting. There are many variables to consider, buy-in is required at various levels and cross functional teams must be engaged. Often, however, the biggest concern is merely where to start. To simplify, look at the opportunity from three key perspectives to get the complete picture of what needs to be done: i)Application modernization: Upgrade to a modernized, secure user interface and take greater advantage of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence. ii)Process modernization: Automate processes, take advantage of integration, and enable enterprise DevOps service delivery. iii)Infrastructure modernization: Take better advantage of the cloud, containers, analytics, and micro-service deployment, while assuring access security, governance, and controls. Note that each factor above is independent, but overlapping. This doesn’t mean you have to tackle all three concurrently – in fact, many sound digital transformation strategies concentrate largely on one at a time. A best practice, however, is to take all into consideration as you begin your planning. The globe has been following the FIFA Women's World Cup for many weeks - a worldwide soccer (or football if you're not from the US) competition that showcased some of the top athletes in the world and concluded in a historic triumph for the US team. With a school-aged daughter, I watched not just as a fan, but also to show her what she might learn from the event. Yes, there were some apparent lessons, such as working hard, being prepared, and paying attention to your coach. However, as I went more, it became clear that there is much to learn from great teams that could be applied not just to growing up...but also to expanding as a company. Most IT leaders

today associate growth with digitally changing the organisation. To remain ahead of the competition – or, at the very least, not fall behind – the business must seek out chances to adapt. You may assist develop new business models, service new customers, and solve under-funded departments or regions by doing so, among other things. In most sports, there is no alternative for speed, and this was clear throughout the World Cup. It was frequently the difference between success and failure to be able to get to the ball before your opponent or to break away from a defender to receive a well-placed pass. In IT, speed is similarly crucial, since producing and delivering better software quicker is critical to meeting business objectives and is key to most DX strategy. However, there is one significant distinction between speed in athletics and speed in IT. Speed is generally natural in sports — you either have it or you don't. There are technologies available in the IT industry that may assist you. What you should remember: Create a DX strategy that emphasises Enterprise DevOps to keep up with the speed of today's company. Often, the two teams competing could not have been more unlike. One was often a squad that produced sporadic opportunities with its strength. The other created possibilities with its rapidity, allowing them to quickly avoid barriers on their path to easy scores. Similar traits are often seen in the creation of DX strategies. Some people create plans that are inflexible and intricate. Other firms seek to build a strategy that is adaptable enough to face future issues. What you should remember: You are more likely to remain on track and achieve longterm success if you adopt a Hybrid IT strategy that enables you to function on-premise, in a private cloud, or in a public cloud (or, more typically, all of the above). Not every game in the World Cup was won; several were simply lost as a result of a weak defence. Many defences were constructed around a single player. Others performed solid team defence but lacked a goaltender to match. Some just lacked the resources to defend against a corner kick. When designing a defensive plan, many firms face comparable challenges, with varying degrees of effectiveness in securing their identities, applications, and data. This haphazard approach exposes them to risk, which may appear as breaches, fines, penalties, litigation, dilution of shareholder value, and other consequences. What you should

remember: Take a comprehensive approach to Security, Risk, and Governance to ensure that you are safeguarding everything that is important to your firm. The top players usually appear to be the first to break to a passed ball before a teammate even glances in that direction. This naturally provides the attacking player an advantage in getting there first, which frequently results in an easy goal. Of course, knowing where the ball is heading is essential (and of course the precision to execute). To be successful in DX, we must also understand where the ball is heading. This entails getting closer to end customers in order to predict their long-term demands, either directly via discussion or indirectly through trend and need analysis. What you should remember: Look for a DX technology supplier that specialises in predictive analytics and can apply it to a variety of circumstances, so you can be confident you'll be in the right place at the right time. A losing team's defenders often seemed to be laser focused on the ball at the other player's foot, and were frequently left behind with a fast change of direction. We in IT are not immune to this sort of thinking. Some firms rapidly conclude that the only way to accomplish DX is to start from scratch, ripping and replacing tried-and-true systems and practises. This may seem enticing at first, but it often confines you in a relatively small set of options for a road ahead, which may lead to danger when paths eventually shift. What you should remember: Instead of relying just on the latter, look for an IT provider that can help you upgrade essential business processes while also taking groundbreaking moves. With these lessons from some of the world's most successful teams, you, too, can digitally change your company at the fastest possible pace while incurring the least amount of money and risk. Micro Focus is designed to assist you in doing this. We indicated earlier this year that we will concentrate on the four fundamental pillars of DX: Enterprise DevOps, Hybrid IT Management, Security, Risk & Governance, and Predictive Analytics. We are a powerful partner to help you reach your DX goals since we have a solid portfolio, deep experience, and a toolset with the built-in flexibility to allow you start over and/or upgrade existing core systems. While every business is subject to growing levels of regulation and

monitoring, none is more so than healthcare and pharmaceuticals. In the setting of extremely complicated day-to-day operations, the primary danger to patients' lives that bad procedures might pose is combined with the risks of financial and reputational harm that arise from regulatory noncompliance. Obtaining and maintaining regulatory compliance may also result in rising overheads, which, when combined with a hard economic climate, can jeopardise agility and competitiveness. This tough business climate is caused by a number of factors, including increased demand for personalised medications and treatments, ageing populations putting a strain on vital services, and patients exercising greater influence over provider selection. In the middle of this complication, digital transformation (DX) is at the centre of internal discussions in healthcare organisations. By using software development approaches, healthcare and pharmaceutical organisations are not only lowering expenses, but also gaining a competitive advantage by de-siloing business divisions and redirecting man-hours away from mundane operations and toward high-value labour. However, because to the sector's uniqueness, there are certain considerations to undertake before commencing on DX in a healthcare firm. As a result, electronic records are a logical initial DX step — but a comprehensive paper trail needs more than simply a database. If the selected system does not provide audit trails automatically, tracking changes will be a big effort later on. Electronic signature embedding is also a necessary element when sending electronic data for scrutiny directly. Finally, any instrument that deals with patient information must be very secure, and any third-party suppliers employed must be fully compliant with security standards. Good automated manufacturing process (GAMP) is a well-known set of rules in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, and it is an essential component of safety assurance. GAMP, on the other hand, may often take months and risk late detection of faults, sending you back to square one. The time-consuming V-model of validation, in which an application is created in progressively specialised stages and then tested in reverse order, may be efficiently substituted in Agile and DevOps contexts, as it is in the software industry. Changes to the application initiate automated build and test procedures, revalidating

the system. By incorporating validation into the implementation, the verification process may be completed in days or hours rather than weeks. Of course, this development and testing process must provide an acceptable paper trail, with a reporting tool that generates data in the format needed by auditors. Regardless of whatever GAMP , 5 category your programme fits into, the validation criteria will include not just safety, but also security and performance indicators. Because these validations are often seen as tough, and there are limited chances to execute them, they are pushed to the conclusion of an already lengthy validation process. Businesses that employ continuous validation may also implement shift-left methods that include security and performance testing into the functional testing process. Early issue identification eliminates the need to repeat validation processes later in the process. The expansion of personalised medicine and patients' influence over their treatment journey need improved methods of transferring data down to patients as well as more effective tools for individuals to convey the choices they make. Building a successful public-facing mobile app is no longer optional; it is a business must. Mobile applications are always a design and implementation problem since they must support a seemingly unlimited number of devices while operating properly under unexpected network circumstances. Because of the crucial nature of health-related applications, a highly robust testing solution that can account for less prevalent devices, provide network virtualisation capabilities to imitate real-life mobile network circumstances, and extensively analyse user experience and accessibility is required. One of the most sought-after advantages of DX is the ability to produce insights from data that would otherwise be inaccessible. Data generated throughout the research and development process is very important to healthcare firms, and that value may be unlocked by keeping the data in a centralised management system. However, owing to their nature, medical devices and drugs generate massive volumes of data, frequently at the time of use, making collecting and aggregation problematic. Even with a management system, this data may have to be gathered and input manually, resulting in delays, errors, and overhead. To assist maintain a clean and full repository, it

is crucial to explore finding a system with a mobile client that individuals can take to any site and that has offline working capabilities. As we all know, the foundation of smart analytics is intelligent data collecting. In many respects, the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors are especially ripe for DX efforts because to their complexity: automated solutions have enormous promise in stringent regulatory settings where record-keeping is critical. While the delicate nature of the industry necessitates careful preparation ahead of time, the competitive advantage it may provide is well worth the effort. We often hear that the core pillars of a DX strategy revolve on four major areas: Enterprise DevOps, Hybrid IT Management, Predictive Analytics, and Security, Risk, and Governance. In summary, enterprises want to move quicker, more agilely, and with more insights, all while securing what is most important to them. These four key axioms are shown as windows peering into the building in the image's centre. You'll see that there are some very particular reasons to prioritise each one inside each. What businesses must realise is that, although you may prioritise one over another, a solid plan must take all of these factors into consideration from the start – since these things often overlap, and artificially limited judgments might have a detrimental influence on others downstream. When prioritising, visibility is crucial. Finally, take notice of the basic components shown, since this gives crucial information about how to proceed with the creation of a DX project. It is often considered that the only way to develop anything new is from the ground up. It should be highlighted that, in most circumstances, a business has made considerable investments in IT that provide actual advantages; removing these systems may reduce the ROI on those investments and jeopardise vital income (or cost savings/risk mitigation). That is why so many CIOs are adopting a DX strategy via the modernization of current technologies. The initial step in finishing a problem is generally the most timeconsuming — sorting. If the edges are not removed from the main portions in the first place, the work will become more difficult and time consuming later on. It is the same with a digital transformation

programme. While the first stage may seem tedious, it is critical: conducting inventory and determining where the company is in terms of digital maturity. As a result, a firm may evaluate the effectiveness of earlier IT expenditures to identify what is lacking and what constitutes a strong foundation upon which to develop. The key goals may then be classified according to their importance to the long-term success of the company's digital transformation plan. Typically, four items are at the top of a CIO's priority list: i)Increasing speed by prioritising enterprise DevOps ii)Increasing agility with hybrid IT management iii)Predictive analytics is used to generate insights. iv)Securing what is most essential, which is particularly critical during times of transition Once all of the elements are in place, it will be much simpler to create a strategy and prioritise the following actions. After you've finished sorting, it's time to find the corner pieces and start building the edge. The edges are the easiest elements to recognise since they are distinct from the other pieces, making them straightforward to find and assemble. The edge elements of digital transformation might be likened to the tools or technology that are vital to the company. Most of these basic systems, such as the mainframe, have been in existence for a long time and have additional IP and processes developed around them to offer value. Making drastic changes to these and abandoning tried-and-true procedures might lead to a reduction in ROI on current investments. Furthermore, it creates risk, which might show itself as downtime, outages, security risks, and bad customer experiences. It is critical that these investments be safeguarded in order to save total costs and time, as well as obtain a reduced risk profile as a firm grows. Most puzzles will feature easierto-identify and group-together elements than others. Even the most inexperienced puzzle enigmatologist can see that this is where to begin. You will advance more effectively and quickly if you concentrate on something particular and build on previous efforts. The same is true in a digital transformation project, yet many organisations will be tempted to start with the most flashy piece, even if it means starting from scratch. The "tear and replace" strategy often results in

increased expenses, annoyance, and danger. In most cases, building out from an existing location is a better option than tearing and replacing. The approach, also known as IT modernisation, enables organisations to prolong existing investments using software that bridges the gap between the old and the new. By concentrating on these investments, businesses can move faster and with better control – and, more significantly, manage and change the company at the same time. After completing the previous three phases, the last part of completing the puzzle is taking the remaining pieces and filling in the gaps. This may seem to be a simple task, but it is reliant on the components fitting together smoothly. We've all had the experience of attempting to put two jigsaw pieces together that were not entirely compatible. On the surface, they seem to be identical and to serve the same purpose, but it soon becomes evident that they do not. After many wasted cycles, you have to start all over again, seeking for the component that fits with what you've created around it. "Best of breed" was formerly a popular phrase in the IT world. This technique had a perceived aggregate-value gain since it allowed an organisation to pick from a variety of providers. In circumstances when technology is geographically, departmentally, or use case-specific, such an approach remains a feasible method. This strategy, however, fails in complicated digital transformation programmes when IT is expected to collaborate with other systems and processes. This is not to argue that businesses must rely on a single vendor, but rather that new technology acquisitions should be scrutinised through a compatibility lens to ensure that considerations such as downstream risk, time, and expense are minimised. The core concept behind the six value streams is continuous improvement. The days of creating an annual plan at the beginning of the year, then watching it slowly fall apart as market conditions change and user expectations diverge, are gone. Today, your business must be truly agile, constantly adjusting to market needs and reacting to unexpected complexities. The concept of continuous improvement is not new, but efficiently managing agile improvement across the planning, development, and delivery of transformative

digital services is still very difficult at enterprise scale. It's a change of mindset that requires significant up-front effort. But these six guiding value streams can get you there are:

1. Continuous build and test Continuous build and test revolves around the concept of continuous integration. By now, most organizations have adopted the strategies that are endemic to agile: prioritizing features, creating source code, and continuously testing, all in an iterative cycle. But what happens to this process on an enterprise scale? Companies need to find ways to standardize this process across the many development teams that make up the enterprise. You must efficiently reuse resources and code across teams, centrally manage user needs, and continuously test security across the enterprise. In an organization with dozens or even hundreds of development teams, the process of unifying development and ensuring that product quality remains consistent is complex.

2. Continuous deployment Continuous deployment is already part of the IT4IT architecture, but many organizations struggle because they have trouble understanding over the long run what they have released, and where and when they released it. Putting a product into production is easy, but maintaining that product three years down the line can get complicated, especially if you are maintaining multiple versions on a global scale. How do you patch each of those individual versions? What are the dependencies of each product with other products? Monitoring the entire application complex is easy on a small scale, but difficult on a large one, particularly as time goes on.

3. Predictive service management Once you're done with continuous deployment, you still must maintain the products. DevOps groups often have a developer who takes on an informal role of monitoring and patching applications. But that doesn't work in the long run, and it doesn't work at scale. Yes, we know that 'real DevOps' requires dev to work with ops, but the reality is that most DevOps teams are really led by developers, and those dev teams often circumvent working with traditional operations. To

overcome that, and to streamline managing services in production, you need an efficient and consistent way to perform predictive service management. This needs to happen from a single, centralized console, where all products can be monitored according to the service level they have to deliver. This centralized monitoring must be predictive in nature, and it must be able to perform risk assessment based on the business importance of the individual services that are monitored. Predictive service management must provide complete organizational awareness of exactly what's going on both in the cloud and in your data centers. You must also have automated the runbooks you use for investigation, escalation, and correction of issues. And your predictive service management system must be able to automatically select and run relevant runbooks.

4. Continuous feedback Another key element of digital transformation is the ability to collect feedback and successfully deliver it to the appropriate people. Rarely is this process consistently managed in the organization, but it's critical to develop a system to efficiently and automatically collect feedback generated by your predictive service management operation (including operations and help desk groups). Then you need to feed it to the product team to incorporate into continuous development efforts. Even better, consider conveying this feedback further back up the line to the planning organization, to aid it with prioritization and future product design efforts.

5. Continuous exploration This complements continuous feedback, and has several starting points. It revolves primarily around the challenges inherent in any enterprise that has several thousand products or applications running at any given time. Managing such a portfolio and understanding where it needs shoring up is complicated. As a result, a yearly planning cycle isn't going to be successful here. You need to put your business in the mode of continuous exploration, creating a back-and-forth between what's being developed and what business is requesting. This will give you the ability to constantly revise the scope and budget being assigned to various development teams, all while taking into account user feedback. In other words, you must constantly rebalance how you spend your money and react to new business requirements in the real world, then do it again. True agile development should not be constrained by a waterfall-like planning process.

6. Service onboarding and consumption When you deploy a product, you're really deploying a system that allows for the consumption of services. Users aren't really asking for a product; they're asking for a way to do something, such as send an email or pay an invoice. That's why organizations need a centralized catalog of these services: so that users can easily find and consume those services. When a customer or employee is consuming a service, the catalog lets you understand who owns that service and its current state, and allows you to monitor its use. Many organizations skip this step altogether; they just put services into production, and the services become available to everyone, with no oversight or accountability. Another scenario is that each service has its own bespoke onboarding and lifecycle processes. That makes it impossible to manage and control the consumption of digital products in the enterprise. Traditional company developments are heavily reliant on the pace with which IT deployments are made. IT gets the requirements, engineers build according to the specifications, and many processes come together as a project to offer systems and services that operate the company for users. If your company is like others, it meets 80 percent

of its customers' demands in this manner; the remainder is met via a self-service interface. However, in order to serve a digital company where the application is the product, IT professionals must focus on reversing that strategy. The more you can change IT from a projectdriven to a consumption-driven model, the quicker the company can move—and the more agile it will be. This is a critical component of any digital transformation strategy. This emerges as an IT organisation that continually produces services that your customers may utilise separately or in combination. You provide these services through an experience like an enterprise service marketplace driven by a service management automation platform, and then you let the organisation operate at its own speed. The pace of digital business is everything. So, if you provide a collection of customizable services—say, an application, an email service, and a help desk—your customers should be able to mash up those self-service offerings, modify their processes, advance their cause, and move quicker. Customers should not have to wait for project-driven deployments to move their business processes forward. Here's how we accomplished it, and what you can learn from our mistakes. Traditional IT is nearly entirely focused on resource-centric services. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and software as a service are two examples (SaaS). These are delivery methodologies that, although necessary for IT efficiency and scalability, do not have a significant influence on digital business transformation. For example, when you go to a mechanic, he does not provide tools or mechanics as a service. He employs these resources to carry out actions on your behalf that result in an useful consequence, such as a tune-up. The repair shop delivers services that promote the results by using a set of integrated resources—physical, technological, and human. The customer generally has little sight or awareness of the complexities of the people, processes, and technology that the mechanic has combined to produce the result. So, how can you apply it to the world of IT? You accomplish this by first understanding the objectives desired by the people, and then integrating the resources required to achieve those results. My environment, which focuses on IT services for product development and SaaS delivery, resembles a hybrid of conventional and digital business. My stakeholders in business are

concerned with getting things built and out the door, gauging consumer uptake, reacting to customer wants, and so on. Our marketplace's service offerings encourage consumption. We begin by assuming that a service is an act done by a provider on behalf of the client that produces a resource or consequence. Then, rather than designing services from the data centre or the system out, we develop them from the customer in. We consider the end result that the client is attempting to attain and provide ready-to-use service solutions that are "good enough." Once they are in the hands of our digital business customers, we examine the consumption statistics and results to decide what further features or adjustments to the service are required. When an application is the product, users want certain results that help them expedite their time to value, time to market, and so on. One example would be the ability to test that an application would operate at scale in a customer-specified environment. As a result, we provide a testing and certification solution that our engineers appreciate. We bring together the resources needed from several domains, such as infrastructure, software, monitoring, databases, and security controls, to confirm that their product will work on, say, SUSE Linux on a 32processor machine in the public cloud. Although I work for an independent software vendor, this principle is applicable to any conventional IT group in a corporation undertaking digital transformation. That is not to imply that conventional IT is extinct. IT's job remains basically unchanged: you still need back-office systems and key services, like as email, access control, and collaboration, to assist users maintain productivity and manage the company on a daily basis. Production processes are still required to assure availability and service restoration. However, for the digital side of the company, where apps are the goods, you must concentrate on services that allow the digital business. Banking apps are used to engage clients and deliver new capabilities. Commercial banking services are provided by a group of persons who may or may not work in the IT company. Their services are considered commercial goods. It is not about operating the company; it is still the responsibility of the conventional IT department. The majority of businesses that go digital use software-enabled services. Many firms are turning to third parties

and open-source suppliers to get them rather than relying on IT. This is how they interact with clients, and it is the digital business model. IT may help in this case by linking digital business users (software developers) with the resources and capabilities they need to build products at high velocity and scale. IT workers often make the mistake of equating the system or technology with the service. To offer infrastructure services, we employ our hybrid cloud management solution, which can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. When my team initially began utilising the technology, it made the mistake of assuming it was a service. However, the tool is not the service. The service is the result, not the tool. Is infrastructure as a service (IaaS)? Yes, but that is not a result. Consider this: People expect rental automobiles to provide valuable mobility results. However, the rental automobile firm has very little role in the real production of value. Customers generate their own results by using a resource provided by the rental vehicle service experience. The service act in this case is the provision of a resource. The customer is the one who creates the result. And there are circumstances when this kind of service is required. IaaS is quite similar. Consumers browse and purchase based on price and experience—the shortest time to accomplish the result. Consider the Uber experience in comparison to the standard rental vehicle experience. It is about the supplier and the customer co-creating value. The consumer want to go there. It's all about outcomes as a service for Uber. Time to value is critical in this case, which is why Uber's algorithms arrange vehicles in strategic locations. The same is true for digital business. Developers do not put a high value on IaaS since they can source from everywhere and bypass IT by going directly to cloud service providers. On the other side, if IT can offer meaningful results while decreasing time to value for developers, it is co-creating value for the digital company. My team's services include assisting our engineers in going from zero to coding in a matter of minutes by providing them with a comprehensive development environment on demand. Another consequence given as a service is product testing and certification. Our engineers are searching for the following results: They're looking for oil changes and tune-ups, not services or resources. That is where digital business acceleration

takes place. "As a successful strategy covers many diverse – previously unrelated – technological disciplines and investments, digital transformation is driving enterprises to look at IT from more viewpoints than ever before,". "Today's leading enterprises need entire sets of solutions to achieve better speed and agility, underpinned by a high degree of security and an advanced analytics ecosystem, to balance managing the top and bottom lines without the extra risk of starting from scratch." Micro Focus is now in a position to deliver on this promise thanks to a focused effort that combines M&A with a strong R&D programme." Here are few trends:

1.Enterprise DevOps—Build and deliver better software faster Winning the race to innovate requires a high-speed approach. Micro Focus solutions unleash the power of DevOps across the hybrid IT landscape, quickly bringing innovative ideas to life at the pace of business to securely deliver high quality software and services faster

2.Hybrid IT Management — Run and transform IT Infrastructure, services and even purchasing models are rapidly evolving. Maximizing business value and accelerating outcomes compels organizations to find new ways to extend existing investments and take advantage of new platforms – from containers to public clouds to IoT. Micro Focus solutions help organizations run ITOps at the speed of DevOps, delivering services on demand and generating operational and business insights, all while helping organizations address security, compliance and governance requirements

3.Predictive Analytics—Analyze in time to act Data lakes are valuable only if the business can surface the insights hidden within its depths. Micro Focus helps leverage machine learning to transform unlimited volumes of data into accurate, actionable, automated insights at the speed of your business. Be in a position to make predictions and influence business outcomes quickly and

efficiently with comprehensive and relevant real-time intelligence

4.Security, Risk, and Governance—Secure what matters most Cyber threats are escalating. Aging apps and processes (along with new ones) are full of unforeseen risks. Privacy and compliance requirements are mounting. Micro Focus provides the industry’s broadest set of integrated security, risk, and governance solutions, with an analytics-driven approach to securing what matters most – identities, applications and data By delivering a holistic set of solutions that can be integrated together and with existing legacy systems, Micro Focus has differentiated itself by better matching the current and future enterprise IT reality – all in a market largely dominated by point solutions that are often not interoperable and only address a specific portion of collective IT needs. The breadth of the portfolio, depth of enabling analytics and proven ability to protect the organization’s most important assets gives customers the confidence they need to transform their business on their own terms, no matter where they are in the IT lifecycle. The end result is greater speed and flexibility with lower overall risk. This announcement follows a number of deliberate steps over the past 24 months to round out Micro Focus’ digital transformation capabilities. In order to deliver on the wide-ranging and complex requirements, the company pursued a two-pronged strategy. One step has been to strengthen the company’s overall portfolio through M&A. The acquisition of HPE software was an important first step to strengthen the company’s overall bench, and subsequent acquisitions have added further depth while at the same time previously announced divestitures have allowed the company to stay focused on its core strategy without negatively impacting customers. At the same time, the company has been executing on an aggressive product development strategy – such as launching a modernization approach for core business systems and announcing new data protection solutions for virtualized and Hybrid IT environments – to evolve its offerings and align to this overall strategy. According to a recent poll of directors, CEOs, and senior executives,

the risk of digital transformation (DT) is their top worry in 2019. Despite this, 70% of all DT projects fail to meet their objectives. It is estimated that $900 billion of the $1.3 trillion spent on DT last year went to waste. Why do certain DT initiatives succeed while others fail? Fundamentally, this is due to the fact that most digital technologies provide opportunities for increased efficiency and client intimacy. However, DT will just accentuate weaknesses if employees lack the proper mentality to change and present organisational processes are faulty. Five fundamental insights have helped us successfully guide our businesses through digital transitions are: Lesson 1: Before investing in anything, figure out your company approach. Leaders who want to improve organisational performance by using digital technology often have a particular instrument in mind. "Perhaps our company need a machine learning approach," for example. However, digital transformation should be led by a larger company plan. Lesson 2: Make use of insiders. Organizations seeking changes (digital and otherwise) routinely hire armies of outside consultants who apply one-size-fits-all solutions in the name of "best practises." Our strategy for altering our respective businesses is to depend on insiders — employees who have firsthand knowledge of what works and what doesn't in their daily operations. Santa Clara County, California, where one of us works, is an example. The Department of Planning and Development was re-engineering work processes in order to enhance efficiency and customer satisfaction. External consultants first provided suggestions for the permit-approval procedure based on work they had done for other jurisdictions, which tended to pursue a decentralised approach. However, based on encounters with residents, customer-facing staff employees recognised that a more cohesive procedure would be more wellreceived. When a result, as they revamped the work flow, Kirk Girard and his team substantially altered the suggested tools, methods, diagrams, and essential parts of the core programme. As a consequence, permit processing time was reduced by 33%. Often, new technologies fail to boost corporate efficiency not due to inherent problems in the technology, but rather because deep insider knowledge is missed.

Lesson 3: Create a positive client experience from the outside in. If the purpose of DT is to increase customer happiness and intimacy, each attempt must be preceded by a diagnostic phase that includes extensive consumer feedback. Santa Clara County's Department of Planning and Development conducted over ninety individual interviews with customers, asking them to identify the department's strengths and flaws. Furthermore, the department ran focus groups in which they invited different stakeholders – including agents, developers, builders, agriculturalists, and important local institutions such as Stanford University – to define their requirements, set priorities, and assess the department's performance. The suggestion was subsequently included into the department's makeover. To reply to customer demands for more openness regarding the permit approval process, the department divided it into stages and changed the customer site; customers can now watch the status of their applications as they go from one step to the next. To save processing time, the department programmed staff software to detect stopped applications automatically. The agency granted Permit Center workers dashboard management over the permit process to allow individualised service. Leaders often believe that using a single tool or software will improve customer satisfaction on its own. However, the department's experience suggests that making smaller-scale modifications to various tools at different stages of the service cycle is typically the best approach to enhance client happiness. The only way to know where to change and how to change is to get significant and in-depth feedback from consumers. Lesson 4:Recognize workers' fear of being replaced. When workers believe that digital transformation may jeopardise their careers, they may fight the changes consciously or subconsciously. If the digital transformation proves futile, management will stop the initiative and their jobs will be spared (or so the thinking goes). Leaders must understand these anxieties and underline that the digital transformation process is a chance for staff to improve their knowledge to meet the needs of the future marketplace. One of us (Behnam) has guided over 20,000 people from various firms through the digital transformation process. He often sees individuals who are first dubious about the whole process. As a result, he devised a

"inside-out" technique. All participants are urged to consider what their distinctive contributions to the organisations are, and then to relate those strengths to components of the digital transformation process — which they will subsequently, if at all feasible, take leadership of. This provides workers authority over how the digital transformation unfolds, and it portrays new technology as a method for them to become even better at what they were previously good at. The sales team at CenturyLink, where one of us works, had been thinking about using artificial intelligence to boost efficiency. However, the issue of how AI should be used remained unanswered. Finally, the team created an AI tool to maximise each salesperson's effort in any given week by proposing which clients to contact, when to call them, and what to say during the conversation. The technology also had a gamification component, which enhanced the selling process. Vernon Irvin, who witnessed this process from the inside, found that it made selling more enjoyable, which translated into increased customer satisfaction – and a 10% boost in sales. Lesson 5: Bring the start-up ethos of Silicon Valley inside. Silicon Valley startups are noted for their quick decisions, fast prototyping, and shallow organisational structures. The digital transformation process is fundamentally uncertain: changes must be made temporarily and then corrected; choices must be made rapidly; and organisations from throughout the company must participate. As a consequence, conventional hierarchies become impediments. It is preferable to have a flat organisational structure that is maintained fairly isolated from the rest of the company. Because so many digital technologies may be tweaked, the requirement for agility and prototyping is much more obvious than it could be in conventional change-management programmes. Leaders must select which applications to utilise from which suppliers, which areas of company would gain the most from converting to that new technology, if the change should be phased in, and so on. Choosing the optimum solution often requires significant experimenting on interdependent elements. Mistakes cannot be recognised and addressed quickly if each decision must pass through numerous levels of management. Furthermore, the return for many digital technology happens only after a significant section of the organisation has moved to the new system.

A cloud computing system meant to aggregate worldwide consumer demand, for example, may only create valuable analytics if shops in various countries all gather the same sort of data on a regular basis. This necessitates resolving disparities in current organisational procedures between areas. Personnel from one nation may be unaware of possible incompatibilities if the specifics of how a new technology will be utilised are mostly created by employees from that country. Working with Li & Fung, Behnam assisted in the formation of six cross-functional teams, each manned by individuals from various locations in Hong Kong, mainland China, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. These teams were in charge of various phases of the digital transition. Because the organisation of these teams was flat, they were able to swiftly submit ideas to and leaders of business divisions. This enabled the teams to test out fresh ideas on how to effectively merge novel data structures, analytics, and robotic processing. Furthermore, since new ideas were assessed by workers from various national offices and roles, these teams were able to anticipate and handle implementation issues before the whole business completely accepted the new technology. Digital transformation succeeded for these firms because their leaders went back to basics: they concentrated on altering the mindsets of their people, as well as the organisational culture and procedures, before deciding which digital technologies to employ and how to utilise them. The technology was driven by what the members envisioned as the organization's future, not the other way around. Staying competitive in a constantly changing global marketplace depends on an organization’s ability to rapidly adapt through the adoption of new technologies. Organizations that embrace digital transformation are focused on engaging their customers in delightful experiences across multiple channels. Those that aren’t risk falling behind. Digital transformation plays a key role in: i)Customer experience: Consumers today have more choices than ever. Which means the stakes are high for businesses to not only deliver innovative products or services but to deliver meaningful interactions and experiences that delight customers and foster brand

loyalty. Just think about how many choices you have for food delivery these days. The reasons you may choose one over the other can be directly tied to a company’s digital transformation, whether it’s an easy-to-use app, a seamless transaction, good customer service, or fast delivery. ii)Employee experience: Digital transformation doesn’t just involve providing your workforce with the latest apps and devices—it’s about creating a simple, modern, more fulfilling employee experience. Digital transformation can help organizations provide the tools people need, with instant access from anywhere. iii)Process optimization: An organization’s ability to deliver great employee and customer experiences hinges on its ability to seamlessly operate on the backend. Streamlined workflows, digital processes, and automated tasks are all ways organizations can create efficiencies. iv)Product digitization: This refers to using technology to enhance a product or service, like smart-connected or voice-activated devices. Digital transformation not only helps companies stay on the cutting edge of technology, but also creates an agile infrastructure necessary to constantly innovate and adapt to rapid change and consumer demands. The most successful digital transformations are those with wellplanned and well-implemented strategies. How can you create a successful strategy? Here are some tips: i)Identify your business goals. Deciding to start a digital transformation project because everyone else is doing a digital transformation project is a surefire recipe for disaster. Before you begin, make sure everyone on your team understands why you are undertaking the effort. You need to have agreement on your current situation and a clear vision for where you want to go. Often, the most effective digital transformation goals come with key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics that allow you to track your progress toward your goal. ii)Hire an expert. Chances are good that no one on your current team has ever shepherded a successful digital transformation before. If that’s your situation, you might want to think about bringing in some help. This could take the form of hiring a full-time employee with digital

transformation experience, or it could entail hiring an outside consulting firm. Some companies also hire other key personnel in IT, marketing, or other areas who have experience or expertise in the kind of transformation you want to make. iii)Build on your strengths. It’s tempting to throw out everything you are currently doing and start from scratch, but that is usually a mistake. Think about what you already do well. Do you have loyal customers? What does your brand stand for? As you go through your digital transformation you need to make sure you aren’t doing anything to undermine the success you already have. The digital transformation projects that meet their goals often seem like a natural extension of a company’s previous efforts into the digital arena. iv)Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. A common theme among digital transformation frameworks (more on that below) is an emphasis on the customer experience. Digital transformation will change the way your customers interact with your organization. You need to make sure that this new experience is positive and reinforces the brand image you want to have. v)Establish new procedures and policies. New technology is completely unhelpful if no one uses it. Before you roll out a new tool or application, think carefully about how you want your employees to use it. If you don’t clearly define procedures and institute some enforcement mechanisms to make sure that people follow them, your staff will likely revert back to the old way of doing things. In some cases, digital transformation will require a complete cultural transformation, which is a lengthy, difficult process. vi)Iterate. You can’t transform your organization in an instant. Instead, make a small change, evaluate and repeat. Digital transformation projects that evolve through a series of steps are more likely to succeed than a wholesale change that you attempt to implement all at once. If you keep your strategy somewhat agile, you can make slight modifications along the way and react to changing conditions in a timely manner. vii)Consider following a digital transformation framework. Several analyst and consulting firms have laid out digital transformation frameworks that can help give form to your strategy. Remember that

your actual strategy should be unique to your organization, but following a proven strategy can help you avoid missing key steps or repeating mistakes that other organizations have made before. A framework isn’t necessary, but it might be helpful, particularly if your management team doesn’t have prior experience with digital transformation. We've reached a tipping point where all of those activities— discovering a product, studying it, and purchasing it—are more likely to take place online than offline." As a result, if you don't have a digital-first strategy, you're already behind your competitors. You're more likely to succeed if you can provide an excellent digital experience. Consumers have practically limitless alternatives at their disposal. As a result, businesses are always competing for attention. The digital-first client expects a lot: quick, seamless experiences from purchasing to customer assistance to product or service delivery. Customers want digital experiences that are secure and engaging. As a result, your digital consumer experience must be deliberate. But, before you can please the customer, you must first please someone else: the employee. The digital workplace you create for your employees has a direct impact on the digital experience of your customers. CIOs have a plethora of tools at their disposal to help them construct an efficient digital workplace. Try to tailor the experience as much as possible to boost productivity and create a whole experience. Adapting your old business models to the digital-first employee and consumer will change the way businesses develop and prosper. Small encounters form an organization's impression, and digital channels have a significant impact on this. Given how the pandemic has altered the globe, putting digital to the forefront more than ever, being digitally accessible is now a vital component of success. As a corporation, embodying this digital-first culture is one step toward comprehensive digital transformation. Consider the differences between digital transformation, digitization, and digitalization: i)Digitization – moving from analog to digital. Remember when records were written and kept on paper? Collecting data meant handling physical documents, like papers and binders—analog. When

computers became mainstream, businesses converted their records to digital computer files. This process of converting information from analog to digital is called digitization. ii)Digitalization – simplifying work by using digital data. Digitalization marked the move away from using digitized files in an analog way. It involves making simpler, more efficient workflows using digitized information. It’s not about changing how business is done or creating new business. Digitalization allows businesses to operate faster, accessing data instantly, rather than searching through filing cabinets. iii)Digital transformation – adding value to customer interactions. Digital transformation does involve changing how business is done, and sometimes even leads to entirely new classes of business. Through this process, companies can take a step back and rethink how they operate. The goal being to perform better, more efficiently. Digital transformation can also lead to increased customer satisfaction and more personalization. In a report by Constellation Research surveying 100 Fortune 500 CIOs, 77% of the respondents named digital transformation as their top priority for 2021. A Digital Transformation strategy means having an action plan regarding how your business can reposition itself in the digital economy. It involves innovation, changing operation and business models, and taking advantage of emerging technologies. Digital Transformation is not as simple as finding and adopting new technology to help your business become more efficient. Digital transformation is the reshaping of a business as a whole. A Digital Transformation strategy must align the operating model with new business models. Products and services can be more digitally infused, reducing operating costs and increasing profits. Technology used in the right ways can transform a business. New value should be produced for customers, while at the same time, the business should become more efficient. According to Richard Rumelt (who McKinsey calls “Strategy’s Strategist”), Professors of Business and Society at UCLA Anderson School of Management, a good transformation strategy contains the following: i)Diagnosis. The definition or explanation of the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis helps simplify the problem by identifying

certain pieces of the situation as critical. ii)Guiding policy. A policy for dealing with the challenge. This is the overall approach that will be taken to overcome the obstacles defined in the diagnosis. iii)Coherent actions. This set of actions are designed to carry out the guiding policy. They are steps that are coordinated with one another to collaborate in accomplishing the guiding policy. Without a diagnosis, teams might take unnecessary actions that result in mayhem and uncertainty. It can likely lead to disjointed projects and random tech infusions that don’t add value or make sense. The guiding policy answers the question: How do you want to do that, exactly? If the guiding policy can be applied to any organization at any time, it won’t be very helpful in guiding your business’ digital transformation. And of course, nothing is accomplished without a set of coherent actions. If there isn’t a clear path with specific actions to take, resources will be wasted. Simply having a to-do list is not a strategy, though. Data enables companies to find new opportunities easily. Leveraging new technologies and launching new opportunities requires a transformed way of working. In developing your digital transformation strategy, consider the 5 Building Blocks of Digital Transformation: 1. Operational backbone – A set of integrated, standardized systems, processes, and data that support a company’s core operations. 2. Shared Customer Insights – Organizational-wide knowledge of what customers will pay for and how digital tech can meet their demands. 3. Digital Platform – A repository of business, technology, and data aspects that facilitate fast innovation of new offerings and improvements. 4. Accountability Framework – Clear distribution and ownership of a growing set of digital offerings and components, balancing autonomy and alignment. 5. External Developer Platform – A repository of digital components that’s open to external partners who can contribute to and use the platform. Ultimately, understanding both what you can do and what customers

want will help evolve your strategy. Digital transformation is not merely installing technology for technology’s sake. So how does digital transformation come into play in business? It’s not just about adding technology. In fact, it’s more about organizational change and learning how to use technology to improve performance. The use of AMPs (analytical, mobile tools and applications, and platforms) has exploded and is completely changing business, as well as competitive dynamics within many industries. When it comes to digital business transformation, there are 4 types: i)Process Transformation – This involves reworking processes, using APIs, data, analytics, machine learning, and other technologies to reinvent corporate processes. The goals being: lower costs, reduced cycle times, and increased quality. Consider Domino’s Pizza and their AnyWare ordering; this innovation of making ordering available from every device increased customer convenience so much that it overtook Pizza Hut in sales. Other companies are utilizing robotic process automation to streamline back-office processes such as accounting and legal. ii)Business Model Transformation – As mentioned, the available technology allows companies to pivot on their traditional business models. This type of transformation is aimed at the basic building blocks of how value is created and delivered in a given industry. Think again of Netflix and how they delivered video content in an entirely new way, or Uber’s reinvention of taxi service. Insurance companies are using data and analytics to unbundle services and charge customers solely for what they actually use. By rethinking business models and how value is provided, there’s a whole world of opportunity. iii)Domain Transformation – While there’s not much focus here, there’s abundant opportunity. Evolving technologies are redefining services and products, blurring boundaries between industries, and creating new non-traditional competitors. Executives tend not to like this side but the flip side presents radically new business for their companies beyond the audience they currently serve. Take Amazon for example; they started AWS and entered an entirely new domain for them that had been previously dominated by Microsoft, IBM, and other

giants. A huge part of their ability to enter this market was their digital technology and capabilities. AWS is unique from Amazon. It’s not unobtainable either—today’s digital world no longer consists of technology gaps as a barrier for businesses. iv)Cultural/Organizational Transformation – Complete, long-term digital transformation necessitates reworking organizational mindsets, processes, talent, and capabilities. Digital culture requires agile workflows, more testing and learning, decentralized decision-making, and more dependency on business ecosystems. Consumer credit agency, Experian, is a success story for digital transformation. They adopted agile workflows, development, and collaboration and changed the employee focus from equipment to data. While consumers and tech might be the driving forces behind digital transformation, company culture and organizational change is a fundamental requirement for long-term digital business transformation success. Digital transformation in the industry provides an opportunity to combine practices and ways of doing that result in new techniques, skills and sources of income. Here are some of its key benefits: i)It reduces costs as a result of time savings in processes. ii)It decentralises production by facilitating mobility and remote communication. iii)It improves operational efficiency and productivity. iv)It opens the door to new business opportunities and revenue streams, enabling the creation of new products and services. v)It increases the speed of response to changes in demand in the market. vi)It generates a competitive advantage for the company by being able to enhance the quality of the products manufactured. vii)It drives the culture of innovation, preparing the company to anticipate any disruption. viii)It improves integration and internal collaboration by facilitating communication between departments. ix)It empowers decision-making by deepening data analysis (Big Data).

x)It attracts new talent, fostering the recognition of systems and awakening the interest of specialised professionals. Technology enables digital transformation in the four business areas, while the pillars support digital transformation by providing guiding foundations. The aim supported by leadership's vision is to use the latest technology to improve user experience, empower employees, and discover insight in the sea of business data that all companies produce, whether they track it or not. Here are the trends: i)Leadership and Vision — Technology is not merely applied in transforming company culture. Strong leaders with clear digital transformation visions who use technology to communicate their message help employees understand how the discomfort of change will ultimately benefit them in their work and the company in the long run. These leaders evangelize a data and technology mindset to their teams and lead by example using technology to good effect. ii)Digitally Empowered Employees — Digital transformation for the company and its teams tends to lead to increased efficiency, reduced human error, and greater team capacity. In recent years, technology has dramatically enabled remote teams through cloud collaboration apps like Google Suite. And for many, these tools have become the standard for digital office space. Companies that focus on understanding how their employees work, and supplying them with the appropriate technology to remove barriers to inefficiencies, like group collaboration or automatic data entry, will see marked improvements in operations. iii)Digitally Engaged Customers — As previous Amazon examples have illustrated, digitally engaging the customer can be executed with significant effect, spanning multiple devices to immerse customers within the product experience. Some opine that an improved digital customer experience is the foremost digital transformation pillar and intensifying user engagement the goal. Technology should be used to collect customer feedback, both active and passive, from all possible touchpoints. Aggregating and analysing this data can lead to tremendous market and operational insights that can further improve product offerings. iv)Data and Advanced Technology Mindset — Digital

transformation is a mindset that promotes data and technology as a way for companies to improve their operations and product experience. Foremost, a data mindset must be adopted by all those who participate in a company's digital transformation; if not, the firm may fall short of reaping any benefits. For instance, digitization is the process of converting information into a digital format using OCR (Optical character recognition) to scan in data from paper records into a computer. But, to end at this step is not digital transformation. Rather the next step of cataloguing and analysing this newly digitized information is required before any useful insight can be found. At this stage, the firm would have reached a low digital transformation level with plenty of space to continue transforming. NASA's Apollo 13 mission, whose oxygen tanks exploded 200,000 miles away from Earth, provided a fortuitous premiere for digital twins. As if by design, the spacecraft's digital twin, considerably less complex than those now in use, was the core of its rescue mission; the model reflecting it, data on its flight route, and remote-control technologies all helped to choreograph its return to Earth. NASA's invention is increasingly making its way into the business sphere, where IoT is the foundation of automated continuous operation systems made up of electronics, software, communications, and hardware. Before designing and implementing systems, digital twins, 3D or 2D dashboards, visualise and simulate the integration of these disparate components. Because digital twin models are readily shared, they stimulate cross-functional cooperation. They also aid in the comparison of designs and outcomes in order to align them before catastrophic mistakes arise on the production floor. According to a recent Gartner poll, 13% of firms deploying IoT are employing digital twins, and 62% are in the process of putting them up or expect to do so soon. "Notable technology companies such as IBM, Microsoft, and SAP have notably combined digital twin simulation capabilities with data analytics, while IoT and engineering simulation software providers such as DS (Dassault Systèmes), GE, PTC, and Siemens have acquired companies or entered into partnerships to advance their CAD and or digital twin simulation services, on top of their IoT platforms,". Supply chains, labyrinths fraught with the risk of damage, theft, or

spoilage as valuable products, such as electronics or pharmaceutical products, wind their way across multiple modes of transportation, warehouses, and distribution centres, as well as several geo-climatic conditions, are a common use case for digital twins. It might be daunting to consider and attempt to identify the impact of variables on hazards in supply chains, if they are visible at all, such as packaging quality, environmental issues, and law enforcement. "The requirement to regulate the influence of micro-variables like temperature and humidity obtained from sensors has raised the need for digital twins," says Keith Kirkpatrick, Principal Analyst at Tractica. Without the granular data provided by sensors and controls that digital twins deliver, resource allocation in a labyrinth-like railway network, such as scheduling locomotive maintenance, might go astray. By combining the data throughout the network, including the utilisation of repair shops, wear and tear of assets and the urgency of fixing them, and train travel pathways, situational knowledge on the availability of capacity is achieved. Only after that is it feasible to simulate choice possibilities and allocate resources. To keep operations on track, the original estimates are revised in reaction to accidents, unforeseen occurrences, and changes in weather. 5 myths of Digital Transformation:

Myth 1: DX is all about technology. While tech is an important factor in DX, it should not be the single focus of change. Culture, processes, objectives and a host of other factors all play a role, and each of these drivers will influence changes in the others. To be successful in today’s digital economy, Seroter says the enterprise must take its eyes off new technologies and start thinking about outcomes. Does it need to improve customer feedback? Should it increase the iteration of new software? How can it deliver greater value? In each case, there will likely be a technology that can help achieve these goals, but the point is to start thinking about what you want to accomplish first and then reverse-engineer systems and processes from there, not just acquire the latest and greatest technology in the hopes that it will give you an edge. Transformation, after all, is about change, not improving the status

quo.

Myth 2: People are eager for change. According to management guru Cheryl Cran, resistance from employees is usually the single-greatest limiting factor to digital transformation. As she explained to CEO World, change is difficult, and it usually requires more work and produces greater aggravation before the benefits are realized. This is why most people react in one of three ways to DX: fear, pushback or a bid to increase their own personal power rather than support the enterprise’s objectives as a whole. For a successful transformation, business leaders should focus first on making immediate improvements to employees’ processes and workflows, preferably starting with key stakeholders, and then gradually roll out to the wider organization once the key deployment and integration issues are known. (To learn more about getting employees involved in DX, see The Human Element of Digital Transformation: Employee Engagement.)

Myth 3: Everybody is doing it. Research from Australian telecommunications firm Telstra has found that only 21% of senior decision-makers consider their organizations to be “digitally mature,” while 30% say they haven’t even begun the transformation. What’s more, most programs that have gotten underway tend to be fragmented and incremental, which is not necessarily a bad thing , but it does point out the fact that DX is still very much in its infancy. Of course, this should not be taken as an excuse to delay. As Telstra’s Michael Ebeid notes: This shows a clear opportunity for businesses to both elevate and integrate their approach to digital transformation. While more can be done to integrate digital transformation activity across the business, this needs to be led by a clear company strategy from the C-suite and company boards down. Businesses should also keep in mind that an entirely new generation of start-ups is poised to put digital service-based business models into effect without having to undergo transformation at all. Most of these companies will have been created for digital from the ground up and will likely be the first to leverage 5G, the IoT, microservices and a wide range of other developments to drive waste and inefficiency out of

existing business models.

Myth 4: Failure is bad. A recent report from McKinsey and Co. revealed that even among tech-savvy firms only about a quarter of digital projects succeed. In fields like energy and manufacturing, the rate is as low as 4%. Every failure is a learning opportunity, however, and if the digitally transformed organizational structure is sound there should be a smooth process to ingest and analyse feedback, devise recommended fixes and put them into practice. From there, it’s a matter of repeating the process until a successful, optimized workflow is achieved or the entire idea is sent back to the drawing board. To date, says McKinsey, successful projects tend to focus on new product or services launches and new markets being tapped, not simply digitizing the existing operating models. As well, success often comes only after the scope of the transformation has reached a certain limit, as in multiple business functions or business units. (Want to learn more about implementing DX? Check out The Do’s and Don’ts of Digital Transformation.)

Myth 5: DX is the same for everybody. Business consultant Lisa Croft noted on CMSWire recently that the drivers of transformation will vary across industries, across organizations and sometimes across business units within the same organization. The challenge is to create a digital ecosystem that is flexible enough so that everyone is able to optimize their own experience but broad enough so that it contributes equally to the collective organization. Part of this challenge is to recognize the problems you hope to solve and the opportunities you hope to address through DX and then customize the transformation along those lines. It is also important to understand that DX is not a one-and-done deal; the entire organization should adopt the mindset that this is an ongoing process both in terms of technology development and refinement of processes and business models. As such, it will continue to address multiple challenges, goals and outcomes as they evolve over time. Digital transformation is by no means easy, and the results are

uncertain. But at the end of the day, the task for business, as it always has been, is to evolve or face extinction. When faced with a choice between slow and expensive or fast and cheap, few consumers prefer the former. As consumerization, or the effect of consumer-based technologies and experiences inside enterprises, grows, CIOs must develop their technical landscapes to satisfy rising employee service delivery expectations. Of course, there are inherent difficulties in integrating new technology on an organisational scale. In the near term, it may be quite costly, and implementing such technologies across a whole firm can be resource and time consuming. People are also prone to resisting change if the advantages and reasoning are not adequately presented. Despite these hurdles, CIOs are already thinking about using new technology for external clients. When a customer contacts a firm for help, they are likely to be presented with a plethora of alternatives, including chatbots and AI, which use the power of prediction to swiftly analyse the problem and offer a solution. The next stage for CIOs is to flip that consumer experience lens inside to explore possibilities for contemporary employee and internal customer engagement models. Consider the advantages of investing in chat, for example, to support external clients, and how those same benefits may be used to your internal service delivery strategy and overall company goals. CIOs have a clear opportunity to address the role of technology in both external customer interaction and service, as well as the impact it has on technology in terms of how businesses deliver services to external consumers. In the meanwhile, CIOs may find it easier to preserve the status quo for internal consumers. Balancing a technological transformation for both internal and external clients is a major task. When it comes to how firms modify their internal processes and technological environments, CIOs tend to take a more reactive approach. As the digital transformation process progresses, the emphasis shifts to "don't forget about our people." CIOs, on the other hand, may adopt a proactive approach to engaging workers and other internal customers by beginning with an employeefirst mindset. When you realise that workers are also consumers, you

can better prepare your business to face the heightened demands that come with consumerization. CIOs must accept and adapt technology so that the emphasis is on the demands of workers (and customers), rather than the other way around. Whether your company is utilising chatbots and the power of prediction via AI, the goal is to focus how technology can not only allow a more smooth employee experience but also push toward greater business objectives. The CIO's job is evolving from that of a mere technology facilitator to that of a strategic service provider. Implementing new technologies and promoting adoption of these technologies, whether proactive or reactive, need standardised, frequently automated procedures across the whole workflow and throughout the business. Most significantly, it necessitates a focus on satisfying workers' needs and expectations, regardless of the service they need, by giving them with the tools and resources they need to get their task done effectively. Implementing strategic and cultural change inside a corporation is a critical component of digital transformation. Prior to the present crisis, 87 percent of organisations predicted that digital will disrupt their sector, but just 44 percent were prepared for future digital disruption. The working environment has been altered by digital technologies. Covid-19 has done the same. With the current pandemic changing the way we work, with employees and customers being distanced from physical offices, having a digitally-driven business model has allowed companies to keep up with the speed of change, compete in rapidly evolving markets, and meet rising customer expectations, and with the current pandemic changing the way we work, with employees and customers being distanced from physical offices, digital technologies have been even more vital, and those who have embraced them have reaped the benefits. The digital revolution cannot be reversed. Companies have shifted their business objectives and increased their investments in technology. 89 percent have implemented or intend to implement a digital-first company strategy that may lead to digital transformation, and 60 percent of those organisations that have experienced digital transformation have generated new business models. Companies who have yet to implement digital strategies are falling behind and racing to catch up. Without a digital transformation, 55% of organisations feel they have less than a year before losing

market share. Digital transformation requires continuous adaptation and innovation. While 21 percent of businesses believe they have completed digital transformation, just 7 percent have completely adopted them, and even those that have must be mindful that changes occur on a regular basis. Companies that cease inventing end up disappointing their consumers. If a corporation feels it has accomplished a digital transformation, it may not fully comprehend what that entails. Customer expectations are always changing, necessitating a continual need to stay up to speed on the latest technology. However, digital transitions do not always succeed. 70 percent of reforms fail, owing mostly to employee opposition. This emphasises the significance of starting from the bottom up and integrating all employees who will be implementing new technology and procedures into their regular responsibilities. 71% of businesses consider their personnel to be very or very crucial in supporting their digital transformation plan. Businesses must accept failure as a necessary step toward success. Google and Apple, for example, took risks when releasing wearable computing devices, despite the fact that the popularity of Apple wrist watches varied from Google Glass. Some businesses have been investing in IoT for almost a decade, but it is only now that it is gaining traction. Similarly, chatbots have been around for a long time, but firms who have persevered in upgrading their investments in new conversational systems might reap higher benefits. The success percentage also varies according on the size of the firm. Because it is simpler to alter the culture of a smaller firm, companies with less than 100 workers are up to 2.7 times more likely to claim a successful digital transformation than enterprises with more than 50,000 people. Employees may be wary of new technology if they do not completely understand why they are being adopted. This may raise concerns that they will endanger their jobs or necessitate increased surveillance, but the goal of new technologies is to assist employees and make their work easier by removing burdens from repetitive tasks, allowing them to work from home, giving them time to strengthen their skill sets, and increasing productivity. As a result, effective digital transformation initiatives focus on creating

a digital culture in the workplace and, more crucially, on striking the appropriate note in their digital-first business plans. According to a Forrester survey, 20% of firms abandoned their customer experience last year, instead opting on short-term traditional strategies such as price lowering. With customer experience being a key aspect of digital transformation, short-term income from lowered pricing does not correlate to customer loyalty, and businesses who have yet to adopt revolutionary technology are failing their consumers and risk slipping behind. Companies that make $1 billion per year, on the other hand, gain an extra $700 million over three years by investing in customer experience. Customer experience has emerged as a key brand differentiator, with one-third of consumers abandoning a business after only one unfavourable encounter, and 92 percent abandoning a firm after two or three poor interactions. Acquiring a new client is seven times more expensive than keeping an old one, thus investing in customer satisfaction pays dividends. Furthermore, preserving a brand's reputation is dependent on client pleasure. 84 percent of customers no longer believe advertisements, and 88 percent rely on reviews to assess the quality of a business's customer experience and dependability. Customers' roles extend beyond just being consumers. If they believe they are being treated well, they will become brand supporters. They will be loyal to the brand and its services, and they will aggressively recommend a company to their friends and networks. This is a valuable asset that outperforms advertisements and review sites. It's no surprise that over half of all businesses report that improved customer experience and satisfaction were the driving forces behind their decision to embark on a digital transformation. To keep ahead of the competition, a growing number of businesses are embracing digital-first business strategies and innovative company models. When attempting to be a market leader, little modifications are insufficient. However, when tackling a digital transformation plan, a recurring issue is: Which is more crucial, a business-first approach or a digital-first one? Digital revolutions are similar to evolutionary discoveries in that only those who adapt survive. However, the changes that occur have an impact on every aspect of the firm, from sales to operations. Companies must ensure that the technology they

spend in meets their business requirements rather than investing in technology for the sake of investing in technology. "Many business leaders are recalibrating their strategies as they become more realistic about the difficulty of achieving digital transformation," says Melissa Swift, leader of Korn Ferry's digital advisory unit. "They're realising that the solution isn't better technology, but better everything else around it." To do this, firms must take a comprehensive approach to digital transformation, concentrating on their company strategy, operations, customers, and workers rather than what digital technology alone can achieve for them. It may seem challenging at first, but businesses must select what kind of company they really want to be in. Corporate behemoths have reinvented themselves as digital corporations, emphasising the technological part of their business plan rather than merely their goods. Early digital adopters are already enjoying the advantages of turning digital, and they have done so by redefining their business models, procedures, and operations using digital technology. In this approach, technology serves as a facilitator of business objectives and a critical component for firms to become more customer-centric, boost engagement, and achieve optimal operational performance. A wellresearched digital and business strategy is required for successful digital transformation. Companies must identify and appreciate the vast array of digital options accessible, and then connect them with their company goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Then and only then must they establish a long-term digital strategy. This is easier said than done since it will need the cooperation of all management personnel. Every choice must be thoroughly considered, identifying corporate operations, processes, and roles that may be digitalized and assessing the impact on workers, customers, and stakeholders. After defining the corporate culture and KPIs, a new attitude must be formed to drive change and adapt business processes to newly introduced digital technology. The CIO must be able to defend why and how each technical component contributes to the company's goals, as well as demonstrate how this innovation produces a favourable ROI. Adopting the newest technology without first recognising business advantages is not only expensive, but it may also be harmful. In the end, though, a

good digital transformation will move an organisation from doing digital to being digital.

Digital Transformation Strategy: Ten benefits for success We know that companies need to innovate to evolve and to survive. But what are the benefits of a successful digital transformation strategy? What does digitization do that leads to the survival of businesses? Here are ten benefits of digitization on enterprises:

1. Deliver a better customer experience Advances in technology have improved the way companies interact with their customers. There is now a two-way information, where customer feedback is more valuable than the message being relayed by a business. With this, companies can provide a better and more consistent experience that meets customer requirements. Speed, personalization, 24/7 availability and seamless omnichannel journeys are all factors that improve engagement and condition a customer’s loyalty.

2. Improve collaboration Digital technologies allow more information to be available to understand why techniques are effective. This new level of transparency and digital culture which allows people to openly be able to access information fosters trust, improving teamwork and internal cooperation, global management and cultivating collaborative external efforts. Technologies are available that improve communication between peers helping more employees work more efficiently and encouraging collaboration across departments.

3. Manage deeper customer insights The importance of access to digital information shouldn’t be undervalued. According to Accenture, 75% of customers admit being more likely to buy from a company that recognizes their details, knows their purchase history and can make recommendations based on past

purchases. Customer analytics yield tremendous rewards, from customer segmentation, to churn prediction, purchase probability, to the ability to provide personalized services to boost acquisitions, retention and conversion rates.

4. Reduce cost of operations From saving space with better data storages, to lowering service costs with automation, technology is efficient in reducing a company’s expenses. The transformation of procedures and digitalization of documents optimizes processes and reduces unnecessary expenditures. Additionally, digitalization allows companies to accurately estimate future expenses, and ensure that budgets are under control.

5. Make Data-Driven decisions With data analytics tools, dashboards and predictive analytics capabilities, it is easier to monitor, collect, analyse and mine customer data for making informed and optimal decisions. Business now have the benefits of understanding the habits of customers and use statistics and data to back their strategies.

6. Empower employees Customers must be connected, but so too must employees. With less silos, digital cultures with a customer-centric and employee-centric focus allows employees to become empowered when they have direct access to the information they need. With crisis like Covid-19 bringing difficulties to work from the office, digital technology and improved collaboration tools has facilitated remote-work. Additionally, enhancements in ERP and CRM allows employees to view processes and make better informed decisions, boosting morale and productivity.

7. Create new business models, products and opportunities

Digital transformation opens the door to a culture of innovation. This leads companies to explore and discover new value prepositions. From nurturing and monetizing data to mining new data sets to provide highly personalized services, new opportunities arise with new technologies. In a recent survey, 84% of executives interviewed by Harvard Business Review agreed that new business opportunities are emerging as their organization digitally transforms. Digital systems provide services that were previously unthinkable, creating new sources of revenue and new ways to get closer to the consumer. Big data and artificial intelligence have been catalysts to new technological trends that can create richer experiences, more valuable insights and boost productivity with faster, more effective decisions based on real-time data and automated processes.

8. Decentralize production Digital transformation provides companies with more capabilities to become fully digital. Some companies seek to become lights-out businesses, other want to automate processes as much as possible, whilst others may deploy remote monitoring systems. This in itself is an asset, but in exceptional circumstances like Covid-19, the ability for digitalized companies to not stop or slow production has been a competitive advantage. Many problems and queries have been resolved 24/7 and despite the absenteeism of workers. These employees have also been able to develop their skills and train to contribute more intellectual value to the company with the automatization of more repetitive processes.

9. Handle compliance and effective risk management Digitalization is effective in integrating risk and compliance management as part of a business’ operations as well as managing enterprise risk. These covers a wide range of risks such as technological, strategic or operational risks, as well cybersecurity, privacy third party compliance and prevention of data leakages and encryptions.

10. Maintain your business ahead in the market Companies must be able to compete to survive. Digital transformation allows the continuous evolution of the business environment, and competing businesses are also part of this change. By persistently innovating, enterprises are keeping pace with the competition and keeping their business strategy constantly updated and responsive to volatile changes in customer demands. When a company achieves effective digital transformation, it is probable that key choices are made by digitally native executives. The function necessitates someone who is a change catalyst and driver, capable of incorporating new ways of thinking and behaving in sectors where digitization is gradual. Companies are searching for new jobs that will be in charge of implementing this transition. The job of the CDO is growing in importance, with estimates indicating that firms who use this figure are 1.6 times more likely to report a successful digital transformation. However, the CDO's position and future significance are still being debated. CDOs often come into play when the CIO lacks certain technical skillsets to achieve digital transformation or is overburdened with operational IT. These executives are in charge of insight and analytics, with a strong emphasis on data, as well as new digital opportunities and variables such as customer and employee experience and e-commerce. Ownership of transformation is shared by the CEO, CIO, CDO, and, to a lesser extent, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). In reality, the CIO is often the pivotal individual in charge of change, as well as the communication connection between CEOs, senior management, and IT departments, ensuring that the transformation is carried out properly. While many CEOs are becoming more involved in digital transformation as a result of the pressure and decisions that affect the entire organisation, the CIO is the figure in the company who fully understands business processes and technological infrastructure and can assume how to lead a digital transformation, monitoring the evolution of technologies and learning to sense the right time to incorporate them into plans and innovation strategies. With shifting consumer preferences and purchase journeys becoming

digitally driven and self-service oriented, multi-channel marketing and digital marketing have also put the CMO in the limelight as an aspect of digital transformation. CIOs are often seen as the more conventional executive in charge of an enterprise's IT infrastructure and BI projects, giving the data and information that the company requires. The CDO position is strengthened by its relationship with conventional technologies. Many people believe that the CIO, not the CDO, should be in charge of digital innovation. They are required to explore possibilities in order to establish the best route for their company and create change. The recently created figure of CDO may give solutions to the technical challenges of digital transformation, but their duties may wind up overlapping and hindering the process. With their understanding of the organisation and business abilities, CIOs are completely capable of shaping corporate culture, particularly at the management and senior levels, and can translate tech-led innovation into consumer value. A CDO should ideally do what a competent CIO should have always done. As a result, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for determining who should be the primary figurehead of digital change. Some businesses have selected the CDO, while others prefer a joint approach between CIOs and CDOs, and yet others stay with the CIO and his or her supporting staff. Digital Transformation touches the whole organisation, yet it is a top-down programme directed by the C-suite and involving the entire firm. This may include CEOs or newly established jobs such as the Chief Digital Officer (CDO), albeit the Chief Information Officer is usually in charge (CIO). What is known is that digital transformation requires C-suite leadership and cannot take place in silos. A customer-centric culture is at the heart of digital transformation, but it requires strong leadership and the capacity to start, drive, and manage change. These leaders must be technologically aware and capable of empowering employees to work in new ways, with a thorough understanding of new technologies and the ability to communicate effectively via both conventional and digital channels. The CIO is the figure in the company who most understands the

combination of business processes and technological infrastructure and can assume leadership of digital transformation. However, to lead transformation, CIOs must monitor the evolution of technologies and learn to find the right time to incorporate them into a company’s strategy. With digital transformation persistently changing business models, back-end systems and the key responsibilities for CIOs, what are the essential tasks a CIO must focus when overlooking new digital transformation initiatives? We have listed eleven of them.

1. Develop workforce capabilities for the future An important factor for success in digital transformation is to develop talent and skills that will facilitate the transformation. This requires redefining the roles and responsibilities of employees and creating cross-functional teams so that they align with new objectives. Digital transformation projects need the availability of figures with new skills and in-depth knowledge if the digital world along with the vision and ability to deploy new technologies. CIOs must bridge potential gaps between the traditional and digital parts of the business and give voice to figures and key stakeholders such as the CDO or employees who integrate new digital methods and processes into existing ways of working and investing in digital talent and employee development and training. To do this, CIOs must possess communication skills and the ability to manage human resources to spread digital culture within the company and build consensus towards digital transformation. Companies willing to boost their in-house digital talent will need to customize their learning programs. This will require improving individual employee profiles in order to build a solid foundation for the development worker skills once the current ones are obsolete. Additionally, there must be a culture that strives for continuous improvement, and the automation of repetitive tasks that can enable the team to focus on issues of higher value and expertise.

2. Empower employees to embrace innovation It isn’t easy to encourage employees to challenge old ways of working, but it is a major factor for success. So too is taking risks. CIOs must encourage the OCIO to experiment with new ideas and collaborate to find new ways to take the company to the future. Top CIOs can align IT activities to business strategy and performance goals and proactively come up with solutions to business challenges. Again, communications skills are paramount in reducing organizational resistance and driving change, as people can often be a bigger obstacle than any technology. This may require changing traditional hierarchal communication channels and encouraging enterprise-wise

wider-scale communication that go beyond e-mail, such as internal social channels, webinars, communities, forums, blogs and so on can support conversations and create awareness with increased transparency.

3. Establish digital governance and KPIs CIOs must be ambitious in their vision and leadership to turn digital investments in assets. They must also monitor this progress to ensure that advances are measured and managed accordingly. Leaders need to set targets and KPIs of what they consider is a positive outcome. This may mean adjusting organizations to accommodate these new digital ambitions, and this can change depending on each company. At the same time, CIOs must constantly be looking for ways to reinvent themselves, find new revenue opportunities and measure ROI on digital transformation, ensuring that these return on investments relate not only to IT but also at a corporate level.

4. Provide a digital upgrade to daily activities and tools CIOs are constantly reimagining the workplace and making it as updated and convenient as possible to the company’s employees. Tools and services must be accessible to all employees and in sync with current market needs. With thousands of employees facing new working conditions as Covid-19 has accelerated remote work, CIOs are responsible for upgrading interactive tools that will make working from home easier for employees and keep services running for customers.

5. Enhance engagement and experience for both customers and employees Customer behaviour and preferences are evolving, and these new habits are becoming a major catalyst in driving organizational change. Customers are making changes that are more mobile and instant and want personalized customer journeys. Their engagements and

experiences are vital in maintain brand loyalty and many companies are embarking on customer-focused digital transformation projects. A CIO must understand how customers make their decisions, what technology they use and how the company can use it to boost their services and revamp their infrastructure and unite employees across departments to meet these new needs. With research from Deloitte stating finding that 57% of CIOs ranked customers as the top business priority, it is no surprise that digital transformation projects are focusing on customer engagement and experience. Similarly, employee experience must also be safeguarded. Before working remotely, office spaces were also undergoing digitalization. For example, desktop phones were becoming a thing of the past with employees possessing company smartphones instead. Digital internal communications, employee portals, cloud storage, online training tools and conversational AI platforms to assist employees are important to keep the office updated too and must not be left aside by the CIO. Digital transformation can change the businesses work. Just as it can optimize customer experience, it can improve employee experience and efficiency, whilst automating underlying workloads. This will require systematic changes in front-end strategies and back-office capabilities which will need higher expertise and upgraded processes, systems and operating models. 6. Manage evolving business values Initially, businesses would find a differentiated offer and use it to position themselves in the marketplace and work on optimizing that business model for as long as possible. The digital age has switched the focus so that executing and delivering the same value proposition is no longer enough. Rather than defining value by what the industry has done in the past, businesses and CIOs define themselves by their customer’s ever-changing requirements. Customers have become a top priority for the CIO and they are an important driving force behind the business expectation for digital transformation. Subsequently, each new technology should be judged by how it can create new business models and find new revenue opportunities that allow a company to stay ahead of the curve and adapt before they are forced to do so to survive. Customers are an important driving force behind

the business expectation for digital transformation, and companies must be responsive to market changes and launch products and new initiatives swiftly.

7. Capitalize on AI and Data CIOs are responsible for building the architecture that will enable quality customer experiences. To do this the OCIO must capitalize on data assets and drive insights and analytics to further understand the customers. Along with this, AI is going to play a central role in modern technological infrastructures. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are going to feature prominently in many business’ digital transformation strategies. With Covid-19 highlighting the difficulties some companies have faced when trying to meet customer demands and queries from remote locations, many businesses are focusing on enabling automated or self-service models. The use of Robotic Process Automation (RPAs), ML and Conversational AI allows customers to find what they are looking for without needing to contact specialists. Issues and outages are remediated without human intervention. This gives employees to focus on more analytical tasks with the amount of data that they have.

8. Set Cybersecurity and information security As businesses shift to online paradigms across multiple channels, information and cybersecurity are vital. The OCIO is responsible for setting and safeguarding standards and policies that protect IT across the enterprise and taking measures when these standards are not met. There is a wide range of domains that need supervision such as Operating Systems, Customer data, Cloud services and more.

9. Minimize enterprise risk CIOs need to ensure that enterprise risk is minimized with their digital initiatives. We have mentioned the importance of cybersecurity, but there are other contextual, implementation and governance risks that

must be assessed and elaborated in risk management frameworks to be used by the organization when using new digital transformation initiatives. CIOs know that IT-related problems can be costly to an organization’s reputation. They must subsequently carry out numerous assessments to manage risk across the whole enterprise. To do so, CIOs must have a full grasp of IT’s role in organizations, possess and integrated and holistic view of the risks enterprises can face and be able to evaluate how prepared an organization’s systems are to withstand these risks while complying to laws and regulations. When possible, the CIO must focus on reducing regulatory compliance costs through automation and process upgrades and how to justify these decisions with positive return on investments.

10. Maximize productivity and innovation The CIO must be responsible for ensuring that digital transformation procedures maximize productivity using the innovative technologies that best suit the company and that have been invested on using the capital at the CIO’s disposal. This includes setting enterprise architecture principles, providing guidance to IT and DevOps teams, defining which services are most adequate for the company’s transition and setting the security and business continuity standards to make sure that the company is innovative, adapted to new customer standards and productive. In order to do this, the OCIO must transform the development of new products and services and disrupt the existing business model in order find new ways to targets customers and assume the end-to-end transition to become a fully digital enterprise.

11. Explore and establish new partnerships Not all digital initiatives can be carried in-house, especially in urgent times as has been the case with Covid-19. CIOs must explore and initiate new relationships and partnerships with innovative parties. CIOs must be change instigators who are proficient in setting up networks and ecosystems of innovators and influencing others to buyin to the cause. This requires having a sharp eye for spotting

opportunities for leveraging digital technologies and scanning beyond traditional tech partners to drive new ideas and capabilities when solutions cannot be done in-house. Throughout history, new technologies have disrupted established industrial processes and transformed existing company models. Technological and digital advancements might be considered as dangers by some firms, but they can also be viewed as a chance to adapt and take big steps toward becoming a market leader. CIOs must be at the forefront of this digital transformation, utilising new technologies that affect both customers and internal processes, allowing businesses to transform their products and services, find new ways to target customers, disrupt existing business models and the competitive landscape, and discover new revenue streams. The explosion of digital technology has generated a need for new skills and channels, which is changing the way industries function. In addition, the availability of massive volumes of client data has opened up new avenues for understanding customer patterns and providing customised services. The present Covid-19 has hastened the need for businesses to use technology in order to thrive in the market, but digital disruption is nothing new and has occurred in nearly every industry. Disruptors are the consequence of a newly developed product or service that displaces current market leaders and ultimately replaces them at the helm of the industry. Disruptors are often not CIOs, but rather entrepreneurs. They are, nevertheless, connected to the fastpaced technology business, and their products affect CIO choices. Disruptors do not always take the market by storm; instead, they gradually acquire a name before entering the better quality segment of the market and challenging it by presenting a fresh and sophisticated option to a traditional and established market favourite. As a result, the market leader is obliged to adjust to changing conditions or is pushed out of the market. Disruption does not have to be digital, but in the twentieth century, digital disruption forced corporations to adjust to new market demands and, in contemporary enterprises, to embark on digital transformation. There are numerous examples of digital transformation affecting the market, such as Wikipedia disrupting

traditional encyclopaedias and CD-ROM by providing free and unlimited access to information, satellite navigation replacing traditional atlases and maps, emails replacing the postal service, or the numerous disruptions the music industry has faced when transitioning from vinyl, cassettes, CDs, file sharing, and eventually online streaming and retail like Spotify. Disruption has occurred in practically every industry, and organisations impacted by it have had to develop, and in some cases, alter their business models, in order to survive. This is one of the fundamental tenets of digital transformation. Disruptive technologies can have a wide range of effects on a business, ranging from influencing management decisions to transforming the development of new products, establishing new ways to target and understand customers, and altering existing business processes, customer experiences, and the competitive landscape. According to an MIT study, 87 percent of CEOs feel that digital technology would disrupt their sector. Following two industrial revolutions, the twentieth century started with corporations aware that disruptors may have a significant impact on their markets. Few, though, could have predicted how much change the century would bring. The Economist highlighted the debut of Bitcoin, blockchain, peer-topeer electronic payment systems, and decentralised digital currencies towards the end of 2008 as technology that "may alter how the economy operates." It is still debated if cryptocurrency has faded out. Many experts say the crypto bubble has burst, a victim of fraudsters and the risks of speculation, and that it will never return, whilst others are more hopeful. As a consequence of technical advancements, industries were evolving at a rapid rate. In 2010, digital camera manufacturing peaked at 120 million, having surpassed analogue camera output barely ten years previously, when they were supplanted by a new disruptor: smartphones. Amazon.com sold more Kindle books than print books in 2011. Airbnb was starting to have an impact on the holiday rental business. Streaming revenues such as Spotify and Pandora surpassed CD sales, changing how people listen to music and how artists make money, while Uber offered a new challenge to the ride-hailing business. Even technologies that had effectively surpassed past industry leaders were vulnerable to

subsequent technology. By 2012, DVDs and Blu-ray discs had fallen out of favour as customers switched to internet movies and streaming for entertainment. Consumers have acclimated to the technological options that were available to them. Annual e-commerce sales in 2012 surpassed $1 trillion for the first time and continued to rise. Shortly after, the global Internet user population surpassed 3 billion. Customer data has become a precious asset as a result of this. Facebook's data warehouse has over 300 petabytes of data, and Facebook advertising can reach over 2 billion people. People are networking in new ways. Skype and WhatsApp have transformed the way we interact. Slack and Microsoft Teams, for example, have transformed how we connect in the workplace. There are several channels that are continually active and aimed at making communication simpler, more accessible, and customer-focused. Disruptors effectively eliminate consumer obstacles. A clear example can be found in the travel industry, where leading companies such as Tui and Thomas Cook have struggled by failing to adapt to new consumer needs for shorter waiting lines, no independent advice, and high cancellation fees, and have succumbed to digital disruptors such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, which provide customer reviews, price comparisons, free cancellations, and fast bookings 24/7 in addition to the services typically provided by their tra. Customer engagement has emerged as a key distinction between businesses in recent decades, as people connect, amuse themselves, and carry out everyday operations like as buying and banking in new ways that are intertwined with technology. Companies have got to understand that complacency is not an option. Sector leaders may appear on the scene, but if they do not adapt, they will go. With the Covid-19, the year 2020 has witnessed a significant shift in the requirement to expedite digital transformation. However, even before this, the last few years have seen the emergence of new disruptors, coinciding with the introduction of virtual and conversational assistants such as Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Microsoft Cortana, which have sought to increase revenues by improving customer experience, but they are not the only disruptors that will change the current industry landscape. Employee resistance and a lack of management support, according to

McKinsey, are two of the reasons why change projects fail to accomplish their objectives. People's jobs, goals, strategies, bosses, and everyday tasks must all change as a result of digital transformation. Enforcing these changes may be tough, which is one of the reasons why businesses put off digital transformation. The urge to begin digital transformation begins at the very top of the organisation, with the OCIO. Executives are often suspicious of the advantages of developing technology, preferring a less risky fastfollower strategy over a pioneering one. Furthermore, firms that are not losing money may not see the need to implement digital transformation until it is too late. Executives may be unaware of current trends or have a misunderstanding of what digital transformation is, emphasising the importance of establishing an OCIO to counter organisational silos with a CIO who is up to date on technological innovations, knows how to persuade stakeholders to prioritise digital transformation as a major company priority and deploy an appropriate budget, and can adapt to new business models. Here are few more trends:

1.The weight of legacy processes If a process isn’t efficient, automating it won’t make it any better. Operational processes need to be rethought and made more efficient and in line with new innovative technologies and customer requirements. Many businesses are built on the premise of they worked when they were founded, and when disruptive technologies have arisen, business have made changes to adapt to that technologies, but still based on their legacy culture. With the sure of the Internet of Things, APIs, Artificial Intelligence, smart cities and strictly online customer habits new building blocks must be added that will transform, renovate or add substantial support to core legacy systems and ensure that businesses are prepared to build digital platforms.

2.Security and regulatory limitations Many executives, in particular those in healthcare and financial services, are cautious about certain technologies due to security and

privacy concerns. Businesses are concerned about hackers and outsiders accessing confidential data on patients or customers that can seriously affect their hard-gained reputation or result in penalties. This means that many companies in the financial sector are taking a slow approach to social media to not receive sanctions or be part of any scandals. This cautious approach also transcends to rushing in to deploy other technologies and monitoring them accordingly. Despite these regulatory concerns, the OCIO should take responsibility in monitoring technologies and foreseeing how they can be deployed in their business strategy whilst overlooking cybersecurity. The fear of sanctions over possible data breaches should not prevent a company from moving forward. There are tools to ensure cybersecurity and the protection of sensitive information. Additionally, part of establishing a digital culture within a company is to set policies for employee use of devices, technologies and social media, and clearly stating regulations.

3.Lack of clarity Digital transformation can encompass many initiatives. Being able to define and measure an initiative is easier said than done. Many companies find difficulties in conceptualizing their digital transformation strategy into actionable and quantifiable initiatives. Not all digital initiatives make sense for companies or their employees. The clearest way to justify digital transformation was to consider value and cost. With Covid-19 new needs have arisen, such as facilitating customer and employee access to services and systems. Audio and videoconferencing technologies result in travel costs and employee coordination, whilst conversational AI platforms provide omnichannel 24/7 solutions to customer queries and increase brand loyalty. However, the benefits from other investments may be harder to define and some companies have embarked on digital transformation as an experiment to investigate the potential of new technologies without a digital transformation roadmap. Additionally, different C-suite executives will focus on specific aspects and objectives, from the supply chain, to marketing, to customer engagement. The OCIO must be able to define the objectives and holistically justify investments in

technologies as part of a new business model and digital strategy, understanding how it will affect company culture and how it can bring benefits to the enterprise.

4.Lack of skills and talent resources Data-driven business performance and decision-making is efficient, but it poses a challenge to people who are used to making decisions based on their own professional judgement. With emerging technologies, there can often be a scarce internal workforce who can proficiently take the reins. Companies end up hiring experts in the job market or working with third parties. Additionally, many executives may lack the digital literacy to appreciate the scope of digital transformation, dismissing emerging technologies as temporary vogues, but the OCIO must cooperate with HR and CEOs to equip themselves with the best skillset, IT department and resources to carry out their digital strategies. This sounds relatively simple, but some reports suggest that nearly 70% of leaders believe that there is a lack of digital skills in their organization. Upskilling is key to developing a successful transformation and to prepare to grow at the same rate as new advances in artificial intelligence and other technologies. Business and the OCIO must always have digital technologies in mind when making business strategies, and the digital natives incorporated by the business must also be forward-thinking and have innovative mindsets that can keep the enterprise ahead of the curve and of competitors.

5.Cultural obstacles Digital transformation is about technology, strategy and culture. It needs to sink deep into a company and its employees to be a success. In a survey of 700 executives by Harvard Business Review, 63% ranked cultural challenges as the biggest impediments to transformation efforts. A company’s culture conditions how employees behave, and behaviour is hard to change overnight when new business objectives come into play. Company policies, statements and actions must be committed to digital transformation. Even though

the OCIO is the hub which drives digital transformation through the enterprise, every department and employee in an on organization must embrace a digital mindset, even though issues may arise when job changes are considered due to automation and information empowerment. Companies need to help employees adapt to new information capabilities or to grow comfortable working with centralized shared services and standardized processes, while workers who may fear job cuts due to automation need to be provided roles where they can use the time freed up carrying out repetitive tasks to make the most of their expertise and skills.

6.Coordination hindrances Coordination difficulties across business unites or processes can cause many companies to fail in their digital transformations. The OCIO needs to invest in overseeing and coordinating all digital effects, from marketing, to production, to IT and its contact centres. This will result in stronger employee empowerment and customer experience, as well as better synergies between internal functions. Leading digital transformation, maximizing data access and knowledge sharing across an enterprise is a key objective for the OCIO and with many organizations having siloed departments this requires an additional coordination effort. This will require new technology tools, but more importantly a shift in employee behaviours driven by effective leadership and people dynamics.

7.Reluctance to work with third parties As part of their digital transformation and incorporation of new technologies, companies need to determine if their services will integrate with brands like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. The concept of collaborating with these companies can be exciting for some but can also be a clash of egos at executive level, particularly when CEOs consider these brands as competitors and becomes a reason why companies put off digital transformation. However, unless the company wants to become a disruptor and try to launch a competitive disruptor or split the disruptor’s market, most companies

need to cooperate with digital giants that provide top of the market digitized products. The incumbents in every industry eventually collaborate with these platforms or make the choice to try to beat them at their own game but ignoring them and not deploying new technologies is not a viable solution.

8.Not understanding customer needs Customer demands are always changing in sync with new technological innovations. It is important to get the timing right and to understand what your customers really need. Many businesses aren’t used to two-way communication with their consumers, but social media facilitated communicating with customers to know what they want, and conversational AI can get direct feedback in the form of “voice of the customer” as they communicate with their brands. Knowing your customer is vital, and with digital transformation enabling mass personalization of services, it is essential to make the most of big data and customer feedback to decide what they want, how to present it to them and how to make it profitable. Customers must also understand why they are giving their details and how it will be used. In the end customer experience and engagement is a major pillar in digital transformation and new business strategies, so it’s important that CIOs get this right.

9.Not planning ahead Digital transformation plans are ongoing. They are part of a constant evolution within an enterprise. Yet specific transformation procedures need roadmaps and outness to define how long a project will remain a core business objective and to establish benchmarks to aim for. Once these have been reached, the company must not rest on its laurels. The OCIO must set new goals as the organization’s digital transformation grows. The focus of Digital Transformation is the customer experience. It is critical to build customer-focused business strategies while identifying the principles of digital transformation. Customer experience has surpassed boosting innovation speed and improving time-to-market as

the primary goal for digital transformation programmes. The market is very competitive, and although there was a period when items could compete entirely on their distinct capabilities, the wide array of possibilities from which customers may pick implies that purchase decisions are based on little variations. Customer experience has emerged as the most important difference for companies. Consumers' loyalty is no longer dependent on pricing or conventional productbased benefits, but on the experiences, they get and how their rising expectations are satisfied. Businesses may impact customer behaviour and preferences by developing customised, predictive, and dynamic experiences that affect their goods and channels as a result of digital transformation and technology. Customers luxuriate in their individuality, yet they act in closely knit networks that influence others and create new business prospects. Engaging them is critical, and doing so requires integrating the whole organisation so that value is there at every customer touchpoint. Customers want a smooth conversation and journey with their companies that extends beyond the first transaction or reactive customer support at certain touchpoints. Customer experience and engagement today include how a customer is handled by a brand, how they feel about their loyalty, and how they identify with it. Consumers that have an emotional connection to a brand have a lifetime value that is 306 percent greater. Cross-device buying and omnichannel expectations offer problems for firms seeking to retain consistency in an age of accelerating digital change. To ensure consistent and smooth experiences across all platforms, processes and technology must be improved. During digital transformation, focusing on client experiences is not an option, but rather a need. According to Gartner research, 89 percent of organisations compete on the basis of customer experience, and that ratio is expected to rise. Surprisingly, despite the fact that 80 percent of businesses believe they provide exceptional experiences, just 8 percent of consumers agree. This misalignment of expectations emphasises the need of firms not becoming complacent while offering digital solutions. Customers are kept up to date on new technology breakthroughs. There is still much work to be done. According to a Deloitte research, 57 percent of CIOs listed consumers as their top

business priority, and this figure has been growing. The whole C-suite must be involved in digital transformation as part of a comprehensive plan. As a result, while the CMO is initially focused on omnichannel customer engagement, and CFOs on financial technologies such as blockchain-based enterprise transfers, the CIO and OCIO must visualise the digital "big picture" and build the right capabilities to incorporate new technologies and new objectives, of which customer engagement is a key component. Customer expectations and behaviours are the primary drivers of corporate change and digital transformation. Customers' decision-making processes and the technology they employ should influence how organisations bring their services to market, as well as the technology and infrastructure they deploy. There's a lot on the line. 70% of the purchase experience is determined by how customers feel they are handled, and 86% of consumers are prepared to pay extra for a wonderful experience. Customers are five times more likely to purchase again and four times more likely to suggest a brand to relatives and friends if they believe they have been treated properly. The facts speak for themselves when it comes to the advantages of maximising customer experience, but what precisely constitutes a great customer journey, and how can digital transformation boost customer experience? A vital component of delivering a superior client experience is competent customer service. With so many individuals stuck at home and making online purchases and requests, the load on contact centres has risen, and firms must guarantee that these operations satisfy consumers. As a result, 62 percent of businesses consider the customer experience provided by a contact centre to be a competitive advantage. Customer service and contact centres, however, are not the sole aspects of the customer experience. While answering isolated inquiries is a reactive and one-time strategy, customer experience is a proactive and continuing approach in which it is critical to listen to consumers and anticipate what they want at every stage of their journey. Personalized offers are a critical component of the client experience. This is evident, for example, when Spotify generates tailored playlists based on user preferences and current trends, proposing music from the same bands and genres as well as offering

new groups depending on the user's choices. Netflix uses a similar method with their customised recommendation system to ensure that the correct titles are shown to each subscriber at the right moment. Netflix goes so far as to show alternative posters based on the genres, stars, and prior films each user has viewed in the past, based on their study of consumer behaviours and the titles they have seen. Customer experience differs from customer service in that it does not always have to be triggered by a customer initiating contact; it can exist throughout a brand's entire relationship, such as in a streaming service or a conversational AI-led virtual assistant, both of which include customer service. There is a link between technology advancements, digital transformation, and improved customer experience. When we talk about Spotify and Netflix, we should recall how they were market disruptors who improved consumer experience. With CDs and DVDs, algorithms that recognised music and movie preferences were useless. To better understand their customers' behaviours, almost every major digital business employs comparable approaches. This implies that clients may now expect or demand customised information. In reality, as technology becomes more prevalent in daily life, consumer expectations are rising. Companies must work hard to preserve brand loyalty, with 67 percent of consumers identifying poor customer service as a factor for turnover. This is why customer service and customer experience are two sides of the same coin. Previously, contact centres and customer service were solely used to provide further information or assistance, but customer service has evolved into more than just a support element. It is a differentiation that may boost upselling, client retention, and satisfaction. Consumers are increasingly emphasising experiences above stuff. They are mobile-centric, and they want offerings to be tailored to their specific preferences. Digital enterprises such as Airbnb and Uber have thrived by capitalising on new possibilities based on client pain points and experiences. Because hailing taxis and making hotel bookings may be time-consuming, technology has made them more convenient. Customer experience is deeply ingrained in these organisations' business strategies, and the technical investments they have made are geared toward making the consumer journey as easy as possible.

With new technology, there are more options to create an excellent client experience while reaping the rewards. But, when it comes to client experience, what factors should be prioritised? Here are the trends: 1.Make it your own: Customers today clearly desire highly tailored experiences. Consumers want firms to understand their requirements and expectations, according to 76% of them. It implies that businesses must recall, make proactive suggestions, and anticipate their customers' demands before providing their services at the appropriate moment. For many customers, this means being accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This does more than just make the buyer feel unique; it also stimulates cross-selling. Due to a tailored suggestion from a brand, 49 percent of buyers purchased products they did not want to buy. Personalization is weapons in a highly competitive market that helps keep clients, and the tremendous quantity of data accessible with modern technology may make this even simpler if utilised appropriately. With McKinsey saying that only 1% of data generated is ever utilised, it is the OCIO's role to harness the power of data and turn it into a profitable asset. A well-executed customer experience may also give analytics data on customer behaviour, which can be utilised to produce new insights and make better offers to increase retention. Data must be used to create a distinct competitive edge. Companies may provide customised and automated experiences to their consumers in real time. These clients then advocate for the company on social media and via their networks. Customers are more inclined to conduct business with a company that provides a customised experience, according to 80% of them. 2.Recognize the significance of Omnichannel: The customer experience of today is multichannel. People expect a seamless experience across several channels, so that if they leave one, they can pick up where they left off and continue their trip on another. Businesses must deal with a broad variety of customer engagement touchpoints while keeping the full customer experience in mind. Organizations with the best omnichannel customer experiences

profit by retaining 89 percent of their customers on average, compared to 33 percent retention for companies with the worst omnichannel customer experience. This may explain why the proportion of organisations investing in omnichannel experiences has climbed from 20% to more than 80%. Consumers utilise a variety of devices that are linked to cloud services, with mobile leading the way. As a result, 83 percent of customers say they want to be able to switch between channels when interacting with a company. Companies must enable cross-channel contact because customers want to have a single, smooth dialogue with a brand, even if it is over numerous channels, and 89 percent of customers are annoyed when they have to repeat their inquiries to different customer care agents. Make it responsive to mobile devices. Mobile skills are crucial among all omnichannel capabilities. This is shown by the fact that 57 percent of consumers would not suggest a company with a badly designed mobile site. These devices account for one-fifth of website traffic, and if mobile sites are not user-friendly, more than half of clients will not visit the page, even if they like the brand. This helps to explain why 84 percent of customer-centric businesses prioritise the mobile customer experience. 3.Ignore the churn risk at your peril: Failure to provide a competent customer has implications. Businesses must be mindful about losing clients since regaining lost trust is more difficult than keeping customers pleased. Customer expectations dictate digital priorities, and the world-class experiences delivered by industry leaders are raising the standard for all organisations. Customers also discuss both good and bad experiences. According to one study, 72% of consumers share their good experiences with six or more individuals. If they have a bad encounter, 13% of them will tell 15 or more others about it. However, just because they do not complain does not imply that they do not abandon the brand. Only one out of every 26 dissatisfied consumers complains, yet one in three will depart a business after only one poor encounter, and 92 percent would fully abandon a firm after two or three unfavourable interactions. As a result, you don't have many opportunities to do it properly, therefore it must be carefully planned from the start.

4.Recognize the significance of self-service: Digitally native customers are more self-sufficient in their hunt for answers and do not always rely on human agents for support. 58 percent of clients don't mind or prefer speaking with a bot versus dealing with a human customer representative. Companies should make sure that their consumers can locate what they need via selfservice solutions. Customers desire to discover their own answers, and Gartner predicts that by 2030, a billion support requests will be raised automatically by chatbots. Artificial intelligence and conversational AI will be crucial in this. Already in 2018, AI and machine learning were used to automate an estimated 25% of all customer contacts, and many businesses want to adopt AI over the next three years. The number is projected to climb as Covid-19 accelerates the requirement for customers to utilise self-service while they are restricted. Self-service may provide various advantages to a company. For starters, since 60 percent of customer service calls or requests are for repeated and simple activities, self-service has the potential to minimise significant quantities of calls to customer care centres. Furthermore, as consumer expectations rise, businesses must be able to deliver excellent services that are available 24/7, cost efficient, have omnichannel capabilities, and have data storage to make tailored offers. Personal gadgets are expected to know more about emotional states than family members by 2022, and the typical individual will have more chats with bots than with their spouses. 5.Develop a customer-obsessed mindset: Customer experience must be improved as a result of digital transformation. The value of customer experience is evident from the beginning of a company plan. Companies must take a comprehensive and enterprise-wide approach to customer experience. This includes not just front-end, customer-facing tasks, but also back-end ones. First and foremost, obsolete systems must be replaced with digital equivalents. 60% of customer satisfaction sources begin in the back office, and automating back offices may help certain industries save 30% of their income. Often, the significance of dealing with a large number of enquiries should not be underestimated. To guarantee that the consumer

experience is ideal, contact centres should have a customer-obsessed culture. Digitalization, social media, omnichannel capabilities, and sophisticated analytics have altered the customer-company connection. Because there is a two-way interaction between users and brands, the CIO must act as an intermediary between the business front and customers in order to decide the technologies that will transform the way the company operates while also strengthening the connection and experience with the customer. 6.Build trust and security: In the digital era, data is a priceless asset. Customers are hesitant to provide their personal information for free or to any firm. Trust is a valuable asset that must be earned. Customers also want to know that their information is safe and secure. Small and medium-sized enterprises may be vulnerable to hackers looking to exploit weaker security procedures. Businesses must address these issues by using safe technologies on cybersecurity platforms. In that sense, personalisation, speed, and convenience are just as vital as security and trust. While the essential principles of customer experience have stayed same, COVID-19 has introduced several improvements to the environment that have the potential to transform the way customer experience is treated. Here are the trends: 1.The level of competition is greater than ever before: Spending habits have been thrown off. People are hesitant to purchase as a consequence of massive job losses. Even those who have been lucky enough to maintain their employment are more frugal in their expenditures, either owing to a lack of alternatives or mostly due to caution. This has spurred rivalry among firms to add value to their services in order to stay ahead of the competition. The customer experience will be game-changing. 2.Digital channels are critical: Distribution routes have changed or been redefined. Covid-19 has impacted supply chains and export channels, and digital consumers prefer to utilise digital channels. It is more important than ever to provide omnichannel capability.

3.Contact centres are overburdened: Because of the ambiguities around Covid-19, consumers are more anxious than ever. Employees that work remotely are also affected. Companies must train to preserve or increase work capacities, as well as automate customer support so that they can handle demands around the clock. Businesses are offering HR services to deal with worried workers, as well as conversational AI systems to give a highquality customer experience to large numbers of users. 4.Some businesses want quick and dependable answers: Firms that are hesitant to embrace digital transformation will find themselves in the minority and at danger of falling behind in a highly competitive market. Many businesses have been rescued by digital solutions, but those who did not embrace digital transformation earlier must now hustle to find quick and effective ways to modify their customer journeys. Stats are more powerful than words. We disclosed some facts in the previous chapter that demonstrated the significance of digital transformation and its principles. To assist show how different sectors and multiple publications highlight the significance of this change, we have compiled a list of 60 figures that indicate how digital transformation is altering the globe. Regarding the implementation of digital transformation: 1. 70% of businesses have a digital strategy in place or are in the process of implementing one. 2. In 2019, businesses spent more than $2 trillion on digital transformation. 3. In 2019, digital transformation accounted for 40% of all IT investment. 4. 93 percent of businesses believe that innovation technologies are required to achieve their digital transformation objectives. 5. 86 percent of executives believe that change needs a mix of the correct culture, improved business procedures, and new technologies. 6. Eighty-nine percent of businesses have implemented a digital-first business strategy that can lead to digital transformation.

7. 55% of startups have already implemented a digital business strategy. 8.Services (95 percent), financial services (93 percent), and healthcare are the top digital business strategy adopters (92 percent ). 9. Six out of ten organisations that have gone through a digital transformation have developed new business models. 10. 52 percent of firms see "digital business" as a way to increase worker productivity using tools like AI-assisted workflows. 11. 68 percent of CEOs think that humans and AI will collaborate in the future of business. 12. While 87% of businesses believe digital will disrupt their sector, just 44% are prepared for a possible digital disruption. 13. Over the next three years, 65 percent of businesses feel optimistic about their capacity to respond to technological upheaval. 14.Only 7% of businesses have completed their digital transitions completely. 15. According to 70% of CEOs, digital transformation has grown much more critical to corporate success in the last two years. 16. 55 percent of organisations without a digital transformation feel they will lose market share in less than a year. 17. 59 percent of organisations that haven't begun a digital transformation worry it will be too late. 18. One in every five executives believes that their company's digital transformation activities are successful. 19 – 70% of digital transitions fail.The Advantages of Digital Transformation 20. According to executives, the top advantages of digital transformation are increased operational efficiency (40%), quicker time to market (36%), and the capacity to exceed consumer expectations (35 percent ). 21.84 percent of CEOs believe that when their firm digitally evolves, new business possibilities emerge. 22. Four out of every five organisations that have deployed digital

transformation technology believe they can add value to smart, connected goods throughout their lives. 23.According to 23.56 percent of CEOs, digital advancements have resulted in higher income. 24.A completely integrated digital-physical approach is used by 24.39 percent of outperforming organisations. 25. Digital-first businesses are 64% more likely than their counterparts to fulfil their business objectives. 26.The CIO leads 26.28 percent of digital changes, while the CEO owns 23 percent. 27. 70% of businesses believe their CEO has a sufficient or aboveaverage practical grasp of new technologies. 28.Employees believe that 28.37 percent of CEOs are impeding digital transformation projects. 29. 20% of workers felt their company's leadership is unsure what to do about digital transformation. 30.Cultural barriers are cited as the most significant hindrance to change initiatives by 30.63 percent of respondents. 31. Approximately 40% of businesses have specialised digital transformation teams in place. 32.According to 32% of firms, digital transformation activities encompass numerous business divisions or the whole company. 33.47 percent of functional CIOs collaborate with lines of business to develop a business case for new technological initiatives. 34.71 percent of businesses believe that the staff is very or very crucial in supporting digital transformation efforts. 35. Email has surpassed phone calls as the most popular customer care medium. 36.76% of businesses are investing in developing technologies. 37. Human resources, manufacturing, and legal are seen as the most likely to respond to technological change. 38.By 2022, intelligent systems will drive 70% of consumer encounters.

39.Cloud technology is important to digital transformation, according to 39.86 percent of businesses. 40.In 2019, 40% of organisations employed a multi-cloud approach, up from fewer than 10% in 2017. 41. According to 41.60 percent of CEOs, linked technologies and the Internet of Things will play a significant part in their company's digital strategy. 42. 80% of businesses have already used AI chatbots or expect to do so by 2020. 43. One-third of marketing executives think AI will result in the greatest improvement in customer experience. 44. More than two-thirds of global business executives feel that the future of business will entail humans and AI collaborating. 45.63 percent of clients are pleased with bot-assisted customer support if they may be routed to a live human agent if necessary. 46.Live chat services satisfy 46.92 percent of clients, making it the support channel with the greatest customer satisfaction. 47. By 2022, your personal gadget will be able to predict your mental condition better than your own family. 48. By 2020, the typical individual will converse with bots more than they would with their spouse. 49.The mobile customer experience is important to 49.84 percent of customer-centric businesses. 50.Consumers utilise mobile devices to engage with companies for customer care in 50.78 percent of cases. The figure rises to 90 percent of Millennials. 51. Almost 80% of Millennials are eager to buy from companies that provide a mobile customer support site. 52.65% of shoppers do online product research before visiting a physical store. 53. Approximately half of all customers communicate with customer support using mobile messaging applications. 54. Today, customer experience accounts for two-thirds of a

company's competitive advantage. 55.A customer experience given by a contact centre is seen as a competitive advantage by 55.62 percent of businesses. 56.67% of customers are willing to pay extra for a memorable experience. 57.The customer's perception of how they are handled accounts for 57.70% of the purchasing experience. 58.Consumers expected corporations to understand their requirements and expectations in 58.76 percent of cases. 59.Consumers that have an emotional attachment to a brand have a 306 percent greater lifetime value. 60.Loyal clients are five times more likely to purchase again and four times more likely to recommend the brand to relatives and friends. 61. Customers who have a negative experience with a website are 88% less likely to return. 62. Sixty-two percent of businesses are investing in omnichannel experiences. 63. When consumers have to repeat their inquiries to many customer care personnel, 63.89 percent of clients get annoyed. 64. Companies that provide excellent omnichannel experiences retain an average of 89 percent of their consumers. 65. Only half of businesses enable cross-channel interactions, despite the fact that 83 percent of customers demand the freedom to move between channels. We've seen how vital digital transformation is, but also how some businesses are still hesitant to face the difficulties and cultural transformations that come with it. Covid-19 has cast a light on areas of vulnerability within organisations. While many businesses had crisis plans in place, none of them included a global shutdown that would disrupt workforces, supply networks, and consumers. Despite governments' efforts to restore normalcy, or the "new normal," irrevocable changes have occurred as a consequence of Covid-19, affecting practically every sector. Businesses have had to assure continuity throughout this crisis, but dealing with the fast-paced and

unknown aspects of a pandemic has been tough. Among all the possibilities, broad quarantines, travel restrictions, and a lack of access to people were unexpected. Because of Covid-19, many industries have encountered new obstacles, and the epidemic has shown a distinct split between firms that had previously engaged in digital transformation and those that had not. People-intensive sectors with workers in offices, field technicians on the road, and customer service representatives in shops have had to swiftly adjust to a remote working environment in order to retain efficiency. The digital capabilities of any firm are important to the continuation of operations. Second, consumers have been unable to reach shops or branches, forcing them to rely on digital channels to get information, make inquiries, make purchases, or stay in touch with connections. As a result, contact centres have been inundated with calls from anxious consumers who have had to endure lengthy lines. Much has been made about the significance of digital transformation, and organisations have taken notice, making it a significant strategic goal on their agenda. It is no more a question of whether or if new technologies must be deployed, but of how. The Covid-19 epidemic has accelerated several digital transformation measures that were previously in place. However, due to the need of providing rapid, multichannel, and 24/7 solutions to a large number of clients, businesses have not had time to speculate on experimental ways and have had to rely on professionals who can be depended on. As a result, companies have been quick to see the potential of artificial intelligence and innovation to elevate their services and enhance their business models and customer experiences. Nothing could have prepared businesses for the implications of Covid-19 on every element of their operations. Future pandemics, as well as other hazards such as climate change, might have a similar impact on businesses. Businesses must improve their crisis management procedures while also incorporating resilience, adaptability, and scalability into their operations. Companies have been forced to adapt to changing scenarios due to new needs, client expectations, government restrictions, and safety standards. However, some of these solutions are only intended to address emergency requirements. Surviving Covid-19 and any future crises need a more comprehensive

digital transformation plan for organisations with complicated processes. There is a substantial chance of a second pandemic, and businesses must be prepared to meet it straight on, even if they are just getting back on their feet. Businesses must learn from the past in order to avoid making the same errors in the post-Covid-19 environment. On the midst of a crisis, it's tempting to get engrossed in tiny tragedies and overlook broader possibilities to go ahead of the curve. Companies that take the additional time to address difficulties in ways that might alter and effect business and culture in the future, rather than just reacting to the issue at hand, have a better chance of surviving future crises, according to history. Global crises have always had an immediate influence on altering the status quo, and Covid-19 is not the first pandemic to spur innovation in order to develop and survive. The Plague of Athens in 430 BC rebuilt the city's laws and identity; the Black Death in the Middle Ages altered the balance of class power in Europe; and outbreaks of Cholera in 19th Century London prompted the construction of city-wide embankments to supply sophisticated drainage systems. This time, the changes we will see will have an impact on how we work and the role of technology in changing work processes. Digital disruptors like as artificial intelligence, chatbots, IoT, and automation, like city embankments in the past, may serve as monuments for these new transformations. We don't have to go back centuries to discover how businesses effectively reacted to crises by modifying their company procedures. For example, just 9% of firms survived following the global financial meltdown in 2007, but they did so using a secret formula: a focus on operational efficiency and future investment. To stay up with the market's rapid changes, businesses must be willing to confront transition courageously and adjust their corporate processes or even reinvent themselves. Businesses are taking steps to reduce harm and boost consumer guarantees. This involves maintaining efficiency with remote personnel, dealing with fresh spikes in demand, and handling revenue difficulties with customers and partners who have been financially affected by the crisis. There is increasing anxiety about the prospect of new Covid-19 outbreaks or other crises of equal proportions, and industry officials want to be ready the next time and

take these actions during a lull in the storm. Covid-19, on the other hand, has provided both obstacles and opportunity. Consumers' typical activities may have been constrained while confined at home, yet new consumer habits have emerged to meet their wants. Consumers, for example, still need to remain connected and are looking to new internet channels to do so. Telecoms have made it possible for individuals to be connected, engaged, informed, and even fit through providing internet and mobile communication. In recent months, YouTube channels showcasing home exercises, such as Joe Wick's PE with Joe, have gained over 80 million views. The number of phone calls and teleconferences has skyrocketed. Zoom claimed an 800 percent rise in traffic in April compared to last December, while Skype recorded a 304 percent gain and Microsoft Teams users increased by 70 percent. During this time, messaging platforms benefited as well, and online video streaming saw an increase in traffic, with Netflix traffic increasing by 58% and YouTube traffic increasing by 13%. These increases have had a substantial impact on bandwidth consumption. Network use is growing, and customers want to contact their broadband and mobile providers but are having difficulty doing so. Simultaneously, several services, like Netflix and YouTube, have had to limit their speeds in order to cope with the tremendous surge in demand and avoid a broadband overload. Other consumers were concerned about network dependability as a result of surges in demand, connection drop-rates, and decreased video quality. Consumers have questions and requests, but they can't reach their service providers. The rapidity of digital change has resulted in an increase in client expectations, enquiries, and demands. Prior to the crisis, many businesses depended extensively on call centres to handle customer support and sales interactions. In many instances, these businesses sought to save expenses by outsourcing contact centre staff and labour-intensive back-office activities. When Covid-19 prompted lockdowns, several businesses were unable to utilise their offshore data centres. Shifting the load to onshore centres was not a viable approach. Enterprises were ill-equipped to meet the growing demand for new domestic contact centres while dealing with a significant drop in workforce and no mechanism to find or train new

workers. The limitation of access to labour contrasts with rising client expectations for 24-hour service and access to many digital platforms. Here, telecommunications have emphasised the significance of digital self-service, automation, and artificial intelligence in improving contact centre case resolutions and providing better customer insights and real-time choices. Consumers nowadays are tech-savvy and have high expectations of the companies with whom they engage. Companies at the forefront of digital transformation tend to cater to customers that have the most sophisticated and demanding expectations. Customers' behaviour is changing as a result of the increased speed of technological progress, which is increasing their demand in linked, smart, and automated features. With the launch of Conversational AI, more than a third of the population will belong to a generation that has replaced displayfocused communication platforms with conversation-focused platforms this decade. Companies must deliver the greatest digital technology and customer experience to combat rising customer turnover and a highly competitive market. Customer service has such a strong effect that one-third of customers would rethink their allegiance to a business if the customer service did not fulfil their expectations. Similarly, telcos who deliver amazing customer experiences in their contact centres have better referral rates, customer retention, revenue, and a higher possibility of cross-selling and providing extra services to their customers. Despite the enormous obstacles posed by the epidemic, firms who have undertaken digital transformation are profiting on their highly digitalized business models and becoming very public success stories. In this crisis, there are winners and losers, and this is also true in the telecommunications industry. As the new normal begins, transformational leaders in the sector will create and drive the "new normal" for this business, resulting in changes ranging from backoffice outsourcing to consumer service and contact. Businesses will never look at these difficulties the same way again. Furthermore, the many elements that provide businesses a competitive advantage have been adjusted. Whereas cost of operation was previously king, service

continuity will be the new ruler. Businesses will seek to see what they can learn from the winners. This will have far-reaching ramifications for technologies ranging from infrastructure and security to business process automation (BPA) and conversational AI. Greater digitalization will occur across all enterprises that are adapted to consumer needs and commodities, and as a result of this acceleration in digital transformation, companies will ensure that customer engagement and satisfaction, a clear differentiating factor in the market, is of the highest standards by remaining on the cutting edge of innovation. The Covid-19 problem will cause significant changes in company operations and procedures, as well as in how businesses service their consumers. Enterprises are looking for methods to replace physical services with digital equivalents, or to ensure that offers are delivered with as little physical interaction as possible. These new products must push businesses out of their comfort zones as they connect with new partners and platforms and seek possibilities to develop. However, the epidemic has created an opportunity to put innovative technologies in the limelight in order to test-run their future roles in the new normalcy. During the Covid-19 epidemic, artificial intelligence played a significant role. Along with pharmaceutical businesses and charitable groups, governments are utilising AI to detect and anticipate the spread of the virus, as well as in training for artificial medication discoveries and therapies. Natural language processing has also entered the mix. NLP has been used to analyse social media messages for posts mentioning certain illnesses. Robots and drones have also been utilised to penetrate regions where humans are not permitted. The necessity for conversational AI to be deployed has also increased, particularly as a go-to-point for individuals experiencing mass-shortages, discomfort during the early phases of confinement, or adjusting to new online services as a consequence of the closure of physical branches and businesses. Covid-19 has changed the way companies and their workers engage at work. These shifts have presented new issues for HR and IT departments, who must now find methods to accommodate a large number of workers across several time zones. Companies have discovered answers via digital transformation. With most employees unable to return to their physical

workstations until the crisis has passed, organisations that depend on remote workers are quickly integrating technology such as HR chatbots and communication and collaboration platforms to maintain productivity levels. In the Covid-19 pandemic time, There has also been an increase in the rate of digital transformation in healthcare. AI is being used in medical services to make faster choices. Some radiologists, for example, are utilising AI deep learning to improve the diagnosis of chest X-rays. Furthermore, since physicians care to patients remotely, telemedicine has experienced a significant increase. Despite the fact that technology has been around for a while, telemedicine has yet to gain widespread acceptance among healthcare consumers and professionals. However, the demand for virtual health guidance is increasing as a result of the desire to avoid people with Covid-19 symptoms from overloading hospitals and clinics. Asynchronous telemedicine, which does not require face-to-face meetings, is also on the rise, as are health management platforms that allow diabetics, for example, to monitor their glucose levels via mobile apps and assistants that can provide personalised recommendations and address potential issues before they occur. AI and Telemedicine aren't the only ways in which digital transformation has impacted the healthcare industry. Electronic health records, genetic testing, pharma IoT, wearable monitoring devices, and even robotic surgery are examples of cutting-edge medical technology. Medicine isn't the only aspect of health. Gyms and fitness companies have resorted to social media and apps to keep their businesses afloat, offering virtual courses, exercises, nutritional advice, and tools to help individuals manage stress and inspire themselves at home. The banking sector has been a major actor in digital transformation, and as a consequence of Covid-19, it has had to adjust to new developments. Finance and banking are accustomed to embracing disruptors, from mobile banking applications to blockchain and smart ATMs to virtual assistants and chatbots. Covid-19 has increased the pressure on banks to give innovative digital solutions to their consumers. Blockchain, peer-to-peer transfers, and digital identity verification are certainly innovative technologies that are being deployed by some banks, but a key challenge that has arisen and

must be addressed as a result of Covid-19 was the lack of access to employees and branches as a result of confinement and the risks of future confinement. Banks have recognised that, sooner rather than later, human aid in banking may be reduced to a bare minimum. Physical branches are shutting, and robots are proven to do the work quicker, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and in certain circumstances, with powerful conversational AI, they can provide a greater customer experience. Chatbots are being utilised to improve customer service by not only offering information and individualised recommendations, but also doing operations such as renewing insurance, processing refunds, and altering credit card limitations. Conversational AI has also assisted banks in using both robots and people to create better customer experiences by aiding in the prevention of fraud and the management of internal operations. According to an Accenture research, over 80% of bankers believe that advances in AI would allow banks to provide a "human-like client experience," with 76 percent expecting that robots will lead the way in consumer engagement within the next three years. The telecommunications industry has always been an early adopter of digital technology, and it is used to implementing new business models and upgrading its worldwide network via the improved use of real-time data, new technologies, and better customer service. Telecoms have benefited from more sophisticated consumer analytics with Big Data, as well as the digitalization of order management and enhanced IT interfaces, to name a few new digital transformation technologies that have had an influence on their company. They have, however, excelled in the use of self-service CRMs, business automation, and artificial intelligence. In a mobile-first era, telecommunications companies have resorted to machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), adjusting their methods to become more customer-centric. Covid-19, like the financial industry, has increased the need to improve their customer experience in order to handle difficulties for consumers with growing demand who are limited at home. The increased demand for better broadband deals and smart home assistants has resulted in a significant increase in calls to contact centres and telecoms using conversational AI to resolve technical issues, improve fraud prevention, and increase workforce

productivity by allowing human agents to focus on back-office operations and training while chatbots tend to the customer. Furthermore, telecommunications have put their confidence in chatbots that can learn about consumers and customise future encounters, delivering personalised advise across numerous channels, and increasing revenues via promotions and cross-selling that are suited to each customer's preferences. Chatbots assist telecommunications by doing more than only resolving enquiries, but also by carrying out smooth operations, creating accounts, recommending better offers, and making customised upgrades by increasing RPA integration with these platforms. Covid-19, like Telecoms, has had a significant influence on media provision, consumption, and advertising. With individuals confined to their homes, the demand for material, whether streaming, live, or multi-player, has risen dramatically. During the epidemic, live sports, comedies, and movies have been mostly halted, and some firms have resorted to eSports to communicate with consumers. Major advertisers in sports brands have also come under significant pressure, losing revenue or even becoming inappropriate during social distancing and confinement, as has been the case with online gambling firms, which have been urged to implement betting caps as confinement has increased riskier bets and gambling addiction to compensate for a lack of sporting and casino closures. The growth of entertainment and streaming firms has been explosive, and the aforementioned drop in video quality to maintain network reliability has had a knock-on impact on the telecommunications industry. While theme parks, theatres, museums, and sports arenas have reported revenue losses, the growing demand for all forms of online media has put additional pressure on streaming platforms to release content early, while musicians are going online and relying on music streaming platforms to make up for cancelled shows, and consumers have switched live-events for gaming and eSports. In terms of conventional media, like as the press, the continuous fall of printed newspapers has been further exacerbated during the epidemic as they concentrate on their digital sites. To compensate for the loss of advertising and income, several online publications that formerly offered free content have forced to switch to paid offers.

Digital revolution has had a significant impact on retail, and Covid-19 has placed further adjustments on this highly competitive industry. Customers want their purchasing experiences to be as easy, quick, customised, and convenient as possible. Because individuals are confined to their homes and spend so much time on their mobile devices, they connect with their businesses many more times via remarketing campaigns and advertising. E-commerce and online shopping have grown substantially as individuals seek methods to purchase items without going to shops, whether for convenience or due to financial constraints. With individuals locked at home, purchases of certain things and apparel such as workplace attire have decreased, while searches for home gadgets, voice-tech devices, furniture, pleasant summer outfits, or food, for example, have increased. With consumers utilising so many devices and accessing their brands via so many different touchpoints, there is a rising demand in the industry to cater to seamless omnichannel user experiences. In a sector that does not shy away from digital innovation and has found a greater need to find new solutions with Covid-19, digital transformation in retail has also been characterised by selfservice purchases and conversational platforms that tend to customer needs are also being met with mobile notifications announcing the availability of items, VR "see how it fits" options, and the ability to shop whole outfits on mannequins by scanning QR codes. While most CIOs understand the necessity of undertaking a digital transformation, many are unsure of what the critical stages are when developing a digital transformation plan. As ambiguous as it may sound, the steps are not written in stone, and each company must set out to ensure that whatever digital transformation business strategy it embarks on is fully tailored to its objectives, finances, infrastructure, and culture, or that it is prepared to make significant changes within its enterprises to adapt to a new corporate environment. While each company has its own approach to implementing technology improvements, the process may be difficult and fraught with danger. CIOs must have a clear vision and a comprehensive digital transformation plan. Given that these tactics need extensive research, risk assessments, and budget modifications, it's easy to see why so many digital transformation programmes fail. It is critical to have a

defined digital transformation plan. But what exactly is it? And how do you go about putting it together? Businesses must first define their digital transformation strategy and comprehend what it entails. A digital transformation strategy is a plan of action that outlines and gives a framework for how a company should position itself strategically in the digital economy. Enterprises must innovate and outline operational and business model adjustments to absorb evolving technology and stay competitive in the market by taking into account changing consumer behaviours. Sure, new technology have always been employed by organisations to help them develop. But why is it now so crucial and transformative? It has an impact on a company in areas other than IT, such as the creative minds tasked with engaging customers with new user-experience and digital market tactics, management teams tasked with reshaping a business and aligning operating models with new business models to increase profits, the product itself, and C-suite executives who overlook the enterprise. The corporate environment is always evolving, adapting, innovating, and confronted with disruption. Businesses must be ready to adapt to this fast changing climate. Adopting new technology and updating or bringing in new equipment to the firm, on the other hand, is simply one component of a comprehensive digital transformation plan. CIOs must foresee future technology and generate their own innovation. This is where digital transformation techniques come into play. One of the benefits of designing digital transformation plans is that CIOs can understand where their company is today, where it wants to go, and how to get there. CIOs must be thoroughly aware on their business processes, operations, and goals in order to identify issues that need to be resolved, capitalise on their strengths, reduce risks, and move quickly to execute these choices in order to remain ahead of the competition. To begin, CIOs must assess the status of their organisation in order to establish where they are starting their journey and what needs to be done to take the firm ahead. CIOs must analyse their digital infrastructure, identify the important components needed for their plan, and have a strong grasp of their existing environment. This entails

identifying holes in legacy systems, business and operational processes, and company culture that may be filled by digital transformation. Without a comprehensive assessment of the company's systems, only isolated sections of the firm will become more digital. Without coherence and a digital spine to tie the organisation together, fragmented initiatives will provide no real outcomes other than digitised copies of traditional processes and services, and digital transformation programmes will fail. A good diagnosis will offer the CIO with insights and awareness of the enterprise's existing status as well as the problems that must be addressed and conquered in order to achieve new goals. Recognizing the need for a digital transformation is a vital first step, as is developing a strategy and equipping yourself to carry it out. The most effective digital transformation plan examples are usually tailored to the individual objectives of each firm. Whether it is employing data and sophisticated analytics to create better-informed marketing campaigns, upgrading e-commerce and digital campaign tactics, using cloud solutions, or implementing new technology, each organisation must respond to its own unique demands. Here are six short suggestions to keep in mind as you prepare your digital transformation strategy: 1. Invest in technology that can help you enhance your business models and increase efficiency while bringing you closer to your clients. These solutions must be appealing to both consumers and staff, as well as simplify their activities. Begin digital transformation initiatives by selecting technology that have been proved to be efficient rather than new, untested alternatives. These must be customer-ready and capable of meeting their needs in order to promote brand loyalty. 2. Improve security to guarantee that there are no vulnerabilities in the system. CIOs must not take cybersecurity threats lightly because they have the potential to severely disrupt corporate operations and procedures. 3. Establish and trust a Research and Development team in order to effectively use IT systems. While it is critical to choose established onmarket solutions, R&D teams may increase the usability of these

solutions inside the organisation and play a significant role in the selection process. 4. Use analytics and data to uncover patterns and trends. These actionable insights may propel your company to new heights and provide answers to corporate inquiries about system issues or client preferences. 5. Develop digital solutions that can be integrated with different channels and digital systems while providing scalability to allow the firm to expand with it. 6. Avoid relying on outdated procedures and teach your employees to embrace digital change. Because digital transformation affects the whole organisation, building communication channels to promote inter-departmental collaboration while undergoing digital transformation is an important component of a digital transformation plan. Many required regarding the impact that digital disruptors will have in the future. Covid-19 has hastened the necessity to implement specific technologies in order to predict which trends are urgent and will be major characteristics in the near future. Some of these tendencies have been noted below. 1. Data will play a larger role than ever before. We've discussed the significance of big data in the post-Covid era. Data and sophisticated analytics will play an important part in company cultures and decision making. Companies that deal with large volumes of client data may use it to give real-time business insight. More firms will invest in Business Intelligence (BI) software. 2. Big Data will be accompanied by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Given that businesses will invest in analytics and BI tools, AI and Machine Learning will assist businesses in navigating the massive amounts of data that they will accumulate. Complex data may be examined quickly, effectively, and intuitively with these two. AI may employ data algorithms to determine consumer preferences and depend on predictive analytics and propensity models to forecast their

behaviour, making it a valuable tool for any firm. 3. There will be a significant move toward digital labour and RPAs. RPAs and automation are not new, but with Covid-19, more businesses will seek to harness solutions that enable them to maintain operations in the case of a crisis while reducing reliance on humans. Many firms will utilise RPA to automate jobs as well as upskill and value their current workforces. Gartner expects RPA software investment to reach $1.3 billion this year, with Forrester projecting a $2.9 billion RPA software market in 2021. RPAs have the potential to improve many operational processes by lowering costs, increasing efficiency, and relieving people of repetitive activities, giving them more time to work on more cognitively challenging jobs. To get the most out of RPA, organisations must connect it with additional technologies like conversational AI platforms, machine learning, and smart workflow tools to create richer experiences and achieve end-toend digital transformation. 4. Conversational AI will solidify its position as a crucial solution. In the past, many businesses were hesitant to invest extensively in chatbots or digital assistants. Conversational AI, on the other hand, has come a long way in recent years. Today's top conversational AI systems can do more than just interpret messages; they can also follow complicated discussions, identify emotions and intents using machine learning and natural language processing, and do jobs in addition to interacting. Modern chatbots can match new consumer expectations for immediacy, personalisation, and a high level of customer service. Enterprises will want industrial-grade apps that are human-like, competent, and resilient, while also delivering the scalability, multiuse, omnichannel, and multilingual capabilities that intelligent platforms are anticipated to provide. These platforms, thankfully, already exist. 5. 5G is on the increase. 5G will hit the ground running in 2020. To fulfil growing consumer expectations, the largest brands in telecoms are ensuring that 5G technology will deliver faster internet speeds and more dependable mobile networks. 5G will have a wide-ranging impact on breakthroughs in smart city and smart vehicle development, as well as

IoT-intensive technologies. 6. Wi-Fi will improve connection. Customers who work from home or go online for everyday activities and enjoyment will benefit from substantially quicker processing and connection speeds with Wi-Fi 6. 5G and Wi-Fi 6 will coexist, with the former being utilised for outside activities and the latter being favoured for inside and business environments. Wi-Fi 6 will provide faster internet rates to more devices and with greater data volumes than its predecessor. With more devices expected to connect to Wi-Fi networks, Wi-Fi capabilities that are quicker, smarter, and more efficient are necessary. 7. User and Customer Experience (UX/CX) will continue to be at the forefront. Because the success of digital transformation is linked to user and customer experience, corporate expenditures in digital transformation will be influenced by these factors. Technologies that can be used to improve UX/CX will become more important now that they have become significant brand differentiators. Covid-19 has emphasised the need of connectivity (5G, Wi-Fi 6), cloud storage, intelligent automation (RPA, AI), and user-friendly interfaces that cater to client expectations, such as Conversational AI. By 2020, these technologies will be prevalent across all sectors. 8. Workplaces will evolve Covid-19 has marked a watershed moment in the way people work. Mobility, job flexibility, and workplace spaces will all be altered in the future. Along with the requirement to maintain distance in the workplace and enable digital capabilities to stay in touch from distant places, HR departments must ensure workers have points of contact. The relevance of digital portals and AI-powered staff assistance has expanded. Employees will expect more from their companies, and the tenet that businesses must be people-centric will also apply to them. Employees, particularly millennials, want office technology to reach the same high standards as consumer technology. According to a poll, 42 percent of millennials would leave a job with "substandard technology." Millennials favour higher-value work and are dissatisfied with repeated operations due to obsolete technologies. This is where

automation, AI, and conversational AI may help enhance the work environment by assisting people in using work-technology to do their tasks more effectively. The OCIO will need to guarantee that training capacities are up to grade for the 44 percent of employees who lack fundamental digital skills. 9. It will be necessary to learn new digital abilities. New technology will fuel innovation and enhance job market competitiveness for skills. Many employment responsibilities will be based on functional, professional, and digital abilities. In the future, 90 percent of occupations are expected to need digital capabilities, and 71 percent of CEOs say the workforce is critical to their digital transformation plan. Organizations will prioritise digital talent development while realigning their business and operational processes to adapt to the shifting business environment. 10. There will be a better appreciation for data privacy. Recent privacy breaches by technology firms, the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU, and proposals to place greater limits on digital behemoths may result in more corporations taking a more serious position on privacy and data security. GDPR penalty of up to 20 million euros, or 4% of the prior year's annual global revenue, demonstrate the gravity of noncompliance with these requirements. This has been seen by a slew of businesses throughout Europe. Furthermore, although customer experience is a major brand differentiator, a customer's loyalty is impacted by the privacy and openness of the business with which they engage, particularly when it comes to contributing their data. Companies should be urged to maintain cybersecurity and provide opt-in or opt-out options in data gathering schemes, however whether certain internet behemoths will follow through on this is dubious. What are the most popular digital transformation technologies? 1.Smart Contracts and Blockchain: Blockchain technology arose primarily as a result of traditional systems' lack of openness and security. Trust in the system is assured by central firms in fields such as banking, insurance, and healthcare.

Customers may exchange their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Personal Health Information (PHI) and make transactions in a safe, verifiable way thanks to blockchain technology. Smart contracts are one of the most frequent blockchain applications (after money) and allow for the elimination of middlemen, enhancing efficiency. The technology has the ability to significantly reduce trust difficulties when interacting with third parties. 2.Cloud Computing (Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud): Because of the growing amount of data, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premise cloud solutions are becoming increasingly popular among enterprises. Cloud solutions answer the demand for scalability, removing the need for enterprises to move data across systems as their operations expand. Cloud technology, in addition to providing scalability advantages, may also ensure compliance with privacy and security standards. Companies should bear in mind, however, that cloud expenditures may be prohibitively costly when compared to the fees that must be paid for underused services. The costs of cloud computation, storage, and networking may quickly pile up. In this aspect, aiming to reduce cloud expenses may boost cloud users' profitability. 3.Cybersecurity: The DX's goal is to use data and technology that transform data into insights in order to provide improved services and operational excellence. According to Forbes, one hack occurs every 11 seconds now, and that ratio will increase by 2031, reaching one cyberattack every 2 seconds. As the amount of data that organisations must safeguard grows and we hear more tales about data breaches that cost firms millions of dollars, the need for cybersecurity tools will rise. You may adopt the following security solutions: i)Cyber threat intelligence (CTI): Data gathering and analysis to learn about present and future dangers to an organisation so that it may take action before a data breach happens. ii)Endpoint security solutions protect corporate assets including PCs, laptops, and mobile devices linked to the company's network against unwanted activity.

iii)Identity and access management (IAM) guarantees that certain tools and data sets are only accessible to the relevant individuals and job responsibilities in your business. iv)AI-powered cybersecurity solutions: Using AI-powered cybersecurity solutions will enhance both cyber and physical security. Such solutions, however, may not be mature or especially successful right now. v)Cybersecurity Insurance: By obtaining cybersecurity insurance, businesses may reduce the financial impact of cyber assaults. 4.Data Security: Data privacy laws, such as the GDPR in the EU and the CCPA in California, compel businesses to invest in privacy-enhancing technology (PETs). Some technologies, such as data masking solutions, have been on the agendas of most enterprises for a long time. This is becoming more relevant as a result of use cases such as: i)Artificial intelligence advancements enhance the need to share data with third-party analytics suppliers in order to construct machine learning models for automating operational choices. ii)A solid quality assurance procedure requires realistic test data. Using technologies such as synthetic data creation, test data management (TDM) solutions allow enterprises to utilise realistic data while protecting private information. 5.Extensive Learning (Deep Neural Networks): i)Deep learning is a technology that, because of its capacity to handle data at scale, can power the majority of cutting-edge and creative applications. However, in the context of DX, applying deep learning often entails one of the following: ii)Computer Vision is a technology that allows AI models to draw meaning from visual inputs such as photographs and videos. It's commonly utilised in deep learning applications including driverless cars, medical imaging, and security. Computer Vision is divided into the following categories: iii)Object Detection: Detects and identifies items in visual data. iv)Item tracking: Detects the same object in many photographs and so

comprehends its movement. v)3D Pose Estimation: a technique for estimating an object's transformation using a user-defined reference location provided by an image or a 3D scan. 6.Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of (DL) concerned with the creation of computer capabilities capable of understanding, processing, and producing human language. As a result, NLP enhances operations such as customer service, tailored marketing activities, fraud detection, and so forth. NLP is divided into the following categories: i)Conversational AI is a technology that allows robots to converse like humans by detecting voice and text, comprehending intents, and reacting in human-like fashion. ii)Sentiment Analysis is a method that assists robots in distinguishing between emotions such as joyful, sad, furious, calm, and so on. iii)Information extraction is a technique that enables computers to glean meaning from unstructured or semi-structured material. iv)The practise of categorising documents based on their content is known as document categorization. v)Text summarization is an NLP approach that allows humans to consume enormous amounts of text more quickly. 7.Recommender Systems: Recommender systems can forecast people's desires and requirements by leveraging data from prior actions of consumers. This raises earnings while while ensuring client pleasure. Companies such as Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify utilise them. With the amount of public data accessible online nowadays, businesses may use web crawlers like Bright Data to gather and aggregate data from internet resources for a variety of purposes including constructing AI models, market research, consumer sentiment analysis, or even candidate sourcing. 8.Virtual Twins: Virtual clones of actual items like as equipment, people, processes, or systems are known as digital twins, and they aid organisations in

making model-driven choices. Manufacturing, insurance, healthcare, supply chain, automation, and retail are some of the major sectors that use digital twin applications. 9.Edge Computing and IoT: For a long time, we've seen IoT devices used in various applications, such as predictive maintenance. Advances in edge computing and analytics, on the other hand, are allowing companies to spend more in IoT, IoT's extensions: internet of behaviours (IoB), autonomous things (AuT), and edge analytics. These two technologies should be used by businesses when: i)The conditions under which data should be obtained are unsuitable for human measurement. ii)Rapid changes and slow reactions to changes in the corporate environment may have a substantial negative impact on productivity. 10.Omnichannel: Omnichannel systems enable businesses to provide a consistent consumer experience across several channels. To align with the customer-centric goals of DX initiatives, the omnichannel approach places the customer at the centre of the organisation. 11.Mining for Processes: Prioritizing bottlenecks to overcome is beneficial, but it has always been a challenge for organisations. There may be anecdotal evidence that something is stifling production, but without proof, it is difficult to confirm these claims. Process mining technology enables businesses to mine processes in order to identify bottlenecks and improve process performance. Process optimization is an example of a process mining application. i)Identifying the factors that reduce monthly revenue ii)Identifying the fundamental reasons of order changes that result in rework iii)Identifying manual tasks that can be automated iv)There are around 30 commercial uses for process mining. v)Extraction of data vi)Updates to data

vii)Validation of data 12.Automation of Robotic Processes: According to Gartner, the fastest-growing section of the worldwide corporate software industry is robotic process automation (RPA). And, as of 2021, RPA's popularity has not waned, with organisations continuing to employ RPA software to utilise the potential of automation in a variety of use cases. The following are some examples of repetitive back-office jobs where firms might benefit from RPA to boost operational efficiency: i)Entering data ii)Extraction of data iii)Updates to data iv)Validation of data v)Processing of invoices vi)Automation of payroll vii)Preparation of periodic reports 13.Quantum Computing: Quantum computing is a powerful computer method for simulating the actual world. Its uses are mostly focused on: i)Material optimization/healthcare research ii)Cryptography/espionage 14.Mining for Tasks: Using technologies such as screen capture, task mining technology analyses user interaction data and assists businesses in understanding how people perform jobs. Businesses may better understand their processes and take particular steps for process improvement by integrating this technology with process mining. As seen below, digital technology is transforming every sector and business function, resulting in rising interest in AI, its subdomains, and related subjects such as machine learning and data science. However, we observe that interest in AI has been falling since the COVID-19 outbreak, as indicated by Google searches for AI. This might be due to heightened attention in COVID-19 and its

consequences during this time period. However, this varies by sector and application; for example, we witness growing interest in AI in manufacturing throughout the same time period. In 2018, 37% of firms were attempting to outline their AI plans. Since then, there has been substantial development, and according to a recent McKinsey poll, 56% of firms are utilising AI in at least one business function. To incorporate AI into your own company, you must first determine how AI can fulfil your needs and potential use cases for AI in your industry. I've compiled a list of the most popular use cases in marketing, sales, customer service, security, data, technology, and other areas where digital transformation is making vast growth with the help of AI:

HealthTech: i)Patient Data Analytics: Analyze patient and/or 3rd party data to discover insights and suggest actions. Greater accuracy by assisted diagnostics. Lower the mortality rates and increase patient satisfaction by using all the diagnostic data available to detect the underlying reasons for the symptoms. ii)Personalized Medications and Care: Find the best treatment plans according to patient data. Provide custom-tailored solutions for your patients. By using their medical history, genetic profile, you can create a custom medication or care plan. iii)Drug Discovery: Find new drugs based on previous data and medical intelligence. Lower your R&D cost and increase the output — all leading to greater efficiency. Integrate FDA data, and you can transform your drug discovery by locating market mismatches and FDA approval or rejection rates. iv)Real-Time Prioritization and Triage: Prescriptive analytics on patient data enabling accurate real-time case prioritization and triage. Manage your patient flow by automatization. Integrate your call center and use language processing tools to extract the information, priorate patients that need urgent care, and lower your error rates. Eliminate error-prone decisions by optimizing patient care. v)Early Diagnosis: Analyze chronic conditions leveraging lab data and other medical data to enable early diagnosis. Provide a detailed

report on the likelihood of the development of certain diseases with genetic data. Integrate the right care plan for eliminating or reducing the risk factors. vi)Assisted or Automated Diagnosis & Prescription: Suggest the best treatment based on the patient complaint and other data. Put in place control mechanisms that detect and prevent possible diagnosis errors. Find out which active compound is most effective against that specific patient. Get the right statistics for superior care management. vii)Pregnancy Management: Monitor mother and fetus health to reduce mothers’ worries and enable early diagnosis. Use machine learning to uncover potential risks and complications quickly. Lower the rates of miscarriage and pregnancy-related diseases. viii)Medical Imaging Insights: Advanced medical imaging to analyze and transform images and model possible situations. Use diagnostic platforms equipped with high image processing capabilities to detect possible diseases. ix)Healthcare Market Research: Prepare hospital competitive intelligence by tracking market prices. See the available insurance plans, drug prices, and many more public data to optimize your services. Leverage NLP tools to analyze the vast size of unstructured data. x)Healthcare Brand Management and Marketing: Create an optimal marketing strategy for the brand based on market perception and target segment. Tools that offer high granularity will allow you to reach the specific target and increase your sales. xi)Gene Analytics and Editing: Understand gene and its component. Predict the impact of gene edits. Before using gene therapy, use models the uncover what are the possible outcomes and find are the other solutions. xii)Device and Drug Comparative Effectiveness: Analyze drug and medical device effectiveness. Rather than just using simulations, test on other patient’s data to see the effectiveness of the new drug, compare your results with benchmark drugs to make an impact with the drug. xiii)Healthcare chatbot: Use a chatbot to schedule patient

appointments, give information about certain diseases or regulations, fill in patient information, handle insurance inquiries, and provide mental health assistance. According to a 2021 poll of global marketers, 41 percent of respondents reported a rise in revenue growth and enhanced performance as a result of using AI in their marketing initiatives. Marketing may be defined as providing the right offer, the right message, at the right time, via the appropriate channel, while always learning. Companies may use AI-powered technologies to better understand their consumers, develop more attractive content, and conduct targeted marketing campaigns to achieve success. With consumer data, AI can deliver precise insights and recommend clever marketing strategies that have a direct impact on earnings. The top three Digital Transformation use cases in marketing are as follows: 1.Marketing analytics: AI systems learn from, analyze, and measure marketing efforts. These solutions track media activity and provide insights into PR efforts to highlight what is driving engagement, traffic, and revenue. As a result, companies can provide better and more accurate marketing services to their customers. Besides PR efforts, AI-powered marketing analytics can lead companies to identify their customer groups more accurately. By discovering their loyal customers, companies can develop accurate marketing strategies and also retarget customers who have expressed interest in products or services before. 2.Personalized Marketing: The more companies understand their customers, the better they serve them. AI can assist companies in this task and support them in giving personalized experiences for customers. As an example, suppose you visited an online store and looked at a product but didn’t buy it. Afterward, you see that exact product in digital ads. More than that, companies can send personalized emails or special offers and recommend new products that go along with customers’ tastes. 3.Context-Aware Marketing: You can leverage machine vision and natural language processing (NLP) to understand the context where your ads will be served. With context-aware advertising, you can protect your brand and increase marketing efficiency by ensuring your

message fits its context, making static images on the web come alive with your messages.

4.Pre-Sales i)Sales Forecasting: Digital Transformation allows automatic and accurate sales forecasts based on all customer contacts and previous sales outcomes. Automatically forecast sales accurately based on all customer contacts and previous sales outcomes. Give your sales personnel more sales time while increasing forecast accuracy. Hewlett Packard Enterprise indicates that it has experienced a 5x increase in forecast simplicity, speed, and accuracy with Clari’s sales forecasting tools. ii)Lead generation: Use a comprehensive data profile of your visitors to identify which companies your sales reps need to connect. Generate leads for your sales reps leveraging databases and social networks

5.Sales i)Sales Data Input Automation: Data from various sources will be effortlessly and intelligently copied into your CRM. Automatically sync calendar, address book, emails, phone calls, and messages of your salesforce to your CRM system. Enjoy better sales visibility and analytics while giving your sales personnel more sales time. ii)Predictive sales/lead scoring: Use Artificial Intelligence to enable predictive sales. Score leads to prioritize sales rep actions based on lead scores and contact factors. Sales forecasting is automated with increased accuracy thanks to systems’ granular access to lead scores and sales rep performance. For scoring leads, these systems leverage anonymized transaction data from their customers, sales data of this specific customer. For assessing contact factors, these systems leverage anonymized data and analyze all customer contacts such as email and calls. iii)Sales Chatbot: Chatbots are ideal to answer first customer questions. If the chatbot decides that it can not adequately serve the customer, it can pass those customers to human agents. Let 24/7 functioning, intelligent, self-improving bots handle making initial contacts to leads. High value, responsive leads will be called by live

agents, increasing sales effectiveness. 6.AI-based agent coaching: Both AI and emotion AI can be leveraged to coach sales reps and customer service employees by: i)Sales Rep Response Suggestions: AI will suggest responses during live conversations or written messages with leads. Bots will listen in on agents’ calls suggesting best practice answers to improve sales effectiveness ii)Sales Rep Next Action Suggestions: Your sales reps’ actions and leads will be analyzed to suggest the next best action. This situation wise solution will help your representatives to find the right way to deal with the issue. Historical data and profile of the agent will help you to achieve higher results. All are leading to more customer satisfaction. 7.Sales Content Personalization and Analytics: Preferences and browsing behavior of high priority leads are analyzed to match them with the right content, aimed to answer their most important questions. Personalize your sales content and analyze its effectiveness allowing continuous improvement. i)Retail Sales Bot: Use bots on your retail floor to answer customer’s questions and promote products. Engage with the right customer by analyzing the profile. Computer vision will help you to provide the right action depending on the characteristics and mimics of the customer. ii)Meeting Setup Automation (Digital Assistant): Leave a digital assistant to set up meetings freeing your sales reps time. Decide on the targets to prioritize and keep your KPI’s high. iii)Prescriptive Sales: Most sales processes exist in the mind of your sales reps. Sales reps interact with customers based on their different habits and observations. Prescriptive sales systems prescribe the content, interaction channel, frequency, price based on data on similar customers.

8.Analytics As Gartner discusses, sales analytic systems provide functionality that supports discovery, diagnostic, and predictive exercises that enable the manipulation of parameters, measures, dimensions, or figures as part of an analytic or planning exercise. AI algorithms can automate the data collection process and present solutions to improve sales

performance. i)Customer Sales Contact Analytics: Analyze all customer contacts, including phone calls or emails, to understand what behaviors and actions drive sales. Advanced analytics on all sales call data to uncover insights to increase sales effectiveness ii)Sales Call Analytics: Advanced analytics on call data to uncover insights to increase sales effectiveness. See how well your conversation flow performs. Integrating data on calls will help you to identify the performance of each component in your sales funnels. iii)Sales attribution: Leverage big data to attribute sales to marketing and sales efforts accurately. See which step of your sales funnel performs better. Pinpoint the low performing part by the insights provided by analysis. iv)Sales Compensation: Determine the right compensation levels for your sales personnel. Decide on the right incentive mechanism for the sales representatives. By using the sales data, provide objective measures, and continuously increase your sales representatives’ performance.

9.AI Analytics 9.1General solutions i)Analytics Platform: Empower your employees with unified data and tools to run advanced analyses. Quickly identify problems and provide meaningful insights. ii)Analytics Services: Satisfy your custom analytics needs with these e2e solution providers. Vendors are there to help you with your business objectives by providing turnkey solutions. iii)Automated Machine Learning (autoML): Machines helping data scientists optimize machine learning models. With the rise of data and analytics capabilities, automation is needed in data science. AutoML automates time consuming machine learning tasks, enabling companies to deploy models and automate processes faster.

9.2.Specialized solutions i)Geo-Analytics Platform: Enables analysis of granular satellite imagery for predictions. Leverage spatial data for your business goals.

Capture the changes in any landscape on the fly. ii)Conversational Analytics: Use conversational interfaces to analyze your business data. Natural Language Processing is there to help you with voice data and more. Automated analysis of reviews and suggestions. iii)Real-Time Analytics: Real-Time Analytics for your time-sensitive decisions. Act timely and keep your KPI’s intact. Use machine learning to explore unstructured data without any disruptions. iv)Image Recognition and Visual Analytics: Analyze visual data with advanced image and video recognition systems. Meaningful insights can be derived from the data piles of images and videos. v)E-Commerce Analytics: Specialized analytics systems designed to deal with the explosion of e-commerce data. Optimize your funnel and customer traffic to maximize your profits.

9.3Customer Service i)Social Listening & Ticketing: Leverage Natural Language Processing and machine vision to identify customers to contact and respond to them automatically or assign them to relevant agents, increasing customer satisfaction. Use the data available in social networks to uncover whom to sell and what to sell. ii)Intelligent Call Routing: Route calls to most capable agents available. Intelligent routing systems incorporate data from all customer interactions optimizing customer satisfaction. Based on the customer profile and your agent’s performance, make it possible to provide the right service with the right agent. Reach superior net promoter scores. Feel free to read case studies about matching customer to right agent. iii)Call Classification: Leverage Natural Language Processing to understand what customer is trying to achieve enabling your agents to focus on higher value-added activities. Before channeling the call, detect the nature of your customers’ needs and let the right department handle the problem. Enhance efficiency with higher satisfaction rates. iv)Voice Authentication: Authenticate customers without passwords leveraging biometry to improve customer satisfaction and reduce

issues related to forgotten passwords. Their unique voice id will be their most secure key for accessing confidential information. Instead of the last four digits of SSN, customers will gain access by using their voice. v)Call Intent Discovery: Leverage Natural Language Processing and machine learning to estimate and manage customer’s intent (e.g., churn) to improve customer satisfaction and business metrics. Sentiment analysis through the customer’s voice level and pitch. Detect the micro-emotions that drive the decision-making process. vi)Customer Service Response Suggestions: Bots will listen in on agents’ calls suggesting best practice answers to improve customer satisfaction and standardize customer experience. Increase upsells and cross-sells by giving the right suggestion. Responses will be standardized, and the best possible approach will serve the benefit of the customer. 10.Chatbot: Chatbots can understand more complicated queries as AI algorithms improve. Thus, businesses understand their customers better since chatbots collect information from customers while interacting with them and spot their weaknesses. There are other benefits like 24/7 availability and reduced costs, as bots can handle more tasks as they learn more. All these benefits significantly improve the customer satisfaction of businesses. The automotive industry is one of the areas that use chatbots. While a significant portion of leads to car dealers come from online channels, high conversion rates are vital for these companies. For example, Kia observes three times more conversions through its chatbot Kian, compared to its website. Kian’s availability to answer complex questions is a dominant factor for achieving high conversion rates. i)Customer Service Chatbot (Self – Service Solution): Build your own 24/7 functioning, intelligent, self-improving chatbots to handle most queries and transfer customers to live agents when needed. Reduce customer service costs and increase customer satisfaction. Reduce the traffic on your existing customer representatives and make them focus on the more specific needs of your customers. ii)Call Analytics: Advanced analytics on call data to uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency. Find patterns

and optimize your results. Analyze customer reviews through voice data and pinpoint, where there is room for improvement. Sestek indicates that ING Bank observed a 15% increase in sales quality score and a 3% decrease in overall silence rates after they integrated AI into their call systems. iii)Survey & Review Analytics: Leverage Natural Language Processing to analyze text fields in surveys and reviews to uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency. Automate the process by mapping the right keywords with the right scores. Make it possible to lower the time for generating reports. Protobrand states that they used to do review analytics manually through the hand-coding of the data, but now it automates much of the analytical work with Gavagai. This helps the company to collect larger quantitative volumes of qualitative data and still complete the analytical work in a timely and efficient manner. iv)Customer Contact Analytics: Advanced analytics on all customer contact data to uncover insights to improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency. Utilize Natural Language Processing for higher customer satisfaction rates. v)Chatbot Analytics: Analyze how customers are interacting with your chatbot. See the overall performance of your chatbot. Pinpoint its shortcomings and improve your chatbot. Detect the overall satisfaction rate of your customer with the chatbot. vi)Chatbot testing: Semi-automated and automated testing frameworks facilitate bot testing. See the performance of your chatbot before deploying. Save your business from catastrophic chatbot failures. Detect the shortcomings of your conversational flow.

11.Data i)Data Visualization: Visualize your data for better analytics and decision making. Let the dashboards speak. Convey your message more easily and more esthetically. ii)Data Management & Monitoring: Keep your data high quality for advanced analytics. Adjust the quality by filtering the incoming data. Save time by automating manual and repetitive tasks. iii)Data Integration: Combine your data from different sources into

meaningful and valuable information. Data traffic depends on multiple platforms. Therefore, managing this huge traffic and structuring the data into a meaningful format will be important. Keep your data lake available for further analysis. iv)Data Preparation Platform: Prepare your data from raw formats with data quality problems to a clean, ready to analyze format. Use extract, transform, and load (ETL) platforms to fine-tune your data before placing it into a data warehouse. v)Data Cleaning & Validation Platform: Avoid garbage in, garbage out by ensuring the quality of your data with appropriate data cleaning processes and tools. Automate the validation process by using external data sources. Regular maintenance cleaning can be scheduled, and the quality of the data can be increased. vi)Data Transformation: Transform your data to prepare it for advanced analytics. If it is unstructured, adjust it for the required format. vii)AppDev: App development platforms for your custom projects. Your in-house development team can create original projects for your specific business needs. These platforms will help your team with the necessary tools. viii)Data Labeling: Unless you use unsupervised learning systems, you need high quality labeled data. Label your data to train your supervised learning systems. Human-in-the-loop systems auto label your data and crowdsource labeling data points that cannot be autolabeled with confidence. ix)Synthetic Data: Computers can artificially create synthetic data to perform certain operations. The synthetic data is usually used to test new products and tools, validate models, and satisfy AI needs. Companies can simulate not yet encountered conditions and take precautions accordingly with the help of synthetic data. They also overcome the privacy limitations as it doesn’t expose any real data. Thus, synthetic data is a smart AI solution for companies to simulate future events and consider future possibilities.

12.Finance & FinTech i)Fraud Detection: Leverage machine learning to detect fraudulent

and abnormal financial behavior, and/or use AI to improve general regulatory compliance matters and workflows. Lower your operational costs by limiting your exposure to fraudulent documents. ii)Insurance & InsurTech: Leverage machine learning to process underwriting submissions efficiently and profitably, quote optimal prices, manage claims effectively, and improve customer satisfaction while reducing costs. Detect your customer’s risk profile and provide the right plan. iii)Financial Analytics Platform: Leverage machine learning, Natural Language Processing, and other AI techniques for financial analysis, algorithmic trading, and other investment strategies or tools. iv)Travel & expense management: Use deep learning to improve data extraction from receipts of all types including hotel, gas station, taxi, grocery receipts. Use anomaly detection and other approaches to identify fraud, non-compliant spending. Reduce approval workflows and processing costs per unit. v)Credit Lending & Scoring: Use AI for robust credit lending applications. Use predictive models to uncover potentially nonperforming loans and act. See the potential credit scores of your customers before they apply for a loan and provide custom-tailored plans. vi)Billing: Leverage accessible billing services that remind your customers to pay. Increase your loan recovery ratios. Use automated invoice systems for your business. vii)Robo-Advisory: Use AI finance chatbot and mobile app assistant applications to monitor personal finances. Set your target savings or spending rates for your own goals. Your finance assistant will handle the rest and provide you with insights to reach financial targets. viii)Regulatory Compliance: Use Natural Language Processing to quickly scan legal and regulatory text for compliance issues, and do so at scale. Handle thousands of paperwork without any human interaction. ix)Data Gathering: Use AI to efficiently gather external data such as sentiment and other market-related data. Wrangle data for your financial models and trading approaches.

x)Debt Collection: Leverage AI to ensure a compliant and efficient debt collection process. Effectively handle any dispute and see your success right in debt collection.

13.HR i)Hiring: Hiring is a prediction game: Which candidate, starting at a specific position, will contribute more to the company? Machine and recruiting chatbots‘ better data processing capabilities augment HR employees in various parts of hiring such as finding qualified candidates, interviewing them with bots to understand their fit or evaluating their assessment results to decide if they should receive an offer. ii)Performance Management: Manage your employees’ performance effectively and fairly without hurting their motivation. Follow their KPI’s on your dashboard and provide real-time feedback. This would increase employee satisfaction and lower your organization’s employee turnover. Actualize your employee’s maximum professional potential with the right tools. iii)HR Retention Management: Predict which employees are likely to churn and improve their job satisfaction to retain them. Detect the underlying reasons for their motive for seeking new opportunities. By keeping them at your organization, lower your human capital loss. iv)HR Analytics: HR analytics services are like the voice of employee analysis. See your people analytics and make better people decisions. Gain actionable insights and impactful suggestions for higher employee satisfaction. v)Digital Assistant: Digital assistants are mature enough to replace real assistants in email communication. Include them in your emails to schedule meetings. They have already scheduled hundreds of thousands of meetings. Use the power of artificial intelligence in your day to day activities. Your own on-demand powerful AI-backed assistant is helping you 24/7. vi)Employee Monitoring: Monitor your employees for better productivity measurement. Provide objective metrics to see how well they function. Forecast their overall performance with the availability of massive amounts of data.

vii)Building Management: Sensors and advanced analytics improve building management. Integrate IoT systems in your building for lower energy consumption and many more. Increase the available data by implementing the right data collection tools for effective building management.

14.Tech i)Analytics & Predictive Intelligence for Security: In 2014, Kaspersky Lab said it had detected 325,000 new malware files every day. Analyze data feeds about the broad cyber activity as well as behavioral data inside an organization’s network to come up with actionable insights to help analysts predict and thwart impending attacks. Integrate external data sources the watch out for global cyber threats and act timely. Keep your tech infrastructure intact or minimize losses. ii)Knowledge Management: Enterprise knowledge management enables effective and effortless storage and retrieval of enterprise data, ensuring organizational memory. Increased collaborative work by ensuring the right individuals works with the right data. Seamless organizational integration through knowledge management platforms. iii)Natural Language Processing Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage Natural Language Processing libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and costeffectively build your custom NLP powered systems or to add NLP capabilities to your existing systems. An in-house team will gain experience and knowledge regarding the tools. Increased development and deployment capabilities for your enterprise. iv)Image Recognition Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage image recognition libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and cost-effectively build your custom image processing systems or to add image processing capabilities to your existing systems. v)Secure Communications: Protect employee communications like emails or phone conversations with advanced multilayered cryptography & ephemerality. Keep your industry secrets safe from corporate espionage. vi)Deception Security: Deploy decoy-assets in a network as bait for attackers to identify, track, and disrupt security threats such as advanced automated malware attacks before they inflict damage. Keep your data and traffic safe by keeping them engaged in decoys. Enhance your cybersecurity capabilities against various forms of cyber attacks vii)Autonomous Cybersecurity Systems: Utilize learning systems to

efficiently and instantaneously respond to security threats, often augmenting the work of security analysts. Lower your risk of human errors by providing greater autonomy for your cybersecurity. AIbacked systems can check compliance with standards. viii)Smart Security Systems: AI-powered autonomous security systems. Functioning 24/7 for achieving maximum protection. Computer vision for detecting even the tiniest anomalies in your environment. Automate emergency response procedures by instant notification capabilities. ix)Machine Learning Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage machine learning libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and cost-effectively build your custom learning systems or to add learning capabilities to your existing systems. x)AI Developer: Develop your custom AI solutions with companies experienced in AI development. Create turnkey projects and deploy them to the specific business function. Best for companies with limited in-house capabilities for artificial intelligence. xi)Deep Learning Library/ SDK/ API: Leverage deep learning libraries/SDKs/APIs to quickly and cost-effectively build your custom learning systems or to add learning capabilities to your existing systems. xii)Developer Assistance: Assist your developers using AI to help them intelligently access the coding knowledge on the web and learn from suggested code samples. See the best practices for specific development tasks and formulate your custom solution. Real-time feedback provided by the huge history of developer mistakes and best practices. xiii)AI Consultancy: Provides consultancy services to support your in-house AI development, including machine learning and data science projects. See which units can benefit most from AI deployment. Optimize your artificial intelligence spending for the best results from the insight provided by a consultant.

15.Operations i)Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Digitize your processes in weeks without replacing legacy systems, which can take years. Bots

can operate on legacy systems learning from your personnel’s instructions and actions. Increase your efficiency and profitability ratios. Increase speed and precision, and many more. In a McKinsey report, RPA becomes a promising new development in business automation that offers a potential ROI of 30–200 percent—in the first year. ii)Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Implementation: Implementing RPA solutions requires effort. Suitable processes need to be identified. If a rules-based robot will be used, the robot needs to be programmed. Employees’ questions need to be answered. That is why most companies get some level of external help. Generally, outsourcing companies, consultants, and IT integrators are happy to provide temporary labor to undertake this effort. Today, companies like Argos Labs offer low-code RPA solutions to provide easy RPA implementation. iii)Process Mining: Leverage AI algorithms to mine your processes and understand your actual processes in detail. Process mining can provide fastest time to insights about your as-is processes as demonstrated in case studies. iv)Predictive Maintenance: Predictively maintain your robots and other machinery to minimize disruptions to operations. Implement big data analytics to estimate the factors that are likely to impact your future cash flow. Optimize PP&E spending by gaining insight regarding the possible factors. v)Manufacturing Analytics: Also called industrial analytics systems, these systems allow you to analyze your manufacturing process from production to logistics to save time, reduce cost, and increase efficiency. Keep your industry effectiveness at optimal levels. vi)Inventory & Supply Chain Optimization: Leverage machine learning to take your inventory& supply chain optimization to the next level. See the possible scenarios in different customer demands. Reduce your stock, keeping spending, and maximize your inventory turnover ratios. Increase your impact factor in the value chain. vii)Robotics: Factory floors are changing with programmable collaborative bots that can work next to employees to take over more

repetitive tasks. Automate physical processes such as manufacturing or logistics with the help of advanced robotics. Increased your connected systems by centralizing the whole manufacturing process. Lower your exposures to human errors. viii)Collaborative Robot: Cobots provide a flexible method for automation. Cobots are flexible robots that learn by mimicking human workers’ behavior. Smart engineering systems for solutions still requiring human oversight. ix)Cashierless Checkout: Self-checkout systems have many names. They are called cashierless, cashier-free, or automated checkout systems. They allow retail companies to serve customers in their physical stores without the need for cashiers. Technologies that allowed users to scan and pay for their products have been used for almost a decade now, and those systems did not require great advances in AI. However, these days we are witnessing systems powered by advanced sensors and AI to identify purchased merchandise and charge customers automatically. x)Invoicing: Invoicing is a highly repetitive process that many companies perform manually. This causes human errors in invoicing and high costs in terms of time, especially when a high volume of documents needs to be processed. Thus, companies can handle these repetitive tasks with AI, automate invoicing procedures, and save significant time while reducing invoicing errors. The company avoids re-invoicing costs with AI tools, as well. For example, Hypatos also indicates that automated invoice capture can lead up to 90% cost saving in your invoice-related processes. Elekta has reduced its costs and increased its number of processed invoices from 50,000 to 120,000 with the same number of staff by automating its invoicing procedure with MediusFlow.

16.Autonomous Things Autonomous things including cars and drones are impacting every business function from operations to logistics. i)Self-Driving Cars: From mining to manufacturing, self-driving cars/vehicles are increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. Integrate them into your business for greater efficiency.

Leverage the power of artificial intelligence for complex tasks. ii)Vehicle Cybersecurity: Secure connected and autonomous cars and other vehicles with intelligent cybersecurity solutions. Guarantee your safety by hack-proof mechanisms. Protect your intelligent systems from attacks. iii)Vision Systems: Vision systems for self-driving cars. Integrate vision sensing and processing in your vehicle. Achieve your goals with the help of computer vision. iv)Driving Assistant: Required components and intelligent solutions to improve rider’s experience in the car. Implement AI-Powered vehicle perception solutions for the ultimate driving experience. Digitalization, like the Mona Lisa Smile, is about the "ESSENCE" rather than the "FORM" that helps build the notion of digital. Low code is considered as a magical wand capable of transforming anything. Low code, like digital, is a philosophy aimed at creating complicated commercial systems with less coding. To guarantee no broken pieces in a business situation, the various entities and ecosystems must function in harmony within a linked environment. Businesses now need process automation and a linked environment. Processes, on the other hand, may be difficult since they coexist with papers and multiple communication routes. Channels like as portals and mobile apps must also be addressed, adding to the complexity. While any of these may be simple to improve on their own, when combined, they may become a behemoth. This is where the low-code philosophy comes into play, which is why I refer to it as an idea rather than a technique. The potential of minimal code rests in empowering endusers and business users rather than depending only on IT to modify monolithic systems. The low code concept extends to anything that must be done: i)Portal with a low code ii)App for low-code mobility iii)Integration with little code iv)Workflow and low-code processing v)Reports with low code

vi)Management of low-code content vii)Database and application design using little code viii)Design of low-code customer communications ix)System improvements that are low in code allow for speedier product rollouts. A low-code framework may provide far-reaching outcomes for any form of digital project, such as building methods to link people in the ecosystem, creating a communication channel, or recording a BOT. And when you combine it with the cloud's power, you have a winner. A contemporary bank, for example, may encounter several issues that must be handled. This is only possible if the whole transformation's philosophy is built on innovation. Monolithic apps cannot provide agility. In essence, a firm must focus on the fundamentals while redesigning its system and business strategy. It can only go so far if it restricts itself to tools that cover certain gaps. However, if the company want to leave a lasting impression, it must consider the soul of digital and low code. Creating a digital transformation plan is one technique to enhance the result of any digital technology implementation. Here are six important measures that businesses should include in their digital transformation plan: 1. Encourage open conversation. When Health Markets, a health insurance agency, successfully transformed five years ago in response to the Affordable Care Respond, the firm had to act swiftly, according to Michael Stahl, the agency's executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "Despite small bumps along the road," Stahl said, "ensuring that we openly articulated the final objective... helped us remain on track and finish the change efficiently." He believes that ensuring that all stakeholders understand what is occurring and why it is happening might help reduce the natural worries that come with change. 2. Establish a starting point in terms of cost. Costs are always a consideration, but they are not always evaluated in context. Know your current expenses and compare them to the prices of other technologies and processes rather of focusing just on the cost

of new expenditures. "The most critical step in digital transformation is to create a baseline cost model of your 'as-is' environment, which includes resources, services, and silos," said Bill Kirwin, the creator of the IT total cost of ownership methodology and corresponding models, which he established as an industry standard while working as a Gartner analyst. According to him, this is the cornerstone for how investments in a digital transformation plan will function. You may expand the baseline to indicate potential technical debt in an as-is form in the future. You may run many scenarios in parallel to figure out how to produce the most value. "Failure to follow the money has resulted in dead ends in digital transformation, a lack of transparency, governance and IT credibility difficulties, and shortsighted financing choices," Kirwin added. 3. Take the initiative with a commercial venture. Determine your most significant business requirements, according to Tom Austin, CEO and creator of The Analyst Syndicate. Is your organization, for example, in need of digital supply chain transformation to capitalize on new technologies such as machine learning and big data analytics? Once you've identified essential business demands, determine how to fulfil them and give them a distinctive name to keep the aim in mind. "Many an executive is terrified about Amazon arriving and capturing their business category," Austin remarked. "As a result, they develop commercial activities to protect and strengthen their position in relation to Amazon." Best Buy, Kohl's, Trader Joe's, and Walmart are four firms that have launched new digital efforts to keep Amazon at away – or, at the very least, to enhance their competitive position against the retail behemoth, according to Austin. The following were the strategies: i)Best Buy chose to combat or limit showrooming, which is when customers look at products in a shop before purchasing them on their phones. Best Buy accomplished this by establishing storefronts inside stores for important suppliers. ii)Kohl's opted to enhance shop foot traffic and income by establishing Amazon return facilities in-store. iii)Trader Joe's has continued to invest in novel merchandising and supply chain improvements.

iv)Walmart chose to take use of inventory in its enormous network of retail shops in order to compete with Amazon on delivery and profit. v)"Of course, technology was part of the business plan, but first and foremost, it was business strategy," Austin said. 4. First, construct the infrastructure. Digital transformation will not persist if it is not founded on a strong basis. Too many firms strive to save money up front rather than investing in a good product first and saving money afterwards. "Too many firms attempt to save money up front rather than investing in a quality product first and saving money in the long run," Everett Harper, co-founder of Truss, a digital transformation consultant, said. "Budgeting for greater upfront money to produce a good, readily scalable prototype will assist your digital transformation initiatives much more than slapping together a prototype and afterwards correcting faults and scaling." 5. Plan adherence from the start You're making a mistake if you attempt to add compliance and security afterwards, according to Harper. Create everything you need from the bottom up to ensure that major compliance problems are not missed in your digital transformation strategy. This is particularly important for organizations in the financial, energy, and healthcare industries, which confront a plethora of rules and compliance obligations. "It's critical that the research, design, and development teams understand what those are so that they can construct a digital platform with them baked in," Harper said. "Breaking down barriers and ensuring that all main stakeholders are on the same page regarding restrictions and prioritizing them is a fantastic approach to achieve this." 6. Prepare to iterate A software advice organization, it's ideal to adopt a holistic strategy to digital transformation rather than a lurch ahead with unfinished efforts with one department's systems and accomplishments surpassing another's. Organizations should break down the digital transformation aim into particular action milestones since the possibilities for where to start might be daunting. While developing a digital transformation plan,

there are many major aspects that should be addressed. Here are a few examples: i)Scope and objectives Clearly define the scope and objectives of the transformation programmed over the next five to ten years. Ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page with these; you don't want to review this in two years, save to make minor tweaks as the company or market requires. ii)Roadmap. Make a plan to move the organization from its present condition to its desired future state. This might include a number of initiatives, which could be phased out depending on the availability of resources to achieve the aim. iii)Subgoals. Scale down to actionable system purchases and build projects for each, complete with owners, goals, and dates. For example, if a marketing automation system combined with a new CRM system can help your company achieve its goals, appoint one owner to lead the examination of marketing automation systems and another to manage CRM and customer experience software alternatives – as long as the two leaders collaborate. The main challenge that businesses confront with their supply chains is that, even with Oracle, SAP, JDA, and other solutions, most of the supply chain is still manual, and much of the supply chain is still a black hole. Companies nowadays, particularly bigger ones, but even medium ones, virtually invariably have a worldwide supply chain. They may be well-known in their own country, but they are less well-known outside. The ability to deploy digital solutions that can trace the flow of items is the most important thing that a digital supply chain transformation can help organizations fix. Supply chains need a great deal of human labour, and digital transformation is all about automation. It is identifying possibilities to automate manual operations, particularly those that are repetitive. You can automate in a variety of ways, but machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are the two big digitally focused technologies that help companies [with transformation] by identifying where they are currently operating manually and then showing them how they can actually automate through the use of bots, machine learning, or AI. After you've taught people how to automate, you can focus on using the data you're

gathering. For example, you may do an analysis to determine who your clients are, what they desire, what their purchasing habits are, and what their consumer habits are. You may use all of that data to change the way the firm runs. So the supply chain is important, and digital supply chain transformation is required because it may assist the firm reinvent itself overall. It's a fantastic work in progress. I still see news releases from firms who declare they've adopted a TMS or a WMS, but when you scratch the surface, you find out they're still operating on a standard ERP platform like Oracle or SAP. They have technology – most of it best-of-breed technology – but no integrated supply chain that uses machine learning and AI. The supply chain does not exist in their system, and the system's main function is to inform you of what has already occurred. You should think of digital as a tool to inform you what's happening in your supply chain in near real time, as opposed to the conventional supply chain, which tells you what has already occurred. If all you can do is read news about what has already occurred, you have no capacity to effect change. If you can analyses a supply chain and understand what your supply chain is doing in real time, you can now run analytics and business intelligence that can help you influence change immediately. You can deliver a better customer experience tomorrow, you can prevent supply chain interruptions, and you can help design the supply chain so that it operates like a lot more efficient organism. That's exactly what the supply chain is: a living ecosystem. It's more than just statistics. Visibility, transparency, and analytics are required, but so is the capacity to undertake optimization and what-if scenario analysis. When you have those four elements, you can gather data and conduct analytics regardless of where your supply chain is situated or how global a company's supply chain is. When something happens, such as the adoption of a new tariff, the corporation may perform an analysis and say, "Where am I affected in my supply chain because of the tariffs?" What is the financial effect?' After that, you may do a what-if study to determine the impact of sourcing this product from another nation. Here's what's crucial. If you are unable to utilize your present state supply chain, you may claim, "We'll simply source it from another nation," but you must consider the implications of doing so. If you

source merchandise from a place where you don't have a supply chain connection, you may have to fly it or ship it quickly, or the firm you wish to source from may not have the capacity to fulfil your demands. Even if there is another supplier of material, the arithmetic from your analytics may indicate that you are better off paying the tariff. However, the analytics may suggest that it's preferable to source just a portion of your goods from Company A, B, or C, and then engage with your consumers to explain that you're changing the order's delivery plan. So the beauty of having a supply chain with visibility, transparency, analytics, and the ability to do what-if scenario planning is that it simply allows companies to say, 'We don't guess what we're going to do if there are tariffs or other disruptions, because our supply chain runs analytics that tell us where potential disruptions are and we can mitigate or avoid the disruption entirely.' Simply put, a digital supply chain is a must-have for competitiveness. Companies have long competed on the basis of their supply chains. Walmart rose to prominence as a result of its command of the supply chain and logistics. The game has changed, and a digital supply chain is now an absolute must-have for firms to compete, since so much of what we do on a daily basis is becoming digital — the Internet of Products, the smart home, the reality that consumers demand things in hours rather than days. The digital supply chain, particularly machine learning, AI, and supply chain optimization science, are all must-haves. If you don't have them, I can tell you that there will be firms that go out of business simply because their supply chain isn't digital. Digital transformation is still a driving factor behind business and IT expenditures in many sectors. According to IDC, the economy "remains on pace to its digital destiny," with roughly $7 trillion in investments expected from 2020 to 2023. By 2023, 75 percent of firms will have full digital transformation roadmaps, "leading in genuine change across all sectors of business and society," according to the research group. Rather of restraining the drive for digital transformation, the worldwide COVID-19 epidemic has accelerated it. According to IDC, 60% of firms expected to increase their investment in digitalizing the employee experience in 2021, while 30% of organizations are increasing innovation to support business and

operating model reinvention, "fast-tracking transformation initiatives to future-proof their company." Exclusive TechTarget study found that 29 percent of IT decisionmakers feel the epidemic has hastened or made it simpler to justify digital transformation expenditures. According to the report, IT is reacting to a "new reality" by putting a higher focus on digital transformation, digital experience, customer experience, and employee experience as more and more business contacts are handled digitally/remotely. The difficulty for IT teams navigating the route to digital transformation is to move swiftly but not hastily. This entails selecting the appropriate environment for each task while concentrating on critical problems such as security, resilience, business continuity, control, compliance, and performance. Because cloud computing provides advantages in agility, economies, speed, and scalability, it has emerged as a critical facilitator of digital transformation. The key for IT is to perceive the cloud as an experience rather than a destination. That is why, in the COVID and post-COVID eras, hybrid cloud has become the go-to route for IT teams. In 2022, more than 90% of organizations will satisfy their infrastructure demands using a combination of on-premises or dedicated private clouds, numerous public clouds, and legacy systems. What exactly does "cloud as an experience rather than a destination" imply? Essentially, it is about realizing the cloud's key benefits—increased agility, as-a-service delivery, consumption-based pricing, cloud-native development, simpler management, unlimited scale, integrated security and compliance—without having to worry about whether workloads and applications are located in the cloud, on premises, or at edge locations. A hybrid cloud experience provides the organization with what it needs to accelerate digital transformation while also giving IT teams the control they need to ensure that cloud migrations are cost effective, secure, strategic, and less risky—all while enabling cloud-native development for new and existing applications and services. It is also critical to note that not all workloads and applications are created equal, and that each should be carefully analyzed before being placed in the environment that makes the most sense. Some should be in the public cloud, while others are natural software-as-a-service applications that should run in

a data center or colocation environment. Finding the optimal cloud mix for your different apps and workloads is a critical first step. In addition to hybrid cloud, another component of navigating the route to digital transformation is to see it as a framework encompassing a wide variety of business concerns and activities, including overall company strategy, people and culture issues, operations, security, and more. Cloud computing has emerged as a critical facilitator of digital transformation due to the benefits it provides across industries, economies, speed, and scalability. IT must approach the cloud as an experience rather than a destination. As a result, in the COVID and post-COVID eras, hybrid cloud has become the preferred option for IT teams. More than 90% of organizations will meet their infrastructure needs in 2022 by combining on-premises or dedicated private clouds, numerous public clouds, and legacy systems. What does the phrase "cloud as an experience rather than a destination" mean? It is essentially about realizing the key benefits of the cloud—increased agility, as-a-service delivery, consumption-based pricing, cloud-native development, simpler management, unlimited scale, integrated security and compliance—without having to worry about whether workloads and applications are located in the cloud, on premises, or at edge locations. A hybrid cloud experience gives the organization everything it needs to accelerate digital transformation while also giving IT teams the control they need to ensure cloud migrations are cost effective, secure, strategic, and risk-free—all while enabling cloud-native development for new and existing applications and services. It is also important to note that not all workloads and applications are created equal, and that each should be thoroughly analyzed before being placed in the most appropriate environment. Some should be hosted in the public cloud, while others are natural software-as-a-service applications that should be hosted in a data center or colocation facility.

Figure 4.9 Digital Transformation Playbook Here are examples of three “Digital Game Changers” that have leveraged the hybrid cloud experience to accelerate digital transformation initiatives. Canterbury District Health Board is responsible for the care of more than half a million people in New Zealand, with more than 10,000 employees. A devastating earthquake in 2011 was the catalyst for digital transformation, and hybrid cloud was the path. Hybrid cloud empowered Canterbury to embrace telemedicine even before the pandemic, enabling more than 7 million telemedicine visits in 2018 alone. Canterbury also uses hybrid cloud for its electronic health records systems, patient and family engagement, diagnostics and much more. With artificial intelligence, Canterbury District Health has increased the speed of CT scans by 150 times. Au Kabucom Securities is a digital securities company based in Japan. It was seeking flexibility and agility equal to the public cloud, with automated provisioning and a monthly pay-as-you-go model for use of infrastructure. A key part of the transformation was to link public cloud infrastructure from AWS and Azure with on-premises infrastructure from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The company has leveraged a wide range of solutions, including HPE GreenLake and HPE storage, servers and networking, along with HPE Pointnext Services, to reduce the lead time for infrastructure deployment to zero.

It also gained flexibility and agility equal to the public cloud, with automated provisioning, security and reduced risk. YF Life Insurance International is a Hong Kong-based financial services firm using technology innovation to transform its business and continually deliver greater value to policyholders, consultants and business partners. The company needed a flexible IT infrastructure and chose HPE GreenLake for its cloud-like agility and pay-per-use economics, with on-premises control to meet strict regulatory compliance requirements. With HPE, YF Life has lowered capital expenditures by 35%, with a three-year return on investment. The company has flexibility to scale infrastructure up or down to meet dynamic business demands and provision IT resources in minutes instead of hours. The solution also provides on-premises control over data sovereignty and cybersecurity. The company can scale infrastructure up or down to meet changing business demands and provision IT resources in minutes rather than hours. In addition, the solution offers on-premises control over data sovereignty and cybersecurity.

6 digital transformation budget tips Here are six important considerations to keep in mind as you're budgeting for your digital transformation project.

1. Identify the project and participants It's much easier to win budget allocation by identifying the most relevant project. In larger companies, many projects could be competing for the same budget dollars. That's why it's also crucial to know the budget holders' areas of interest, so that you can map your projects to the right person -- and to all relevant pools of funding. Having the right people on a project is critically important at this point, because the capabilities of the team may convince budget holders of the project's likelihood of success. Look at the track record of the key people on any transformation team and of any third-party partners who may assist with the project. Be sure to tout their credentials. A top-flight digital transformation team also needs to be nurtured from the get-go. If possible, secure funding for in-person kick-off meetings and for bonuses if the project is successful.

2. Identify the budget holders There are various ways companies fund digital transformation projects. It's important that the people responsible for digital transformation identify all potential funding sources. Some companies budget for the transformation projects, and others don't. Those who budget may keep allocations centralized; others earmark funds for transformation projects, but the amounts are distributed among several business units' budgets. Some organizations do not have a designated digital transformation budget, but they do have a centralized or decentralized pool of discretionary spending. Even companies with transformation budgets may also have discretionary spending that can be tapped for bolstering digital projects.

3. Build the business case This is perhaps the most important determinant of digital transformation success. Prior to pitching any project, build a business case that shows the business benefits of the digital transformation project with success metrics and real-world improvements for employees and/or customers. Building a successful business case can take three to six months for small organizations, and six to 18 months for larger ones. In building the business case, find out the spending figures and operational metrics from current spending so that there is a basis for comparison. Then cast a wide net for both providers and service delivery to get approximate prices to set the budget. Part of the business case also should include a before-andafter look at what the transformation project will accomplish. For example, in a client-facing initiative, the company might be spending $25 per customer interaction because the only option is a voice call. A transformation project that digitizes the contact centre will activate webchat, self-service knowledge bases and SMS. The digital transformation project's business benefits to the company include lower operational costs and more revenue via new predictive analysis tools to recommend products to customers in webchat or self-service.

4. Stay agile Budget planning is always a best-guess effort. Until the project starts, it's difficult to predict every twist and turn on the digital transformation

roadmap. So, depending on the project, agility is important. Smaller, single-app projects may only take three months to complete, in which case, budget predictions likely will be more accurate. But larger projects may require some flexibility in the budget and the support staff. Labour rates may unexpectedly rise, new security rules may require additional software, or new demands may emerge if leadership changes. Digital transformation projects slated for 2021 could also be affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic so it's important to set expectations correctly -- namely, that project plans may change over time -- and to schedule regular updates with all stakeholders. This will protect the team's reputation for the next budget request.

5. Market the project's value In order for digital transformation projects to be successful, professional marketers can help tremendously by getting the word out in creative, informative ways. Don't rely on IT to be responsible for user awareness of the new technology or processes. Building a digital transformation culture will spur adoption and inspire employees to use and improve the new ways of working introduced by the project. Marketing experts can organize lunch-and-learns, create "how-to" content, design logos and eye-catching materials that capture the interest of employees or customers.

6. Measure success Data helps get funding. So with any digital transformation initiative, track the success in metrics that matter. At the outset of any project, identify the baseline metrics and actual numbers. Then, track the change on preestablished intervals. Typical business metrics include: i)revenue increase ii)cost decrease iii)customer ratings improvement iv)employee efficiency boost The following additional metrics cited anecdotally in our research include: i)the number of employees required to perform a task ii)the ability of the project to gain a competitive advantage for the

company iii)employee retention iv)technology downtime Measuring the success or frankly the failure of a project on an ongoing basis will guard against a digital transformation failure. Not only does measuring ensure that team leaders are continuously revising processes to improve the metrics, but it also provides a track record of success for every future request for funding. Over time, stakeholders will be more likely to fund projects proposed by those with a track record of documented success. According to recent studies, digital transformation remains a top goal for IT firms. CIOs and IT executives are collaborating with business leaders on a variety of digital transformation projects with the goal of delivering business advantages. They include creating new digitally enabled goods, enhancing employee experiences, automating process tasks, using data-driven strategies, and experimenting with AI, IoT, and blockchain. However, any digital leader will tell you that the digital transformation process is lengthy, and that the planning and execution face new problems each year. The most difficult component for CIOs just beginning transformation initiatives is frequently convincing business leaders and decision-makers to agree on a digital strategy, goals, and money. The problem for IT companies that have been successful in creating and deploying new technologies is frequently in implementing a transformation process that allows employees throughout the business to take use of new digital capabilities without sunsetting outdated procedures. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 epidemic, executives rapidly shifted their digital transformation plans to accommodate remote working and other health and safety goals. In 2021, IT and digital executives must continue to adjust to shifting working circumstances in the face of rising COVID-19 numbers, but as vaccinations become accessible, there is also promise for a new normal. The shifting climate will provide difficulties for digital transformation executives in terms of prioritising activities, selecting technology, and engaging personnel. COVID-19 has had an influence on everyone's clients, whether you operate in a B2B or B2C firm, resulting in various requirements and

possibilities. According to consumer data business Statista, internet sales increased by 4.3 percentage points in the second quarter of the year to 16.1 percent, up from 11.8 percent in the first quarter and 10.8 percent in the same period the previous year. According to a recent consumer poll, an incredible 87 percent of buyers prefer to purchase in businesses that provide touchless or strong self-checkout alternatives. Banking, healthcare, higher education, and many other businesses saw dramatic adjustments in demand for their products and services. While most CEOs aren't flying around reading about touted innovations and how rivals are effectively establishing distinguishing data and technological skills, the attitude is nonetheless pervasive in the executive psyche. CEOs expect their IT executives to offer robust, secure, and scalable technological capabilities now more than ever. The issue of whether enterprises have the IT skills necessary to supply these capabilities remains unanswered. According to a recent CIO study conducted by Harvey Nash/KMPG, the percentage of organisations reporting that skill shortages were holding them back fell to 54 percent, down from 65 percent prior to the pandemic, but the drop was much smaller than during the 2008 financial crisis, and demand for technology remains strong. Although COVID-19 enabled many firms to access geographically distributed talent pools via remote working, getting technical experience in security, architecture, and integration remains a key problem when creating digital transformation teams. This knowledge will be much more important in 2021, when there will be hundreds of technological goods and services with competing capabilities and complex nomenclature in the majority of categories. Running effective proofs of concept with appropriate success criteria requires a thorough grasp of business drivers as well as technological skills. Organizations also need ability to establish multi-cloud, data, service, and application integration strategies. To close the technical expertise gaps, most organizations should consider the following: i)Seek outside digital technology experts, especially on digital practices and platform selections.

ii)Consider low-code and no-code platforms to simplify application development. iii)Develop partnerships with service providers to accelerate application modernization efforts. iv)Channel investments to fewer strategic platforms and establish centers of excellence for them. v)Grow analytics acumen outside of IT with citizen data science and proactive data governance. vi)Prove expertise on one public cloud and establish DevOps practices from Day One. vii)Focus internal competencies on understanding end-user needs, agile planning and delivery practices, and implementing integrations. The upshot is that while all organizations must invest in data and technology capabilities, not every company will succeed -- or should attempt to succeed -- in trying to operate like a software company. The architectures, practices and skills required must be realistic and feasible for the organization. And -- good news -- platform vendors today are responding to the respective needs of non-software companies by competing to make digital technologies more accessible to mainstream organizations. In the COVID-19 age, IT firms must recalibrate their deployment methods, much as marketing teams must relearn consumer expectations. Realigning the organisation to allow increased remote work and collaboration is critical in 2021. According to the aforementioned KPMG CIO research, over 70% of IT executives think that more than 20% of the workforce will work remotely post-COVID19, meaning that agile teams adopting Jeff Bezos' two-pizza rule on team size would most likely include one or two employees working remotely. In 2020, most IT executives responded to the COVID-19 problems. It's time to be proactive about organisational structure and leadership changes in 2021. Steps to follow: Many leaders are unlikely to have made long-term modifications to their organisational structure and people management systems to accommodate a more remote and scattered workforce. These difficulties must be addressed in 2021, since most executives feel that digital transformation efforts

must be accelerated. Creating an agile, inventive, and effective IT organisation capable of remote collaboration is a challenge that will distinguish successful IT firms from those that struggle to adapt. In 2021, the task will be to modify organisational structures to create compassionate leadership. Many workers may face various difficulties at home and in life in 2021, depending on how much COVID-19 affects them and how quickly immunizations take effect. Employee pushback on digital transformation plans is the last thing IT executives can afford when their ability to concentrate and accomplish duties successfully is hampered by stress outside of work. Furthermore, digital transformation projects are only effective when staff are able to adapt to new technology, workflow modifications, and data-driven processes via change management programmes. Aside from optimising the IT structure, CIOs and IT executives should play a role in larger cultural reforms and organisational realignment. A key part of the solution is to teach leaders throughout the organisation on the importance – and urgent necessity – of developing active listening skills so that they can tell when individuals need support and when others are ready for bigger tasks. All corporate executives should make self-organizing, diverse, and interdisciplinary agile teams a major focus. Organizations that haven't found out how to expand agile techniques beyond application development and involve agile counterparts from marketing, sales, finance, and operations are missing out on important advantages. Agile teams are empowered to commit to the work they accept and adapt their collaborative processes depending on what is required to effectively complete that work. Agile empowers teams to adapt to changing conditions and difficulties. As businesses adapt digitally at breakneck pace, they rely on AI, analytics, machine learning, the cloud, RPA, IoT, digital workflows – and, to connect it all together, hyperautomation technologies. "Hyperautomation has continued to trend at a relentless speed over the last several years, owing mostly to rising demand for operationally robust business processes," according to Gartner, which named hyperautomation technology one of the top 12 key digital business trends for 2022. "Hyperautomation is unavoidable and irreversible. Everything that has the potential to be mechanized will be automated.

Organizations are being forced to address it as a result of competitive demands for efficiency, effectiveness, and business agility." However, organizations planning and charting a route toward digital transformation may quickly get overwhelmed by the amount and variety of instrumental hardware and software, as well as the manual and operational procedures that need automation and freedom from segregated tasks. "What we find with the CIOs we're talking to is that they're sort of squashed between two needs," said Yoav Boaz, head of product management at ServiceNow, in an interview with Sabrina Polin of TechTarget. "[T]hey must speed up product delivery. They must provide exceptional consumer and staff experiences. On the other hand, they do have limited funds... [but] they see the need of breaking down barriers between the front, middle, and back offices in order to do so." So, for us at ServiceNow, when we deploy platforms, hyperautomation means breaking down the barriers between the many discrete automation capabilities that exist today inside the technological stack. Let's look at a loan procedure as an example. If we examine that procedure from beginning to conclusion, I can simply demonstrate how hyperautomation may assist them. For example, interacting with a consumer may be done through a virtual agent. So I can sit on my, whether it's my phone or my computer browser, and receive a slew of questions from a virtual agent who will ask me all the pertinent questions and guide me through the process of gathering all the information that they need in order to process the loan. Then you may use AI to group together responses that are similar to me, two answers you provided, or someone else's. Once the loan officer is on board, there is a lot of orchestration involved in gathering information from various third parties — the lender, credit bureaus, and underwriters — in both ways, using RPA technologies and orchestration. It also necessitates integration with several systems. Then, as we discussed today, after you compare the offers, you can use AI and predictive analytics to develop the best deal for you. What has occurred in the past with clients similar to myself? What did they choose, and why did you select it? And what became of their loans? And, in order to interact with all stakeholders, a lot of orchestration and teamwork are required. With hyperautomation, all of this, or a

large portion of it, may be automated. Not to mention that this is a commercial process that is moving forward. On top of that, you can do what we call process optimization and process mining in ServiceNow. As a result, we had a complete business process. The issue is if we can optimize it. Did we obtain all of the necessary data? How can we organize all of the information we get along the way? What exactly are the bottlenecks? So, consider the many ways in which technology may be employed to improve your life as a customer and a prospective homeowner. So, combining all of these is hyperautomation, and everything is embedded into our platform, which we offer to clients to build their solution on top of. The following tips provide a roadmap to a successful digital transformation initiative.

1. Conduct research into digital transformation Digital business transformation is a complex undertaking for most organizations. Begin the process by learning as much as possible about digital transformation and the systems and technologies under the DX umbrella. Searching the internet can produce a wealth of data on DX -- what it is, how to plan for it, vendors that provide DX products and how to develop project plans. DX technologies include, for example, the following: i)cloud technology, which supports a wide variety of advanced managed services, such as SaaS and PaaS; ii)AI and machine learning, which facilitate the development of sophisticated applications that extend and enhance human capabilities; iii)data analytics, which uses sophisticated algorithms to generate additional actionable information from data; and iv)IoT, which enables the integration of a wide variety of intelligent devices via the internet into a suite of components that supports DX requirements.

2. Identify and analyze the specific ways DX could improve the business Analyze how the business currently operates. For example, examine

the interface between customers and the business: What kind of customer information is currently being gathered? How is the data formatted, e.g., written notes, spreadsheets? What does the company do with this information? What improvements could be made to enhance the customer experience? If the goals are to improve collaboration and productivity, your DX team will need to observe how employees currently interact with each other and how this affects their productivity. Carefully examine and map workflows, and analyse how existing technology facilitates -- or hinders -- workflows. Next, identify changes to these activities that result in improved collaboration and productivity. Insights on these changes in business operations will come from business unit leaders and senior management. The analysis will be used to establish a new set of metrics and to identify new technologies and/or enhancements to existing technologies that will help the organization plan its digital transformation initiative. Business unit leaders and senior management will provide insights into these changes in business operations. The analysis will be used to develop a new set of metrics as well as identify new technologies and/or improvements to existing technologies that will aid the organisation in planning its digital transformation initiative.

3. Brief senior management on results of the initial research Once you've gathered and analysed research on DX technologies and business performance issues, brief senior management to ensure they understand the scope of the undertaking, including the following: i)business opportunities and risks; ii)strategies to achieve the desired objectives; iii)investments likely to be needed; iv)time needed to complete a business transformation; v)impact of such DX activities on employees and the company's culture; and vi)how the new approaches will be rolled out to customers and key stakeholders.

4. Obtain senior management support to prepare the budget and strategic plan The next step is to obtain authorization from senior management to prepare a strategy, budget and plan for implementing a business transformation program. Consider a three-year to five-year planning horizon as part of the overall strategy.

5. Collaborate with key stakeholders to create a DX strategy and vision Senior management can identify the company goals the DX initiative needs to achieve. Business unit leaders are the most knowledgeable about how their organizations support company goals. They also can identify members of their leadership teams who know business process intimately and who can identify ways to improve them. The CIO, CTO and their teams are typically the primary players in implementing the DX initiative. Chief digital officers, a relatively new position, can identify the systems and technologies needed to achieve the DX project goals. A DX vision statement describes the aspirations of your transformation project -- e.g., "becoming the premier source for X technology in the country." Knowing the endgame will serve as a rallying point for employees. The DX strategy captures numerous specific activities and aims them toward a final goal, which, in turn, fulfills the vision statement. The strategy will be based on the investigative work performed by the DX team and on the information from the CIO and CTO regarding available DX technologies and how they can be introduced to the organization. This last point is critical: When developing a DX strategy, it's important to consider the impact of the new environment on employees.

6. Create a project plan and budget that is adaptable to changing business activities Remember that the business does not cease operations while the next-generation technology is deployed. The ideal project plan recognizes the nuances of business processes and does not

negatively impact them during the migration. If unanticipated costs, such as the need for additional components and upgraded software, emerge, be sure the budget can be tweaked as needed, and ensure that senior management is quickly made aware of any unplanned changes.

7. Choose technologies that align with business priorities Many different systems, applications and network resources will need to be examined and evaluated before making a recommendation to senior management for a DX program. A business transformation initiative is not a "try it and see" kind of activity. Due diligence should be performed well in advance so that the best possible solution can be implemented. It's important to implement technology that will: i)help the company achieve its business goals; ii)provide the best possible experience for employees and customers; iii)adapt to current and future business requirements; and iv)make use of AI and machine learning technologies to provide business intelligence needed for smart decisions.

8. Enlist the support of employees as part of the collaborative process While it's true that digital transformation requires the support of senior management, employee support and cultural acceptance of the business transformation program are just as important, as employees will use the new DX resources to improve the customer experience, among many other activities. It becomes a joint effort across all parts of the company. Be prepared to demonstrate how the next-generation systems will make it easier for employees to assist customers, to quickly adapt to changing customer needs and to provide greater value to customers than previous methods.

9. Develop methods performance

of

tracking

and

validating

Consider issues such as potential investments, time needed to implement, cultural impacts, operational changes and customer responses when developing metrics to analyse various aspects of DX

performance and demonstrate its value to the company. Simply implementing an advanced CRM system, for example, without the necessary support activities -- e.g., employee training, system testing, documentation, performance measurement, data analysis, management support and emergency response activities -- is a recipe for failure.

10. Train, train, train Support from employees during a business transformation can be made easier with plenty of training and awareness activities. Conduct in-person -- and remote, depending on the impact of the pandemic -training to all employees, including senior management and others who might be the frontline users of the new technology. This ensures that employees will be comfortable with the DX systems and even eager to get started using them. From a cultural perspective, technology acceptance equals success.

11. Test, test, test Before the new systems are officially put into production, test them extensively to make sure all possible glitches are identified and remediated. Have employees participate in testing activities, as they will be using the systems. If possible, invite key customers to participate in testing, as their inputs could be important.

12. Be prepared for unplanned events As with any technology, it's essential to have emergency and disaster recovery plans in place to minimize any business disruptions caused by a technology outage. Work with the DX vendor(s) to ensure their systems are properly protected, network services are available and backup components are available. If the new systems are cloudbased, ensure that all systems and data can be backed up and securely stored for emergency use.

13. Make adjustments to the new systems based on user inputs Employees using the new systems are the best resources for ensuring that the systems are performing properly and identifying changes that will improve system performance and customer experiences.

14. Regularly review system company business objectives

performance

against

Once your digital transformation program has been completed, the work has just begun. Analyse all available performance and financial data from the systems against established performance metrics, and report those results to senior management. Be sure to also regularly report system performance and successes to employees as a way to reinforce the system's value and, more importantly, their value.

Building a digital transformation roadmap: 6 steps Successful digital transformation programs effectively capitalize on technology and people to improve the customer experience (CX), resulting in tangible benefits to the company's business performance. But keeping a digital transformation effort on track can be difficult. This section examines a six-step digital transformation roadmap that will help ensure your DX program is successful. We list recommended activities and relative time frames, major baseline initiatives and key activities to perform within each major milestone. Each step builds on actions completed in the previous step.

1. Perform research and due diligence Establish the DX project team at this time. The team starts the process by gathering data to understand how the business operates, including the resources used by the business -- e.g., people, process, technology and facilities. The team should review existing corporate strategic plans, IT strategic plans, policy and procedure documents, organizational charts and any other documentation that describes how the business operates. Next, the team should interview key personnel who are highly knowledgeable on the business and how it operates, e.g., senior executives, division leaders, department heads and subject matter experts. Data from this step is used to initiate activities in step 2.

2. Prepare DX strategy, and brief senior management and employees A digital transformation strategy should describe the endgame and how it will be achieved. This includes the technologies to be

employed, how the migration will occur, parallel activities -- e.g., employee training and technology infrastructure modifications -- that are needed, and other relevant activities. Once that has been defined, the next move is to brief senior management and employees on the key attributes of the DX program. Modify the strategy and support activities as needed based on inputs from senior management and staff.

3. Identify technology options, management approval and funding

and

secure

senior

As part of strategy development, the project team must secure the approval of senior management for the digital transformation project and authorization for funding. In preparation for approval, the project team must research and identify the systems and technologies, network resources and migration activities needed for a successful implementation. They must identify all costs associated with the DX migration, including new technologies, upgrades to existing systems, new apps and specialized systems -- e.g., using AI -- internal and external expertise, modifications to physical facilities to accommodate new components and much more. Once this information has been gathered, reviewed and approved by the appropriate managers, the team can present its findings and recommendations to senior management for approval.

4. Approve project plan, and launch the project In this step, all resources are brought into play, vendors are staged to begin their work, IT teams are ready to commence their activities, and employees are prepared to begin the transition from their current processes to the new ones made possible by the DX program. This step is one of the most important in the roadmap because it gathers all the players together and moves the program forward.

5. Execute migration and transition activities During the course of the DX implementation, multiple activities will be taking place, including the following: i)Installation and testing of new hardware and software, making adjustments and refinements based on experience.

ii)Pilots of the new technology to familiarize employees with the systems and apps and how to use them properly. Piloting will help develop the policies, procedures and performance metrics for using the new technologies. It can also be used to update HR policies as needed. iii)Training programs for all personnel on the new systems, especially the employees who will be using them. iv)Regular reviews of system expenditures versus budgets, with adjustments as needed. v)Regular senior management briefings on overall program progress. vi)Pilot tests of advanced technologies, e.g., AI and machine learning, to see how their capabilities can best be utilized for analyzing data created by the new systems. vii)Tests of outputs from the new systems to ensure the results are consistent with company requirements and making adjustments as needed. viii)Sessions with frontline employees who will be interacting with customers, e.g., during pilot programs, to ensure they are comfortable with the new technology and can provide enhanced CX. ix)Measures to protect the new systems and technologies, e.g., disaster recovery plans, are in place, documented and tested. x)Procedures for backing up data and obtaining spare parts for the new systems are documented. xi)Programs that ensure that employees using the new technology have the proper devices and suitably equipped workspaces, whether they work on-site or remotely. xii)A plan for going live, including a go-live date with alternate dates, and how to execute the go-live process. xiii)Marketing, website and other promotional activities to get the word out and encourage existing and prospective customers to use the new system.

6. Commence updated business operations and performance management

Once the new DX-based systems and apps have gone live, program management activities begin. Among these are personnel management, performance assessments against the new metrics, management reviews, change management activities, technology reviews and updates, financial reviews, analyses of how the new systems have impacted sales and revenues, CX satisfaction, customer retention, and impacts on competitive position and reputation. It is a hard endeavour to transform an analog-based, paper-intensive corporation into an automated, digital-first, revenue-generating enterprise. Depending on the industry, company, infrastructure, customer base, culture, and leadership, each firm has a distinct starting place and degree of difficulty to overcome. However, there are universal realities – agility and robustness – that may determine whether a digital-first company strategy succeeds or fails. And giving up is not an option. Success in digital transformation is dependent on technological change, "You must adapt technology to allow digital transformation," he said. Advanced technologies and automation give organisations with the intelligence to feed innovative and adaptable business models that can adapt to changing times, in addition to quicker, more reliable operations and processes. "By 2023," IDC estimated, "60% of corporate intelligence programmes would be business-specific, purpose-built for business, reducing data-todecisions time frame by 30% and generating improved agility and robustness." Much of that vital insight will come from consumer data acquired across many channels, processed using AI and machine learning models, and monetized in an infinite number of ways. IDC predicted in its FutureScape 2022 projections that "digital-first companies deliver empathic customer experiences and resilient operational models by moving 70% of all tech and services investment to as-a-service and outcomes-centric models." It's distinguished two forms of digital transformation: "One way is [the] evolutionary approach, in which you digitise your operations while keeping the company model largely unchanged. The other option is [a] innovative one... actually reimagining your company strategy." To generate the revenue digitally, So, first and foremost, I'd want to

address two common fallacies regarding digital transformation. For starters, many clients conflate it with technological change. And this is a case of cause and effect: in order to facilitate digital transformation, you must first alter your technology. The second thing that businesses must realise is that there are two forms of digital transformation at the top level. The first is an evolutionary strategy, in which you digitise your operations while keeping the company model largely unchanged. And the other is a revolutionary strategy, correct? Rethinking your business model literally. I'll give you an example. I'm assuming you or someone you know has a vehicle, correct? And when you go to fill up your vehicle with petrol today, you're simply going to a gas station and having the same experience that we've all had for the previous decade, or two, or three, right? However, as you and I transition to electric cars, there is a chance for this corporation to reimagine its business model. Assume you're travelling in your electric automobile. The immediate question is, alright, the car, I understand it has to be charged within the next hour or two. Those gas stations may immediately market their locations to you as a motorist. So you'd know, for example, whether precise electric car charging stations are nearby. So here's the dilemma for them: how can they get you to visit their location? The second question is, what kind of experience do you have when charging? As a result, charging an electric car takes longer than just putting petrol in it. You spend between 15 and 30 minutes there, depending on the automobile, and so on. So, what kind of experience can they provide you while you wait for the car to be charged? What experience, for example, may they have for the upcoming billing for you? Can you secure a charging place ahead of time for yourself or someone else in your family? So, if I'm an energy firm with a gas station, do I invest in and enhance the typical gas fuelling experience that I have, or do I go and reinvent how I connect with my consumers as they transition to electric vehicles? So these are the two areas that I want to underline that consumers must consider when discussing digital transformation and how they want to approach it: Is it a case of development or revolution? And, as I indicated before, the most important aspect is to understand why you're doing it and what you're attempting to accomplish. Is the goal to increase customer

satisfaction? Is it about increasing the bottom line? Is it about getting items to market faster? Is it a matter of market share? So, in order to make the trip effective for yourself and your consumers, you must be extremely clear about what you want to accomplish. Organizations undergoing transformations often measure the success of their digital initiatives against various business metrics, just as they would measure the return on investment (ROI) for more conventional projects. Although the expected ROI for digital transformation programs varies from one program to another and from one enterprise to another, experts said that there are a number of overarching digital transformation benefits -- all interrelated and interdependent.

1. Increased efficiency and productivity Digital technologies deliver gains in efficiency and productivity by speeding up processes and streamlining operations. Robotic process automation, for example, can outperform humans by multifold factors. IBM showcased bots that completed tasks 20 times faster than humans, and they generally don't make errors like people do. Business intelligence software and data analytics tools can collect and analyse data at a speed and accuracy unmatched by humans. Workers then use that analysis to help them make decisions faster than they could without advanced technologies.

2. Better resource management As companies transform, they're replacing legacy systems serving individual business units with modern IT architectures designed to consolidate processes and seamlessly enable the flow of data across all departments. Experts said this end-to-end digital technology approach has helped CIOs and other executives eliminate duplicate and superfluous technologies, as well as associated costs. Furthermore, on-demand computing resources and as-a-service platforms have helped organizations optimize their technology spending by providing as much computing capacity as needed in the moment versus paying for excess capacity just to handle rare peaks in usage.

3. More resiliency

Organizations that embrace digital technologies and build a digital culture that celebrates change are better able to quickly adapt to shifting market forces, even dramatic social and economic upheavals like those caused by COVID-19. Companies, non-profits and other organizations can better weather normal business ups and downs, as well as larger and once-in-a-lifetime disruptions. Additionally, the pervasive use of digital technologies, particularly cloud computing, further supports organizational resiliency by delivering built-in redundancies and elasticity. While most executives recognized that digital transformation benefits helped them build a more resilient enterprise, many now place a higher value on these technologies after 2020, The Hackett Group's Pastore said. "Resiliency wasn't such a big deal before," he noted, "but now it is the biggest."

4. Greater agility Digitally savvy enterprises "have the ability to not just react to change but to capitalize on it," Pastore said. Because of their greater reliance using cloud computing, for instance, digitally mature organizations can rapidly scale up or down based on changing needs. Meanwhile, modern software development methodologies, such as DevOps and Agile, tout better collaboration among teams and allow them to rapidly create and roll out new features and functions to satisfy market needs as quickly as they evolve. According to the Workday survey "Organizational Agility at Scale: The Key to Driving Digital Growth," twice as many executives at digitally mature organizations were significantly more confident in their ability to quickly reallocate resources to meet shifting needs than those whose companies are lagging in digital transformation.

5. Improved customer engagements "Transformation shifts entirely what you know about your customers,". "And it shifts what kind of relationship you can form with customers. You can make them more intimate." Digital technologies allow businesses to collect, store and analyse customer data so they can learn more about each of their customers. Companies can use data analysis and AI to gain greater insights, allowing them to create and offer products and services tailored to each customer's unique preferences and needs.

6. Increased responsiveness Since digitally transformed organizations have better customer engagement initiatives, they're better able to anticipate evolving customer requirements and changing marketplace dynamics.

7. Greater innovation Digitalization creates new opportunities for companies across all industries to develop products and services that they couldn't create previously. Tool companies now offer online services to match contractors with customers. Personal gym equipment now delivers virtual on-demand exercise instruction. Retailers offer customized curated fashions for rent. "Digital allows companies to better innovate and create new niches," Binns explained. "And it's not just Amazon and Google doing this, even though they get all the attention. Even legacy firms are creating new businesses that are beyond their core."

8. Faster time to market One of the biggest digital transformation benefits is shortened product lifecycles, experts said. That's particularly important in industries where development costs are particularly high. Consider, for example, that it could cost "$1 million to 'tape out' a new semiconductor," Binns said. "That is a very high bar for products to pass before going into production. It also delays development of the products that use those components. If you can do all this in virtual, then the time to market will be cut to a fraction of what it is today. The economics of entire industries could get reshaped by this in the next 10 years."

9. Increased revenue A report by the SAP Center for Business Insight and Oxford Economics found that 80% of executives at organizations with mature digital transformations said their efforts have resulted in increased profitability, and 85% said they've experienced increased market share. "Transformation," Genpact's Srivastava noted, "provides this new digital backbone to deliver this new business functionality that allows you to grow your business, your revenue going forward."

10. Continued relevancy "Digital transformation," Srivastava added, "gives you the agility

needed to adapt to changes in the environment to deliver value even in the long run and to stay relevant for the industry you're in." Digital teams begin with strong leaders, who are often C-level executives with money, clout, and respect. In certain organisations, they are known as chief digital officer or chief strategy officer, and their only responsibility is to digitally alter the organisation. In some firms, they are known as chief information officer (CIO), chief technology officer (CTO), or chief operating officer (COO), and they are responsible for a variety of tasks in addition to directing digital transformation. The person in charge of all digital transformation projects is generally appointed by the CEO. The decision will be influenced by how the CEO perceives digital transformation and what it involves. For example, the CEO may believe that technology is the foundation of all transformation programmes, hence the CIO is appointed. Alternatively, if the CEO sees business processes as the focal point of digital transformation, the COO may be in charge. Once the leader is in place, hiring a team with the correct combination of talents is critical to the success of the digital transformation. Finding team members with the necessary talents is one of the most difficult aspects of digital transformation initiatives, coupled with having the correct senior leadership. Not only are team members' professional credentials vital, but so are their personalities in creating the ideal change culture. Successful digital transformation requires eight key positions. That doesn't mean only eight people are on the team, though. On average, there are 12 to 20 people on each digital transformation project team. In most companies, multiple people work within each of the role descriptions below:

#1 Business-technology liaisons Successful digital transformation projects start with the work of business-technology liaisons. These are people who understand business models, customer experience issues and technology strategy. They regularly interact with business unit leaders in areas such as sales, corporate marketing, product development or customer experience to identify problems or opportunities. They connect the dots as to whether technology can be used to solve problems or

capitalize on opportunities. If there is a connection, they present the problems and suggested solutions to the technology leaders.

#2 Technologists Once the business issue in need of transformation is identified, the technologists gear up. They are experts in the leading-edge applications, services and products that will help achieve the goal. They are crucial to selecting the right technology and providers and for validating whether the digital transformation project will be a failure or success from a technical standpoint.

#3 Security and compliance specialists Often, digital team leaders want to wait until the end of the project to solicit input from security and compliance specialists. Unfortunately, doing so puts the project at risk because their input may halt everything if the technology, architecture or applications violate security policies. Involve them from the start to work together to resolve any issues that may emerge that are questionable from a security or compliance standpoint.

#4 Evangelists When a project gets the nod from the aforementioned roles, evangelists generate excitement and find funding for it. They have influence and solid communications skills. Perhaps, in the company, they write a well-read internal blog or produce a weekly video that is well received by employees and/or customers. Those who control budgets expect the evangelists to give an honest assessment of the project.

#5 Financial stakeholders They have the budget to fund the digital transformation projects and typically influence other budget holders to secure more funding if necessary. They do not need to be in every meeting, but they have enough digital experience to demand weekly, monthly or quarterly updates -- depending on the size of the project -- to ensure the project is on track. Ultimately, they want to monitor the business benefits of the project to document whether their budget was or was not well spent and the projected ROI is realistic. In many cases, the ultimate

financial stakeholders are C-level executives; at Metrigy, we've found that 70% of the funding decisions are made by those in the C-suite. Finally, they want to track the project's business benefits to determine whether their budget was well spent and the projected ROI was realistic. The ultimate financial stakeholders are often C-level executives; at Metrigy, we've discovered that 70% of funding decisions are made by those in the C-suite.

#6 Project managers The project or program managers now get to work developing detailed project plans. They are responsible for keeping the project staffed, on schedule and on budget. They schedule meetings, develop schedules, raise early red flags when anything is heading in the wrong direction and reset expectations.

#7 Marketers All too often, IT staffs implement new technology that improves customer experiences, but employees don't know why they should even use them. IT people are not marketing people, so don't overlook this important role. Marketers understand the business goal of the project, the impact of the technology and the most effective ways to market it all to employees, customers and/or business partners. By understanding the customers -- those affected by the digital transformation initiative -- they can market the transformation in such a way that excites customers and makes them eager to interact with the company.

#8 Implementation leads These are the people who execute on the digital transformation roadmap. They lead the implementation of technology and process change. The technology implementation leads focus on actual installations of the technology. The process implementation leads focus on change management that will result from the transformation. Of course, in both cases, there are additional people doing the actual implementations on a daily basis. In addition to the specific team roles, Metrigy has found that 38.6% of companies have a digital transformation advisory board that includes, on average, 11 people with an IT or technical background and nine

people with a business background. The board most commonly meets on either a monthly (44.8%) or quarterly (2.3%) basis to provide advice on transformation initiatives, help identify key people to assist in the next project and make sure customers are benefiting from the changes. Many of the transformation initiatives are, in fact, customerfocused. As the C-suite has become increasingly attentive to the power of the customer via social media and rankings, projects have focused on transforming the customer journey. Utilizing technology to improve customer experience gives organizations a competitive advantage. By the end of 2021, 58.5% of companies will have completed or have a customer experience transformation project underway. So, how has COVID-19 affected digital transformation roadmaps? Here, we examine 10 significant impacts -- positive and negative -- the pandemic has had on the state of digital transformation.

1. Increased pace of transformation systems

deployment

of

digital

Recognizing that a significant majority of employees would be working remotely, IT managers and technical staff increased the speed of deployment of digital transformation resources, such as advanced ecommerce platforms and supply chain systems, to improve the firm's ability to deploy customer-friendly applications and also tighten up the security and reliability of their supply chains, respectively.

2. Temporary deferral of digital transformation initiatives Owing to the increased number of remote workers requiring access to company information resources, some IT managers adjusted the deployment schedules for their planned technology rollouts. They did this to ensure the availability of remote work resources, such as VPN access and network bandwidth. Once remote work resources had been deployed, IT managers were able to resume their digital transformation initiatives.

3. Increased use of customer-friendly apps to meet customer expectations

With more of their customers confined to their homes due to pandemic quarantine requirements, business leaders had to ensure their customers had the best possible experience dealing with the firm. That made it even more important to deploy the customer-friendly systems and applications that are the hallmark of successful digital business models. Digital business with real-time access to customer-focused applications, especially as customers increasingly used mobile devices, rapidly became the new normal. To minimize the likelihood that existing and prospective customers would switch to another website, creating a one-stop shopping experience became a major goal for most organizations deploying e-commerce platforms. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we need to be and can be more resilient and flexible. Here is a compilation of stories that tackle how to seize opportunities for growth and change, responding to new customer expectations, building collaboration in the workplace, and supporting the office of the future.

4. Access security for remote workers enhanced With the dramatic number of remote workers, an organization's potential vulnerability to cyber attacks increased literally overnight. Not only did remote workers need the right access security, but the threat landscape increased for employees using noncompany devices, such as personal laptops and smartphones. Unless the IT department could quickly send new VM images and/or approved security software to remote employees, the vulnerability level increased until those fixes were installed, tested and placed into service. Ideally, remote workers should have company-provided and IT-configured devices, but the added costs and time required to obtain, configure and ship companyapproved equipment -- especially for thousands of employees working remotely -- can be prohibitive.

5. Patch management rises to top priority The pandemic quickly increased the importance of an efficient patch management program, especially where system performance and security might be impacted by the increased number of remote users. Patching ensures that the most current system and application

programming is in place, particularly to optimize security. Without strong network security, digital transformation initiatives can be placed at risk via external threat operators. With the pandemic's impact on IT operations, effective patching became even more important, especially when installing patches that improve network perimeter security and update remote access software.

6. Increased use of self-service apps speeds customer data collection One of the important benefits of digital transformation is the deployment of applications that improve access to self-service resources. This is especially important for providing top-notch customer experience. With self-service, customers can perform more activities on a firm's website, such as shopping, comparing products and prices, and completing transactions. Of greater importance is the access companies gain to the valuable data from customer selfservice activities. That data can later be analysed to identify buying preferences and other metrics. The results can be further transformed into advertising and promotional messages that generate additional customer activity.

7. Shifts in supply chains spur more use of advanced ecommerce platforms With more people accessing commercial websites due to the pandemic, increased demand for products dramatically impacted supply chains. Organizations realized that, by using advanced ecommerce platforms, they could use data from the apps to analyse and modify supply chains as needed to accommodate shifts in demand. Digital transformation is not a one-and-done exercise. Technology's rapid evolution and workplace changes ushered in by the pandemic require organizations to continually assess their digital transformation strategies. These books and online courses will help keep you in the know:

8. More collaboration between HR and IT to improve employee experience

With many employees now working remotely, HR faced new challenges, including how people will interact without physical, inperson contact; potential increases in stress and discomfort working remotely; and the need for increased e-learning to ensure employees are still connected to the company and its culture. HR coordination with IT became essential for ensuring that employees had the most positive work experience possible.

9. Increased use of AI in data analysis confers competitive advantage AI and machine learning play an increasingly important role in digital transformation success. Use of AI technology, for example, can greatly enhance the ability to analyze data from advanced ecommerce platforms and provide a better customer experience. This, in turn, can translate into an improved competitive advantage for the company.

10. Evolution of CIO role Digital transformation and the impact of the pandemic have accelerated and underscored the decade-long shift in the CIO role from IT operator to business strategist. CIOs have evolved into true partners in the achievement of the company's business goals through their knowledge of advanced technology platforms and their technical teams' experience with new technologies. In the wake of the pandemic, CIOs are also key players in "new normal" work dynamics, such as remote working and the deployment of digital transformation technologies. According to the Harvard Business Review and Scout RFP, the top ten challenges that firms encounter when embarking on digital transformation initiatives, as well as the proportion of senior executives who recognised each as a difficulty, are as follows: 1. A lack of capacity to explore fast (53 percent ) 2. Outdated systems (52 percent ) 3. Inability to collaborate across silos (51 percent ) 4. Insufficient coordination between IT and business areas (49 percent )

5th. A risk-averse society (47 percent ) 6. Capabilities for change management (46 percent ) 7. A business vision for digital is lacking (39 percent ) 8. Inadequate talent/skills necessary (38 percent ) 9. Inadequate budget (37 percent ) 10. cyber security (34 percent ) Here we say about the key ingredients of digital transformation. Furthermore, modernisation efforts are not one-time events. According to the survey, maintaining the success of digital transformation needs a continuing commitment to change management. "Success in modernisation initiatives does not always result in a long-lasting organisation." A corporation may carry out a single modernization programme, but genuine digital transformation requires a commitment to an ongoing process of change." Only 46% of decision-makers said their businesses' efforts were part of a continuous improvement effort, but those who did said it was the most important factor in their organisations' success. According to the survey, 76% of successful firms claimed that enterprise transformation required at least 12 months to show commercial benefit. According to the research, another component of success is prioritising the business when developing a strategy. Respondents listed the following as the most significant aims of their organization's modernization/transformation activities when asked: i)enhancing the consumer experience ii)enhancing data insights or business intelligence enhancing IT agility iii)enhancing client retention enhancing the security of digital capabilities and infrastructure iv)Getting rid of technological debt in present applications v)Decoupling monolithic programmes and enabling distinct teams to independently release vi)Saving money in the near term vii)Increasing employee output viii)Improving the reusability of technical components or business services, for example, via APIs and microservices.

Digital transformation strategy is considered in the creative sector via the lens of digital marketing and user experience (Ux). The notion that consumers today use technology to explore, identify, and choose items and services that meet their requirements. While this is correct, developing a website, app, or e-commerce strategy is rarely transformative. From the standpoint of management consultants, digital transformation is a chance to redefine a firm. To bring the operational model in line with new business models. If approached correctly, a company's products and services may become more digitally integrated. This lowers operational costs while increasing profit. So, who is correct? To some extent, all of these are correct. To establish a digital transformation plan, technology must be employed as the instruments to change a firm. It is up to the creative sector to represent the new value created in a manner that consumers would appreciate. A management consulting firm is required to assist in the development of a more efficient company. However, one individual is absent...You! You must alter your behaviour. You transform a company by using technology, not the other way around. Management consultants do not help your company. You do this by transforming their advise into action. Only the distinction you generate may be expressed by creative specialists. The first step in developing a successful digital transformation plan is to alter oneself. It's unfair and perhaps arrogant to believe that what got you there is all you need to keep going. Developing a digital transformation plan is not the same as developing a business-as-usual approach. The company's goal is not to improve its digital operations. It's on its way to becoming something new! Before we go into digital transformation plan, let's define a digital company. A digital company is an organisation that is clever, adaptive, and imaginative enough to compete in the digital economy. Instead than enhancing or improving what is currently in place, digital enterprises reimagine it. They perceive the world through virtual reality goggles, see new possibilities, and are ready to make things happen without inflicting too much suffering. When we look at these firms, we see that they generally have some flashy, sophisticated techie'stuff' of some kind. We could be tempted to believe that this is the key to their success. Here are the trends:

i)On the contrary. ii)What do you see if you look beyond the sheen? iii)I'm sure it's a wonderful answer to an issue you didn't even realise existed. iv)That glitzy, gleaming thing is the consequence of hard labour. v)They're similar to Magyver, but with many fancier devices. Nobody is more inventive or creative than digital businesses. They are really excellent at completing their studies and have a fantastic plan. They have worked hard to discover answers to their clients' concerns after taking the time to really understand them. These companies have leaders who have realised that it is their role to drive their transition, not the technologists or management consultants, but the leader who will take them from business leader to digital leader. So, we've defined what a digital transformation plan is, as well as what a digital business is, who has to be engaged, and, of course, who needs to drive this shift. Now for the meat of the matter... In 1996, Harvard Lecturer Michael Porter published an essay in HBR titled What Is Strategy? In it, he contends that operational effectiveness, although important for greater performance, is insufficient since its tactics are easily imitated. McKinsey refers to him as "Strategy's Strategist." He emphasises in his 20011 book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy that a strategy is not a goal or goals. It is the battle plan for action that is based on a distinct collection of characteristics or circumstances (kernels) that distinguishes a company from its rivals (levers) and results in extraordinary and longterm profitability. A good strategy consists of three components: 1. Prognosis 2. Overarching Policy 3. A well-thought-out plan of action. Ineffective Strategy: It's fairly usual for any of these three components to be absent in the organisations we've dealt with. Skipping these phases manifests itself in a variety of ways – but the consequences for the organisation are

all too typical. Let's have a look at the potential hazards for each component. What happens if you don't get a diagnosis? i)Random digital activities, unrealistic expected effects, mayhem, and uncertainty ii)People stabbing in the dark with the hope of finding anything that may provide favourable consequences. Isolated portions of the firm may become more 'digital.' Individuals don't utilise technology, dispersed initiatives are ongoing but don't connect to anything practical, and people don't fully grasp what they're doing or how to assess efforts. The best-case situation would be increased operational efficiency. Worst-case scenario: annoyance, difficulty, and resource waste. There is no transition in either case, just digitised reproductions of the same processes, goods, and services. The diagnostic phase's goal is to comprehend the current condition and the problems that must be addressed in order to achieve a desired new state - it provides significant clarity and helps in keeping things on track. What happens if no guiding policy exists? i)In most circumstances, the company will fall short of its strategic goals. If they are, it is due to pure chance rather than smart advice. A plan is nothing more than a wishlist without guiding policies. ii)How can you develop a plan in the absence of a guiding policy? iii)By asking a single question: "How precisely do you want me to do that?" iv)If you can hear tumbleweed drifting through the corridors, you've arrived. A word of caution: be wary of misguided policies that may lead you down the garden path. How can you discern the difference between a guiding policy and a misguiding one? If competitive advantage is gained by distinction, a good guiding policy will include some kind of 'if this, then that' statement. If your guiding policy can be applied to any organisation at any time and under all conditions, it is probably not very useful.

What happens if you don't have a well-thought-out strategy? i)Not much. ii)Sometimes individuals return to work immediately and continue on as normal. People may sometimes work around the clock and yet not get far. (The expression "headless fowl" comes to mind.) iii)It eventually leads to a waste of resources – a waste of time, effort, and money. iv)Unfortunately, this results in alienated, demoralised, and burnt-out employees. v)That's something no one wants. vi)The good news is that now that we know what the issue is, we can do something about it. In the year 2020, the internet economy is thriving. Customers, suppliers, goods, and services are being sought, influenced, and created in new ways. Everything that can be digitised gets digitised. However, just digitising current goods and services is insufficient. It should be seen as a continuous series of acts that give understanding through diagnosis, advice, and coordinated action. Many firms consider a to-do list to be a strategy. Strategic plans include operational strategies, resource planning, and capital investments. A digital transformation strategy is a strategy for repositioning a company in the digital economy. We can now identify new possibilities much more readily thanks to data. Building a corporation that can utilise developing technologies and ride new possibilities with speed, skill, and drive often requires a shift in mindset. "True change is neither top-down nor bottom-up,”."It's a side-to-side movement." "Change never occurs all at once and cannot be willed into being." It is only possible if people fully absorb and accept it. "The greatest way to do this is to empower people who already believe in the change to draw in others around them,". Ionology has developed the world's most sophisticated digital transformation framework. "Most corporations claim to want to change, but their actions demonstrate otherwise.".However, how we uncover the fresh chances they often mention has changed. This is why we want data-driven digital transformation frameworks and experts to lead businesses through

change." In an exciting case study, it demonstrates how to utilise frameworks to manage the process of developing a digital transformation plan. Where do ideas originate from? The Large Hadron Collider is the world's highest-energy particle collider as well as the world's biggest machine. The machine investigates the universe's tiniest known constituents, subatomic particles. Sometimes we need to zoom out and look at the big picture of how company works. We sometimes zoom in to examine the details. Both are intertwined. The 5 Change Blocks of Digital Transformation may be seen as the zoom-out in the zoom-out/zoom-in metaphor. Finding opportunity in data is the equivalent of zooming in. As seen in the Digital Transformation Strategy video, it is feasible to begin at both the macro and micro levels. Here are the trends: 1.Strategy : Strategy is just one component of transforming an organisation to be digitally changed. This sounds like I'm trying to sell something. Attempting to persuade you to purchase more than you need. I assure you that this is not the case. All of the change blocks are required, and the two apparent components are strategy and technology. Having a sound plan and the correct technology, on the other hand, leads to digitisation rather than transformation. A digital transformation strategy developed by a team with the correct digital mentality will provide a significantly different plan of action than one developed by a team with the conventional business perspective. The interaction between mentality and strategy is critical. This is why they are grouped together in the 5 Change Blocks of Digital Transformation. 2.Communications : Developing a digital transformation plan necessitates understanding how to convey the altered reality and the value it generates. Customers will not purchase if we do not persuade them of the worth. If we do not persuade our internal staff, they will not change! If the change is little, it is unlikely to be transformative, since it does not go far enough. It's not unusual to put the new transformed state to the test by developing a 'business of the future' paper or movie. It outlines what the company is becoming. It will be a lengthy road if the buyer

shrugs. It simply will not happen if the leadership team does not provide full support. 3.Innovation Culture: A digital transformation plan must include a focus on innovation. The ultimate objective is to foster an innovative culture. It's much easier said than done. Creativity must be fostered. Just as an artist learns to paint over time, so can inventive talent develop with practise. Steps to Creating an Innovative Culture: 1.Good Intentions Aren't Enough Many companies confuse excellent ideas with innovation. They buy tried-and-true technology and claim that it has revolutionised their firm. Typically, they have made it more efficient. While this is an admirable goal, it does not provide long-term competitive advantage, it is not strategic, and this kind of marginal benefit has occurred since the company's inception. It isn't transformative. A list of diagnosed 'unknowns' should be included in the approach. Experiments are sparked by the unknown. These trials provide results. Insights result in inventions. Innovations are not one-time events or out-of-the-box ideas. It is not the development of an app, but this may be required to merely continue business as usual. A customer's pain, challenge, or unmet need inspires innovation. The technique is centred on finding areas of suffering or unmet demand. The communications will focus on expressing that need. Through purposeful processes of innovation, creativity will deliver the finest solutions to answering that need. Technology will be employed to meet that requirement, and data will be collected to assess its performance. A culture of innovation implies that the company is capable of accomplishing the above in a systematic manner. 2.Technology: "We constantly overestimate the change that will take place in the next two years and underestimate the change that will take place in the following 10." Don't be seduced into passivity." — Mr. Bill Gates. Assume a pilot says, "It's time to take off." Hold on tight as I switch on the blowing devices that are attached to the wings. I'm not sure what they do, but don't worry, I have a team of engineers that do." We

wouldn't be able to remain on the aircraft for very long. We'd search for an escape. Despite this, leaders, managers, and decision-makers have a poor level of technical expertise. AI, Blockchain, and IoTenabled new business models pose a greater danger to most firms than compliance and financial mismanagement. It would be unimaginable in the boardroom to abdicate all fiscal and legal duties, arguing that the finance and legal departments had it covered. So, why is it okay to do so with technology? Technology is the instrument that inspires innovators and allows for the creation of new business models. Leaders, managers, and decision-makers have strong reasons to comprehend developing technology's commercial potential. We don't expect them to comprehend how to replace the fuel pump on a jet engine, just like the pilot. They must comprehend the capabilities of the engine in order to safely take off and land. The same is true for non-technical CEOs who aspire to lead a company through digital transformation. Which came first, the egg or the chicken? This puzzle is intended to lead to a circular argument. There is no correct response. Substitute "data" for "chicken" and "egg" for "business challenge." Is it the data that identifies the business issue, or is it the business problem that identifies the data required to address it? The solution is to begin with the business issue rather than the facts. In this case, the chicken/egg metaphor is inapplicable. The business challenge should come first, followed by the data. This is not a circular reasoning. And where do business issues arise? They are the result of the digital transformation plan. The process of diagnosing, directing policy, and coordinating action aids in identifying the "unknowns." The process of invention and the application of new technologies is thus drowned in data. If the chicken was the source of the invention, the egg would be the source of the technology, and data would be the yolk. The Three Primary Groups Involved in Developing a Digital Transformation Strategy: 1.The Communications Expert: Consider every boss you've ever had. Some were fantastic, and they served as an inspiration to others. Others were dreadful, making you want to flee. Despite this, both had the same job title, "Manager." The

same may be said for Communications Professionals. A recent social media use survey predicts that over half of the world's population will be using social media by 2021. Although it is not difficult to use social media, some people create a profession out of publishing dull me-too stuff on Instagram, while others self-indulge in hopeless efforts to attain personal renown. Then there are a select handful who are genuinely outstanding communicators. They don't discuss tools or substance. They discuss the customer's mindscape. When it comes to business transformation, there are two main groups of stakeholders to consider: internal and external. Employees are referred to as internal. They are the most difficult to persuade that the new state is superior to the old. A excellent communicator knows and empathises with their natural desire to resist change. People are terrified of the unknown rather than change. It takes time and care to deconstruct the unknown. And where does this sharpness of eyesight come from? Of course, the digital transformation plan. Even the finest communications expert will struggle to sell the concept internally if the strategy does not provide clarity on the future status of the organisation. 2.The Technological Expert : Nobody ever called the IT department to thank them for keeping the network secure. Nobody has ever brought a cake into the IT department because the mail server has enjoyed a year of uninterrupted service. App developers, systems integrators, data experts, and network engineers are all in the same boat. It's often a thankless profession, with the limelight shining only when systems fail. The better they work, the less the rest of the company interacts. The Communications Professional requests assistance from the Technologists with experiments that may break or create data breaches. The technicians' reaction is usually one of hesitation. They've been booted every time anything has gone wrong in the past. Why should we put our faith in the system right now? The organization's thinking must first shift. Definable risk profile. The capacity to build-measure-learn and recognise that experiments will not always go as planned. Many companies pretend to take this kind of risk, yet they don't. Rather of delving deeply into ‘mistakes,'

technologists and communications experts aim to conceal them. Even the greatest technicians would be unable to innovate and improve a company if the attitude is not changed. 3.The Chief Executive Officer : Make a plan based on data. To make everything clear to everyone. Remove any impediments. Sounds simple, doesn't it? It isn't. Setting sales objectives is not part of a data-driven approach. It is not the acquisition of new assets or rivals. It is knowing where the new developing business prospects will emerge from in the near term and having the tools to employ predictive models to capitalise on the opportunity. When the opportunity grows, it must be integrated into the larger picture, replacing business-as-usual and reorganising the firm to better serve the client in new ways. When it comes to new digital business models, we virtually always discover that the present company silos are insufficient to effectively satisfy consumer demands. Building teams based on client tasks is a difficult endeavour that requires significant company agility. Many citizen requirements in government institutions do not cease at the door of one Ministry, but rather transcend numerous. It is the leader's responsibility to forge such coalitions and to guarantee that the finest citizen experience is realised. The politics involved are often numbing. The firm will struggle to succeed in transformative change unless these three have significant, personal engagement in the formulation and implementation of a digital transformation plan. It's fairly unusual for a single person to fill more than one of these positions in a small firm. This works as long as they are aware that they are wearing two hats and give both hats ample time on the head. The quick answer is that nothing occurs a lot of the time. There is a widespread misconception that all organisations must undergo digital transformation. They aren't. Some firms are naturally inquisitive and strive to develop and change on a regular basis. Most medium and big enterprises, on the other hand, struggle with adaptability. This isn't their fault. These companies have developed a digital transformation plan to safeguard their current cash cow, and, of course, there are the quarterly results. The shareholders are the only ones who have the authority to fire the CEO. The mere existence of a digital transformation plan does not imply that it is a good one. While this may seem self-evident, how

many top executives ask others to double-check their work? How many people reach the conclusion of developing a new vision for their company and say, "I don't believe I did a good job?" It's one of the most essential exams that is never graded. However, every other facet of the company's success is rated, assessed, and tracked. Politics and short-sighted shareholders may also stymie a digital transformation plan. Blockbuster did not fail owing to managerial ineptitude, as stated in the video above and in this blog. It plummeted as a result of shareholder protectionism. Here are the trends: i)Having a digital transformation plan does not guarantee that a company will survive and prosper. ii)A firm will not be disrupted if it does not have a digital transformation plan. iii)A weak digital transformation plan, on the other hand, ensures a poor result. The most difficult component for businesses confronted with the potential of "Digital Darwinism" is determining what has to be altered first. In Altimeter's latest research study, we've developed a maturity model to assist businesses in determining where they are and where they need to be on the path to digital transformation. After years of interviewing individuals involved in driving digital transformation, we've discovered a set of patterns, components, and procedures that serve as a solid basis for change. These stages work together to provide a digital maturity blueprint that may be used to steer deliberate and beneficial digital change. Our digital transformation study is focused on the digital customer experience (DCX), and so represents one of several approaches to change. In addition to technology and other market considerations, we discovered that DCX was a key catalyst in promoting company transformation. This report explains each of the six phases as a selfcontained stage, with a narrative and a checklist to help you along the way. Despite being presented in a chronological style, our study reveals that firms may be in numerous phases at the same time, depending on their objectives, resources, and overlapping projects. Use this framework to assess, benchmark, and chart your company's progress toward digital literacy and leadership, but keep in mind that

you may find yourself revisiting and overlapping phases as you implement your programme and plan. To make this more practical, we've identified six essential organisational areas that must be transformed at the same time: Analytics, Customer Experience, Governance and Leadership, People and Operations, Technology Integration, and Digital Literacy. The framework makes it simple for each stakeholders within the organisation to concentrate just on the areas they manage by analysing the development of transformation for each of these parts independently. A COO, for example, may concentrate on people and operations, while the CTO concentrates on technology and the CIO on digital literacy. By writing out the strategy for each department, it becomes much easier for a corporation to execute minor plans that support the overall digital transformation endeavour. A digital transformation framework is a technique that consultants and organisational executives often use to analyse a firm in order to help it reposition itself in the digital economy. Modern digital transformation frameworks are data-driven, as opposed to traditional management consulting frameworks, which are more subjective. When planning and directing a digital transformation, the goal of employing a digital transformation framework is to build a repeatable procedure or process. While there are numerous interpretations of the term "digital transformation," in the context of business and consulting, it is recognised that digital transformation is the act of repositioning an organisation in the digital economy, leveraging technology, in order to maximise its opportunity so that it may better serve current and new customers/citizens/donors/voters.... When it comes to repositioning a firm in the digital economy, a digital transformation framework is utilised to build a repeatable system of diagnosis, strategic planning, and execution. The framework assures that the Digital Transformation expert has control over the levers that lead to a changed state of a company, and the emphasis goes beyond technology. Rather than being sidetracked by the bright lights of technology, the framework preserves the focus on what matters: customer value, market position, and competition. Technology may be a powerful source of inspiration. However, in our experience, even when technologists deliver, many digital changes fail. Typically,

technology specialists provide precisely what is requested. The issue is that that is what was requested. When it comes to corporate change, technology is the facilitator, not the end. So, what is your company evolving into? Is it possible to express it? If not, you will most likely need frameworks and models to assist guide your thinking, planning, communication, innovation, and technology decisions. Almost every company confuses the phrase "strategy" with operational objectives, targets, or even power statements. Many companies have a web strategy, a social media strategy, a content strategy, a technology strategy, a communications strategy, a human resources plan, and so on. Almost all of these ‘strategies' are not strategic in the least. They are fully operating. Michael Porter is a Harvard Business School Bishop William Lawrence University Professor. He is wellknown for his 'Porter's Five Forces' model, as well as his publications on strategy and competitive advantage. He contends that operational effectiveness is not the same as strategy. Strategy is not defined by performance goals or acquisitions. So, given this information, what constitutes a good Digital Transformation Strategy? To find new business prospects, digital transformation initiatives use both historical and predictive data. A digital transformation plan aims to reposition a company in the digital economy. The repositioning process makes use of evolving technologies to develop new goods, services, and business models that consumers prefer over the old. Rapid exploration, invention, and cooperation are encouraged by strategies. The approach exposes internal teams to the large 'unknowns' that the firm wants addressed, connecting purposeful innovation directly with the business's strategic objective. These strategies are developed with the help of digital transformation frameworks.

4.10 Digital Transformation Framework A digital transformation strategy framework should include the following elements: i)Be designed specifically for digital transformation strategy rather than

a rehash of an old business subjective consultancy framework ii)Consider the whole organisation and how it should evolve to compete more effectively in the digital economy, rather than focusing just on IT operations and enterprise architecture. iii)Platforms, not spreadsheets, should be the contemporary digital transformation practice's tools. iv)A contemporary digital transformation plan framework should be data-driven in order to allow data-enhanced decision making via the use of predictive models. v)The frameworks' inputs should be dynamic. When new data becomes available, actions and tasks should be adaptable. A digital transformation operational model is a digital-age organisational architecture. Building a successful firm in the digital economy requires new skills, positions, and activities than in the more conventional operating style. The operational model defines how a company will use its resources to fulfil its strategic goals. When it comes to digital transformation, particularly in mid- to large-sized organisations, the operational model will alter based on the amount of urgency. From the standpoint of leadership or consulting, plans often fail to provide a return on capital when the operational model is not altered to fit the strategic objective. Comparing the amount of urgency for transformation against resources is a straightforward technique to determine which operational model is required for every particular firm. It is fairly unusual for the resources required to fall short of the aim. Businesses that do not face imminent disruption might adopt a different operational strategy than those that do. Only once the operational model has been determined can the workforce design be supplemented. While small firms may not need this degree of information, mid to big organisations most certainly must. In an effort to continue 'business as usual' while still transforming, they misjudge the level of change necessary in the workforce to reach their strategic objectives. Too frequently, they delegate Digital Transformation to the IT department while denying them the ability to modify workforce design or even contemplate new operating models. Such issues do not exist for digital creators. They employ digital transformation

frameworks for operational models to assist them in making the best choice. Before leveraging the potential of developing technology, business units must first grasp its business capabilities. Non-technical executives may use Digital Transformation Frameworks for New Technologies, as well as accompanying experiments and learning tools, to incorporate emerging technology into their strategic goals. Too frequently, organisations 'check the new tech box' by incorporating chatbots or IoT devices into their own offices and factories. They lack the confidence and know-how to incorporate evolving technologies into the core of their customer-centric strategy and value generating processes. Digital Transformation Frameworks for Emerging Technologies bridges the natural gap that exists between technology specialists and business executives. Technology is an enabler, a tool; it is not a strategic asset in and of itself. However, technology may also be used to inspire, lead, and predict how things will evolve in the future. Digital Transformation Frameworks for Emerging Technology such as Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Cloud assist organisations in accelerating the application of these technologies so that the business unit may establish new, long-term competitive advantages in the digital economy. Furthermore, once company executives see the potential of this developing technology, it often changes business models and workforce design. Digital transformation is being applied to four major business sectors as a continuous process in order to enhance efficiency, minimize human mistakes, and produce new and exponential value and they are: 1.Business Processes — With so many productivity applications on the market, the concept "digitally altering business processes" has become a buzzword. However, not all solutions are created equal. The key to digitally changing business processes is to map out the complete business process system, understand the needs between each stage, and then formulate the best model and identify the most appropriate solution. Although custom solutions can be developed when the complexity requires it, there are many turn-key and selfcustomizable solutions that typically accommodate the majority of common business processes, such as customer relationship

management (CRM) software, project management software, accounting software, or social media management software.

4.11 Digital Transformation in Practice 2.Business Models — As the market share of digitally native enterprises has expanded, digitally altering a company's business model has become increasingly important. Netflix is a well-known example. It started as a DVD lending service and smartly shifted its focus to streaming media. After shifting to a digital business model, Netflix increased its revenue significantly by reducing its dependence on physical inventory and increasing its reach to every home with an internet connection. 3.Domain Expertise — Domain transformation takes use of a company's strengths in one domain to expand its competitive reach into another. Amazon, for example, launched Amazon Prime, its own brand of streaming services, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing and infrastructure services, after displacing rivals in the publishing industry. Amazon may not only join but also dominate a new area by exploiting its technical skill in providing internet resources on a large scale. 4.Culture and Organization — As the digital business world evolves, so must company cultures and organizations. Examples abound; for example, how has online and mobile technologies transformed the way business contacts are conducted? More precisely, by developing a business culture based on its values and principles for digital

transformation, a firm's work ethic gains an exponential edge. Departments, for example, may seek data-driven analytics solutions to assist their choices and interactions if business thinking is oriented as data-centric. Digital revolutions nowadays need more than just providing an internet connection, email, and scanning paper documents in the business. The tendency has progressed beyond that. Cloud services, mobile devices, and the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) continue to transform the digital world in novel ways. However, the goal continues to deploy cutting-edge technology to enhance user experience and effectiveness. 5.Cloud Services — Cloud services, such as Salesforce for CRM, Google for productivity, and Amazon for infrastructure, are well-known to many businesses. However, digital transformation is a continuing process that requires businesses to update their technology in order to meet the expectations of their customers. Amazon, for example, has effectively linked all of its systems into a unified consumer experience. Amazon's mobile app syncs with their web store for everything from shopping to order fulfilment. When a performance questionnaire asks for consumer input on the experience, a customer may complete their basket on mobile, check out online, and receive texted tracking updates until their product is delivered. Complex, integrated cloud services provide this kind of seamless digital experience. 6.Technologies for Mobile — Mobile phone advancements have offered the ability to put incredibly strong computer capabilities, telecommunications access, and sensory technologies in the hands of every team member. Every user or consumer of your company may, in turn, access services through mobile devices. While cloud services continue to offer strong mobile platform services, designers and marketers are finding new methods to create rich mobile experiences. In 2004, the toy business Lego was on the edge of bankruptcy until they bet on a freshly focused digital approach to rescue them. Through their software Lego Digital Designer, Lego has extended into movies, video games, mobile gaming, and education. 7.IoT (Internet of Things) — Internet of Things-enabled devices are predicted to exceed the global human population by 2021, making

them more pervasive than mobile technology. In contrast to mobile, which often competes for the user's attention, IoT technology silently blends into the user's lifestyle. On a more intimate level, such technology may be used to regulate residential conditions and equipment. However, in industrial applications, IoT technology like as RFID tags (which are often regarded a forerunner to IoT) dramatically speeds company processes by swiftly monitoring business aspects such as inventories, equipment, and even people via RFID wristbands. As enabling IoT technology gets more affordable and compact, its application will grow. A digital transformation strategy is a firm's action plan that outlines precisely how the company will reorient itself to meet the changes in the expanding digital economy. Developing a digital transformation plan requires company-wide participation and departmental buy-in. It is critical to recognise that any digital transformation must grasp the existing and desired business results for each department. For example, marketing departments may wish to learn more about their customers' online behaviour, which may need the use of web analytics. Warehousing departments may suffer with inventory monitoring, a problem that advanced RFID tracking might solve. Compiling the requirements of each department, consumers, and anticipated future demands is the first stage in any digital transformation plan. In general, following a broad three-step plan may guide businesses in the proper direction. 1.Digital Requirements — All departments' feedback and planning on their requirements and team dynamics will eventually shape a plan of action. Requirements must be well understood; for example, does accounting software need to interact readily with other systems such as human resources or sales? This may result in the discovery of broad solutions that encompass numerous departments or the identification of holes in business procedures. 2.Guiding Policies — Policies must be selected to meet the business conditions and resources based on the demands of the firm. Because price is an issue, a less complex cloud service may be chosen over a more sophisticated business solution. However, by anticipating a

company's whole digital demands, plans for future transformation may be executed in stages. This may be advantageous in certain circumstances if employee technology uptake is sluggish. 3.Action Plan — A detailed implementation strategy should be established on a timetable and well documented with progress indicators. Each component is necessary to keep leadership and teams aligned and to ensure the success of digital transformation. While all of this sounds great in principle, taking the initial step toward HR digital transformation might be intimidating. So here are a few essential requirements for a great start: i)Set a specific aim. ii)Bring everyone on board. iii)Don't make things too complicated. iv)Ideas should be prioritised. v)Evaluate performance vi)Culture is essential. Let's go through them one at a time: 1. Define a specific aim. Again, before embarking on a large transformative HR journey, identify a clearly defined aim that makes commercial sense. Most of the time, this purpose will be to resolve a problem that workers are experiencing. As a result, in an HR transformation process, the emphasis should always be on the employee as an end-user. It's also why you should let your staff evaluate any new technology before implementing it. 2. Obtain consensus from all stakeholders. This includes everyone from workers to the C-suite and everyone in between. When it comes to a digital HR transformation that will effect the whole business, you need all the help you can get to make it a success. 3. Avoid overcomplicating things. This is something we've mentioned previously - in our 'What is Digital HR?' piece – and it's still true. Always begin small and uncomplicated.

Examine the areas of your HR operations that might benefit from a digital makeover (preselection & recruitment, onboarding & in boarding, learning and development, payroll management and so on). Discuss this with your staff and members of the C-suite. Inquire with them about what they believe should be a priority. 4. Sort thoughts according to their importance. This will almost certainly result in a big list of suggestions. Prioritize them depending on their importance and effort. The former refers to the commercial effect of digitising the ideas, while the latter refers to the time and money required to make the ideas digital. Begin with concepts that have a great effect and require little work. They will assist you in developing a business case for digital HR and getting you up and running swiftly. 5. Evaluate performance Trying and adopting digital technologies is excellent, but it doesn't make much commercial sense until we look at their outcomes. As a result, we must critically evaluate what works and what does not. After all, the only way for humanity to progress is to tackle genuine issues with technology solutions that actually solve them. Culture is essential. HR transformation cannot be achieved just via the use of digital technologies. Let alone a complete organization's digital transformation. It's just as much – if not more – about everyone involver’s thinking. And this has everything to do with the culture of your firm. A digital mentality – in the widest meaning of the term – is required for a successful transition, from the new employees you recruit to your present staff all the way up to the C-level. Following the route of "e-government" and the digitization of paperbased operations, many governments have now changed their attention to a whole-organization approach to digital—or, at the very least, recognised the necessity. A digital transformation project is likely to include many different processes and systems in many circumstances, necessitating that digital be regarded closer to an organization's core activities and increase its capacity to swiftly reconfigure itself. This transformation is often embraced as a chance to partly, if not entirely, reinvent the organization's major aims, its distinctive public value, to retire outmoded and habit-sustained roles

and responsibilities, and to meet new levels of demand from service users and the general public. A particular issue in the public sector's digital transformation is the capacity to employ new kinds of personnel and incorporate digital-related tools, techniques, tactics, and culture not just into goals and plans, but also into everyday routines. This capacity is hampered by a lack of expertise in specialised fields: data analysts and data scientists are often recruited by private enterprises with more appealing pay packages. The demand for new profiles extends beyond purely digital-related positions to new methods of developing and delivering services: from user experience and user interface specialists to ideation and strategic vision catalysts, a diverse set of skills and knowledge is required. None existed when public administrations first began, and the majority did not exist even five years ago. Aside from cultural barriers, organisations encounter significant technological obstacles when transitioning from legacy systems, many of which contain crucial data or perform key services. The differences in adaptive ability and "technology debt" between startups and big organisations may be significant. Furthermore, governments are grappling with how to deal with new technology such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. The challenge for governments is threefold: how should governments incorporate these new technologies for their own public purposes, how should governments address the use of these technologies in the private sector, and how do these new technologies affect the functions, expectations, and role of governments in transforming societies. "Disruption" is frequently associated with digital transformation and emerging technologies because they can affect critical organisational infrastructure, create extreme disparities between organisations, impact human and organisational relationships, impact markets, establish new implicit rules, and create entirely new forms of value. There are two sorts of possibilities for product teams to utilise digital transformation: recognising internal processes that are ready for change and finding market opportunities where digital transformation might create a gap for goods and services. Product managers may discover tools, solutions, and processes to develop a more efficient product management organisation for internal use cases, such as

tools for gathering and synthesising input, communication and collaboration tools, or systems for tracking requirements and planning roadmaps. However, recognising possibilities to serve a target market by embracing digital transformation to address consumer issues and generate efficiency is a much larger potential. The key to identifying and measuring digital transformation possibilities is customer research. As a problem-solving outsider, product managers may learn about client pain areas via interviews and surveys and design digital solutions to alleviate them. A new market potential arises if these solutions are appealing enough and provide a fair ROI for clients. The environment for customer communication is likewise changing as a result of digital transformation. Customers are no longer happy with one-way communication and a toll-free number if they have a problem; they want a continuous conversation with their partners that includes useful information and responsive updates to the products they depend on. Perhaps the most ambiguous word in business is "digital transformation." When you try to catch too many moving pieces, you end up with visual white noise. Then, in an attempt to explain it, we say it's an umbrella phrase. But what exactly does digital transformation imply? Is it about staying up to date on new devices and software? Or does it signal that customers want to connect with companies in a new way? Perhaps it represents our retooling of our company processes in order to capitalise on the exciting new world of technology. Is the solution all of the aforementioned, A, B, C, or D? The first tricky issue is that customers drive change. When we discuss digital transformation, we make it clear that it is not a commodity. On the C-level, it is the processes that are activated. They indicate seismic transformations in how businesses design and use software, how they alter internal procedures, and, ultimately, how individuals think in these organisations. But, does it have to originate from inside a company? Try to recollect the last time you spent cash. Alternatively, here's another experiment. When was the last time you used a handwritten letter and a stamp to communicate an essential business message? Many things have gone digital. We get used to engaging with the outside world via digital means. This shift in thinking inside enterprises is ultimately driven by changes with our end

consumers, and we must adapt. The second tricky point is that digitalization does not imply transformation. Consider the change from office documents kept on workers' PCs to those stored in the cloud, such as Google Docs. As an alternative to storing individual papers, we might utilise Google Docs. To share these papers with others, we might export them or send emails with the exported documents attached. We don't do that since the cloud enables for speedier intrateam communication and collaborative editing without the need for exporting. The premise is that digital transformation is more than just replacing old tools with new, digitalized ones. Instead, it requires a comprehensive shift in both technology and how people think about exploiting technology. As a result, digitization may not always imply change. There is no one blueprint for all organisations to follow when it comes to adapting to the digital era. Some totally physical services were unable to withstand the pressures of disruptive digitalization. For example, when Netflix and Hulu were on the scene, the whole video and rental sector in the United States became outdated. Many brickand-mortar businesses, on the other hand, are feeling the digital effect in a more muted fashion. Amazon has not yet decimated the physical retail business; rather, it has forced it to adopt new digital tools. The degree of digitization of products and services varies between sectors, which determines the course of transformation. If an industry is driven by continuous innovation, the change should centre on how value is provided. In a disruptive innovation environment, value should be transformed. In other words, a business should assess what will be given in the end and reframe its value offer. Few paths: Change the way you provide. This route comprises altering an operating model in order to supplement the current workflow without distorting the bottom line proposal. It often combines with sectors where the product is primarily tangible, clients do not anticipate major changes in the value proposition, and money is obtained via ways other than digital. AltexSoft collaborated with a partner to create a gamification and engagement marketing platform that assisted customers in taking the first step toward changing delivery value. The software enables retailers, healthcare providers, and casinos to gamify their discount programmes. Customers may participate in

digital discount programmes and get more involved with companies when they buy real items and services. Pathway for transforming delivery value: Launch a new digital channel. While maintaining current income streams, employ new digital channels to attract a new digital audience, engage existing consumers in new ways, or enhance existing operations. Learn from what you've learned. As you enter new digital channels, you will encounter a whole new flow of information about digital consumers or processes that may be gathered and evaluated. Companies that have utilised the gamification platform outlined above, for example, might evaluate their discount campaigns and better match their incentive offerings to various parts of their audience. Integrate new digital methods completely into the operational model. Once the input has been collected and analysed, the distribution is optimised to include all customer/employee/partnerfacing units. Path number two is to transform what you provide. When physical income sources no longer fit the digital expectations of consumers or partners, this transition option is preferable. As most consumers expect digital goods, the transition begins with addressing digitalized customers and progresses to reinventing the fundamental value proposition. As a result, the physical offer is being replaced by a digital one. Bravo Pawn Systems LLC. is a market-leading SaaS supplier of integrated point-of-sale and inventory management systems. The firm collaborated with AltexSoft to provide a completely cloud-based management system for pawnshops. Pawnshops handle various operational issues by transitioning to the whole digital value offering. Pawnshops may appraise things remotely online by getting images from consumers, rather of arbitrarily evaluating them on-site. Smart assessment tools aid in the avoidance of incorrect estimates. Furthermore, the programme supports eCommerce–products may be sold semi-automatically through eBay, Amazon, or other eCommerce platforms thanks to the connection of different APIs. By transitioning to all-digital operations, Bravo assisted pawnshop operators in reshaping their value offer. Pathway for value proposition transformation:

i)Increase the value of your current value proposition by incorporating digital experience. This will aid in both improving the present customer experience and establishing a new digital community. ii)Create a new income stream. Create a new income stream that is completely focused on the digital community and has no overlap with the physical one. This essentially implies broadening the brand. iii)Change the proposal. Depending on the industry, transformation entails either a complete replacement of physical value with digital value or the creation of a combined physical digital value. iv)The degree of digital disruption should not be the main criterion for choosing a strategy. While consumer mobility and digital expectations are crucial, firms must also consider strategic choices on other actors and the capacity to transition legacy and physical processes to digital ones. There’s a blind spot in most conversations that address the experience layer of interaction with customers. Every time we bring up the experience question, we tend to talk about it in terms of user experience or customer experience. We emphasize how a customer or a partner interacts with the brand and how the brand dictates the rules of this interaction. However, the mobility and digitalization trends reshaped this approach leaving organizations with little to no tools for controlling the customer experience. We can’t dictate that a client or partner should use only the phone channel to contact the organization. The new way to build a firm community around brands is to embrace the dual-track interaction in which brands receive feedback from customers and reshape the experiences they deliver accordingly. Back in 2010, Esteban Kolsky, an enterprise advisor and the founder of ThinkJar, introduced the concept of Experience Continuum, which is built around a social business model. It suggests that every level of organization–from accounting through marketing to shipping–should be involved in the end-to-end, continuous experience-feedback mechanism. As an organization delivers experience and receives feedback, it learns from it and ships an updated experience to match customer expectations. Unlike the traditional lifecycle approach, it challenges the organization to move from a single-process experience (e.g. marketing and sales adapt

separately) to end-to-end processes (e.g. marketing and sales operate within one stream of feedback and decisions). Thus, feedback is collected across all business units and processes adapt in an integrated way. However, the shift from a single-process experience to an end-to-end mechanism can’t be achieved rapidly. We suggest the evolutionary approach to reshaping the experience. Look at some of its key constituents: i)Support cross-channel coherence. MITSloan Management Review disclosed a story of one retail brand that made customers angry because the representatives in a store didn’t have access to their online order history. To enable multichannel services, an organization must ensure coherence among all channels, which requires cross-channel accessibility to operational levers. ii)Individualize customer experience. As we face a rapid growth of available touch-points and gather greater amounts of customer data, companies can convert all customer-related data to actionable insights and provide individualized experience to better segment customers and match their expectations. We’ll talk about customer analytics in more detail in the Information Management and Analytics section. iii)Digitalize operations and communications internally. All customer-facing efforts will be in vain if operations aren’t digitalized internally, e.g. capturing the tweet of an unsatisfied customer by the marketing team is useless unless the complaint is rapidly directed digitally to the customer service team. The current state of CRM allows for this type of rapid response. Another aspect of internal digitalization is employee mobility and embracing the bring-your-owndevice (BYOD) demand. Enterprise mobility is truly rewarding when employees who must work on-site (restaurants, construction, manufacturing) can access information, and directly operate software via mobile devices. iv)Optimize and automate. Automation has become a fact of life in recent years. However, refocusing employee experience from repetitive tasks to strategic and ingenious operations is still a high barrier. It can be tackled by establishing internal experience-feedback loops and gathering data. v)Converge sales, marketing, and customer service. In traditional

businesses, sales, marketing, and customer service departments operate in parallel universes as customers progress through the funnel. The converged approach implies uniting silos to achieve a 360-degree view of the customer. Thus, each department can leverage the insights of the other two and respond proactively to meet expectations. vi)Streamline the partner experience. Many businesses have recognized the need to integrate partner or vendor experience into the operational framework. Vendor and management systems, for instance, digitized mutual contacts between partners to streamline operations and reduce cost associated with establishing different communication channels with each partner. The partner is a leading US-based travel technology provider serving over 450 clients, including corporate travel departments, airlines, and global distribution systems. In cooperation with this company, AltexSoft developed a business travel environment that contributes to the end-to-end customer/employee experience. The idea behind the solution is to address business travel losses associated with such disruptions as flight delays and overbooking. The product consists of two components–an agent-facing dashboard and a traveller-facing mobile application. The application alerts travellers if a disruption occurs and allows the traveller to directly contact a travel agent in charge; while travel agents can proactively capture any disruption event and rebook a ticket to let the traveller reach a business destination in time. Both internal and client-facing digitalization allowed travel agencies minimize the disruption risks. While better servicing consumers has historically been a key motivator of digital transformation, it has also meant that businesses must be cautious about how soon and how complex new technological solutions are offered. One major concern is that not all consumers would be able to adjust or be ready for change. At the start of the year, 67 percent of CEOs in the United States voiced reservations about moving all of their operations to the cloud. By compelling everyone to use digital tools, the epidemic has essentially removed past reservations. Digital transformation was already important to Thomson Reuters Corp.'s business strategy and operational model.

However, as President and CEO Steve Hasker notes, changes in consumer attitudes and habits have hastened the company's digital business model plan. "We've witnessed a significant shift in our clients' embrace of cloud-based, real-time, digitally supplied corporate information services," he adds. "Any scepticism in our customers' thoughts about shifting to the cloud or the next generation of digital solutions has substantially, if not fully, dissipated." In terms of acceptance of what the new world has to look like, I believe we've seen three to four years of improvement in only three to four months." The best potential to emerge from the epidemic is to accelerate efforts to change the customer experience. "During the epidemic, it became crystal evident to us that our investment in customer service digitalization (CSD) is certainly the correct strategy,". "To meet the demands of our clients, CSD combines Waste Management's technology and innovation while combining it with our data and analytics skills to seamlessly integrate all the WM activities necessary to serve our customers and distinguish the organisation." Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) creates solutions that bridge the physical and digital worlds by integrating hardware, software, data processing, and artificial intelligence. "As the rate of innovation and the degree of product development complexity for our clients rises, we need techniques to get our products to market that tame the inherent difficulties,", President and CEO of ADI. "We will continue to invest in software solutions to assist both our customers and our personnel," Roche adds. "For customers, we are focusing on building an end-toend digital customer experience in which they can study, prototype, and then implement our goods in a more convenient, quicker, and efficient manner." Internally, we are investing in centralised hardware and software platforms to meet the demands for innovation and execution." The increased need for digital technology solutions has been a blessing to many businesses, although under tough conditions. Companies have had to move faster than planned since they did not have all of the essential financial and human resources in place. The difficulty in making timely technology-related choices was seen as the main hurdle to speeding digital transformation by the largest number of CEOs (31%). Today's corporations have embraced digital transformation, with many

firms implementing a digital strategy. This is now true not just for established organisations, but also for startups, which is dramatically growing the size of the digital transformation industry. Various businesses, including financial services and healthcare, have entered the fray. Adopting a digital strategy does not guarantee that your company will flourish immediately. Many businesses know that it takes years for them to gain the advantages of such a strategy. The worldwide digital transformation market is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.5 percent from $469.8 billion in 2020 to $1,009.8 billion by 2025. (Research&Markets, 2020). Digitally changed enterprises are expected to generate more than half of global GDP by 2023, accounting for $53.3 trillion (IDC, 2020). By 2022, it is expected that 65 percent of the world's GDP will be digitised (IMF, 2020). 70% of firms have or are developing a digital transformation plan (PTC, 2019). Digital revolutions seem to have helped industrial firms the most (PTC, 2019). 55% of startups have already implemented a digital business strategy (IDC, 2018). 38% of conventional organisations have implemented a digital business strategy (IDC, 2018). 89 percent of businesses intend to or have already implemented a digital business strategy (IDC, 2018). Services (95 percent), financial services (93 percent), and healthcare (92 percent) are among the top digital business strategy adopters (IDC, 2018). In the next three to five years, 39 percent of CEOs anticipate to gain from their digital transformation activities (Fortinet, 2018). 21 percent of North American and European businesses claim to have completed their digital transformation (Forrester, 2018). Digital transformation, as the term implies, relies on the use of new tech to modify key business processes and even existing services. There are a variety of technologies that companies are currently using

in coming up with digital strategies. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are at the forefront of the push for digitalization. You need only to see artificial intelligence stats to affirm this. Meanwhile, check out the digital transformation technologies statistics listed below to learn more about these techs. 58% of companies with high digital maturity offer digitally connected products, while only 17% of lower-maturity companies said the same (Deloitte, 2020). The implementation of digital technologies can help accelerate progress towards enterprise goals such as financial returns, workforce diversity, and environmental targets by 22% (Deloitte, 2020). In fact, 69% of higher maturity companies are using digital technologies to cut carbon emissions, while 58% of lower-maturity companies are using them to lower consumption of natural resources (Deloitte, 2020). The most successful organizations that dealt with the pandemic reported a variety of technology-related capabilities. 75% said they had the ability to fill tech jobs during the crisis, 67% said they were more advanced in using technology than their peers before the crisis, and 56% said they were the first movers in experimenting with digital technologies during the crisis (McKinsey, 2020). 51% of digital transformation efforts stem from growth opportunities (Altimeter, 2019). 60% of executives say the Internet of Things will play a critical role in their digital business strategy (IDC, 2018). The top technologies already implemented include big data/analytics (58%), mobile technology (59%), and APIs and embeddable tech (40%) (IDC, 2018). Executives say digital transformation’s top benefits include improvement of operational efficiency (40%), faster time to market (36%, and meeting customer expectations (35%) (PTC, 2018). Less than 30% of technology vendors are active partners in organizations’ digital transformation initiatives (PTC, 2018) Digital transformation is indeed a boon for many companies, hence

the high adoption rate of digital technologies. However, jumping into the digitization bandwagon does not guarantee success. Seventy percent of such initiatives have been found to fail to reach their goals. The problem is seen to lie in the management of such strategies. Of course, digital asset management software benefits can help address these complications. But then again, tech managers often overlook factors such as business strategy, employee concerns, and customer experience, resulting in less than ideal outcomes. Proper management leads to excellent results; just take a look at the following stats that prove this point. 29% of executives from companies with high digital maturity reported digital transformation’s positive impact on growth and innovation, while 41% emphasized the positive impact on sales and marketing functions (Deloitte, 2020). 38% of executives plan to invest more in technology to make it their competitive advantage (McKinsey, 2020). 70% of organizations consider their CEO’s practical understanding of new technologies as adequate or above average (Futurum, 2018). 28% of chief information officers and 23% of chief executive officers are either owning or sponsoring digital transformation initiatives (Altimeter, 2019). 37% of IT initiatives by companies worldwide are focused on improving customer experience (Flexera, 2021). 39% of CEOs have placed digital transformation as the top priority for their CIOs (CIO, 2020). 67% of CIOs said creating new revenue-generating initiatives is among their job responsibilities (CIO, 2020). 78% of heads of IT said they are communicating with the board of directors more than ever before (CIO, 2020). Employee pushback and lack of expertise to lead digitization initiatives are the top two barriers to digital transformation (Jabil). Improved revenue and stock prices are but two of the numerous benefits that digital transformation offers. However, financial benefits outshine all others as these are the main goals of every enterprise. Companies such as Target, Best Buy, and Hasbro, who were

sensitive enough to capitalize on digital technology, have reaped their benefits early in the game. It, therefore, follows that all manners of technology vendors have gained significant digital transformation market share. If you look at the statistics below, you’ll see how much organizations have been investing in digital transformation. 40% of all technology spending is seen to go to digital transformations (CIO, 2018). $2 trillion – The total enterprise spending on digital transformations in 2019 (CIO, 2018). 28% of companies view digital transformation as costly (Altimeter, 2019). When it comes to tech initiatives, 54% of companies worldwide said they are prioritizing digital transformation, while 49% are prioritizing cybersecurity (Flexera, 2021). $6.8 trillion – The projected value of direct investments in digital transformation between 2020 and 2023 (IDC, 2020). By 2023, global spending on services and technologies that will allow digital transformation is estimated to amount to $2.3 trillion (IDC, 2020). The global digital transformation spending in logistics is estimated to amount to $84.6 billion by 2027 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (ReportLinker, 2020). IT leaders worldwide reported a median additional spend of 5% of IT budget to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic (KPMG, 2020). Digital transformation has proven instrumental in improving corporate coffers and shareholder value. High-technology B2B sales are seen to emanate from digitalization. This view reinforces the fact that digital transformation is a game-changer for many enterprises. Moreover, companies that were quick to implement digital technologies during COVID-19 were also able to protect their revenue or even grow it during the crisis. Consider the revenue derived from digital transformation, as reflected in the following statistics. In 2016, high-tech B2B companies have reported a 10% to 20% cost reduction and revenue growth of 10% to 15% from transforming their

customer experience processes (McKinsey, 2016). Within the same year, the revenue growth of B2B digital leaders was five times more compared to their peers (McKinsey, 2016). 60% of marketers say that technology has significantly boosted competition (Adobe). By 2018, it was found that start-ups can increase revenue by 34% using digital-first strategies (IDC, 2018). More recently, high-tech B2B sales were seen to come from digital transformation in 2020 (Adobe, 2021). Companies that have higher digital maturity reported 45% revenue growth compared to 15% for lower maturity companies (Deloitte, 2020). Among companies with declining revenues due to COVID-19, 45% said they are increasing focus on digital transformation (McKinsey, 2020). New technologies are integral to digital transformation. However, many of these technologies can be cumbersome and complex, making it difficult at times for organizations to adapt to the changes that they bring about. Technology disruptions can impact a variety of business areas, among them job creation. Find out more about how technology disruption has been impacting companies in the following stats. Among technological changes implemented by businesses during the pandemic, 93% of companies surveyed said they had to shift to remote work, 62% said they had to deal with increasing customer demand for online purchase and services, and 34% said there was an increase in migration of their company’s assets to the cloud (McKinsey, 2020). 54% of respondents believe that the change to remote work implemented during the pandemic will remain (McKinsey, 2020). 40% of executives reported that the top benefit of digital transformation was operational efficiency, while 36% said it was faster time to market (PTC, 2019). 64.5% of companies feel positive about their ability to adapt to

technological disruption (Futurum, 2018). 67.8% of companies’ disruption has had a neutral-to-positive impact on job creation (Futurum, 2018). 37.3% of companies report a net increase in job creation from technology disruption (Futurum, 2018). 31.3% of companies report a negative impact of technology disruption on job creation (Futurum, 2018). 50.4% of organizations express a positive outlook about technology disruption (Futurum, 2018). 20% of all departments are unable to adapt to technology disruption (Futurum, 2018). Digital transformation is known to impact employees directly. This influence can either be positive or negative, depending on one’s standpoint. On the lighter side, digital transformation cannot occur without employees, which also entails the acquisition of highly-coveted digital skills. On the other hand, digitization is also seen to affect the existing job market adversely. Digitization has also paved the way for the creation of corporate roles that call for a different type of skillset. For example, the career path of digital project managers veers away from conventional project management roles. 71% of executives say the workforce is either very or essential to their digital transformation strategy (Industry Week, 2018). Meanwhile, in recent years, 89% of heads of IT said they increasingly need to rely on advisors in order to navigate new technologies, processes, and methodologies (CIO, 2020). 90% of jobs are seen to require digital skills in the future (European Commission, 2017). 68% of executives believe that collaboration between people and AI will be key to the future of businesses (Fujitsu, 2018). 44% of workers aged between 16 and 74 in Europe do not have basic digital skills (European Commission, 2017). Among the skills needed to support digital transformation, technology integration and implementation to the list at 49% (CIO, 2020). 15.7% of businesses say technology disruption has been a “job killer.”

(Futurum, 2018). 41% of remote workers experienced cybersecurity incidents when their work setup shifted to a work-from-home arrangement (KPMG, 2020). Digital transformation will not be possible without technology adoption. Slow technology adoption could prove to be a problem as many businesses have admitted to being slow in technology adoption. However, many companies claim to be comfortable with digital transformation and technology use, which sets the ideal condition for digitization. Check out the statistics below to know more. 15% of enterprises are using AI as of 2018 (CMO, 2018). 31% of enterprises are seen to adopt AI in 2019 (CMO, 2018). 76.6% of businesses say their relationship with technology and digital transformation is generally average or above average (Futurum, 2018). IT, customer care, and marketing departments have been excelling in technology adoption (Futurum, 2018). HR, manufacturing, and legal are considered most likely to adapt to technological change (Futurum, 2018). However, as of 2020, 30% of companies are still considered laggards in technology adoption and innovation. (Accenture, 2020). It’s estimated that companies accelerated their adoption of digital technologies for customer and supply-chain interactions by 3 to 4 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic (McKinsey, 2020). When the pandemic hit, North America took the largest leap in digitization with 60% of its products and services now fully or partially digitized (McKinsey, 2020). 72% of companies who were first in their industries to experiment with digital technologies during the pandemic reported having very effective responses to COVID-19 (McKinsey, 2020). 25% of organizations worldwide have adopted cloud-distributed technology on a large scale (KPMG, 2020). Respondents said their companies acted 20-25 times faster than expected to a range of COVID-19 related changes. In the case of

remote working, companies acted 40 times faster to put digital tools in place for remote work (McKinsey, 2020). The good news is that board involvement in technology concerns is increasing. However, our experience suggests that most boards are unaware of the potential and dangers connected with digital transformation. When we view it, there are four critical tasks that businesses should undertake as they examine what digital means for their company and strategy. Evaluate your digital preparedness. According to Protiviti's unique study, digital leaders excel in more than 30 skills. These competences, some of which are shown below, are made up of empirically proven skills and structural traits that may be used to benchmark the organization in order to determine its strengths and shortcomings. The abilities span six essential domains that many conventional organizations struggle with: i)Strategy, vision, and purpose ii)Management and organizational culture iii)Structure, organization, and procedures iv)Sales, marketing, and communication vi)Innovation and development in technology vii)Analytics, big data, and automation Using the vision, purpose, and strategy as a framework, management should discover and assess gaps within the organization. To exemplify a couple of the competences, we'll focus on the first two disciplines, starting with "vision, purpose, and strategy." Executives must comprehend the potential effect of digital disruption in the industry segment(s) in which the business works and be able to express a clear strategic vision appropriate for the digital age. The company must have the ability to disrupt established business models as well as the ability to embrace hyper scalable models that lessen reliance on human resources. Setting and reviewing digital strategies should be a constant business and boardroom effort. The team in charge of the organization's digital strategy should be constantly fed studies of the markets and competitive environment in which the firm works, and then design and evaluate different scenarios. Simply put, the company

must be capable of questioning conventional wisdom and upsetting previously established value chains and methods of operating (e.g., management dissects the traditional analogue value chain and rethinks the role of all key players rather than just focusing on the current role of the business within the value chain). In terms of "management and employee culture," the executive team must understand the impact that the digital revolution may have on the business and be able and willing to take the necessary steps to ensure that the digital transformation programmed and its various projects are well-positioned to succeed. To do this, the organization must: i)Have a clear strategy in place to obtain and sustain a competitive edge, as well as to attain market digital leadership. ii)Utilize the company's digital assets — whether brand, people resources, or technology — and implement digital solutions. iii)Cultivate a strong company culture from the top down that encourages an open and participatory management environment defined by trust, mutual admiration, and respect, and that inspires and rewards employees to be creative and highly inventive. iv)Recognize and recruit the kind of individuals required to compete in the digital age. v)Have a staff made up of extremely competent individuals from various backgrounds who are well-versed in technology and digital business methods. vi)The board and executive team must also reflect the aforementioned characteristics and play an active role in digital leadership. To summaries, executives must consider how they might seize the potential presented by evolving technology. The digital era is compelling enterprises to dramatically rethink how they connect with consumers and to seek design breakthroughs for continually enhancing processes and activities to give greater value. That implies they must strike a balance between thinking outside the box and the practical issues of repositioning the company. The capabilities listed above, as well as others, may be valuable in evaluating the company against the industry and relevant case studies, as well as planning the

road toward digital maturity. The aim is that the strategy should reflect the skills that now characterize the firm and address any gaps that offer hurdles to success. Many initiatives fail to address these underlying concerns, resulting in a firm that is digital on the outside but not at the heart. A genuinely digital firm, in our opinion, has a digital core. To that purpose, a current-state evaluation focuses on digital preparedness. Define and iteratively improve the digital vision and strategy. After assessing the organization's digital readiness and capabilities, management is in a position to plan strategically. A company's CEO must take responsibility for comprehending the competitive environment, the possibilities presented by developing technology, and the challenges to established income streams. Organizations must make a deliberate choice about whether they will lead as an industry disruptor or transformer, or if they will play a waiting game, watch the competitive environment, and respond only when required to protect market share. For many businesses, the solution may lie somewhere in the middle. Those firms that choose not to deliberately disturb the status quo have the problem of being nimble enough to respond rapidly as an early mover. Few, though, are prepared to take on the task. A good parallel is that no one should try to climb a difficult mountain too rapidly. Success requires fitness, readiness, collaboration, and understanding of predicted weather conditions. Attempting a climb before one is ready is a fool's errand. Similarly, management must center the digital strategy and the strategic efforts that support it on what the company is strong at: distinctive core capabilities that offer unique customer experiences. To that end, the vision must represent the prevailing direction of relevant digital technology and how it may improve what the firm does best. This is a never-ending process of redefining vision, strategy, and capabilities. It is about much more than creating a strategy; with technology and laws changing at such a quick pace, and innovation occurring at such a rapid pace, the organization must continually examine and modify its digital objectives. To explain, Agile is more than simply a software development methodology; it is a way of thinking about how to apply adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and quick and flexible reaction to change to all business operations, including

strategy-setting. Similarly, a digital firm requires a responsible leader and team that are focused on business model disruption (what we term "disruption focus"). An organization is more likely to succeed in the digital age if it challenges conventional thinking, puts "driving value for the customer" at the center of its decision-making, has a deep understanding of maturing technologies, and can apply that knowledge to drive innovation that creates new types of value for existing customers and opens up new markets. It's either disrupt or be disrupted, as the saying goes. Define the desired operational model. With the currentstate assessment against projected needs as a baseline and a compelling vision and strategy articulated, management should define the processes, organization, methodologies, and systems that will comprise the future state operating model — including the talent required to make the model a reality — while remaining true to the company's identity and brand promise. The relevance of policies should not be overlooked in the drive to become digital. Robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) promise many potential, but they also pose substantial hazards and raise ethical concerns for leaders. Too frequently, regulations, practices, and organizational structures obstruct a company's ability to become and stay digital. The idea is to empower, trust, and monitor individuals rather than controlling them. For many businesses based on "command and control" hierarchies, this is a new way of thinking. Once the organization has established its vision and strategy, management must recruit and educate the proper people while ensuring that the enterprise's rules, procedures, and systems are fit to compete in a digital environment. After defining the present and future states, improvement plans based on industry best practices should be prepared and discussed with top management and the board. The hazards associated with the desired state must be recognized and weighed against the entity's risk tolerance. In this regard, management must be cautious not to overestimate the hyper scalable business model component of digital transformation. Digital thinking necessitates enterprises addressing the issue of quick growth and scalability without relying on humans. As a result, large degrees of automation are required in digital business

structures. These skills not only produce efficiency, but they also allow the company to grow quickly to meet demand. Management no longer needs to expand ahead of demand with a digital business strategy. Align your company with the necessary transformation. Focus and discipline are required when using digital technology to enhance goods, services, and processes. Executive management buy-in is required to allow continual or breakthrough change with confidence (and from the board of directors for significant changes in strategy, processes and systems). Support is also required from other important stakeholders, such as business-line executives, operations employees, and process owners who would be most impacted by the change. Organizational transformation and its ramifications must be communicated in a way that addresses why a digitally oriented culture is required for the institution to survive and prosper. It must make a persuasive argument that the collective interests of workers and the organization are intrinsically tied to bringing about change. The thrilling or terrifying fact, depending on one's point of view, is that the digital revolution is just just getting started. For most major, established organizations today, the issue is not if technology will disrupt their company, but when. Even when CEOs are aware of new technologies with apparent disruptive potential, it is sometimes impossible to have the vision or foresight to predict the form and amount of change. As a result, each company must design its own digital path. Through that aim, the board should be involved in all of the processes mentioned above, from readiness assessment to organizational alignment. When it comes to digital, directors must be aware of the indicators of myopic short-termism and top management's emotional engagement in old business models. This dysfunction may stymie the necessary dedication and tone at the top in order to drive disruptive change. Finally, the board must ask the pertinent questions in order to persuade management to accelerate the enterprise's digital journey at a rate that will maintain the company's sources of competitive advantage and market position. A recent global survey of board members and C-suite executives cited the inability to compete with “born digital” competitors, resistance to change and disruptive change to the business model as top risks for 2019. These risks were not at the forefront of many senior executives’

and board members’ minds just a few years ago. To gain perspective on this important area of board oversight, Protiviti met in August 2018 with 20 active directors during a dinner roundtable at a National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) event to discuss the board’s oversight of industry disruption and digital transformation. Below are some important takeaways from that discussion. Evaluate digital readiness. Digital leadership requires a certain state of mind. It is about changing the way an organization acts and thinks in everything it does. To be successful, executive management must prepare the organization to compete in the digital age. They must also assess the extent of digital know-how across the company. Is the organization a follower or a leader? If it is a beginner or a skeptic, does the board encourage management to advance its digital maturity? Can management identify and act on the strengths and weaknesses across the business in the context of the digital vision, mission and strategy? Management can have the best possible strategy, but the organization can’t execute it if the business is not digital-ready. It is also difficult to formulate a viable strategy if the organization is not digital-ready. It helps if the company benchmarks itself against the competencies at which digital leaders excel to better understand the pathway to achieving digital readiness. Protiviti offers a framework to help organizations conduct this assessment. Understand what transformation entails. Digital familiarity and literacy are the keys to probing management about the company’s advancement as a digital entity, particularly when augmented by digital-savvy experience. True digitalization starts at the core. The board, therefore, must transform itself before it can offer effective oversight of the organization’s digital journey. Just as a strategy that attempts to layer technology on an analog business does not work, neither can a board consisting solely of directors who grew up in the analog age contribute effective oversight without substantive steps taken toward digital literacy and digital savviness. One option may be to form an innovation committee, with technology, digital and transformation experts as members. Another is to include

directors with the requisite technology expertise on the board to complement the directors who grew up in the analog age. Yet another option is to engage outside advisers to inform the board with relevant perspectives. Focus on resiliency and agility. In the digital era, good governance may need to be different than even five years ago. Boards need to sharpen their focus on innovation initiatives and on changing the organization’s mindset concerning digital. People and culture are the keys to success in digital transformation. If an organization has effective digital leadership, enhances the digital capabilities of its people, and creates a corporate culture that incents and empowers creativity and innovation, it will become a truly digital organization. Changing the mindset also requires effective communication by management of a compelling narrative regarding the company’s focus on digital transformation and the need for change. The board can play an important role in fostering a resilient and agile mindset by allocating sufficient agenda time to discussing the company’s innovation strategy and culture and encouraging open discussion on direction and progress. This requires constructive engagement with management with broader, more diverse perspectives regarding how the organization should embrace digital opportunities. The dialogue should be supported with appropriate innovation-specific metrics that tell the full story of how the strategy is performing, what the return on investment is, and how effective the company’s innovation culture and capabilities have become. Keep an eye on the customer experience and competitive advantage. How can directors ensure that management has its act together, has the right team and competencies in place, and is taking the organization down the right path? A customer-centric approach to digital strategy breeds confidence that the organization is making the right moves. Success in executing on digital initiatives is about knowing the company’s limitations and avoiding procrastination on making the difficult decisions to address those limitations. A strong focus on the customer is a powerful driver for moving forward. For example, data strategy and legacy infrastructure issues (e.g., technical debt) are

examples of difficult problems that are often ignored. But with a commitment to enhancing the customer experience and commanding customer loyalty, companies can overcome this inertia and do what it takes to remain competitive. Ensure there is a compelling plan that fits market realities. Directors need to ensure that management formulates a viable plan for managing business disruption and transformation and executes that plan. This isn’t easy given the uncertainty in determining the appropriate technologies to embrace, new products and services to offer, third-party ecosystem supplier and distribution channel partners to engage with, and the changes to make in the business. Under the auspices of the board, management must measure and monitor progress. As noted earlier, a digital readiness assessment can help with this by clarifying the organization’s strengths and weaknesses so that management knows where to focus on its journey to digital maturity. As many companies have announced significant digital investments, it is important for the board to take the long-term view in creating a platform for sustainable growth even at the risk of a short-term drop in share price. The alternative is a steady decline over time that management is powerless to correct. Directors should be mindful that investor sentiment can shift quickly as digital capabilities become essential to compete. Over time, investors will be looking for CEOs to articulate a compelling digital vision and plan. Accordingly, no one should be waiting until it’s too late to act. Consider human(e) digital transformation. A clear and coherent strategy is needed to address worker dislocation and displacement. That was a critical issue that no one took lightly in the room during the NACD event, and several participants continued to discuss it after the roundtable concluded. Currently, the answers are elusive. Digital transformations generally seek to accomplish one or more key objectives: exploring and creating new ways to build strong relations with customers; the digitization of products or services, which involves launching new, enhancing existing, or exploring innovative business models for products or services; enhancing business analytics and decision science to improve decision-making; or creatively using

technology to improve operational performance. We have experience collaborating closely with clients to help them achieve their business objectives in a variety of ways. Since each transformation is unique, we tailor the following competencies to fit your organization’s strengths and needs: i)Digital transformation, governance, strategy and execution — Ensuring that transformation programs are established, well defined, set up for success and supporting execution. ii)Functional transformation and improvement — Using technology to reinvent finance, information technology, business operations, procurement, risk management and audit. iii)Enabling an innovation culture — Ensuring that the unnecessary barriers to innovation and change that exist within organizations are eliminated. iv)New technologies assessment and implementation — Supporting organizations with decision-making as they consider whether to embrace new or emerging technologies. v)Business analytics and decision science — Helping organizations manage increasingly complex data architectures and transform data into information. Throughout documented history, there has been disruptive change. However, the modern concept of disruptive transformation became popular little over 20 years ago, when former Intel CEO Andy Grove released his excellent book, Only the Paranoid Survive. Grove invented the phrase "strategic inflection moment" in it, characterising it as "a period in a business's existence when its foundations are about to alter." The fact that a firm may be both the topic and the source of a strategic inflection point is a sobering market reality that should not be overlooked. Grove's theory is particularly relevant now, 20 years later. "The capacity to perceive that the winds have altered and to take proper action before you destroy your boat," he so eloquently remarked, "is critical to the survival of an organisation." Companies that are not flexible, robust, and adaptable enough to perceive market opportunities and emerging threats — and apply digital age solutions to handle them on a timely basis — are at risk of being washed away by a tidal wave of disruption.

According to a recent worldwide study of board members and C-suite executives, the top risks for 2019 include the inability to compete with "born digital" rivals, reluctance to change, and disruptive change to the business model. These dangers were not on the thoughts of many top executives and board members only a few years ago. However, with the onslaught of emerging digital technologies — robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), big data analytics, and other components of artificial intelligence (AI) — nearly every industry is confronted with the challenge of transforming customer engagement, offering new products and services, facilitating more informed and higher-velocity decision-making processes, and improving operational performance. Companies who lag behind or act like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand will perish in this volatile climate. Protiviti met with 20 active directors at a dinner roundtable at an August 2018 National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) event to discuss the board's supervision of industry disruption and digital transformation to obtain insight on this critical area of board oversight. Listed below are some of the significant topics raised throughout the conversation, as well as noteworthy takeaways. Analyse your digital preparedness. To set the stage for the roundtable discussion, Protiviti research and experience show that few businesses are taking the essential steps to become genuinely digital in nature. Across the board, business leaders and boards are emphasising the need of focusing on the "digital channel" and, more precisely, the technology and personnel that will power that channel. The end result of these efforts is often a digital veneer. In terms of digital development, the firm may look to outsiders to be making progress. True change at the organization's core, however, is modest under the surface. It is not a question of how much money is spent. Many businesses may spend extensively in new technology and digital projects, but the results may not affect how the company thinks and performs at its core. The goal of digital transformation is to change the organisation — its culture, people, and procedures — so that it can think and act more widely. Organizations, for example, should have four areas of concentration that are oriented on objectives and intended results rather than particular technology. Here

are the trends: i)Improved customer interaction – Consider how you might become closer to your customers and end consumers. ii)New business models – Consider whether or if you are considering new operating models to boost your competitive position. iii)Better decision-making – Consider how we might make better, more timely judgments in the face of massive amounts of data and information. iv)Operational performance – Consider how you can accomplish things more efficiently and effectively. According to our study, in order to become digital leaders, firms must excel and distinguish themselves across 36 distinct traits that we feel digital leaders excel at. Using these characteristics, Protiviti has developed an interactive thought leadership piece — a Digital Maturity Assessment Model — that is intended not only to educate companies and their boards on what it takes to be effective in the digital age, but also to allow them to benchmark themselves against leaders and peers as they complete the assessment. Clarity on organisational strengths and weaknesses helps the firm to confidently begin on its road to digital maturity, ensuring it has the greatest possible opportunity of succeeding in the digital era. We provide market access to our assessment technology to assist companies in conducting their assessments. In terms of digital maturity, the graph below depicts five stages for assessing an organization's present and intended future states. Most companies, in our view, are still at relatively low degrees of maturity. When it comes to digital transformation, an organization's success is ultimately determined by where it wants to go, which may or may not include becoming a digital leader. Positioning oneself as a digital follower is acceptable as long as the organisation is flexible, has a clear plan, and is adaptable. Understanding where the firm is currently and where it wants to go is critical. With that viewpoint, the organisation creates a structure and method for measuring progress toward its objectives. The essential message for boards is that digital leadership requires a specific mindset. It entails altering how an

organisation behaves and thinks in everything that it does. Executive management must prepare the company to compete in the digital era in order to be successful. Management may have the finest plan in the world, but the organisation will be unable to implement it if the company is not digitally ready. It is also difficult to develop a successful plan if the company is not digitally ready or has the necessary digital know-how. If the company is a digital novice or sceptic, the board must support management to develop its digital maturity so that it may be either a digital follower or a digital leader. Management should identify and address the business's strengths and shortcomings in the context of the digital vision, purpose, and strategy. Using the aforementioned methodology to assess itself against the 36 skills at which digital leaders excel allows a business to better understand the route toward digital readiness. Recognize what transformation means. From the Industrial Revolution to the emergence of computers, there have been disruptive business revolutions in the past. Digital is just the most recent innovation. One may argue, however, that today's alterations are more dramatic than in the past. When describing the changes that their firms are through, some directors prefer the phrases "transforming the company" or "business optimization" over "digital transformation" because they believe it more appropriately describes their path. For example, born-digital businesses and startups do not discuss digital transformation. They do not need to digitally transition since digital is already embedded in their culture and operations. As a result, there isn't a single digital revolution that occurs, but rather a succession of changes - a continuum of ongoing growth and milestones. Digital-native businesses do not refer to "digital transformation" as a one-time occurrence or a singular, monolithic phenomenon. For them, transformation is a continual process. Digital executives dig up their sleeves to learn about new developments and technology like as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), sophisticated data analytics, and other AI components. Rather of delegating to research and development, they do this throughout the company in all facets of the business (or other functions). Board members may increase their oversight effectiveness by getting more conversant with

emerging technology and ensuring that their executive teams do the same. Digital cannot be managed or led from afar. At a recent roundtable, one director said that adopting technology outside of the workplace might be an excellent way to become "digitally savvy." Converting one's house into a "smart home" and knowing how to utilise various technologies, for example, might help a director's education. One director gave the idea of deploying an artificial intelligence assistant (such as those found in cell phones) to enhance home performance. Just as genuine digitalization begins at the heart, the board must undergo transformation before it can effectively oversee the organization's path to digital readiness. Digital familiarity and literacy are critical for exploring and asking the relevant questions about the company's progress as a digital entity, especially when reinforced by digital-savvy experience. How else can board members collaborate with management to execute governance around digital projects and a digital strategy when the board itself is neither digitally literate nor technologically savvy? How else can the board validate management's course of action? One alternative is to organise an innovation committee, with specialists in technology, digital, and change serving as members or advisors. Another option is to add directors with the necessary technological skills to the board to supplement the directors who grew up in the analogue era. Another alternative is to bring in outside experts to provide relevant viewpoints to the board. Whether via an innovation committee or otherwise, the board must become educated and well-informed in the digital arena, enhancing its capacity to ask targeted questions and challenge assumptions. Management should embrace this since it allows them to see the issue and the associated transformation possibilities in a new light. The crucial message for boards is that true digitization begins at the root. As a result, before it can provide effective supervision of the organization's path to digital readiness, the board must adapt itself. Just as attempting to overlay technology on top of an analogue firm does not work, a board comprised only of directors who grew up in the analogue era cannot provide effective oversight unless significant efforts toward digital

literacy and digital savviness are done. Concentrate on resilience and agility. In the digital age, effective governance may need a different approach than it did even five years ago. Boards, for example, must strengthen their emphasis on innovation efforts and shift the organization's perspective toward digital activities. The success of a digital transition is dependent on people and culture. An organisation will become a genuinely digital organisation if it has effective digital leadership, improves its people's digital skills, and establishes a corporate culture that incentivizes and empowers creativity and innovation. Changing mindsets also requires a compelling storey about the company's emphasis on digital transformation and the need for change. Management must successfully articulate that storey. Change is difficult, if not impossible, without all of these components. What value-added supervision does the board provide? That is where a technology committee — a smaller, more specialised board body that works with management on long-term digital and innovation strategy — comes in handy. It may also include bringing in younger, more tech-savvy directors to bring greater understanding of new technologies and innovation cultures to the boardroom, as well as a wider, more diversified view on digital and how an organisation embraces digital. The board should collaborate with management to understand the path to the target level of digital maturity (e.g., the Digital Maturity Assessment Model discussed earlier helps organisations focus on the necessary attributes and formulate a customised plan for moving forward). Another important function of the board is risk management. How does the board know that management's innovation approach is getting the company to where it needs to go in terms of accomplishing its growth and digital transformation goals? How, particularly, can board members check beyond management's word on the organization's development and digital strategy? A dashboard report might help concentrate the board's queries about the organization's resilience. These are some examples of questions: Do we grasp how digital is impacting our business's economics and the industry's competitive landscape? Are we thinking "beyond the box" about our business strategy, how we service our clients, and how the market could change in five years? Are our digital strategy and

execution allowing our business to remain ahead of or maintain pace with market developments? What key assumptions have we made in developing our plan that may be jeopardised by future events? Are any of our markets or businesses under jeopardy? How can we rectify any inadequacies or prepare for eventualities, and how quickly can we do so? At the NACD discussion, it was suggested that board members disrupt themselves, their approach to monitoring, and how they govern. They must push management to reconsider the company and sector, as well as examine how the digital economy is disrupting them. Furthermore, the board must travel quicker, despite the fact that many boards dislike moving quickly. The main message for boards: The board may play a critical role in cultivating a resilient and adaptive attitude. This necessitates constructive management involvement with directors who are digitally literate and digitally aware and have wider, more diversified opinions on how the business can embrace digital potential. The conversation should be accompanied with suitable innovation-specific indicators that give the whole narrative of how the strategy is doing, what the return on investment is, and how successful the company's innovation culture and skills have become. Maintain a focus on customer experience and competitive advantage. From the viewpoint of the board, there is one overarching question: How is the transformation that the company is through, or plans to undergo, impacting the customer experience? Boards must collaborate with management to determine how the firm may gain and maintain a competitive advantage over its consumers and rivals. This isn't just about technology; it's also about business models. Technology is just a tool or vehicle for the company's aims of providing excellent goods and services to consumers and generating a sustained competitive advantage. The final issue for boards is, "How can directors assure that management has its act together, has the proper team and competences in place, and is leading the firm in the correct direction?" Organizations, on the other hand, have varying degrees of need when it comes to change. Some issues are more

fundamental to fix, such as the need to become closer to the client (e.g., know our customers better, obtain more information about our customers, or talk directly with them). Once change projects are planned or ongoing, the board must guarantee that management is keeping a close eye on customer experience and satisfaction. The essential message for boards is that a customer-centric approach to digital strategy fosters trust that the firm is making the right decisions. Knowing the company's constraints and avoiding procrastination on making the necessary choices to address those restrictions are critical to success in delivering on digital efforts. A strong emphasis on the client is a great motivator for progress. Data strategy and legacy infrastructure difficulties (e.g., technical debt) are two instances of complex challenges that are often overlooked. Companies can overcome this inertia and do what is takes to stay competitive by committing to improving the customer experience and commanding client loyalty. Ascertain if there is a compelling strategy in place that corresponds to market realities. The board must guarantee that management develops and implements a realistic strategy for managing company disruption and transition. This is difficult due to the uncertainty in identifying the suitable technologies to adopt, new goods and services to provide, third-party ecosystem supplier and distribution channel partners to engage with, and business adjustments to undertake. In order to establish the business as an early mover, choices must to be made in a timely way. It is never a good idea to try to transform yourself in a vacuum. As a result, directors may choose to engage external consultants and experts to identify market possibilities and developing threats in order to frame the larger picture. Given the stakes, the board should maintain a healthy scepticism and be prepared to challenge management's assumptions about any transformation strategy. A healthy challenge culture, as well as a rigorous method for testing and piloting the strategy, will only improve it. Benchmarking information and statistics may give the board with insights into how the business is doing. Given the success of digital corporations, it may be appropriate to pose intriguing questions about what Amazon or Google might do with the information it possesses on its consumers. Is the firm using accessible data and information about

consumers and the market with the same rigour and complexity as those companies that have developed tremendously over the last decade? The fact that conflicting interests, both internal and external, for disruption and change may be a serious barrier, or bottleneck, for businesses. Even as the business transforms itself, delivering acceptable short-term financial performance to shareholders remains a top goal. As a result, management confronts a difficulty in that it cannot simply restructure the organisation, digitally or otherwise, at the expense of short-term profitability. During the NACD discussion, it was pointed out that there is a "maddening disparity" in Wall Street's handling of digital-native firms with little or no profitability or positive cash flow vs entrenched incumbents facing unchangeable expectations to maintain current cash flow and profits. This makes a complicated transformation process or numerous big innovation projects extremely challenging to implement, since they often need expenditures of time and money that may have an immediate effect on financial performance. This obvious discriminating market perspective disadvantages legacy enterprises, since digital-native brands need less start-up financing to flourish quickly and organically than, say, five or more years ago. Legacy incumbents may not be "Wall Street darlings," but the reality they confront is unmistakable. They must find out how to balance doing what they are excellent at with the need to innovate, evolve, and adapt, as well as sell the message to the public. The essential message for boards is that directors must guarantee that management has a solid strategy for dealing with company upheaval and change. Management must monitor progress in carrying out the strategy under the supervision of the board. Our Digital Maturity Assessment Model may assist with this by identifying the organization's strengths and shortcomings, allowing management to prioritise its efforts on the path to digital maturity. Few companies can effect change if they do not have a framework in place to measure and evaluate progress in addressing areas that need improvement. In terms of investor expectations, it is critical that boards and management teams look ahead rather than back, since many firms have made large digital expenditures. With the world changing at such a rapid pace, maintaining the status quo posing significant risk, and digital

investments required to forge the way forward, it is critical for the board to take the long-term view in creating a platform for sustainable growth, even if it means risking a short-term drop in share price. The alternative is a gradual deterioration that management is helpless to stop. Directors should be aware that investor attitude might vary swiftly as digital skills become more important in order to compete. From our view, there is an increased expectation that these sorts of investments will be made, and over time, investors will seek for CEOs to define a compelling digital strategy and plan. Nobody should wait until it's too late to take action. Think about human(e) digital transformation. In the midst of constant transition and the quick pace of innovation, board members are concerned about the organization's personnel, notably their possible dislocation and displacement. The forecasts for employment disruption vary, however some directors reported expectations of up to 60% of workers being relocated in certain firms as a result of digital transformation. If such forecasts come true, businesses will require a human capital strategy. To be sure, computers were expected to replace employment, but this did not happen. Furthermore, others argue that today's transformative initiatives may have the same results. Many, however, think that the current digital transformation phenomena involves more than just the addition of increased computer capacity to the workplace. The scale is considerably greater and more destabilising. While there will most certainly be employment growth as a consequence of digital transformation activities, this growth will most likely take longer to emerge. The questions are intimidating. How can businesses reskill their employees as part of digital transformation efforts? In general, how does the business environment redeploy hundreds of thousands of employees? And, more generally, how can the public sector, as well as university and secondary education, collaborate with the commercial sector to address this looming societal challenge? The essential point for boards is that addressing labour dislocation and displacement requires a clear and cohesive approach. During the NACD event, it was a significant problem that no one took lightly. In fact, board members were so concerned about it that some attendees remained to debate it after the roundtable ended. The solutions are

currently elusive.

Chapter 5: Digital Technology – Advantages & Disadvantages Digital technology has influenced or modified almost every element of our daily life. Travel, living, commerce, leisure, and communications are just a few of the numerous facets that have been transformed in recent decades. It is currently inconceivable and unfathomable to find an electrical item that does not contain digital technology in some way. Because of digital technology, gadgets may now be more compact, quicker, lighter, and even more adaptable. What does this imply for us as individuals? Is digital technology helpful to us, and if so, how? In many aspects, digital technology benefits people, such as social connectedness. We can now communicate with our friends and family in an instant, at our leisure, thanks to advances in digital technology. Furthermore, we may connect on a worldwide scale, not only via words, but also through films, music, and other forms of media. Almost every aspect of our everyday lives has been impacted or altered by digital technology. Travel, lifestyle, trade, leisure, and communication are just a few of the many aspects that have changed in the last few decades. It is now impossible to locate an electrical appliance that does not have some kind of digital technology. Because of digital technology, devices may now be smaller, faster, lighter, and more versatile. What does this mean for each of us as individuals? Is digital technology beneficial to us, and if so, in what ways? People benefit from digital technology in various ways, including social connectivity. Thanks to improvements in digital technology, we can now connect with our friends and family in an instant and at our leisure. Furthermore, we may communicate on a global scale not only via words, but also through films, music, and other types of media. However, along with the numerous benefits of the digital world, there are also drawbacks. Technology is a strong instrument that may be utilised to our benefit; yet, not everyone utilises it as such. Because of digital technology, our personal information and data may be readily viewed or hacked by anyone has access to it. This information may be highly private and sensitive, and if it falls into the hands of someone

harmful, it can be exploited against us and have grave effects. This leads us to our second disadvantage: privacy issues. Nowadays, it is much more difficult for us to maintain our privacy. For example, with the use of a basic smartphone, anybody has the ability to capture images or films of us without our knowledge. Minor transgressions might potentially follow a person for the rest of his or her life if they are made public. Employers may simply look you up on various social media platforms to analyse your lifestyle or read the blogs you freely express yourself with while applying for a job. All of this might influence their opinion of you, causing you to lose out on that specific employment chance. Controlling your personal information is difficult, if not impossible, which is why we must remind ourselves to use the internet with prudence and extreme caution. Many firms are still hesitant to use digital technology, owing mostly to the related expenses. This concern, however, is short-lived since the following are the advantages that businesses may obtain by participating in the process and here are some advantages: 1.Employee Involvement: Every company wishes to have a workforce that is quicker, smarter, and more productive. The best approach to achieve that goal is to develop creative technologies that allow them to interact, cooperate, and trade data freely. Some digital transformation tools, like as Microsoft Office 365, can help workers collaborate at their best. Office 365 features such as the Focused Inbox assist users in focusing on what is most important. The @mentions feature reminds you to pay attention to what needs to be done while inviting others to take action on their end inside the emails. Office 365 Groups is another fantastic tool that enables you to form particular teams and improve their cooperation. It allows you to share calendars, take notes in OneNote, and exchange files. As competition grows, it is critical to encourage collaboration inside the workplace. Collaboration is essential for forward-thinking businesses because it guarantees that information is effectively used.

2.Enhanced Customer Engagement: Customer happiness, loyalty, and retention are three critical components of corporate development and survival. A positive customer experience is the first step toward increasing sales and an expanding client base. Your company should devote more effort to determining how to communicate with consumers at the appropriate time and location. Understanding the customer's journey and behaviour makes it simpler to develop a digital strategy that employs the appropriate technologies. Make advantage of client relationship management technologies that are available online. They may assist you in gathering contact information, consumer purchase and service activity, and company website conduct. These are aspects that may dramatically improve your customer interaction approach. Customers contact companies via a variety of methods. This makes it difficult to keep up with them all while providing a wonderful client experience. Excellent customer data is all that is required to offer amazing services. You'll not only save time with the correct digital tools, but you'll also be able to operate your company more effectively while remaining ahead of the competition. 3.Improved Data Security: Cloud-based solutions are increasingly being used by businesses for important business applications, data storage, and backup. Cloud solutions are maintained and monitored in secure locations to ensure minimum downtime and data security. There are some things to think about if you're considering about shifting your company data to the cloud: 1.Put in place a data security policy: If you do not establish a data security policy, your digital transformation may backfire on you. This is the blueprint that specifies the acceptable techniques for securely sending or sharing data. It also outlines the limited ways for discontinuing the usage of unsupported or

dangerous programmes or services. Your rules should be extremely precise about what is acceptable and inappropriate on digital networks. They should contain information on rules governing email, social media, mobile devices, and internet use, and the policies should be uniform. Policies should be recorded, conveyed multiple times, enforced, and evaluated on a regular basis to ensure successful implementation. Employees are always more likely to adopt policies when they have been educated on their significance. This necessitates the convening of meetings or sessions to routinely inform and educate the team on the realities of data security. 2.Improve Your Knowledge of Physical and Cybersecurity Controls: When accepting digital solutions, it's critical to understand the physical security and cybersecurity measures provided by the service provider. Physical security controls might include things like badges necessary to access a facility, fingerprint scanners, numerous security doors, and surveillance cameras. Security services such as network monitoring, firewall protection, and wireless security are examples of cybersecurity controls. Furthermore, you should think about having your data encrypted. In addition to comprehending the different security measures available, it is critical to comprehend the provider's service level agreements for service availability. Take it a step further and engage in knowing more about their data breach policy and how they react to such situations. This is the only way to find out whether a service provider is appropriate for you. 3.Competitiveness is boosted by digital transformation: The impact of technology on the corporate environment cannot be overstated. Digital transformation is no longer an option; it is a need. To survive and remain competitive, businesses must quickly modify their technologies and tactics. The key to selecting the greatest technology is that it should be functional for your company. Regardless of a company's size, it should begin with a dependable digital transformation plan. This is accomplished by selecting the appropriate technology to aid in the achievement of corporate goals.

Business activities may be reduced by using cost-effective and customer-focused digital solutions. This reduces the costs associated with out-of-date solutions. As a result, firms may develop new goods and services to keep ahead of the competition. Services are continually enhanced by concentrating on what customers want, making the organisation more appealing to customers. Digital change is a positive thing, and the advantages it brings are immense. However, the opposite side of the coin cannot be overlooked, which leads us to the downsides. Nonetheless, they should not be used to delay or dismiss the digital transformation process. Here are a few examples of disdavantages: 1.Technology entails cybersecurity risks: Unfortunately, as technology advances, it introduces new cybersecurity concerns. Security is essential, but few individuals like to be faced with it, despite the fact that they operate with gadgets and platforms that leave them susceptible. This is why security should be prioritised in transformation and digitalization activities. Despite the fact that security is critical, many firms continue to avoid it. Why is security an impediment to transformation? As you progress into more sophisticated technologies, your employees will get access to the outside world. This implies that they also allow strangers to enter your place of business. Emails, for example, often include malware that may infect your computers. Personal gadgets, such as USB drives and cellphones, that are linked to company computers may infect them with a virus from another source. Hackers and cybercriminals may steal critical material, as Sony discovered when important emails were published. Equifax was also a victim of such an assault, in which millions of people's private information was exposed through electronic surveillance. Ransomware may also be introduced by cybercriminals. It's a sort of virus that causes the machine to freeze until the hackers are paid. Malware has been known to take remote control of commercial operations, wreck energy utilities, interfere with police stations, even take over computer-controlled autos in severe circumstances.

There are several reasons why security isn't keeping pace with digital change as quickly as it should. It lacks a plan to help businesses change and optimise. The first reason is that security requires planning and prioritising, which many firms have neglected. This is acceptable given that security isn't always simple, since it's not as simple as just installing security measures. Instead, it advocates prioritising the most essential systems, processes, and attack and vulnerability vectors. The danger of vulnerability in the internet of things grows with each new technological opportunity. As a result, security need a plan that entails more than just installing a few firewalls. Second, cybersecurity presents unique security skill set issues. It is obvious that most major firms struggle to locate the proper security expertise for certain applications. This is particularly true in digital transformation, when large amounts of data and new technologies are involved. Third, security parameters have shifted, and the attack surface has expanded enormously. Point solutions, like as firewalls, do longer function, especially in a digital transformation setting; user protection does, particularly with regard to mobile devices. 2.Technology may be a source of distraction: Everyone who has a smartphone, desktop computer, laptop, or tablet may now access technology. They have access to the internet via their devices. This access should ideally be utilised for communication and research, but regrettably, this is not the case. The Internet has the potential to be a very strong distortion that interferes with productivity. Employees are tempted to check out the current trends on social media sites. According to some estimates, over half of office workers spend at least an hour browsing non-work-related websites. Of course, this includes some more sinister diversions, such as pornography and other illegal movies. 3.Social Boundaries are Created and Destroyed by Technology : Communication with anybody, from anywhere, is now feasible thanks

to technological advancements. While this is a benefit, it may disrupt the normal dynamics of human connection. For example, it may result in fewer workers attending meetings, with the majority opting to use telecommuting opportunities. These qualities, when used properly, may increase productivity, but they can cause individuals to lose out on the more social parts of a typical workplace. On the other side, technology has the potential to erase certain important limits. Clients have extremely high expectations since it makes you and your personnel available all year. It makes individuals feel entitled to full treatment at any time of day or year, causing social boundaries to crumble. 4.Enterprise Networks That Aren't Self-Contained: Businesses used to operate on confined networks, with their IT equipment housed on-site. Some firms, particularly those dealing with highly sensitive data, continue to do so. Other businesses, on the other hand, employ digital applications and have resorted to putting their servers in the cloud. The inference is that these firms' networks are not secure and that their connections are open to the public. The usage of digital technology exposes the systems to prospective hackers, allowing them to breach these safeguards and get access to business networks. 5.Continual Changes : The speed with which developers may update software has risen as a result of digital capabilities and technical advancements. Data technology is rapidly changing, which offers certain benefits but also creates a problem in keeping up with security practises. The increasing speed with which modifications are implemented makes it simpler for security flaws to infiltrate systems. Cybercriminals are likewise adapting to these developments by developing new hacking techniques on a regular basis. This implies that security experts must work more regularly and with more zeal to develop new security techniques. Despite these drawbacks, digital transformation is a crucial way to bringing a company to the next level. Those in charge of

cybersecurity may take a few measures to account for the consequences of digital transformation. Among these stages are: i)Integrating security technologies to assist enhance network visibility while managing a broader attack surface ii)Use of security-enhanced apps and devices iii)Employee education and training iv)Performing routine testing v)Cybersecurity processes are becoming automated. vi)Threat intelligence sharing A proactive, continually integrated, and automated approach to security is required for successful execution of these procedures. Companies must also modify their strategy as the threat environment evolves. The cost of digital transformation is a motivator for many businesses. Moving data to a public, private, or hybrid cloud environment reduces operating expenses. It reduces hardware and software expenditures while freeing up team members to focus on other projects. Let’s go through and see some more examples of Advantages below:. 1. Increased data collecting: Most organisations amass mounds of client data, but the true advantage comes from utilising this data for research that may propel the firm ahead. Digital transformation develops a method for acquiring the relevant data and utilising it properly for higher-level business insight. It enables different functional divisions within an organisation to transform raw data into insights across several touchpoints. As a result, it creates a unified perspective of the customer experience, operations, production, finance, and business prospects. It is critical to evaluate how consumer data is gathered, kept, analysed, and shared as part of this process. When reimagining your IT stack, make sure that sensitive data coming into and out of your customer relationship management (CRM) software and other platforms is secured by a layer of SaaS data encryption. Consider how you might provide your customers more sovereignty over their personal data as part of your

digital transformation – leveraging data privacy as a business differentiation. Consumers are becoming more aware of, and worried about, how their data is gathered and utilised. Demonstrate your respect for their data by implementing strict privacy policies and providing them with the option to alter their views at any moment. 2. Improved resource management: Digital transformation combines information and resources into a corporate toolkit. Instead of distributed software and databases, it consolidates business resources and eliminates vendor overlap. In 2020, the average number of apps utilised in enterprise enterprises is 900. Digital transformation may unite apps, databases, and software into a centralised repository for business insight. Digital transformation is neither a department or a functional unit. It affects every aspect of a company and may lead to process innovation and increased efficiency across departments. Every department, from sales and marketing to finance and the C-Suite, makes use of sensitive data. It is critical to optimise and safeguard data wherever it moves, while also providing teams with easy-to-use tools to do their tasks. 3. Data-driven consumer insights: Data may be the key to accessing consumer insights. You may establish a more customer-centric company strategy by better knowing your consumer and their demands. These insights may assist drive corporate success by combining structured data (personal customer information) with unstructured data, such as social media analytics. Data allows strategies to give more relevant, tailored, and agile content. 4. A better consumer experience: Consider how your digital transformation may not only increase efficiency for your staff, but also provide more smooth, intuitive experiences for your consumers. This includes everything from email communications to user portals, digital goods, and even the frequency

with which you reach out to new prospects. Customers have high expectations for digital experiences. Customers are used to having a plethora of options, reasonable costs, and quick delivery. Customer experience (CX) is the new battlefield for companies. According to Gartner, more than two-thirds of organisations think they compete primarily on customer experience. According to Accenture, customer experience "has emerged as the main driver of long-term corporate development." They claim that even a single point gain in CX scores may result in millions of dollars in yearly growth. One method to distinguish your business with consumers is to show that you cherish their privacy. Give the client control over how their data is gathered and utilised, and give them the authority to make choices about their data. 5. Encourages digital culture (with improved collaboration) : Digital transformation fosters a digital culture by giving team members with the proper tools that are adapted to their environment.While these technologies facilitate more seamless collaboration, they also assist to bring the whole firm forward digitally. This digital cultural transformation is critical for firms to stay viable. It requires team members to upskill and learn digitally in order to reap the advantages of digital transformation. 6.Profitability has increased: i)Companies that undertake digital transformation increase their productivity and profitability. Consider these findings from the SAP Center for Business Insights and Oxford Economics: ii)Eighty percent of firms that have completed digital transformation report greater earnings. 85 percent claim they have expanded their market share. Leaders anticipate 23% better sales growth than rivals. 7. Increased agility:

Organizations become more nimble as they undergo digital transformation. Borrowing from the realm of software development, firms may boost their agility via digital transformation to improve speed-to-market and implement Continuous Improvement (CI) practises. This enables for speedier invention and adaptability while also giving a route to progress. 8. Increased Productivity: Having the correct tech tools that operate together may help to simplify process and increase productivity. It enables team members to work more effectively by automating numerous tedious procedures and connecting data throughout the firm. Don’t get lost as we have some few more examples of Digital Technology disadvantages as described below: 1. Data Protection: Because of digital technology, massive volumes of data can be captured and stored. This might be personal information about persons or organisations. It might be challenging to keep this information secure. A single breach may result in massive volumes of sensitive information falling into the hands of thieves, terrorists, commercial competitors, foreign opponents, or other malicious actors. 2. Terrorism and crime: Because of its worldwide character, immense scope, and the relative anonymity that users may enjoy, the internet provides ideal ground for bad forces to operate. Terrorists using social media to promote themselves and encourage others; drug dealers trading on the dark web; paedophiles using chat rooms and other places to groom potential victims, exchange photos, videos, and other information; and authoritarian regimes attempting to sway or distort elections in democratic countries are examples of this.

3. Complicatedness: We no longer comprehend the inner workings of the equipment and machines with which we deal on a daily basis. Repairing a contemporary automobile today entails interfacing with a computer; it is no longer just mechanical. Using a phone might include dealing with a plethora of technical settings. Minor hiccups in a laptop's functionality may cost both time and money. 4.Concerns about privacy: Personal privacy has become much more difficult to maintain in the digital age, on top of the risks of your personal data being stolen or sold. For example, everyone has the capacity to snap images and video footage with their cell phone and then upload them to the internet. Employers may do web searches for candidates and discover unpleasant images of them, as well as their expression of controversial beliefs on social media or blogs and they are: i)how-socialmedia-relationships ii)What Effects Social Media Has on Relationships iii)the-motherboard-components iv)The 10 Components of a Motherboard and Their Function v)the-five-types-of-system-software vi)The Five Different Kinds of System Software In public spaces, digital cameras monitor and record our movements. Minor transgressions might potentially follow a person for the rest of his or her life if they are made public. Controlling your personal information might be challenging, if not impossible. 5. Social Isolation:

People are increasingly preferring to mingle and converse using digital gadgets rather than face-to-face contact. This may easily result in feelings of detachment and loneliness. Humans have evolved over thousands of years to have genuine touch, so removing that impacts people in a variety of detrimental ways that we are just now starting to understand. According to studies, a lack of real-life interaction is creating sadness and other types of mental disease in a large number of individuals. A lot of psychology research imply that the digital environment is increasing the risk of mental disease. Reliance on social media for interaction, online bullying, and job stress caused by information overload are a few examples. A lot of psychology research imply that the digital environment is increasing the risk of mental disease. Reliance on social media for interaction, online bullying, and job stress caused by information overload are a few examples Many contemporary professionals spend their days attempting to keep up with the hundreds of emails they get each week, many of which demand reading and some of which require responses or action. Texts from coworkers in the nights or on weekends might make it difficult to completely disconnect from work. Organizing the massive amounts of digital data collected in certain occupations, such as meeting minutes, training videos, images, reports, and directions, may also be a major burden. 7. Manipulation of Digital Media: Because digital media such as pictures, music, and video are so simple to manipulate, media manipulation is becoming more common. It's not always simple to distinguish what's genuine and what's not. Photoshop and other editing software may be used to make changes to photographs. Doctoring digital audio and video is possible. As technology advances, the problems will only worsen. 8. Job Uncertainty: Previously, you had to be physically present at a workplace to execute

a job, but today, many professional duties may be completed remotely through the internet. This has resulted in significant changes in how people live and work, with one example being a rise in individuals working from home. It also has economic repercussions, since it implies that businesses may hire people in poor nations with cheap pay instead of those in affluent countries for specific occupations. Humans are becoming less and less necessary for various activities as computers eventually replace them. Driving and delivery professions, for example, will be phased out as vehicles become more automated. Technology is a lot of fun, but it can also drown us. The veil of information has the potential to push knowledge away. Digital material is very simple to duplicate and recreate. Copyright rules are becoming more difficult to enforce, as the music and film industries have learned to their detriment. Schoolchildren may just copy and paste their homework projects without learning anything. Because of the "sharing" mentality on social media, the original author of a piece of media is sometimes lost when the item is changed and claimed by others. 9. anonymity and bogus personas: Digital technology allows individuals to conceal their identity in a variety of ways. According to studies, individuals are significantly more inclined to engage in anti-social behaviour if they do not believe there will be any repercussions. Bullying, trolling, stalking, threatening, and insulting conduct have all skyrocketed since the advent of the internet. People adopt fictitious personalities in order to cheat and defraud others. Pedophiles disguise themselves as youngsters in order to get access to and befriend them. 10. Excessive dependency on gadgets: The use of mobile phones, laptops, and other digital devices has grown commonplace. Many individuals save all of their contacts, images, messages, and other personal information on their phones. They will be in big danger if they lose them, or if the device fails or

runs out of battery. Basic living skills, such as navigating a city's streets, have been replaced by using a GPS device to get instructions. Computer gaming addiction may lead to a variety of issues for those who get engrossed in it. Consequences include poor consequences on social life, economics, academic performance, sleep habits, and emotional and physical issues. Computer gaming addiction may lead to a variety of issues for those who get engrossed in it. Consequences include poor consequences on social life, economics, academic performance, sleep habits, and emotional and physical issues like Pxabay picture in the public domain 11.Addiction: Social networking, computer games, chat services, and dating websites are all potentially addicting. Games want you to play in order for you to purchase the following edition. Websites want you to connect with them so that they can make money from advertising. Users wind up squandering a lot of time and money for a very minimal return. 12. Used Living: Many individuals no longer have direct access to real-life events. Mobile phones are used to record music concerts or live performances, events are shot, and audio is captured. Social media platforms host media. Life is no longer viewed personally, but rather via the lens of digital media. 13. Storage and Organization: Digital media may be very tough to manage. Photos and music, for example, may be found on a variety of devices, including mobile phones, tablets, laptop computers, and portable hard drives. Individual objects may be difficult to locate yet easily deleted or lost, and the device on which they are kept can be lost, stolen, or suffer catastrophic failure. Long-term storage and maintenance of digital material may be problematic. Over time, file formats evolve. In certain

cases, conventional media may outlast its digital counterpart. 14.Depersonalized Warfare: Because of digital technology, weapons may be deployed anywhere in the globe without the need of a human military force. Drones make battle seem like a video game. Intercontinental missiles can remotely track neighbourhoods and landmarks in other nations. Satellites use images and video captured from orbit to monitor enemy troops. 15. Life expectancy: Digital devices often have a limited lifetime and become obsolete soon. As technology evolves, equipment and machinery become obsolete because they are too sluggish, incompatible with other devices, or have simply been overtaken by newer, better counterparts. As outdated digital gadgets are abandoned when they are no longer viable, this results in massive waste and inefficiency. It may also become exceedingly costly for consumers if they have to update to a new gadget every few years. Many chores in life may now be completed without leaving the home. The drawback is that society is becoming more depersonalised. Many chores in life may now be completed without leaving the home. The drawback is that society is becoming more depersonalised. 16. Social Isolation: As computerised robots replace people, society becomes more impersonal. People purchase online, bank online, pay bills online, and are increasingly working online. Transport is also projected to become more automated, with taxis and delivery trucks eventually becoming driverless. Loneliness and a lack of personal interaction with a flesh and blood person are on the rise. Let's take a look at some of the more benefits of digital technology. 1. Information Availability:

Digital technology has made our lives easier by allowing us to easily access information via the internet. The internet provides access to information from all around the globe. The road to obtaining the information is straightforward with digital technology. Digital technology has facilitated instant access to everything from news to movies to eBooks. You may read books and watch thought-provoking movies while lying in bed. Convenience has trumped the hard labour that was formerly required to get these sources of knowledge. Because of digital technology! 2. High-Tech Automation: The automation of machines is part of the industrial revolutionization of the industry using digital technologies. The product's popularity grew as a result of its efficiency and growth in eliminating the chance of an unexpected disaster with a worker. Employees might accomplish their job from home using the internet at their leisure. In certain circumstances, machines no longer need people to run them, preventing employees from doing repetitive and tedious duties. The optimization of labour and mass manufacturing helps not only the corporation, but also the customers by providing a higher-quality product at a lower price. From the clients' perspective, automation enabled them to buy vacation tickets directly over the internet, bypassing the middleman. 3. The influence on the entertainment sector: One of the benefits of digital technology is the change in the entertainment business. The effect of digital technology overtook the old entertainment business rapidly. The industry as a whole has shifted its attention to the digital platform. Even TV networks and series are available on multiple platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and others. The audience has access to a variety of platforms where they may watch their favourite programmes, listen to music, watch videos, play

games, and find other types of entertainment that are accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Books, audio, and interviews are all part of the entertainment sector. At the same time, these genres are uploaded directly to the cloud, making them accessible globally. Even artists and films are being introduced online on a digital platform, while keeping their profiles and connecting through social media. With highend visual effects, a life-like game experience with Oculus Rift, and improved platforms and games for Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia, among other things, digital technology has changed the gaming business. 4. Saves time: The digital revolution has had a significant influence on our lives. Credit card payments, internet banking to the washing machine to do our laundry, and autonomous automobile driving have all saved us a lot of time. The patient may consult with their doctor even if they are hundreds of kilometres away. Many key choices must be made, and an agreement must be signed, and a digital signature allows this to be done from a device. 5. Revision: One of the major benefits of digital technology over older methods is that data can be saved and edited instantaneously. In the event that the laws and regulations change, the corporation may alter them quickly and communicate the changes to all branches through digital media. Complex video editing, which formerly required a lot of money or equipment, has been replaced by cloud rendering while lying on a sofa with a laptop. 6. Device and machine efficiency: Many equipment and machinery now operate considerably more effectively and with less electricity. If the devices detect overheating, they are shut off immediately, and they also turn off automatically if they are not in use. The machine's endurance has risen as firms

concentrate on upgrading pre-existing technologies. The longer time passes, the more efficient technology will become. Many businesses have embraced green energy, which is powered by solar panels and wind turbines. Advanced digital technology is assisting in the preservation of the environment. 7. Cost Effectiveness: The primary goal of technology is to create items that are inexpensive and reasonable to the general public. As a result of technological advancements, individuals are increasingly seeking cost-effective solutions. Beneficial machinery is more affordable than we realise. We can compare costs all across the globe with the assistance of technology. In addition, implementing digital technology into the firm might save up to 50% of the operational costs. Instead, digital technology lowers costs while increasing production. 8. Improved Communication Channels: The replacement of old technology with new technology has made it simpler for us to connect with individuals all around the globe. Letters were formerly the most common mode of communication. It used to take over a month to get the response letter. Nowadays, responses are received in a matter of seconds. Who nowadays considers sending a letter instead of video calling? 9. Transport: The majority of railroads, trains, and aircraft depend on digital technology. It has made our life easier since we can now order our tickets online. There are several websites that provide aircraft monitoring, route tracking, and maps. All of these things may make travelling easier. Furthermore, modern passports feature digital chips that hold all of an individual's information. It allows self-service devices to expedite the process of checking in and clearing customs. Transportation's

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transformed by digital technology. The massive organisation is implementing these new technology and doing research. 10. banking: Digitalization has also had an impact on the banking industry. Online banking has been popular in recent years, and you may use it from your laptop, mobile phone, or tablet. Online banking allows users to monitor their cash intake and outflow. You may also use it to organise money transfers and bill payments. Nowadays, you may purchase and sell stocks online. Aside from banking, there is another method for managing an individual's and business's finances. Business firms now have it lot simpler thanks to advances in information technology. Technology has become an integral part of our everyday life. It also has an influence on the corporate world. There are several advantages to using digital technology in company, which we shall go through below: 1. Business Efficiency : Because it enables us to be exposed to technology, information technology has made business more efficient. Work becomes more convenient and faster, with fewer errors, when we incorporate technology into our operations. Similarly, it aids firms in achieving economies of scale. With the proper information intake, information technology may make the decision-making process easy and efficient. We are all aware of technology and innovation these days. People seem to be more engaged in these platforms that facilitate work while simultaneously promoting business. 2. Business Safety: Information technology aids in the protection of enterprises against cybercrime, assaults, and viruses. Since the advent of technology, we have seen an increase in the frequency of many types of cybercrime. There is also a substantial possibility of cybercrime occurring in the

business realm. Every company must take precautions to safeguard its data and information.Introducing information technology may aid in the prevention of potential cybercrimes, assaults, and infections. As a result, we should use technology to battle hackers and safeguard corporate processes. Clients are more dependable when the company environment is secure. One of the advantages of information technology in company is corporate security. 3. Exposed: Exposure to the company is provided through information technology. It promotes brand awareness among internet users and makes it easier to reach out to target consumers. Online channels such as social media, websites, and blogs have made it simpler for any firm to reach out to its clients, many of whom are likely to stay loyal. As a result, information technology may eventually assist firms in expanding their market reach and gaining more clients. The exposure and conversion rate are two significant advantages of information technology in company. 4. Aids in the development of customer relationships: As previously said, information technology in business aids in the prevention of commercial information leaks and cybercrime. It contributes to the security of the company's and its customers' data. As a result, it may assist the business in developing a stronger tie of trust between the consumers and the organisation. Similarly, the usage of technology will provide a convenience that will draw consumers to the company, such as quick and instant service. 5. Aids in the preservation of a competitive advantage: In business, information technology aids in maintaining a competitive edge over rivals or competitors. Businesses mostly use the first movers' approach, which employs information technology to generate new goods, differentiate products

from rivals, and provide new consumer services. With a rise in productivity and a reduction in human overhead, information technology may also become a solution in company for cheap costs and sustaining economies of scale. Similarly, data may be evaluated in business using information technology to assist rivals in making decisions. 6. Business Expansion: The technological revolution is one of the factors for corporate development. Information technology enables firms to address complicated and analytical challenges, resulting in increased corporate growth. Improved hardware, Google, and smarter apps have improved company processes. Similarly, it aids in the management of corporate resources. Cloud computing enables numerous workers to access enterprise-level software from any device, anywhere in the globe. Connectivity and speedy work completion are two excellent advantages of information technology in company. 7. Risk Mitigation: Risk is inextricably linked to business. Some businesses may rush towards possibilities without first assessing the hazards. These sorts of businesses may eventually go bankrupt. However, introducing information technology into the firm helps to avoid potential uncertainties by assessing risks. Reliable information technology research guarantees that all data is appropriately saved, maintained, and computed. 8. Bridging the Cultural Gap: Information technology, which is founded on computer science, is also a subset of artificial intelligence. It lacks human characteristics. It cannot tell if the person using it is a male, a woman, black, white, or any other race. This artificial intelligence is not prejudiced in the same way that humans are. As a result, it eliminates traditional cultural

prejudices that are prevalent in human civilization. As a result, in the corporate sector, information technology can make impartial judgements. One of the advantages of information technology in business is the elimination of partialism. Everything is one in the realm of the internet and the cloud. Every consumer is treated equally unless they jeopardise the reputation of any persons or businesses. 9.New Possibilities: Information technology can assist businesses in making sound judgments about new initiatives and prospects. It aids in the analysis of data, which provides credible information that enables businesses to pick better initiatives that boost cash flow and recoup original investment expenditure. The advantages of information technology in business include new opportunities. If a corporation or organisation has used information technology, fresh possibilities may be knocking on their door. IT in business may help a firm acquire new customers and investors. 10. Improve Business Management Effectiveness: In business, information technology helps to minimise burden, which leads to more effective management. Employees and owners must not work physically or manually if information technology is used in the firm. It would be exhausting for them to work in the firm manually. Similarly, information technology is responsible for anything that makes it easier for firm personnel to perform business activities. Platforms like Skype and Zoho have been developed by information technology to link individuals all over the globe for online meetings and webinars. As a result, information technology is crucial in the corporate world. Entrepreneurs may use a broad variety of tools made available by information technology in their expanding businesses. It also aids them in the launch and growth phases of new businesses. It enables organisations to capture and gather information about their consumers' wants, requirements, and preferences. As a result, organisations may utilise such data in their product development

procedures. According to academics, there are several advantages of using information technology in company. Information technology has been used in the business sector for many years since it provides several advantages such as marketing, accounting, communication, competitive advantage, and economic efficiency. Here are some of the more drawbacks of digital technology. 1. Complicatedness: Every second, technology updates itself. Along with the upgrades, several problems and flaws in the system are discovered years after it was released. Non-tech users may struggle to utilise the interface due to tiny laptop flaws, complex phone bugs, and gadgets used in autos and household appliances. If a buyer encounters any of these issues, they will almost probably be dissatisfied with their purchase. One of the biggest drawbacks of digital technology is the program's complexity. 2. Workload Excess: As we all know, digital technology has accelerated task completion. Employees are given a lot of tasks to cope with every day in order to enhance productivity. Workers from all over the globe must handle data, emails, and information, which may be stressful. Analyzing a significant quantity of data takes more labour, concentration, and attention, resulting in employee alienation and misery. 3. Loss of Employment Opportunities: People can accomplish their job on the internet thanks to digital technology. You don't have to be physically there to complete a job unless it can't be done via the internet. Employees can accomplish the same job for less money because to the internet. Workers' employment prospects will be reduced as a result of the scenario. Digital technology will eliminate their career options. There will be fewer employment options as more digital technology enters the

workplace. 4. Information Security: Data may be stored using digital technologies. However, being worried about the security of the obtained data is also critical. These data are a compilation of both public and private information about persons or organisations. Because it is so simple to store, the danger of a breach is low yet significant, and the whole firm is impacted. This data may be accessed by criminals, hackers, terrorists, and foreign opponents. As a result, the security of the information is critical. One of the primary drawbacks of digital technology is the security protocol. 5. Inadequate Socialization Face-to-face talks and sociability are becoming more uncommon as digital technology advances. Each person will experience social isolation and despair as a result of the scenario. People may use the internet to call, talk, and gaze at each other, avoiding face-to-face contact. According to research, a lack of face-to-face contact might lead to mental health issues. People begin to seek consolation without conversing with others. 6.Privacy Concerns Not just on a bigger scale, but the danger to an individual's privacy continues. It is simple to communicate and get lost in the digital world, where we disclose our personal information in order to be delighted. With the wrong purpose, financial records, personal images, videos, and online account access may seriously ruin someone's reputation and individual identities. Privacy concerns are among the drawbacks of digital technology. 7. Manipulation of Digital Media Media manipulation is another downside of digital technology. The advancement of technology made it simpler to edit images, video, and

audio that were made public on the internet. Many media outlets utilise editing tools to change and modify material obtained on a current topic in order to get attention. The media is regarded as the public's eyes and ears. 8.Warfare That Isn't Personal: Weapons and military tasks for mass devastation may be carried out without the need of people. Using satellites, they will latch on to targets hundreds of kilometres away. The employment of drones in combat has devolved into a video game. In terms of warfare, digital technology has a number of drawbacks. 9. Life expectancy: Digital technology gadgets and systems have a limited life cycle and become outdated quite soon. Once a breakthrough is discovered, the tech titans work on it around the clock. Devices and drivers are upgraded with each new release, therefore finding a suitable pair for your system may be difficult. Upgrades will be prohibitively costly for customers a few years after purchase. Efficiency is lost when older equipment are abandoned when they are no longer functional. This results in a lack of sustainability, which is one of the drawbacks of digital technology. 10. Addiction Addiction to social media, computer games, chat services, and dating sites may be dangerous. Many health complications that have claimed the lives of users all around the globe have been well publicised. Online sites and gaming platforms communicate with their users in order to generate advertising revenue. In the long run, the user loses money and suffers from despair as a result of addiction. 11. Used Living Real-life events are immediately televised on internet platforms, and

you can shop online while sitting on your sofa. Many individuals no longer have a sense of societal obligation. All of the activities are videotaped and videoed on numerous platforms, and people watch them with popcorn and coffee—an individual's ignorance and innocence lead to secondhand life. Finally, digital technology is reshaping itself via automatic and built-in analytical mechanisms. Every progress has both benefits and cons, therefore it is impossible to determine if digital technology is beneficial or evil. We must adapt to all of this new technology and learn about its benefits and drawbacks, sometimes known as the double-edged sword. As a result, there are several benefits and drawbacks to using digital technology appropriately. Here are the top ten advantages of undergoing a digital transformation in your firm: 1. Increased Productivity: One of the most significant advantages of incorporating an ERP system into your company operations is the tremendous increase in efficiency. The way your employees communicate from department to department, the continuous flow of data across the organisation, the seamless transition from phase to phase throughout the customer's lifetime – all of these advantages add up to a more efficient business process that can save time, money, and resources. 2. Enhanced Transparency: The integration of an ERP or SAP system will also cast a brighter light on present operations, assisting in the identification of trends and patterns that you may not have seen otherwise. The capacity to delve deeper into real-time data allows for a more consistent pulse on all parts of the company that keep the wheels rolling. Another factor to consider is team transparency. For example, both the Customer Success Team and the Accounting Team would be able to identify which customers are late on payments and could handle the

issue more rapidly rather than waiting for Accounting to notify everyone. 3. Financial Savings: A significant amount of money and effort is spent by many firms merely maintaining outdated, legacy systems and products. A digital transformation will not only save you money up front, but it will also save you time and money after you go live by integrating more efficient processes and faster issue detection. There are several chances for cost reductions in general operations with the correct ERP software. A product-based corporation, for example, may get superior insights regarding raw material volume requirements and timescales. Cost reductions are unavoidable when raw materials are ordered in a systematic, data-driven way. 4. Increased Revenue: It is simpler to increase income by reducing expenses. Maximizing potential by identifying weaknesses in present business processes is critical to propelling a firm ahead. Employees and management may enhance their best practises and create revenue via pattern detection, trend appraisal, and capitalization of data-driven opportunity by increasing transparency in many elements of the organisation. 5. Improved Customer Service: Consider the following scenario: A client phones to inquire about the status of a delivery that was supposed to arrive yesterday. By just glancing at the system, the Customer Service Agent may go further into the order to see what caused the mix-up and offer additional insight into why the product is delayed in delivery. Instead of a possible order cancellation, the consumer has a greater understanding of the process, and the transaction is preserved. Wouldn't it be lovely if all customers were like this? Regardless, the extra information into the order offers value that the consumer will enjoy, whether they realise it or not. As previously said, improved

backend customer support is one aspect of the solution. The frontend point of sale visibility is the other component. Your customer-facing ordering platform may be integrated with the correct ERP system. Customers might benefit from insight into remaining inventory, accessible services and goods, and an overall cleaner and simpler purchase procedure. After all, simplicity is essential. 6.Improvements in Employee Engagement and Culture: To recruit and retain talent, Human Capital Management software may be used. A system like this might handle performance evaluations, ensuring that workers are receiving appropriate coaching, training, and support from their leadership, and zero in on areas for growth on an individual basis. ERP software may enhance the entire work experience in addition to providing human resource possibilities. If the processes in place make an employee's task easier, more efficient, and intuitive, the employee's job becomes less stressful. In some ways, you are preparing your current and future workers for success by providing them with efficient, transparent, and seamless technology. This will help them remain organised and discover patterns in their own work, increasing the value of their production and making their tenure at your organisation more pleasurable. 7. Adaptability: When an IT transformation is done correctly, you will be able to adapt to market and customer demands on the spur of the moment. 2020 has been the most significant disruption in traditional business methods since we can recall, and it is times like this that highlight the significance of flexibility and agility in company. To guarantee that your organisation becomes more flexible as a result of a transformation, it is critical to choose the correct software for your firm and integrate it properly so that activities are not disturbed throughout the change. 8.Improved Supply Chain Management:

Visibility in your supply chain, enhanced vendor management, and a better grasp of the microeconomics of your goods – from raw materials through delivery to your consumer – are all benefits of effective supply chain management. If shipping and logistics are a component of your organisation, think about how this department will fit into your demands as you go through the ERP transition process. 9. Improved Business Model: What is your business plan? Will an upgrade to your IT infrastructure enhance the way you do business? Many of the firms we've worked with have seen new lines of business emerge as a result of integrating digital strategy. Consider brick-and-mortar enterprises. The addition of a dependable ERP system that manages inventory and sales opens the door to better and more dependable eCommerce channels, assisting in the expansion and optimization of your company's reach. 10. Increasing Competitive Advantage: By enhancing your company's infrastructure, you increase your competitive edge in your sector. The easiest approach to do this is to prepare ahead of time for the features and functions that your new system will need to help your business grow. Determine what you're strong at and where you can enhance your company. The features and functions of the software you choose should reflect your demands and strengthen your business's distinctinction. Automating these procedures also enhances customer and employee experiences by allowing for considerably quicker response times when a query is received. One of the benefits of digital transformation is that consumers may access your services and support via their chosen manner of engagement. You may create omnichannel support by using digital resources, enabling consumers to contact you by phone, website live chat, email, mobile app, or a support forum. Companies may give many contact points, log interactions, and allow follow-ups and feedback from consumers by keeping everything digital. Similarly, businesses may leverage digital tools and procedures to make it

simpler for consumers to access their services via e-commerce, mobile platforms, social media, and other digital channels. Customers not only benefit from receiving services via their chosen channel, but companies may also propose additional similar offers, goods, or services based on the data associated with their accounts. Certain are procedures that can be established and enhanced after a company manages these components using digital technology, and they can be refined based on real consumer experiences. Software-driven, digital processes provide insight into what is functioning effectively and what might be improved. Because all data is stored digitally, frequently in real-time, finding trends and identifying possibilities for improvement is considerably simpler. Central data repositories may be mined to get insights on process bottlenecks, which problems recur the most often, staff performance, customer preferences and behaviour, and a variety of other topics. In comparison to conventional surveys, sampling, and manual feedback collecting, it is considerably simpler to compile reports and target areas for improvement when a corporation uses digital tools and builds procedures around them. Companies may also improve supply chain efficiency by incorporating digital technologies at each level of development, from service or product development through service or product delivery. This may be as easy as modifying current processes to incorporate a digital checkpoint, or as complex as automating operations and monitoring output at each step using IoT devices. More data usually results in quicker and more accurate decisionmaking. Breaking away from limiting old systems and using contemporary, scalable alternatives is a significant benefit of digital transformation. Existing corporate processes are often built on outdated technology that needs human input, resulting in bottlenecks as workloads increase. Some manual procedures simply cannot grow when additional people are required to handle claims, service requests, give support, and perform other business responsibilities. Modern software and procedures are often simpler to integrate, allowing you to link different aspects of your organization rather than'silosing' data by

department or function. When a job is completed, current systems may often link the data or next item to drive it ahead without user involvement. Transforming companies to function digitally helps such organizations to stay fluid and responsive to market advances and trends. As businesses develop, the technology and procedures on which they've depended for years may begin to fail them. Technically, it might be more difficult to back up, preserve, and secure data with older systems. As a result, they may be more prone to failure or an easier target for cyber attackers. According to the McKinsey research, Digital Risk: Transforming Risk Management for the 2020s, "increasing the efficiency and efficacy of existing risk-management systems, digital risk initiatives may lower operational expenses for risk operations by 20 to 30%." When it comes to recruiting, if your present business processes and operations are built on legacy technology, it might be tough to locate employees with the necessary skill sets. By updating to new digital technologies, you will have a broader pool of candidates with the necessary skills to fully assist them. As practically all organizations and activities are set for digital revolutions, digitization has become firmly ingrained in banking strategy. The considerable benefits of digitalization in terms of customer experience, revenue, and cost are becoming more attractive. The impetus for implementing the new technology and business structures required to reap these advantages is growing. Risk management, which has undergone considerable cost rise over the last decade, should be no exception. Indeed, we are beginning to see digital risk transformations provide real business value by enhancing the efficiency and quality of risk decisions. A digital risk function also allows for improved monitoring and management, as well as more effective regulatory compliance. Experience has shown that the structural changes required to reduce costs and increase risk effectiveness may be performed in a manner similar to digital transformations in other departments of the bank. The differentiating context of the risk environment, on the other hand, has significant significance. For starters, risk practitioners in most regulatory

countries have been under intense pressure to satisfy growing regulatory requirements, leaving little time for anything else. Second, chief risk officers have been leery of digital transformation's test-andlearn methodologies, since the penalty of failures in the risk environment may be unacceptably high. As a consequence, progress in digitizing risk management procedures has been especially sluggish. This status quo, however, may be set to change as global banking executives see how significant value can be unlocked with a focused digital strategy for risk that includes fit-for-purpose modular techniques. This agenda includes risk-specific objectives in addition to the aim of capturing value. These include assuring the control environment's continued efficacy and assisting the risk function in using technology to better satisfy regulatory requirements in critical areas such as risk assessment, aggregation, and reporting. The phrase "digital risk" refers to any digital entablements that increase risk effectiveness and efficiency, particularly process automation, decision automation, and digitized monitoring and early warning. Work-flow automation, optical-character recognition, sophisticated analytics (including machine learning and artificial intelligence), new data sources, and the use of robots to processes and interfaces are all part of the strategy. Essentially, digital risk requires a systematic modification of processes, data, analytics, and IT, as well as the whole organizational structure, which includes personnel and culture. To reap the full advantages of process and decision automation, banks must ensure that systems, processes, and behaviors are wellsuited to their intended purpose. Prioritized use cases are separated in the risk environment in areas such as credit underwriting, stress testing, operational risk, compliance, and control. Current procedures at most banks have evolved spontaneously, without a clearly defined end state, therefore process flows are not necessarily logical and efficient. Before automation and decision assistance can be enabled, operational structures must be modified. The major facilitators of digital risk management are data, analytics, and IT architecture. IT and data infrastructures that are highly fragmented cannot offer an

efficient or effective foundation for digital risk. To develop a data vision, update risk data, implement strong data governance, improve data quality and metadata, and construct the correct data architecture, a clear institutional commitment is essential. Fortunately, current technology in numerous critical areas, such as big data platforms, the cloud, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and natural-language processing, can now assist these aims. To enable fast digitalization, the organization and operational model will need new skills. Despite the fact that risk innovation occurs in a very narrow, highly sensitive domain, risk practitioners must nonetheless cultivate a healthy culture of innovation. This entails attracting the proper people and cultivating an inventive "test and learn" mindset. Governance mechanisms must allow for quick responses to a rapidly changing technical and legal environment. Managing this culture of innovation in a risk-appropriate manner is a fundamental problem for the digital risk function. Most institutions are digitizing their risk operations at a modest but steady rate, using modular methods to certain areas. Few have accomplished large-scale change, delivering considerable and longterm improvements in efficiency and effectiveness. In any case, when applying test-and-learn pilots typically employed in digital transformations in other departments of the bank in the risk environment, caution must be taken. Such pilots must be subjected to stringent restrictions, since the tolerance for defects and mistakes in risk is unavoidably low. When it comes to digitizing procedures like comprehensive capital analysis and review (CCAR), for example, solutions cannot be put into production unless designers and practitioners are persuaded of their entire dependability and efficacy. Banks may apply test-and-learn methodologies successfully in other risk sectors, such as monitoring and early-warning systems in commercial credit risk. The possible advantages of digital risk efforts include increased efficiency and productivity, improved risk effectiveness, and increased income. Greater efficiency and productivity may result in cost savings

of up to 25% or more in end-to-end credit procedures and operational risk via deeper automation and analytics. Superior transparency achieved via improved management and regulatory reporting, as well as increased accuracy of model outputs owing to better data, may all help to improve risk effectiveness. Better pricing or an improved customer and frontline experience, for example, may increase revenue by shortening the know-your-customer (KYC) cycle time from one week to under one day, or the mortgage-application process from 10 to 12 days to under 30 minutes. Improved employee satisfaction may also be obtained by directing talent into high-value tasks. Manual data collecting, underwriting, and documentation procedures, as well as data challenges influencing risk performance and sluggish cycle times harming the client experience, all impede credit delivery. To solve these pain points, digital credit risk management employs automation, connection, digital distribution, and decision making. Value is produced in three ways: revenue protection, risk assessment improvement, and operational cost reduction. Digital risk improves client retention to safeguard income in consumer credit. With real-time decisions, self-service credit applications, and rapid credit approvals, it enhances the consumer experience. Integration with third parties for credit adjudication, as well as the use of dynamic risk-adjusted pricing and limit setting, allow the benefits. One European bank is investigating the possibility of digital risk to increase income in consumer loans while maintaining the same risk appetite. Digitized credit procedures will allow the bank to make quicker decisions than the competitors while maintaining its better risk assessment. Improving risk assessment also adds value. Loan risk models used for credit approvals, portfolio monitoring, and workouts may benefit from advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities. It may also help to limit the occurrence of judgment-based mistakes. The incorporation of new data sources improves credit decision-making insights, while real-time data processing, reporting, and monitoring increase overall risk-management capabilities. As credit procedures are computerized, operational expenses are lowered as well. As inputs and outputs become more standardized

and paperless, a higher proportion of time and resources may be committed to value-added operations. In addition to improving default forecasts, we have seen credit risk improvements in these areas result in a 5 to 10% increase in income and a 15 to 20% decrease in expenses. Banks have discovered that a focused digitization effort for stress testing, including CCAR, may yield considerable value. The existing method is very manual, fragmented, and sequential, posing issues with data quality, aggregation, and reporting time frames and capacity. Digital automation and work-flow solutions are ideal for these procedures. The starting step is the underlying stress-testing procedure. The goal of the improvement programmed will be to optimize resources. The allocation of resources will be prioritized depending on the importance of the risk. Parallel processing, centralization, and cross-training of employees, as well as improved calendaring, may help institutions increase efficiency. Templates and outputs are standardized, and "golden" data sources are identified. As a consequence, the process becomes more transparent and efficient. Digital-automation efforts for data loading, overlays, Y14A reports, and the end-to-end review and challenge process help to enhance process improvement. As part of the change, real-time visualization and sensitivity analysis are digitally enabled. Banks are searching for possibilities to unify data, procedures, and decision-making models with business planning in addition to directly enhancing stress testing. We have seen digitalization in CCAR and stress testing reduce costs significantly while also freeing up capacity for experts to apply more insight and enhance the quality and utility of results. Manual procedures and fragmented systems have spread throughout operational risk and compliance controls and operations at several multinational banks. For example, in anti-money laundering (AML), procedures and data have gotten cumbersome, expenses have escalated, and efforts have become inefficient. Significant potential to improve the efficacy and efficiency of AML operations exist in the comprehensive end-to-end streamlining of the alert production and case investigation processes. Digital risk enhancements in alert

creation guarantee that the reference data available for usage in the analytic engine is of high quality. Machine learning and other advanced analytics methods are utilized to evaluate and enhance the case-segmentation variables, as well as to provide "auto-adjudication" when feasible. Furthermore, digitalization and work-flow technologies may facilitate smart investigations and automatic submission of suspicious-activity reports, which improves investigation unit efficiency. Our experience with digital risk efforts in AML has shown that they always boost effectiveness and efficiency by 20 to 25 percent. However, given the huge cost base of this function across institutions and the danger of failing to detect rogue actors, the total effect of such enhancement is much higher. A digital risk programme must take into account the elements of the risk function that set it apart from other operations, such as frontline digital sales. Regulators will not accept the typical ways of conventional digital revolutions in terms of risk. Most risk activities do not benefit from live releases of "minimum viable products" to be evaluated and modified in production. The majority of digitalization techniques are geared toward enhancing the consumer experience. Some genuine external consumers may be involved in digital risk, such as in credit delivery, but in most cases, the emphasis will be on internal customers, stakeholders, and regulators. Furthermore, digital risk is never a stand-alone activity; it is dependent on data from all companies and operations. As a result, development continues at a slower rate due to the careful management of these interdependencies. Innovative methodologies, such as agile and digital laboratories, provide viable choices for progressively implementing solutions. While digital risk presents apparent prospects for large cost savings, the effect on income is less visible but implicitly accepted by executives. Frontline digital reforms are often geared at increasing direct income; however, evidence of this benefit from digital risk initiatives is more difficult, since risk is an enabling role. Faster loan application response times are a common digital risk improvement. Even if the association cannot be exactly identified, this will most likely

result in larger loan volumes and, as a result, increased income. Given the indirect influence on income, digital risk initiatives should prioritize risk and cost reduction. The exception is digital credit, where the justification for increased income will be clearer. An successful digital risk programme starts with chief risk officers asking the proper questions—those that direct the organization toward particular digital innovation projects. "Can we shorten the time it takes to approve structured credit to a few minutes?" "How can we boost the pace of straight-through processing?" "How can we increase the efficiency and streamlining of KYC operations to alleviate pain points in the account-opening process?" "How can we reduce the number of consecutive steps and the amount of resources required for CCAR?" "How can we increase reporting timeliness to fulfil regulatory objectives?" "How much value can we get from better use of internal data?" "What is the added value of incorporating additional data sources?" The responses will aid in the development of initiatives, which will be selected based on existing resource allocation levels, losses and regulatory penalties, and implementation concerns such as investment and time. Digital risk programs may combine well-known design elements of digital transformations, such as zero-based process and interface redesign, as well as an agile framework. The testing and fine-tuning, on the other hand, takes place totally inside a controlled setting. The modular design method must also be comprehensive, based on a thorough analysis of risk activities, appetite, and policies. The designs cannot be put into production unless they have been properly tested and disseminated, which is generally done in collaboration with regulatory organizations. Risk is digitized end to end across a longer timeline in this highly sensitive setting than in customer-service sectors. Specific skills are developed to completion and distributed in discrete increments, resulting in incremental risk management throughout the company with short-term advantages. A digital risk programme may get off to a fast start by focusing on high-value possibilities immediately. The transformation's anatomy will

be similar to that of previous digital transformations, with the customary three stages: 1) Priority initiatives are identified based on the value at stake and the feasibility of near-term implementation; 2) digital solutions are designed to capture that value and tested and revised based on stakeholder input; and 3) the improvement is introduced into production, with continued capability building to embed design, engineering, and change management into the operating model and invest in the right capabilities and mindsets. Stage two matches the possibilities identified in stage one with digital and other solutions that will decrease waste and maximize resources while enhancing standards and quality. Work-flow automation, digital interfaces, and the utilization of sophisticated analytics and machine learning will all be part of these solutions. A "two speed" architecture may be used in the technology design to promote speedy IT innovation while enabling the primary IT infrastructure to run normally. Prior to migration into production, new functionality is extensively evaluated to guarantee a seamless, error-free transfer for important risk functions. Iterative test-and-learn procedures occur in situations with greater control requirements than is customary elsewhere. Prior to production release, stakeholders' input and, in certain cases, regulator syndication are requested. The organization concentrates on change management in the third stage, when the innovation is integrated into production. This, in and of itself, is no different from normal digitalization efforts in other corporate sectors. The emphasis is on integrating the design into the operational model and investing in digital capabilities to develop momentum for future releases. Having the proper personnel in place, whether from inside or outside the organization, is critical to a successful shift to digital risk. Here are few more examples of advantages of Digital Transformation: 1. Increased productivity and efficiency: By speeding up procedures and simplifying operations, digital technologies increase efficiency and production. Robotic process automation, for example, may outperform humans in a variety of ways. IBM demonstrated bots that finished jobs 20 times quicker than

humans, and they don't make the same mistakes that humans do. Humans cannot match the speed and precision with which business intelligence software and data analytics solutions can gather and analyze data. Workers may then utilize that analysis to make quicker judgments than they could without enhanced technology. 2. improved resource management: Companies are replacing old systems servicing discrete business units with contemporary IT architectures intended to streamline operations and facilitate the smooth flow of data across all departments as they adapt. According to experts, this end-to-end digital technology strategy has assisted CIOs and other executives in eliminating redundant and unneeded technologies, as well as related expenditures. Furthermore, on-demand computing resources and asa-service platforms have assisted firms in optimizing their technology expenditure by delivering just the computer capacity required at the time, rather than paying for surplus capacity to address uncommon surges in consumption. 3. Increased resilience: Organizations that embrace digital technology and foster a digital culture that embraces change are better equipped to respond swiftly to altering market pressures, even severe social and economic upheavals like COVID-19. Companies, NGOs, and other organizations can weather routine business ups and downs as well as greater, oncein-a-lifetime crises. Furthermore, the widespread use of digital technologies, especially cloud computing, contributes to organizational resilience by providing built-in redundancy and flexibility. While most CEOs acknowledged that the advantages of digital transformation helped them construct a more resilient organization, many now put a greater value on these technologies beyond 2020, according to The Hackett Group's Pastore. "Resilience wasn't always such a significant concern," he observed, "but it's now the largest." 4. Increased agility:

Digitally aware businesses, according to Pastore, "have the potential to not simply respond to change, but to profit on it." Digitally mature firms, for example, may easily scale up or down depending on changing demands due to their growing dependence on cloud computing. Meanwhile, current software development approaches, such as DevOps and Agile, promote improved team cooperation and enable teams to swiftly design and deploy new features and functionalities to meet market demands as they grow. According to the Workday survey "Organizational Agility at Scale: The Key to Driving Digital Growth," twice as many executives in digitally mature organizations were significantly more confident in their ability to quickly reallocate resources to meet shifting needs than those in digitally laggard organizations. 5. Enhanced customer involvement: "Transformation completely changes your understanding of your clients," said Andrew Binns, managing principle of Change Logic LLC. "And it changes the kind of connection you may have with clients. You may make them more personal." Businesses may use digital technology to gather, store, and analyse consumer data in order to understand more about each of their customers. Companies may obtain more insights via data analysis and AI, enabling them to build and deliver goods and services suited to each customer's specific tastes and demands. 6. Enhanced response: Because digitally changed firms have improved customer interaction strategies, they are better equipped to anticipate changing consumer needs and market realities. 7. Increased innovation: Digitalization opens up new chances for businesses across all sectors to generate previously unimaginable goods and services. Tool firms

are increasingly providing online services to connect contractors with clients. Personal fitness equipment may now provide virtual ondemand training teaching. Retailers rent out personalized handpicked clothing. "Digital enables businesses to better innovate and establish new niches," Binns said. "And, contrary to popular belief, it is not only Amazon and Google who are doing this. Even established companies are venturing into new markets that are unrelated to their core competencies." 8. Reduced time to market: According to experts, one of the most significant advantages of digital transformation is shorter product lifecycles. This is especially essential in businesses with high development expenses. Consider that it may cost "$1 million to 'tape out' a new chip," according to Binns. "That is a very high standard for things to meet before they are put into production. It also causes a delay in the development of goods that utilise such components. If you can accomplish all of this in virtual reality, your time to market will be a quarter of what it is now. This has the potential to change the economics of whole sectors over the next ten years." 9. Revenue growth. According to a survey by the SAP Center for Business Insight and Oxford Economics, 80 percent of executives at firms with mature digital transformations reported greater profitability, and 85 percent reported increased market share. "Transformation," according to Genpact's Srivastava, "provides this new digital backbone to give this new business functionality that enables you to expand your company, your income in the future." Here are some more reasons why Digital Transformation Fails: 1. A lack of the proper mentality : According to Gartner's , not having the correct transformation mentality is often the first reason why digital transformation programmes regress, underperform, or fail outright. People are inherently resistant to change, but CEOs can play a critical role in

fostering the mentality shift essential for successful changes, she adds. "CEOs must fully support the shift." "They must establish the tone, model the behaviors for change, and then operationalize those behaviors," Moyer said. According to Jason Fruge, vice president of business application cybersecurity at Onapsis, CEO support for digital projects is also crucial for getting a sufficient digital transformation budget. Another attitude that contributes to digital transformation failures, according to Fruge, is when the rest of the business perceives IT as a "necessary evil." However, Fruge thinks that CIOs that operate as a change and education engine, rather than merely execution partners, and have executive buy-in from the start would be effective in establishing IT as a transformation catalyst. "It's really up to the CIO to be that salesman and educate and persuade folks that this is the path that the firm should go," .

2. A lack of the appropriate culture: Experts agreed that an organization's fundamental culture may make or destroy transformation projects. Culture change is at the core of digital transformation, and current cultures that accept change and cooperation will be more successful with digital transformation. That's because, whether it's transforming goods, internal processes, or how a business interacts with consumers, digital transformation always entails getting diverse departments and groups within divisions to collaborate in a more logical and successful manner. "If you don't have a culture of cooperation across multiple roles and divisions, the transformation will fail," Eggplant's Edwards said. Change management, according to experts, is a critical component in achieving successful culture change; effective change management can identify people who are most resistant to change and then provide them with the necessary training and education to transform them into digital transformation champions. 3. Failure to hire the proper people:

Another reason for digital transformation failure is a failure to acquire adequate personnel to lead transformation activities. Companies often fail to hire personnel with a digital knowledge and prior expertise performing such transitions. "Anyone who believes they can restructure their firm in such a fundamental manner with the same personnel and leadership team is delusory," Edwards added. This is particularly true for organizations that are really nondigital. Finding the appropriate individuals with the right talents for your digital transformation team, on the other hand, might be difficult. So much so, according to Moyer, that even the pandemic-induced unemployment rate hasn't opened up the talent market. There is still a scarcity of qualified candidates in high-demand industries such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Devin Redmond, co-founder and CEO of Theta Lake, encouraged businesses to recruit individuals who are aware of the potential pitfalls of such programmes and can effectively communicate that information to the rest of the firm. These change agents may assist in developing the necessary focus, business processes, and training procedures for success. However, Edwards emphasizes the need of retaining people who "understand your market, your company, and your consumers." 4. A lack of defined objectives: Companies executing transformation efforts for the sake of conducting transformation efforts without a defined aim is another reason why such programmes fail. "Organizations must identify their core areas of concentration and what they are attempting to accomplish from a business standpoint, whether it is cost reduction, agility, or security,". Without clearly defined objectives, your business will wind up with employees running in a variety of different ways; there will be no alignment, and it will ultimately lead to failure. "The number one issue, like any change programme, is simply to make sure you have your objectives stated correctly and then creating actions that really fulfil those goals," he added. Companies that lack a clear vision are also more likely to have an underfunded and misguided understanding of what such transformation initiatives require. Technology for the sake

of technology has always been a horrible notion, according to Shua. While businesses are using cloud adoption to speed their digital transformation, it is critical to realize that cloud settings are vastly different from on-premises systems, he added. He recommended businesses to avoid the lift-and-shift strategy to cloud computing because, although it may work in the near term, the end result is always poor. 5. Failure to consider the necessary technologies: Concentrating entirely on the enabling technology while undertaking digital transformation initiatives might lead to failure. Assume a company in a highly regulated sector is considering implementing a video-first communication environment. The project will be stalled if it solely considers how a tool like Zoom or WebEx might increase employee communication and fails to examine the compliance implications of the new software. "Instead, they should do that research ahead of time to say, 'OK, I should be looking at the entire stack of technology if I'm going to be sharing information in a new way, and I need to have new security and compliance infrastructure in place, and I need to involve those other constituencies,'" he said. 6. Adopting a fail-fast mentality: Failing quickly – a motto typically linked with digital transformation – might be another hindrance to effective digital transformation. Adopting a fail fast approach, on the other hand, typically implies that firms do not give initiatives enough time to flourish. "The trouble with this fail fast approach is that you accept failure and, second, you don't expect any of your actions to be well thought out,". Instead, he recommended businesses to double down on their endeavors if they fail the first time, and to do it "bigger and better." Principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research, looking at some of the companies that have experienced digital transformation failures highlights how transformation requires careful analysis and does not happen overnight. "If you want to be a digital behemoth, look at the business strategy and understand how you can monetize it." Recognize that if

you're going to gather all that data, you'll need a long-term investment perspective, as well as the correct personnel.

Figure 5.1 Pros and Cons of Digital Technology

Chapter 6: Digital Disruption Digital Transformation often referred as DX or DT .Digital disruption is an impact induced by or manifested by digital capabilities, channels, or assets that alters basic expectations and behaviours in a culture, market, business, or process. Disruption in the digital era is often caused by new internet-enabled business models that shake up traditional industry structures. Businesses, government agencies, and even non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are being pushed to embrace these new operational procedures or risk going out of business. Disruptive technology is a breakthrough that drastically transforms how customers, industries, or enterprises work. Disruption in the context of digital transformation is a shift in "business as usual" that leads to a better position than we were before. It is putting something new in place for the benefit of consumers, staff, and stakeholders. A digital disruptor is any entity that causes or expresses a change in basic expectations and behaviours in a culture, market, industry, technology, or process as a result of digital capabilities, channels, or assets. "Today's fastest growing firms did not get there by using the same business strategies as their rivals or slowly innovating via the use of tried and tested tactics." Instead, they used technology to revolutionise the game. They capitalised on trends, pioneered new digital models, and provided goods and services that differentiated themselves via insight. And they did so before their competitors." Disruption in the context of digital transformation is a shift in "business as usual" that leads to a better position than we were before. It is putting something new in place for the benefit of consumers, staff, and stakeholders. It is making a commitment to be unusual, to disrupt the industry with something spectacular. You want to be a digital disruptor. Here are a some of today's most well-known disruptors: i)Tesla's creator and founder, Elon Musk ii)Airbnb co-founders Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk, and Joe Gebbia

iii)Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook. iv)Uber co-founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp v)Netflix co-founders Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings All of these individuals have pushed the established quo, even in the face of hardship, to provide some of the world's most well-known solutions — the most, if not all, of which are utilised every day by millions of people worldwide. Forrester identified some methods you may implement creative thinking into your organisation to disrupt your sector and provide better solutions to your customers. Rethinking your offers Begin to think like an outsider. Put yourself in the shoes of someone else and consider how we might improve our services and offers. How do we shift the needle in order to bring about the next wave of solutions? Consumer experiences are being reinvented. You need customers to keep your business running. More significantly, you need satisfied customers. How can you reimagine their experiences to help your organisation grow? Investigate innovative business models. The fact that the existing business model works does not imply that there isn't a better, more efficient way to do it. Consider how other companies have improved their business models. We might presume that it took bravery to think beyond the box. Great company leaders give themselves permission to do the same. How can you make room for creative ideas? Nurturing all ideas, good and bad, will lead you to the next big thing. Identify and solve complex situations. Some challenges seem to take years to solve, yet the groups that do so end up transforming the world. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are great examples of problem solvers who converted large communication issues into opportunities, and now we have so much technology to aid us with daily activities that it's nearly hard to recall life before it. The shift that happens when new digital technologies and business models influence the value proposition of current products and services is referred to as digital disruption. The fast rise in the usage

of mobile devices for personal and professional purposes, known as the consumerization of IT, has expanded the potential for digital disruption across a wide range of businesses. Digital disruption often occurs after a digital invention, such as big data, machine learning (ML), the internet of things (IoT), or the bring your own device (BYOD) movement. The evolution of consumer expectations and behaviours is then influenced by digital innovation, forcing firms to change the way they manufacture goods and services, generate marketing materials, and assess feedback. This transformation in digital strategy might take place at the individual, organisational, industrial, or societal levels. In recent years, the phrase "digital disruption" has become something of a cliche, and it is often used to characterise any product utilising digital technology or the use of digitization to better compete against marketplace counterparts. A few examples of digital disruption include: i)The digital camera business disrupted the industry of film photography and photo processing. ii)The subscription economy business model, as used by companies like Amazon, Hulu and Netflix, caused a disruption within the media and entertainment industries by changing how content is accessed by customers and monetized by advertisers. iii)Freemium products, such as Spotify, LinkedIn or Dropbox, that allow users to sample a basic product with the option to pay for the full offer, put more emphasis on developing a well-known brand behind a product or service. iv)On-demand services, like Uber, have disrupted more traditional services like taxis. v)The rise of electronic reading has redefined the print and publication industry. Organizations must embrace digital disruption in order to achieve a competitive edge. When an industry undergoes digital disruption, it usually indicates that customer requirements are changing. As a result, recognizing the disruption enables businesses to keep current consumers satisfied while also creating chances for new customers. It also provides businesses with a greater understanding of human behavior and how trends may evolve over time. Following are a few

recommended practices to ensure that digital interruptions are more of an opportunity than a threat: i)Pursue activities that have the potential to produce a disruption; don't be scared to be the disruptor. ii)Consolidate your data assets and utilize them to make informed choices. iii)Create a list of completely unique items, services, or channels. iv)Utilize client data in novel and creative ways. When the Spanish banking behemoth BBVA was preparing for the forces of digital disruption, it did what every bank does best: risk control. "Our greatest risk was buying the most costly proprietary systems on the market," said José Mara Ruesta, worldwide head of infrastructure, service, and open systems at BBVA. "In our datacenters, we had intricate interfaces that were never documented our lives were difficult, and there was no possibility for creativity." In response, Ruesta said that BBVA replaced its proprietary systems with open source platforms, which has greatly reduced transaction costs and improved developer productivity. BBVA was one of many global organizations, from Spain to Australia, to take the stage at the Red Hat Summit in San Francisco to discuss lessons learned about preparing for transformation in an unpredictable and turbulent environment. Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst organized these lessons into three major topics in his keynote address: preparing for ongoing change, empowering workers, and staff engagement. Noting that "planning is dead," particularly since organizations do not always know where the future lies, Whitehurst suggested that organizations "design for change" without knowing what the change will be. In order to do so, he suggested that organizations incorporate the concepts of agile development and DevOps – experiment, learn, and adjust – into business operations. Some organizations have gone a step further, he added, by including modularity into their IT infrastructure in order to respond to change rather than end up with legacy systems. When it comes to preparing workers to deal with change, Whitehurst says that although the use of automation to replace or augment what humans do will continue, it is equally crucial to empower employees with the knowledge and tools

they need to make choices. "It's about making sure employees understand the company's goal, the environment in which they operate, and defining the proper values," he said. "From a technological standpoint, it's about developing the appropriate systems that provide the right information and tools to the right people at the right time." Finally, Whitehurst urged businesses to engage their employees in real time so that they can respond fast to change and capitalize on new possibilities. "In the past, IT was often seen as an impediment to this, since IT systems moved slower than the company may wish to go." However, we're seeing with certain emerging technologies that IT is becoming a facilitator, pushing the speed of change." The notion of digital disruption has gained as much or more attention in recent years than any other business subject. Given the tremendous changes that have occurred in the media, advertising, retail, taxi services, and other sectors, it is only logical to speculate that similar movements would occur in the broader economy. But are these disruptions on the horizon? Why have some sectors been more affected than others? How, and to what degree, will our key industrial sectors change? Where will the next generation of mega-successful entrepreneurs emerge from Silicon Valley or its many foreign imitators? The historical trend is unmistakable. Each major stage of the IT industry's evolution has been headed by a new generation of companies: IBM in mainframes, Digital Equipment Corp in minicomputers, Microsoft and Intel in personal computers, Apple in mobility, and Google, Amazon, and Facebook in the internet era. As new businesses have emerged, many once-great enterprises have become shells of their former selves or have perished entirely. When a disruptive invention first appears, it is generally juvenile, and incumbents quickly reject it as a "toy" that can be safely disregarded even mocked. However, as technology advances, the new method is seen as a more significant danger that must be opposed or co-opted. Finally, the once-mocked technology becomes the clear industry standard – but by then, it is typically much too late. This toy/threat/obvious pattern has been followed by personal computers, mobile phones, and social media. This three-stage dynamic, however, is not limited to the IT sector. PayPal, Netflix, Skype, and Uber were

once dismissed as toys, and the number of technologies in the toy phase has increased dramatically in recent years: 3D printers, digital cash, self-driving cars, smartwatches, internet TV, 3D goggles, robots, smart clothing, massively open online courses (MOOCs), drones, expert systems, do-it-yourself medical tests, the quantified self, artificial intelligence, and more. Surprisingly, no sector has been completely disrupted. There are still profitable newspapers, record labels, booksellers, travel agencies, taxi drivers, retail establishments, and advertising businesses. The Financial Times was sold for an astonishing $1.3 billion, and printed books are now competing with e-books. Super Bowl television commercial spaces are in high demand and command exorbitant sums. Existing businesses continue to have numerous benefits and strengths. Nonetheless, our attention is inexorably pulled to the figure's lower half. Why have some industries altered so little compared to others, and, more importantly, will these distinctions persist? In our analysis, we looked at ten important industries. Six of them are commercial in character (automotive, manufacturing, retail, banking, insurance, and professional services), while the other four are quasi-public in nature. Healthcare, electric utilities, education, and defense are all a mix of private and public organizations, which influences the kind and pace of possible disruption. Overall, the present mixed picture is projected to persist, with much dependent on whether a five- or ten-year timescale is used. Our top-level disruptive thoughts in five main sectors are summarized here in a nutshell: 1.Banking: The potential for disruption is high across the banking industry's value chain, particularly in lending, payments, currencies, funds transfer, and financial advising. We anticipate escalating rivalry between established banking incumbents and rising financial technology (fintech) competitors. 2.Insurance: In contrast, there is no indication of impending upheaval in the insurance industry. There are relatively few intriguing new digital insurance businesses, and the system still has a lot of inertia. The fact

that many types of insurance are bought yearly and utilized even less often seems to be a significant stumbling block. Nobody seems to be talking about "insuretech." 3.Healthcare: Medical technology (MedTech), like finance, is fast growing, and sophisticated at-home, retail, and self-administered healthcare services will drastically deconstruct much of today's medical business. The fundamental issue is how successfully public healthcare systems will adjust to these critical new skills. Every nation will have to forge its own path. 4.Transport Uber and other on-demand services are fundamentally changing the taxi industry. Their influence on the big automakers, though, will be limited. Electric and self-driving automobiles will be even more disruptive, but not until the 2020s. While Silicon Valley now has a "cartech" advantage, collaboration with Detroit, Germany, Japan, Korea, and, ultimately, China will be critical. 5.Manufacturing Smart goods, robotics, 3D printing, and novel materials have yet to change the present benefits of high-volume, offshore production. Furthermore, the internet of things (IoT) has shown to be more sustaining than disruptive so far. While we anticipate some substantial developments, the overall amount of disruption in the manufacturing business over the next five years will be moderate. According to my thesis, genuine IT disruption occurs when something nonlinear occurs that alters the customary expectation or baseline for a crucial operational capacity. This might be linked to storage capacity, performance, or value. With the emergence of scale-out vs. scale-up storage architectures, flash vs. disc, and big data analytics vs. data warehouse business intelligence, for example, we've seen significant market upheaval, not to mention data center transformation. These changes have all resulted in orders of magnitude improvements, allowing numerous new methods to extract greater value from data. I'm not suggesting that we abandon disrupted technologies entirely, but outdated top-tier technologies may fast fall

down our perceptual pyramids of perceived worth. Floppy discs and CRT displays are two examples of obsolete technology. But, more often than not, they are absorbed as a lower tier under a bigger, newer canopy and consigned to smaller, less prominent use cases. Nonvolatile memory express server-side flash and persistent memory are emerging disruptive storage technologies, as are in-storage data processing, which combines software-defined storage, containerization, and in-stream processing; global file systems and databases with global consistency, security, protection, and access features; pervasive machine learning; and truly distributed internet of things data processing. You would suppose that these disruptive technologies are the result of the gigantic, ever-increasing amount of data, which is undoubtedly expanding nonlinearly. All of the vendor presentations I've seen in the previous several years tell the same tale. I've even offered that line of thought. Early adopters must be prepared to take some risks in order for disruption to be successful. The issue with such approach is that it portrays the storage business as reactive rather than proactive. It also makes them seem to be heroes, or at the very least paragons of product management, figuring out precisely what customers need and providing it just in time to rescue IT from catastrophe. If we're being honest, the fact is that newer generations of storage technology allow us to maintain enormously increasing amounts of data, access that data more quickly, and boost the ROI for storing and processing ever larger data sets. In other words, new technology permits more data rather than more data driving new technology. Developing disruptive technology may be as much a matter of chance as it is of deliberate design. Disruptive innovations emerge as a result of sellers catering to our competitive natures. We are always on the lookout for the next possible advantage. However, an advantage does not have to be disruptive. It may be done in stages. It is also simpler for suppliers to position – and for their customers to ingest – incremental improvements. You already know the drill: don't rock the boat too much at once. Many suppliers are unsure if what they are releasing is incremental or disruptive. Successful IT disruption requires early adopters being ready to take some risks and then allowing gestation time to have a significant impact. These may be significant barriers,

and many potentially innovative inventions and products never make it to market. Interestingly, some major firm marketers may go to great lengths to disguise a mediocre incremental product as disruptive in order to demonstrate leadership, while smaller suppliers will occasionally urgently repackage potentially disruptive technology as an easier-to-sell, incremental offering. When a true nonlinear IT disruption becomes generally recognized in a market, incremental progress by established incumbents is no longer acceptable. They must rapidly embrace the disruption, which means your favorite merchants must disrupt themselves often. The larger the firm, the more difficult it is to remain on top of IT disruption. Rather of contracting with large vendors renowned for their extensive patent portfolios and long-term maintenance of legacy systems, it may be worthwhile to consider open source-based, faster-evolving options from more-agile and, frequently, service-oriented suppliers. Truly disruptive platforms will be significantly more profitable for both providers and adopters. Regardless of the sales pitch, you should be on the lookout for initiatives that have the potential for orders of magnitude improvement. While IT is in charge of maintaining the ship upright and on course, we in IT should also be trying to constantly update our ship. It's never simple to update key IT skills, but assisting with the transition to new technology is a crucial skill that outstanding practitioners can provide their businesses. (It also helps in justifying a good wage.) If the rate of technological disruption continues to accelerate, the capacity to pivot in the middle of a project will become more critical. Is it really important to know which came first, the data or the storage? Perhaps not, but recognizing disruptive developments early and promptly adopting or intending to adopt them, aligning technological maturity to organizational aggressiveness, is increasingly becoming a vital IT management talent. Evolving your storage infrastructure to be more flexible and capable of absorbing disruptive technologies sooner should be a top priority for your enterprise's IT management team. The deployment of disruptive technologies is changing how attackers and defenders establish network security objectives. Security is never static; it is constantly in motion, with the continual ebb and flow of either staying one step ahead of attackers or racing to catch up. This

will never change, and as security managers, architects, and engineers, we must get used to a never-ending cat-and-mouse game with attackers. This is particularly true when creating new items or tactics capable of effectively disrupting adversaries. When this occurs, everyone takes attention, even the attackers. However, this is not the time to rely just on one product or strategy; rather, it is time to go on the offence and begin introducing additional restrictions. For the time being, these disruptive defensive technologies are fixing a problem and driving attackers to discover methods around them. We're not dealing with a paradigm shift here; rather, we're dealing with paradigm shifts. Endpoints are one area where paradigms are continually altering. Attackers are still aiming for the terminus, which is where the war is now taking place and will stay for the foreseeable future. We were doing a lousy job as an industry keeping up with assaults using conventional signature-based antivirus solutions. As a result of this vulnerability, the industry changed its focus to developing new technologies that used machine learning methods to remedy a recognized pain issue. Most antimalware vendors are now working on incorporating machine learning into their solutions in order to detect dangerous executables that do not contain malware signatures. This is an example of paradigm shift, and attackers are forced to change their approaches to avoid these solutions. In my perspective, the disruptive manner machine learning is being incorporated into antivirus systems has prompted attackers to begin designing more fileless and macro-based malware, allowing attackers to evade elements of these protections. We changed, they shifted, and now it's up to us to augment and protect our assets once again. As a result of our advice to the information security community, we notice adversaries modifying their approaches. We've been preaching for years about the significance of protecting and encrypting data in transit and at rest to protect it from intruders. As a consequence, attackers used encryption in transit to safeguard conversations inside malware or while transferring data from a victim. They also took use of encryption at rest, although it was dubbed ransomware. Attackers have also employed encryption to safeguard their assets, which are often malevolent; nonetheless, they took the slogan of securing data

in transit and at rest to heart and exploited it to their advantage. If we don't follow our own rules, you can't blame them for listening to us. As a result of our advice to the information security community, we notice adversaries modifying their approaches. Another disruptive technique that puts attackers on the defensive is the use of sandboxing for malware investigation. These technologies created a great impression in the business, and they assist to secure networks by adding another layer of security inline before harmful attachments reach an endpoint. As attackers adapted to this technology, they found ways to circumvent it by hiding malicious code within password-protected attachments, delaying the execution of their malicious code, going silent if it was discovered to be in a sandbox, or sending large files with code injected into them, as many sandboxes do not read an entire file. These are all specific instances in which attackers adjusted when they realized their approaches were no longer effective. While these evasive strategies may not always succeed, they do show how a new disruptive technology is introduced and what attackers try to keep their campaigns going in a novel way. These are only a few instances of the game we play with attackers when we embrace new protection technology and approaches. When new technology that addresses an industry issue is launched, it is nearly certain that attackers will aggressively seek methods to circumvent it; they are in the business of compromising our data. Don't let anybody trick you into believing they're not taking this as seriously as we are. We're building new technology to guard against them, and they're coming up with new countermeasures to counter ours. We can never depend on a single area of technology for defense, and we must constantly combine various tools and approaches to guard against these developments. After you've implemented a disruptive technology, the optimal moment to start implementing additional defensive measures is after you've implemented a disruptive technology. Once that new disruptive technology is in place, attackers will begin to change their tactics, which means they will attack you in new ways. Don't gain a false feeling of security after shutting one door; attackers will enter via another. Monitoring for the same danger or understanding how attackers might achieve their aim in a different method should be part

of the solution when deploying something new to fix an issue. This is where a solid security foundation and adherence to the basics really doubles your investment in these technologies. If you make the attacker disoriented for a little while, you should continue guarding your surroundings before they recover their feet, since your enemy may get inventive. A significant issue in digital transformation is minimising detrimental disruption to the organisation while developing a new business/IT operating paradigm. BPM tools may be useful. In a short period of time, mobile, cloud, IoT, AI, and blockchain technologies have emerged as dominant forces in workplace computing. Have you or your management team considered what this boom of new technologies and capabilities implies for your company? The solution, when you think about it, is complete reinvention. For many CIOs, comprehensive reinvention will include introducing new technologies into the existing IT system under the guise of digital transformation. However, doing so just perpetuates the disaster you most likely inherited as CIO: Almost every firm has a slew of legacy apps and an infrastructure made up of a variety of technologies, many of which have restricted capabilities. Furthermore, these legacy programmes are written in many more languages than I want to consider. Adding new technology, software tools, and apps to the mix only adds to the complexity and difficulty of management. Business transformation will take time for the majority of firms. Obtaining clearance for the digital transformation work that will allow a new IT/business operating paradigm is only the beginning. This is the most difficult task in digital transformation: avoiding unacceptable disruption while emerging from the endeavour with a fresh perspective on the company and a new integrated business/IT operating model. What happens when you get sponsorship for your digital transformation initiative? I've discovered that identifying a few interconnected tasks that need to be fixed and working out a feasible alternative is an excellent place to start. Here are two sets of questions I've found helpful in assisting IT customers in determining the infrastructure required for digital transformation: i)Is your hardware and middleware working well together?

ii)Was the system intended to function as a whole? iii)Is it capable of sufficiently enabling business change, particularly the capacity to communicate with consumers across numerous channels? iv)Is your present infrastructure's total cost of ownership too expensive? v)What will need to alter in order to create an ideal infrastructure capable of supporting the organisation in the future? vi)What would it take to transition to this new infrastructure and IT operational environment, and what is the time period required to spread the cost realistically? The answers might assist you in developing a strategy for constructing an IT operation capable of taking the firm into the future. This model will offer the data required for an investing strategy. Any digital transformation must include apps and data in addition to infrastructure. To be sure, applications may be a greater issue than infrastructure. Through a tangle of interfaces, applications are written in various languages to operate in various operating systems. In many situations, weaving new BPM tools, robotic process automation, AI, or any other new technology into this intricate fabric has been the chosen strategy. However, this only adds complication to an already complicated situation. Clearly, calling a more difficult and costly IT operation "digital transformation" is not a good idea. And you can't modernise or transform anything unless you have a clear plan for achieving a result that will allow the organisation to compete more effectively in the future. So, since contemporary technology should not simply be incorporated into existing IT operations, how can a corporation apply digital transformation technologies that will allow business transformation? I've discovered that employing BPM in a new approach creates an excellent basis for digital transformation. This method to modernisation use BPM tools to organise a managed

mix of new and old technology. Every new and old application that exists outside of the BPM suite is related to particular activities in the BPMS solution through this orchestration.The BPMS tools aid in the development of an application modernization strategy by establishing a core capability that calls and orchestrates the use of each external application, while keeping each external application separate from the main workflow in the BPMS and the applications generated by the BPM tool. This separation and management of external applications allows the core BPMS applications created by a low-code BPM tool to change independently and so remain current through the kind of solution change that BPM tools were designed to govern. Following that, the old tech apps may be replaced with BPMS-generated applications in accordance with a distinct legacy application replacement timetable. As a consequence, the above-mentioned restructure becomes part of a wider modernization plan that will ultimately result in the replacement of the old programmes with a flexible architecture geared for quick modification. Moving to this strategic modernization with the aid of BPM tools will distinguish firms in the future by providing them with the freedom to communicate with consumers as the customer requires. It will also allow the organisation to incorporate any new technology required to create a competitive edge via interfaces to the main process processes. Everything is therefore integrated, but only as part of a larger plan and operational strategy. The IT/business model modernization effort can then be defined and estimated using this approach. A multiyear roadmap that clearly specifies the value produced at particular milestones as well as the cost of the transformation project should be used to assist the transformation endeavour. Using BPM tools, both IT operations and the business will be able to use new technology while replacing ageing technology infrastructure and applications in a planned, cost-effective manner. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, enterprise leaders quickly realized they had to change the way their organizations did business, especially with the advent of employees working remotely. Existing business processes and even formal business models had to be adapted to a new normal where the bulk of operations -- involving

employees, partners, vendors and customers -- now happened virtually. The urgent operational changes provoked by the pandemic came when many companies were actively involved in ambitious digital transformation programs. As advanced digital platforms were being planned and deployed, the pandemic had IT managers scrambling to ensure their resources were geared up to support the sudden increase in remote working, including the following: i)Monitoring network resources to ensure the availability of sufficient network bandwidth; ii)Reviewing existing remote work software licenses -- e.g., for VPN access; iii)Acquiring additional licenses to accommodate the surge in remote users; and iv)Reviewing and upgrading network security resources to protect the increased number of remote users from cyber attacks. So, what impact has COVID-19 had on digital transformation roadmaps? In this section, we look at ten key implications – both good and bad – that the pandemic has had on the status of digital transformation. 1. Quicker adoption of digital transformation solutions: Recognizing that the vast majority of employees would be working remotely, IT managers and technical staff increased the speed with which digital transformation resources, such as advanced ecommerce platforms and supply chain systems, were deployed to improve the firm's ability to deploy customer-friendly applications while also tightening the security and reliability of their supply chains. 2. Deferral of digital transformation activities for the time being: Because of the rising number of remote employees needing access to firm information resources, several IT managers revised their scheduled technology rollout deployment dates. They accomplished this to guarantee that distant work resources, such as VPN access and network bandwidth, were always available. IT managers were

allowed to restart their digital transformation projects after deploying remote work resources. 3. Increasing the usage of consumer-friendly applications in order to satisfy client expectations: With more consumers confined to their homes owing to pandemic quarantine rules, company executives needed to guarantee that their clients had the greatest possible experience working with the firm. This increased the importance of implementing the customer-friendly tools and apps that are the hallmarks of successful digital business models. Digital business with real-time access to customer-focused apps quickly became the new normal, particularly as consumers increasingly utilised mobile devices. Creating a one-stop shopping experience has become a primary aim for most firms using ecommerce systems in order to reduce the probability that current and potential consumers would migrate to another website. 4. Improved remote worker access security: With the enormous growth in the number of remote employees, an organization's potential susceptibility to cyber assaults has essentially increased overnight. Not only did distant workers need appropriate access protection, but the danger environment for employees utilising non-company devices, such as personal computers and cellphones, has grown. Unless the IT staff was able to promptly transmit fresh VM images and/or authorised security software to remote workers, the vulnerability level rose until those changes were installed, tested, and deployed. Remote workers should ideally have company-provided and IT-configured devices, but the additional costs and time necessary to purchase, configure, and ship company-approved equipment may be prohibitive, particularly for thousands of employees working remotely. 5. Patch management is elevated to the top of the priority list: The pandemic immediately highlighted the significance of an effective patch management programme, particularly when system

performance and security may be compromised by an increase in the number of remote users. Patching guarantees that the most recent system and application programming is in place, which is especially important for optimising security. External threat operators might jeopardise digital transformation attempts in the absence of adequate network security. With the impact of the pandemic on IT operations, proper patching became even more critical, particularly when applying updates that strengthen network perimeter security and update remote access software. 6. Increased usage of self-service applications expedites the acquisition of client data: The implementation of apps that enable access to self-service resources is a major advantage of digital transformation. This is particularly crucial when it comes to offering an excellent client experience. Customers may undertake additional tasks on a company's website using self-service, such as shopping, comparing items and pricing, and completing transactions. The access corporations receive to valuable data from client self-service activities is more important. This data may then be evaluated to determine purchasing preferences and other variables. The outcomes may then be converted into advertising and promotional messages, resulting in increased consumer activity. 7. Changes in supply networks encourage the usage of modern ecommerce platforms: With more individuals visiting commercial websites as a result of the pandemic, the increased demand for items had a significant influence on supply chains. Organizations discovered that by using modern ecommerce platforms, they could evaluate and change supply chains as required to suit fluctuations in demand. 8. Increased coordination between HR and IT to boost employee satisfaction:

With many employees now working remotely, HR faced new challenges, such as how people will interact without physical, inperson contact; potential increases in stress and discomfort from working remotely; and the need for more e-learning to ensure employees remain connected to the company and its culture. HR collaboration with IT became critical for ensuring that workers had the best possible work experience. 9. Increasing the application of AI in data analysis provides a competitive edge: AI and machine learning are becoming more critical in the success of digital transformations. For example, the use of AI technology may considerably improve the capacity to evaluate data from sophisticated e-commerce systems and give a better consumer experience. This, in turn, might lead to a greater competitive edge for the organisation. 10. The Evolution of the CIO Role: The effect of the pandemic and digital transformation have expedited and highlighted the decade-long transition in the CIO function from IT operator to business strategist. Through their expertise of modern technology platforms and their technical teams' experience with new technologies, CIOs have grown into real partners in the fulfilment of the company's business objectives. Following the pandemic, CIOs have become significant participants in "new normal" work dynamics like as remote working and the adoption of digital transformation tools. OceanFirst Bank has previously relied on a network of local branches to satisfy the demands of its clients. When those consumers started to demand digital services, there could only be one response: digital transformation. The project started with a thorough examination of the New Jersey-based regional bank's capabilities and how they compared to a digital future. "We compared ourselves to other banks and businesses in other sectors. The bulk of our deficiencies were cultural and behavioural rather than technical ". "People are more essential than technology," said Tim Rowley, former Bank of America

digital transformation leader and now CTO and COO of PeopleCaddie, a job site that bills itself as "a talent cloud for the highly skilled gig economy." Organizational culture is often disregarded, despite its apparent value. In a Forrester Research poll of IT executives engaged in digital transformation, organisational culture was not identified as a major impediment to implementing digital transformation. Security was placed top in that research at 23%, while business culture was tied for fourth place at 17% with four other categories. Here are some actions you can take to create a digital – and inventive – culture in your organisation: 1. Define the vision for digital transformation: The first stage is to envision a company's digital destiny. Organizations get at this beginning position in a variety of ways. It detects fresh signals from consumers. "Most of the time, digital transformation is the result of an exogenous shock," Chellappa added, citing the Y2K catastrophe and Sarbanes-Oxley standards as two recent external catalysts that prompted company IT overhauls. According to him, COVID-19 is developing as a comparable catalyst that is forcing firms to reconsider business procedures. According to a McKinsey & Company analysis, the COVID-19 problem has advanced worldwide digitalization of consumer relations by three years. According to McKinsey, firms are seven years ahead of the competition in producing digitally improved goods and services. Employees must share the final aim after it has been determined. "Begin with an uplifting vision. Communicate it to the company on a regular basis so that everyone can map to their better self "Rowley said. He said that only after the goal has been communicated should a business reduce it into a set of attainable milestones. 2. Make taking risks acceptable. Although digital startups may gleefully embrace danger as they disrupt sectors, the risk calculation for established organisations is more

difficult for one simple reason: they have a lot to lose. A bad judgement or poor execution may send a firm into a spiral. Nonetheless, a larger risk tolerance is required when going digital. So, how can you strike the perfect balance? The optimum strategy is to establish an innovation centre or lab where innovative concepts may be tested. "You don't want to put the firm at danger, but within a certain region, decide to tolerate some risks,". According to James McGlennon, CIO of Liberty Mutual Insurance, a little failure may be beneficial. "We are deliberately enabling individuals to explore with the knowledge that initiatives may fail," he said. "We'll know we're succeeding when we realise that a few initiatives did not deliver the objectives we had hoped for," he continued, stressing that the key is to see digital transformation failures as chances to learn what to do differently the next time. "If your clients are moving digital, you must shift some money away from brick-and-mortar and into digital. That is a high-risk choice." Instead of reducing customer service, OceanFirst. 3. Recruit for and train for digital skills: With objectives and strategy in place, it's time to take a close look at present staff skills: Will they be enough to get a business to its digital destination? "You have to make sure you recruit the proper people — that you are brutally honest in your evaluation of the talents of the individuals who are already there," Rowley said, adding that "the primary difficulty to organisational change is overcoming employee opposition." Faced with a future that will be radically different from the past, many workers must choose whether to stay and gain new skills via internal or online training, or to leave. Some employees at OceanFirst experienced a cultural gap, which resulted in a staff decrease overall. "The majority of workers were not employed in the digital era." They didn't utilise many mobile gadgets or applications. They did not accept mobile payments or make remote deposits. Their confidence and skill were damaged since they were not technologically aware. "That needed to be handled,". While personnel with data science and artificial intelligence skills should be acquired as

needed, workforce transformation extends well beyond recruiting a few digital superstars. "If [businesses] believe they don't need to alter their culture and can simply bring in a few of important individuals, there is typically a failure to launch," said the analyst. The workforce to flourish, agile learning (the capacity to swiftly acquire new skills for different positions) helps people to adapt to the changing corporate purpose and methodologies. Interpersonal skills are crucial. The capacity to constructively settle conflicts with coworkers in nonhierarchical teams will be essential in any digital journey. "You need to work harder on your soft skills." For new recruits, OceanFirst prioritises on-camera video abilities. Because the ability to engage with clients through videoconference connection will be crucial in the future. 4. Form teams and show leadership: To carry out digital transformation, firms must develop teams comprised of employees with different experience from throughout the company. "You must bring together business and technological organisations." CPAs and machine learning specialists cannot accomplish everything. "There should be one team, not two," said Sanjay Srivastava, chief digital officer of professional services business Genpact. Rowley developed teams in every area of business at Bank of America that included digital champions – workers with excellent digital skills and a commitment to the transformative vision and agenda. "As de facto ambassadors for the digital transformation initiative, they were expected to interact closely with business executives." Our digital transformation team worked across all business divisions. "The champions preached." However, teams by themselves are insufficient. Management conduct must also shift. "Traditional management structures are top-down in nature. It does not function in a digital world. "Its time has passed.". "It takes more mentoring and less control to lead self-directed and autonomous teams." It's more like being a mentor than a manager, according to the analyst. Leadership is essential in creating a risk-tolerant culture. Will workers be willing to put themselves in danger? "Only if they trust their leader would back them up,".

5. Put into action, monitor, and improve Once a digital transformation project is initiated, it is vital to monitor not just the completion of particular activities, but also the attainment of objectives. This keeps workers focused on the end goal of the transformative process. The use of key performance indicators (KPIs) is an essential management tool in this quest, according to the expert. According to IDC research, firms who are successful with digital transformation depend significantly more on KPIs than those that lag. According to IDC, 49 percent of digitally successful firms use KPIs to manage and guide daily or weekly operations, but just 39 percent of organisations without a transformation plan do. Positive signals will emerge when digital revolutions are successful. Successful firms, for example, will discover that they spend less time in online meetings. IDC research found that enterprises with the most complete corporate digital transformation plans spend 29.2 percent less time per day in numerous online meetings than companies without a digital strategy. Client surveys at OceanFirst found that the bank's effort was enhancing customer satisfaction while minimising customer turnover. According to Net Promoter surveys, when asked whether they would recommend the bank to friends, 70% of respondents replied yes, compared to an industry average of 40%. According to Rowley, during this time, demonstrating dedication and resolution may keep a company on course. "Some companies begin a change initiative and then move on to something else after a few months. It's critical to persist with a programme that has top-down commitment so that it's not simply a fad." When a company assesses the ROI of its digital transformation, the results may not be good. When this occurs, an immature digital culture is often to blame. "When firms reflect back on what went wrong, they say they didn't address culture early enough because it appeared too difficult,". Building the team requires some legwork to find the right people, get their supervisors' sign-off and inject discipline in the organizational structure. Most companies do not have teams of people devoted to technology transformations. They're typically working on the transformation initiatives along with their day jobs. Consider the

following best practices in assembling the transformation teams: i)Create a suggestion box. One way to find people to serve on a transformation team is to have something as simple as a physical or virtual suggestion box, where employees can make suggestions. Or do something more sophisticated, such as a technology innovation day, where employees can showcase innovations they've done as skunkworks ii)Identify candidates. Suggestion boxes or technology innovation days can help to identify good candidates. Alternatively, the advisory board, business unit leaders or evangelists can identify the best people to work on the project. It's imperative to know what's involved with the project at hand: Is it a customer journey initiative using machine learning? If so, then select people who work in the contact center and developers working on the AI platform. iii)Level-set expectations. This is particularly important if your team members' digital transformation roles are not their full-time jobs. Let the team know the time commitment, meeting schedule, responsibilities and any additional compensation. It's always good to point out that involvement in such high-profile projects is great for the resume and for promotional opportunities. iv)Get sign-off from supervisors. Everyone but the CEO has a supervisor, so pitching the project to them is as important as finding the right candidate. Some prefer to go straight to the supervisors once a candidate is identified because they can get their sign-off before even approaching the candidate. If the supervisor and the digital team leader can approach the candidates together, the chances of them enthusiastically signing on to the project increase greatly. The following suggestions serve as a road map for a successful digital transformation programme in digitally disruptive environment. 1. Conduct digital transformation research: Most firms have a difficult task when it comes to digital business transformation. Begin by studying as much as you can about digital transformation and the systems and technologies that fall under the DX umbrella. Searching the internet for research on DX may provide a lot of information on what it is, how to prepare for it, suppliers that sell

DX solutions, and how to construct project plans. Among the DX technologies are, for example, the following: Cloud technology, which enables the integration of a wide range of intelligent devices via the internet into a suite of components, such as SaaS and PaaS; AI and machine learning, which enable the development of sophisticated applications that extend and enhance human capabilities; data analytics, which uses sophisticated algorithms to generate additional actionable information from data; and IoT, which enables the integration of a range of intelligent devices via the internet into a suite of components. 2. Identify and examine the precise ways in which DX may benefit the firm: Examine how the company is now run. Examine the interaction between customers and the company, for example: What type of consumer data is presently being collected? What format is the data in, for example, written notes or spreadsheets? What is the company's plan with this data? What changes may be done to improve the customer experience? If the aim is to enhance cooperation and productivity, your DX team must monitor how workers now engage with one another and how this impacts productivity. Examine and map processes carefully, and consider how current technology helps – or hinders – workflows. Next, find adjustments to these tasks that increase cooperation and productivity. Company unit executives and senior management will provide insights into these developments in business operations. The study will be used to develop a new set of KPIs as well as identify new technologies and/or upgrades to current technologies that will assist the business in planning its digital transformation strategy. 3. Inform upper management of the preliminary study findings: Once you've collected and reviewed data on DX technologies and business performance challenges, inform top management on the scope of the project, including the following: business opportunities and risks; strategies for achieving the desired objectives; likely investments; time required to complete a business transformation; impact of such DX activities on employees and the company's culture; and how the new approaches will be rolled out to customers and key

stakeholders 4. Obtain top management support for budget and strategy planning: The next stage is to secure senior management approval to develop a strategy, budget, and plan for undertaking a business transformation programme. As part of the overall strategy, consider a three- to fiveyear planning horizon. 5. Work with key stakeholders to develop a DX strategy and vision: A large number of people are required to develop a DX strategy and vision: The corporate objectives that the DX project must fulfil may be identified by senior management. Business unit executives are the most educated about how their organizations help the firm achieve its objectives. They may also identify members of their leadership teams who are intimately familiar with company processes and can find methods to enhance them. The CIO, CTO, and their teams are often the major participants in the DX initiative's implementation. Chief digital officers, a relatively new role, may determine the systems and technology required to meet the DX project's objectives. A DX vision statement explains your transformation project's goals, such as "becoming the country's foremost supplier for X technology." Employees will be able to unite behind the endgame if they are aware of it. The DX strategy collects a wide range of particular operations and directs them toward a single objective, which in turn satisfies the vision statement. The approach will be based on the DX team's investigation work as well as information from the CIO and CTO on existing DX technologies and how they may be introduced to the company. This last point is crucial: It is critical to evaluate the influence of the new environment on workers while designing a DX strategy. 6. Develop a project strategy and budget that can be adjusted to accommodate changing company operations: Keep in mind that the firm does not stop operating while the nextgeneration technology is being implemented. The optimal project strategy takes into account the subtleties of business operations and ensures that they are not harmed during the relocation. If unexpected

expenditures, such as the need for more components or improved software, arise, ensure that the budget can be adjusted as required, and that top management is made aware of any unplanned changes as soon as possible. 7. Select technology that are in line with company goals: Before presenting a proposal to top management for a DX programme, several various systems, applications, and network resources must be investigated and analyzed. A company transformation programme is not something to "try it and see." Due diligence should be undertaken far in advance in order to adopt the best possible solution. It is critical to install technologies that will: assist the organization in achieving its business objectives; deliver the greatest possible experience for workers and consumers; adapt to current and future business needs; and leverage AI and machine learning technology to give business information required for smart choices. 8. As part of the collaborative approach, enlist the assistance of workers: While senior management support is required for digital transformation, employee support and cultural acceptance of the business transformation programme are as crucial, since workers will utilize the new DX tools to enhance the customer experience, among other things. It becomes a collaborative endeavor involving everyone in the firm. Prepare to show how next-generation technology will make it simpler for staff to serve consumers, respond rapidly to changing customer demands, and give more value to customers than prior ways. 9. Create mechanisms for measuring and evaluating performance: When designing metrics to measure different areas of DX performance and illustrate its worth to the firm, consider concerns such as prospective expenditures, time required to deploy, cultural implications, operational changes, and customer reactions. Implementing an advanced CRM system without the appropriate support activities, including as staff training, system testing, documentation, performance evaluation, data analysis, management

assistance, and emergency response operations, is a prescription for disaster. 10. train. train. Train: Employee support throughout a corporate change may be aided by a variety of training and awareness efforts. Conduct in-person – and, depending on the severity of the pandemic, remote – training for all workers, including top management and those who may be the frontline users of the new technology. This guarantees that personnel are familiar with the DX technologies and eager to begin utilizing them. From a cultural standpoint, technological adoption implies success. 11. Test, test, test: Before putting the new systems into production, thoroughly test them to ensure that any potential flaws are detected and corrected. Employees should be involved in testing activities since they will be utilizing the systems. Invite key consumers to join in testing if at all feasible, since their feedback might be valuable. 12. Be prepared for unexpected occurrences: As with any technology, having emergency and disaster recovery strategies in place is critical to minimizing any business delays caused by a technological outage. Work with the DX vendor(s) to verify that their systems are adequately secured, that network services are available, and that backup components are accessible. If the new technologies are cloud-based, make sure that all systems and data can be backed up and securely stored in case of an emergency. 13. Make changes to the new systems depending on user feedback: Employees who use the new systems are the finest resources for verifying that they are functioning correctly and identifying adjustments that will enhance system performance and customer experiences. 14 Review system performance against firm business goals on a regular basis: The job has just started after your digital transformation programme has been finished. Analyze and report to top management all available performance and financial data from the systems against specified performance metrics. Make it a habit to disclose system performance

and triumphs to personnel on a frequent basis to reaffirm the system's and, more crucially, their importance. Using a framework to plan your marketing is an important aspect of becoming a great marketer. Indeed, your ability to organise in a disciplined manner may set you apart. The good news is that there is a methodology that enables you to plan while also analysing your competition. Marketers questioned how much we needed to adjust our frameworks as marketing transitioned to the digital era. Richard Gay (a CIM examiner) took a very pragmatic approach in 2007: he looked at the aspects of existing marketing planning frameworks that work, then added to them with the digital environment in mind. As a consequence, the 10Cs of Digital Disruption were born:

1.Customer: Your goal is to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction because this should lead to increased profitability. Digital marketing shifted the balance of power to customers (yes, us marketers used to have more power!) but also gave us even more opportunities to understand and better connect with our customers. Areas you may need to consider here are: i)How well does your organization know its customers? ii)Can you back this up with data and evidence? iii)How well is your marketing, on and offline, meeting their communication wants and needs?

2.Corporate culture: Customers, more and more, want to understand the company they are buying from and see if they can emotionally connect with it. Your corporate culture is crucial to this. Do you meet the expectations of your customers? Is what’s important to them eg plastic-free, ethical, important to you? How can you prove that you ‘walk the walk not just talk the talk’?

3.Convenience: Customers expect things to be convenient for them. Whether it is accessing information or making a purchase in a way they like at the time they like, digital has enabled so much more. How convenient do

you make it for customers to engage with you at every step of their Buyer’s Journey? And how do you know that it is convenient for them – where’s the research and data to back your answer up?

4.Competition: Digital has given rise to new companies and new competitors – I remember the days before Google! Gay says how organisations may face competition from these angles: i)Traditional competitors moving online. ii)New online-only entrants in domestic markets. iii)New online entrants from overseas. iv)Competitors from newly formed online alliances and partnerships. v)Competitors introducing or eliminating channels of distribution. vi)Revitalized traditional businesses. Consider where your next big competitor might come from – your customer research could give you clues as people may already be using them.

5.Communications: The Promotional marketing mix is rapidly expanding because of digital – there are new communication tools every day, with others dying out. For example, inbound promotional marketing, such as organic SEO and social media, are becoming more important as customers reject having promotional comms ‘pushed’ on to them. How effective is your organization at ‘pull’ communications? Do your customers feel they are having a conversation with you or being spoken at by you? How effectively do you retain control of your messaging when others can take it over? As always, look at your data and customer research to assess your effectiveness

6.Consistency: Consistency creates a brand experience that is, in Gay’s words, ‘unswerving’. Customers should feel they are engaging with the same organisation regardless of channel, time of day, or any other variant. Have you achieved this reassuring consistency for them, which creates a strong brand that can survive a few knocks? How have you

created consistency and how good is it?

7.Creative content: Content is good, creative, relevant, updated content is crucial. In an age where algorithms punish the sloppy content creators and the poor updaters, your results will show you if your content is up to scratch. When assessing your Content, first determine what content you have out there – on and offline. Map it all out then assess all of it. Check that it still represents your organisation, is consistent, and is what the customers wants and enjoys.

8.Customization: The key phrase here is, ‘relevant customisation’. Customers expect to be treated as individuals and digital gives us the tools to do this on a mass scale. How effectively are you customising across your products, services, platforms and communications? Does it feel like genuine, relevant customisation for your customers?

9.Coordination: Gay originally set this out as assessing how well marketing coordinates all the business functions so that they are all focussed on meeting the customers’ needs. This has been expanded out to assessing how integrated the customer experience is from the first touch to purchase to beyond. Make sure you assess both areas:

10.Control: Control is the element that assesses how well you are monitoring and evaluating all your marketing. What do you have in place to see how well your marketing is doing as you go along? What do you have in place to assess that you have met your goals? If you can’t monitor your marketing as you are rolling it out and then evaluate if it has been successful, how do you know that you have met your customers’ needs in the most effective way? The term "digital disruption" refers to the change that occurs when new digital technologies, services, capabilities, and business models alter and modify the value of an industry's present services and commodities. These new factors affect or upset the status quo, pushing firms to assess and perhaps react to the present market for

products and services. Superior technology has often supplanted the status quo throughout history. The motor supplanted the horse and buggy, electric lights supplanted candles and oil lamps, mobile phones supplanted landlines, and video annihilated the radio star. In the end, digital disruption implies change, which may be both good and terrible. However, digital disruption is a one-of-a-kind beast. Let's take a closer look at the characteristics of digital disruption to gain a better feel of what makes it special. Despite the fact that digital disruption has the potential to be a difficult and unpleasant process, it provides three substantial commercial benefits: 1.It leads to increased consumer satisfaction. Customers now expect more variety, more innovation, and more options, all provided quickly. Customers now are savvier, more educated, and more discriminating, thanks to mainstream media, which has benefited from digital disruption. Digital disruption drives organisations to respond to the challenge of today's customers by keeping ahead of the technology curve and implementing the newest innovations as quickly as possible. Furthermore, digital disruption gives us enormous data and analytics, which firms may use to increase sales by acquiring insights into client purchasing behaviours. Marketing becomes more controllable as a consequence of digital disruption, resulting in a healthier organisation overall. 2.It aids in the growth of a business. Some shark species must continue to swim or perish. A corporation that is at rest is one that is lagging behind its competitors. Digital disruption causes drastic change, pushing businesses out of their comfort zones and propelling them ahead. A corporation that refuses to adapt and evolve, particularly if its competitors are doing so, is condemned to collapse. 3.The workplace changes and improves as a result of it. Digital disruption introduces fresh technologies and technology to the workplace. Consider the new workflow management tools, collaborative software, mobile devices, and cloud technologies that have contributed to digital disruption. If you need a more current and relevant example, consider how advancements in work-from-home technology have assisted businesses in remaining operational

throughout the worldwide pandemic. Digital disruption is divided into four separate aspects, each of which has the ability to revolutionise the way firms operate. i)Technology encompasses concepts such as innovation, application, design, and so on. ii)Business: Marketing, development, delivery price, and so forth. iii)Customers, procedures, processes, standards, and so on are all part of the industry. iv)Society: Movements, culture, customs, and so on are all part of society. Companies that wish to expand and flourish in the face of digital disruption must implement the five aspects listed below: i)Create a unified, company-wide digital culture. The organisation must work together to embrace new technologies. This adoption is critical for businesses that have not yet "gone digital," and it entails educating personnel in new digital-based skills. ii)Create novel consumer experiences and results that are one-of-akind. Disruptive technologies provide new methods of providing clients as well as intriguing new outcomes. iii)Change from making judgments based on time to making decisions based on facts. Being the first firm in the pack to make an ill-informed, destructive choice is crucial, but there is little value in being the first company in the group to make an ill-informed, destructive decision. Because to digital disruption processes, there is a wealth of important, actionable data available. This will be exploited by forward-thinking businesses. iv)Integrate new technologies and business models into current services and products. Companies who want to remain ahead of the competition and enhance their market share will welcome the new while putting the old to rest. Or, at the very least, improve on the old with improved methods and technology. v)Collaborate with partners to develop and implement new processes and policies. Teamwork is essential. Companies should use the expertise and abilities of their current relationships to cooperate on

improved business practises. Everyone benefits: your firm, its partners, and its consumers. Let's take a look at five instances of disruption in the past that are relevant to the digital age: i)Streaming Video/Web-Based Video: Netflix upended Blockbuster Video by concentrating on DVDs rather than VHS cassettes. As a prominent participant in the video streaming industry today, Netflix continues to upend the status quo. Traditional broadcasting and cable services have been flipped on their heads by on-demand watching. Not only are traditional carriers hopping on board the video stream bandwagon, but a slew of alternative online television providers, such as Hulu and Sling TV, have also emerged. ii)Smartphones: When it comes to disruptive technology, cellphones should not only be mentioned, but should be at the top of the list. Smartphones are ubiquitous now, and they have all but annihilated landlines and payphones. iii)Email: While the sight of a postal worker delivering mail to your mailbox isn't going away anytime soon, it's apparent that the development of email has made a significant impact in the post office. Why bother writing a letter, sending it, and waiting several days for the recipient to receive it when you can send an email in a fraction of the time? iv)Online encyclopaedias and references: Is it still possible to purchase bound sets of encyclopaedias? Why would anybody want to spend $1000 on huge books that would be outdated in five years when you can just go on to Wikipedia or other online reference sites and acquire current knowledge for less money and faster? v)Hand-Held Devices and Personal Computers: Remember those huge desktop computers that were common in homes and offices in the 1980s and 1990s? Miniaturization, increasing computing power, and the introduction of wireless technologies have rendered desktop computers almost useless. They still exist in large

numbers, but their age of supremacy is finished. Laptops, pads, and tablets provide the same functionality as desktop computers, but with the additional benefit of mobility and convenience. We've identified five technologies that have previously disrupted sectors. Let's have a look at five technologies that are anticipated to have a more disruptive impact in the next year. i)Online Education: There's nothing like a global epidemic and its following lockdown to drive people to create better online learning experiences. Online education provides students with a less expensive and more convenient method to get a degree or certification, bypassing the costly institution system. While this business is still in its early stages, online learning is positioned to challenge the conventional college learning paradigm. ii)Printing 3D Models: 3D printing seems to be something out of a science fiction film or television programme, yet it is here and growing in popularity. Currently, 3D printing mostly supports existing industrial processes, but as the technology improves and becomes more affordable, might we see homes using their 3D printers to create products rather than obtaining them from retailers? 3D printers are growing more advanced, and 2021 may be the year that their stock rises. iii)Cryptocurrency: Many of us have heard of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, but they have yet to dominate ordinary business. Take note of the word "yet." Cryptocurrency provides increased protection, which both consumers and companies desire in these days of escalating cybercrime and data breaches. Digital wallets have the potential to undermine conventional banks as well as internet payment systems, which have already affected traditional bill-paying methods! iv)P2P (Pay-to-Play) Commerce: P2P commerce is two people communicating directly without the need of a middleman, selling and purchasing products and services to one other. Take, for example, Airbnb. Although peer-to-peer lending isn't currently threatening the hotel and hospitality industries, there are

some concerning signs. v)Ride-Sharing and Car-Sharing: While taxis will always be needed, businesses like ZipCar, Lyft, and Uber have thrown the taxi industry for a loop. These services wind up being less expensive and more handy, and they don't even need currency to be exchanged (yet another innovation!). These services are only going to become more popular. If tech firms ever work out all of the flaws in autonomous vehicle technology, it will just add to the total disruptive impact. Unprecedented economic and political instability, along with the magnitude and speed of digital disruption, are compelling many businesses throughout the globe to reconsider how they operate and compete. Profit margins and margin growth are both declining sharply1, and conventional techniques to margin enhancement are not producing the outcomes that today's businesses need and demand. Meanwhile, digital disruption is rewriting the laws of the game, blurring industry borders and necessitating major increases in efficiency, effectiveness, and competitiveness. In this complex and challenging environment, a new approach to margin and business improvement is required, one that addresses multiple value levers and capitalises on emerging digital breakthroughs such as robotic process automation and cognitive technology to enable new business models and higher levels of business performance. Companies seeking to enhance their margins have traditionally fallen into one of three categories: • Distressed • Positioned for expansion • Consistently growing There is a basic margin improvement plan for each of these traditional categories, which generally focuses on one of three distinct value levers: cost reduction, aggressive expansion, or liquidity. Our 2012 research, on the other hand, highlighted the development of a hybrid scenario known as "save to expand," in which organisations concentrated on two separate value levers—cost reduction and aggressive growth—that had previously been at conflict. Taking this trend a step further, our most recent survey findings suggest that the cost-growth hybrid is now focusing on two more value levers: liquidity (which has typically been associated with distressed firms) and talent (which is significantly tied to growth and competitiveness). This new,

multifaceted environment is referred to as thriving uncertainty. Digital technologies are quickly altering the global business environment, blurring industry borders, reinventing how businesses compete, and generating a demand for substantial gains in efficiency and effectiveness. Despite this, our worldwide survey findings demonstrate that the great majority of businesses are just now becoming aware of the potentially disruptive influence of digital technologies and the commercial innovations that these technologies allow. Only 15% of corporations in our most recent poll in the United States listed digital disruption as a significant external risk. And the figures were significantly lower in the European Union (6%), Asia Pacific (2%), and Latin America (1 percent). However, all indications indicate that digital disruption is a key strategic concern for businesses in every area. When it comes to increasing profit margins and competitiveness, two areas of digital innovation stand out: • Robotics. Mechanical robots have quietly but slowly revolutionised how physical items are produced for years, substantially lowering the need for human labour while enhancing quality and consistency. We are now seeing a similar, if much quicker, revolution in knowledgebased operations, with software "robots" that can automate timeconsuming and labour-intensive information jobs like data collecting and data processing. Companies are looking for methods to drastically enhance the efficiency of any core and administrative activities that centre around data and information, therefore interest in this new technology sector is considerable. • Analytics and cognitive technology. Despite the fact that digital technology is proven to be quite beneficial in terms of increasing efficiency, through automation of routine tasks, that’s just a small part of what it can do. In recent years, nearly all companies have begun harnessing the power of analytics. Using big data to unearth hidden insights that might help cut costs while increasing effectiveness—a trend that is expected to continue. Many organisations are using machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and other cognitive technologies to improve their operations by complementing human knowledge and

judgement with artificial intelligence. Although this may seem like science fiction, it is already becoming a realistic reality for businesses in the digital era. Disruptive developments like this are altering the competitive landscape and setting the framework for enormous gains in efficiency and effectiveness. To stay competitive in this new digital world, businesses in every sector and area may soon find themselves requiring cost reductions of more than 50-60%, rather than the 1020% reductions that most are presently attempting. Prominent digital breakthroughs such as Uber, Airbnb, and Spotify put dominant corporations in jeopardy and have serious systemic repercussions in sectors and marketplaces. Such dramatic digital innovation and its broader systemic repercussions – sometimes referred to as digital disruption – are capturing the attention of both scholars and practitioners. The idea of digital disruption is often characterised as a form of environmental turbulence caused by digital innovation that leads to the breakdown of boundaries and techniques that previously served as foundations for organising value creation and capture. This perspective on digital disruption as a primary driver of basic creative destruction processes is reflected in white papers published by IT and management businesses. Such papers usually stress digital disruption's quick and systemic effects. It is stated, for example, that digital disruption may upset "the foundation of every business", resulting in "short fuse, huge bomb" circumstances capable of jeopardising whole sectors. Given the significant potential risks and benefits, some scholars have proposed that the ability to either initiate digital disruption and drive systemic change or exploit concomitant changes in fundamental circumstances is critical for successful enterprises in the digital age. While practitioners and researchers agree on the overall definition of digital disruption, its specific meaning and relationship to other common terms in the digital innovation discourse remain ambiguous. Furthermore, there is only a hazy knowledge of how digital innovation initiates the dynamic processes that may result in digital disruption. Furthermore, the terms "digital disruption" and "disruptive innovation theory" are sometimes used interchangeably. In this work, we offer an unified definition of digital disruption based on current research in Information Systems (IS), as well as a

conceptualization of how digital disruption might occur by embedding digital innovations with deviant value logics in digital ecosystems. Our goals are to encourage further theorization of this process and to fund future research on the link between digital innovation and industrial upheavals. For more than 20 years, the word disruption has had numerous implications that have muddled understanding and development of disruptive innovation theory. Disruption, in disruptive innovation theory, refers to a highly precise process that explains how new entrants might compete effectively with incumbents. It is concerned with business-model innovation, which allows new entrants to join markets with low-cost, easy-to-use goods. The competitive relationship between incumbents and newcomers, as well as the exact mechanisms by which the latter join the market, are critical boundary conditions for that are seldom shown by empirical instances of digital disruption. Perhaps more crucially, technical innovation has a limited role in disruptive innovation theory, which is primarily concerned with competitive dyads rather than systemic effects on sectors. However, the verb disrupt has slightly different meanings in common parlance: to prevent something, especially a system, process, or event, from continuing as usual or as expected, to break apart, to throw into disorder, or to disrupt the normal course or unity of, for example, an industry with new technology. Evidently, existing IS research has mostly relied on the broad concept of disruption, usually characterising digital disruption as a form of digital technology-induced environmental turbulence capable of causing industry-wide change. Digitization and digital platforms, for example, have been emphasised as particular expressions of digital disruption as processes or artefacts that might lead to the disintegration of basic industrial conditions for organising production and value capture. Other scholars ascribe the origins of digital disruption to individual people, known as digital disruptors, who use digital technology to undercut conventional industrial paradigms of consumption, rivalry, and resource allocation. Digital disruption is often experienced through the eyes of businesses that are highly engaged in traditional conditions and whose

conventional or planned route of growth is disrupted. As the spread of certain digital processes or artefacts causes changes in traditional industrial structures, incumbent enterprises are under intense pressure to adjust. Such reactions have the potential to cause major changes in operations, the technology that underpin older business models, and even the identities of the companies and people inside them. Due to the pace and systemic nature of environmental change, as well as deteriorating financial returns, when organisations confront the prospect of digital disruption, there is frequently an emergency need to respond. However, changing historically effective company structures that arose as a result of adaptation to previously prevailing environmental circumstances is often challenging. Less emphasis has been devoted to the opportunity that digital disruption may provide for organisations that are not burdened by digital debt from legacy expenditures to capitalise on new digital prospects. Based on current empirical processes, the broad concept of disruption, and existing research, we propose three key features of digital disruption. For starters, digital disruption processes emerge from digital advances and rapidly destroy competitive advantages. Second, they have an influence on the systems of value-creating actors by breaking and recombining resource connections, frequently allowing for more direct contacts and transactions. Third, while the initial digital innovation activities are organised by one or more enterprises, the repercussions on value creation and capture are systemic. As a result, we provide the following definition of digital disruption: The rapidly unfolding processes through which digital innovation radically alters traditionally sustainable logics for wealth generation and capture by unbundling and recombining resource connections or establishing new ones. Recognizing the central role of innovation in fundamental restructuring processes, we investigate important features of digital disruption to investigate how and why digital disruption may occur and create favourable or possibly catastrophic circumstances for various players. Multiple related concepts with varying meanings are occasionally used interchangeably in the digital innovation debate. We want to explain

our point of view by defining three fundamental components of digital disruption: digital innovation, digital ecosystems, and value logics. We situate digital innovation and disruption within a broader change process, namely digital transformation, which we define as "the combined effects of several digital innovations resulting in novel actors (and actor constellations), structures, practises, values, and beliefs that change, threaten, replace, or complement existing rules of the game within organisations, ecosystems, industries, or fields". Thus, digital transformation is an aggregated effect that both causes and is caused by multiple digital breakthroughs, some of which may cause systemic "shocks," i.e. digital disruption. In at least two ways, digital disruption differs from digital transformation. First, rather than aggregated impacts, digital disruption is the embodiment of unique innovative processes. As a result, digital disruption processes include identifiable agents in terms of both initiators and targets, and each digital innovation engaged is designed to attack, weaken, or make obsolete other players' value generation and capture methods. Thus, in a digital disruption process, cause and effect may be tracked from the company to the systemic level and back to the firm. Second, digital disruption occurs at a faster rate than digital transformation. Digital innovation has been strictly defined, focused on the design process. For example, define it as "the execution of innovative combinations of digital and physical components to build unique products." However, it has also been defined more broadly to include both the result and the design stages. For example, define it as "the development of (and subsequent change in) market products, business processes, or models as a consequence of the usage of digital technology." Similarly, digital innovation as "a perceived new product, process, or business model that demands some major adjustments on the part of adopters and is embodied in or supported by IT." Whether seen as a process or an end, digital innovation is widely acknowledged to be facilitated and driven by societal digital change. On a societal level, digital transformation includes large-scale digitization (homogenising analogue information into binary code) and

exponential advances in basic computing capabilities, which in turn spurs digitalization, i.e. sociotechnical processes in which digitising techniques are applied and adopted on a large scale in social and institutional contexts. Because of the proclivity of digital infrastructures for global uniformity and data homogeneity, players may blend physical and digital aspects significantly more widely than traditional kinds of technical innovation. As a process, digital innovation is intrinsically combinatorial, and societal digital transformation enhances the accessible design space for digital innovators on a constant basis. As a result, digital innovations emerge as hybrids of current and new digital and physical technology. As both a process and a consequence, digital innovation is said to be self-referential, in the sense that it creates both enabling and restraining circumstances for future digital innovation. We define digital disruption as a phenomena that begins in firm-level operations and spreads to industries. Thus, we are interested in the specific outputs that are exposed to the sociotechnical environment of organisations, as well as the processes by which they are formed and embedded in larger settings. As a result, digital innovation is defined here as the process of combining digital and physical components to create novel devices, services, or business models, bundling them to form and enable market offerings, and embedding them in larger sociotechnical environments to facilitate their diffusion, operation, and use. As a result, digital innovation is intrinsically reliant on the technology and commercial environment to identify possibilities for unique combinations, offer resources for it, and provide the context for output embedment. To describe this interdependence, we use the idea of ecosystems. Here they are: 1.Ecosystems of Digital Information: In information systems research, the phrase "digital ecosystem" has taken on a variety of meanings.For example, highlight organisational networks by describing them as "a collection of enterprises that is inter-linked by a shared interest in the prosperity of a digital technology in order to materialise their own product or service

innovation." It defined it implicitly as the "broader environment in which digital objects are embedded in shifting interdependencies with other entities," whereas emphasise technological networks by referring to IT ecosystems as collections of information technologies related based on a specific use context. While noting that the word is often used to refer to sociotechnical systems of actors focused on digital platform technologies, we expand on the definitions above to provide a more broad interpretation of the notion. Specifically, rather of being defined by a single technology (e.g., a platform), we define digital ecosystems as sociotechnical networks of interdependent digital technologies and associated people linked by a specific context of usage. From this vantage point, digital ecosystems are distinguished by a variety of distinguishing traits. First, when the combinatorial and self-referential character of digital innovation is operationalized, they emerge as complex and dynamic webs of interconnected sociotechnical components (including digital technologies, enterprises, institutions, and consumers). Second, digital ecosystems often cross industrial borders, bringing together diverse players and technology from several businesses. Third, they often overlap because bigger ecosystems that serve broad goals (for example, the distribution and usage of mobile apps) are made up of smaller and more specialised ecosystems (e.g., music streaming). Finally, digital ecosystems are fundamentally hierarchical, with the ability to influence others increasing with centrality, i.e., actors' impact is typically proportional to the number of external players that rely on them. 2.Logics of Value: The word logics has grown more connected with digital innovation throughout time. For example, contend that digital product designs nurture a new dominating logic for organising innovation. To increase understanding of digital innovation phenomena, urge for new theorising logics that do not depend on assumptions acquired from innovation management theories. Writing explicitly on institutional logics, observe that digital innovations that become important in ecosystems may also become standard-setting, allowing them to enforce norms and values on others by coordinating, facilitating, and

regulating their behaviours. This is consistent with definitions of platform logics, in which the concept of obtaining value from platform ecosystems is represented in the architecture and governance structures meant to support or inhibit certain behaviours. The embedding of such logics in businesses may result in industry-wide modifications in prevailing practises, the form of company interactions, and value and leadership conceptions over time. Using these theorizations as a basis, we view digital innovation as having certain types of value logics, i.e. basic rationales for creating, packaging, and embedding a digital innovation in order to fruitfully produce and capture value. Value logics give a reasoning that guides actors in establishing a business model and the equipment or service that supports it. In other words, when digital innovations are brought into digital ecosystems, value logics materialise in digital market offers and become exposed to other players. Once a digital invention has been accepted and implemented in a digital ecosystem, it may coordinate, facilitate, and limit the behaviours of others in order to fulfil its value logic. To inspire and promote future research on digital disruption, we present a conceptual model that depicts how the basic constitutive aspects discussed above might be realized in digital disruption. The approach is process-oriented and organized around the phases of digital innovation identified. The arrows reflect transitions between phases, as well as important junctures when we believe the process may be terminated or lose its disruptive nature if required circumstances are not satisfied. The possibility for materializing ideas into digital breakthroughs is investigated during the discovery stage. Actors participate in an iterative process of invention, selection, and testing as they investigate combinations of internal and external resources. As a result, participants investigate the possibilities and constraints provided by digital transformation and the ecosystem of interest. The available design space, the ability to recognize and capitalize on possibilities, and the radicalness of the concept all affect the possibility of the birth of a digital innovation capable of digital disruption. We propose that in

order for the intended artefact to progress from idea to usable output, it must meet at least two essential criteria: it must incorporate a value logic that differs significantly from the dominant logic in the focal ecosystem, and it must be deemed technologically and financially feasible. Our understanding of digital disruption initiation suggests that more research is needed into how radical ideas are generated in the context of digital innovation, how their potential for producing digital disruption can be assessed early on, and how a deviating value logic can be materialized in a market offering. Specific possibilities for more study may include: 1.How do ideas with the potential to cause digital disruption emerge? Disruptive ideas are more likely to emerge from a thorough grasp of industries and marketplaces, as well as the people and technology that support them. Indicative research questions on this subject include whether, and if so, how, organizations might design innovation initiatives to improve the likelihood of digital disruption. 2.How might the combinatorial nature of digital innovation be used to generate synergies between external selection and internal invention? The seeming simplicity with which digital components may be merged in principle can sometimes prove difficult in reality. Acts of selection and innovation may seem illogical when they clash with this dominant logic and internal organizational and cognitive structures, particularly for incumbent enterprises that are products of current dominant logics. The concept is then transformed into a usable product during the ensuing development stage. This entails integrating the invention into a central digital ecosystem from which it may pull the material, services, networks, or devices required for its operation and usage. In this stage, the invention must be judged compliant with technical standards and governance frameworks in order to be presented to end users and used as a component in secondary digital innovation processes. The development stage is critical for developing digital innovation outputs and exposing them to a larger sociotechnical

environment, and it provides intriguing problems to investigate, such as: 1.How can digital innovation be managed and packaged in such a way that the materialization of deviant logics is not stifled by systems that sustain a dominant logic? When brought into established sectors and marketplaces, the deviant value logic espoused by an invention that may cause digital disruption is likely to meet opposition. This may need proactive actions to prevent, outmaneuver, or combat impediments to or constraints on digital innovation throughout the development stage. 2.How might governance systems be constructed to prevent aberrant logics from taking root? Stopping digital disruption before it causes damage may be critical for players that depend on a prevailing logic, and it may be achieved with appropriate governance design. However, doing so is likely only possible for very central ecosystem players with the ability to enforce governance frameworks. During the dissemination stage, a digital invention is embraced and utilized by a growing number of players. Individual aspects as well as their integration into market offers are significant at this point. A combination of proper business model design, aesthetically pleasing aspects with broad appeal, and service design that delivers appealing value propositions may significantly promote quick and widespread adoption. As it is increasingly embraced by parties who grow reliant on it, digital innovation has the potential to impose its deviant logic on a larger scale by creating frameworks that prohibit or reward specific behaviors. We believe that this stage is crucial in digital disruption because centrality creates influence and adoption promotes centrality. As a result, widespread adoption among end users and establishment as a critical component for many other technologies in the ecosystem are critical stages in initiating a change in prevailing industrial logic. At this point, some interesting questions to consider are: 1.How might digital breakthroughs be packaged to encourage, facilitate, and fund widespread adoption? Digital business strategies

often depend on the subsidization of one user group in order to attract other user groups via the utilization of positive network effects. This provides serious problems to the inventive company, including the need to establish and maintain an infrastructure that can serve a quickly rising user base and discover methods to extract financial resources from other sources. 2.What contextual circumstances allow a digital invention with deviant logics to gain prominence? We anticipate that environmental factors will play a significant role in dissemination. An intriguing question is whether and how diverse settings may generate circumstances that either promote or inhibit digital disruption. Finally, the impact stage focuses on the planned and unforeseen repercussions of digital breakthroughs after they have been disseminated. In accordance with our concept of digital disruption, we believe that if effectively disseminated and capable of imposing a deviating logic on a large scale, a digital innovation may change traditionally sustainable key circumstances for business and operations inside industries. We contend that once a digital invention has acquired a key ecosystem position, it may modify basic industry circumstances that are critical to other players in at least two ways. It has the potential to change situations instantly and directly via interactions with adopters who rely on it. This may be accomplished by altering technical or governance structures to communicate a shift in acceptable and supported behaviors . Alternatively (or concurrently), more gradual change may be produced if end-user diffusion results in modifications in their behaviors and expectations for certain sorts of digital market offers. As a result, the impact stage raises numerous intriguing issues, including: 1.How may digital ecosystems be used to produce digital disruption in sectors that do not have a digital ecosystem? Sectors and digital ecosystems seldom share borders, and the latter often consists of a collection of people and technology from several industries. It may therefore be conceivable to expand the goal of a digital ecosystem to embrace the specific products or services of a specific sector, so

exposing it to digital disruption, via the introduction and distribution of a digital innovation. 2.How can digital disruption be controlled at the organizational level? Because digital disruption typically occurs quickly, some businesses may feel as if the rug has been yanked out from under them. When the repercussions of digital disruption hit a focus business gradually, adaption may still be difficult since it is likely to imply adjustments that contradict previous strategic decisions and investments. Strategies for dealing with digital disruption are critical for both sorts of actors. Once a new logic takes hold and underlying market circumstances change, digital disruption is likely to provide both opportunities and obstacles for individual enterprises seeking to join or stay in an industry. As seen by the plethora of comparable services that have sprung up in the aftermath of Uber, digital innovations that generate digital disruption may serve as both battering rams and role models for imitators. As with Spotify, which legally gave simple and free access to enormous music libraries using peer-to-peer technology, actors may be able to reuse deviant logics and their technical materialization to initiate new digital disruption processes. Digital disruption, on the other hand, is likely to provide considerable problems for players that have intentionally invested and planned in response to disintegrating circumstances. Often, such players must choose between decline and major organizational reform, which may require dealing with challenges like cannibalization of a formerly successful enterprise. Researchers are attempting to understand how digital platforms impact business practices via digital disruptions, as firms increasingly employ them to encourage innovation. Although existing literature provides important insights into platform management from the perspective of the platform owner, we know little about how organizations manage industry platforms provided by third parties to generate opportunities and overcome challenges related to their infrastructure and work processes. As part of bigger ecosystems, these digital platforms provide companies with bundles of digital possibilities in which they may invest judiciously over time. At the

same time, companies' earlier expenditures in digital infrastructure and work processes leave a digital debt legacy that influences how they manage their digital platforms over time. Against this context, we study how digital choices and digital debt were involved in the administration of a news production platform by a significant Scandinavian media company spanning almost 17 years. We postulate the evolution and interconnections between digital choices and digital debt throughout an organization's digital platform management in relation to its infrastructure and work processes using existing literature and the data from this case. The idea elucidates the complicated decisions that organizations must make in such endeavors: While they may need to resolve digital debt in order for a platform's digital choices to be actionable, their reluctance to plant digital debt may also impede them from realizing otherwise appealing digital alternatives. Similarly, although recognized digital possibilities may provide companies with fresh opportunity to address digital debt, enthusiasm to realize digital choices may just as readily lead to inappropriate digital debt planting. Digital disruption has impacted a wide range of companies; however, Information Systems research has yet to investigate why this is happening or the ramifications of this process for individuals involved. We give an instance scenario of digital technology disruption in a newspaper firm — an organization in the middle of an identity crisis – in this study. We investigate the changes that have resulted from the introduction of the digital medium, and how this has led to the evolution of the newspaper, as well as the metamorphosis of identities of the company, the company's practitioners, and the consumers of the company's content, using ethnographic data. Our results imply that changes in an organization's evolutionary trajectory may be traced back to the pace and kind of identity metamorphoses among its main members. As a result, we suggest that in order to navigate and adapt to digital disruptions, a continual strategic renegotiation of all the players involved is not only conceivable, but also needed for an organization's existence. As a result, we provide a relational explanation of identity.

Digital technologies have disrupted a wide range of organizations ; yet, existing research has yet to investigate why this is happening or the ramifications of this process for individuals involved. Take, for example, the instance of newspaper corporations. From the early adoption of various technologies to aid in newspaper production and distribution (e.g., printing presses, photographic equipment, publishing software, and so on) to the latter shift in product medium from paper to digital , news organizations have been subjected to continuous technological disruptions. The most recent disruption, possibly the most important to date, is driven by a change in emphasis from print to digital goods (cf. ;) as more readers migrate to reading digital newspapers on different mobile devices (e.g., laptop, tablet, mobile phone). This has resulted in a loss in print product sales: from 2008 to 2014, for example, The Guardian print edition's sales income declined by 48 percent, The Daily Telegraph's by 40.6 percent, and The Independent's by an alarming 72.6 percent (). The following creation of various and different versions of digital news products has piqued the curiosity of practitioners (e.g., ;) as well as academics (e.g., ; ; ; ). Although the research show that each stage of the newspaper product development can be linked back to a single disruptive technology, there is a distinct lack of explanation for why this is occurring as well as study of the ramifications of this phenomena for both news providers and consumers. It is particularly unclear how digital disruption and the resulting disruption of goods and processes influence and are affected by the disruption of individual and organizational identities. To fill this knowledge vacuum, this study tries to answer the following questions: (1) How and why does technological disruption alter newspaper goods and processes of production and consumption? (2) How are actors' identities destroyed throughout these processes and reconstructed as part of organizational change? This is accomplished by undertaking an ethnographic study of in-depth digital disruption at MediaNews, an Australian newspaper firm (a pseudonym). We investigate the development of newspaper goods, the change of organizational processes, and the disruption and reconstrual of identities of the company's practitioners and consumers of the

company's content using long-term ethnographic data. This analysis demonstrates how technological disruptions influenced the evolution of newspaper products while also undermining the identities of both news producers and consumers , causing the individuals and organizations involved to experience an identity crisis and, eventually, identity evolution. The mechanism underlying news organizations’ struggle to adapt newspaper products to emerging technologies is then explained, as are the challenges involved in reconstructing identities while straddling the dichotomy of the familiar history of print and the unknown potential of digital. The paper adds to the literature on digital disruption by providing new insights into the depth and breadth of media company disruption and ensuing identity crises, as well as explaining how numerous identity metamorphoses of the company, its members, its products, and its consumers led to the company surviving the disruption and overcoming the crises. Finally, the report addresses the lessons gained, potential implications for businesses experiencing similar technology changes, and prospective future research routes. The coining of the phrase "disruptive technologies" () signaled a rising interest in the changes that emerging technologies trigger inside and beyond organizations by practitioners and academics . Although the interaction between evolving technologies and organizations has been extensively documented , it remains unclear why a specific technology was or was not disruptive within an organization – the same technology can be considered both 'disruptive' and 'innovative,' depending on the time frame and context of the organization under analysis. As a result, no technology can be regarded to be inherently disruptive . Any technology, however, may be termed revolutionary if it (1) displaces an earlier technology, (2) changes an existing market or value network, (3) revolutionizes an organization's business model, or (4) supports radical change in organizational structures . Automobiles, personal computers, email, desktop publishing, digital photography, mobile devices, and other technologies are documented instances of such technology . Using this lens, we can differentiate between disruptive and innovative

technologies (those that produce a substantial fundamental transformation in an organization along a linear developmental trajectory) (i.e., those that are assimilated into or enhance existing structures without major disruptions). This difference has an additional dimension: disruptive technologies not only fundamentally affect business models, processes, and organizational structures, but they also cause uncertainty and destabilize company identities. The phrase identity-challenging technologies refers to the frequently painful and disruptive processes of organizational identity erosion and shifting that are involved in technology transformation. Using the aforementioned approach, literature investigating newspaper organizations indicates many major technologies that have been deemed disruptive. Printing presses , personal computers , publishing software , ICTs , and the Internet/World Wide Web are examples of historical disruptive technologies (). Mobile devices , social media and search engines , content aggregator applications (), and multimedia are examples of contemporary disruptive technology . An examination of research utilizing various technologies shows how each technology advancement has the ability to impact numerous areas of newspaper companies. For example, discovered an 11% reduction in paper consumption from 2006 to 2012, and a 400% increase in mobile device usage from 2006 to 2011. During the same time period, newspaper companies moved their emphasis from print to digital as the future of news content delivery . As indicated by the expanding profusion of mutant digital newspaper goods available at the time, the disruption of digital media presumably prompted companies to experiment with other products and distribution methods (e.g., iPad apps, mobile apps, websites, news feeds, etc.). Recent research demonstrates the emergence of these experimental digital items. News websites, smartphone applications, news feeds, and other technologies have largely superseded the early incarnations of 'digital broadsheets' or 'e-papers' Unlike the early digital newspapers, which stayed mostly unchanged from the paper version, succeeding iterations of the goods varied in design and function . Evolving digital news products abandoned typical print newspaper

qualities, diversified, and moved closer to digitally native goods in functionality, behavior, and look. In this sense, when applied to the digital environment, the name "newspaper" has become an oxymoron — what is or may be deemed a product of a newspaper firm is no longer bound to the affordances and constraints of the print medium. It is hardly surprising that newspaper firms failed to grasp and react strategically to digital media disruptions - the past could no longer be depended on for direction or as a basis for a developing identity. As a result, newspaper companies had an identity crisis and struggled to adapt to quickly changing digital surroundings. When considering developing technologies, it is stated that the gap between the past, present, and future will become exponentially wider in shorter time spans. As a result, technological disruptions are anticipated to become more common in the future. Adaptation to disruptions is dependent on an organization's ability to swiftly transcend familiar/foreign and past/present dichotomies and transform into a more developed and nimble form . Problematically, few newspaper organizations have been successful in accomplishing this accomplishment. To explain why, we relied on the work of,, and, who show how technology development undermines organizational structures and organizational identity (i.e., internal and external perceptions of an organization). Identity (i.e., how one perceives oneself or how a group perceives collective identities) serves as a filter for technology selection and adoption: 'identity functions as a lens that filters a firm's technological options. It has an impact on what is observed, how it is understood, and what action is done'. Failure to appropriately reconstrue (i.e., realign) an identity to changing contexts results in inertia, because "the core essence of the organization, identity directs and constrains action... an organization's routines, procedures, information filters, capabilities, knowledge base, and beliefs all reflect its identity" . To explain, the idea of inertia relates to an object's resistance to any change in state of motion - in other words, an organization on a linear trajectory will stay on that trajectory until it is disturbed. IS () has investigated the notion of inertia from a variety of aspects, including negative psychological inertia (), socio-

technical inertia (), and political inertia .. In this study, we propose a definition of inertia that is both relational (explained further below) and identity-related, a view that embraces both forms of inertia. Identityrelated inertia may jeopardize an organization's long-term survival possibilities , particularly when the pace of technological development is really exponential . Furthermore, a mismatch between the individual identities of the company's practitioners and consumers and the corporate identity may stymie the adaptation process. As a consequence, knowing identity is critical to adaptation — failure to recast individual and organizational identities in a timely manner may result in identity crises that pervade the company with unhelpful inertia. As a result, there is a need for further study on identity inside companies facing technological and identity-challenging disruptions: how to manage identity change and if some kinds of identities are easier to alter than others. Individual and organizational identity have lately been investigated by IS researchers, as shown by the European Journal of Information Systems special issue on identity . Several key topics are treated in the special issue, including organizational identity , individual identity and performativity in virtual worlds , user authentication difficulties , and identity in relation to management discourse, IT, and identity (co)evolution . While these studies have shed light on numerous crucial facets of identity, the effects of technology disruptions on identity, as well as the role of identity shifting and transformation in organizational reaction to disruption, have still to be investigated. It has previously been claimed that the present wave of digital breakthroughs would result in the transformation and disruption of conventional corporate strategies and structures. In the context of digital transformation, innovation is anticipated to take the shape of the availability of new digital goods and services, with improvisation occurring at both the management and operational levels. An innovative business may acquire operational and product qualities similar to a born-digital company by enabling new product/service offerings.. Such developments may also lead to a company's markets merging with new rivals from other (digital/IT-related) businesses. In

general, digital transformation refers to a company's movement toward producing and providing digital value propositions while also employing digital technology in operational operations. Our research focuses on digital transformation at the organizational level, allowing us to rely on difference between deep structural change and convergent change in transformations. Deep structure represents the basic choices/rationale underpinning the way an organization has been constructed, which, in turn, determines the organization's realworld manifestation. It is a portrayal of the fundamental ideas upon which the reality of the organization is based. The metaphor of a home to illustrate deep structures, where the foundation of the house relates to an organization's deep structure, which cannot be modified without a fundamental alteration of the organization. This viewpoint distinguishes deep structure from convergent change, in which an organization "improves its efficiency and effectiveness without revisiting its business model or essential procedures". Convergent change is a process that does not disrupt the generally stable structure of an organization. Deep structural change, on the other hand, is often viewed as a process that results in a qualitatively altered organization: "it occurs when the deep structure of the organization is modified". This as "the simultaneous growth in environmental turbulence, the required pace of organizational change, and the heightened ubiquity of digital technologies, which are creating a phenomena that is messy, complicated, and chaotic." Digital transformation is particularly distinct due to the inherent generative features of digital innovations, which alter the conventional notion and method of adopting or developing non-digital innovations. The importance of digital innovation generativity in the context of digital transformation stems from its essential role in altering the value propositions that characterize the organization as well as the operational process of producing, capturing, and delivering digital value. Opportunities to generate new (digital) value in processes, goods, and services frequently need drawing on the affordances of numerous digital technologies at the same time, as opposed to the commonly held belief that a single sophisticated technology (e.g., ERP

systems) drives change. This discovery reveals a fundamental contrast between digital transformation and IT-enabled organizational change that has to be clarified conceptually. In this aspect, there is still opportunity for research that will refine our grasp of these notions. In our opinion, digital transformation results in a qualitatively different organization, where "digital" is an intrinsic part of a company's value proposition, offerings, and identity, which explains the need to reconfigure the organizational mindset to deal with the concerns of generativity and deep structure change. This concurrent focus on generativity and profound structural change that characterizes digital transformation is analogous to "changing the wheel on a moving automobile." We expand on the three BPM logics to enhance our understanding of the BPM difficulties in a digital transformation setting. The ideas offered in this part are based on both our actual data and the burgeoning research on the subject. Unlike most interpretative analyses, we give these insights before, rather than after, the empirical part. Such an approach allows us to present and explain the study's conceptual leaning and viewpoint. In keeping with previous work on theory building, we use this structure to introduce the reader to our theoretical premises, as well as to highlight the identified gaps and the contribution aim of our research. Tensions in process logic (modelling) refer to the difficulty that process owners, employees, and consultants face in maintaining the tradition of updating business process models for all business processes during the rapid and continuous flux of changes and modifications that characterizes digital transformation. By definition, digital transformation causes changes in numerous business processes, which may result in more changes in interrelated business processes than is customary. The capacity to quickly and frequently adapt to change has been considered as a crucial quality of a digital transformation scenario. Furthermore, when exploring new digital business opportunities, organizations frequently need to sustain business process models for their existing business while also

creating new variations of such models for digital offerings. Dealing with a significant number of process model update requests is complicated by the fact that, in a transition setting, political, sociotechnical, and economic variables become determinant factors. As 1990s research on radical business process re-engineering shows, proposals for making significant changes to cross-functional business processes are often met with resistance by management. "It is a very political scenario in which multiple-interest groups' underlying structural conflicts must be handled". As a result, we recommend that digital transformation issues adhere to the following modelling logic: Process logic tension: The amount of changes necessary, as well as the ongoing requirement to revise or construct business process models, makes it difficult to adhere to BPM modelling logic. Tensions in infrastructure logic (infrastructural alignment) originate from the emergent and generative character of new digital technologies, as opposed to the old concept of information infrastructures being pre-planned aligned with business process models. Generativity is defined as the "total potential to create unprompted change in response to broad, diverse, and uncoordinated audiences". Experimentation fueled by generativity is one factor influencing the transition away from re-engineered infrastructure logics. For example, how Schindler's business process had to modify on a regular basis as the firm attempted to capitalize on the capabilities of a new internet of things (IoT) platform. Generativity necessitates providing users with the opportunity to experiment with various ways, which results in a scenario in which the operational process as well as the goals are constantly reconstructed and recalibrated. It has also been compared with modularity in the organization of work in cross-functional processes, which is used in ERP systems. As a result of such expectations, we claim that the generative feature of digital transformation, in general, and its infrastructural logics in particular, offer difficulties to BPM. Infrastructure logic tension: The generative nature of digital innovations calls the alignment perspective of BPM infrastructure logic

into question. Tensions in agential logic (procedural) arise as a consequence of the many implications of digital transformation on organizational reorganization, which often alters individual and team responsibilities, as well as identities. A continual strategic revision of the roles, identities, and duties of all the players involved is essential for an organization's existence owing to the shifting roles of various individuals. In addition to coping with changes for current workers and turnover in staff composition, organizations often hire new employees or contract with external parties to seek skills for creating fresh applications for digital technology. Such issues are exacerbated in an environment where this is happening at a rate and frequency that puts the ability to maintain the process models updated to the test. In such cases, when there is no current modelled documentation of business processes to guide the players, the procedural logic is called into question in the pursuit of business objectives. As a result, we argue that the following consequences of digital transformation for people and teams will have an impact on BPM: Agential logic tension: The absence of dependable business process models/instructions, as well as frequent turnover/role change in staff composition, calls the procedural assumption in BPM agential logic into question. LeadTech has historically positioned itself as a manufacturer and distributor of manufacturing equipment, but unlike many of its rivals, it has successfully integrated a proprietary control software with its hardware. LeadTech's software has typically not been their core offering, but it is seen as a crucial value-added component that is packed with their hardware solutions. This software, along with the data opportunities it provides, as well as the advancement of relevant digital technologies – specifically industrial internet of things (IIoT) and predictive maintenance, remote maintenance via virtual and augmented realities (VR/AR), and 3D printing – provided the company with a foundation for the creation of digital innovations and, as a result, increased their motivation to embark on an organizational

digital transformation. Furthermore, the firm saw a rising need for greater digital capabilities from its clients, who saw the promise in digital technologies and were searching for inspiration and advice from a digitally aware manufacturing company. The chances that the organization sees in repositioning itself to capitalize on the potentials of producing digital innovations help to clarify some of the reasons for digital transformation. This is shown by a major declaration in the organization's strategy: Manufacturing digitization has the future possibilities for differentiation and growth. With this plan, we have made digitization an intrinsic component of our operations and the production of future value. Due to the disruptive dangers of digital innovations originating from software firms and digital start-ups, digital transformation became an essential for the organization. LeadTech has long seen itself as a hardware producer and supplier in competition with other manufacturers. However, the potential of digital disruption became a key strategic subject when the business suddenly lost a high-profile customer to a software startup. A software business outbid us on a project for which we were bidding. As a result, the software business automatically assumed overall responsibility for the project. The strain was heightened by the pace at which software innovations and firms caught up, posing a danger to LeadTech's present product range and business model. These software firms often provided the same value proposition as LeadTech, but with a focus on their software. They then purchase the lowest hardware from additional hardware manufacturers in order to complete the mechanical portion of the production process. As a result, the focus of competition shifts from hardware to software that oversees the production process. They accomplish this by capitalizing on the fact that most hardware in the industry has reached such a level of standardization that the difference between hardware manufacturers can be marginal, and that the primary desire of customers is to gain a better understanding of their manufacturing process while still meeting the minimal mechanical

requirements. According to one of the managers, the danger is relevant given LeadTech's infrastructure history vs competition from a software firm that "doesn't need to care about all the hardware" needs to provide a customer the same value. The introduction of digital services, on the other hand, represented a significant development. The new digital business was quite different from firm traditions. The previous practices, which were strongly ingrained in the company's culture and identity, were not always appropriate for developing new digital services: It's critical to recognize that LeadTech is, by definition, a project management firm. It is highly ingrained in the organizational culture that the majority of the organization is solely focused on delivering projects to customers. And it is a difficulty in the context of producing something fresh. Because the product development took place inside the confines of inflexible delivery business procedures. The decision to reorganize the organization and its business divisions resulted in the development of a digital business division (DBD) as a profit center and champion of the new digital business sector. The plan resulted in an organizational renewal marked by a rush of new hires and an exodus of long-serving staff. One way this manifested as a profound structural shift was that, rather than merely adding the DBD as another business unit, LeadTech overhauled the organizational structure as a whole. This resulted in the reorganization of four previously existing business divisions into a totally new set of four new business divisions, one of which being DBD. Combining earlier literature's established knowledge about IT-enabled organizational transformation with our findings of digital transformation in our example reveals that there are variations between digital and IT-enabled transformations. According to past literature, in the instance of an IT-enabled organizational transformation, an organization uses a specific digital technology (e.g., ERP systems) to modify its operations. Typically, such IT-enabled organizational changes connect with operational process transformations in order to ease the achievement of certain business and organizational

objectives. Such changes assist an organization in being more efficient, effective, and dependable in many aspects of its operational processes and value offerings. According to our findings, digital transformation captures a firm's metamorphosis toward creating features that are typical of a company that generates and delivers digital value propositions as part of its products and employs digital technology in its operational processes. This is an indication of modifications that reflect the positioning of components of the organization's identity as having digital features. Going digital in this sense would mean that the organization, regardless of sector or conventional business area, is employing digital technology in orienting itself towards operational and product features that are comparable to a born-digital company. While ITenabled organizational change (such as ERP implementation) may be analogized to "a cub changing into a lion" – that is, into a quicker and more efficient version — digital transformation, on the other hand, can be analogized to "the metamorphosis of a larva into a butterfly." The three new logics that we have proposed are based on two essential characteristics of digital transformation: profound structural change and digital innovation generativity. Generativity is a compelling justification for less rigid and tightly regulated management practices. Because of the degree of emergence and unpredictability that accompany its actualization, it is a quality that cannot always be preplanned or completely modelled. These two characteristics (generativity and profound structural change) inspire LeadTech to adopt a stance in their management and leadership techniques that leverages rather than contradicts the two characteristics. Tensions were unavoidable with conventional BPM logics, restricting LeadTech's ability to achieve digital transformation goals. The varied BPM logics used throughout digital transformation enabled them to better capitalize on the potential provided by generativity while also engaging with the conflicts that develop as a result of profound structural changes.

We must be skeptical because, in our digital age of disruption , society confronts significant difficulties and hazards connected to its essential principles. R&D spending on computing and telecommunications has fueled technological changes in society and related problems at an unprecedented rate and scale, while research in the social sciences and humanities to study the uses of technology with the complexity of its effects and implications for society has received insufficient support, effort, and funding. IS scholars understand that these consequences are not just the result of information technology, but are also influenced by socioeconomic factors. However, it is impossible to deny that the systems we use on a daily basis are involved in the changes and difficulties of our modern environment. This is a world that moves at the pace of the internet, where people are growing more reliant on, if not addicted to, technology, to the point that even the most strong democracies may be exploited by foreign powers. We give up our self-awareness to robots like Alexia, and our smart homes degrade it. Furthermore, although IS researchers are aware that technology might have unintended effects, we prefer to see technology as a solution rather than the source of issues. We might ask, "What can IS research do to react to such concerns for the welfare of our planet and its future?". But we must also recognize that this necessitates the development of dialectical thinking and reflexivity, lest we fall victim to the adage that "science without awareness is the destruction of the soul". The dilemma(s) we confront are related to the values we select. Today's clear lesson is that IT titans not only observe us, but they also do what we teach in IS, namely, developing agile applications and digital platforms that detect and react to our "needs" and produce commercial value. Furthermore, the more we utilize their platforms, the more they learn about us in order to maximize our worth. If we become pawns enslaved by technologies that gradually enslave us for the advantage of a few, it may be too late for a new J'accuse of digital capitalism and a surveillance society. Whatever the accuracy of these assertions, digital revolution is calling our principles into question. Whatever our political preferences, our responsibility as academics is to think more about the personal, collective, and societal risks

associated with digital transformation, and to challenge the dominant utilitarian or libertarian thinking in order to look at problems that invite new ways to exercise responsibilities when innovating. Norms and values are vital, and although hazards exist at all levels, the biggest challenges are at the collective, and particularly at the social level, where individuals cannot accomplish much on their own. The slogan of the French Republic, Liberty, and the first Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees free expression, are examples of how vital freedom is to us, to society. However, our individual and societal interaction with technology is calling these values into question, and maybe even changing them. On the one hand, microblogging, voting platforms, online forums, and email campaigns appear to reinforce freedom of expression by putting "local to global in a heartbeat"; and where avatars enable us to express certain thoughts and facets of our hidden personality and the life that we live in cyberspace. Is this a sign of empowerment and liberation, or participatory exploitation, as Marxist scholars claim, in which the Tech Giants and other forces purposefully induce behaviors and systems to exploit people for financial gain? On the other hand, although the dangers of being misled by false news are as old as philosophy, new dangers emerge, such as cyberstalking and phishing. What is unmistakably new is the magnitude and speed with which these threats appear. Globalization adds a systemic component to these many and data-related dangers. Even if these dangers are significant, we can learn to protect ourselves and control them. More crucially, some risks are internal to ourselves, in the sense that it will be difficult to defend ourselves if we do not collectively foster critical thinking and identify the dangers ahead. Whereas technologies may assist us in meeting our desire for individuation, we may be progressively and insidiously subjugated by e-reputation systems or portable personal gadgets that flatter our will to power. We've long understood that with each new technology, we might detect hazards and advantages and become gloomy or hopeful since they have both positive and negative aspects depending on application and context. We've learnt that many consequences are emergent, in the sense that they are unpredictable, which contradicts the promise of a computer-controlled society, in

which human behaviors are under control since they can be programmed/planned, tracked, and verified by computers. Governments, on the other hand, have not heard or, more likely, do not want to hear this message. The Danish "no touch" (contactless) society proposal demonstrates that technical curiosity and entrenched interests remain dominating, and that the concept of a control society remains alive, despite evidence such as hacking indicating that comprehensive control and privacy protection are unattainable (Ngwenyama, Henriksen, & Hardt, under review). Why should we be concerned if the unexpected impacts of technology restrict the amount of control that is possible? The simple response is: (a) because control, by definition, restricts our freedom and may exclude individuals; and (b) control is not exerted openly. But what if these unexpected consequences are the result of surveillance by a small group of people who alter the activity dynamics? Even in the absence of any instrumental activity, what about the exclusionary implications of a contactless society — for example, on the elderly or the handicapped? There is a discussion over freedom and autonomy lurking behind the trend of personalization of tools and systems and the plethora of control and artificial intelligence technologies that we have produced. Freedom to express one's opinions, be educated, communicate, acquire, and travel is, in a nutshell, freedom to act. To act, according to philosophers of action, is to do anything willingly. Except for few instances such as those contemplating disciplined empowerment, the IS literature has long examined required versus voluntary usage of systems without going far enough in terms of what this entails. When objects are programmed, the ability to select may be assigned to the machine or to agents, who can then act on decision rules supplied by the machine without understanding how the choice was reached. As a result, the controversy over closed versus open code, often known as algorithm transparency, arose. What will happen to the plethora of complicated services that the Internet of Things will provide? Nietzsche and Hegel have both written extensively on the perils of delegating work between people, which we might apply to our interactions with computers. Through his efforts, the slave makes his

master reliant on him; and those who believe they are the master may, in fact, become the slave. We are not only naked without our IT prosthesis, but we also have little control over what they do in certain instances. "Fine, we have to live with our age," some could remark. But what if robots harm other people's lives, economies, or natural surroundings without our knowledge, control, or consent? How do we conceptualize our autonomy in relation to self-driving cars and automated trading systems, which, by definition, learn and make choices, which, if substantial, might place us in new or unforeseen harmful social circumstances without our consent? Our freedom is and must be restricted for moral grounds, since it should not be exercised at the cost of the freedom of others. As a result, Kant defines autonomy as self-imposition of moral rule: "A rational will must be considered autonomous, or free, in the sense that it is the creator of the rule that binds it." The basic moral principle - the categorical imperative – is nothing more than the rule of an autonomous will". This law is made up of two parts: the independence of one's thought and decision from manipulation by others, and the ability to control oneself. Autonomy may relate to both a global situation (autonomous personhood) and a more local one, such as autonomy when equipped with a smartphone. How and to what degree can we assert our independence? Are free will and neural factors that restrict human behavior compatible? If human freedom and acts are constrained by systems to the point that we perceive agency to be skewed toward the technological side, technology gains autonomy. Is this a reduction in human autonomy? IT also allows for new activities. Humans may still have agency in systems that enable both humans and bots to have agency for distinct activities. Typically, we consider autonomy in terms of human beings. Now, what does it mean to say that technology is free? How can technology detect moral laws, if any exist; or, to put it another way, can computers operate as moral agents? And, if we deny technology's autonomy, how can we attach responsibility to persons or organizations in such an automated environment? Whatever position we take on causality and whatever legal dispositions prevail, these questions are dependent on principles defining what is action,

intention, will, responsibility, and autonomy – all concepts best delineated and discussed by moral philosophy (or ethics), particularly since Kant and by the philosophy of action, and not much considered by IS research except in very specialised journals. Thus, if the digitization of society calls into question fundamental ideals such as freedom, we can observe that critical thinking about these issues is impacted by philosophy. In reality, I would argue that philosophy constantly influences IS work, but the manner in which it does so is seldom stated explicitly. I understand that we overlook this for practical reasons linked to document length and time restrictions. However, by doing so, we are endorsing a tradition that has implicit or explicit assumptions that we are frequently unaware of. We can't avoid philosophizing, even though most of the time we don't build openly on philosophy as IS researchers. When we don't, we get blinded, and it's best to make it clear on what (strand of) philosophy we're based a certain research, strategy, ISD technique, etc.. But first, let me complete my tale about how the digitalization of society is calling our values into question and why improved critical thinking welcomes philosophizing. What does equality imply for the first of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, the first of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, or Kant in his Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals? Men have equal respect, regardless of their disparities in inherent skill. "Social differences can only be built on shared benefit,". This also implied that, after the parable of the talents, the "natural" aristocratic system was finished. Dignity was to be achieved via effort, labor, autonomy, and creativity. We need autonomy because we are faced with a requirement (and again we cannot completely delegate our share unless we enslave ourselves). Creativity is required since our labor contributes to the construction of the world in which we live. However, as the story of Prometheus teaches us, creativity may be used for both good and evil. Work is natural because it is part of our human nature to work, even if it is difficult and resembles labor: all men must achieve their dignity. The rule of Benedictine monasteries is ora et labor, which means work is

the best way to avoid all kinds of vices, notably idleness and arrogance. In a world where bots are doing more and more activities, how can individuals, whether highly educated or not, get access to or maintain their jobs, and thereby exercise their equality in dignity? For Marxist analysts, digital labor may be regarded as maintaining power systems and unequally distributed life chances, if not strengthening them to the advantage of platform owners . They separate digital labor toil - a form supplied by capitalism logic – from joyful digital activity in accordance with commons logic. Technology is unimportant to philosophers such as Kant and Serres. We cannot simply assert that technology removes labor; it is culture and institutions that create such choices and may make them good or evil, and human beings are more or less equal in dignity. Many contemporary governments and administrations have campaigned for celebrating liberty and equality while favoring one over the other, resulting in more libertarian or more egalitarian societies. Socialist governments seek the abolition of differences among individuals, particularly material inequalities, since they believe they are the basis of human dignity. Liberal governments value liberty, individual liberty, voluntary association, and the protection of property rights. However, libertarian ideals may lead to unsustainable growth and issues such as social isolation and ecological disaster. Individual liberty, like an overly individualistic society, may do damage to others if we ignore Kant's categorical imperative, which is contained in the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights. While the principles of liberty and equality were central to the Enlightenment, another political theory seems to have emerged in the previous two centuries: utilitarianism, which holds that the best course of action is one that maximizes utility and favors the majority. Utilitarianism, often known as consequentialism, is an ethically weak position since it is indifferent to rights. However, utilitarianism, as espoused by Bentham and Mills in the nineteenth century, may be seen as a crucial tool for rationalizing actions in a technological society, a culture that believes in scientific advancement. Such an approach, based on methodological individualism, may be disastrous if the majority is unaware of its potential risks or is duped by a few. To counteract such

dangers, such as those posed by collective governments that may go too far on equality and liberal regimes that may go too far on liberty, revolutionaries introduced a third value to connect the first two together: fraternity, which incorporates both Philadelphia (brotherly love) and Adelphotes (community of brothers). Human fallibility in the performance of a contract, according to Arendt, is the price of liberty. The difficulty of absolute control within an equal society is the result of 'plurality and reality... the delight of dwelling together an universe whose reality is assured for each by the presence of all' [...] Varian's picture of a computer-mediated society, on the other hand, strikes me as a dry wasteland, rather than a community of equals linked by law in the inevitable and ultimately beneficial human fight with uncertainty. Is digitization causing people and society to develop a broader sense of social identity? and what about fraternity? Consider two quick examples: social media and human-robot contact, whether mediated by professionals or not. Some may believe that any platform that enables individuals to speak with one another is a significant step toward mutual recognition and brotherhood. On the other side, when we see poor behavior on social media, we may perceive these platforms as being exploited more for private gain and to monetize our personal data, which contradicts the goal of increasing trust and maybe brotherhood. A more philosophical interpretation understands social media behaviors as either instrumental communication at work, as defined by Habermas or Goffmann, or as a Bourdieu Sian pursuit of social, and perhaps economic, capital. Alternatively, one might wonder if such attitudes and behaviors represent a longing to find oneself, to which Sartre's philosophy or Heidegger's conceptions of shared-world and being with others are applicable. Levinas' theory might also be used to explain the challenges of social media rather than the desire for it. Going beyond the usual psychological approaches to explaining and discussing technological choices, philosophy can thus help interpret the good and bad sides of societal behaviors, such as how and why we associate IT artefacts with certain values (e.g., social media with fraternity), allowing us to re-

conceptualize the IT artefact. Interactions with robots may also have an impact on our sense of brotherhood. Robots may replace people for difficult or risky activities, or they can collaborate with humans; this is the intriguing notion of "cobotics." Bots may also serve as agents when humans are unavailable. When individuals connect with machines, however, brotherhood is not increased. And when interacting with machines consumes the majority of our time, we feel social isolation. On the contrary, when we build deep connections with other people, spend time with them, and exhibit evidence of care and compassion, our humanity and brotherhood are reinforced. Human connections and brotherhood need social acknowledgement. Despite significant advances in artificial intelligence for human identification, social recognition cannot be conveyed to robots or speech servers. As a result, even when "user-friendly" robots have no cognitive issues, humans prefer face-to-face interactions . This is why companies that use artificial intelligence have realized that it is better for workers to continue delivering messages to consumers. The selection phase, the defining of targets that may be lured by mass customization products, is delegated to bots, but clients are contacted by people, so the targeting process is seen as less mechanical. Returning to the concept of brotherhood, computers presently lack the ability to compute meaning since meaning is more than just the application of rules to change certain symbols into other symbols. It is all about knowing what one is doing. In a discourse between people and robots, there is no human-machine exchange of meanings. "The overall challenge of providing ideas to Artificial Agents can only be addressed when, first, the Symbol Grounding Problem is solved, giving concepts to the manipulated symbols, and second, artificial consciousness is realized, giving intentionality to those manipulated symbols". Voice and picture recognition are used in artificial intelligence approaches, however they do not identify individuals. "How can we recognize each other as people, as humans?" And he said that it was not by sensory perception, but through acknowledging our Being or Oneness with the other. When artificial intelligence

diagnoses a tough case or condition, to what degree will the human defend a judgement if the human is merely an appendage to the machine? Indeed, we may still expect that humans will have to undertake the task, at least in key circumstances to which we are most sensitive. Even if Watson proves to be much more trustworthy and successful than radiologists in recognizing tumors and malignancies, would radiologists just accept the computer diagnosis without independently verifying it? In other words, as the prices of accurate forecasts based on artificial intelligence fall, the need for superior human judgement abilities may increase, particularly in the case of sensitive negative news. What we've learned about more traditional decision support systems still applies here, only we're talking about human life. In fact, many people may refuse to accept the machine's diagnosis until their doctor evaluates and confirms it. If physicians establish that their ex-post-diagnosis is consistent with Watson's, why and how would they invest in such assistance? And if the two diagnoses are inconsistent, physicians may find themselves in a tough situation. Such circumstances are difficult and demonstrate that, despite significant breakthroughs in deep learning, there is still a long way to go before a computer can totally replace health professionals and patients or physicians will completely trust a machine. So far, we've spoken about how IT might affect the ideals that underpin the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. With the advent of the sharing economy, IT is also supporting developing values such as control or security, as mentioned above, as well as cooperation and non-possession. Whether the latter is strengthening human brotherhood, a rising concern for sustainability, or just economic reason, it is an intriguing path for IS study. More radical advancements in information technology and biotechnologies may have a more disruptive impact on our values. The transhumanist ideal of extending life by a century by replacing complete human parts as they age might be viewed as adding eternity to Enlightenment principles. It may also be considered as playing God, similar to Prometheus, who was punished not only for stealing fire, but also for stealing Athena's talents to create the arts and other artificial artefacts.

This is the cardinal sin, as recounted in the Book of Genesis, the arrogance of desiring to play God or become Homo Deus. Just as crucially, this would result in a society of eternals (gods) and mortals, as in Greek cosmology — a grave rupture in the concept of fraternity and equality. Even though all of these technologies, including artificial intelligence, are a long way from becoming a reality, we owe it to our students and children to exercise care and philosophical thinking! We won't be believable if we claim we couldn't know, even if we don't today. What is evident is that the majority of the concerns I have too hastily highlighted in this section are complicated and go much beyond the simplistic constructs we employ in our typical IS research publications. We must return to philosophy to grapple with the complexities of the world we live in in order to conceptualize difficulties and what they may imply for many parties. We use a case study of a US consumer lender to construct a model that explains how organizations actualize digital affordances and disruption as part of their uncommon event reaction, using the transformational experience to generate a "new normal." The model and its instantiation give conceptual insight and suggestions for how information security managers may successfully confront unusual occurrences, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic, including the aftermath of its lockdown and the transition to the new business status quo. The model emphasizes the importance of understanding the evolution of digital affordances as having teleological paths in which affordances are developed in steps corresponding to where an organization's managerial attention is focused, with indirect consequences of possibilities to attend to other objectives enabled by digital technologies. Overall, the model adds to theory by describing the role of rare events in the development of affordances, including certain transformational ones, and by incorporating the rare events literature into the IS field. In terms of magnitude, rippling effects, and organizational and social disruptions, the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented. However, this

is not the first time that organizations and their various Information Systems (IS) departments have been called upon to respond to unprecedented problems. For example, British Airways was grounded for many days in 2017 when a power surge damaged most of the servers in its data center. Natural catastrophes such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and wildfires have major local repercussions in impacted regions, similar to the COVID-19 shutdown. While these natural disasters do not have the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the premise of this is that understanding how organizations respond to rare events can help IS managers form a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and propose actions on how IS organizations can leverage the response to re-establish the business post-event. We consider the COVID-19 pandemic to be a one-of-a-kind occurrence since organizations immediately affected by it have no comparable experience. Previous study has shown that unusual occurrences play a significant role in organizational growth due to their ability to direct management attention in a manner that promotes resource mobilization and learning. Critically, this developmental role of a rare event is contingent on management's approach to the event, not as an abnormality to be tolerated, but as an opportunity to transform the organization towards new normalcy – new normalcy in which "[t]he coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has changed our world forever." In this paper, we expand the concept of unusual events by concentrating on particular challenges important for event response in the area of sociotechnical IS. We explicitly draw on affordance theory and a case study of OneMain Financial, a US consumer lender, to develop a model that addresses (a) how the organization draws on pre-existing affordances and develops new affordances that are actualized in response to the rare event, and (b) how affordance actualization has broader implications on affordance evolution beyond the immediate rare event response. The case discusses the pre-event circumstances, the implementation of existing affordances, and the creation of new affordances to handle a total closure of OneMain

Financial's (henceforth: OneMain) back-offices and a partial shutdown of its customer-facing branches. OneMain developed six distinct digital affordances in response to this challenge: (1) "Last mile" telecommuting device readiness, (2) telecommuting skill readiness, (3) organization-wide remote work, (4) virtualized branch services, (5) integrated branch-central operating model, and (6) strategic IT engagement. We regard the reaction as a transitional event to the company's new normal. The established paradigm is confined to digital affordances, which are affordances created in relation to the material action potential of digital technology. It offers both explanatory capabilities of digital affordance progression in the context of a rare occurrence and prescriptive recommendations on how to make affordance actualization part of a transforming experience rather than the enduring of an oddity. Our study adds conceptual knowledge and pragmatic suggestions for IS management in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The OneMain instantiation consists of a consultable record (Walsham, 1995) of affordances gathered to react to an event, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and actions that may be done to modify the experience. In the framework of COVID-19, we recognize non-linear evolutionary trajectories in which OneMain created affordances that captured management attention at one point and then exploited what was created to seek other immediate and long-term organizational objectives as a result of the uncommon occurrence. More generally, we advance the theory of digital affordances by describing how they change in the presence of unusual events, and we bring the rare events theoretical literature to the IS area. Affordance theory is a conceptual framework within IS that studies how actors adopt and utilize different forms of digital technology. Affordances are defined by Markus and Silver (2008) as "the options for goal-oriented activity offered to specific user groups by technological objects" (p. 622). Affordance occurs as a connection between a performer and a piece of art. It is related to the actor's action capabilities and represents potential actions (henceforth action possibilities) on the object itself. While affordances may exist between

a goal-oriented actor and any kind of object, the focus of this work is on affordances based on digital artefacts, sometimes known as digital affordances. Because actors' capacities to utilize a digital artefact varied and they have diverse aims to accomplish, they might have a variety of affordance relationships with the artefact. The digital artefact may also have the material action potential for a variety of affordances. Digital technologies have intrinsic functional flexibility in that certain affordances may have been foreseen in the design of the technology while others may go beyond the original design purpose. Specific digital affordances are always associated with a goal that the actor wishes to attain. In this study, we view objectives relevant to affordances as the immediate tangible outputs of the job being done throughout the affordance actualization process do. According to the epistemological foundations of affordance theory in critical realism, affordance refers to prospective use rather than actual usage. IS researchers have been more interested in the actualization of affordances and the processes that lead up to this choice. Leonardi (2011), for example, uses the imbrication metaphor to illustrate how actors analyses and alter their work routines and technology at hand to build affordances required to respond to their aims. Thapa and Sein (2018) establish the concept of affordance trajectory to describe how affordances are perceived and actualized by goal-oriented actors, based on a similar perspective of affordances as moving along a continuum before having an actual influence on a goal. Finally, Du et al. (2019) propose a process model of affordance actualization that acknowledges the requirement for an experimental, iterative approach to actualization when affordance incorporates emerging digital technologies such as blockchains. We summarizes the emerging conceptual understanding of how affordances proceed through several levels before having an immediate influence on a goal. The starting point is a potential affordance, in which an actor has the action capabilities to apply the non-deterministic causal potential of a digital artefact to a specified objective. The development of affordance potential in the digital artefact and the promotion of the actor's capacity to utilize the artefact

are crucial preconditions for behavior change, but they are insufficient to achieve such change. This possibility may exist regardless of whether the performer is aware of it. As a result, before affordances can be realized, they must be identified or perceived depending on the availability of information.. Perceiving an affordance, on the other hand, does not always imply that the actor must take advantage of the presented action alternative. Actualization, the process of converting perceived potential into action, requires effort and maybe experimentation in the creation of facilitating factors such as support structures and enabling social situations. Then, unless the affordance was misperceived, usage should enable the actor to achieve the desired result. Furthermore, the perception and actualization of distinct affordances may be interconnected in the sense that actualizing one affordance may give the possibility to discover other affordances when the actor is exposed to the artefact's material action options throughout the actualization. Actualized affordances may work as enabling circumstances for the realization of additional affordances. For three reasons, affordance theory is a suitable theoretical lens for our investigation. First, affordance theory's vocabulary concerning the material potential for action, the actor's capacity to act, and the pursuit of immediate objectives offers a good foundation to represent how organizations draw on their digital artefacts and action possibilities when reacting to unusual occurrences. Second, affordance theory provides a direct relationship to unusual occurrences by directing attention to immediate objectives while acknowledging that obtaining these goals is contingent on the actions inherent in the digital artefact. Third, various authors have acknowledged the significance of contextual components in the realization of affordances. Organizational issues, on the other hand, are considered as factors that permit or hinder actualization in these works. We, on the other hand, emphasize the uncommon event experience as we model its implications for digital affordance actualization. At a high level, we observe unusual occurrences playing two key roles in the process of affordance actualization. For starters, an uncommon occurrence frames the identification and actualization of affordances

because of its extensive significance. An organization has a set of digital affordances, or an ecosystem of affordances, at any given moment. Some are recognized by the organization, while others are not. Furthermore, a portion of the apparent affordances are not realized because the requirement to attention to a goal linked with the affordance does not outweigh the effort required to do so. Due to the allocation of management attention, the process of affordance actualization would provide weight to concerns crucial to tackling the unusual event difficulties, affecting which affordances are found and actualized. Second, consistent with the belief that rare events can reveal deeper insights about an organization if management recognizes the significance of the event, a rare event has the potential to influence a more general understanding of the digital affordances that the organization possesses and to channel deliberate efforts to transform the basis of affordances. As a result, the occurrence of a rare event and the reaction enactment impact how the organization's affordance ecosystem grows. The instance of OneMain serves two purposes in the development of our theory. One is to instantiate the precise affordances required to handle the IT and business difficulties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. These affordances contribute to the development of a midrange theory that guides practice. The other function is to establish an empirical foundation for theorizing the links between digital affordance actualization and unusual occurrences. The relationships that emerge from the case data were integrated with theoretical considerations to formulate concepts that are relevant to, but also go beyond, the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the parameters where our theory should hold, the OneMain scenario was theoretically sampled as a typical instance. We were familiar with the organization's general condition, including its past IT setup and digitization initiatives, before to participating in the formal case study. We regard the case as typical because the situation faced by OneMain (a) directly corresponds to the definition of a rare event as a critical situation for which the organization had no parallel experience in close experiential proximity, (b) involves a digital

affordance ecology that serves as a starting point for responding to the rare event, and (c) includes a mid-way reflection in the organization that the event Throughout the trial, we collaborated closely with One Main to record the developing reaction to the lockdown in real time. We gathered information from nine key informant interviews and historical records. Because previous research has shown that uncommon occurrences might divert limited managerial attention, we focused our interviews on the organization's management levels. The interviews focused on the CTO, Head of Digital Business, Chief Architect, Chief of Staff of Technology, and a Senior Managing Director in branch services. Each interview was recorded and transcribed and lasted 30–60 minutes. The interview guide was created from the core principles of affordance actualization and unusual occurrences, as indicated in the Appendix. It provided a process-oriented perspective of preconditions, actions made in response to the event, and their consequences. We also incorporated additional specialized questions based on the interviewee's job (i.e., the pre-COVID technical infrastructure and digital assets). We attempted to triangulate results by obtaining diverse perspectives on crucial events, actions, and consequences. Throughout the interaction, a concerted effort was made to balance the involvement and immersion with a detached, objective viewpoint as a reflective academic investigator. We utilized external and internal documents as an extra empirical data source to supplement the interviews. Initial and amended technological documentation, development roadmaps, internal communication, press releases, investor communication, and external evaluations were all examples of such paperwork. These materials expanded our contextual knowledge of the case organization, corroborated information from interviews (for example, the release date of digital services or branch closures), and recommended further interview subjects (i.e., customer comments about a specific product or service). The data was coded in two phases. To begin, we used a continuous

comparative approach for open coding to identify the particular affordances at work. Second, we used axial coding to find links between the components. In accordance with the critical realism viewpoint, coding was done at the paragraph level, allowing for a larger view of the idea or notion represented in phrases. When empirical patterns began to emerge, we put them in the context of the existing literature. Following that, we used backward and forward chaining to establish the explanatory significance of the emergent model's holistic process. OneMain representatives were asked to comment on the overall case narrative, which resulted in modest changes to factual mistakes but mostly supported our findings. According to the case evidence, resources are mobilized not only to provide enabling circumstances for affordance actualization, but also to improve the digital artefacts that enable the affordance. One example is the availability of virtualized branch services . The digitization activities initiated in 2019 were expedited and extended in the pandemic crisis, when many customers were hesitant to visit the branch office and opted to obtain the same services through OneMain's website and mobile channel. Customers who had lost their employment as a result of the epidemic had to seek for personal loans. Many branch workers switched back and forth between in-office and remote employment. As a result, the top management prioritized virtualizing branch services regardless of the location of clients and branch staff. OneMain's legacy IT infrastructure, which had been in place since the 1970s and lacked flexibility, reusability, and scalability, was a major IT problem. In 2019, the firm launched a strategic push to modernize network infrastructure, convert to a service-oriented design, and establish digital service components under the new leadership team. The IT group successfully established 25 business services as APIs by February 2020, decoupling the business logic from the user interface logic. As noted by the Chief Architect, this was done on purpose to allow for the growth of digital services: So I'm attempting to construct a comprehensive, powerful API

ecosystem that anticipates our digital omnichannel self-service requirements... Once we got digital up and running in 2014, there was clearly some API work that needed to be done... Then, around two years ago, when we first began talking about implementing deliberate API enablement,... And it was at that time that we began to identify the next set of APIs that would be necessary. However, in order to deliver a comprehensive set of virtual services to clients, the IT department required to integrate more digital services. The need to react quickly to COVID-19 caused unfreezing moments, resulting in the rapid mobilization of resources to these IS development activities. According to the CTO: Let's take a look at how we can build those servicing capabilities into our mobile app and website. Our mobile app and website were lacking... And one of the most essential things we accomplished with the mobile app is... crucial for this sort of consumer. For example, how do you strike a balance? What is the history of your transactions? When is the next payment due? The IS development team enhanced the mobile app with crucial loan servicing functionality, such as push notifications to consumers. After numerous rounds of trial and error, the team was able to effectively deploy the co-browsing capability in order to give greater assistance, particularly to non-tech-savvy consumers and branch personnel. They also upgraded the information on the firm website in order to provide financial literacy training to consumers and encourage them to discuss their virtual branch experience. According to the Senior Managing Director: [A]t first, we had some remote capabilities where consumers could shut online and never had to visit the office. COVID advanced the technology so that we could do more of it with new clients. We used to only allow it for existing clients, but now we accept new, current, and previous customers. We're able to close the loans remotely. Due to the pressing requirement for rapid implementation, current

internal resources may be inadequate to bring about changes at breakneck speed. As a result, the IT department "had to remove certain bells and whistles that were in the original strategic IT strategy" and sought external resources by collaborating with startups to deliver some of the new features. The following is how the CTO characterized the change: This is a whole series of little advances, if you can call them that, such as live chat, two-way messaging, push notification, video talking, and co-browsing, which were not planned for, and we also had to find a vendor in record time to ensure that everything works. So we found a very amazing startup to collaborate with us. In summary, OneMain was able to mobilize internal IT resources and cooperate with partners to strengthen its digital artefacts and deliver necessary digital services for distant clients and branch employees by using the current digital services established prior to COVID-19 (Affordance 4). It is also worth noting that various affordances may be realized concurrently while maintaining a mutually advantageous connection. Employees' remote work, for example (Affordance 3), was both hastened and enhanced as a result of virtual branch enablement (Affordance 4). On the other hand, the addition of additional virtual branch service functions not only increased the efficacy of branch personnel' remote work but also established the worth of service digitalization, propelling digital artefact development efforts ahead. The CTO's position, which was aggressive in advancing these affordances' actualization, altered in the senior management team's decision-making process. During the COVID-19 crisis, the organisation needed to become more nimble and adaptable despite working with less resources (Conboy et al., 2011). Senior executives, including the CTO, began holding daily briefings and weekly planning meetings to speed important decision making in order to better manage the crisis and deal with unanticipated obstacles. Frequent meetings and cooperation among senior executives aided in the

development of a common attitude regarding the significance of the digital channel and the company's transformation to "omnichannel" operations. The CTO honed his narrative abilities, which aided in the establishment of reasonable expectations and the creation of a feeling of partnership between IT and the company. They were all working at breakneck pace and need a positive work atmosphere. As a result, IT got increasingly involved in strategic decision making, and the repercussions of this shift in IT's position extended well beyond the COVID-19 issue. Digital services have progressed from being a distinct line of business to being an integrated aspect of the majority of client experiences. Prior to COVID-19, it was anticipated that fewer than 5% of all loans originated via digital means. During the epidemic, this figure rose to 35%. Moving ahead into a new normal, a target of 40% of loans coming via digital channels was established. The internet and physical channels were fundamentally merging, as noted by the Head of Digital Business: We're still working on many of the missing components of omnichannel customer experience, but the pandemic spurred all sections of the organization to adopt digital. We have a lot better understanding of the consumer as they go through our physical and digital experiences, and we've starting to accept the notion that this is actually simply one customer journey, not two. In a case study of a consumer loan organization in the United States, we instantiate the digital affordances and disruption required to solve the COVID-19 challenge. The difficulty confronting OneMain is similar to the overall one confronting many organizations in the fast digitization of a physical business. However, depending on the context of the answer, the options and circumstances will alter. We envision the OneMain response as a consultable record that may be utilized to educate others coping with the COVID-19 epidemic. A uncommon event's attention-grabbing character effects the genesis, discovery, and actualization of affordances in the mobilization of a COVID-19 reaction. Our conceptual model and case use affordance theory to

explain how the company drew on pre-existing affordances and developed new affordances that were actualized in response to the COVID-19 event, and how this affordance actualization had broader implications on affordance evolution beyond the immediate rare event. The conceptual model and propositions describe digital affordance development as a one-time unfavorable event and provide prescriptive recommendations detailing affordance actualization as a transformative corporate experience rather than just suffering a onetime adverse event. Evaluations of unusual events and affordance actualization should be done both in the time and after the fact. To be successful, it should include CEOs, front-line managers, workers, and customers who can be introspective, constructive about mistakes, and forward-thinking about utilizing affordance potential. At OneMain, we discovered that six important digital affordances grouped to generate a COVID-19 response: (1) "Last mile" telecommuting device readiness, (2) telecommuting skill readiness, (3) enterprise-wide remote work, (4) virtualized branch services, (5) integrated branch-central operating model, and (6) strategic IT involvement Affordances 1–3 laid the groundwork for developing a flexible and uniform infrastructure for both on-site and remote operations. However, changing affordances enabled OneMain to perform a type of real-time business quasi-experiment, evaluating the scalability of completely digital loan processing and closing capacity. To reach more consumers digitally, this provided evidence for transitioning to more centralized and integrated digital business choices after COVID-19. Throughout the process, IT managers had numerous opportunities to interact with the CEO and executive committee as an equal partner, building trust by implementing critical digital affordances that not only kept the business afloat but also offered promise for a more significant digital role in the company moving forward . Beyond OneMain, COVID-19 reactions stabilize in a protracted state of partial or complete lockdown while waiting for vaccination or other effective ways to combat viral propagation. However, reverting to pre-

COVID operating procedures may lead to disappointment in the future if the organization has learnt nothing. This chapter has yet to be written at OneMain and most other organizations, ranging from colleges choosing on teleconferenced lectures for the next semesters to airlines considering whether to return totally to passenger service or continue with package air freight in refitted aircraft. General business knowledge of the COVID-19 response and the prospects of future digital affordances will be crucial in making these judgments. Because judging how well things worked in the chaotic response to a rare event is extremely difficult, benchmarking affordance performance, learning from others' experiences, and planning to fill gaps are critical in addressing a second wave and potentially other types of future rare events. Despite the immediacy of the COVID-19 event and limited empirical evidence, our literature review, conceptual development, propositions, and case study provide some insights that may prove to be worthwhile suggestions, based on the notion that a rare event should not be treated as a passing anomaly but should be experienced as a vehicle for moving an organization towards a new normal. Concretely: Breaking the inertia of change: It is tempting to see the COVID-19 event as a glass half empty with little hope of a good result. The inertia-breaking aspect of rare event disruption, on the other hand, might result in innovations and practical trials that may produce a cluster of affordances that propel the firm ahead. Opportunities for IS and digital business models: CIOs and IT organizations have been mobilized to create the platforms that will allow full-scale digital business models. Beyond establishing a core landscape of digital assets upon which to construct new affordances, this raises the necessity of information security in many enterprises. The COVID-19 pandemic offers CTOs/CIOs the option to acquire a seat at the executive committee table. Be a storyteller at the center of the conversation: Storytelling about affordances and their consequences builds a picture of what is

possible and helps set expectations. A CIO, for example, may utilize narrative to build expectations for progressive growth of affordances rather of setting great expectations for speedy remedies during a chaotic unusual event mobilization. Errors in affordance actualization are expected to occur in this manner, resulting in learning from the mistakes and repositioning to keep moving ahead. We see that OneMain has begun to accomplish some of these things; now, they and others must step up their efforts to guarantee that these COVID-19 unusual event months are not endured but enjoyed. In information systems research, affordance and disruption theory has been used to investigate how people, communities, and organizations employ digital technology to achieve certain objectives. Aside from its overall conceptual framework of explanation, affordance theory has been expressly promoted as a method for articulating a substantive, mid-range theory of how digital technologies are used to accomplish specific goals. The six affordances presented here serve as a foundation for a substantive theory describing and prescribing the role of digital technology in developing pandemic solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research in the IS affordance literature that explains the importance of unusual occurrences in the actualization and development of affordances. This research focuses on the emergence of digital affordances as a set of interrelated teleological routes as the organization concentrates its management attention on the immediate issues given by the uncommon occurrence. These affordances focus on a small number of concerns at a time, with learning effects that apply to the post-event organization. This study adds to digital affordance theories by recognizing and expanding on how unusual occurrences play key roles in the generation, discovery, and actualization of affordances. In general, the relevance of unique events in research on punctuated equilibrium models of IS development and how to overcome opposition in IS implementation has been recognized in the IS literature . Prior research, however, has viewed these occurrences as

contextual settings, but our findings underline the importance of studying unusual events as a focus phenomena in their own right. Our results indicate that unique events may have a significant impact on the rate of development and acceptance of digital technologies. Because of the scale and urgency of the event, the COVID-19 event advanced particular digital development initiatives and encouraged quick adoption. More significantly, reactions to the event aid in determining the organization's future orientation. The unusual occurrence has larger ramifications for future business models and strategic goals by unfreezing mental models, re-directing attention, and modifying organizational-wide work patterns and mentality. According to this viewpoint, the growth of digital affordances is nonlinear, generated in phases according to where an organization's management attention is focused, and recursive, since the ecosystem of affordances formed in reaction to one event serves as the baseline for subsequent development. More generally, our findings indicate a need to account for attention when researching why organizations create digital technologies in the ways they do and how much attention might influence evolutionary trajectories. Attention is a prominent concept in management theory (Ocasio, 1997), although it has received little attention in the literature on IS development. The conceptual model presented in this study adds an attention perspective to the affordance literature and may be utilized beyond the rare event setting. Certain trends emerge in digital disruption. Here's a rundown of the most important ones: 1."Radical increase in efficiency" is the Disruption Principle: The goal of digital disruption is to replace human tasks with automated procedures. Algorithms improve the efficiency and reliability of processes and procedures in manufacturing, customer service, and sales. The disadvantage is that organizations will need fewer staff in the future to achieve significant productivity improvements. It is unclear if this will result in huge layoffs, as shown by several research.

Digital Disruption alters operations, partly replacing them while also creating new possibilities. 2."Target Group One" Disruption Principle: Consider your toothbrush as an example. A toothbrush is a good example of an analogue product. It was created with the intention of keeping your teeth clean. It is your problem to determine if they really are. It's not the manufacturer's fault. That is evolving as a result of digital disruption. A toothbrush with digital motion sensors that is Bluetooth-enabled and linked to an app records your brushing habits. The brush indicates whether or not you have fully cleaned your teeth. The data will eventually provide you with an overview of whether you cleaned often and thoroughly. If you have favorable data, your dentist will make it simpler for you to establish a diagnosis, and you may be eligible for future insurance savings. Because of the added digital services, the toothbrush is no more a mass-produced item, but rather one that adapts to you on an individual basis. This, too, is a case of digital disruption: large analogue items are being replaced by individual digital products. 3."Crowdification" is a Disruption Principle: Digital disruption often results in the breakdown of inflexible organizational hierarchies and the outsourcing of labor to the crowd. This idea arose mostly as a result of the debate between Brockhaus and Wikipedia. The world's biggest encyclopedia publisher surrendered to an encyclopedia created by people all over the globe. The basic notion of digital disruption is currently present in a variety of digital business models throughout the globe. Digital disruption necessitates a different approach to management than digital transformation. It necessitates the creation of a digital roadmap. Incremental innovation is analogous to digital transformation. Companies have managed both forms of innovation in recent years using a variety of strategies ranging from the formation of a continuous improvement process or idea management and

innovation management, the defining of innovation processes, through the establishment of an innovation culture. This is the foundation of a company's capacity to innovate. However, measures similar to those used to manage disruptive innovation are required to manage digital disruption. Furthermore, shifting innovation activities to online platforms makes sense in order to tap into the creative potential of workers from various places, clients, and specialists. Methods of innovation like as open innovation, co-creation, and crowdsourcing have been shown to be beneficial in dealing with Digital Disruption. Digital disruption is producing a paradigm change in the way business is conducted today, as well as in society as a whole. New technological advancements have opened up new opportunities for businesses to stay relevant, grab new market share, and extend their presence. New technology has also enabled many smaller enterprises that would have otherwise been devoured by the competition to become market presences in their own right. As a result, consumer expectations, company trends, and requirements are continuously changing — and this tendency is expected to continue in the near future. Many people are skeptical about digital disruption, while others are hostile or cynical. Despite the term's negative connotation, digital disruption is a beneficial factor for any organization that strives to capitalize on the possibilities it provides. It just takes an open mind and a willingness to let go of old habits. As we said at the outset, digital disruption is all about shifting the paradigm. Taking advantage of digital disruption is one of the sure-fire ways to ensure sustained relevance and success in the future, particularly for firms looking for that additional "oomph." Digital disruption, according to Gartner, is "an impact that modifies the basic expectations and behaviors in a culture, market, industry, or process as a result of, or represented via, digital capabilities, channels, or assets." Digital disruption is defined as "the shift that happens when new digital technologies and business models undermine the value proposition of current products and services" by Search CIO. Change is the defining feature of digital disruption. It's all about redefining and modifying things in order to destabilize the

existing quo. Digital disruption sets the path for evolution and progress, and firms who take advantage of it will profit from the new possibilities that digital disruption presents. Digital disruption, particularly in agile companies, causes things to happen. The internal and exterior workings of an organization may get more complicated as the firm expands and the demands and requirements that keep the organization running alter. The digitization of business processes, which is a component of digital disruption, is critical to make the company more efficient, cost-effective, productive, and customerfriendly. Similarly, digital disruption entails the use of business intelligence and big data. Executives, CEOs, and other decisionmakers may make educated judgments based on solid facts and credible information thanks to digital disruption. Because business choices have far-reaching consequences, digital disruption provides the way for better and more informed decision-making, allowing the company to grow, adapt, and stay relevant. Digital disruption also encourages firm innovation, allowing businesses to overcome outmoded norms and achieve new heights in terms of service and product quality, productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Digital disruption helps businesses to satisfy the changing requirements and desires of consumers, whose preferences and expectations are always changing. Digital disruption-driven innovation is responsible for management breakthroughs that pave the way for a company's or brand's future success and provides businesses with a competitive advantage — which is critical in a highly competitive market where customers are becoming more informed and discerning. Old ways just do not cut it anymore, and digital disruption might be the difference between progressing and falling behind. Despite the many benefits that digital disruption provides, many people continue to cling to traditional methods of doing things. However, change is unavoidable. According to a Forbes survey, onethird of CEOs believe that competition from firms that use digital and data technology has a significant impact on the market. According to 51% of polled CEOs, digital disruption used by technology-driven startups as well as digital innovations used by established organizations constituted a significant degree of danger in terms of

market share and revenue. - Sowing and reaping (in a positive way): Disruptors are reaping the benefits of their approach. According to Forbes, the vast majority of organizations who consider themselves "customer-data-driven leaders" have seen an increase in revenue over the previous three fiscal years. As a result, many firms and executives are attempting to shift their respective business models to services and/or products that are primarily reliant on and driven by technology. Others have taken a somewhat different approach, collaborating with other parties that bring a lot to the table in terms of digital disruption. According to the Forbes poll, more than half of CEOs regarded digital disruption as the driving force behind the conquest of new markets and consumers, allowing them to learn and use fresh knowledge and information about their client bases. - Opportunities continue to abound: The potential given by digital disruption is tremendous, but many businesses still lack access to big data and other parts of the digital transformation movement. However, these tools are widely available, and it is up to decision-makers whether or not to take use of the advantages of digital disruption. Overall, digital disruption is beneficial to both firms and consumers. The transition to a more digitally connected operation and workflow is unavoidable, and those who have embraced it have seen significant improvements in their operations across the board. 1. Disruption is beneficial to growth: Nobody ever got far by staying in their comfort zone. Throughout history, extreme change has fueled human development. The same is true in business. As more people (and consequently consumers) become digitally enabled, and as digital technology's impact and incorporation into our everyday lives grows, businesses and service providers must keep up. Growth follows digital disruption. Consider Lemonade, an insurer that uses artificial intelligence to compute insurance prices. Lemonade's technology can precisely compute the appropriate insurance premium to charge based on a few questions. Lemonade is able to dramatically decrease its premiums by eliminating the intermediary and incorporating the additional savings

given by A.I. technology throughout the whole process. The A.I. technology also streamlines what was once a fairly difficult procedure, which is a significant selling factor for many Lemonade consumers. 2. Makes consumers happier and more pleased: Customers nowadays are a very different breed than those of the past. They are more knowledgeable and discriminating, and they know what they want. Many clients have minimal brand loyalty and want to do business with the firm that best meets their needs. Brands who can foresee trends and consumer behavior, as well as provide an exceptional before and post-sale experience, are enjoying huge success. Advanced analytics and big data, which give previously unattainable insights into consumer behavior and other patterns, provide a greater knowledge of customers. This is why, despite having no physical stores (save for Whole Foods), firms like Amazon have achieved enormous growth over the years. Amazon uses big data and contemporary technologies so regularly that it has set the model for what an online buying experience should be. Other brands and corporations have followed suit, but none have been able to match Amazon's success. 3. Aids in the evolution and improvement of the workplace: One of the cornerstones to a successful company operation is having a cohesive team and workplace that runs like a well-oiled machine. Using the most up-to-date workflow management solutions, for example, enables teams and leaders to make better use of time and resources, making things more efficient. Tools such as those supplied by Runrun.it are a nice illustration of this. Take, for example, its Smart Time Tracking application, which not only simplifies timekeeping but also generates data that reveals things like how long a certain activity took before it was done or how teams are spending their time. Leaders may then intervene to correct any perceived flaws or to provide credit for well-done work. And effective time management means fewer overtime and a better work-life balance, which every employee values.

Digital disruption is a wide term used to describe a variety of developments affecting technology industry and other connected areas. Definitions vary slightly – for example, TechTarget defines digital disruption as "the change that occurs when new digital technologies and business models affect the value proposition of existing goods and services," distinguishing it from other changes involving any competition among digital technologies, whereas Gartner defines digital disruption as "an effect that changes the fundamental expectations and behaviors in a culture, market, or industry." On a broader level, digital disruption occurs when technological breakthroughs alter our markets and communities. One of the clearest instances is the emergence of electronic reading, which seemed to threaten the conventional habit of reading from a printed age for a while. From the titanic battle waged by conventional newspapers to ensure their continuing existence, to fights between firms providing new e-readers and sellers of actual print books, all of these consequences can be seen playing out in a huge pattern of digital disruption that transforms markets permanently. Another example is the shift in advertising toward digital platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, and other streaming media services. Streaming video has altered markets and consumer patterns in so many ways that it is difficult to list them all. Examining digital disruption helps people comprehend technical trends and what will happen to marketplaces. IT experts, for example, may spend a significant amount of time thinking about phenomena such as the internet of things and bring your own device trends in order to understand how digital disruption will function in the future. We are living in perilous times. Businesses are being compelled to rewrite their company operations and strategies in order to suit the contemporary world's volatility. The word of the hour is "immediate," and the digital medium is facilitating this change. Old ways are no longer viable, and firms must be prepared to deal with digital disruption in order to drive their development. When compared to the 1955 list, less than 12% of the firms are on the 2017 Fortune 500 list.

More than 88 percent of the firms went bankrupt, merged, or dropped out of the Fortune 500. Businesses in the S&P 500 index lasted in the index for an average of 33 years in 1965, but by 1990, that duration had shrunk to 20 years. According to Innosight's 2016 research, this number will most likely be reduced to 14 years by 2026. This demonstrates that markets are being disrupted at an exponential pace, and this is just going to become worse with each passing year. Digital disruption may occur at any moment, in any sector, and have a negative influence on an organization. The impact of digital disruption cannot be forecast. Disruption is unpredictable, and organizations should not underestimate the relevance of digital disruption. In the worst-case scenario, disruption may occur a year or five years in the future. One might also question the magnitude of the disruption, assuming that nothing drastic will occur for at least a decade. However, the fact is that your company might be disrupted at any point in the next five months. Rather of attempting to forecast and prepare for disruption, it is preferable to first be prepared and then wait for the proper time to capitalize on its many advantages. The fundamental upheaval in business models, industry, market, process technology, customer expectations, and behavior induced by new digital goods, services, and enterprises is referred to as digital disruption. These creative new firms, technology, and services have the potential to alter the sector's existing offerings and disrupt the way conventional enterprises in the industry operate. Companies are forced to either phase out of business or concentrate on modifying their mode of operation by re-evaluating their strategy and results as a result of sudden disruption. Businesses must recognize the significance of digital disruption and prepare for what may occur. The first step is to comprehend how digital disruption will affect a company. We know that digital disruption has a significant influence on organizations, but how does it affect them? What elements have an impact on it? Technology, on the other hand, is a significant driving factor behind these upheavals. To be more explicit, the three key reasons of digital disruption are as follows: dematerialization, automation, and value proposition. Dematerialization refers to the

replacement of physical items with digital ones in order to streamline corporate operations. Dematerialization has substantially decreased the marginal cost of manufacturing, opened up new techniques or channels of communication, and cut transactional and operational expenses. What-is-the-Impact-of-Digital-Disruption-on-Business? Automation is the process of increasing work efficiency in order to boost employee, customer, and other stakeholder productivity. Organizations may use digital technologies to automate repetitive operations and improve the efficiency of business resources. It not only enables firms to concentrate on higher-priority work, but it also saves time and money. The value proposition is continuously evolving, particularly when new organizations emerge with creative methods of doing business. They are disrupting established business models and compelling the present ecosystem to change the way it does business. Companies now have data at their disposal to help them understand what their customers and staff want. To meet contemporary demand, this data may be used to alter, overhaul, or completely restructure the company model. All three causes of digital disruption clearly demonstrate how it has led the path for digital innovation and how it has streamlined processes that benefit not only the firm but also the consumers. 4 Key Reasons Why Digital Disruption Is Important a. Improves Workforce: One of the most essential components of Digital Disruption is investing in current apps to improve the workforce. However, this alone will not ensure success. The workforce must make effective use of the deployed apps and technologies. Businesses might spend millions of dollars on staff training and onboarding for new apps. The fact is that these expenditures will not provide instant results and will consume the company's time and money. To withstand disruption, you need a technology or solution that can assist you quickly and

effectively complete both training and onboarding. b. Enables Growth : Digital Adoption Platforms are tools that may assist with this. Organizations may examine workflows to see how workers are using the software, where they are having difficulty, how long it takes to complete a job, and whether they are achieving their objectives utilizing it. Once you have the answers to these questions, it will only take a few days to create walkthroughs, PDFs, PPTs, videos, and other supporting information. You may generate contextual walkthroughs and training material for each job function at your firm in real time. Apty, which stores all necessary training material and onboarding procedures, guides workers through the application regardless of where they are in their training and onboarding journey. It improves involvement and so satisfies the CIO's objectives by assuring effective Digital Transformation. c. Promotes Development: Companies are being pushed out of their comfort zones by digital disruption to embrace technology in order to drive Digital Transformation programs. Organizations who see this as a chance to expand will thrive, while the remainder will die. The world is getting more technologically linked all the time. Technology is gradually but surely gaining center stage, and its impact on companies and people's everyday lives is growing. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies are assisting in the understanding of the current status of healthcare, agriculture, climate, and consumer behavior in order to build a better solution. These technologies are challenging diverse sectors' business models while also helping them comprehend the industry, its challenges, the people involved, and its procedures like never before. Digital disruption is a two-edged sword, but those that embrace and employ it gain from it. d. Boosts Customer Satisfaction:

Customers now realize that if technology is used to its greatest potential, it can help them effortlessly attain their objectives. They are more interested with the value that your product gives than with the worth of your company's brand. Customer behavior in the digital economy is fluid and impacted by evolving technology. In such a case, a company that knows its consumers via data employs analytics and draws significant insights to better meet their demands. In the past, firms such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix, and Uber recognized consumer requirements and delivered an appropriate solution that radically revolutionized their respective sectors. Their rivals attempted to imitate their concept, but few were able to equal the capacity at which these early disrupters functioned. The effect of digital disruption on your organization may be favorable if you plan for it and prepare for it. 5 Ways for Businesses to Prepare for Digital Disruption: 1. Preparedness in Leadership: No firm can thrive in the long run unless it is constantly reinventing and innovating. To remain relevant, executives must identify the gaps and oversights inside their company that might contribute to the downfall of the tried-and-true business model. Identifying these gaps may assist firms in making important choices and pivoting to a brighter future for the company. According to HBR, there are five "fault lines" that may assist determine if a firm is headed for disruption and better advise them to adapt the corporate strategy for a better future.

a. Customer Needs: Identify fault lines by interviewing at least 10 customers from these three categories: most profitable customers, least profitable customers, and possible customers. Discover the social, functional, and emotional needs of customers from each segment and how you can help them fulfill their needs with your product.

b. Performance Metrics:

When your industry reaches an inflection point, your old business metrics might be worthless and can give a distorted picture. You may not notice the change in the short term but the long-term impact could be unbearable. To avoid this from happening, encourage crossfunctional meetings regularly to check whether your business performance is in line with the factors that customers value the most. If they are not, change your strategy to strengthen your performance as per your customers' needs. Don’t hesitate to question the reason behind your analysis results as it will shed more light on its relevance and help you make key decisions.

c. Industry Position: Companies that start small in your niche could suddenly innovate and become more agile, thus being a better option for your customers. Keep a close eye on new players in your industry and the tactics they use to capture the market’s attention. If they are able to offer the same service or product at better prices, consider them a worthy opponent. This competitor could be from another industry as well. Once you analyze whether your position in the market is in jeopardy and if the answer is yes, it’s time to re-evaluate and restructure your business model to better serve your customers.

d. Business Model: Successful companies often consider their business model is reliable solely because it has been efficiently working in the past. Efficiency in the past doesn’t guarantee a sustainable future for the organization. To find out whether your business model might be at a potential fault line, start by analysing how well equipped it is to fight the emerging competition and deliver a better product. If you’re not well equipped, it is time to change the business model or the organization could lose its industry position.

e. Talent and Capabilities: Once organizations come up with a new strategy and business plan, the next step is finding the right kind of talent with the required skillset. If the company isn’t planning to recruit talent well ahead of its business plan execution, then the business could derail even with a sound business model. 2.Check-the-Legacy-System: Legacy systems may seem to be a safe bet since people are familiar with them and know how to utilize them. However, there will come a moment when embracing new technology will be unavoidable. Companies must recognize that early adoption will enable them to pivot their business model in order to survive and even gain from Digital Disruption. Amazon, for example, is a big eCommerce business that is gradually increasing its market share in order to overtake Walmart in the United States. Other leading eCommerce platforms are following suit in order to strengthen their company operations and market share. Amazon's eCommerce platform has made customers' lives easier, and traditional consumers are increasingly coming online to make purchases. Even if Amazon's influence on Walmart is minimal, there will come a moment when customers choose online purchasing over in-store shopping. Since a result, Walmart's decision to invest in new technology in order to

remain competitive is appropriate, as it will allow them to compete with Amazon in the online sector while also making better use of their current infrastructure. 3. Keep an eye out for an Apt Solution: There is no question that digital disruption compels enterprises to embrace new technologies; yet, before investing in any technology, it is critical to determine if it will match the organization's expectations. Just because your competitors are implementing a certain Digital Transformation approach does not imply that you must follow suit. It is necessary to determine if the workflows given by this new programme will effectively support your business operations. Determine if the new application will reduce the burden of the staff. To gain answers to all of these concerns, Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) may be employed, which help you analyse and solve the gaps in your applications. DAPs enable you to track how quickly a new application is being accepted by the workforce and estimate the returns on your investment in the application. If it adds no value to your company, you may cease it and concentrate on other applications that contribute to corporate objectives. And then use the insights given by the Digital Adoption Platform, such as Apty, to improve the performance of those apps. 4. Modify Now, Modify Gradually: For a better strategy, begin gradually and methodically planning for the forthcoming disruption as soon as you discover symptoms of it. Develop digital dexterity gradually in order to promote Digital Transformation and make improvements that will yield future benefits. Every industry approaches a tipping point, and when the shift occurs, it seems abrupt, yet the earliest transitioners always have the edge in such instances, outgrowing their rivals. For a year or two, the old business process may seem to be running well, but when disruption occurs, and your company is unprepared, it becomes tough to explain the situation to your investors. So, begin early and convey your creative objectives to stakeholders, as well as invest time researching how it could play out. To guarantee survival amid disruption,

strengthen the new business process using many Digital Transformation management tools and technology such as Digital Adoption Platforms. Companies such as Amazon and Netflix were ahead of their time when they launched a service that no one realized they needed. We now understand how important these firms are, and it is all due to the fact that they adapted to changing times before the rest of them. 5. Develop an Effective Onboarding Strategy: Organizations may take a proactive approach and deploy new technology, business models, processes, and value propositions. However, they often overlook the need of developing a good onboarding plan. Onboarding is the last stage in the disruption process, and if you fail here, all of your previous efforts will be for nothing. As a result, having a suitable onboarding plan may go a long way toward assisting your organization's success. Traditional methods of onboarding are ineffective since they require a significant amount of time and effort; also, the efficacy of onboarding training offered in a conference room cannot be measured. As a result, blended and ondemand learning would be the superior alternative. Apty, a Digital Adoption Platform, enables you to onboard your staff to new apps without the need for external training. It includes all of the onboarding processes that workers need to get acquainted with the application. It also contains all essential training information in various forms, which workers may use to begin their road to becoming a power user. At first look, digital disruption may seem intimidating and may overwhelm your company; yet, if managed appropriately, you may utilize chances for your business like never before. Whether you are a little business or a large corporation, the obstacles are identical. With the correct Digital Adoption Platform, these obstacles may be overcome. Regardless matter where you are on your disruption journey, Apty can assist guide your company in the proper way to make the most of a potentially perilous scenario.

The latest digital disruption trends: i)Artificial intelligence and Predictive Analytics: It is the marriage

made in heaven, it helps to make sense of complicated data and make accurate forecasting ahead of time. Predictive analytics uses historical data, machine learning to identify patterns and AI is used to provide valid solutions and enable execution by considering several scenarios. ii)AI-powered automation: It helps to understand data and identify processes that can be automated. In short, it enables proactive process optimization by eliminating manual labor. iii)Robotics: It replicates human actions and can function in a hostile environment where humans cannot. It eliminates life-threatening risks. iv)3D printing: It uses computer-aided design also known as CAD to create 3-dimensional objects. The process involves layering material to create a variety of products in different shapes, sizes, colors, and rigidity. v)IoT (Internet of things): It helps to gain data of physical objects from a remote location. It helps to measure and analyze the value and condition of any object or product. It also multiple objects to communicate with each other. vi)AR/VR (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality): VR replaces the vision while AR adds to it. VR replaces the field vision and projects different scenarios. With AR the image is projected over whatever the user is looking at. It helps to educate, provide additional information and enhance the experience. vii)5G: It is meant for higher data speeds, low latency, immense network capacity, easy connectivity, support modern technologies, and consistent user experience.

The top digital disruption programs i)Driving strategic innovations: MIT and IMD conducts a program that combines the nuances of technology and leadership in a very unique manner. It helps managers to become innovators and tech leaders. It helps them to think about how their innovative skills can help the entire organization to innovate and drive transformation. ii)Disruptive innovation: This program is conducted by HBS which helps the learners to participate in the dynamic learning environment and involve in small group discussions and case studies. Here the

explain the strategies related to both disruptors and disrupted. It also helps to implement strategies into strategic decisions. iii)Leading Digital Transformation and disruption: This program is created by INSEAD. The course helps you to experience the same course content as that of the on-campus sessions. It teaches digital action plans to identify innovation-based opportunities and create a strategy to overcome the existing business problems. If you haven't noticed, there is a high-stakes global game of digital disruption going on right now. It is propelled by the most recent technological developments: improvements in artificial intelligence, data analytics, robots, the Internet of Things, and new softwareenabled industrial platforms that combine all of these and other technologies. Every company leader understands that as a consequence, the dominant business models in his or her sector may alter dramatically and fundamentally. A variety of businesses, including entertainment and media, military contracts, and supermarket shopping, have already been severely impacted. No business, including yours, can afford to ignore the danger. However, most businesses are still not adapting quickly enough to this transition. Some leaders are still in denial, others are hesitant to disrupt the status quo in their organizations, and yet others are uninformed of the critical actions to take. But they are insufficient justifications. If your organization is already in trouble, digital disruption will exacerbate the situation. You may not have required a strategy for the new digital era yet, if only because it didn't seem to be relevant to your sector. But you'll need it right now. Otherwise, no matter how skillfully you manage your firm, you will not deliver outcomes on a large enough scale to compete. Companies with a distinct identity — those that stand out from the crowd — are the most likely to prosper. This is an enormous opportunity for every organization to rethink every part of the business and plan a bold route to success. According to our definition, disruption is defined as a movement in relative profitability from one dominant business model to another. The dominant firms, habituated to the old method, lose market share to a new set of firms. Not every disruption is caused by technological advancements, but this one is. And, since the software enabling this transition is relevant beyond conventional industry and business function boundaries, rivals

may appear apparently from anywhere. New entrants are cutting costs, addressing consumer requirements in innovative ways, making greater use of underused assets, and employing individuals with widely applicable digital skills and collaborative, creative, and efficient work styles in sector after sector. If you're hesitant, it's probably because you've seen digital technologies emerge in the past without having much of an impact on your core company. Even pressured industries will not be fully transformed. There will always be some brick-and-mortar supermarkets, no matter how many people get their paper towels and canned soup online. However, the current wave of disruption is more extensive and farreaching than any prior wave. Consider what has already occurred in businesses that are not physically based, such as media and entertainment. They've got to rethink their business structures in order to generate cash from social media and new types of customer connection. Industrial and manufacturing businesses are pursuing a similar route, putting sensors in logistics systems, connecting supply chains with shared data and robots, allowing for energy and material breakthroughs, and transforming the way every product is created and distributed. Your shareholders (especially activist shareholders), consumers, and workers are counting on you to act promptly. Panic and full-bore opportunism, in which you seek every apparent source of money, will also fail. The solution is to develop a cohesive approach that seeks out possibilities that complement what you currently do effectively. Here are ten guidelines for doing so, based on the experience of firms that have done so: 1. Accept the new rationale: When you first learn about a new digitally enabled competition, you may convince yourself that the firm will fail. It operates in a specialized market and will not be lucrative at scale. Hundreds of established company leaders have made this error, ignoring technologies such as the photocopier, steel mini-mill, graphical user interface, smartphone-

embedded camera, and video streaming service. Instead, see each new competition as a firm from whom you can learn. A new entrant's business strategy is always logical, and there's a reason it's being presented. It addresses consumer demands more effectively than you do, provides consistently cheaper costs (principle #5), or makes better use of assets than you do (principle #5). (principle number 6). It's likely that it does all three. Zume, for example, prepares pizza to order in its oven- and robot-equipped trucks and quickly delivers fresh, affordable meals to people's homes. It has raised more than $70 million in venture funding as of October 2017. Although no one can anticipate if Zume or another competitor will succeed, the basic logic of vehiclebased fast food poses a significant challenge to low-cost restaurant franchises. The presence of prospective disruptors in your market, particularly if they are supported by venture capital, indicates that your business model is considered antiquated. It's up to you to find out why and how to fix it. The presence of prospective disruptors indicates that your business model is considered outmoded. It is your responsibility to find out why. Examine the assumptions buried in your company's present business model in addition to examining the reasoning of your new rivals. Keep in mind what you already know about what digital technology can achieve for you. How could you rethink your skills to outperform your competition in terms of value? What areas of your company strategy might you tweak to provide more value on a large scale than any upstart? What would you need to change to make your own disruption work? Best Buy went through a similar thinking process and become one of the few specialist merchants to fight effectively against internet sellers like Amazon. As New York Times writer Kevin Roose described it, one of the disruptive issues it had to contend with was "showrooming: shoppers evaluating new items in shops before purchasing them for less money online from another company." Best Buy chose to disrupt its own business model by introducing a price-matching guarantee, a renewed emphasis on customer consultations (building on its "Geek Squad" experience), new workforce policies to attract a more skilled and loyal workforce, and improved logistics that integrated its online and in-person experiences. (In effect, manufacturers are now paying to be included in Best Buy's "showrooming" network.) These factors combined to

form a potent new strategy for Best Buy, which increased its stock price by more than 50% in a year. 2. Begin immediately and walk slowly: When indicators of impending upheaval surface in your sector, you must strike a balance between responding reactively and strategically. "We usually overestimate the shift that will occur in the following two years," Bill Gates noted in The Road Ahead in 1995. "And [we] undervalue the shift that will occur in the next ten years." Don't be seduced into passivity." To be sure, it may take a year or more for consumers to alter their behaviors on a large enough scale to effect your bottom line. During this time, you are still receiving money from your previous business model. However, if you do not take visible actions to modify your business model immediately away, it may have an impact on the market value of your firm. Investors evaluate your performance based on their assessments of the digital danger that is threatening your sector. They will have grounds to pounce if they believe you are unprepared. Simultaneously, rather of acting hurriedly and reactively, you must operate methodically and intelligently. Panic spreads like wildfire. You're not searching for fast wins; instead, you're charting your company's new course. Use this time to create your own sustainable, digitally enabled value proposition, to build up your own unique competencies, and to sell or shut down assets that will no longer be needed after the disruption has taken root. Declare your objectives boldly and publicly. Make it apparent to your stakeholders — not only investors, but also workers, suppliers, distributors, and other members of your company ecosystem — that you are planning your own disruptive ideas. Reevaluate and develop your new strategy on a regular basis, altering it to reflect changes in consumer behavior and in your business. Prototype innovative goods and services and swiftly bring them to market, testing them with actual clients. Bring your finest ideas to life. Everyone else will be surprised when your industry's developments eventually reach a tipping point. But you'll be able to tell. Because of your early start, you'll be prepared with the necessary

skills. You may then act quickly, grasp the edge, and take the lead in your industry. Since the 1990s, Amazon has served as an example of this method. Starting with books, then expanding into other sorts of retail, and then moving into general logistics and cloud-based computing services, it always had the same game plan: to steadily develop, taking on obstacles when it was ready. It took Amazon 20 years to develop the necessary skills to handle grocery delivery, which is a particularly challenging job since fresh food spoils quickly. Webvan, which launched in the late 1990s as well, began with a home meal delivery idea, overextended itself attempting to cover the thenexpensive "final mile" to the customer's door, and went bankrupt. 3. Concentrate on your right to win: A right to win refers to the capacity to face challenge after challenge with a fair chance of triumph. Instead than depending on a single product or service to define your company, create a strong identity — a recognized representation of what your firm does well and why it matters — that distinguishes your organization. Don't completely leave your former company strategy; instead, capitalize on your current capabilities. In many disrupted sectors, new and old business models coexist: brick-and-mortar supermarkets will not go away, just as bricand-mortar booksellers will not go away. Combine those fundamental competencies to develop a unified strategy that applies to everything you do. You will transmit a strong, consistent signal of who you are and what people can anticipate from you, similar to Amazon, Apple, IKEA, Starbucks, and other renowned firms. "Decide what you stand for, and then stand for it all the time." PetSmart, a retailer of pet items and services, is one firm that has earned the right to win. PetSmart completed the biggest e-commerce transaction in history in April 2017. It paid $3.35 billion for Chewy.com, a pet supplies website, only slightly more than Walmart spent for the online business Jet.com at the same time. Chewy's customer service skills supplemented PetSmart's substantial retail store network and offerings (such as boarding hotels, grooming salons, and walk-in pet clinics). Chewy provided a high degree of client involvement on par with upscale merchants such as Nordstrom. The firm phones consumers ahead of

time to fix service issues and sends cards to thank them for their patronage. These combined skills provide PetSmart and Chewy with a more clearer identity and competitive advantage. You earn the right to win by constructing and sustaining a system of unique cross-functional competencies – combinations of people, knowledge, information technology, tools, structures, and procedures that have been improved and evolved through time. This "integrated learning foundation," according to famous business historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr., was the single most critical component for economic success. You already have some of those skills, or you wouldn't be here, but you may need to grow or acquire others, as PetSmart did. Organize your company around those important talents. Long-term investments should be made to support them, and enterprises that do not fit should be divested. Honeywell is another well-known example. Honeywell's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) company was able to repel a disruptive challenge from Nest and other digital thermostats in the mid-2010s because to its right to win. Honeywell had a great distribution capacity; its employees understood how to establish excellent connections with HVAC installers and contractors, who steered clients to Honeywell's digital thermostats rather than the startup's. This provided the corporation time to update its technology. 4. Design the future of your consumers: What does the future hold for your customers? Consider addressing their requirements in a more basic approach so that they will want to stay in touch with your organization and its services. As Steve Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson, "your objective is to figure out what they're going to desire before they do." This will need creativity and insight, which they will be unable to explain if you ask them. Creating the future of your consumers may need an obsessive attention on them. Make their troubles disappear. Remove the source of contention in their life. Make things simpler and less complicated, while lowering the amount they must pay. The most successful consumer-oriented businesses depend on unrivalled access to their clients. For example, IKEA has an elaborate programme for bringing executives to consumers' homes, where they are welcomed since the

firm has improved their everyday lives. You may also learn a lot by cocreating your goods with consumers and including them in the design and development process. Adobe Systems, for example, talks with graphics experts on a regular basis while developing new products for them. Google and Facebook benefited greatly from a big number of knowledgeable early adopters inside their own employees. The firms tested their workers' responses on a regular basis and adjusted their services appropriately. Customers are more motivated by outcomes: the results your goods and services achieve, rather than the products and services themselves, as marketing professionals have pointed out since at least 1960, when Theodore Levitt's seminal Harvard Business Review essay "Marketing Myopia" was published. This is how Philips benefited from their halogen lamps, which shops use in parking lots. Concerned about losing out to manufacturers of lower-cost commodity bulbs, Philips established a service to replace burned-out bulbs and maintained R&D on longer-life bulbs to reduce the prices of that service. Similarly, GE's aircraft engines, Daimler's trucks, Tesla's electric cars, and Siemens' power systems are all embedded with sensors, designed to provide analytics not only about the machines' behavior (for better maintenance), but also about what the customer (the airline, truck driver, or power utility) is doing day after day, and how that experience can be improved. 5. Demand will be driven by price: Almost every major interruption decreases expenses in some manner. Customers react more strongly to cost reductions than to other sorts of value improvements. When you set your rates low, you attract clients, scale up your new business model, and compel adjustments that make competing more difficult. Even high-profile disruptive rivals do not have a significant impact on the rest of the market until they become price competitive. For example, Tesla started competing with a broad spectrum of other manufacturers only with the release of the "cheap" $35,000 Model 3 in 2017. For the majority of goods and services, it is advisable to construct your reaction to disruption by cutting costs and expanding your client base. This often entails using digital technologies in novel ways. Pricing at a loss is often necessary

for long-term scalability and market share, as shown with Amazon and Uber. Without a doubt, you are already vigilant in your cost-cutting efforts. However, you may not have developed the practice of strategic pricing: decreasing expenses to increase demand. IKEA, for example, incorporates a 1.5 to 2% decrease in product prices into its budget planning every year as a driving function. This necessitates its planners figuring out how to dramatically lower expenses, and it has produced the type of client loyalty that no disruptor can remove. 6.Profit from underutilized assets: Many digital disruptions take use of untapped assets. Because of the way digital technology minimizes friction and shows possibilities, this strategy is practical. Sharing economy enterprises that offer access to spare time in privately held autos, manufacturing facilities, houses, and office spaces transformed their industries by monetizing previously untapped capacity in their assets. You, too, have the potential to disrupt your business by developing methods to extract value from underutilized assets. These may be located anyplace in your company. You may make better use of your computer processing power — and your programmers' time — with a cloud computing solution. Consider a big-box store's stockroom. Because of the labor scaling factor, the space is large. Once you've paid for the first pallet, the remaining four are rather inexpensive. Why not pool back rooms and warehouse employees since digital interoperability makes it simpler to handle different resources and products from numerous vendors? Overlooked assets may not have to be tangible in nature. They might contain private knowledge, data that is constantly collected, or specialized skills. The Aravind Eye Hospital in India, for example, is one of the most successful cataract treatment clinics in the world. Professional experience is seen as a specialized asset. On average, each surgeon sees ten times as many cataract patients per day as a comparable surgeon in the United States. The hospital's systems, which were fashioned after those of McDonald's, employ all method imaginable to direct a trained surgeon's attention to where it counts

most: the cataract surgery. Everything else, including administrative duties and difficult case referrals, is handled by someone else. It may take some time to build a compelling and successful strategy for your assets. The first shared office space businesses appeared in the early 2000s, but it wasn't until the mid-2010s that firms like WeWork found a structure and packaging that made the notion widespread. Consider divesting assets that are holding you back or requiring continuing expenditures as you establish your own strategy. Every asset you hold should contribute to or profit from your unique selling points. 7. Take command of your platform: Disruptive businesses do not accomplish everything on their own. They depend on the talents of others. As huge business-to-business platforms arise, such as Amazon Web Services, GE's Predix, Siemens' MindSphere, and the upcoming Chinese "Belt and Road" system, these capabilities will become more widely accessible. A platform is a collection of compatible technologies that offer a fundamental framework into which apps and procedures from a variety of firms may fit and function in unison. The new digital platforms will aid in the transformation of organizations in the same way that its online predecessors, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, aided in the transformation of consumer habits. A platform gives you access to other people on the platform, new methods to create value from digital assets, and a much larger scale at a low cost. Just as it is crucial to understand what your organization excels at, it is critical to understand where you can depend on the technology and solutions of others. Some businesses prosper by serving as platform providers. Salesforce, for example, has used its expertise in producing softwareas-a-service and other cloud-based services to create an open ecosystem for sales and customer relationship management that provides the firm with a significant competitive edge. By bringing independent developers, system integrators, and consultants into the Salesforce ecosystem, the firm has become a center for a large number of creative enterprises in a variety of industries, providing Salesforce with unparalleled access to information and cutting-edge trends. However, you do not have to own platforms in order to benefit

from them. Instead, concentrate on a component of the platform that provides you a chance to succeed and creates consistent standards for a whole ecosystem. For example, if you are one of many component makers for, say, servers or home-control systems, or a creator of related software programmes, your value may suffer. However, if you carve yourself a different identity and purpose inside the ecosystems of other organizations, you may still attract value to yourself. You can be like Corning, which manufactures the Gorilla Glass used in the iPhone as well as many other types of specialty glass used in automobiles and other smartphones, or like HCL Technologies, which has parlayed its distinct R&D and consulting capabilities into a refined outsourced technology business serving other high-tech companies. Because digital technology breaks industry borders, you should leverage platforms to break free from your industry's limits. To connect with suppliers and distributors, you no longer need to manage your own supply chain. Apple is well-known for its involvement in music and video streaming, information technology hardware and software, Internet services, telephones, timepieces, digital photography, and retail. It is the market leader in the majority of those industries. It doesn't matter what industry you believe Apple is in; Apple is the best at being Apple. It has centered its market around a single unique identity. Selecting platforms to join should be done with caution. If you get connected with them, you may face exorbitant switching expenses if you need to change. Keep control of your client data, intellectual property, and unique capabilities system. Vertical integration may still have a benefit; as Inditex (Zara), Amazon, and Haier have learned, it may create potential for differentiation. However, the ideal solution is to do a more detailed analysis of your expenses and consumers, and then build your vertical and horizontal activity mix appropriately. 8. Integrate rather than isolate: Because many CEOs believe that disruption is inevitable, they are hurrying to develop digital side projects in the shape of programmes, products, and services that can stand on their own. There are several evocative nicknames for these micro-businesses and isolated

projects: Skunkworks. Ships of pirates Special operations forces. Labs. Units have been quarantined. The names express the issue: a fundamental disconnect between this subscale unit of activity and the primary company. To be sure, "pirate ships" have greater leeway than the rest of the company. They sidestep the customary constraints and obligations, as well as the cultural antibodies that stifle innovation. They may even create cutting-edge goods and services that seem to be the wave of the future. However, since they are not connected with the rest of the organization, they lack the necessary competences and support to be viable. Similarly, the primary business does not learn from or profit from their strengths. Even if it works in a small context, a pirate ship wastes resources and makes scaling a new digitally enabled business model more challenging. Finally, change does not occur in silos; it needs an enterprise-wide digital effort. Smith Corona, a North American typewriter maker, was a typical example of a failing mini-enterprise. Fearing the assault of computer-based word processing tools, the corporation established a digital research and development centre in 1976, staffing it with freshly hired hardware and software professionals. They chose Danbury, Connecticut, a four-hour drive from the company's headquarters in Syracuse, New York, where mechanical engineers worked on "real" typewriters. People at the two sites did not have a frequent chance to learn from one another or develop shared skills. The new electronic word processors that resulted were simpler to use and less costly than personal computers, but they lacked key essential capabilities (such as the capacity to print images) that Smith Corona might have developed with greater input from its student and writer client base. According to Erwin Danneels' case study (pdf), they were also beset by production issues that the rest of the corporation would have been able to handle. Before becoming a modest maker of thermal labels for barcode printers, the firm went through two bankruptcy and another purchase. Ericsson's AXE-N project, an asynchronous digital highway attempt that cost the corporation billions before being shut down in 1995, and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center are two more well-known instances of pirate ships that went aground. This semi-independent lab is credited with several concepts, including the graphical user interface that Steve Jobs incorporated into the design of Apple's first Macintosh computer.

Xerox never profited financially from the breakthroughs it financed. Rather than isolating your digital activities, integrate them across your firm. Then, experiment with prototypes that can be brought to size in a realistic manner. Customize them to capitalize on your existing abilities. Make sure that both the prototype and the core enterprise teams are constantly interacting and learning from one another. GE has fostered this mindset in all of its new businesses. It undertakes experiments that imitate operations at current seaports while designing a prototype of seaport infrastructure integrated with sensors and analytics, for example. Shipments are picked up by truck, trains stop to unload and load cargo, and personnel move items about the yard or into containers. Even regulators are mimicked, with reports being queried. As a result, when the time comes to scale that complicated new technology, the firm will be ready. 9. Disobey the regulations. Before you can beg for forgiveness, you must first ask for permission. Recognize the advantage that comes from discovering undiscovered holes in the rules when you are confronting disruption or conducting a disruptive operation. A disruptive action will tend to skirt through rules and governance structures that have been put in place over time, causing individuals to absorb the behavior and accept it as the standard. Years of compliance, for example, may cause a corporation to implement tracking sheets that, after 15 years, are no longer required by the government or anybody else. However, the investigation is ongoing. If a rule prevents consumers from acquiring what they need, it is likely to cause disruption. The most well-known example is probably ridesharing. The control of taxi medallions resulted in artificial scarcity and monopolies in several cities. This was exploited by the early taxi rivals. In response, incumbent taxi companies have embraced some of the same techniques pioneered by startups, such as the use of applications to hail taxis. Nonetheless, non-medallion firms have had an advantage in most municipalities, with the exception of a few towns that enacted new regulations geared to ride-sharing companies. Most restrictions are in place for a purpose. If you can direct your actions toward the purpose of the law rather than the letter of the law, you will be more likely to succeed. Allow the production of value to influence

your decision on how far to go. You have little or no say over regulations imposed from outside. However, you have complete influence over how you perceive them. Similarly, your opponents have their own understanding of the rules. Compare your new rivals' interpretation with your own as part of the digital disruption game. Which of those limits may you contemplate giving up if their interpretation is looser? Alternatively, which of their transgressions will eventually come back to haunt them? And can you have your firm ready to pick up the slack? You may also face competition from firms that grew up under other regulatory frameworks. Alibaba and Tencent, for example, have a history in China of entering financial-services companies that were previously unavailable to their equivalents in the United States and Europe. They've launched mutual funds and wealth management platforms, while Apple and Facebook have pulled down their payments initiatives due to regulatory worries. All four of these businesses will now be functioning in the same environment. 10. Establish a new manner of working: For years, most businesses have been experimenting with new technology. However, the few firms that have effectively embraced digital technology have utilized it as a catalyst for transforming the way they function. They reimagine how marketing, information technology, and finance interact, and every element of their business reflects that knowledge. Begin by recruiting. Seek for cloud architects or blockchain experts, but don't look for them. Assemble teams of individuals with expertise in corporate strategy, customer experience, and innovative hardware and software development. (This is referred to as BXT, which stands for "business, experience, and technology.") Along with programmers and spec writers, you need have creative designers, anthropologists, financial people, data analysts, and psychologists on your team who can tell whether something is bringing people in rather than driving them away. Look for "helicopter quality": the capacity to function at two conceptual levels at the same time, one close to the detail and one high enough to offer an overview,

shifting quickly from one to the other. Seek find these individuals at all levels of the organization so that they can make on-the-fly technology and design choices that are consistent with the overall company plan. When you mix technology savvy, strategic intent, and a passion for the customer experience in one person, you may conceive products and services that you would not have considered otherwise. For example, in 1999, Apple positioned itself as the maker of a digital center, and everything the business released after that, from the iTunes store to the iPhone and iPad, sprang from that identity. Amazon established itself as a business that linked with consumers online, using a novel and unique interface that enabled individuals to share their thoughts on the worth of its items. Danske Bank in Scandinavia redesigned their business around a peer-to-peer smartphone payments app that is now utilized by more than half of the Danish population. Its succeeding products, such as smart mobile mortgage and wealth management options, sprang organically from that digitally empowered logic. In reality, combining business, expertise, and technical know-how may be quite tough. Each often entails a distinct functional silo, each with its own set of skills, objectives, and culture. In many companies, business strategy is the domain of financial specialists and top executives, who may be unfamiliar with the options provided by digital technology. User experience is often delegated to marketing or design professionals, who may lack the strategic vision required to construct the ideal vehicles for the firm. And technology is typically the domain of software engineers, who may underestimate the importance of simplicity, emotional resonance, and intrinsic fulfilment to the customers and employees who use their systems. Typically, these three groups function alone, and they may not know how to communicate with one another. An effective word could mean lowcost to a business strategist, high-touch to an experience designer, and cutting-edge to a technological specialist. Persist if you can't get them to operate together smoothly at first. Over time, they will grow to enjoy one another. If you're stuck for ideas, start with customer and employee experience. Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly, for example, started reshaping the company's digital identity by polling employees about their work experiences. When they complained about a faulty

internal search engine that incorrectly informed them about out-ofstock items, the search engine was immediately upgraded. That initial step paved the way for continuous improvement of both front-of-house and back-of-house operations. Digital disruption may appear to be a threat, but it can be a game changer for you. Your chances of rethinking your company have never been better. The difficulty you face, regardless of how mature your organization is, is the same one every upstart faces: developing a new business model, value proposition, and system of customer-facing skills that will position your firm for long-term success. Business has evolved drastically over the last 30 years as a result of digital innovation — but only to a degree. Although many processes, goods, and services have developed, and a few industries (such as media) have seen fundamental transformation, relatively few organizations have had their core operations disrupted. But that is going to change, and it will — or should — have an impact on your company's strategy. All disruption (digital or otherwise) occurs on an industry-wide scale, resulting in a dramatic change in profitability from one dominant business model to another. Customers often get the same or greater value at a considerably reduced cost under the new approach. Companies that stick to the old business model lose ground, and some go out of business. Challengers that accept the new business model get an edge and win market dominance. New entrants, such as Southwest Airlines in the 1980s, Google in the 1990s, and Netflix and Facebook more recently, might be the winners. They might even transfer from another industry, like Apple did when it transitioned from computers to mobile media, and as Amazon did with groceries. Alternatively, they may be major incumbents adjusting business models, as GE is doing currently with its large-scale business-to-business operations (for example, its integrated industrial Internet platform, Predix). Disruption has been a source of concern for businesspeople since at least 1997: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. However, the degree of real business interruption over the last 15 years has been significantly lower than you would assume. Our

colleagues at PwC identified the disparity in a study project launched this year, in which they followed the top 10 firms (by sales) in 39 major industries. Except for the three most volatile industries, just 6% of a company's worth changed during a 10-year period (Internet software and services, IT, and biotechnology). Even in that case, the number was just 10%. In summary, most sectors have not yet been impacted if disruption is measured by the increase or loss of market share in the main corporations in each area. The dread of interruption might be more destructive than the actual disturbance. The present tidal wave of upheaval is unique. The breadth and size of today's digital technologies are similar to the advent of commercial electric power in the early twentieth century. The term "digital disruption" refers to a shift in industrial value caused by developments in information and communication technologies. (By this definition, the transition to electric vehicles is not a digital disruption since it is mostly driven by breakthroughs in battery technology, but the transition to autonomous vehicles is, because it is supported by digital networks.) The technologies connected with this wave, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, online interface design, the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, cyberwarfare, robots, and data analytics, will progress and magnify one another's effect over the next several years. Products and processes will learn from their surroundings on a regular basis, and markets will converge to new levels. The new wave of technology advancement, like electric power, is predicted to change a broad range of business processes in practically every industry, as well as in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer enterprises. Although the rate of disruption may be slower than anticipated, the time to act is now for three reasons. For starters, preparing for these changes takes time. The longer you wait to act, like when a storm is coming down on a shoreline, the more exposed you become. The exact tipping point will differ from sector to industry, but certain common themes will emerge. Prices will fall, assets will lose value, and the willingness of consumers to modify their behaviors will decide how quickly change occurs. This is now occurring to several oldermodel merchants; their firms may not be technically bankrupt, but the

funds they put in their legacy enterprises do not provide a return. As a result, they reduce their spending, and their shops degrade even worse. Second, even in the early phases, before reaching that tipping point and losing their industry position, incumbents attached to old business models often see their growth level out or drop. Old-model retail store chains, for example, have suffered the effect on shareholder value for years before declaring bankruptcy. That is why you must inform your stakeholders, especially your investors, that substantial changes are on the way. The most successful activist investors are already aware of which firms are ideally positioned for digital disruption. Those who aren't plainly undertaking such preparations are more likely to become targets. Third, keep in mind that, although the rate of change may be glacial, glaciers cannot be avoided. Disruption will, at some point, arrive at its goal. Disruptive innovation is first applied to a narrow, unappealing niche, and thus seems simple to dismiss. It grows gradually, increases in quality and capabilities, and ultimately transitions to the mainstream. Many individuals would believe that nothing is occurring in the early phases of its progression. When the change is sensed, it will seem abrupt. But if you begin preparing early, you'll be ready. The success of your business will be determined by how well you grasp these dynamics in your sector and in general. Focus on strategic improvements that reflect and include your current capabilities, rather than those that may wow investors in the short term but do not contribute to your long-term profitability. Some merchants, for example, attempt to quickly increase their digital competence by outsourcing operations such as same-day delivery. This offers investors the idea that they are proactive; but, the addition may not be lucrative in the long term unless it provides the firm with a persistent advantage related to its own invention. You may be wary about the effect of digital disruption in your sector, particularly if other types of disruption seem to be more urgent. For example, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a non-digital technique that has considerably boosted supply, has had a greater impact on the oil and gas sector than digital technology, which has been most visible in

oil field–style sensors and operational controls. Though the automobile industry is defining its future in terms of self-driving cars, battery technology will likely be just as significant; it may decide how soon manufacturers ditch the internal combustion engine. Some of the most notable examples of disruption in the past, such as how point-topoint airlines like Southwest and Ryanair challenged their industry's hub-and-spoke model, or how mini-mill steel businesses endangered the steel titans, did not utilize digital technology at all. Other non-digital disruptors, such as customized medicine in life sciences and nanotechnology in chemicals, will continue to have a significant impact on their respective sectors. However, digital disruptions vary in some fundamental aspects. They involve technologies that can reduce the need for physical assets; for example, streaming media has replaced compact discs, and algorithms that specify traffic routes for shared-vehicle enterprises can improve passenger travel efficiency and thus reduce the number of cars and vans required in an area. Digital systems collect data and use machine learning to continuously enhance the performance of new business models, speeding their effect. Digital disruptions change value chains and marketplaces, leaving previous sector distinctions obsolete; today, a single home gadget may function as a music player, a thermostat, a security system, and a shopping gateway. They have an impact on a wide range of industries, and they drive enterprises to gain scale by developing platforms that make it less expensive to enter new territories or introduce new goods and services. Another consequence is the increasing demand for individuals with software abilities (which are more fungible than other types of technical expertise) and a Silicon Valley mentality across a wide variety of businesses. No one from the aerospace and defense industries of the 1980s could have imagined the remote-controlled military vehicles and drones that are arriving now, commanded from afar as if they were video games. That could only be done by individuals in the computer business. To properly adapt to this form of disruption, a firm must reinvent itself by shifting from one business model to another. Netflix, for example, has thrived through two rounds of digital upheaval in a row. As technology improved, the firm was ready with a new business

model that served consumer requirements more efficiently and at a lower cost in both circumstances . When Reed Hastings established Netflix in 1997, it battled against Blockbuster Video, a brick-and-mortar retailer with a vast network of local shops that dominated the video rentals industry in the United States. Netflix cut customer prices and removed a key source of annoyance by mailing DVDs and not demanding return by a certain date — thus considerably diminished Blockbuster's advantage. Its consumer attractiveness was enhanced by its business strategy, which replaced a monthly membership cost for individual rental payments. So did Netflix's first step into Amazon-style consumer data collection; depending on the sorts of movies users rented, Netflix would propose others that would most likely appeal to them. Blockbuster seemed to be impervious to the danger at first, losing just a tiny fraction of its total sales to Netflix's disruption. However, due to the fixed expenses of brick-and-mortar businesses, revenue losses ate into store profitability. Prior to the interruption, virtually all Blockbuster locations profited enough to pay the cost of capital. Only roughly half of them could do so after the disturbance. In the second episode, which started in 2007, Netflix introduced streaming video on demand, which damaged its own business (and ruined the rest of Blockbuster's). Blockbuster reacted by providing additional income streams (such as selling popcorn and candies), but the company continued to deteriorate, declared bankruptcy in 2010, and never recovered. Within a few years, the great majority of Netflix subscribers had switched to streaming. The firm was now competing not just with DVD rentals, but also with cable television, which had reacted with its own video-on-demand services. Furthermore, Netflix constantly improved its analytic powers, providing more fine-grained suggestions that viewers could explore more rapidly because to the flexibility of streaming. This analytical skill naturally led into the development of original content, which started with House of Cards in 2013 and has since grown to include more than 350 original series published in 2017.

It's worth mentioning that Hastings, who was a software entrepreneur with Pure Software in the early 1990s, predicted streaming practically from the beginning. He was aware that processing and telecommunications capability were not yet ready for on-demand movie viewing through the Internet, but that it will be shortly. The subscription model at the heart of his initial disruption was designed not just to compete in the near term, but also to position his firm to provide streaming whenever technology caught up. A remark from a 2005 interview with Inc. magazine exemplifies Hastings' foresight: "DVDs will continue to be profitable in the foreseeable future." Netflix's domination will last at least another decade. However, movies via the Internet are on their way, and it will become a large industry at some time. We began spending 1% to 2% of sales in downloading every year, and I believe it's very exciting because it will significantly reduce our shipping expenses. We want to be ready when video-on-demand becomes a reality. That is why the corporation is known as Netflix rather than DVD-by-Mail." Hastings also wanted to go into content development from the outset, since he recognized the commercial benefit. "Our aim is on establishing a firm like HBO that disrupts the entertainment sector," he told Inc. The lesson for other businesses is that a clear picture of digital disruption in your market may help you clarify your strategy by highlighting not just the difficulties that need your attention, but also the possibilities that others are missing. Netflix surfed the tide of disruption in both episodes, capitalizing on three variables that hastened the transformation. In your own industry, the following elements may present equally potent opportunities: 1. Significantly less expensive: Almost every big disruption cuts costs considerably, frequently in ways that traditional industry watchers find surprising. A typical example is the personal computer, which brought to a desktop computer power that had previously cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is always a market for the same or a better product at a lower price, and only seldom is there a market for a better offering at a higher price. Furthermore, even disruptions that seem to be more costly at first appearance, such as the iPhone, often turn out to bring cost savings.

The iPhone removed the need for many of its users to purchase landline phones, music players, cameras, calculators, portable organizers, electronic calendars, alarm clocks, TVs, and (for many owners) PCs. All of these features were built into the phone and were routinely updated at no extra cost. True disruptors don't just cut costs on a case-by-case basis. They have a reputation for what Walmart refers to as "daily low prices": cost reductions that are so constant that they don't need to be tracked. Customers become passionately loyal if they believe they can trust a firm's commitment to low pricing; if the company loses their confidence by allowing prices to rise, it loses its value offer. To maintain its value-price image, Amazon has sometimes reduced the pricing of items from third-party sellers while still paying them the same amount per item. Lowering pricing typically necessitates a reduction in operating expenses. According to Strategy& thought leaders Bertrand Shelton, Thomas Hansson, and Nick Hodson in "Format Invasions," a seminal s+b from the mid2000s: "Massively lower cost is the killer app in many markets — as companies as diverse as Dell, Inditex (Zara) apparel, Countrywide Financial, Nucor, Walmart, and Charles Schwab, as well as Toyota and Southwest Airlines, have demonstrated." Toyota's lean manufacturing processes, which ruthlessly reduced waste in its production systems, resulted in costs that were far lower than those of the Big Three Detroit manufacturers. Southwest's point-to-point air travel style significantly cut the ground and flight expenses inherent in the airline industry's established leaders' 'hub-and-spoke' system." Digital technology provides price decreases because, when used deliberately and innovatively, it continuously lowers operating expenses. For example, 3D printing has significantly reduced R&D prototype costs and is likely to do the same for inventory expenses associated with holding components. 2. A more efficient method to meeting client demand: Disruptive business concepts look for a new way to fulfil client demand, one that adds convenience or value. Amazon surpassed rival online merchants not just by offering cheaper prices, but also by

combining them with a much more simple and entertaining interface. Because most individuals are hesitant to alter their behaviors, even after early adopters show their excitement, a meaningful disruption might take a long time. The new system must not only be wanted, but also trusted. The automated teller machine, for example, was debuted in 1967 and became popular in the 1980s. Even at that early point, it was evident that it would be a game-changing digital technology, bringing incredible ease and allowing individuals access to currency and accounts they had never had before. However, most bank clients did not accept ATMs until the mid-1990s. Previously, many individuals chose live tellers because they were unsure that their deposits would be appropriately recognized. Today, there is a comparable lag in the uptake of cloud computing. Many businesses continue to depend on on-premises data centers, in part because certain important characteristics, such as cybersecurity, are still believed to be developing. 3. Improved asset utilization: Digital technology enables businesses to achieve more with assets that were previously underused or to discover possibilities that others did not perceive. This leads to scale, and scale leads to profitability. Firms like Zipcar, for example, provide temporary automobiles with significantly less friction than traditional car rental companies since they can find cars and monitor their use far more quickly. Similarly, cloud computing uses networked processing time more efficiently than on-premises storage. Employee time is another asset that can be utilized more successfully with flexible hours, job-sharing agreements, and remote-work options — all of which are simpler to set up in bulk with digital monitoring. Ride-sharing services combine various underutilized assets, such as automobiles, drivers' ability, and the time that drivers would otherwise spend looking for fares and handling billing processes. Making better use of assets may need new approaches to legislation and governance structures that incumbent organizations have absorbed and that have an impact on how they function. Ride-sharing services, for example, entered numerous cities by developing a model that maneuvered between medallion-based

taxi businesses, which are often heavily controlled; automobile services, which are less limited; and privately owned cars, which are underused. Regulations are often meant to safeguard existing assets (in this example, taxi medallions and permits); finding legal means to get around them allows the new disruptive business model to thrive. As with ride-sharing services, by the time authorities catch up, the disruptive model is frequently too popular to replace. The dependency on assets also helps to understand why some organizations stick to their old business strategy for so long. Consider retail businesses that have overinvested in real estate sites for their brick-and-mortar shops, which no longer repay the investment necessary to keep them current. Selling them at a profit takes time. Meanwhile, as long as the assets must be maintained, the retail chain will be under pressure to reduce maintenance costs, even if it means sacrificing customer experience quality. When a faltering retail chain is unable to eliminate unprofitable locations, those locations visibly degrade, driving consumers away from the brand. Netflix produced value by using all three digital disruption drivers. It saved money, particularly when late penalties from Blockbuster were included in. It discovered new approaches to draw customer demand thanks to its proficiency in analytics. Its streaming makes use of pre-paid assets such as personal PCs, tablets, cellphones, and Internet infrastructure. Furthermore, since the Netflix concept was based on the Internet, it avoided rules that applied to broadcast and cable television. Customers join in as disruptive enterprises boost their value in all of these ways. Old client behaviors gradually deteriorate. Old connections and an established base of goods and services are still tuned in to the old way of doing things. However, a tipping point is achieved when revenues and purchases shift to the new model and quickly acquire traction. Customers understand how simple and advantageous it will be to convert to, instance, streaming or utilizing their smartphone as a camera. At that time, the remaining majority of individuals abruptly change, as does the industry. From there, it may only be a matter of months until the existing business models are no longer viable. When the tipping point is reached, even a little change in market share might be fatal to the previous business model. For

example, when a part of a retail shop chain's business migrates online, the fixed expenses of the brick-and-mortar store (including the overhead paid by headquarters on people and store support) remain. Making up that loss will be difficult for many businesses, and for others, harsh steps may be required. That is why, after years of deliberation, Walmart purchased the cheap retailer Jet.com in 2016. Its leaders realized that the disturbance couldn't be ignored any longer. Typically, the disturbance takes one of two forms. In certain circumstances, the new model almost entirely replaces the old. Prerecorded audio cassette, typewriter, and film photography are a few examples. The incumbents face an existential danger as a result of this broad change in value. Few of them are likely to survive. However, most disruptions are partial; new and old business models persist, splitting the market. The aggregate profit pools are big enough to support both business models, although in different shapes at times. Some legacy businesses adjust slowly to the new reality and continue to draw new clients. Online grocers, for example, have not replaced local supermarkets — and are unlikely to do so in the near future, owing to the high expenses of shipping fresh food and maintaining its quality. However, internet supermarkets are driving traditional food retailers to adapt by providing prepared dinners, fresh local products, and curbside pickup. Many partial interruptions might last indefinitely. Hotels and homesharing businesses will most likely coexist for a long time. In some circumstances, a business model disruption may begin as a partial disruption and progress to whole or near-total disruption, such as when the smartphone essentially replaced the digital camera. In any instance, the proper reaction is not to panic. Rather, it is to seek for methods to disrupt your own company and market by using the attributes that made you successful in the first place and continue to define you. This digital upheaval will have far-reaching consequences. Digital technology has already shown its potential to outperform or outmaneuver attempts to govern it. And the IT industry has shown its readiness to borrow from a wide range of businesses in the name of assisting businesses in competing. Finally, the advent of global-scale platforms — such as China's Belt and Road Initiative, Europe's

Industry 4.0 platform, and Amazon, Google, and Microsoft's cloudbased systems — will make it simpler for other industries to establish dynamic, disruptive new business models. The technology will not be a restriction for your organization. It will be your capacity to bring the three drives to bear: cost reduction, customer engagement, and greater asset use. If you can efficiently use digital technology to do this, you will be among the victors in the era of digital disruption. The term "digital disruption" refers to a shift brought about by rising digital technology and business paradigms. These revolutionary new technologies and models have the potential to alter the value of the industry's current goods and services. This is why the word "disruption" is used, since the appearance of these new digital products/services/businesses disturbs the existing market and necessitates a re-evaluation. The phrase "digital disruption" is said to have originated notion of disruptive innovation, which was presented in his book The Innovator's Dilemma. The shift that happens when new digital technologies and business models influence the value proposition of current products and services is the mainstream definition of digital disruption. According to Bill Bodin, CTO of Kony, Inc., the leading runners in our most recent cycle of digital disruption are smartphones and the Internet of Things (IoT). "With mobile, we now expect enterprise to offer multi-channel solutions," adds Bodin. "No matter what device they're using, employees and customers alike demand a quality experience." The Internet of Things brings distributed computers and apps to a new degree of ease and personalization." Digital disruption is the consequence of a new breed of disruptors that use digital tools and platforms to provide new value to consumers. Previously seen to be a danger solely to readily disrupt able industries such as music or newspapers, digital disruption is now threatening every major sector. It is powered by companies like Amazon, which has leveraged its unique technological knowledge and infrastructure to provide low-cost and disruptive tools to digital upstarts looking to sell their own products, publish their own books, or deliver new services at a low cost via the company's web services offering. These kinds of digital tools enable every industry to experiment with and become convinced of the inevitability of digital disruption, raising

alarm bells even in unlikely industries like healthcare and financial services, which have traditionally assumed that their heavily regulated status would insulate them for years to come. Digital disruption may occur on a variety of levels: 1.Individual living habits are disrupted (example: Mobile connectivity disrupts established work-life boundaries) 2.Workplace disruptions (for example, narrating labor through microblogging in the workplace alters what qualifies as (useful) work) 3.Business processes are being disrupted (example: Workplace social media disrupts the way information travels in the organization and induces shifts in power relationships) 4.Structures of industries are being disrupted (example: Digitization of media content and user-generated content disrupts traditional value chains of content production and delivery) 5.social system disruptions (example: Social media participation disrupts traditional practices of public opinion making) 10 business paradigms at the root of digital disruption: 1.The Subscription Model (Netflix, Dollar Shave Club, Apple Music) Disrupts through “lock-in” by taking a product or service that is traditionally purchased on an ad hoc basis, and locking-in repeat custom by charging a subscription fee for continued access to the product/service 2.The Freemium Model (Spotify, LinkedIn, Dropbox) Disrupts through digital sampling, where users pay for a basic service or product with their data or ‘eyeballs’, rather than money, and then charging to upgrade to the full offer. Works where marginal cost for extra units and distribution are lower than advertising revenue or the sale of personal data 3.The Free Model (Google, Facebook) Disrupts with an ‘if-you’re-notpaying-for-the-product-you-are-the-product’ model that involves selling

personal data or ‘advertising eyeballs’ harvested by offering consumers a ‘free’ product or service that captures their data/attention 4.The Marketplace Model (eBay, iTunes, App Store, Uber, AirBnB) Disrupts with the provision of a digital marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers directly, in return for a transaction or placement fee or commission 5.The Access-over-Ownership Model (Zipcar, Peerbuy, AirBnB) Disrupts by providing temporary access to goods and services traditionally only available through purchase. Includes ‘Sharing Economy’ disruptors, which takes a commission from people monetizing their assets (home, car, capital) by lending them to ‘borrowers’ 6.The Hypermarket Model (Amazon, Apple) Disrupts by ‘brand bombing’ using sheer market power and scale to crush competition, often by selling below cost price 7.The Experience Model (Tesla, Apple) Disrupts by providing a superior experience, for which people are prepared to pay 8.The Pyramid Model (Amazon, Microsoft, Dropbox) Disrupts by recruiting an army of resellers and affiliates who are often paid on a commission-only model 9.The On-Demand Model (Uber, Operator, Taskrabbit) Disrupts by monetizing time and selling instant-access at a premium. Includes taking a commission from people with money but no time who pay for goods and services delivered or fulfilled by people with time but no money 10.The Ecosystem Model (Apple, Google) Disrupts by selling an interlocking and interdependent suite of products and services that increase in value as more are purchased. Creates consumer dependency. Most people prefer to use the Kodak example (in which digital cameras wrecked their picture processing industry), which is still valid even if the world has changed. This emphasizes the significance of having someone in the organization always asking, "What are our rivals doing to disrupt our industry and our business model, and what can we do to remain ahead," given that digital disruption has

disrupted, destroyed, and revolutionized industries. Here are some recent instances that may give some direction on the kind of things to watch out for: 1.Monopolies can be toppled: Just because you have a monopoly, don’t assume someone can’t use digital to change the business model. Take Uber for example, this taxi app is very quickly disrupting the monopoly that Cab charge has enjoyed in the taxi market for many years. And it’s global. 2.Keep an eye on your competition: You may be able to charge a premium today, but be aware that technology may force you to squeeze your margins to stay competitive. Make sure you’re able to cope when this happens (how lean are you?). Take Liquid Space for example. This is an app which allows every office suite with any spare space to make money by renting that space by the hour, week, month etc. and may very well put an end to some of the high end serviced office offerings that charge incredible amounts of money for a casual desk and phone in your capital city. 3.The “Internet of Things”: Do you have someone who understands what the “internet of things” is and how it might impact on your business? Commodity businesses continue to see value being added by bringing together technology. Let’s face it, the iPhone was just a phone, music player and camera converged into one device – each item existed on its own before Apple created iPhone and it became the market leading media generation and consumption device. LIFX is another company making great strides in the digital arena and who is changing the way we think about the humble light bulb. LIFX has an energy efficient light bulb that can be controlled from your smart phone. If your core business is selling light bulbs, you now need to look at a whole different skill set in order to compete. This company is using the internet to add significant value to an item that was previously considered just a commodity. Digital Keys is another organization doing something similar with door locks. 4.Understanding New Competitors: How is someone going to redirect revenues that have traditionally come to your business, on to their business and how do you make sure that simply doesn’t happen? Hello Real Estate is putting the sale process for real estate back into

the hands of the seller. REA Group began a similar process with realestate.com.au but from a slightly different angle, concentrating their offerings on buyers and building a huge advertising business severely curtailing the amount of money spent on newspaper advertising. 5.Leveraging Innovation: How can you leverage your expertise and digital innovation to tap into a new revenue stream that will keep your business growing? Wearable devices such as Google glass, Fitbit, Catapult sports and others. There are new businesses being created all the time and generating revenues in ways that have never been thought about before. How can established firms withstand disruption from new entrants? The following are seven general techniques that industry incumbents — huge, legacy organizations – might use to combat digital disruptors. These seven tactics will almost always be utilized in tandem, and there is a logical sequence to their use. Companies that have survived or thrived in a technologically disruptive world have virtually always used several strategies. Examples include Fujifilm (rather than Kodak), Barnes & Noble (rather than Borders), and Apple (as opposed to Nokia). 1.The Block Strategy: The Block strategy involves the incumbent utilizing all means available to inhibit the disruptor. These means can include claiming patent or copyright infringement, erecting regulatory hurdles, and using other legal barriers. Blocking works well as an opening strategy, and has been used effectively by payment providers to block new entrants such as PayPal, and by movie companies to block YouTube and other video sites. If not used, or when used incorrectly, the results can be disastrous, as has been the case with the music industry. The advantages of this strategy are that it provides a relatively inexpensive way to preserve markets, and builds on the market power and extensive web of industry relationships that most incumbents enjoy. The major disadvantage is that it is only effective in the short to medium term. The Block strategy only buys time to develop and implement other strategies. 2.The Milk Strategy: This strategy involves extracting the most value possible from vulnerable businesses while preparing for the inevitable

disruption. The Milk strategy has three sub-components. First, harvest, or maintain margins as high as possible for as long as possible. Second, elevate, or raise the perceptions of value in the minds of average consumers. This elevation can be achieved by adding features and investing in brand building. Third, rationalize, or plan for the necessary cuts and layoffs, and execute them ruthlessly when the disruption arrives. The advantage of this strategy is that revenues and margins for the vulnerable business can be maintained much longer if managed carefully. The disadvantage of the Milk strategy, like the Block strategy, is that it is hard to maintain over a long period of time. 3.The Invest in Disruption Strategy: This strategy involves actively investing in the disruptive threat, including disruptive technologies, human capabilities, digitized processes, or perhaps acquiring companies with these attributes. The invest strategy prepares for the disruption head on, but may lead to strong internal resistance from legacy business areas. It can also be expensive, and comes with an uncertain payback. Amazon and Microsoft have both been very active in developing or acquiring capabilities that carry the potential to disrupt their core businesses. The Invest strategy can be implemented in conjunction with the Block and Milk strategies. 4.The Disrupt the Current Business Strategy: This strategy involves launching a new product or service that competes directly with the disruptor, and can be very effective as it allows the incumbent to leverage inherent strengths such as size, market knowledge, brand, access to capital, and relationships to build the new business. The disadvantage is obvious – the new lines can severely cannibalize existing businesses. However, if timed correctly, self-cannibalization is a much better outcome than business lost to a competitor. Clearly, timing is critical when disrupting a core business, and the likelihood of internal resistance is significant. For these reasons, this strategy is rarely used, leading to damaging disruption in many industries such as mapping, cameras, and retail. However, there are occasions when it has been used successfully, by companies such as Intel (with the Celeron chip cannibalizing the Pentium), Apple (with the iPhone 5c cannibalizing the iPhone 5s), and Amazon (with the Kindle app cannibalizing the Kindle reader).

5.Retreat into a Strategic Niche: This strategy involves focusing on a niche segment of the core market where disruption is less likely to occur. The Retreat strategy often results is a much smaller market size than the legacy core segment. However, these smaller niche markets can remain profitable, and existing capabilities can be used to serve them. Examples of companies that have used this strategy are travel agents switching from generic travel services to focus on complicated travel itineraries and corporate accounts, Barnes and Noble moving into college bookstores, and Kodak offering high end printing services. By itself, this strategy will result in massive restructuring due to the smaller market size, but in conjunction with other strategies, it can provide a profitable niche business. 6.Redefine the Core Strategy: This strategy involves building an entirely new business model, often in an adjacent industry where it is possible to leverage existing knowledge and capabilities. On the plus side, this strategy side steps the challenges and constraints of the disrupted legacy business. On the negative side, it is extremely difficult to redesign an organization to compete in an entirely new business area. Nevertheless, there are some examples of organizations that have pursued this strategy successfully. Fujifilm took their capability in attaching chemicals to film and entered the cosmetics industry, and IBM moved a large part of their business from hardware to services and consulting. 7.Exit Strategy: The final strategy involves exiting the business entirely and returning capital to investors, ideally through a sale of the business while value still exists. Most companies that fail to avoid disruption wait too long and end up capturing only a fraction of their legacy value. Examples of companies in this category include Blockbuster, Borders, and Radioshack. However, some companies have managed to extract substantial value for disrupted businesses, like Nokia selling its handset business to Microsoft, and MySpace selling itself to News Corp. Strong brands and an effective Milk strategy can maintain value for longer periods of time, allowing the Exit strategy to become a viable one. The terms Digital Disruption and Disruptive Technology are sometimes used interchangeably. The word "digital disruption" is

distinct from the term "disruptive technology." When it comes to digital disruptions vs. disruptive technologies, the former is just a disruption created by technological progress that affects certain company kinds, whilst the latter is a whole revolutionary technology that alters the way people operate – forever. As a result, the impact of disruptive technology affects a large number of organizations and sectors. Uber and Netflix are instances of digital disruption; they influence a certain market sector. The following example of disruptive technology demonstrates how it differs from and is more harmful than digital disruption. The development of the PC was the most powerful example of disruptive technology. It was not just a digital disruption, but a disruptive technology that revolutionized the way people worked — permanently – across all market sectors. While the Netflix example (digital disruption) is now affecting just the entertainment sector, the PC (disruptive Technology) has revolutionized the way people work in all areas of the economy. Email (which changed the communication style from paper to electronic) and smartphones are two further instances of disruptive technologies (killed traditional phone business). Another example is that, although smartphones are a digital disruption technology, applications like WhatsApp constitute a digital disruption to phone carriers since they enable calling and messaging at much cheaper charges, dramatically reducing their market sector. In brief, digital disruption might be seen as an impediment that can be overcome by modifying a few business procedures. While disruptive technology forces individuals to drastically remodel their firms or shut them down. Digital disruption has an impact on the company by requiring a complete change in current processes and technology or by requiring the creation of wholly new operational models. "Automotive corporations have constructed cabins that are now interactive and reliant on mobile devices in many ways." In real time, railways monitor inventory, speed, and safety. And personal mobile monitoring in health care is now expanding the quality and duration of life," adds Bodin. "These and other situations are wrapped in security implications and privacy issues, but all of these problems are addressed when each solution is built on a platform that combines strong client security with good back end service protections." Enterprises should see digital

disruption as an opportunity, says Kevin Strohmeyer, senior director of product marketing for VMware Workspace Services. "When information is acquired or transactions are conducted in real time, a new wave of process automation is available." As a consequence, we may see fewer and fewer process roles, freeing up the organization to spend its human resources where it is most valuable, at the point of value." Digital disruption causes a total end-to-end transformation in how businesses operate. These shifts have created an unfamiliar digital world for so-called legacy businesses, such as those in the telecommunications sector, and are requiring a change in how to become digital actors in this new ecosystem. "This is why, from a business, technological, and marketplace standpoint, the requirement for a standardized and common language will become more crucial," says Craig Bachmann, senior director of the TM Forum's Open Digital initiative. The Internet of Things (or, as Bachmann put it, IoE, Internet of Everything) is a driving factor behind digital disruption, enabling an infinite chance to innovate and build disruptive technological services and products. "Determining how to commercialize it is one of the largest potential for disruption in the field of IoE," adds Bachmann. "New IoE business models lack the simplicity of classic pipeline supply chains, and as technology enables a digital set of capabilities to overlay complicated business models, we will see substantial shifts brought about by new business models." As technology progresses, the Internet of Things (or IoE) will become an ever more important aspect of digital disruption. More sensors will be installed, more data will be gathered, and the outcomes based on all of this information will become more intelligent. However, although this creates an unparalleled possibility for commercial application, there will still be a need to be aware of and cautious of this large volume of data. One of the issues of digital disruption is figuring out how to control the flood of data from IoT devices. While new technologies have the potential to improve the way we work, it’s explained that many enterprises struggle to see the full value of these tools because employees lack the motivation, and more importantly, the skills and proficiency required to fully utilize those tools. Work may be disrupted by technology in both beneficial and bad ways. "When this occurs, productivity suffers, cooperation suffers, and company objectives are

missed," Rigby explains. "Once employees are motivated to take a digital step, enterprises must lay the right foundation to enable them to maximize their productivity potential by providing access to training and learning, self-help resources, and how-to support so they can better understand and optimize the tools at their disposal." The digital transition has the ability to unleash the full value of data. However, the urge to collect, use, and keep all of this data comes with the danger that it may be stolen. 7 Ways for Businesses to Survive Digital Disruption: 1.Don't change only for the sake of changing: It is hard to keep up with every evolving technology, and attempting to do so can overburden your IT personnel. Remember that just because something is conceivable does not imply that it is logical. Even logical ideas may violate current data rules and other legal restrictions. Rather than changing for the sake of transforming, concentrate on adjustments that will result in a true competitive advantage. Attempt to improve corporate processes and raise the value of goods or services. Built-in customer experience metrics, for example, have been demonstrated to increase ROI. In conclusion, prioritize adjustments that will result in long-term and meaningful distinctiveness. 2. Be wary of old systems masquerading as disruptive innovations: Businesses now have unparalleled levels of agility because to disruptive technology. Established corporations are aware of this and are developing all-in-one solutions that do nothing more than disguise outdated systems while promising more flexibility. However, the fact is that merchants are far more tied in than before. To fully appreciate the possibilities of today's digital economy, be wary of hidden hurdles, bogus services, and spruced-up outdated systems. "In fact, not only will the volume and variety of new data used and stored by enterprises put strain on existing security technology and practices, but that same increase in data quantity and value will actually provide even greater incentives for attackers to steal information," says Micro Focus' Geoff Webb. "If, at its core, digitalization raises the value of data, as it does, then it also serves as a siren call to hackers who want the same data." 3.Make customer-focused adjustments:

Small and big businesses alike are motivated by a same underlying goal: to deliver a solution. While embracing disruptive technology to change corporate processes, it is critical not to lose sight of this purpose. Connect with target audiences by using digital advancements. Keep an eye on them. Take notice of their aches and pains. What adjustments may be made to reduce friction and enhance the end-user experience? 4.It's not enough to be good enough : if it ain't busted, don't repair it, right? No, not exactly. Things have changed and will continue to change in the future. Even best-of-breed technology with a track record of success are no longer enough to assure your company's survival. Good enough is no longer sufficient, particularly when new businesses with inventive, digital-native thinking on board invest in cutting-edge solutions. If you're still using an outdated system that does the job but only has a fraction of the capabilities of newer systems, it may be time to upgrade. 5.Complex technology, simple solutions: The objective is to provide a solution. Many businesses get so engrossed in the newest and best in technology that they utterly overcomplicate their answer. Use technology to automate procedures, shorten delivery times, monitor crucial KPIs, and boost the value of your business. Some of the most innovative organizations are founded on the most basic concepts. Netflix, for example, offers on-demand movies and TV episodes. Uber connects drivers and passengers. Airbnb links tourists with private lodging providers. Each offers its consumers a simple, effective, and direct answer. 6.Create a dependable team: Conducting a digital transformation requires all aspects of organization, including IT, marketing, finance, human resources, and others. Strategic recruitment is essential for overcoming the next wave of innovation. It is necessary to have a dependable, adaptable, and competent staff on your side. The best workers mix strategy, hardware and software deployment, and customer experience to synthesize information. They may think widely as well as in minute detail to evaluate how new technologies that fit into one element of a firm will effect the larger picture. The appropriate individuals can help foster

important ideas and inventions. 7.Distributed business models should be preferred: Single sources of processing power for each department are no longer sufficient. Successfully exploiting new technology to improve both internal and external user experiences is dependent on the smooth integration of several services. Cloud-based solutions may improve capabilities and convenience for all parties involved, including suppliers, vendors, partners, and consumers. Remember that data is a company's most valuable asset. It necessitates a safe, dependable, and effective method of sharing that data with others – no matter where they are in the globe – all while managing rising IT complexity. Self-evaluation is essential. The tables are being turned. Those who can adapt will get benefits, but those who can disrupt will reap even greater advantages. You must engage in self-evaluation if you want to stay competitive. Don't let yourself be a victim of the changing times. Fight for the benefit of being the first to market. Disruptive technologies have been changing the market drastically. Let’s examine some of them: i)E-commerce ii)Video on demand iii)Distance education iv)Home automation v)IoT - Internet of Things vi)Big data vii)Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning viii)Sharing economies ix)Virtual and augmented reality x)Blockchain xi)Digital payments xii)Motor vehicles

What’s the impact of digital disruption in transforming a business?

1.New business models appear With digital disruption, business models aren’t focused on the masses, but on needs segmented from small groups, reaching more people in these specific audiences. Even digital platforms whose target audience is the greater public use these segmentation strategies to suggest more personalized options to their users, for example, streaming and food platforms like Netflix and Uber Eats.

2.Customer relations have changed Products and services were the focus before, but with digital disruption, the client is at the center of strategies. Therefore, digital media have an essential role in encouraging, customizing, and maintaining this relationship. These strategies oriented towards customers are also known as customer-centric.

3.Internal structures are reinvented Digital disruption requires flexible structures that offer fast responses according to the market and customers’ needs. An example of reinvented internal structures is process transformation. Some processes that were not online before, such as meetings and remote work, now became digital.

4.New production channels and systems are used Since the customer is the companies' focus, they select distribution channels to assist and become closer to consumers. Furthermore, the priority is the customer experience at all times. Here we can use other forms of communication, such as WhatsApp or social media, in a more centralized fashion using a CRM omnichannel tool.

5.New economic models arise Systems change, and we can observe new models, such as collaborative economies, blockchains, and fintechs. Technology isn't the only thing that drives innovation. It's all about innovative business models that make use of technology. Is it possible for technology to transform the world? This is a valid topic to ask, particularly given the list of disruptive emergent technologies that are at the heart of the digital revolution. However, with today's sophisticated technology, you might transform numerous sectors. Innovation is not about technology; it is about identifying a problem and devising a solution that alters the way the issue is being addressed. Then, when it comes time to turn that notion into a reality, you have a plethora of technological levers at your disposal. We had three to five technological levers to build solutions five years ago. Today, we have established technologies such as social and mobile, as well as developing technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). This effectively allows you to construct any situation you can think of. Here is a list of the six sectors that are most susceptible to digital disruption: 1.Entertainment and the media: According to Embee, the media business has been the most affected

by digital disruption. Physical media's replacement by digital players has been gradual yet revolutionary. The convergence of mobility, cloud, and video is continually changing to meet the demands of busy millennials who consume even entertainment on the move. This tendency will continue as long as disruptors continue to provide more content alternatives across a variety of distribution channels. 2.Products and services related to technology: Innovation is at the heart of the technology business, and it will continue to accelerate at an alarming rate. In recent years, we have seen technologies such as Cloud and Analytics arise and completely transform organisations that use them, and now we have the Internet of Things, 3D printing, Augmented and Virtual Reality, and Blockchain technologies reshaping enterprises. It goes without saying that the digital disruption will have a significant influence on the technology sector, and organisations must be nimble in execution if they wish to drive their own transformation. 3.Services related to finance: For the financial services business, digital is becoming the norm. Tasks that were formerly accomplished manually via human contact are now completed totally through digital interfaces. Almost every sort of financial activity – from wealth management to payments to banking – is being restructured by start-ups, with technology acting as a changing agent. Financial services firms are seeking to Blockchain and Fintech to revolutionise their present business models, while developments in artificial intelligence and robotics are being pursued to provide new avenues for growth, and Machine Learning is being pursued for breakthroughs in automation. 4.Retail: The retail landscape has shifted. The Retail business is being reshaped by digital disruption in terms of power, customer behaviour, and the marketplace as a whole. Unlike in the past, the client now has complete control over important choices such as what to purchase, when to buy, where to buy, and how to buy. Thus, retailers are using technology such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and Augmented or Virtual Reality to better understand customer preferences and enhance corporate performance.

Furthermore, despite the fact that eCommerce and mobile shopping have been around for a long time, businesses are still battling to use the necessary technologies to link systems and deliver a smooth consumer experience. According to a recent analysis by Hitachi and Microsoft, this is the most significant obstacle. This is most likely due to the fact that deploying such enterprise level technological solutions necessitates a paradigm shift not just in strategy but also in organisational structure and attitude. Futuristic retailers use analytics, sensors, and location services to deliver context-aware experiences that fit the precise demands of their consumers at any given time. 5.Telecommunications: Consider Reliance Jio, WhatsApp, Skype, and Spotify to appreciate how much the telecoms business has been impacted. However, we believe that the telecom sector has been experiencing sluggish growth in recent years and that it must (and can) use Digital Disruption as a chance to re-establish their companies, develop new offers, and reestablish their market positions. With 5 to 10 linked gadgets in the typical house, telecom is becoming the orchestrator of digital commodities in family homes. 6.Education: Because of digital disruption, educational institutions have been able to rearrange their learning processes, making them more accessible, inexpensive, and pleasurable for students. According to Accenture's Global Value of Higher Education research, 80 percent of university students think that digital skills are vital when deciding which university to attend, and 70 percent want their institution to employ more digital tools, both inside and outside the classroom. 81 percent want technology integrated into the classroom experience, online access to resources, and online availability of courses. Students from various walks of life are finding it simpler to continue their education because to the fast expansion of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The usage of audio-visual materials, as well as collaboration and teamwork solutions, enables learners to actively engage in projects and become more future-ready. Digital disruption is sweeping the organizational landscape, replacing or fundamentally altering long-held business ideas and practices. In

addition to generating new efficiencies, possibilities, and even whole markets, digital transformation has also resulted in a number of key fallacies. These contemporary folk tales, if accepted by company executives, have the potential to delay or even kill a digital disruption strategy. How proficient are you at distinguishing between truth and fiction? If you accept any of the seven misconceptions listed below, your digital disruption plan may be doomed: 1. The primary cause of digital disruption is a technological problem: Digital disruption should be used to support a corporate plan. According to Bryan Throckmorton, head of the digital transformation and strategy group at management consulting company Protiviti, a technology-only mindset may cause a business to squander substantial effort in terms of both time and money. Focusing on technology while downplaying or even disregarding commercial merit might result in capital expenditures being shifted to initiatives with just a tenuous link to business value, at best. "It may also lead to... spending an incredible amount of effort attempting to persuade business users differently," Throckmorton says. "While experimenting with new technologies is a good thing, if you're going to put in the effort, get the proper stakeholders engaged early so that innovation initiatives are clearly linked to desired business objectives." According to Throckmorton, the key to digital success is to focus on a certain business sector that may actually separate the organization from its competitors. "If you can identify that [business area], your digital activities will be in support of your strategy, and you will have a greater understanding of how these technologies might effect your strategy." 2. Digital disruption will help struggling businesses: Todd Lohr, a senior and practice leader at professional services company KPMG, comments that there are no silver bullets for digital transformation. "Too frequently, organizations assess [business] success based on the installation of a disruptive technology — AI, IoT, Blockchain, and so on — expecting that doing so will produce the outcomes." However, this is seldom the case. According to Lohr, technology should only be used as part of a digital disruption plan. "You must also pay attention to changes in both business and

operational models, as well as the change management that comes with transformation." He recommends integrating a forward-looking vision of the company and its multiple operating models with an integrated architecture to achieve beneficial outcomes. "This will often include a variety of technologies," Lohr observes. "Also, keep in mind the personnel effect of the change and invest in change management throughout the programme." 3. Digital disruption necessitates starting from scratch: In an era where company change must be swift and nimble, a scorched-earth response to digital disruption may be daunting and impractical. "It may also lead to doing new things in old ways," says Andi Mann, CTO of business video platform vendor Qumu. Mann thinks that a more practical response to digital disruption is to find methods to innovate and simplify current capabilities. "By expanding and innovating on the skills we currently have and leveraging what we already have to achieve new things in new ways, both internally and for our customers, we can profoundly transform the way we conduct business." 4. Digital disruption is an unavoidable reaction to external circumstances: Organizations often fear being driven into disruption by the actions of a rival or upstart. "'Disruption' is a negative term that is often described as a disruption to an event, activity, or process," explains James Chedalavada, IT director at process management and workflow automation expert Nintex. While external pressure might occasionally force businesses to launch a hastily devised digital disruption effort, this is far from a logical reaction. "This notion might cause businesses to become more guarded or defensive," Chedalavada warns. Enterprises that rush into a knee-jerk digital disruption strategy tend to obsess about how their competitors will respond, stifling their own development and capacity to innovate and think outside the box. "It's OK to analyses your competitor's market," Chedalavada adds, "but it should complement your own innovation." According to Chedalavada, disruption leads to creativity. "Why wait for others to disturb you when you may be the disruptor?" He exhorts IT executives to think creatively about their own products and procedures. "Innovate before you fall

behind in the innovation game," Chedalavada advises. "Many firms are now following this road in order to remain creative and continually adapt." 5. Industry titans are engaged in a game of digital disruption: It's a frequent misconception that digital disruption is just for major corporations like Amazon, Google, and Apple, or "the greatest rivals in your market," according to Thomas Phelps, CIO of business content management platform vendor Laserfiche. Phelps points out that digital disruption has a long history of catapulting small businesses and startups into the tech stratosphere. "Think about how Amazon, Netflix, and others got started and how many times they had to reinvent their business models to discover ones that were actually disruptive and effective," he adds. Organizations of every size or kind may become digital disruption leaders. "Change requires companies to overcome cultural inertia," Phelps says. "[Disruption] also provides an opportunity for IT and business executives at all sizes to engage in experimentation and creativity." In the age of digital upheaval, there are winners and losers. "Those who see disruption as a negative thing or believe time is on their side will be surprised, given the rate of disruption today," Phelps says. "Winners will accept that digital disruption is unavoidable and will foster a culture of experimentation and creativity." 6. Digital disruption is destroying employment – and employee morale: According to Kevin Hall, CTO at Ripcord, a firm that uses robotics and deep machine learning to digitize and organize data, digital disruption is often feared due to the mistaken belief that it eliminates jobs and, ultimately, is just another way for enterprises to focus on the bottom line rather than their employees. He observes that this is a rather short-sighted approach. "Without disruption, companies and individuals would be forced to continue executing the same procedures and activities they have always done." Hall cites an early example of digital disruption as evidence. "The prominence of paper documents in the everyday operation of a company has been significantly impacted by digital workflows driven by collaboration tools, process automation, and cloud document services," he adds. "Employees who were previously charged with physically looking for

physical documents or data and keying in thousands of line items may now concentrate on boosting processing volume and managing procedures." These are crucial new talents that will allow employees to develop with the firm. Organizations that embrace digital disruption strategically position themselves and their employees for success in the future. "There are several instances of how digital disruption has had a good influence, particularly in detecting a customer's demands and developing a solution." As examples, he cites firms such as Netflix, Uber, and Instacart. "My best piece of advise for smaller firms is to not be scared to question the status quo and explore new disruptive technology." 7. Digital disruption is a choice: According to Alex Kalish, chief strategy and solutions officer of Stratix, a company that produces enterprise-class mobility products and services, the largest digital disruption myth is assuming that your organization is immune. "There is a propensity to believe that just some sectors or activities risk possible disruption, rather than knowing that practically everything today faces some type of change," he adds. Kalish advises approaching digital disruption with vigor while being cautious. "The best approach to deal with digital disruption is to lead rather than react," he argues. Believing that your firm will be unaffected by digital disruption is perilous because it puts you at risk of falling behind. Years of virtually unbridled excitement for the advantages of the internet have been followed by a time of techlash, as consumers are concerned about actors who utilize the internet's speed, reach, and complexity for malicious reasons. The digital disruption of democracy has been a major worry during the last four years, throughout the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, the American presidential election, and a number of other elections. The search for solutions is in its early stages. Resistance to giant internet businesses located in the United States is growing, and several tech pioneers have joined the clamour. Governments are aggressively examining technology corporations, and some technology firms have requested government regulation. Furthermore, charitable organizations and foundations are dedicating resources toward determining the best solutions for mitigating the

negative consequences of disruption. The Knight Foundation, for example, stated in 2019 that it would provide $50 million in grants to stimulate the formation of a new area of study based on the influence of technology on democracy. In response to this uproar, the Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center polled technology professionals in the summer of 2019 to learn about the possible future impacts of people's usage of technology on democracy. In all, 979 technology innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, academics, and activists answered the following question: The influence of technology on democratic institutions and representation: How will the use of technology by people, civil society organizations, and governments alter essential features of democracy and democratic representation between now and 2030? Will they mostly undermine basic features of democracy and democratic representation, primarily increase core aspects of democracy and democratic representation, or primarily make little difference in core aspects of democracy and democratic representation? In the next decade, 49 percent of these respondents believe that technology will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation, 33 percent believe that technology will mostly strengthen core aspects of democracy and democratic representation, and 18 percent believe there will be no significant change. This is a nonscientific survey with a non-random sample. The findings reflect just the thoughts of those who replied to the inquiry and cannot be generalized to any other demographic. The approach driving this canvassing is described in detail here. The majority of this report is devoted to these experts' written replies, which explain their views. In addition to the experts' overwhelming belief that democracy would be harmed, a substantial majority of all respondents – including both pessimists and optimists – expressed issues that they feel should be addressed in order to maintain democracy thriving. Their concerns often revolve around the interaction of trust, truth, and democracy, a group of topics that has shaped major Pew Studies research in recent months. Some expert responses follow this logic: The abuse of digital technology to alter and weaponize information undermines people's faith in institutions and each other. This loss of confidence influences

people's perceptions of whether democratic procedures and institutions created to empower citizens are effective. Some believe that the information and trust environment would deteriorate by 2030 as a result of the proliferation of video deepfakes, cheapfakes, and other misleading strategies. They are concerned that this downward spiral towards denial and despair is linked to the longrunning problems of genuine, independent media. Furthermore, many of these experts express concern about the survival of democracy as a result of the strength and involvement of large technology corporations in democratic debate, as well as the way those businesses abuse the data they gather about users. Jonathan Morgan, senior design researcher at the Wikimedia Foundation, characterized the issue thus way while explaining why he believes technology would largely damage basic parts of democracy and democratic representation: "I'm primarily worried about three things." 1) The use of social media by interested organizations to disseminate misinformation in a planned, organized manner with the goal of weakening people's faith in institutions and/or influencing them to believe things that are not true. 2) The role of private, closed platforms managed by profit-driven firms in distributing information to people, gathering data from (and about) individuals, and engaging political stakeholder groups. These platforms were not intended to be "digital commons," are not equally accessible to all users, and are not operated to promote social welfare or broad-based civic involvement. Profit objectives, corporate strategies, data-gathering techniques, process/procedural opacity and power (and hence resistance against prosocial legislation) make these corporations unsuitable for supporting democracy. 3) The growing role of surveillance by digital platform owners (and other economic actors that collect and transact digital trace data) as well as state actors, as well as the increasing power of machine learning-powered surveillance technologies for capturing and analyzing data, endangers the public's ability to engage in civic discussions safely and equitably." Those who are more hopeful believe that effective answers to these difficulties will emerge since people are always adapting and can utilize technology to tackle the challenges that democracy faces. Those who do not foresee significant change feel that humans' use of technology will continue to

be a pretty consistent mix of both good and bad societal results. Themes Concerning the Digital Disruption of Democracy in the Coming Decade: Concerns about the Future of Democracy: 1.Imbalance of Power: Democracy is under threat because those in power will want to retain it by erecting mechanisms that benefit them rather than the majority. Too few people in the general population are knowledgeable enough to oppose this claim of authority. 2.EMPOWERING THE STRONG In general, corporate and government objectives do not support democratic ideals and results. They advance the interests of those in power. 3.REDUCING THE GOVERNED Surveillance capitalism that is digitally networked generates an undemocratic class structure that pits the controllers against the controlled. 4.DIGITAL ILLITERACY EXPLORATION Citizens' lack of digital fluency and indifference result in an uninformed and/or disinterested public, undermining democracy and society's fabric. 5.WAR ON INFO-WARS Technology will be weaponized in order to target susceptible groups and to manipulate elections. Concerns about trust: Misinformation and disinformation are eroding public confidence in numerous organisations. 6.SPREADING CONFUSION Reality distortion caused by technology is eroding already unstable public faith in democratic institutions. 7.JOURNALISM IS DYING There seems to be no answer to the difficulties posed by the increase of tribalism enabled by social media and the demise of credible, independent journalism. 8.TOO SLOW RESPONSE As the pace of change quickens, the speed, scope, and influence of

manipulation technologies may be difficult to overcome. Themes Concerning the Digital Disruption of Democracy in the Coming Decade: Expectations and Suggestions: 1.Innovating is unavoidable: Individuals and societal systems are starting to undergo change. History demonstrates that human adaptation pays dividends in the long term. 2.INDIVIDUALS EVOLVING More public awareness, improved digital literacy, and increased educational participation will be seen during the next decade. 3.SYSTEMS OF ADAPTION Changes in the design of human systems, as well as a more positive mindset among engineers, will benefit democracy. 4.VALUES ENSHRINING Deeply ingrained human tendencies have long posed a threat to democratic principles. Historically, though, inspirational individuals have shown that they can transcend these darker impulses. Change will be brought about via leadership and active struggle. 5.WORKING FOR THE BETTER Governments, enlightened leaders, and activists will assist in steering policies and democratic processes in order to generate better democratic results. Technology will play a role in the solution: some of the technological instruments that are now weakening democracy will come to its assistance, and beneficial technologies will be developed. 6.AIDING REFORMS The growth of technology and technologies such as artificial intelligence will help in the implementation of pro-democracy governance solutions. Those will advocate for trustworthy free speech and increased citizen empowerment. Some of the most remarkable remarks regarding democracy's present crisis may be found in the following responses: "Democracy demands the people to come together and work through disagreements in order to self-govern,". That is a difficult undertaking even in the best of circumstances, but when the public feels nervous, afraid, confused, or otherwise insecure, they are more prone to

withdraw from the collective and concentrate on their own interests. Technology is causing havoc. This may serve to spark good change, but it can also cause a great deal of worry. Power is also reconfigured by technology, at least briefly. This may be advantageous to social movements, but it can also be advantageous to antagonistic actors. All too often, technology is developed naively, seeing all of the good but failing to include protections to avoid the bad. The issue is that technology reflects and intensifies the good, terrible, and ugly in daily life. And right now, we lack the protections, security, and rules to prevent manipulators from causing serious damage using technology created to link people and share knowledge." "Today we have the ability to amass massive amounts of data, create new types of data, weaponize it, and create and move markets without governance structures sufficient to protect consumers, patients, residents, investors, customers, and others – not to mention governments," said Susan Etlinger, an industry analyst with the Altimeter Group. If we want to defend democracy, we must act thoughtfully, but also quickly. Reversing the harm caused by the 'fake news' period was difficult enough before synthetic content; it will become far more difficult once deepfake news becomes the norm. I'm less concerned about sentient robots than I am about massively altering reality and abusing actual people's human rights. As a result, it is incumbent on both public and commercial organizations to implement suitable legislation, and on individuals to become conscientious consumers of digital information, wherever and wherever we obtain it." "It was foolish to expect that technology would help democratic institutions," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. This became clear when technology firms tried to exclude themselves very quickly from the laws and democratic principles that regulated other businesses in areas such as political advertising, privacy protection, product liability, and transparency. The imperative for democratic decision-making was replaced by the language of "multi-stakeholder procedures." The result was an instantaneous and far-reaching buildup of power and money. Techniques for isolating and silencing political opponents, reducing collective action, and putting crucial personnel alongside political

leaders, including the president. And this with the assistance of a weakened political system that has been seduced by technology while failing to appreciate the tremendous changes that are taking place." "I am deeply concerned that democracy is under siege through abuse of online services and some seriously gullible citizens who have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction or who are wrapped up in conspiracy theories or who are unable or unwilling to exercise critical thinking,". We are seeing a decline in faith in our institutions, which is being fueled in part by disinformation and misinformation efforts aimed at achieving that goal and inciting rebellion. Social networking platforms are causing feedback loops that lead to extremism. Metrics such as 'likes,' 'views,' and 'following' are increased by expressing extreme material. Trolls exploit medium that encourages comment to inject poison into debate. Constant cyberattacks reveal personal information and allow intellectual property theft. Tools for facilitating assaults are freely accessible and are used to build botnets, launch denial-of-service attacks, distribute malware, execute ransom demands, and a variety of other undesirable activities. The global nature of the internet/web, as well as a lack of efficient cooperation law enforcement agreements across national borders, provide challenges to law enforcement. Privacy is being misused in order to conduct crimes or other destructive behaviors. At the same time, considering the ease with which information can be transmitted and retrieved on the internet, privacy is incredibly difficult to come by. Nation-states and organized criminals are aggressively taking advantage of flaws in internet ecosystems. Despite the problems stated above, large volumes of helpful knowledge are constantly discovered and employed to good use. The problem is to develop solutions to retain all of the internet's valuable characteristics while safeguarding it from misuse. If we fail, the internet may deteriorate into a fragmented system that delivers just a fraction of its promise. Meanwhile, democracy suffers." Still, others have said that they believe human processes and instruments will adapt to address some of the emerging threats to democracy. "There is a long history of new media forms producing initial disruption

upon introduction and then being adopted into society as a constructive force,". This is exactly what occurred with print in the early 1500s and newspapers more than a century ago. New technologies, like wild animals, need time for societies to tame. I'm not dismissing the turbulence that lies ahead (the next five to seven years will not be pleasant), but there is a brighter digital highland on the other side of the present upheaval." Former president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Brad Templeton, an internet pioneer, futurist, and activist, remarked, "There will be numerous dangers to the democratic process that arise via our new medium." There will be countermeasures to such dangers, as well as items that will enhance the process. Nobody can predict how the balance of these factors will play out without knowing what the new risks and rewards will be, the majority of which have yet to be developed. It is undeniably true that previous analyses overestimated the risks. Hopefully, this will happen less often." Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center who is now authoring a book on technology, trust, and deceit, and the creator of the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, provided one of the most comprehensive and intelligent responses to the canvassing issue. She elected not to pick any of the three options presented in this poll, instead giving two potential possibilities for 2030 and beyond. "Democracy is in shambles," she stated in one scenario. The "ancient reaction" — the public's fear-driven move toward authoritarianism – is triggered by disasters caused or aided by technology. "Post-capitalist democracy triumphs" in the second scenario. Fairness and equality of opportunity are acknowledged to benefit everybody. The benefits of automation are distributed to the whole population. Education investments stimulate critical thinking as well as creative, scientific, and technical inventiveness. New voting systems are increasingly emphasizing direct democracy — artificial intelligence (AI) turns voter choices into legislation." In this canvassing, the democratic pessimists present numerous reasons and predict several results. A portion believes that there will be insufficient reform in the design and management of technology platforms; that government will not respond in the best interests of

citizens; that the speed, scope, and impact of digital tools all work in favor of bad actors; and that educational processes and growing citizen awareness of the flaws now emerging in tech systems will not significantly reduce the known harms that networked digital technologies can enable in the next decade. This section expands on each of the most popular topics. Some replies have been gently altered to improve readability. Concerns about the future of democracy: 1.In the responses of those who are most concerned about the influence of technology on democracy, two major themes emerge. The first is related to their belief that democracy is under threat because people in power aim to keep their power by erecting structures that benefit them rather than the majority. According to these respondents, elites' dominance over technological systems provides them with new weapons and techniques to increase their power, including weaponizing technology. The rising disparity erodes people's conviction in their own agency and effect as citizens in their democracy. As a consequence of the resultant fatalism, some people abandon democracy, handing over greater power to the elites. 2.The second major worry is related to concerns of trust. These experts are concerned that the spread of misinformation and disinformation is eroding public faith in many institutions, including one another, reducing incentives to reform and rebuild such institutions. The first theme is empowering the powerful. Theme 1 :In general, corporate and government objectives do not support democratic ideals and results. They advance the interests of those in power. Responses to this topic include: The crisis has arrived. At the moment, just a few large firms dominate our digital life, and individuals have no voice. "Unless society controls democratic procedures to prevent exploitation, we have to presume that those who can get away with it would in fact get away with it,". Politicians have a great motivation to exploit technology to win elections. This is not matched by the eagerness of citizens' representatives to utilize technology to learn

about and solve people's concerns. There is no movement to enhance democracy via the use of technology. Improving openness in government, raising public understanding of social challenges and options, and other comparable initiatives are critical. We did not unleash the electrical beast on our people without rules and precautions. In contrast, it seems like we are unleashing the privacyeating monsters of technology on internet and telecom customers." "The problem is now," said Neal Gorenflo, cofounder, chief editor, and executive director of Shareable, an award-winning nonprofit news platform. At the moment, just a few large firms dominate our digital life, and individuals have no voice. If this monopolistic system and the massive power imbalance between platforms and users persist, democratic institutions will continue to deteriorate. Furthermore, digital culture is becoming mainstream culture. Speed, scalability, efficiency, convenience, a contempt for the law (move quickly and smash things; beg forgiveness, not permission), and a distaste, if not hate, of authority are all prized in tech culture — the right ingredients for fascism. Tech monopolies and culture are radically influencing our lives and perceptions for profit, at the price of our capacity to comprehend the world, connect constructively to one another, feel valued, and have some influence over our circumstances. If not addressed, this will result in a breakdown in our capacity to govern ourselves effectively, maybe before 2030." "I fear that a combination of political-marketing interests and antidemocratic forces within and outside the United States will create an environment of concocted stories (often reflecting conspiracy theories) targeted in hyper-personalized ways," said Joseph Turow, professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Because there will be so many mass-customized versions and news audiences will be so dispersed, it will be practically hard for the press and civic organizations to follow and/or contest falsehoods or emphasize true statements to the voters efficiently. Simultaneously, those vying for office will persuade a sizable portion of the public to refuse to interact with or mislead pollsters who do not reflect their districts. These long-term dynamics will weaken our conventional notion of an open and democratic election — despite the fact that politicians who encourage the dynamics will argue the system is open

and democratic. I am concerned that rules will be ineffective in mitigating these issues." "When companies acquire greater autonomy and independence, they are able to more effectively harness their resources to influence public opinions." They have the resources to fully engage big data in order to harness individual preferences and habits into organized sales and influence efforts capable of successfully manipulating the common man's thoughts and actions. They will also continue to buy the votes of democratically elected leaders with these funds. This will give businesses control of senior decision-makers as well as the majority of the voting population, resulting in a new-age oligarchy. Democracy will crumble, and the aristocracy that has been feeding the people will take its place." Theme 2: Reducing the governed. Monitoring capitalism created by digitally networked surveillance generates an undemocratic class structure that pits the controllers against the controlled. Responses to this topic include: "Unless changes are made, many citizens will increasingly see their role as diminished and inconsequential as the tools of democracy will no longer work and will have obviously failed – voting, protest, contacts with representatives, the media," wrote Henning Schulz Rinne, Internet Hall of Fame member and former chief technology officer for the Federal Communications Commission. The impact of technology will be heavily influenced by the players in the political process. If political players (parties, big civic groups, and individual leaders) desire to improve the functioning of democracy, technology may assist. If they primarily want to guarantee that their party does not lose elections, technology provides a plethora of instruments for misinformation, vote manipulation and suppression, gerrymandering, untraceable funding, and foreign influence. Unfortunately, right-wing parties seem to prefer the latter method, especially if their dominance is threatened by new majorities. Changes will be determined by the country's and its systems' capacity to adapt to two challenges: institutional and issues. The institutional challenge is determining how citizens can contribute meaningfully to political deliberations without feeling as if their voices are being ignored or that electoral majorities

are being superseded by rule-based majorities, i.e., where gerrymandering, vote rigging, and voter suppression determine the outcome. Second, a number of concerns that have been largely ignored demand government intervention, especially legislative action, including climate change, lack of social mobility, economic stagnation, and the effect of ageing societies." "Large technological corporations have embraced the ‘surveillance capitalism' approach," said Christian Huitema, president of Private Octopus and a veteran internet developer and administrator. They amass massive quantities of data on individuals and then profit from it in a variety of ways. They also use 'attention-maximization' strategies, skillfully inciting more and more consumption of their services, and, of course, more and more surrender of personal data. Most technological marketplaces move toward a winner-take-all future. Surveillance capitalism is no different. Greater data means more influence over the user, as well as an advantage for future data acquisition. In my dreams, this results in a consolidation of power in the hands of a few businesses, with the 'data lords' of surveillance capitalism having as little regard for democracy as yesterday's feudal rulers. I really hope that society will rise up against the data barons and make data collecting unappealing. But the odds of it occurring are slim." "Technology subsumes citizen democracy by substituting informed choices with behavioral modification in the service of profits and capitalism,". Without a significant transition toward community-owned and managed platforms, society will become more divided between controllers and the controlled." Theme 3 :The third theme is exploitation of digital illiteracy. Citizens' lack of digital fluency and indifference result in an uninformed and/or disinterested public, undermining democracy and society's fabric. Responses to this topic include: "Platforms are readily exploited by entities antagonistic to democracy as well as factions within a democracy," said Wendy Belluomini, an IBM director and research scientist specializing in artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. "Typically, the electorate is not intelligent enough to perceive things occurring in real time." "The dangers of social media/IT are exacerbated by the degree to which large

segments of the population appear to be lacking the skills needed for democracy (ability to listen, think critically, gather data, weigh sources, and empathies), because when voters lack these capacities, they become extremely susceptible to manipulation," said Carol Chetkovich, professor emeritus of public policy at Mills College. Manipulation in politics has always been a worry, but it seems that the magnitude and skill of manipulation through social media has elevated this menace to new heights. And we're not doing anything to address the issue of assuring a better-equipped/educated electorate." "By 2030... the validity and veracity of assertions made will continually be questioned," said Leila Bighash, assistant professor of communication at the University of Arizona and a specialist in online public information, journalism, and social media. To support assertions, evidence will be falsified or destroyed. People will worry, "How can we make democracy function when we can't even be certain of objective truth and facts?" How can we hold our elected representatives responsible if we don't have access to accurate and complete information? Technology has a part in this because, as we've seen, sophisticated tools for manufacturing and disseminating disinformation and misinformation exist. Democratic elections, the very core of democracy, are now under attack from technologically advanced operations by a variety of players. “Without better technological literacy and better public awareness campaigns, technology has the potential to weaken democracy by reinforcing opinions people already hold and thus polarizing societies, creating a chaos of information that makes it harder to discern truth – especially if people gravitate toward self-reinforcing information," a director for a leading global human rights organization said. At the very least, this might lead to increased voter apathy, division, and a perception that every one vote is meaningless. It may also lead politicians to take extreme stances." Theme 4: The fourth theme is information warfare. Technology will be weaponized in order to target susceptible groups and to manipulate elections. Responses to this topic include: Hackers and cyber terrorists continue to improve, and no one seems

to have a viable solution. "Information on the internet has increasingly been weaponized in ways that attack the fundamentals of the Enlightenment, most notably shared truth, on which modern democracies are based," wrote Peter W. Singer, founding director of the Brookings Institution's Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence. "Hackers and cyber terrorists are becoming better, and no one appears to have a practical fix," said Shel Israel, Forbes contributor and author of several business books on disruptive technology, including "Resurrecting Trust: Technology, Transparency, and the Bottom Line." I am a computer geek and a career optimist. However, given this catastrophic circumstance, I don't see how technology can restore what technology has damaged, and governments seem unable to address the problem." "Foreign involvement will continue," said Hume Winzar, associate professor and head of the business analytics undergraduate programme at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Russia's sometimes laughably simple social media messages received more attention than they should have during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and they're growing more sophisticated." Theme 5: Creating ambiguity. Reality distortion caused by technology is eroding already unstable public faith in democratic institutions. Responses to this topic include: "Well-resourced nations and bad actors are increasingly utilizing the internet to misinform people and create holes in democracy," stated Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation and cofounder of the Commons Group. Alternative voices are being censored and blocked. These tendencies are undermining free expression and other democratic gains brought about by the internet over the previous several decades." According to Jonathan Grudin, chief researcher at Microsoft, "digital media overwhelm individuals with a sense of the world's complexity and diminish faith in institutions, governments, and leaders." Many individuals take advantage of oversimplified, impractical solutions presented by current and potential rulers. Add to that the ease with which false information spreads and the complexity of developing effective laws for a global system, and it is impossible to even imagine a desirable end, much alone take efforts

to attain it." "While the web has proved the capacity to simplify and expand information flow to people, the quality of that information was never predicted to be as radically disruptive to democratic processes as it is turning out to be," stated Daniel Berleant, author of "The Human Race to the Future." Instead of more informed citizens, people are frequently less informed: manipulated by partisan propaganda that is increasingly custom-tailored to its unwitting recipients; trolled by sophisticated organizations that sometimes act as arms of foreign governments (pioneered by Russia – its successes will undoubtedly prompt other countries to spend heavily on copying and refining its techniques); sucked in by fringe movements that appear onscreen as equal to the well-developed mainstream institutions. We can only hope that civilizations will adjust and develop means, both social and technical, to compensate, adapt, and eventually reinforce free-market traditions. Obtaining that is a task that is met by individuals who, ignoring society, attempt to destroy it in their own self-interest." "Technology-enabled misinformation is destructive to democratic processes and institutions," stated one anonymous commenter. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle, and we may soon be unable to have common worldviews. Civility in civic discourse and integrity are becoming more antiquated concepts. We've already reached a stage where even educated folks in First World nations can't tell the difference between reality and fiction. And we're already seeing fear of the "other" escalate to the point that terrible treatment of children is tolerated in our society. Democracy can only function if citizens are well-informed. And right now, we're dealing with a thriving disinformation infestation that's eroding citizenship and democratic institutions." Theme 6: Journalism's Weakness. There seems to be no answer to the difficulties posed by the increase of tribalism enabled by social media and the demise of credible, independent journalism. Responses to this topic include: "My concerns are centered around how difficult it is for citizens to stay informed in an objective way," wrote Michael Wollowski, associate professor of computer science and software engineering at RoseHulman Institute of Technology and an expert in the Internet of

Things, diagrammatic systems, and artificial intelligence. Democracy is lost when people are unable to make an impartial view. Technology meant to mislead will surpass technology designed to inform. Most individuals are unwilling to educate themselves, and even those who are will have difficulty doing it. It is my sincere hope that objective news will make a return." Democracy will be more difficult to sustain if individuals do not have a common body of knowledge about public issues on which to discuss. "For better or worse, news companies of the mass media period fulfilled crucial duties for citizens via their nearmonopoly on the flow of political information," said Bruce Bimber, professor of political science at the University of California-Santa Barbara. For all of its failings, the news industry edited and filtered information on public affairs, and the process accommodated some of the public's cognitive limits and prejudices in ways that made democratic public spheres usually tractable for people. It seldom worked perfectly, but it did the job. Digital media disrupts the filtering and editing processes, eroding democracy's epistemic foundation." "I see technology having three drivers," said David Eaves, a public policy entrepreneur with expertise in information technology and government at Harvard's Kennedy School. 1) Destroying the mainstream press's financial model and recreating the partisan press of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. 2) Social and online media, in conjunction with polls and increasingly big data, are shifting influence away from representatives and toward the executive branch, which, with more relative resources, can 'know' more about people than their representatives and can communicate directly with them. 3) The use of online surveillance and face recognition technologies, which reduces privacy and consequently raises the long-term social, political, and economic penalties of disagreeing or protesting. All of these potentially pose dangers to our democratic institutions, but they are also likely to be controllable and, in some cases, even beneficial to representation." "The internet has done nothing to give people with any method to analyses and filter the many assertions made by different voices, a task formerly undertaken by professional journalists," an anonymous responder remarked. The major content suppliers, such as Facebook and YouTube, have completely abdicated this responsibility. These platforms enable individuals to

locate the 'knowledge' with which they are most comfortable and enhance existing confirmation bias tendencies. Because technology today allows us to tailor the information we get, there is no longer a common sense of the informational or news agenda that existed when most people obtained their news from the three main television networks and national and local newspapers. Democracy will be more difficult to sustain if individuals do not have a common body of knowledge about public issues on which to discuss. Local news, in particular, will be less accessible and less helpful as a result of the evisceration of local newspapers and the consolidation of ownership of local television stations." Theme 7: Reaction time is too long. As the pace of change quickens, the speed, scope, and influence of manipulation technologies may be difficult to overcome. Responses to this topic include: According to Christopher Savage, a policy entrepreneur, "technology will eventually – on a scale of decades — improve and deepen democratic institutions and civic involvement." But our cultural and psychological capabilities for gathering, assessing, and comprehending information are still far behind where they need to be in order to deal with the contaminated fire hose of garbage that is hurled at us every day. Worse, detecting and resisting the combined effects of detailed, intimate, pervasive-surveillance-based profiles of everyone – which reveal how to manipulate us – and ever-moreconvincing fake news (deepfakes of video, audio, and verbal authorship) – which are deployed precisely to manipulate us – will necessitate a level of sophistication in the consumption and processing of information that most of us simply do not have or know how to obtain. Those seeking power (politicians and those who help them) cannot be expected to resist the urge to use these techniques. As a result, democratic processes will deteriorate before improving." "No matter how much politicians clamp down on social media, the malevolent will still find a way past the regulations," Mike Gaudreau, a former entrepreneur and business leader, stated. Consider the amount of data breaches that occur nowadays. This is becoming increasingly common, in my opinion. Those who want to undermine

our democracy will find a way to do it. China, for example, annually graduates millions of engineers and scientists. Many will be deployed to break into networks in order to collect information or plant messages that will have an undue impact on people." No matter how much politicians tighten down on social media, the wicked will find a method to circumvent the regulations. "The expansion of these technologies throughout the globe is occurring faster than the understanding and attempts to use them in ways that promote rather than damage democracy," stated Craig Watkins, a professor at the University of Texas – Austin. The propagation of misinformation, deepfake videos, and conspiracy theories need a degree of digital and civic literacy that, sadly, is lacking globally. This is true even in the most 'developed' nations, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Democracy is under attack, and the use of technology plays a critical role in eroding public dialogue, civic engagement, and voter involvement. And, while the pressure to assert greater regulatory authority over big tech is quickening the pace of change – data rights, corporate responsibility, and designing algorithms to address disparities and efforts to undermine democracy – it does not appear to be enough to contain the looming threats to a more democratic and inclusive civic sphere." "The hijacked use of technology innovation is running far ahead of society's ability to absorb and comprehend the implications – good, bad, and ugly – and it will get far worse before we ever see a turn for the better," said Mario Morino, chairman of the Morino Institute and cofounder of Venture Philanthropy Partners, a pioneer in venture philanthropy. The difficulties range from the fomenting of ideological and disruptive conflicts to the undermining of sovereign states." A lot of responders began their responses with the idea that excellent innovation is unavoidable. They often referred to history, which is reassuring on this aspect. Here are some of the themes they sounded that encompassed more positive sentiments and some of the possible paths forward. Theme 1 : Individuals evolving is the first theme. More public awareness, improved digital literacy, and increased educational participation will be seen during the next decade.

Responses to this topic include: "The public will be able to influence the agenda-setting process by sharing what they know about issues as they encounter them," writes Beth Noveck, head of New York University's Governance Lab. They will be capable of more than just identifying issues. They may provide answers to issues and collaborate with other people to develop and enhance those ideas. They can and should be able to contribute to the development of policies and initiatives. Perhaps most importantly, individuals will be able to jointly hold government accountable by monitoring the efficacy of new policy and service implementation. Finally, people will be able to make decisions and vote on how money is spent and power is exercised. We may also experiment with new methods of doing things using new technology, such as comparing the effect of having individuals volunteer to engage in such online procedures vs picking a sample of people to participate. Much effort remains to be done in order to test what will work to enhance the influence of new technologies on democracy in 2030." "Democracy may seem ill for a time," commented Jason Kelley, a responder who provided no background information. This is due to the fact that we are living in a petri dish. However, we are cultivating penicillin. The techlash we are seeing is a trough in a sea of beneficial changes brought about by technology in our abilities to organise, acquire factual information, and engage in our democratic institutions. As people grow increasingly capable of connecting with them and one other via technology, democratic institutions will become more accountable to them. Citizens will also grow increasingly interested in and capable of utilising technology to hold institutions accountable. To counteract the spread of false information and appropriately react to people, institutions will most likely need to be more transparent about their activities and procedures. Citizens will undoubtedly need to improve their ability to separate fact from falsehood. This is already taking place. It will not be an easy or fast transformation; it will almost certainly grow worse before it gets better. The possibilities are that our next election will be riddled with similar issues, and we'll have to work hard to find answers." For a while, democracy may seem ill. This is due to the fact that we are living in a petri dish. However, we are cultivating penicillin.

"For the first time in history, individuals are being enabled to simply convey their wants, beliefs, hopes, and worries directly to and from politicians without distortion via news or information collectors," said Doug Royer, a former technology developer/administrator. 1) Manipulation's nemesis is knowledge. 2) The capacity to gather and seek for information broadens one's understanding. 3) I've found over time that online arguments between open persons expand an observer's information base. 4) Peer pressure is reducing the number of exceptions to No. 3 by encouraging people to read before responding. Often, the exceptions to No. 3 are isolating in and of themselves, and their peers notice. And, ideally, they will notice, and they will alter or become less rigid in their attitudes to others. 5) Technology has revealed little pockets of fervent ideas and political obstinacy like never before. 6) Politicians are being held responsible for previous misdeeds in ways never seen before in human history. It is a response pendulum that will swing back and forth. Over time, the process will flail to the extreme left and right. 7) People are learning to distinguish between what is and is not false news. And opposing news outlets enable open citizens to seek the truth." Theme 2: System adaptation. Changes in the design of human systems, as well as a more positive mindset among engineers, will benefit democracy. Responses to this topic include: "Social media strengthens democratic institutions by giving a greater voice to a broader range of people," said Ben Shneiderman, distinguished professor of computer science and founder of the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland. "However, it also strengthens malicious actors such as political operators, criminals, terrorists, and other socially disruptive forces." Increased accountability for acts will be aided by tech firms doing a better job of blocking bots and improving methods to restrict but not abolish anonymity. Limiting malicious actors will necessitate the development of new technology, social structures, and government policies. Independent supervision, regulatory methods, and community pressure will all be beneficial." "The fundamental design requirements for U.S. democracy are still great: governance by the

people; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," said Henry Lieberman, research scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). However, the structure and methods of governance were intended for the agrarian and industrial eras, not the digital era of today. By 2030, this will be so clear, and so valued, particularly by young people, that we will have started to discuss how to restructure our political and economic systems." "There are countless options, and it's probable that each will take root in various areas to differing degrees," stated Bryan Alexander, a futurist and consultant at the confluence of technology and learning. Some may advocate for transnational coalitions to address climate change and other challenges, while others will advocate for more local politics at the national, regional, and municipal levels. Technology opens up new avenues for direct democracy, such as rolling plebiscites. Through polls, attitude research, and monitoring, it also strengthens ties between politicians and people. We may anticipate artificial intelligence to play a role as a political analyst and campaign helper. The pace of political activity should quicken. So many things should be preserved, unless something remarkable happens: voting, most political borders, judicial review, and constitutions." Theme 3 :The third theme is enshrining ideals. Deeply ingrained human tendencies have long posed a threat to democratic principles. Historically, though, inspirational individuals have shown that they can transcend these darker impulses. Responses to this topic include: "These technical challenges will prove to be highly profitable for global democracy," said Michael Pilos, chief marketing officer at FirePro in London. Technology has continually shown its ability to broaden and fine-tune democracy. Social media and other multimedia platforms have opened minds and flattened perspectives all across the world. Let us not lose sight of the greater picture. Yes, in the short term, 'antiheros' have always been ahead of the curve in terms of exploiting it. This is why Western democracies are now traumatized by a number of political events, but the reality is that these people have always been around and have always attempted to influence the public in their own mind set. We are now more accountable and capable of

educating individuals about our aims and practices. This, of course, necessitates the development of better policies and more openness than ever before. It also necessitates an increase in the sophistication and technological savvy of political communication. It certainly will." Nothing is shocking – and we will continue to witness fantastic social improvements as a consequence of increased digital connection, as well as the co-occurrence of malevolence and evil purpose. "The digital revolution promotes principles like as communication, participation, transparency, the open flow of information, connectedness, and authenticity," noted David J. Krieger, director of the Institute for Communication & Leadership in Switzerland. Based on these ideals, democracy will become more responsive to people, who will have more access to information, be able to judge the value of information, and engage in shaping and utilizing information. The conventional public sphere of political debate will be replaced by a global sociosphere, decreasing the need of representative intermediaries in democratic processes. More kinds of direct democracy will not only become practicable, but also the only plausible source of legitimacy for democratic administration. Governance, rather than government, will become an increasingly essential form of regulation. Stakeholders in hybrid networks will be accountable for creating jointly controlled datafication schemes that provide value in a wide range of societal domains, including health care, education, business, scientific research, and politics. These advancements will be followed by cultural and ideological shifts that diverge from Western industrial society's beliefs, values, and traditions." "As we continue our civilization’s and humanity's journey toward digitalization, and the ongoing hybridization of physical interactions and virtual/online interactions, we will see examples where these capabilities simultaneously strengthen and threaten our institutions," said Steven Miller, vice provost and professor of information systems at Singapore Management University. This is not a new phenomenon. It predates both humanity and civilization. Some foolish assumptions were made that these forces, which have been with us for thousands of years, would not be a part of what happened with the internet and, subsequently, social network platforms. That was a foolish assumption

that proved to be incorrect. Nothing is shocking – and we will continue to witness fantastic social advances as a consequence of increased digital connection, as well as the co-occurrence of malevolence and bad purpose." Theme 4: Working for the greater good. Governments, enlightened leaders, and activists will assist in steering policies and democratic processes in order to generate better democratic results. Responses to this topic include: "Whether technology strengthens or weakens democracy depends fundamentally on the political will of representatives from both parties and their voters to support robust rules and regulations governing how the internet can be used to spread information and how efforts to spread misinformation will be identified and penalized," said Mary Alice McCarthy, senior policy analyst, Higher Education Initiative, New America. I am a great believer in the power of technology and the internet to promote democratic processes and institutions. They can do so by making voting easier and more convenient; allowing citizens to communicate with their representatives more directly and immediately; supporting organizing efforts by community-based organizations, unions, and political parties; and providing greater access to information on issues important to voters. However, as we have seen over the past decade – and especially after the 2016 election – technology can also be a source of deception, extremism, and division. It may be used to promote misinformation, incite hatred, and confuse people about what is true and what is not." Technology is a potent weapon for bringing about democratic change. "If we look more than a decade down the road, we might be able to imagine a democratic system (in the broadest sense of the word) where politicians are actually held accountable for their actions and the content they share with the public," said Avery Holton, associate professor and vice-clinical president's and translational scholar at the University of Utah. While social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are prepared to provide politicians privilege (without explicitly defining who a politician is or may be), the legal and ethical frameworks that allow such an approach will have weakened by 2030. Rules will be enacted to prohibit misinformation and mal-information,

particularly of the most destructive kind, and these laws will apply to the whole democratic community. There will be less of an information privilege hierarchy and more of an accountability system. This will result in a restoration of civil discourse and community based on the sharing of the truth, in all of its forms, with the understanding that what is not truth is equally important, and labelling it perhaps even more so." "Society confronts significant governance choices in the coming decade," noted Micah Altman, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Research in Equitable and Open Scholarship. We face potentially catastrophic losses of freedom if we continue to make piecemeal decisions that cede small bits of privacy, transparency, and accountability to corporations and government. Technology is a potent weapon for bringing about democratic change. Independent commissions, aided by participatory mapping technology, are now our best hope for reducing gerrymandering and its corrosive effect on politics. Open research, aided by technology for open publishing, long-term data access, and knowledge mining, is our greatest chance for making science more accessible, effective, and egalitarian – with enormous long-term implications for societal wellbeing. Advances in encryption and statistics-based technologies may assist us in reaping the advantages of big data while protecting our privacy. Theme 5: Reform Assistance. The growth of technology and technologies such as artificial intelligence will help in the implementation of pro-democracy governance solutions. Those will advocate for trustworthy free speech and increased citizen empowerment. Responses to this topic include: "The internet is progressively changing society from representational democracy to participatory democracy," said Stephen Downes, senior research officer for digital technologies at the National Research Council of Canada. It accomplishes this by empowering individuals or small groups to make decisions for themselves. People can educate themselves as a distributed community, mobilize themselves as a decentralized social network, and finance themselves through the use of a digital currency. As is customary, the most severe and

occasionally criminal instances make the news. The true transformation in society, however, is taking place among the rest of us, as we grow more capable of organizing ourselves and less dependent on the affluent and powerful to do it for us." "In severely oppressive nations, new technology to monitor residents and restrict dissent will be used to impede democratic processes," Stowe Boyd, a consultant futurist specialist in technological development and the future of employment, commented. In more democratic countries, there will be growing opposition to corporate and governmental use of technology such as surveillance, artificial intelligence, and social media to influence public opinion and political processes. I've written about a 'Human Spring,' in which a majority of people in Western nations spontaneously go on strike against the current quo, demanding action on climate change, inequality, and the hollowing out of labor by AI and other sophisticated technology. Maybe in 2023?" "From an optimistic viewpoint, 21st century technologies might allow greater, rather than less, civic involvement," said Eline Chivot, a public-policy researcher with the Center for Data Innovation. For example, policymakers, elected representatives (such as mayors), and policy officials (such as diplomats) could use online platforms and various applications to respond to constituents' questions in real time, involve them in local decision-making processes, gather more information from citizens' concerns, and bridge any democratic deficit and gap between 'policymakers' and 'policy takers.' Artificial intelligence techniques, for example, may be used to bring governments closer to people, activate individuals, and establish stronger constituencies in this manner. North Carolina's government is developing chatbots to answer constituent queries in real time. Singapore's government is assisting individuals with critical government services such as registration, licensing, and utility management by using Microsoft-based chatbot systems. Technologies may also help to strengthen government-to-government interactions by levelling the playing field between large countries with extensive ability and resources to cope with the expanding flow of information and smaller, understaffed governments. Natural language processing techniques, in example, may reduce research chores, enable meaningful analysis of unstructured data at scale, make text

simpler to consume, and expedite legislative acceptance." "In Pakistan, we can FEEL the movement," remarked Shahab Khan, CEO of PLANWEL in Karachi. It is a foregone conclusion that the development of digital technologies in the next years will undoubtedly enhance the governance and efficiency of democratic institutions." The essential aspects of democracy will be reinforced if we build safeguards. "There are too many factors in play to forecast just one feasible trajectory for the future of our democratic institutions," Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, wrote. If we enter a decade of unrestricted synthetic media, more algorithmic determinism, and financial incentives that favor competition over cooperation, our democracies' essential strengths will have diminished. Citizens will be more sensitive to deceptive information and will be offered stuff that piques their interest. Our democratic institutions, on the other hand, may be considerably enhanced if we adopt guardrails, norms, and standards that foster openness, authenticity, and cooperation today. Both trends are moving in my opinion." Ongoing "strategic distraction" and orchestrated disorder result in severe party divides. Technology has already transformed our understanding of what democracy entails. "By 2030, I anticipate democracy will still be trapped in a dilemma: freedom versus. interference," said Barry Chudakov, principal of Sertain Research. Civil liberties will remain a contentious issue, with digital xenophobes on one side concerned that 'others' will seek to undermine democracy and thus justifying any countermeasures, and civil libertarians on the other arguing that the surveillance state has gone too far and pushed democracy toward Big Brother Panopticon totalitarianism. Technology has already transformed our understanding of what democracy entails. It used to be that one person equaled one vote. It now signifies "one device, one voice." Every voice will be heard via Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. Who is this person? will be a subject we will be grappling with in 2030. How will vital democratic institutions be authenticated? Identity is – and will continue to be – the basic difficulty for these organizations. That is, identity multiplication and falsification, from which information falsification and distortion emanate. Simultaneously, while we struggle to establish our identities,

democratic institutions face the reality of the internet as a large copy factory, where actions and attitudes may be replicated and adopted like putting on a new clothing. What do we do when these acts and attitudes are heinous or even evil? The copy machine is still there, and we are left with our fury – which is insufficient. Organized disorder is a persistent danger to democracy. This strategic distraction employs asymmetric information warfare to inflame societal differences and turn them into severe party divides. At the same time, since AI systems meant to interact with people will gather and transmit growing amounts of data, these systems must be founded on empathy for the ethical development and deployment of AI." "We are disconnected from the local reality in which we live because of our usage of technology." "I believe the harm has already been done, or at least that the degree to which the public is misled stays pretty consistent," said Douglas Rushkoff, a well-known media theorist, novelist, and professor of media at City University of New York. Republicans' directmail ads against John Kerry warned Americans that Kerry intended to take away their firearms and Bibles. Jews were said to have performed blood rituals on dead Christian infants in Czarist Russia. It's difficult to see social media or deepfake videos causing any more harm. So, when I predict things will remain about the same between now and 2030, I take into consideration the fact that they are currently in very bad form. Democracy, as it is now constructed, isn't working so well in America, and technology exacerbates certain issues while solving others. The major way technology affects democracy is in a more subtle manner than misinformation and Russian propaganda. Our reliance on technology separates us from the local reality in which we live. While television may have deceived us about what was going on in the non-local world, our digital gadgets often prevent us from connecting with what is going on in the local world. We grow desensitized and less compassionate. Less capable of civic thought.”. “Politicians will make a lot of noise, but there will be few answers." "Among the consequences of the internet on social discourse are 1) amplification of voices (sometimes without adequate thinking behind them); and 2) a speeding-up of the action-reaction dimension of speech," observed Mike Roberts, Internet Hall of Fame member and pioneer CEO of ICANN. We are presently in a reactionary period as a

result of allowing too much power to accumulate to social media platforms. Consensus on solutions is difficult to acquire due to the considerations mentioned above, as well as the difficulty of dealing with the problem itself. Perhaps the most challenging issue is moderation, i.e., expression censorship — how far is too far, etc. With our heritage of First Amendment liberties, we are fortunate that the major platforms emerged in the United States. So, in summary, there will be a lot of noise, particularly from politicians, but few answers and little overall change." Civic technology innovation has the potential to improve social cohesiveness, equality, and justice. "Democracies will look a lot like they do today: stable, peaceful, and equitable in countries that succeed in maintaining good governance, sclerotic and messy in flawed democracies captured by corporate influence, and devolving toward authoritarianism, or outright dissolving into civil wars in others," said Alexander B. Howard, an independent writer, digital governance expert, and open government advocate. Citizens in the United States will understandably remain skeptical about the meaning of their public participation in national elections unless fundamental reforms addressing money in politics, gerrymandering, government corruption, and climate change are enacted in some states, turning to the endless rivers of infotainment and diversion instantly available on ubiquitous screens and projections. Many individuals will interact with civic life via individualized feeds of information from technology and media businesses, coupled with digital services and information from local, state, and federal governments, as well as updates from friends and family. Government agencies at all levels will have replaced retiring Baby Boomers with automated services reinforced with artificial intelligence, emphasizing algorithmic openness, accountability, and accessibility. Many more community newspapers will close, and despite the best efforts of state governments, foundations, and public media, radio and internet organizations will not be able to fulfil all of their civic functions everywhere, creating news deserts. The offspring of today's social media platforms and media firms will fill that hole, gaining increasing influence in molding both discourse and civic involvement. Simultaneously, continued innovation in civic

technologies has the potential to improve social cohesion, equity, and justice when they are purposefully built and designed with the public they connect and empower in mind, increasing the capacity of journalists, watchdogs, and whistleblowers to make institutions transparent and hold powerful people and organizations accountable for abuses of power. Schools and libraries will continue to play vital roles as neighborhood centers for information access and civic activity." Our minds may be incapable of coping with forthcoming manipulation technology. According to Juan Ortiz Freuler, policy fellow at the Web Foundation, "technology will be used to enhance the number of problems on which people are directly consulted." People will be able to participate in a larger number of public problems and will have more access to information on matters of public interest and how the state works. Nonetheless, the extent to which civilians are surveilled is already expanding. With a more established monitoring infrastructure, governments will be able to simply clamp down on any sort of engagement that may jeopardize key interests. The current methods of collaboration between private-sector corporations and governments on national security concerns imply that ‘signals' of possible future crimes may increasingly lead to governmental involvement before any actual crime is committed. Furthermore, if the present trend of enabling the private sector to centralize and operate black-box algorithms for personalization and content curation continues, these businesses will have increasing power over public opinion molding. We've seen this trend everywhere, from visiting blogs for lists of links to search engines that offer a curated list to artificial intelligence assistants (Siri, Alexa, Cortana) that deliver a single response to a question. Advances in augmented reality and virtual reality promise to expand this control even further by enabling corporations developing the technology to insert customized information in scenarios our brains won't be able to differentiate from the natural world we evolved in over millennia." The dominance of digital masters is harmful to journalists, small enterprises, and government.

"In the United States between now and 2030, I see a mix of government inaction and perpetual discord, and a mix of rising citizen activism and activation on the one hand, enabled by clever and increasingly capable tech platforms, and widening despair, detachment, and digital dropouts," said Andrew Nachison, chief marketing officer of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. I am concerned that things will deteriorate further, that inequality and corruption, which technology has done nothing to alleviate, will lead to bloodshed and civil unrest. The supremacy of a few digital overlords has given us amazing powers and services, such as the ability to search for information on practically anything, purchase nearly everything you need, or keep up with friends, family, and news with a few finger touches. However, the consequences have been disastrous for local journalism, small companies, and government. Facebook has proven to be the world's most powerful engine for censorship and political manipulation, and there is no indication that it will do enough to substantially transform itself on its own. I also doubt that splitting up the corporation will make much of a difference. Facebook does not need Instagram or WhatsApp to exist. Unless and until far greater consumer regulations are put in place to protect privacy, assure transparency, and provide content producers and consumers actual authority and economic reward, Facebook will continue to be Facebook. The same goes for Google. But that is just the case in the United States; the situation is similar in the United Kingdom, but not everywhere. State censorship and internet control seem to be on track to repress and demolish democracy, and even mention of it, in nations like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. When governments can turn down the internet with the flick of a switch, it's difficult to see how people can stand a chance against repression. My optimism is founded on progressive views for digital governance and citizenship in outlier nations such as Estonia, as well as civic tech pioneers pushing similar goals. Perhaps they will be successful and spread. By the year 2030? I have my doubts. "I'm more optimistic about 2130." "Advancement greatly outpaces our capacity to comprehend and manage it." "Technology progress is far outstripping our capacity to comprehend and manage it," said Susan Etlinger, industry analyst at the Altimeter

Group. We started to understand the ramifications of what we dubbed "big data" on privacy and human rights early in this decade. As artificial intelligence and machine learning became more common, several issues emerged: the perpetuation and amplification of bias, the need for transparency, the need for algorithm interpretability and auditability, and, more broadly, the need for intelligent technology norms and governance structures. By the end of 2016, after the elections in both the United States and the United Kingdom, we were beginning to see how social media platforms might be used to weaponize information on a large scale and threaten the pillars of democracy. As the decade draws to a conclusion, we are beginning to see synthetic data – that is, data that is intentionally manufactured – becoming more ubiquitous, as well as 'deepfake' technology that can practically construct whatever type of reality the creator chooses. Today, we have the potential to collect vast quantities of data, develop new sorts of data, weaponize it, and build and shift markets without enough governance mechanisms to safeguard consumers, patients, residents, investors, customers, and others – not to mention governments. If we want to defend democracy, we must act thoughtfully, but also quickly. Reversing the harm caused by the 'fake news' period was difficult enough before synthetic content; it will become far more difficult once deepfake news becomes the norm. I'm less concerned about sentient robots than I am about massively altering reality and abusing actual people's human rights. As a result, it is incumbent on both public and commercial organizations to implement suitable legislation, and on individuals to become conscientious consumers of digital information, wherever and wherever we obtain it." If individuals "prefer peace to chaos, dictatorship is more probable." "It is crucial to begin by acknowledging that a 'pure democracy' in and of itself is not always the greatest form of governance," remarked Russ White, infrastructure architect and internet pioneer. Direct democracy tends to amplify the worst characteristics of mass media, especially the media ecology based on internet technologies, resulting in mob rule. The issue then arises, "Who is in charge of the mob?" In general, this will be the most powerful influencer(s) and the platform(s) on which they 'live.' Given this, if technology corporations continue on

their present trajectory, democracy will be superficially prospering but internally failing by 2030. People will be allowed to vote, but their choices will be influenced by the financial interests of influencers and platform owners rather than serious meditation on the essence of humanity and justice. Either the social media platforms and influencers will seize control of the situation and use technological dictatorship to manage the crowd, resulting in peace, or they will not, ending in anarchy. Because people prefer peace to anarchy, tyranny is the more probable conclusion. The ideal, but unlikely, conclusion is that people begin to take responsibility for their knowledge and lives, and a techlash develops around responsible technology use. This approach would culminate in the (re)formation of a republican, federalist government meant to allow for the greatest possible variance in opinions while maintaining harmony among diverse factions. Building this, on the other hand, requires personal responsibility and social institutions willing to take the lead - neither of which is feasible or accessible in our present climate." People should be informed on manipulating tactics. "Tech can both help and diminish democracy, depending on how 'we' use it, and depending on how we define 'we," wrote Esther Dyson, internet pioneer, writer, entrepreneur, and executive creator of Way to Wellville. Democracy is based on a common sense of community, and we are now forming too many fighting communities when we should be expanding them. We also need to educate people on how they may be controlled by technology and provide them with the knowledge and tools to manipulate themselves more successfully." There will be no democracy if there is no authoritative information. "Information and its conduits are important," stated Isaac Mao, head of Sharism Lab. Moving forward, if we don't understand and govern it adequately, misinformation might completely overload people's limited input capacity. In such a crisis, professional journalists and democratic institutions are overshadowed. There will be no information authority, which means there will be no democracy. If large technology businesses and totalitarian governments control the information channels with lures and algorithms, technology will afford many crazy methods to mislead people. Human minds are readily duped into

following bogus news, twisted facts, and/or censorship traps without even realizing it. They can't even establish trustworthy methods to check the veracity of information since every route is potentially corrupted. Individuals have acquired the ability to share, yet their voices are not readily heard. It is the most serious danger to our future." "Anti-institutional, insurrectionist movements" will seek answers. "The difficulties confronting democratic institutions are less about technical change and more about a 40-plus-year fall in confidence," said Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT's Center for Civic Media and creator of Global Voices. Many institutions do not serve the people of democracies properly. Technologies are assisting individuals in expressing their distrust, but they are also assisting people in organizing outside of established institutional channels. My prediction is that there will be an increase in the number of anti-institutional, insurrectionist groups that seek answers by working around existing institutions and use technology means as a significant component of their movement construction." Political parties are splintering as issue-based microtargeting becomes more successful. "My expectation is that citizens will begin to put more of a premium on aligning with candidates or movements that 1) are able to tailor their engagement to the narrow interests of particular voters and 2) allow them to preserve their technology comfort zones while protecting them from technological disruption," Loren DeJonge Schulman, deputy director of studies and senior fellow, Center for a New American Security, previously senior adviser to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, said. As voter and funding issue-based microtargeting becomes more practical and successful, I predict parties will fragment. Individual polling may become less trustworthy if access to individual voter blocks diminishes or fractures across generational or value (e.g., privacy) divisions." Participatory citizenship based on points might be a status symbol in a data-driven democracy. "Is there a distinction between a good citizen and a great citizen?" said Thomas Frey, founder and senior futurist of DaVinci Institute. Is it

acceptable to perform simply the bare minimum of what it needs to be a citizen? Would we be a better nation if we all worked a little harder? To various individuals, citizenship signifies different things. We usually have a grading system in the back of our minds that counts activities like standing and reciting the pledge of allegiance, putting a flag on the front porch on holidays, and public ally appreciating our soldiers into an overall citizenship quotient. Should a more formal ranking system exist, and, more importantly, how would it be used? The rebirth of citizenship as a status symbol is long overdue, and the possibilities are limitless. We are rapidly approaching a data-driven future in which numerical values will be ascribed to almost everything we do. Here are a few of simple examples: -If we file our taxes on time, we will gain an extra 3,000 points; but, for every day we are late, we will lose 200 points. -If we go in for regular health exams, we get 1,000 points; but, if we miss an appointment, we lose 2,000 points. -If we get a parking ticket, we will forfeit 1,500 points. We will get our 1,500 points after we have paid the fee. -When an election is conducted, you will get 500 points for voting." "By 2030, we will most likely have lost our inclination to accept most media channels." "Although in the long run we're likely to develop effective counters to many of the politically pathological technologies," wrote Jamais Cascio, distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, "over the 2020s, the explosion of information-manipulation tools will outpace our ability to adapt to and contain those technologies." We're likely to have lost our propensity to trust most media channels by 2030. In a world full with lies and forgeries, we're more prone to dismiss scandals than to be horrified by them. Because of the simplicity with which plausible fake pictures, audio, and video can be made, practically all sources are questionable; it's all too simple to reject everything as false, and all too frequently right. When anything does break past the skepticism barrier, the response is frequently disproportionately strong. At the same time, we will be in the early stages of developing tools and processes to assist filter out the lies and restore some faith to the system. They won't be widely used for a while, but we'll start to notice advantages."

We will adapt, but not without a fight and educated public engagement. The changes will not be easy, as they were with the emergence of newspapers, radio, and television, but they will be made. "Communications technologies, especially in their early adoptions, can be subject to centralization, control, and exploitation, creating new identities (imagined communities) and, often, polarization within populations,". However, as the social construction of each technology becomes more entrenched, communications enhance our everyday lives and become the field, if not the backdrop, of our broader interactions. Democracy is now under threat while also booming in the streets. To be hopeful rather than pessimistic - our current technologies trend toward greater supervision, control, and polarization, but in the long term, both mass media and personal communications have tended to enhance democratic institutions. By 2030, we will have adjusted to the abuses of data gathering, monitoring, and disinformation, and will be celebrating informed public engagement – not without stress and necessary vigilance. Like the growing pains of democracy through the emergence of newspapers, then radio, then TV, the changes will not be smooth, but they will be made.” These concerning tendencies do not have to persist; we have already adapted and may do so again. "Two things appear evident," stated Andrew Lippman, senior research scientist and associate director of MIT's Media Lab. 1) In the United States and certain other nations, people have lost confidence in conventional institutions that provide as a foundation for a shared social core. This is owing, in part, to the abundance of venues that address fringe components. These were not economically viable in the past, when there was more friction in the publishing industry. 2) The rising use of artificial intelligence data manipulation and the emotional impact of much news enables lies to penetrate more successfully than before. In the short run, this does not augur well for an educated and intelligent people. However, I am unable to assess how much of this is the fault of the internet versus other components of society, of which there are several. Neither do I believe that existing patterns must be

maintained. We have typically been able to adapt to media development and creativity, so I believe we can do so again, albeit it may need some serious effort." Our understanding of free speech is changing dramatically. "Who knows?" remarked David Weinberger, senior researcher at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. We are witnessing a significant shift in our understanding of what "free speech" entails. We could afford to allow far more free speech when there were so few voices to be heard and the variety of viewpoints was considerably narrower. Back then, screening out damaging ideas was achieved by only providing the microphone to a homogeneous group of people. (If you're wondering, white males of a specific class.) Now that everyone has a microphone, the filtering – if we decide we want our free speech to remain within certain limitations – must be done by the platforms. So, it's possible – but who knows? – that the online platforms where we hear the majority of public speech will impose limits that we would have rejected in the past as overly restricting – not only on hate speech, but also on speech that promotes ideas that we believe are harmful to the public good. There's a slippery slope here, but, as with other slippery-slope arguments, it's only a problem if we choose to go down it. It's also feasible that platforms would segregate based on whatever sets of beliefs they consider damaging, in which case our differences will become much more pronounced." "Will the nation-state as we know it survive in its current form?" "There's no way to know right now." 'The internet as a broad network linking people with people, people with information, information with information, and machines with machines,' stated Jeff Jarvis, director of the Tow-Knight Center and professor of journalism innovation at City University of New York. We can already observe, for example, that new voices not represented by institutions such as government and mass media are now able to speak. As a result, we have hashtags like #metoo and #livingwhileblack. As a result, we are seeing a pushback from established forces – read: elderly, white males – who fear losing authority and would rather dismantle institutions than share power in

them. Who will triumph? There is currently no way to know. We witness globalization not just in business, where it affects employment and economies, but also in social connection. As a result, boundaries and countries are being tested. Is this difficulty a contributing factor to the growth of nationalism? We can clearly understand that battles can be fought using data rather than national armies or weaponry. We can see how virtual currencies can put governments' monetary strength to the test. Will the nation-state as we know it survive in its current form? There is currently no way to know. At the same time, governments are attempting to control the internet – which essentially means attempting to regulate individuals' internet activity – propelled by their own concerns and the expenditure of political capital by legacy media and other vulnerable sectors and organizations. Can the internet, which was designed to resist the interruption of a nuclear assault, withstand government efforts to balkanize it? Will liberty triumph? It's too early to tell." "The biggest thing since oxygenation" is digitization. I'd like to hope that, over the next decade, the dark underbelly of the digital world that is distorting democracy will be uncovered and its influence reduced. "In these early years of our new digital age, social media (a collection of new and likely epiphenomenal developments) in particular are amplifying homophily: the tendency of people to gather among those with whom they share characteristics, loyalties, affinities, and other forces that attract people into tribal groupings," said Doc Searls, internet pioneer and former editor-in-chief of Linux Journal. Blaming and criticizing other tribes comes easily to humans, and we're at a point where it's simply too simple to do so right now. We'll get over it, but in the meanwhile, tribalism is turning people who used to differ into adversaries. This inevitably has an impact on all types of government, particularly democratic ones. We are in the early phases of the Digital Transition, a period in which everything that can be digitized is digitized. This involves all aspects of learning, communication, and memory. Plus everything that doesn't have to be physical: a total that is unfathomable. I recently asked Joi Ito, the former director of MIT's Media Lab, how large this is. 'Does it have a larger capacity than

electricity?' I inquired. 'Moving type? Writing? Speech? 'What about stone tools?' 'No,' he said. 'It's the greatest thing since oxygenation,' says one. This occurred around 2.5 billion years ago. And I believe he is correct: it is that large." Hope for increased engagement in the most basic democratic procedures "I want to hope that the dark underbelly of the digital world that is distorting democracy will be uncovered and its influence decreased over the next decade," Gina Glantz, a political strategist and creator of GenderAvenger, said. I expect that by 2032, protections will have been put in place to allow for electronic voting, promoting far broader involvement in the most basic of democratic processes." "The number of casual participants greatly outnumbers the number of interested and deliberate participants." "Technology will, of course, both tangibly improve and degrade participatory democracy," said Larry Keeley, cofounder of Doblin and professor of innovation at Kellogg Graduate School of Management and IIT's Institute of Design. Individual users will choose the 'balance.' More and better tools for analysing political problems, themes, candidates, and 'leaders' will be available to sophisticated users. They will be able to view vital fact-checking, previous trends, and even apply predictive analytics techniques to determine what that person is likely to favor in the future. Indeed, a new type of technology will emerge that will enable any of us – including inquisitive elected officials (wherever they may still be found) – to utilize simulators to handle hard concerns like: Should we have greater or lower minimum wages? What about a guaranteed minimum wage? Should we spend more or less in health care, and if so, at what ages? Should we spend more money on infrastructure? How much is it? Should we provide free high-speed Wi-Fi to everyone? Etc. At the same time, for naive users, there will be an increasing number (and sophistication) of tools meant to engage, anger, coerce, cater to, and reinforce one's already held opinions, biases, or suspicions. These tools will be all over the place. As a result, I responded that, on balance, technology would harm participatory democracy since I believe casual participants massively outweigh engaged and conscientious ones. I wish that

wasn't the case. Neil Postman nailed it with the title "Amusing Ourselves to Death" - and he wrote that book BEFORE the internet." Technology will be employed to govern people and, maybe, to reduce atmospheric carbon. "If climate change is not tackled as an emergency and as the existential danger to civilization and much life on Earth that it is, society as we know it will be annihilated," said Barbara Simons, former president of the Association for Computing Machinery. Because of the scarcity of resources, it is quite likely that non-democratic governments of a fascist character will emerge. Citizens will be controlled by technology. It is possible that it will also be used to reduce the quantity of carbon in the atmosphere, although this needs to be seen." In a complicated setting, an Asian government style poses a challenge to democracy. "The democratic model was developed as a philosophical reaction analogous to the 'wisdom of the multitude,'" said Philippe Blanchard, head of Futurous, a Swiss innovation firm. Collective choices would be the greatest way to discover solutions to the community's demands while also maintaining the community's togetherness. We currently live in increasingly complicated, multidimensional settings: 1) Because of the intricacy, it is more difficult for the general people to grasp the implications of political actions. 2) The institutional speed is at odds with the velocity of change (technology, sociology). Furthermore, in order to maintain democracy's relevance, we must examine the following factors: 1) Citizen education and information accessibility 2) Representational institutional structures (direct democracy vs. indirect) 3) Administration. But we also need to grasp the basic contrasts between our civilizations. The Greek philosophy organized Western thought (primacy of the notion, the model according to Plato's conception) as opposed to Chinese/Asian philosophy, where context takes precedence over concept (Qi, the energy). The Chinese philosophy of efficiency emerges only from the issue of 'coming' rather than 'being' and metaphysics. It does not inquire about the ego, the subject, or the separation of practical theory, but merely about efficiency in relation to the natural sequence of things. It is more

concerned with the technique that leads to the state than with the state itself. What Chinese philosophy is interested in is not the deed itself, but the 'potential of the circumstance,' which includes its own change. As a result, the availability of big data is the greatest option to analyses and affect this prospective scenario. Along with the availability of instruments, the idea of 'democracy' as the sole appropriate governing paradigm is therefore questioned." Will the future serve a broader set of interests than just commercial motives? "One way of thinking about technology evolution is as a process of discovery and invention that simply unfolds along a predefined route," said Anthony Nadler, associate professor of communication studies at Ursinus College and fellow at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism. But I'm hoping that the techlash will serve to challenge this way of thinking about technology's future. When it comes to concerns like the spread of online misinformation or the exploitation of user data, to name a few devastating examples, today's tech crisis is not merely an unavoidable byproduct of digital technology. These issues originate from specific decisions made regarding how our modern digital infrastructure has been constructed to support the financial interests of the market's main actors. The issue for the next ten years isn't only about what new technologies will be produced or which technological difficulties will be overcome. It will be a question of determining "which groups and whose viewpoints will have a decisive impact into how technology is constructed, as well as what values and aims it will be built to emphasize." Empowering the powerful: In general, corporate and government objectives do not promote democratic ideals or produce democratic results. They serve the interests of those in power. "My forecast is that by 2030, as much as 75 percent of the world's population would be enslaved by artificial intelligence-based surveillance technologies produced in China and sold throughout the globe," said an internet pioneer and technology developer and administrator. These devices would keep every citizen under surveillance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, watching every action they do." "Governments (and their corporate partners) are broadly using technology to create a

surveillance state, and what amounts to law by unaccountable blackbox algorithm, far beyond anything Orwell imagined," Dan Gillmor, cofounder of the News Co/Lab at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and professor of practice in digital media literacy, said. But this can only happen in a society that isn't worried to safeguard liberty – or is easily led/stamped into losing it – which is occurring in an increasing number of Western democracies. The resurgence of public prejudice has nothing to do with technology, save insofar as bigots utilize it to further their heinous purposes. Meanwhile, institutions that are intended to preserve liberty, such as media, are mainly failing to do so. People have convinced authorities in a small number of areas to oppose the encroachments, such as San Francisco's partial prohibition on government use of face recognition. The encroachments, on the other hand, are overpowering and increasing." "To date, virtually no democratic state or system has figured out how to deal with this challenge to the fundamental legitimacy of democratic processes," wrote Leah Lievrouw, professor of information studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, "and my guess is that only a deep and destabilizing crisis (perhaps arising from the rise of authoritarian, ethnic, or cultural nationalism) will prompt a serious response."

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the affluent class, that's waging war, and we're winning," wrote Seth Finkelstein, a programmer, consultant, and EFF Pioneer of the Electronic Frontier Award recipient. We may investigate how class warfare evolves in response to technological developments, similar to how military combat has evolved in response to technological breakthroughs. However, no weapon technology has ever automatically resulted in democracy triumphing over despotism (or vice-versa). For example, there was once a sort of boosterism that discussed how regular people might create websites and touted its very unusual cause célèbre success. However, the plot is now out of date. It's now becoming common knowledge among pundits that there's a complete structure in place to promote things. Paid professional liars can create webpages and operate this method better than amateurs. There is

presently widespread concern about Russian trolls. Native fiends, on the other hand, can accomplish the same thing with greater talent, motivation, and chances." "The strength of narratives is precisely their potential to change and institutionalize norms and power distribution in our human societies," said David Bray, executive director of the People-Centered Internet Coalition. … However, our world is now much larger than our local surroundings, which has severe consequences, such as difficulties achieving agreement or debating the important facts for a circumstance. We are seeing an increase in polarization in open societies, which is partially due to these concerns of where we want to go not being explored in ways that might lead to action. An even bigger concern is where various communities want to go in terms of advancement, as well as what values or standards they wish to uphold. This is a cross-industry question. No one institution, influencer, or group with authority can unilaterally respond to or carry out activities toward that desired future condition. In the absence of identifying methods to develop cross-sector connections, power — whether via narratives, regulations, or technology – will be seized by whomever aspires to it. A critical challenge for the future is whether we can construct such cross-sector bridges. Will our divides betray us as open, multicultural societies? "Can we create hopeful narratives for open, multicultural societies that bring people together?" Depending on how it is utilized and who controls it, technology may either strengthen or weaken democracy. It is now dominated by a small number of people. "There is a clear risk of bias, manipulation, abusive surveillance, and authoritarian control over social networks, the internet, and any uncensored citizen expression platform, by private or state actors," said Miguel Moreno, professor of philosophy at the University of Granada in Spain and an expert in ethics, epistemology, and technology. State actors are promoting measures to separate themselves from the general internet and limit the susceptibility of vital infrastructure to cyberattacks. This has significant democratic and civic ramifications. There are favorable circumstances in nations with technical capabilities and a highly centralized governmental system to

acquire partisan benefits by restricting social contestation, freedom of speech, and weakening civil liberties." "Government will lag use of data by state and business players in unexpected ways," said Richard Jones, an entrepreneur based in Europe. Biased censorship (both well-intentioned and dishonest) and propaganda onslaughts will mould attitudes as, in conjunction with an anti-scientific revolution, trust in the institutions and establishment figures crucial to the peaceful orderly growth of nations collapses even more. As efforts to appease minority pressure groups continue, hysterical smear campaigns will grow. The march of biased technocratic groupthink toward dictatorship will continue. In genuinely liberal regimes, charismatic leadership will thrive. Authoritarianism will spread to other parts of the world. Online preference polls may be created to influence many government decisions, but it is unclear if they will assist to address the existing democratic gap. As with the Gutenberg process, the digestion of 'freerange' knowledge will be accompanied by a reevaluation of secular and religious values and purposes." "It is proving exceedingly difficult to control international firms because of the range of various national government goals," stated John Sniadowski, a systems architect based in the United Kingdom. A globally enacted set of rules to control multinational corporations is unlikely to occur because some sovereign states have very illiberal and hierarchical control over agendas and see technology as a way to dominate their citizens with their agendas as well as influence the democratic viewpoints of what they regard as hostile states. In terms of technology, democracy can be weaponized." "Technology can strengthen or harm democracy depending on how it is utilized and who controls it," said Kevin Gross, an independent technology expert. It is now dominated by a small number of people. The few will not voluntarily share. I don't think this will alter much by 2030. History has shown that when a large amount of power is concentrated in the hands of a few, the consequence is not good for the many, and it is not good for democracy." "As of 2015, the results of up to 25 of the world's national elections were being dictated by Google's search engine," stated Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. Democracy as originally

envisaged will not be able to withstand the present strength of Big Tech. If authorities do not act to limit the power of Big Tech companies – Google, Facebook, and similar companies that may emerge in the coming years – democracy may look very similar to what it does now to the average citizen in 2030, but citizens will have little say in who wins elections and how democracies are run. My research – dozens of randomized, controlled experiments involving tens of thousands of participants and five national elections – demonstrates that Google search results alone can easily shift more than 20% of undecided voters – up to 80% in some demographic groups – without people knowing and without leaving a paper trail. I've also shown that search recommendations may convert a 50/50 split among uncertain voters into a 90/10 split — again, without individuals realizing they've been persuaded. The content of response boxes has the potential to boost the impact of the search engine manipulation effect by 10% to 30%. I've found approximately a dozen of these primarily subconscious impacts and am now examining and quantifying seven of them. I've also shown that the 'Go Vote' prompt that Google displayed on its home page on Election Day in 2018 provided one political party at least 800,000 more votes than the opposing party – perhaps significantly more if the prompt had been tailored to the preferred party." "Whether the powers of nations and tech firms can be properly reined in is the present conflict," said a long-time internet-rights activist based in South Africa. The genie has escaped, and it does not bode well for democratic institutions that have already been damaged in Western governments. A condition of global cyberwar exists today and is expected to last for the next decade. The oligopoly of state-backed tech firms, whether in the United States or China, will be tough to overcome. It is trivial to distinguish between a Google and an Alibaba — both gained significant official backing from their own countries – the Googles through a failure to enforce antitrust rules to prevent monopolization, the Alibabas through governmental protection against competitors in China." "'Democracy' in 2030 will be democracy in name only," stated David P.

Reed, a pioneering internet architect and specialist in networking, spectrum, and internet legislation. The technologies of pervasive corporate monitoring and control of user behavior are getting so sophisticated that the citizen interests of democratically constituted nations will no longer be adequately represented. That is, by gathering massive quantities of data on user preferences and responses, as well as using highly focused behavior modification methods, people' choices will be more managed in the favor of those who can afford to run that system. Citizens' engagement in modern forms of democracy is limited to election events every few years, when political parties arrange topics and candidates into highly focused single-vote events that do not reflect people' interests. Instead, a limited number of contentious 'wedge' topics are made the only focus of the citizen's decision. This is not interest representation. It is a controlled poll that is readily manipulated by the kind of behavior modification that technology is advancing toward." "I do not have great faith that the institutions tasked with ensuring that online discourse is civil and adheres to standards of truth and fairness will be able to prevail over tendencies of autocratic governments and powerful private sector actors to use cyberspace for narrow political ends," wrote a pioneering technology editor and reporter for one of the world's leading global news organizations. The internet has never had an effective regulating organization with enough influence to make legislation that would ensure global network neutrality, prevent censorship, and enforce agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, a few sites whose moral compass has been called into question have grown to dominate the internet world. Governments have a monopoly on some. Others dedicate their devotion only to their stockholders." "'Capital G' Government has deteriorated into a false consumer mass-marketing exercise," stated Jerry Michalski, creator of REX, the Relationship Economy eXpedition. 'Small g' governance might include active, continuing cooperation among citizens, but it won't as long as the big platforms people use have business models that rely on addicting them to TikTok videos and selling their private data to firms who wish to stalk them." "Deepfakes will entirely blur the line between reality

and lies, a distinction that few individuals are able to make even today," said Jonathan Kolber, author of "A Celebration Society: Solving the Coming Automation Crisis." This will have disastrous consequences for democratic institutions and procedures. As governments learn to employ internet-enabled smart gadgets (televisions, cellphones, etc.) for monitoring, we are progressively witnessing George Orwell's nightmare come true. When the Internet of Things expands to include smart vehicles, smart houses, and other devices, monitoring will become ubiquitous and perpetual. Governments are also altering facts and history more and more." According to a computer science expert, "artificial intelligence technology, particularly machine learning, has a feedback loop that heavily favors first movers." Google's benefits in becoming a superior search engine are now baked in because of its capacity to collect more data about user search activity. This dynamic is monopolistic by definition, much more so than previous technology developments. Persuasive technologies constructed with these technologies have the reach and capacity to refine and shape public opinion that totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century could only dream of. We can be certain that today's regulatory atmosphere will either fade if nothing is done, or it will become a vehicle that further entrenches existing monopolies by imposing technological requirements that no challenger can meet. Democratic institutions will find it very difficult to counteract this phenomenon. Uber's 'greyball' initiative, designed to avoid regulation and serious auditing, foreshadows the future." "Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy," author Jonathan Taplin, said, "Social media will continue to allow new and more sophisticated kinds of propaganda and misinformation." Deepfake videos will be made possible by artificial intelligence, and the common citizen will be duped. In their never-ending pursuit of cash, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter will continue to allow this stuff. Politicians will make noises about regulating, but since these platforms will become their principal source of advertising and exposure, they will never commit to removing Safe Harbor and other provisions that safeguard social networks." Bulbul Gupta, founding adviser at Socos Labs, a think tank

that develops artificial intelligence to maximize human potential, responded, "Given the current state of tech and artificial intelligence ownership, I expect democracy to be even more unequal between the haves and have-nots by 2030, with a major uprising happening from the masses who are being rapidly left behind." Tech and AI are controlled by their inventors, the top 1%, with judgments made about the top 1% in every area of society that have little to no transparency, human judgement, or redress, and that may not be made the same if forced to happen face to face. People will require their own personal AIs to fight for their fundamental civic and human rights." "Thomas Piketty and others indicate that inequality is, if anything, growing worldwide," stated Carlos Afonso, an internet pioneer and digital rights advocate based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Democracy, defined as pluralist involvement in political processes including the electoral (ostensibly fair) selection of government representatives, as well as decision-making procedures in the development of policies, laws, and regulation, cannot exist under these circumstances. One of the most significant successes of the UN community was the commitment to aim to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. However, disputes of all types, both domestic and international, offer us little reason to believe that the main components of those aims will be fulfilled globally. Furthermore, there is little likelihood that resources will expand to fulfil the vital requirements of the majority (partly as a result of the numerous expressions of a developing economic crisis, with financial speculators at the forefront of these processes)." Even erstwhile foundations of democracy, like as the United Kingdom and France, are being tested by forces that abuse digital capabilities. "As we have seen throughout the Global North, tech has only helped to exacerbate offline friction," stated James Sigaru Wahu, assistant professor of media, culture, and communication at New York University and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center. As seen by the Brexit disaster, the 2016 presidential elections, and violence against immigrant groups, this has led in many challenges to concepts

of democracy. We've also seen nations get in on the game by using technology to increase its surveillance capabilities, as witnessed in China and the United Kingdom (with its large CCTV camera presence). States in the Global South have also joined the monitoring game, which does not bode well for human rights groups and individuals. As a result, nations such as Russia and China have grown in their technological surveillance and misinformation/disinformation capabilities, while the United States and various police departments around the country depend on corporations such as Palantir to extend their monitoring of residents. Both of them have had devastating consequences." Lokman Tsui, professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong's School of Journalism and Communication and former Google's Head of Free Expression in Asia and the Pacific, stated, "The political economy of new technologies on the horizon leaves me with many concerns about how they will impact democracy and its institutions." For starters, many emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data, are closed and centralized. In contrast to the open web that before it, these technologies are closed and centralized, both in terms of technological architecture and economic strategy. Technology may be utilized to strengthen democratic institutions and processes, but it will be difficult and difficult to overcome numerous difficulties. Second, new technologies are not only not assisting democracies, but they are actually assisting and strengthening non-democracies in their efforts to increase censorship and monitoring. While technology exist to resist these inclinations, the balance tends to shift (heavily) in favor of the opposing side. Third, I'm afraid that there is a worldwide race to the bottom in terms of collecting (personal) data, which has the potential to allow the suppression of many other rights." "For many years, I honestly felt that the internet would offer more access to knowledge that would enhance democracy," said Norton Gusky, a futurist and champion for utilizing technology to empower people. However, I've seen a darker side to the internet in the last four to five years. Nations such as Russia are now intervening in elections

not just in the United States, but also in other countries throughout the globe. I believe there will be a swing, but the darker forces will triumph for the next two to four years. Countries such as Turkey, China, and Egypt will restrict access to the 'truth.' Even past cornerstones of democracy, such as the United Kingdom and France, are being tested by forces that abuse digital capabilities." "Even after we became aware of the negative consequences that technology may have on democratic processes, we have not seen substantial efforts by the US government to restrict the influence of big businesses," noted Paola Ricaurte, fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Extraterritorial control of technology businesses will be increased further, with ramifications for the democracies of the Global South. The knowledge divide between data-rich and data-poor nations will widen." "Power and money eventually impact choices made by democratic authorities," stated Ian O'Byrne, assistant professor of education at the College of Charleston. Citizens may utilize social media and current/new digital platforms to make their voices known in the face of escalating discontent. Existing powerholders will eventually push this back again, and nothing will change. Existing powerholders will continue to wield power, and people will be left to vent their thoughts by yelling into the cyberverse." "In societies where people are accustomed to power being centralized in a few institutions, and where central governments already exert power through surveillance and state authority, digital technology will facilitate intimidation, disinformation, and other mechanisms for reducing individual liberty, suppressing minority opinion, and enforcing authoritarian control," said Jeffrey Alexander, senior manager for innovation policy at RTI International. This would allow such regimes to seem to follow democratic standards, such as holding "free and open" elections, while using those procedures to consolidate their control by suppressing opposition even before voters arrive at the polls. Digital technology could help thwart the rise of authoritarian rule, improve oversight and governance of law enforcement and policy processes, and increase citizen involvement in government and politics in societies with strong individual education and a tradition of

liberty and citizen-driven initiatives." "Democracy in 2030 will encounter the best of times and the worst of times," said John Pike, director and founder of GlobalSecurity.org. All of the hopeful forecasts regarding the use of social media and other internet tools to increase citizen involvement will come true. All of the negative forecasts about how easily the surveillance state can affect public opinion will come true. Autocratic governments like Russia and China are competent at such dark arts at home and will practice them across the world. Previously, it was very evident that the Communist Party USA member peddling the Daily Worker was working for Moscow, but attribution is now complex and debated." "Those with wealth will be able to use technology more effectively to influence opinion and policy, eventually acting against democratic values," said Shane Kerr, an engineer at an internet security business. We can already see this in its early stages now, but it will most certainly mature into such an ubiquitous narrative that the ordinary citizen will be unaware of it unless they study history (assuming that '1984'-style revisionist history does not become the standard)." "Unless there is a massive change in democratic control over digital technology, that technology will continue to erode democracy as it was designed to do and as its most ardent advocates openly say they want, despite the fact that they sometimes use the language of democracy and allied values like free expression to justify their antidemocratic actions," wrote David Golumbia, an associate professor of digital studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. I am cautiously optimistic that governments and individuals are becoming aware of the tremendous antidemocratic forces inscribed into our technology and the culture that informs and enables it. While I hope that things will improve, the enormous amounts of money and power committed to ensuring that they do not improve, as well as the use of this technology in nations that do not even pretend to be democracies, concern me." "Core components of the democratic process are profoundly strained or broken," observed Sasha Costanza-Chock, associate professor of civic media at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We need significant reforms in the United States to allow for broader and more meaningful participation in democratic decision-making, such as

instant runoff or rank-order voting, expanded voting days and times, expanded voting rights for formerly incarcerated people, campaign finance reform, rethinking the electoral college, and much more. Unfortunately, the most of these are quite improbable. Instead, we seem to be trapped in an elite and exorbitant election system in which the actors with the greatest money and connections to affluent supporters rig the system to their benefit. Many technical instruments, in this context, largely benefit those who can build and adapt them for their own purposes - once again, the greatest players. There are certain countervailing influences, such as insurgent candidates' ability to use social media." "I believe technology will help the dictators that we now have stay on top and control more aspects of all of our lives, worsening the prospects for democracy," said Denise N. Rall, an academic researcher of popular culture at Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia (U.S., Russia, China, and right-wing elections in Europe, the absurdity of Brexit in the UK, North Korea, etc.). I believe that environmental deterioration will accelerate and that humans will soon be battling over resources such as electricity, water, and food. I don't believe technology will be able to modify these results until governments demonstrate a genuine intent to minimize resource use and implement some kind of global birth control programme." "China has the capacity to halt trends toward democracy and regime change via more surveillance of their people and refining of their ‘social credit' legislation/monetization of obeying the whims of their one party," an anonymous caller said. By supplying such technology to undemocratic governments that wish to stay in power, China has the ability to assist prop up regimes in developing nations where they have vested interests. I believe that India might go either way, depending on whether pervasive corruptions in their political system are exploited or blocked by growing public access to technology and knowledge." "Democracy will continue to deteriorate, but technology is really a minor element," said Richard Lachmann, professor of political

sociology at the State University of New York-Albany. More significant in the decline of democracy is the disappearance or weakening of labor unions, the increasing power of corporations in all sectors as a result of mergers, extreme levels of inequality, and the ability of the wealthy and political actors to manipulate'veto points' to stymie government initiatives, which increases citizens' cynicism about politicians and reduces their participation. All of these existed prior to the advent of the internet and would not be considerably diminished by people' online activity." "Institutional changes are occurring more as a function of power and money rather than technology, particularly in the selection of candidates and in the judicial system," wrote Vince Carducci, researcher of new uses of communication to mobilize civil society and dean of the College of Creative Studies. These pose a greater hazard than technology." "Democracy is under assault," wrote a cofounder of one of the internet's earliest and most well-known online communities. The internet, computer-aided automation, or artificial intelligence cannot be held responsible in the end. The immense capacity of personal and corporate riches to use these technologies to further their own selfish goals will progressively destroy egalitarian and democratic norms." "We are in a phase of escalating isolationism, nativism, and reaction that will damage democracies throughout the globe, and it will probably have reached a peak by 2030," wrote a research scientist for a government agency in the United States. Although technology and online information distribution will be used to disseminate information and disseminate misinformation, as well as to police people, the underlying economic and environmental developments will be primarily responsible for changes that result in weaker democracies." "Corporations will have greater control over workers and consumers," a retired professor said. This will be accomplished as part of the continuous corporate capture of democratic institutions, which US President Eisenhower foresaw many years ago. Identification and monitoring technologies will become more widely used, eroding the private domain of social life. Social media will continue to strengthen strong social relationships among family and friends while decreasing the establishment of weak social links among acquaintances, which is

important for intergroup collaboration in a varied society. As the climate continues to deteriorate, the repercussions for health, agriculture, and infrastructure will increase irrational forms of blame and global war. Electronic and biological types of assault against militarily strong nations will be included in global battles. More public outrage is to be anticipated, but it will most likely be aimed at the wrong people. Society as we know it will stumbling from tragedy to disaster, leading to the extinction of our species. I'm hoping I'm incorrect. I would want to see our species thrive while retaining its democratic principles. I have grandkids. I want their descendants to inherit a better planet than the one our current technocratic capitalist system is rushing toward." Anonymous respondents said: 1."Under capitalism, the internet will only benefit the few, not the many, and democracy will suffer as a consequence." The issue is one of competitive economic imperatives, not technology affordances." 2."It is the processes and institutions that develop varied tech that will trigger the changes, not the technology itself." 3."Those with the loudest voices will continue to be heard." Even if the media changes, the elite will continue to control everything." 4."Both technology corporations and governments have incentives to avoid taking action to address the harmful ways in which internet platforms undermine democratic institutions." 5."Power corrupts everything." Look at today's IT titans — they are masters of manipulation and misinformation. They are elitists who believe they are the only ones who know what is best." 6."The combination of huge data and supercomputing power seems to be having a bad influence on democracy, and I see no indication that this can be properly policed or controlled, especially given the power (and data troves) of extremely major internet corporations and

governments." 7."I do not think governments comprehend the instruments, and I believe they will continuously fail to regulate or organize them correctly; I also do not believe private corporations are democratic, and so they are likely to support capitalism alone, rather than democracy."

The governed are being diminished as a result of digitally networked surveillance capitalism, which produces an undemocratic class structure that pits the controllers against the controlled. "Democracy – its foundational norms and principles, including basic rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and rights to contest and conscientiously disobey – may survive in some form and in some places by 2030; but there are many strong reasons, alas, to think that it will be pushed to the margins in even traditionally democratic countries by the forces of surveillance capitalism, coupled with a rise in authoritarianism," said Charles Ess, professor of digital ethics at the University of Not to mention China's growing exports of 'digital authoritarianism' technology based on its burgeoning Social Credit System." Simply put, there is no reason to expect that technology can help to promote democracy. "Technological innovations appear better suited for expanding government power versus improving individuals' ability to evade surveillance," said Rob Frieden, a Penn State professor of telecommunications law who previously worked with Motorola and has held senior policy positions at the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. National governments may justify greater expenditures for ever-more-sophisticated surveillance technology based on noblesounding rationales such as national security across the full range of political philosophy. When governments fail to calibrate surveillance

technologies for legal reasons, they face few incentives and even fewer punishments. Innocent people's legitimate privacy expectations will be lost, especially with technology with vast processing capacity and range combined with an unclear mandate. Governments will utilize surveillance technology to pursue aims other than improving national security unless and until individuals object. We risk becoming inured to and numbed by pervasive monitoring, to the point when resistance becomes too difficult and ineffective." "There is just no reason to expect that technology can promote democracy," stated Gina Neff, senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies innovation and digital transformation. Western democracies are contending with the rising concentration of financial capital's power and its reaction in the shape of populism's rise. Without a focus on upgrading our basic technology and communications infrastructure, these forces will continue to wreak havoc on how people engage in – and even create – democracy." "Our current style of governance favours strong capitalism/soft democracy," Zizi Papacharissi, professor of communication and political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago, answered. Any technology we develop will continue to underserve democracy unless this equilibrium is reformed to promote soft capitalism/strong democracy. In sum, the technology we developed was intended to produce wealth rather than to serve democracy. It is feasible to combine the two. However, we did not intend for it to be that way. We shall witness a deterioration of democratic and political processes enhanced by technology by 2030. This will occur not because technology is inherently harmful or undemocratic. Because most technology is built, implemented, and/or deployed via processes that support a strong capitalist paradigm that was formed centuries ago and has to be changed to be compatible with modern democratic and non-democratic society." "Although there is rising anti-monopoly sentiment, 2030 is soon, and the dominant digital commons for speech (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) are likely to draw out (in the courts) any regulatory action to

change their business models and/or practices," said John Harlow, smart-city research specialist in Emerson College's Engagement Lab. They are now regulated by algorithms that are meant to increase 'engagement' time and hence advertising money, and those algorithms have emphasized extreme material above accurate information (among other problems). This has permitted and aided the growth of the authoritarian extreme right throughout the globe, while also undermining trust and participation in democratic institutions and procedures." "Uses are driven by social and economic considerations that push toward centralization and control," said an expert on online trust and identification who works in multistakeholder groups that create and manage the internet. With the development of a perfect panopticon that maps every endpoint and device on the network, as well as the growth of middle-box collectors that utilize immense computing capacity to correlate identifiers, the final result will lean toward command and control." "Social media tech businesses will continue to oppose control and serious regulation in order to protect their primary business, accurately defined by Shoshana Zuboff as ‘surveillance capitalism,'" a sociotechnical systems expert wrote. The oligarchs will continue to influence public opinion for their own gain, maybe with the help of foreign interests. Economic disparity will worsen, as will hostility aimed at immigrants and the 'elites.'" "The decline of democracy should be traced first to capitalism itself, and hence only in a secondary fashion to technology," noted a humancomputer design specialist. Capitalism seems to be ripe for a massive shock, to the point where expecting much of anything as far ahead as 2030 becomes ridiculous. The current epoch marks the end of a decade of ever-intensifying distraction engineering." "Increasingly sophisticated marketing based on data and inferred data on every individual threatens to cross the line between persuasion and manipulation and coercion, and the First Amendment restraints on government will require a substantial degree of proof of coercion

before the government will be able to intervene to safeguard individuals from clear overreaching," wrote a law expert who previously worked for a U.S. government agency. The danger of manipulation – which we witnessed for the first time in 2018 with the Cambridge Analytica scandal – is genuine and rising. It remains to be seen if business or government can put a stop to it. Of course, industry has a conflict of interest: the more effective its manipulation, the more money the business earns. And the government is constrained by the First Amendment, which limits its function." "Information technology destroys democracy and redistributes authority to the so-called intelligence community," said J.M. Porup, a cybersecurity journalist (a euphemism for the secret police). Totalitarian tyranny with a thin veneer of Kabuki play to fool people into thinking they still live in a free society is made feasible by mass monitoring. Because it is impossible to create completely secure software, networks, or devices, criminals and spies (to repeat myself) will hack such systems and acquire control of them in order to gain even more power. Cybersecurity is the major political issue of our day, and political organization in the fifth domain [cyberspace as a theatre for conflict, alongside land, sea, air, and space] resembles martial rule. Low-tech journalists who cover these topics for low-tech audiences often misunderstand the subject. In what can only be described as de facto state television, major networks hire former spies to deceive to the American people. The picture is bleak, and I am gloomy about the future of our political freedoms in the absence of more tech-savvy journalists raising the alarm. See my book-length effort in progress, '95ThesesofCyber.com,' for more of my opinions on this." "The way user engagement has been influenced by technical platforms over the last 10 years has handed the power of decentralized information back to the major businesses, platforms, and stakeholders," stated Emilio Velis, executive director of Appropedia Foundation. Worse, it has undermined people' ability to act while retaining the illusory sense that they have power."

"Commercial platform-driven communication technologies like Facebook, Twitter, and their eventual successors are unlikely to strengthen representative democracy in the coming decades of the twenty-first century," wrote Peter Lunenfeld, professor of design, media arts, and digital humanities at the University of California-Los Angeles and author of "Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine." They may contribute 'voices' to the discussion, but they are unlikely to support and maintain the dominant types of successful democracies of the twentieth century - those that selected representatives to debate and act on their behalf, from cohesive parties with established ideologies and agendas. The emergence of dialoguing 'communities' that mimic the give and take of true democratic action without offering actual power to its participants, such as the Italian Five Star Movement, or the emergence of personality-driven, single-issue popups, such as Nigel Farage's Brexit Party, is what we are starting to see. Future political movements, like Five Star and the Brexit Party, will employ social media to provide the affordances of democratic discussion without really allowing people to manage or steer the movements. Social media technologies are generating skeuomorphs of democracies; they will have democratic-looking and democraticfeeling design elements, but they will be authoritarian in their heart." "The degree of surveillance of remarks by people will expand considerably in the future when DeepMind-style algorithms are applied to internet-based stuff," one anonymous responder said. It will become much more difficult for individuals to make remarks without knowing that their opinions are being registered and aggregated by a variety of organizations, so there will be a reluctance to speak out. As a result, 'free expression' will be limited, and the democratic process will be hampered." "Social media allows us to reach voters in targeted ways and deliver information from a distance that is tailored to specific goals, rather than fostering local community discussion and participation," wrote a distinguished professor of electrical engineering and computer science at a U.S. university. Because of the absence of privacy in internet service platforms, as well as artificial intelligence and big data,

politicians can now identify and influence voters in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Without corrective action (such as new election regulations restricting the use of private citizen information), these new capabilities might lead to increasing political instability and, in the worst-case scenario, the disintegration of whole democratic regimes. The United States looks to be the Western world's first such victim." "The internet provides a global megaphone to everyone in that anyone can publish their opinions and views instantly and essentially for free," said Sam Adams, a 24-year veteran of IBM who is now working as a senior research scientist in artificial intelligence for RTI International, architecting national-scale knowledge graphs for global good. When everyone has a megaphone, we become drowned out by more noise than helpful information. This is made even more problematic by the fact that wealthy interest groups have used their power and resources to amplify their own voices far above the average citizen, effectively silencing the average citizen by burying their smaller voice under a landslide of blaring voices controlled by wealthy interest groups. Because of interest-driven news cycles and social media echo chambers, only the loudest or most extreme viewpoints get repeated. This exacerbates the amount of passion in public debate and pulls listeners to extremes rather than more common ground. If a democracy is to thrive, it must properly reflect the ideas of its citizens. And, in our technologically advanced society, part of that justice must entail balancing the level of the voices." "The neoliberal, developed Western world is falling towards fascism as the globe's sixth mass extinction approaches its inevitable end," stated Philip Rhoades, an Australian business futurist and consultant. As the ecological collapse and political degradation continue, contemporary technology will be primarily utilized to oppress the vast mass of people/citizens. Some technology may aid in the defense of people against governmental repression and terror, but its impact will be limited in the grand scheme of things." "In the United States, legislation and public opinion have increasingly

been moulded to serve powerful interests rather than the interests of the people," stated David Noelle, professor and researcher in computational cognitive neuroscience at the University of CaliforniaMerced. Regulation is seen as a threat to our ailing economy, pushing business leaders to seek risky, short-term methods to generate returns for investors. The unrepresented have been effectively silenced by election procedures intended to keep those in power in power. The most prominent technologies of our day are built to rely on big centralized infrastructure. Many new breakthroughs are driven by data, yet few organizations are in a position to acquire and analyses large amounts of data about individuals. The emphasis on technologies that rely on controlled infrastructure, whether privately owned or exploited by governmental entities, will reinforce the positions of those now in power, reducing people's capacity to demand democratic representation. It should be noted that this is not a demand to restrict technology, but rather a plea to fundamentally restructure political and economic systems in order to guarantee representation to all people. More democratic technology will result from a more democratic government." "We are being taught that convenience is the most essential concern," said Deirdre Williams, an independent internet campaigner based in the Caribbean. 'Innovation' is suffocating inventiveness. I anticipate the pendulum will swing in the other way over the next ten years, but it will take time to mend the rift that has been (deliberately?) created between citizen and government, and to remind governments of their responsibility of care to all people." "I don't think that online platforms will be able to self-reform, despite all declarations and efforts exhibited," commented Giacomo Mazzone, director of institutional relations for the European Broadcasting Union and Eurovision. As a result, only a break-up solution or 'publicization' of the internet giants has the potential to affect the future. The amount of power that individuals and governments have surrendered to these actors who are not responsible to anybody (even the US government) is just too great for them to relinquish freely. Do you recall 'Sliding Doors,' the 1998 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow? The future has a

50/50 probability of going completely horribly or brilliantly well. The next arcadia might be a digitally networked society founded on trust and respect for individual and human rights. A digitally networked and mass-surveillance-oriented society centered on the exploitation of human vulnerability and societal divisiveness might be the ideal execution of Orwell's dystopia of '1984.' Both scenarios are equally plausible. It is up to the government and civic society to select which path we will take." "The future has a very real potential to be a dark Orwellian place, transfixed between strong technology under the control of a few wealthy and powerful and the great unwashed masses made economically redundant by machines and waiting for their daily dose of Soylent Green," said Scott B. MacDonald, an experienced chief economist and international economic adviser. One significant shift is that individuals may no longer have to go to the polls but may instead vote via hand-held or implanted communications devices. If we are not vigilant, technology will be used to increase control rather than democracy, as it is in China. "Anyone interested in facial recognition?" "Unless Congress takes action and passes protective consumer legislation to limit private industry powers with technological growth, i.e., surveillance and privacy erosion, democratic institutions will face greater dangers from domestic and foreign threats, loss of trust among the American public, and devaluation of private technological companies among the market planning," Estee Beck, author of "A Theory of Persuasive Computer Algorithms for Rhetorical Code Studies," said. The technology infrastructure, with faulty programming that allows for penetration and deep hacks, the decisions made now with select leaders in technology companies driving pro-China surveillance growth, anti-US and Mexico relations via border surveillance, marketing of biosecurity technologies, and the eventual promotion of artificial intelligence consumer goods and services, will divide the nation's faith and leave the American public distrustful of Congress. "I do not doubt the potential for technology to enhance or even

revolutionize democracy," said Matt Colborn, a freelance writer and futurist living in Europe. This is exactly what I hoped for from the start of the revolution in the 1990s. However, from the standpoint of a citizen, the new technology seems to have already limited mental autonomy and the potential for reasoned decision. Why? 1) Because of the algorithms utilized, platforms such as YouTube seem to be more ideal for delivering propaganda and involuntary indoctrination. 2) Because of the 'echo chamber' nature of personalized media, extreme tribalism has also risen. 3) The government and companies are destroying all forms of privacy. The 'ultimate frontier' of this is neurotechnology, which reads thoughts. The poisonous combination between antiquated authoritarian institutions, right-wing populism, and modern technology is also a concern. As a result of these impacts, democracy is weakened while a ‘surveillance' state is reinforced and deep tribal divides are exacerbated. Although there are clearly counter-movements, economic inequality is such that the affluent and powerful are able to profit from these advances while the rest of us are unable to. Those seeking political innovation will have a difficult time in this context." "'Democracy' is going to be much more of an elite undertaking by 2030 than it is today," one artificial intelligence specialist said. Life is excellent if you work for a large organization, but not if you are a regular working-class person. Who has a voice in this world will be determined by money and power even more. Civic technologists will initially offer to utilize technology to restore democracy, but then charge for it after five years because'someone needs to pay for upkeep.' They'll get away with it because no one will remember that political rights are a fundamental right, not a commodity." "Recently, Hong Kong protestors had to purchase single-trip transport passes with cash in order to exercise democratic power; this would be impossible when widespread face-recognition technology is applied," an anonymous commenter stated. Essentially, democratic behaviour is getting more difficult." Anonymous respondents said:

1."Technology will aggregate people's individual voices while eradicating individual democracy." 2."Democratic regimes may become less democratic as a result of the abuse of monitoring technologies justified by national security." 3."I am regretfully certain that citizen opinions will have no good impact on democratic institutions in the future; instead, technology will continue to generate alienated, disempowered individuals." 4.Exploiting digital illiteracy: Citizens' lack of digital fluency and indifference result in an uninformed and/or disinterested public, undermining democracy and society's fabric. "As Neil Postman said in 1985, 'We no longer participate in decent public dialogue,'" said James S. O'Rourke IV, a University of Notre Dame professor whose research expertise is reputation management. 'All we're doing is entertaining ourselves to death.' One of the most pernicious consequences of digital living has been a decrease in tolerance for long-form material. People, especially the young, will read if it is just a few paragraphs long. Few of them will purchase and read a book. News organizations have learned that consumers prefer to watch a video rather than read a story's text. Given how simple it is to edit digital video pictures, how simple it is to play on people's assumptions and prejudices, and how lazy much of our society has become in searching out news, opinion, and analysis, those who wish to mislead, divert, or intimidate now have an advantage. 'No man can grasp his own argument unless he has visited the perspective of a man who disagrees,' the Jesuits have long warned. Such trips are becoming more unusual. The long-foreseen 'filter bubble' effect is becoming more obvious. People will not seek out, study, or take the effort to learn viewpoints that they do not understand or agree with. A sizable majority today lives with a skewed set of facts, distorted knowledge, and an inadequate cognitive foundation to make informed decisions. False ideas, misinformation, innuendo, and deception are no longer being driven out by accurate facts."

"Technology without civics is capitalism with crystallized logic and boundless reach," said Bernie Hogan, senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. Democratic institutions and civic groups, like the 'local paper' or 'provincial radio,' are based on borders and understandable scales. Technology is allowing for scale transcendence, which we may believe is fantastic. It is undeniably outstanding in terms of logistics and delivery. However, social cohesiveness requires a degree of comprehension that there is a coherent limited population to care about and define one's identity through and against. It necessitates individuals perceiving and acting as more than just consumers and sometimes political voters." "I worry that many in the public will and do not have the skills to determine truth from fiction, and twisted truth can and does lead to misunderstanding the content," wrote Larry Rosen, emeritus professor of psychology at California State University-Dominguez Hills and an international expert on the psychology of technology. Carolyn Heinrich, a Vanderbilt University professor of education and public policy, stated, "As internet content is increasingly personalized for us based on who we know and where we click, the range of information and perspectives we are exposed to will narrow unless we make the effort to read more widely ourselves." To mitigate the negative consequences, we must make a concerted effort to diversify our contact circles and sources of information/knowledge. As technology dominates our K-12 school curriculum, we must analyses what technology providers are transmitting in their material and who is the 'face' of that content in instructional films. That is something we are actively looking at as part of our study." "In the United States, at least, rising political indifference has followed increased use of technology," said Cliff Zukin, professor of public policy and political science at Rutgers University. On the one hand, it has diverted focus away from issues of government and citizenship. On the other hand, the centrifugal forces of interests made more accessible by expanding technology have weakened citizens' basic

knowledge base as well as civic standards. It allows mass movements to organize more swiftly and put pressure on leaders, but right-wing, post-recession populism and retreat from globalism, in my opinion, is not a positive thing." "Unfortunately, fundamentally undemocratic processes in the United States, such as the electoral college, will continue to be undermined by fake news and technology-backed manipulation of rural states, which have outsized electoral college voting power but typically lack education and will likely remain vulnerable to such exploits," an anonymous respondent said. "I am concerned that the ease with which hostile powers and trolls can manipulate public opinion will only increase and become more sophisticated, leading to voters having increasingly lower levels of factual information at their disposal or, worse yet, increasing apathy toward or cynicism toward voting and the democratic process entirely," wrote a fellow at a major university's center for internet and society. "The disintegration of standards generates an atmosphere of false realities that is directly related to political division, particularly among the fringes, and public suspicion and indifference with everything 'government,' said Eric Royer, assistant professor of political science at Saint Louis University. Technology, particularly social media platforms, has the potential to make the globe a less foreign place; nevertheless, its manipulation and impact in our everyday lives is widely misunderstood, at the cost of democratic processes and institutions both worldwide and locally." "The rise of fake news and manipulated media like deepfakes has sown a greater distrust of media and institutions that is undermining democracy, leading to a less-informed and less civically engaged population," said a research scientist focused on fairness, transparency, and accountability in artificial intelligence. People frequently opt to believe nothing or to trust anything their intuition tells them since they don't know what to believe. Furthermore, foreign actors that employ social media manipulation strategies to influence

elections weaken democracy's credibility." "Much of my career has been constructed around my genuine worries about the influence that technology is having on democratic processes of discussion, public accountability, and representation," writes Mark Andrejevic, associate professor of communications at the University of Iowa. This is due to the fact that technology must be understood within the context of the social relations in which it is deployed, and these have tended to favor an abstract consumerist individualism that suppresses the underlying commitment to a sense of common, shared, or overlapping interests required for participation in democratic society. I see the forms of hyper-customization and targeting that characterize our modern information environment (and our devices and modes of information 'consumption') as part of a larger pattern of the systematic dismantling of social and political institutions (including public education, labor unions, and social services) that build on and help reproduce an understanding of interdependence that allows us to enjoy the individual liberties we cherish. Like many others, I am concerned about escalating political polarization and how it feeds into the weaponization of incorrect and misleading information via automated curation systems that prioritize commercial above civic imperatives. These trends predate the rise of social media and would not have the same clout if it were not for the underlying forms of social and civic de-skilling that result from the offloading of inherently social functions and practices onto automated systems in ways that allow us to suppress and misrecognize underlying forms of interdependence, commonality, and public good. "I am skeptical that anything short of a social/political/economic calamity would cause us to deviate from our route." "Thinking here of a planet with 7 billion-plus persons, most of them (including many of the supposedly 'connected') are unable to discern the many aspects of disinformation that reaches them through traditional (entrepreneurial) media, social networking apps, and local political influences," wrote Carlos Afonso, an internet pioneer and digital rights leader based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

"Citizens will progressively behave without any comprehension of critical analysis and reasoning, fact-checking, or even the rule of law," said a long-time CEO and internet and telecommunications specialist. Under the pretense of 'acting out against injustice,' we will witness more cyber vigilantism, in which social media firestorms effectively 'trial and convict' anybody suspected of saying or doing anything contrary to their ideals." "I am worried about increased velocity of information that may not contain all crucial and supporting information," Gretchen Steenstra, a technology consultant for associations and charitable groups, stated. Without context, data is utilized to inform a single point of view. Consumers do not do fact-checking (on many issues regardless of party). Americans aren't concerned with social responsibility or longterm consequences; they simply seek immediate gratification. People's capacity to seek information and develop their own opinions is harmed by constant media exposure. Constant connectivity keeps you from reflecting and enables your brain to rest. Nobody can deny the thirst for comprehension." "Democracy will be led by more artificial intelligence systems, which will automate a variety of choices," noted a fellow at a think tank's center for technology and innovation. As a result, since data will be extrapolated from machines, humans may have minimal involvement on their own judgments. This will imply a weaker connection to democratic processes or relationships based on what one sees, hears, and feels via dominating platforms. Without some amount of policy restriction in certain use cases, such as voting, technology may help to undermine public confidence while depending less on real public input owing to the level of complexity that developing technologies provide." According to Ayden Férdeline, Mozilla Foundation's technology policy fellow, "technology will continue to be used by those who wish to create political apathy and erode our faith in existing institutions." This may take place in a more subtle manner than in the past, but the corrosive impact on democracy will be the same."

"People will become more cautious about how they utilize the internet," said Philip J. Salem, professor emeritus at Texas State University and an expert in the complexity of organizational transformation. Everyone must be more conscious of their use. My fear is that, with the speed of the internet, reflexive, unthinking behaviors might spread so quickly and have more disastrous results." "Today's social media facilitates the dissemination of unsubstantiated information, which may bias legislation and elections," said Jeff Johnson, a computer science professor at the University of San Francisco who formerly worked at Xerox, HP Labs, and Sun Microsystems. People are lazy and do not read most of the on which they comment, much alone verify the accuracy of the content. Before social media, spreading false material about a political opponent or ballot proposition was costly and subject to 'false advertising' legislation. To impact elections, political hit pieces have to be wellfunded, vaguely written, and well scheduled (to right before the election). That is no longer the case. Strong social media legislation might potentially ameliorate this, but such control seems unlikely in the near future." "I am not sanguine about democracy right now," said Pamela McCorduck, a writer, consultant, and author of many books, including "Machines Who Think." Extremism and indifference are two longstanding themes that have been amplified by the internet. In the last three elections, our share of eligible voters who actually voted increased just once or twice. It's mostly bleak. This is partly due to voter suppression (not just removing voters from the rolls, but also making the process of voting far more cumbersome than it needs to be). Voters have realized, in part, that elected officials are more beholden to dark money than to the people who elected them. "I hope I am mistaken about the future of this nation I adore." "Democracy is expected to be degraded by 2030," said Luis German Rodriguez, a researcher and consultant on knowledge society and

sociotechnical effect at Universidad Central de Venezuela. Wherever you look, authoritarian control seems to be strengthening, aided by developing technology." Anonymous respondents said: 1."People will not utilize the internet to examine the topic; instead, they will accept whatever prejudiced perspective is presented to them." 2."The issue is that, as critical thinking skills deteriorate, actual journalism vs opinion journalism (and the prominence of ‘sound bites' in place of serious discussion based on facts), and a lack of effective policy and governance principles, these technologies are being exploited to propagate incorrect information." 3."The public, rendered more susceptible by short attention spans and deteriorating reasoning abilities, becomes a pliable target for those seeking to undermine our democracy's essential institutions." 4."I'm less worried about technology than I am about my fellow citizens' competence and desire to educate themselves on the sources of information they access." 5."The greatest danger to democracy is people's lack of criticalthinking abilities, which allows them to differentiate between knowledge and falsehood." 6.Waging information wars: Anyone, anywhere, at any moment, may use technology to target susceptible groups and manipulate elections. "The commercial model of social media sites makes it unavoidable that these technologies will do more damage than good," stated Richard Bennett, founder of the High-Tech Forum and co-creator of the Ethernet and Wi-Fi standards. The evil people will continue to triumph as long as promoting indignation and misleading information produces more money than dealing in facts, reason, science, and

proof. Until we design a paradigm in which doing the right thing is more lucrative than taking advantage of the public's ignorance, the good people will continue to lose. One hypothetical development I'd like to see is the advent of social media platforms that filter less for tone and emotion and more for adherence to honesty and evidence standards. The main challenge is making this method financially successful." "Without significant regulation, our future elections will be ruled by the parties that can optimize social media recommendation algorithms most effectively," Mutale Nkonde, adviser on artificial intelligence at Data & Society and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, wrote. At the moment, it is parties like Cambridge Analytica that have utilized fear, bigotry, and xenophobia to influence elections all around the globe." "The lack of agreement among governments on how to deal with these issues is a serious threat to democracy, as much as the potential for misuse of technological innovations," said Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla, associate professor of communications at Pontificia Universidad Cattolica in Peru and editor of the Journal of Community Informatics. Over the next decade, comprehensive domination by a few multinational corporations will be entirely beyond of the regulatory and policy reach of developing-country governments. This would exacerbate the insecurity that has been accepted as a hallmark of government in many nations." According to a European specialist in the ethics of autonomous systems, "digital gadgets give more and more new tools for leaders to expand their authority to control people and manipulate an inferior alternative for democracy to their profit." They imitate and transmit to the public false flavors of democratic representations. Decisions that limit people's rights, autonomy, and independence are sold as required for improving the population's security, care, and well-being, while the true goal is to safeguard the interests of those seeking power and influence. New digital tools (biometrics, face recognition, big data, deep learning, and artificial intelligence) enable those in

power to identify and characterize individuals (position, behavior, location, ways of thinking, ideas, political opinions, level of life, health, origins, money, social relationships and so on). Stakeholders may utilize these technologies to make proper judgments on what they deem subversive individuals and, if required, to combat them. Robots and autonomous AI systems will be incredibly efficient slaves to assist teach those who do not meet the ruling class's standards and regulations. This paradigm will be implemented in an increasing number of countries throughout the globe, gradually limiting freedom and lowering the quality of life for ordinary people from the middle and lower socioeconomic classes. At the same time, the field of possible occupations will become more limited as AI and robots replace humans in most fields, leaving the bulk of people unable to find work to sustain and satisfy themselves." "Traditional democracy and democratic institutions depend on geographically defined limits for constituents," said Larry Masinter, an internet pioneer who worked at Adobe, ATT Labs, and Xerox PARC and helped build internet and web standards with IETF and W3C. Whether it's dubbed collusion or anything else, enabling technology will hasten the emergence of cross-jurisdictional misconduct."

"Authoritarians will erode checks and balances, convert courts into extensions of people in power, and therefore destroy representative democracy - aided by the use of digital media to stir fear and disguise embarrassing realities," one anonymous commenter said. … Extreme partisanship is threatening all of our democratic institutions, to the point that shared power and orderly transitions may no longer exist in ten years. Civil turmoil seems to be unavoidable." "Individual individuals cannot stand up to the organized 'might' of other governments," commented Rich Salz, senior architect at Akamai Technologies. This is not an armed revolt; it is a tiny group of workers with the ability to influence what thousands, if not millions, of people view." "The present U.S. government is leading the way in misusing technology," said Heywood Sloane, an entrepreneur and banking and securities specialist. It infiltrates the public sphere with misinformation and falsehoods, while maintaining a heavy thumb on the scale in the background. It invites and encourages trolls to attend White House events. Even if the government changes, the harm will take time and effort to repair. Media technology companies have lost control of their platforms and marketing teams, as seen by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Already, rogue state sponsors are influencing our debates, but we ignore them and laugh along with their leaders." "Over the next ten years, we will see a rise in the present trend of leveraging technology to further engineer elections (including gerrymandering) and to target people most susceptible to manipulation," stated an assistant dean of research for science and engineering (on all political sides). As a consequence, self-interested minority points of view (extremes on many sides) are overrepresented in elected government, increasing difficulties to deposing parties from power (particularly in two-party systems like the United States), and, for the time being, political discourse remains divided."

"The greatest worry of technology will be the deployment of artificial intelligence," according to a consultant who works with US government organizations. While we now have influence over AI, we will eventually lose that power. As systems are enhanced with AI, the human element will be phased out over time. We may say anything we want about technology and our control over it, but external forces will eventually supplant the human factor. This will occur in all sectors of technology, including government technology. It will eventually go beyond its own programming to accomplish what it deems is in our best interests." Confusion: Tech-enabled reality distortion is eroding already tenuous public faith in democratic institutions. "Technology has already and will continue to impose significant demands on democracy," wrote the chief of a technology innovation group of one of the world's top five technology corporations. First, digital technology makes it very simple for a small number of powerful people to have enormous power over our public dialogue. This is evident when they exert control over the information that is made accessible to and presented to individuals. Second, digital technology makes it very simple for actors to conceal or mask their participation and purpose. Third, digital technology makes it very simple to distort the facts via fabrications or exaggerations." Hatred, divisiveness, oversimplification, and a lack of well-considered thinking are on the rise and will continue to do so. "I fear deepening distortions in public perception by the leveraging of digital media on the part of governments (our own and foreign), tech corporations, and other actors – as new technologies like fake video make it even easier to shape opinion," said Nigel Cameron, president emeritus of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies. It will be some time before we have the will and the technology to put a stop to these abuses (if they occur). As things stand, divisiveness among

legislators and Mark Zuckerberg's and other internet leaders"sorry, not sorry' attitude predict worsening issues." "[Technology] will weaken democracy; it will continue to reinforce echo chambers that disallow acknowledgment, let alone tolerance of, alternative views, new discoveries, facts, and/or realities," wrote Richard Forno, assistant director of the University of MarylandBaltimore County's Center for Cybersecurity. This will exacerbate tribalism among residents and be reflected in the views/actions of their elected representatives." "Hate, divisiveness, oversimplification, and a lack of well-considered thinking are and will be on the rise," wrote Alejandro Pisanty, a professor at UNAM, Mexico's National University, and an activist in multistakeholder internet governance. They are orders of magnitude simpler to build and spread than the methods for combating them (the 'bullshit asymmetry' concept on steroids). Manipulation of elections and other procedures will continue to be rampant as long as there are individuals who want to do it and others who are vulnerable to it. The United States will be among the most struck, with a naive populace unable to see the meta-layers of assault. There is hope for progress in a smaller, wiser, more democratic part of society against the apathetic and uninformed. Better knowledge, resilient systems (by design), and debates layered at all levels from the ultra-local to the global, an architecture of multistakeholder deliberations and choices, and a lot of luck might all contribute to progress. Otherwise, splintering and other types of terrible days are on the horizon." "The forces that wish to confuse/undercut genuine information are learning how to effectively exploit these technologies," said Rich Ling, professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and an expert on the social ramifications of mobile communication. They are also learning how to tune their communications in order to increase their divisiveness. This separation exploits confirmation bias, undermining the common ground required for successful governance and democracy."

Karl Auerbach, chief technical officer of Interworking Labs and an early pioneer in internet architecture, had less trust in multistakeholder groups, noting, "Democracy is dying at the hands of a notion called ‘stakeholder.'" This has nothing to do with technology, except that individuals are being persuaded to feel that they are not talented or intelligent enough to make their own decisions, and that technical specialists should do it on their behalf. We are heading closer to an oligarchy of ‘stakeholders' rather than enhanced democracy (direct or indirect)." "Lies disseminate more quickly than reality," observed Glyn Moody, a renowned technology writer, blogger, and speaker based in Europe. It is becoming considerably simpler to employ cutting-edge technology to undermine what we believed was secure and solid. It's becoming difficult to combat this technological exploitation." "As artificial intelligence technologies are employed to create evermore-realistic disinformation videos and as multiplication of software AI disinformation bots can be replicated and spread easily by individuals or small groups, more and more people will be fooled by disinformation, thus weakening our democracy," wrote an emeritus computing science professor from a top U.S. technological university. "Powerful governments and their supporters are leveraging technology to demolish the notion of a single, recognized reality," warned a sociology professor at a prominent California institution. While not always successful in instilling specific notions in the minds of individuals and residents, the relentless attack on truth leads to exhaustion and resignation, that the true truth cannot be discovered, or that all political players are equally terrible. This resignation, which eventually leads to indifference, permits people in authority to act poorly and consolidate their control. The unknown is if modern technology can detect bots and phoney video/audio, as well as whether mainstream media and social media corporations act

responsibly in order to resurrect an acknowledged reality." "My work is centered on the need to make the internet and related information technologies trustworthy and dependable," said Alan Honick, PROSOCIAL project director. The most crucial variable for the subject at hand is whether or not information technology can progress toward being a trustworthy and dependable source of knowledge, and the current trajectory seems to imply that it cannot." "Social media platforms have a steep hill to climb in the coming years when it comes to dealing effectively with disinformation and coordinated inauthentic behavior aimed at manipulating voters and electoral outcomes," said Annemarie Bridy, a law professor specializing in the impact of new technologies on existing legal frameworks. Online viral misinformation will continue to pose a severe danger to democratic institutions and election integrity." "The internet era is characterized by a disintermediation of authority," said Garth Graham, a longstanding leader of Tele communities Canada. The idea of authority as a structural organizing factor is fading. The commitment to accept power to represent is the foundation of democracy. Most people are no longer ready to believe that they can be represented by anybody else." "Many parties have an incentive to disseminate inaccurate and destructive comments and information that people believe," said Stephanie Fierman, partner of Futureproof Strategies. Until we return to a world where a fact is a fact is a reality, we will witness a continued deterioration of truth and the existence of checks and balances, both of which are critical to the presence of democracy." "The operators of social media platforms, such as Facebook, need to bear responsibility for content," Stuart Umpleby, retired professor of management and director of research at George Washington University, said. Otherwise, they profit from spreading lies."

"If the world does not understand the risks and take remedial action, technology is likely to negatively damage the quality and practice of democracy," said Satish Babu, founding director of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software. The pragmatics of democracy, in particular, will devolve into a "anything goes" free-for-all in which artificial intelligence will be used to dig out, exaggerate, or even manufacture antecedents of candidates from historical records, and social media will be used to push such "facts" to every citizen." "Both armies and databases of persuadable individuals that contain knowledge on what sets them off enable the worst nationalistic and international actors to break down democracies," stated a sociology and public policy expert. People may inhabit parallel realms via technology, where others promote and deepen their illusions - flat earthers, vaccine and climate conspiracy theorists, moon landing hoaxers, and so on. These are troublesome in and of themselves, but they also lend themselves to further manipulation, the breakdown of faith in institutions, the search for scapegoats, and the rejection of science." "Technology... controls our access to knowledge and perspectives," said Filippo Menczer, a Knight Foundation Democracy Project recipient and professor of informatics and computer science at Indiana University. This will help to enhance democracy by making it simpler to examine facts, for example. It will also erode democracy when vulnerabilities resulting from the interaction of cognitive, social, and computational biases are exploited and new ones are uncovered. Overall, I believe that things will become worse before they get better. We are just now starting to debate the legal consequences of countermeasures, such as social bots, misinformation operations, speech suppression, and the First Amendment in the United States." "The bad features of bots and influencers pushing attitudes are likely to exceed the beneficial aspects of greater participation in the political

process," stated Nancy Heltman, manager of a state agency located in the United States. "I worry that purposeful lies will continue to push objective fact out of the dialogue," stated David Gans, a singer, composer, and journalist. The social networks are unable or unwilling to intercede on behalf of the truth, and there are powerful and well-funded groups with a vested interest in misinforming the public." "Working to be respectful of First Amendment rights while not enabling the persistence of mis- or misinformation is of major concern," stated a research head for a U.S. government agency. I don't think it will be settled in the next ten years. We live in a world of 50 shades of grey. In many circumstances, the answer is not black and white. The title may be deceptive, but it is not wholly false. That, I believe, is attractive to the media at the moment." "Technology will have complicated consequences on society that will be impossible to foresee, that will rely on the actions of tech corporations, governments, the press, and individuals," stated Kenneth R. Fleischmann, associate professor at the University of Texas-School Austin's of Information. Trust, not blind trust, but trust based on the clear provenance of information that may let people exercise their autonomy and agency, will be critical." Saying are: 1."By cultivating smaller groups and fringe beliefs, technology will diminish our capacity to reach agreement; it will make compromise and establishing a modus vivendi much more difficult." 2."Social media will continue to erode trust in facts and reason; echo chambers and emotion-driven communications, as well as voting security issues, will damage public discourse and trust in elections."

3."There seems to be no practical method to assess the impact of information technology on polarization and disinformation." The genuine ideas and deeds of political leaders will continue to have less of an impact on voting." 4."Foreign governments and hate organizations will become more skilled in their abilities to enter the internet with biased information and advertisements aimed to suppress or persuade votes and adversely affect public opinion." 5."While technology allows voices to be heard, it has already damaged democracy by allowing governments and companies to erode privacy and suppress people who might otherwise speak out." 6."Mass armies are no longer required. "New technology offers unprecedented levels of centralized control." 7."In 2030, there will still be splintering and growing political polarization as people use anonymous actions to question democratic values and influence political processes." 8."Democracy is and always will be rife with bogus news and ridiculous bloviation." Weakening journalism: There seems to be no answer to the challenges posed by the increase of tribalism enabled by social media and the demise of reliable, independent journalism. "The decrease of independent journalism and critical thinking and research abilities as a consequence of easy dependence on the internet makes people more open to manipulation and demagoguery," said Christopher Mondini, ICANN's vice president of corporate

engagement. A rising number of politically engaged individuals are digital natives who have no memory of life before social media became the dominant channel for discussion and influence. The need for clicks, retweets, and page views fosters radical or offensive discourse. Viral memes and soundbites divert attention away from careful analysis, discussion, and debate. Of course, the great majority of people are not politically engaged, but they are increasingly consuming news and shaping their perspective via their online networks. Participation in political processes may increase as a result of freshly aroused sentiments caused by internet speech, but it may drive out more measured voices." "Social media as they are now have a divisive impact that destabilizes democracy," said Yaakov J. Stein, CTO of RAD Data Communications in Israel. The reason for this is because advertising (and misinformation) is targeted and personalized to individuals depending on their prior beliefs (as predicted based on their social media behavior). This reinforces established opinions, increases disparagement of individuals who have opposing views, and reduces the likelihood of being exposed to competing viewpoints. As a consequence, a free press no longer promotes democracy by allowing people to choose from a marketplace of ideas. Instead, the right to free expression is being abused to defend the spread of misinformation and to guarantee that people are not exposed to a diverse range of opinions. Perhaps a more pernicious outcome is that individuals who want to have an open mind can no longer trust information supplied online, yet free information online has contributed to the bankruptcy of conventional news institutions that invest money on fact-checking." Citizens are increasingly vulnerable to manipulation and demagoguery when independent journalism and critical thinking and research abilities deteriorate as a consequence of easy dependence on the internet. "We can assume that efforts to influence public impressions of

politicians and elections are not only continuous, but that they will continue to be effective," said Rey Junco, director of research at CIRCLE at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Before there is a reorganization of technical systems and processes that will assist enhance key components of democracy, people, civil society, and governments will utilize technology to degrade core aspects of democracy and democratic representation. There are two concerns at stake here: 1) Ideological self-sorting in online spaces, aided by algorithmic polarization; and 2) technology firms' reluctance to confront disinformation on their platforms. Individuals who acquire their news online (a bigger percentage of whom are young - Pew Research) choose ideologically similar media providers and seldom view news from the other side (Flaxman, Goel, & Rao, 2018). Indeed, these people are seldom exposed to moderate ideas (Flaxman, Goel, & Rao, 2018). In turn, social media allow for not just informational selfsorting, as with online news, but such self-sorting is aided by algorithmic curating of feeds, which fosters ideological division. … Although major technology corporations are aware of how disinformation was pushed and transmitted via their networks during the 2016 elections, as well as the subsequent congressional hearings on the subject, nothing has been done to reduce the effect of such purposeful misinformation dissemination. Analyses from the security and intelligence sectors demonstrate that state actors are still attempting to influence public mood in social spaces, despite the fact that the growing polarization of conventional media channels has reduced the effect of these reports. The fact that the United States has not tackled the propagation of disinformation via technical development or public education emboldens state actors." "I am concerned about three connected tendencies," said an associate professor of computer science who formerly worked for Microsoft. 1) the rising decentralization of news creation, 2) the absence of simple, citizen-facing processes for verifying the legitimacy of digital media objects such as videos, and 3) personalization ecosystems that exacerbate the inclination toward confirmation bias and intellectual constriction. All three tendencies reduce the number of knowledgeable voters and widen socioeconomic divisions. Governments will

eventually become less averse to regulating platforms for news generation and dissemination, but attracting top tech talent will be a key challenge for the government; currently, that talent is mostly lured to industry due to higher salaries and the perception of more interesting work. Increasing the number of engineers in government (both as civil employees and politicians) is critical for allowing the government to address the negative social effects of technology in a proactive manner." "When I'm pessimistic, I feel that the fragmentation of information sources will combine with selective attention - the inclination just to follow news sources that one expects to agree with," said Kenneth Sherrill, retired professor of political science at Hunter College. This would result in even more division, with no moderating effects or respect for democratic procedures that come with true involvement. This has the potential to bring democratic processes to a halt. I'm now pessimistic. The 2020 election might be the litmus test." "Social media will heighten the existing severe division that we currently have," stated Eric Keller, lecturer in international affairs and US foreign policy at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. This is mostly due to 'information stovepipes' and mutually reinforcing narratives that dehumanize opponents. This raises the risk of democratic institutions being weakened in the guise of ‘rescuing' them from the opposition political party." According to a Europe-based internet governance advocate and activist, "If present trends continue, most nations will not have a true democracy by 2030." The internet's targeted advertising-based revenue model is hurting investigative journalism and serious reporting. Fake news is becoming more prevalent. In the lack of credible information, citizens cannot make educated judgments." "By 2030, we will still witness struggle between tiny groups and communities that leads to extremes," stated the coordinator of a

public-good initiative in Bulgaria. This will allow governments to become more authoritative and have much more control over the internet." "The mix of news fragmentation, systematic deception, and motivated reasoning will continue to spiral outward," said Bill D. Herman, a scholar studying at the interface of human rights and technology. We're on the verge of civil war, and the hydra-headed right-wing hate machine is to blame." "The cornerstone of democracy is an informed public," remarked an internet pioneer, technological developer, and administrator. Social media has launched an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of democracy by eroding the economic base of journalism and facilitating the widespread spreading of falsehoods. To name one disadvantage, the decrease of newspapers has had a quantitative impact (as measured by bond prices) on governmental supervision and investor confidence." "The explosion in the volume of information has led to the majority of people tending to rely on or trust the major platforms to filter and distribute information rather than managing their own personal learning environments with feeds from trusted independent sources," said a professor and expert in learning in 3D environments. As screening methods grow more advanced and tailored to the individual, the affluent will have even more opportunity to control opinion. The democratic system is critically dependent on unfettered access to truthful information, and without it, the system would effectively become less and less democratic." "Facebook misled people on the notion that a race to amass 'friends' was a desirable thing – then people paid heed to what those 'friends' said," wrote Mike Douglass, an independent developer. Many of those 'friends,' as we now know, were bots or hostile actors. Things can only become worse if we keep going in this direction. We need to

reintroduce the in-person technique to making new friends and acquaintances. Why should we care about folks we don't know? Unfortunately, technology enables misinformation and deception to proliferate at an alarming pace." "Our politicians have embraced online communications as a direct avenue to lie to their supporters without the fact-checking of conventional media gatekeepers," said Eric Goldman, professor and head of the High-Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. We have little prospect of decent government as long as technology allows politicians to lie without responsibility." "The internet, with unbridled power in the hands of commercial companies with no sense of social responsibility," said Janet Salmons, a consultant with Vision2Lead, "will continue to unravel Western-style democracies and civic institutions." Companies that benefit from the selling of personal data or from dangerous behaviors have little incentive to promote the types of digital and advanced literacy skills that individuals need to distinguish between reality and fiction. The free press and educational institutions in the United States, which have the ability to expose this divide, are under attack. As a consequence, even when given the chance to vote or otherwise weigh in on decision-making, they do so from a position of weakness and ignorance. The mass views based on big data with the lowest common denominator win." "In the early days of the internet, there was a promise that it would bring a democratization of power," stated a researcher and instructor of digital literacies and technologies. What we're witnessing today is the strong speaking with greater and more forceful voices, occupying more space rather than less. Instead of a free-flowing interchange of ideas, this results in polarization. Anyone caught in the midst of a heated topic is labelled a traitor by both sides and ridiculed and/or pushed away."

"Increased participation is primarily a environment," one anonymous responder where the press is missing, limited, or has that engagement will carry the markings environment."

product of the media said, "and – in locations become clearly political – of a skewed information

Reacting too slowly: As the pace of change quickens, the speed, scope, and influence of manipulation technologies may be difficult to overcome. Artificial intelligence would severely undermine the fundamental principles of democracy, representation, elections, and government tenure. "Disinformation and deepfakes in social media, as well as the ability of individuals and media-propaganda teams to manipulate both who is and can communicate with whom, and who and what they are talking about, are undermining democratic principles and practice," said Kathleen M. Carley, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems. Technological helpers, such as bots, and information tools, like as memes, are being utilized in ways that take use of aspects of social media and online platforms, such as prioritizing rules, to put specific actors and information in front of people. Social media-based information operations take use of our cognitive biases and our cognitive tendency to perceive the world from a social or group viewpoint. As a result, established approaches for detecting deception are no longer effective. There is a lack of understanding about strategies for neutralizing misinformation operations as they unfold across numerous media platforms. There are no global regulations for 1) reacting to misinformation and its authors, and 2) technological infrastructure that requires information to carry its provenance, as well as strong scalable methods for recognizing that an information campaign is ongoing, who is doing it, and why."

According to Jason Hong, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute, "basically, it's 1) easier for small groups of people to cause a lot of damage (e.g., disinformation, deepfakes), and 2) easier for those already in power to use these technologies than those who need to organize." In the early days of the internet, new technology empowered new voices, resulting in a plethora of utopian viewpoints. However, in recent years, we've seen how these same tools are increasingly being utilized to entrench those already in power. We see this in the form of targeted advertising (which is used for highly targeted political campaigns), analytics (which is used for gerrymandering), disinformation and fake news (which is used both domestically and by foreign powers, both unintentionally and intentionally), and filter bubbles, which allow people to seek out only the information that they want to hear. All of this was feasible before to the internet, but it was more difficult due to natural obstacles. We've also yet to see the political consequences of deepfakes, and we're just now beginning to see the consequences of broad police monitoring." "Over the next 30 years, democracy confronts at least three types of technology-based dangers," noted Mark Raymond, associate professor of international security at the University of Oklahoma. For starters, real or perceived manipulation of vote data and systems by state actors is likely to erode faith in democratic processes. Second, social media manipulation (by governments, political campaigns, and other nonstate actors) will amplify echo chamber effects and further polarize society. Reduced trust will exacerbate societal conflict, including, but not limited to, election-related conflict. Third, 'deepfakes' will erode trust in even video-based media reporting. Taken together, these tendencies raise the possibility that people will be more inclined to accept essentially authoritarian transformations in their politics. In the absence of such, growing polarization is likely to make the functioning of democratic systems (which rely significantly on mutual agreement of informal norms) very problematic." "The essential notions of democracy, representation, elections, and

tenure of government would be substantially challenged by artificial intelligence," said Emmanuel Edet, legal counsel of Nigeria's National Information Technology Development Agency. The usage of social media, combined with faceless artificial intelligence-driven ideas, has the potential to control public opinion, denying individuals the ability to voice their preferences out of fear of going against the herd." "The problem is not that core democratic institutions will change, it is that they will not change enough," said Matt Moore, innovation manager at Disruptor's Handbook in Sydney, Australia. Elections, voting, representatives, and political parties are not going away. They may signify more or less (more often less) than they did before. As weak or destabilized governments succumb to authoritarian populism, the world's democracies are likely to dwindle. Western democracies will mature and become more economically unequal. States such as China will continue to rise in power, often using new technology to control their populace. Everyone is hyping blockchain's promise for democratization. The most of this is bullshit. The problem isn't that people don't have enough chances to vote. The problem is that no one understands what that vote implies. Many people who vote – or do not vote – have no idea what their vote signifies. Many of individuals who vote do not understand what their vote signifies, which is why they depend on polls and focus groups. Deliberative democracy has the potential to provide a new kind of political interaction and decisionmaking if (and this is a huge if) it can be made to function beyond isolated experiments." "There is grounds for optimism – but it's such a delicate flower compared to the relative ease with which the negative forces win," retired Mike O'Connor, a former member of the ICANN policy development community, said. 'A falsehood may travel the globe while truth is putting its boots on,' as the saying goes - choose your attribution." "Our laws and Constitution are primarily created for a world that existed before the industrial period, much alone the information age,"

said a longtime technology writer for a major U.S. news agency. These technologies have rendered the nation-state obsolete, and we have yet to comprehend how they enable antidemocratic forces." "Corporations and government have the knowledge and the technology to develop highly targeted communications meant to favor their own agendas," said Hume Winzar, associate professor and head of the business analytics undergraduate programme at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. We have proved as citizens that we seldom seek outside our normal news sources and often depend on readily digestible surrogates for news (comedy shows, social media). We also seem to have relatively short memory, so what was considered a scandal just a year ago is now considered normal, even admirable. This isn't anything new. For many decades, the British and Americans have successfully manipulated international news and propaganda, as has the church. However, the scope and speed of such manipulation are now maybe too large to fight." "I anticipate the imbalance of power between giant multinational businesses and democratic national governments to worsen to the harm of democracy," said Ian Fish, an ICT expert and specialist in information security located in Europe. I also anticipate nondemocratic administrations to damage democratic norms quicker than democracies can respond." "Democracy has to have the ability to negotiate in the interest of an average person, who may not have direct impact on how critical choices play out in geopolitics but is always affected by it," said Puruesh Chaudhary, a futurist based in Pakistan. The democratic institutions must have procedures that keep up with technology advances that have an influence on society." When people's obsession with technology draws them away from human-to-human interactions, trust declines. Several responders contended that there were times when humans'

"slowness" was advantageous, but that technology was obstructing that aspect of existence. They think that one important reason of trust erosion is that many individuals spend more time online in frequently toxic surroundings than they do in face-to-face, empathy-enabling non-digital social circumstances. "We are only witnessing the beginning of how technology is undermining democracy and social interactions fundamental to a democratic society," said Angela Campbell, professor of law and codirector of Georgetown University's Institute for Public Representation. We don't have excellent means of distinguishing between what is true and what is untrue, between what is opinion and what is truth. Most individuals do not yet comprehend how power technology (particularly when paired with a lack of privacy regulations) may be exploited. Furthermore, as individuals spend more time using technology, they spend less time connecting with others (in person) and developing crucial social skills such as respect and empathy." "Technology generates new types of communications and propaganda that may be quite abrasive and controversial," said Yves Mathieu, codirector of Missions Publiques in Paris, France. Some contributors are harsh, aggressive, make derogatory remarks, and criticize or threaten political officials. Because technology will not allow for debate, there will be a major demand for face-to-face formats. There will be a need for frequent meetings with voters, when individuals will have the time and opportunity to exchange arguments and better understand each other's positions. Being involved with the media would help to bridge the gap that we now have by increasing mutual understanding." "The expanded use of technology with respect to democratic processes will tend to weaken one of the most important aspects of democracy and democratic processes – the use of technology instead of person-to-person dialogue seriously degrades (or eliminates entirely) meaningful dialogue and exchange of ideas between individuals," an anonymous respondent commented. When people utilize technology to convey their political ideas/opinions rather of

having direct human encounters, their views tend to be more extreme than if they were speaking to another person. Furthermore, if someone else expresses a different viewpoint than the initial individual, the first person is significantly less likely to pay attention to an opinion made via technology than to a view expressed in a personto-person debate. Furthermore, the rising use of technology for studying segments of society in order to ‘shape' message delivery for certain segments may result in a rise in communications that misrepresent the reality of the message or distort the effects of what the message is expressing." The future will be characterized by a complicated interplay of growing online engagement, increased mistrust of those virtual contacts, and a greater respect for offline information and talks. According to a futurist and analyst, "Democracy is presently experiencing a crisis in global leadership." I don't have much hope for democracy in 2030 unless there is big change in 2020, which I am optimistic about. I'm afraid the question isn't so much what will change as it is what must change. The future of democracy is jeopardized unless democratic institutions reform. There is an urban/rural divide at work, as well as a significant discrepancy in income distribution — all with climate change looming over it all. Technology will play a role in both offering and inhibiting answers." "People who use Facebook are influenced in negative ways by a 'net effect,' in which they demonstrate impulsivity, grandiosity, and so on, as stated in my book, 'Media and Communication Research Methods,'" said Arthur Asa Berger, professor emeritus of communications at San Francisco State University (Sage). Some young people text 100 times a day and never converse on the phone with others, resulting in a severe estrangement from both others and oneself. Hate groups, neofascists, right-wing ideologues, terrorist organizations, and so forth utilize the internet."

"Technology facilitates the formation of a bullying atmosphere that polarizes individuals to the point where they do not strive to comprehend alternative thoughts or viewpoints, undermining public dialogue and fueling indignation and assaults on minority views," said an unnamed US policy and strategy specialist. "At the present, the main social media networks operate not by neutrally and dispassionately linking disparate communicators (like the phone system), but are structured to boost participation in order to sell as many tailored advertising as possible," said Japheth Cleaver, a systems engineer. This reinforcement has resonance effects across a society's culture, and in-person contextual contact fades in favor of the efficiencies that electronic communication provides, but without the danger of dropping the 'bubble' of the like-minded, which would decrease engagement. The use of the Internet as a communications overlay is acceptable. The Internet as a substitute for public space seems to be deleterious." "The future will include a complex interplay of increased online activity but also increased skepticism of those virtual interactions and an enhanced appreciation of offline information and conversations," said Melissa Michelson, professor of political science at Menlo College and author of "Mobilizing Inclusion: Redefining Citizenship Through GetOut-the-Vote Campaigns." As more adults become digital natives and technology's role in society develops and becomes more integrated, more and more parts of democracy and political involvement will be conducted online. Simultaneously, the growing complexity of deepfakes, especially fake video, will increase the importance of faceto-face encounters as unfiltered and trustworthy sources of information." Sayings are: 1."Unless there is openness, technology will be the next digital atomic bomb — it has progressed faster than people's or the law's

comprehension of its unexpected effects and criminal applications." 2."At the present pace of disdain and lack of accountability by individuals who control and operate huge digital organizations, we are on the verge of a total loss of faith in what is true and what is not." 3."Public institutions act slowly and deliberately." People that do evil things move faster, and with the internet, this will continue to be an issue." 4."The loss of personal and societal conventions, rather than technology itself, is at the core of many of our issues." People are far less courteous to one another in person than they were a few decades ago." 5."More rapid access to data and records may help citizens be more informed and active, yet more information can flood the market, and individuals have limited capacity/time/energy to assimilate information." Individuals who are changing: More public awareness, improved digital literacy, and increased educational participation will be seen during the next decade. Systems for adaptation: Changes in the design of human systems, as well as a better attitude among engineers, will benefit democracy. Working for the greater good: Governments, enlightened leaders, and activists will assist in steering policies and democratic processes in order to generate better democratic results. Assisting with reforms: The growth of technology and technologies such as artificial intelligence will help in the implementation of pro-democracy governance solutions. Those who will advocate for trustworthy free speech and more citizen empowerment. In recent years, the disruptive potential of digital technology has been a popular subject. There are demands for governments to add or eliminate restrictions, invest in digital start-ups, and safeguard employees whose employment are endangered by new business models. This research study examines and analyses expert opinion on disruption in order to educate governments on the policy challenges provided by digital technology. This assessment establishes a larger framework for the Commission's official inquiry into Data Availability and Use, as well as Intellectual Property

Arrangements. It also gives context for significant studies on productivity growth that we anticipate to get in a period of seeming digital change. With fast developments in computer power, connection, mobility, and data storage capacity over the previous several decades, digital technologies now provide potential for increased productivity growth and living standard improvements. However, they also carry the potential of increased inequality and labor and capital dislocation. Speculation regarding the impact of technology is often characterized by either optimism or pessimism. Several nations excitedly experimented with utilizing new rocket technology to carry mail in the 1930s, and in 1959, the United States trialed mail delivery by cruise missile, a now-comic idea. The Commission has endeavored to avoid unduly optimistic or pessimistic assessments of the effects of present digital technologies, while acknowledging their potential where it is clear. Nonetheless, economists are debating whether we are reaping less advantage from today's digital disruption than we did from prior disruptions or industrial revolutions in the 1870s, 1920s, or even 1980s. According to the statistics, Australia, like other advanced countries, has yet to see digital technologies create considerable productivity gains or result in major disruption at the sector or economy-wide level. This is not a trivial subject of technical importance. Productivity in its purest form — multifactor productivity — has not shown the type of rise that would be anticipated from a 'disruptive' time of change. While measuring the productivity of new technology is sometimes difficult, US research suggests that measurement challenges do not adequately explain the reduction in output. The open and critical questions are whether the current economic lassitude is primarily a delay before the onset of significant social and economic changes driven by digital disruption; whether government policies (or lack thereof) may be obstructing the realization of the benefits; or whether the effects of this disruption are less profound than previously thought. The Commission's future work will investigate the potential for proproductivity policies that rely on both digital and non-digital prospects. This research adds to that effort by investigating the possible implications and difficulties of digital technology on markets and

competition, employees and society, and government operations. With a few exceptions, governments throughout Australia have mostly reacted in a reactive manner to coping with digital technology. Despite lofty rhetoric, we have been unimpressive in our use of technology to enhance public-sector operations and service delivery. In a brief document like this, we don't aim to give detailed answers to huge policy concerns, but rather to provide educated guidance on where policy should go. And, although we strive to minimize 'rocket mail' mistakes, we anticipate that not every Finding reached in this report will be proven correct in the end. However, a lack of speculation in this area would be both hesitant and unhelpful in the establishment of a productivity policy agenda. According to the Commission, digital technology will continue and likely accelerate developments in Australia's economy. Digital technologies enable more dispersed manufacturing and promote the trend toward more service aspects — before and post production services — in manufactured and nonmade items. Data is a new source of market power, but advantage may be fleeting in the face of the digital economy. The way governments deal with market power will be essential for those who control data and networks as well as those who wish to utilize them. Digital platforms are allowing for higher asset usage, including research and household assets. Firms, families, and consumers stand to profit from a wider product choice, additional sources of revenue, and frequently reduced costs when governments allow it. In general, digital platforms provide customers greater influence than in the past, allowing them to express product opinions and make better educated purchasing decisions. Some policies targeted at boosting consumer information may become obsolete, while others focused at maintaining information authenticity and platform integrity may become vital. Governments may do a lot to facilitate the invention and adoption of digital reform possibilities without favoring specific technology. Governments will need to reassess institutional and regulatory structures in markets that are now heavily regulated but where digital technologies allow for more producers — energy generation is one example — to guarantee that new technologies can compete for market share. In general, standards that enable digital technology

interoperability and ensure investment in supporting infrastructures (such as stable and easily upgradeable communications networks) may aid in fast technological spread. There will be changes as a result of digital disruption. Some employees may find it difficult to adapt to changes in demand for their talents as well as new, more flexible but less dependable job possibilities. Australia's social safety net will continue to play an essential role in lowering risks for employees and moderating the impacts of economic inequality. Broader protections for an individual's rights (such as control over personal information) and to support society's moral and ethical mores (important in light of technological advancements in artificial intelligence, remote sensing, and medical research) will necessitate ongoing government attention informed by scientific evidence. Digital technologies provide opportunities for governments to enhance their own service delivery, such as greater risk assessment in regulatory operations, integration of human services, and infrastructure management. Digital technology will also hold governments more responsible to the public than in the past and increase demand for more openness. Governments can do more than they seem to be doing now by demonstrating leadership in their own practices, re-designing laws to encourage rather than obstruct the use of digital technologies, and mitigating communitylevel hazards when possible. We will look at some of the most major Digital Disruption themes affecting our world today in the sections below. Some are already on everyone's lips, while others are still on their way to the broader public... 1. Big Data and Beyond: If we were to describe the digital revolution in a single word, it would be "data." It all begins here. Today, we all leave "digital footprints" on every device we use, from Google searches to geolocation data, from social media postings to performance statistics recorded on your fitness app. This list might go on indefinitely. The term "Big Data" refers to this massive and possibly infinite source of information. As a result, the challenge for businesses in all industries is to understand

how to capture this data. Above all, businesses must be able to organize and understand it in the most effective, deep, and intelligent manner possible based on their business requirements. In a nutshell, rivalry exists in the realm of analytics. This isn't exactly novel. What is required, however, is for businesses to go beyond "Big Data" and toward "Smart Data" or "Deep Data." This is why massive investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning technologies have been made: they are now required to improve this sort of study. They will become much more prominent in the future. 2. Individualization, individualization, individualization To summarize, data analysis benefits companies by assisting them in getting to know their current and future audiences (in addition to streamlining internal operations). Allowing them to segment information into more detailed and dynamic targets for targeted operations. Is it possible to do more? Yes, you may target certain persons. Marketing and tailored Customer Service do this, and it is in this area that specialist organizations such as Doxee come into play. In this regard, the transformation of "cold" data into human interactions with a one-to-one viewpoint is a watershed moment (even when addressing a very large number of people). This is without a doubt one of the Digital Disruption themes that will be strengthened in the next years. 3. Internet of Things (IoT): From Micro to Macro A substantial portion of the globe is not yet linked to the network and hence is not yet a member of the "digital world." However, even in this field, things are moving quickly. That is why everyone is talking about IoT, or the internet applied to "things." From enormous machineries in the 4.0 sector to everyday products. Not to mention the massive Smart City concept, which will practically take off with the development of ever-more efficient connecting technologies (starting

from 5G). In a nutshell, from local to global, micro to macro. Again, the benefits are many, but they are centered in two areas: functionality and efficiency enhancement, and a fresh pool of data to explore. 4. Wearable digital Wearables are among the most promising things to convert to digital. Everyone has heard of the Apple Watch or Google Glass. However, the market is fast growing. Consider uses in fitness and sportswear (Nike, in particular, is quite active; see here for an example); and, of course, gaming. Consider wearable gadgets in the medical and health fields, another industry with great growth potential that is becoming even more important in current times. 5. The role of the voice will become more crucial We're not talking about brand voice here, but rather technologies that take use of spoken conversation between human users and computer interfaces. Apple, Google, and Amazon's voice assistants still have a long way to go before they are totally useful and practical. However, it only takes a handful of years to observe how far they have already progressed. We're just getting started. Today, programmes such as Microsoft Conversational AI are showing extremely promising results. This will undoubtedly be one of the next frontiers of digital connection as it becomes more "tailor-made" and individualized. In a short period of time, it will be one of the pillars of the most sophisticated User Experience (with possibilities still to be exploited in terms of engagement, Customer Care, and extension of omnichannel optics). 6. AR, VR, and MR Speaking about extending one's digital experience. Here are some abbreviations you'll be hearing more and more: AR is an abbreviation for Augmented Reality, VR is an abbreviation for Virtual Reality, and

MR is an abbreviation for Mixed Reality. Technologies that were once considered science fiction are now a reality, and will be available to everyone by the end of the year. There have already been some intriguing trials using these technologies in marketing and customer service. For a more in-depth look at these technologies. 7. Blockchain technology Another popular term these days is "blockchain." However, not everyone understands the actual reach of this technology. Often, the conversation is restricted to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin; nonetheless, blockchain technology has far-reaching possibilities. To put it simply, blockchain is a distributed register that maintains transactions in a safe and permanent manner without the need for a centralized control authority to verify the procedures. All of this speaks to disintermediation, especially in industries renowned for their conventional procedures and extensive regulation, such as banking and insurance. These are critical and vital industries that, predictably, are spending extensively in the potential uses of this technology in order to remain competitive. 8.Employee Experience in the Digital Age In terms of workflow and efficiency, as well as the Employee Experience, where Business to Employee, or B2E, is gaining steam, digital is becoming critical for the internal structure of firms in every industry. (In our free booklet, you can learn more about B2E.). Finally, the current health crisis has brought smart working and the tools needed to make it really useful and productive, rather than merely a backup, back into focus. 9. The Internet of Things and Public Administration Digital disruption is affecting not just companies, but also the Public

Administration environment, which has historically been reluctant to embrace innovation. The keyword here is dematerialization, which is distinct from ordinary "digitization." Check out our free eBook on the subject. 10. XaaS One of the most intriguing turning points that led to Digital Disruption was the shift from the importance of the product to the importance of the service. In this sense, there are several examples: you no longer purchase a record, but instead subscribe to a service that gives you access to hundreds of thousands of playlists (like Spotify). The same process underpins Netflix's success. However, it also applies to a wide range of sectors, from mobility to cloud-based corporate software, as well as platforms for servers, storage, and sharing, to mention a few. This tendency is only going to become worse. This is what XaaS stands for: "Everything as a Service," one of the most crucial emerging trends in Digital Disruption. Finally, we live in an increasingly digital environment. However, keep in mind that it is, by definition, a dynamic world. That is why you must keep your eyes open at all times in order to see, and then ride, the newest trends before the competition. 'Digital Transformation' is quickly becoming a buzzword in the IT world. Despite the fact that it was prevalent among huge corporations in previous years, the pandemic has recently pushed digital activities throughout small sectors as well. It is essential for businesses of all kinds, ranging from small to medium to big. From virtually every speech, the call to overhaul every industry is obvious and loud. While some businesses have moved on to digital transformation from the beginning, others are still at the first floor of a ten-story structure. In a nutshell, today's organizations are in various stages of digital transformation. Digital disruption, or the revolution produced by rising digital technology and business models, is a global reality in many industries. It is a paradigm change that will have far-reaching consequences for all enterprises. As a consequence, the way businesses operate has changed. Organizations are reconsidering

their operational principles and laying the groundwork for digital transformation plans to bridge the gap between their workflow and revenue growth. Although enterprise apps based on digital transformation technologies are still in their early phases of development, they are steadily driving innovation into business strategy and demonstrating their importance at every level of an organization. According to 2020 data, 91 percent of organizations are involved in some type of digital effort, and 87 percent of top business executives consider digitization to be a priority. However, migrating to digital technology and services looks different for each organization, and not every implementation will be as successful. Technological change is not new, but current phase of change is occurring at a greater pace than ever before. The reasons are obvious. Digital technologies are allowing completely new methods of providing value to consumers, altering competitive landscapes, and modifying market economics. However, there are certain indisputable concerns that experts point to as the reason for change, and the risk is genuine. Fortunately, although new technology may pose a danger to company, they may also open up previously unimagined possibilities. Today, digital transformation is welcoming innovative enterprises that help others apply disruptive technology. Meanwhile, as businesses digitize their processes, the need for IT specialists continues to rise. According to data, the wave of digital transformation resulted in a 53 percent increase in demand for IT-Software workers. At this pace, the digital transformation industry would be worth $3,294 billion by 2025, with a CAGR of 22.7 percent. Organizations rewrite their day-to-day work with the assistance of digital transformation efforts. They may think about how new technologies might help them be more productive and efficient. The appropriate digital transformation strategy may result in quicker processing, increased revenues, fewer mistakes, and a better customer experience. It is seen as a game changer in terms of converting the company into a more safer, quicker, and customized consumer experience. As a result, digital transformation accelerates and reveals society's already present and continuing horizontal and global change processes.

The repercussions of the digital revolution, like those of past industrial revolutions, are neither inevitable nor preset. Its effects on productivity, consumption, employment, inequality, and other social welfare factors will be determined by the design and execution of governmental policies for managing our societies' technological change. Governments, businesses, and workers require efficient, coherent, and comprehensive strategies that are constantly evaluated and capitalize on the opportunities provided by new technologies in key areas such as human capital, labor markets, competition, and the regulation of goods and services markets, as well as a redesign of the welfare state and a new social contract to reduce inequality. The effectiveness of these policies will decide the amount to which our societies can boost production, generate jobs, and develop inclusively, hence enhancing social welfare. We are experiencing a new wave of technology advancement with immense but undetermined potential to dramatically reshape our civilizations. This tendency, in conjunction with globalization and the demographic shifts that accompany it, is causing far-reaching changes in the global economy. Despite the fact that economic expansion is almost entirely associated with industrial revolutions and hence is relatively recent in human history, societal adaptation to technological change has typically been a gradual and, as a result, rather smooth process. Some of the major advancements brought about by the Second Industrial Revolution, such as electricity, the telephone, and the car, took between three and five decades to become widely used. The effect of these inventions, as well as the societal changes that governmental policies were necessary to address, occurred gradually, allowing people, companies, and communities at the time to adjust. However, there are indicators that changes are occurring more quickly in the case of the digital revolution, lowering the reaction time available to properly cope with the new issues it presents. The effectiveness of this approach will determine our societies' ability to increase production, generate jobs, and expand inclusively, therefore boosting social welfare. Evidence from the last two centuries enables us to make a variety of conclusions about the necessity of efficiently managing this transformation process. To begin, technical development is

responsible for the large growth in social welfare in advanced countries (as shown in fig. 1 from 1960 to the present) and most of its determinants (per capita consumption, leisure, and life expectancy). Second, the adoption of innovations is not always straightforward and, as a result, comes at a cost to both people and society as a whole. For example, new technology and manufacturing processes, as well as new commodities and services, may have negative environmental impacts or have highly varying results for various social groups and vocations, with considerable implications for inequality. Third, not all nations have been able to capitalize on this development to the same level, or in a manner that is inclusive for the majority of their population, resulting in economic and social miracles as well as failures, with instances abounding in recent history. The digital revolution does not call for more confidence about robots or artificial intelligence's abilities to perform our job as we enjoy greater leisure and better levels of wealth. It also does not call for the pessimism of those who believe we are on the verge of technological unemployment, doomed to lose both our jobs and our way of life to robots. There is no demand for utopias or dystopias, but rather for a fair assessment of its potential consequences over the next two or three decades. Machines and algorithms will not, by any means, eliminate all occupations; but, they will eliminate some while creating others. If previous experience is a good predictor of the future, we should anticipate a positive overall balance. Nonetheless, people and businesses may lack the ability to adapt, and those who lose their positions may find it difficult to access new prospects. This may result in societal division in terms of work status (employed vs. jobless) as well as the quality and pay of available jobs. This division, and the potential of increased inequality that it entails, is a problem that must be avoided. The repercussions of the digital revolution, like those of past industrial revolutions, are neither inevitable nor preset. Some societies will thrive because they will be able to take advantage of the possibilities offered by these developments to boost employment, productivity, and a more

equitable distribution of income and wealth, therefore improving social welfare. At the opposite end of the spectrum, nations that fail to appropriately manage this process may see a rise in unemployment and inequality, as well as slow or stagnant productivity. Even if it is well managed, it is impossible to predict whether this technological, economic, and social transformation will be as successful in terms of welfare as previous industrial revolutions, despite the fact that they also experienced serious economic problems and social and political upheavals. The way the Fourth Industrial Revolution is handled will determine whether or not it results in another leap forward in wellbeing. A broad rejection of innovation and globalization might result in a reaction. In this circumstance, certain cultures would lag behind others and will be unable to capitalize on new technological prospects. To boost the beneficial benefits of technological development in the four core sectors that influence us all: as consumers, employees, entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and welfare recipients, well-designed public policies will be necessary. It is necessary to improve labor market efficiency and equity, to strengthen high-quality, inclusive education and lifelong learning, to encourage the increased use of new technologies, to ensure that these new technologies do not reduce market competition but work for the benefit of all, and to implement redistributive measures that mitigate the negative effects of technological change wherever they arise. Success on these fronts will bolster all aspects of what should be a complete and cohesive economic policy plan for regulating digital societies. A plan that must be implemented fast and successfully, with the assistance of a key ally: technical innovation itself. New technologies, when used intelligently, may be used to detect new requirements, devise solutions, quickly and effectively deploy measures, simplify procedures, decrease costs and enhance services, assess outcomes, and determine the features and recipients of successful redistributive measures. Certain talents and kinds of knowledge are favored above others as a

result of the digital revolution. In general, many of the occupations produced by new technology need more skills and talents than the ones that are eliminated. When compared to lower-skilled employees, skills-biased technology growth tends to raise the pay of people with higher credentials. However, as a result of several recent advances, the link between human capital and employment has grown increasingly complicated. The new robots and algorithms offer a considerable danger of job automation with a rising share of regular activities that do not necessarily correspond to those with higher or lower credentials. As a result, it is critical to guarantee that human capital investment is increasingly focused on creating skills that complement robotics and artificial intelligence. Complementary in two ways: abilities that robots cannot achieve (at least not in a realistic timescale), and skills that enable cooperation between machines (or software programmes) and employees, enhancing productivity. To provide equitable chances and ensure that everyone can profit from the digital revolution, education is a precondition for attaining these complementary skills—both before joining the labor market and via continual training in more complicated, changing working lives. To begin with, there are significant disparities in human capital endowment across nations. Even within sophisticated countries, the educational level of adult populations varies substantially due to variances in early leavers from education and training, the quality of education obtained during the years of schooling, and availability to continued training. As a result, it is not surprising that there is a significant discrepancy across nations in cognitive and professional development abilities such as reading and math skills, as well as problem-solving in computerized situations. The new occupations will increasingly require analytical reasoning, critical thinking, creativity, originality, and initiative, personal leadership, social influence, emotional intelligence, language command, job commitment, and social skills, as well as the ability to manage and coordinate teams and projects. However, it would be absurd to expect all of us to become "super workers" with all of those

characteristics. It is critical for each individual to understand where they fit into the manufacturing process in order to survive in this everchanging and dynamic environment. Given the variety of talents that will be necessary in the digital world of the future, as well as new or completely updated vocations, the limits of what constitutes a good education will move and continue to evolve over time. A solid foundation of knowledge, flexibility, and adaptability will be critical for success in this new and rapidly changing world. It is critical to learn to learn, and public policies must provide high-quality programmes that fulfil these new demands while also allowing enterprises and individuals to continue their training and gain new skills as needed. Workers, businesses, and government agencies will all need to detect labor market trends and predict new developing jobs and the credentials they may demand. New technologies have the potential to play a critical role in recognizing these demands. Algorithms are already available that scan the Internet and map the text of job descriptions provided by businesses in the form of job attributes. The education system and continuous training must also make more use of emerging technologies that decrease the cost of education investment while improving educational performance, as well as reducing geographic boundaries that restrict access to centers of educational excellence. Improving the working population's human capital and skills is a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for achieving plentiful, highquality employment if the labor market is dysfunctional and inefficient. The variety in unemployment, temporary employment, and job quality demonstrates that there are significant disparities across nations in terms of the effectiveness of labor rules and active labor market strategies. To avoid unemployment, polarization, and unstable careers with low remuneration as a result of the digital revolution, it is critical to remove barriers to job creation and investment, innovation, and growth; to increase legal certainty in labor relations; to strike a balance between labor market flexibility and employment security for workers; to facilitate start-up financing; and to simplify and improve labor

regulations to make them more efficient. The public sector plays a critical role in all of these sectors, as well as in creating a business climate that enhances the amount and quality of employment. The digital revolution is causing significant changes in the employment process. Nontraditional kinds of labor, which have already started to expand, need new methods to maintain higher quality and safety standards. Exploring novel legal remedies while retaining current labor laws and established contractual modalities is unlikely to be sufficient until the fundamental inequalities in costs and incentives for arbitrage between self-employed and employed employees are addressed. A consistent approach necessitates the establishment of a charter of shared social rights for all employees, regardless of rank, and that they all pay equally to their finance. The combination of efficient, unbiased regulations for all types of employment contracts, as well as competition between firms in goods and services markets, should ensure compatibility between the flexible labor relations required by new technologies and business models, and a social protection system similar to that enjoyed by full-time workers on permanent contracts, who now constitute the majority. Another area where digitalization poses a fundamental problem is the implementation of active and passive labor market regulations to allow the speedy reallocation of employees who are most at risk of being replaced owing to the automation of the activities they do. These measures are critical for boosting the chance of obtaining new employment and lowering the transition costs associated with the extinction of specific vocations. And they are much more critical now that we are dealing with structural changes in labor markets rather than cyclical variations. However, the efficiency of modern economies varies substantially. For years, certain nations in Central and Northern Europe have successfully managed labor market regulations, such as the "flexicurity" model used in Denmark, the Netherlands, and other European countries. Unemployment education and training, as well as continual on-the-job training, must be at the forefront of the struggle to guarantee that job destruction does not lead to an increase in structural unemployment.

New technology should be employed in this industry as well to minimize the transition time between old and new employment. This necessitates a fundamental revamp of the institutions in charge of labor market intermediation, including governmental employment agencies and private enterprises. The digitization of work records, profiling, knowledge of the features of existing vacancies, and the supply of information on labor market patterns and relevant training courses are critical for expediting the job search process in both traditional and gig economies. Continuous training is essential not just for creating new skills for job seekers, but also for acquiring the fundamental financial, organizational, and managerial abilities required to transition between changing jobs and new kinds of labor relations. Collective bargaining must prevent enterprises from falling behind in the adoption of technology and innovation, which would imperil their existence in a world where "winners take most." Internal organizational flexibility and collective bargaining inside enterprises should encourage the adaption and development of new technologies, the deployment of training programmes, and the introduction of targetbased variable pay to raise employees' share of company earnings. This more flexible collective bargaining must apply to all employees, including those in new professional partnerships. Independent employees on platforms, like hired workers, must have the chance to protect their rights by forming groups, even if their negotiating power does not extend to pricing collusion or arbitrary professional qualification requirements that may decrease competition. One of the most important public-sector interventions in the structuring of economic activity is market regulation. Technological development and globalization may result in the establishment of enterprises with a high concentration of market power, as well as externalities or asymmetries in data and information usage, resulting in circumstances that are inefficient from an economic and social standpoint. The fixed costs of R&D and innovation are relatively expensive in many new

technology enterprises, but once the technology is accessible (a software programme, for example), the average cost of creating additional units goes to zero, promoting the establishment of natural monopolies. The digital revolution will create more opportunities, increase social welfare, and be perceived as fairer insofar as it makes it easier for firms, workers, and consumers to access innovations and close the gap with the global technological frontier, levelling the playing field and favoring conditions conducive to increased competition. To that end, the public sector must invest in traditional, technological, and communication infrastructures; create regulatory and legal frameworks at the national and supranational levels to reduce the uncertainty associated with the adoption of new technologies; promote digitalization of government; and foster innovation and forms of artificial intelligence with the potential to create new jobs, more productive occupations, and new forms of work. In addition to reducing the digital gap, public policy should prevent new industries and enterprises from developing undue market dominance, which inhibits competition and innovation and harms societal welfare. Competition policy must regularly monitor changing market circumstances and guarantee that companies compete effectively. The dissemination of technological advances and patents to facilitate the entry of new competitors and the financing of start-ups; the protection of consumer rights; access to big data, supercomputers, and cloud computing; and data sharing, when permitted by data owners, are all measures that can be used to achieve this goal. Big data helps to make our life simpler and more creative. However, competition regulation must guarantee that all enterprises have equal access to information, so that the IT behemoths do not gain power from the use of their existing user data in the event of vertical integration of new goods and services into their platforms. Regulations must guarantee that these data and artificial intelligence are used correctly for the advantage of users while respecting their right to

privacy. Algorithms must be transparent and verifiable, and they must be examined to ensure that they do not include any prejudice or unlawful discrimination in their design. Policies should encourage the employment of "sandboxes," pilots, and experimental methods, such as those used in self-driving vehicles. Finally, a critical area of activity for the public sector in the use of new technology is cybersecurity, which bears the traditional features of public goods (the existence of externalities, non-rivalry, and no exclusion of potential beneficiaries). Public administrations must secure cybersecurity in order to promote the digital economy, just as they must maintain national security and the physical and legal protection of persons and businesses. The current data shows that, like with past industrial revolutions, the digital revolution is already having some mixed consequences on workers and enterprises. In general, if the net societal gains are favorable, designing effective redistribution systems to compensate those who lose out would suffice, allowing them to benefit from new technologies and globalization as well. However, if these processes are to be genuinely helpful and effective, they must be properly constructed, which is not always simple. The efficiency and quality of the welfare state and its institutions are critical for first ensuring equitable chances and subsequently providing a safety net for persons facing unanticipated unfavorable conditions. Societies that are already performing better in terms of equal opportunity and ex post redistribution have a good start in dealing with the problems of the digital revolution in terms of inequality. Efficient redistribution must adhere to a number of rules in order to maximize benefits while minimizing costs. To begin with, redistribution should be done at the lowest feasible cost in terms of administration and the use of taxes in income programmes. Second, beneficiaries should be correctly recognized so that benefits, public services, or tax breaks are only given to those who really need them. Third, redistributive policies should be supported by a tax structure that is as non-distortive as practicable. The optimum tax theory has carefully

investigated the distortionary consequences of taxes. Taxes have an impact on economic activity, investment, innovation, and employment to the degree that they create distortions and incentives. It is vital to achieve a balance between an effective tax system (to encourage innovation and job development) and enough income (to finance public expenditure and to reduce the inequality of disposable income after taxes and transfers). Should robots pay taxes if automation eliminates jobs? This idea has a number of flaws. To begin with, at least for the time being, automation and robotics kill certain vocations while creating new ones, such that the most automated and digitalized nations also have the lowest unemployment rates. Just as there is no need to be concerned about widespread technological employment for the time being, there is also no reason to tax the use of robots in the near future. On the other hand, it makes no sense to discourage the creation of new products and services, as well as the use of modern technologies that boost productivity, reduce production costs, and remove the need for people to do risky or unpleasant activities. In any event, quantifying how many jobs are directly impacted by new technology, and hence determining the suitable tax base for a hypothetical tax of this kind, is very difficult. Finally, given globalization, globally tradeable operations that do not integrate robots or accessible technology due to these levies would be vulnerable to foreign competition, risking company existence and job security. The digital revolution will enhance possibilities, boost social welfare, and be regarded as fairer to the degree that it makes it simpler for enterprises, employees, and consumers to access innovations and close the technology gap with the rest of the world. Because the goal must be to disperse new wealth rather than inhibit its development, it makes more sense to tax gains via corporate taxes, regardless of the technology used. Or to increase other taxes that, although distorting, do not directly impair the motivation to create, so stalling the engine of economic progress. If innovation leads to more

unemployment in the long run, it will be required to combat inequality by more intense income redistribution, with gradual increases in the taxes that can produce the greatest revenue while causing the least distortions in employment, innovation, and productivity. In terms of spending, is "universal basic income" (UBI) the best redistributive transfer? Although UBI offers several benefits (it is unconditional, removes the possibility of absolute poverty if generous enough, does not stigmatize beneficiaries, and is simple to administrate since it is universal), ensuring a basic level of well-being for all residents would be prohibitively costly. A UBI will need major tax hikes. Increased progressivity and taxation would limit labor supply by making work more costly in comparison to leisure. Simultaneously, the UBI creates an income impact that encourages individuals to purchase more while simultaneously enjoying more leisure. Higher capital taxes discourage saving and investment, which has a detrimental impact on labor demand and productivity. A reduced level of employment results from a lower supply and demand for labor, with uncertain implications on wages. Furthermore, globalization raises the expenses of UBI. Higher tax rates on labor and capital earnings encourage more qualified people and internationalized enterprises to relocate to lower-tax jurisdictions. According to certain calculations, the distortionary consequences of a generous-enough UBI, as proposed by some of its most enthusiastic advocates, might result in a considerable drop in GDP. Given that it is more effective to transfer money to people who are really in need, several nations have already implemented programmes that are more selective, conditional, and less costly than the UBI, such as earned income tax credits for lower-income individuals and families. Because they alleviate poverty more selectively, at a lesser cost, and without discouraging work, these types of conditional programmes often have a high degree of societal acceptability. Furthermore, these wage supplement programmes for low-paid workers are given in addition to the minimum wage, which tries to decrease income disparity and the possibility that enterprises may be

able to set salaries below productivity. Another alternative to UBI is Anthony Atkinson's proposal for participation income: an income contingent on involvement in social activities that would enhance current social security benefits and allowances. Work, education and continual training, active job search, or care of children and the elderly, unless in the event of disease or incapacity, are all examples of ways to contribute to society. Participation income is quite broad, but it expressly excludes anyone who, in the hypothetical scenario of obtaining this money, would opt to spend their time on leisure activities. Atkinson himself advocated that the European Union begin implementing the participation income with a child income programme. Before instituting new redistribution mechanisms to address issues that do not yet exist, such as widespread technological unemployment, we must fully use the edges of current welfare state programmes and increase their coverage and efficiency, as several countries are now doing. At least in the medium term, there are alternatives to UBI that are more economically sound and sustainable, with the potential to produce greater results in the battle against inequality, especially severe inequality and poverty. Again, new technology, such as the Opportunity Insights initiative in the United States, may assist enhance the outcomes of old programmes. The application of artificial intelligence to large data allows for the identification of beneficiaries who really need support in the form of pay supplements, guaranteed minimum income, educational aid, or subsidies for intergenerational and geographical mobility, or to eradicate child poverty. New technology might also be used to calculate ideal minimum salaries, reducing the influence of monopsonists while maintaining employment. All of this necessitates the consolidation of information on all social benefits, assistance, and subsidies supplied by all public administrations, beneficiaries and their socioeconomic situations, and company and employee characteristics. A new society is emerging as a result of the digital revolution. The

social compact and welfare state that evolved following the Second Industrial Revolution were critical to the success of most societies in advanced countries, and they contributed significantly to reducing the high levels of inequality in the first part of the twentieth century. With the advent of the digital revolution, it is now important to rethink and restructure the welfare state. Failure to do so may result in societal animosity, which may imperil the real process of technical development, as is currently occurring in the case of globalization. The welfare state will face fiscal and income challenges in the near future. New expenditure policies will arise, and it will be required to safeguard people who suffer as a result of digital disruption. On the revenue side, the tax base is eroding as a result of globalization, gig economy activities, and new types of work connections. It is foreseeable that the welfare state will shift away from Bismarck's conception of the state as an intermediary guaranteeing contributory insurance (health and pensions) to those who contribute to its financing and toward a more general Beveridge model that provides support for all while taking into account each citizen's economic capacity. International collaboration is critical in this environment, as is tax harmonization for processing money earned by the digital economy. We do not think that the market economy will need to be reinvented in the next decades, but rather that its institutions and regulations will need to be adjusted so that rising income and welfare spread to all people. The more we move down this road, the more likely it is that society will profit from technological development and the less likely it will reject it. In the face of this problem, the public sector has significant responsibility for creating an environment in which the private sector may grow and develop its potential while also providing equitable chances. Governments must engage on a continuous process of improving their efficiency, cutting administrative expenses and needless burdens on businesses and employees. They must also be at the forefront of technology and digital development, delivering more and better services to residents and companies while continually assessing the success of their policies.

There are reasons to be positive about the future, but only if our societies can handle the changes effectively, supporting economic development and providing a welfare state that adapts to new individual and community requirements. It is extremely probable that certain nations will succeed more than others. The societal effect of new technology will be determined by how new difficulties are addressed. There is no trade-off between fairness and efficiency in this process of change: countries that can create a more efficient welfare state will use new technology to boost social welfare while also achieving lower levels of inequality and better intergenerational parity. While the notion, and even the practice, of digital transformation and the disruption it delivers has been broadly recognized in the workplace, it is not yet complete. Digital disruption is undoubtedly something that will need to be controlled in the future, and that day may be sooner than anybody realizes. According to recent Gartner study, although many long-term plans were put on hold because to the COVID-19 epidemic, corporate executives should move now to develop a strategic planning approach for future revenue growth. Organizations must actively plan to adapt to and anticipate potential disruptions. Executives should assess the usage of technical, political, economic, social/cultural, trust/ethics, regulatory/legal, and environmental (TPESTRE) aspects and analysis to discover applicable accelerators and inhibitors. To prosper in a disruptive future, businesses must constantly scan for and react to disruptions that may damage or endanger the company's position in the marketplaces in which they have chosen to compete. These disruptions have the potential to reverse the digital transformation that businesses have worked so hard to accomplish. In a recent report, Marty Resnick, vice president and analyst at Gartner, writes. According to Walid Negm, chief research and innovation officer at Capgemini Engineering in Paris, technological disruption is not only probable, but also unavoidable. It is also something that every business must be prepared to face on a regular basis. "One of the

major ways to do this is to ensure that the firm is equipped to swiftly decipher market shifts," he said. "Organizations should provide workers greater flexibility to act purposefully, especially during a paradigm change, to help assess the finest ideas and business models that will guarantee offers and product lines remain relevant." While management must have a long-term plan for the firm, culture and incentives must be in place to swiftly cascade adjustments required to adapt to unforeseen events and opportunities. Companies can also search for methods to mitigate the consequences of technological disruption by learning from sectors other than their own. Innovating with modular designs, virtualized infrastructure, and standardized architectures, for example, has helped many organizations to lessen the severe effect of a sudden or large change in client expectations. Furthermore, firms should focus their R&D resources on software. Enterprises may benefit on growth by rolling out new software capabilities if they have a strong and focused vision and plan that is not bound by technology. "A proven software business model may help retain income streams in the face of unpredictability in the economy," he noted. To thrive in a changing and possibly disruptive future, businesses must embrace the expanding role of technology in their operations and optimize for excellence around a core set of technological enablers. Herb VanHook, vice president of enterprise CTO Services at Houston-based BMC Software, explained it thus way. Enterprises that do so will thrive in turbulent times by focusing more on customers, employing technology to give actionable information, and demonstrating agility in process delivery and responsiveness to change. The technical enablers for this future state include: new infrastructure and application paradigms, as well as developing AI/ML approaches. 1.Pervasive automation helps improve process consistency and efficiency while also lowering risk 2.The application of DevOps ideas (for example, continuous change delivery) to other technologies and business processes.

3.Using data to generate fresh ideas and solve issues more quickly 4.Taking on cybersecurity concerns by implementing adaptive solutions to react to attacks and satisfy regulatory requirements 5.Providing a customer experience that goes above and beyond expectations. "Future-proof organizations will excel at maintaining stability in their existing IT condition while embracing new technology," he said. "They are reinventing themselves as Autonomous Digital Enterprises to allow continuous innovation, adapt to business change, serve business needs at scale, and deal with unanticipated disruptions." Digital disruption is more of a reality now than a theoretical concept and hence staying ahead in this competitive field is not a mere challenge. As a key player, it is necessary for any business to remain on the disruptor side of a business equation to bring the change. Here are five ways to get started on this disruptive journey: 1.Creating a new market: The first step involves gathering the information on the current demands from the customer on a specific requirement. Then, leveraging the existing resources and methodologies to make it customer-driven. This approach also involves brand awareness across the social platforms and in turn engaging the customer in the business 2.Being on the disruptor side: Think like a disruptor than being an onlooker. Look for avenues to flourish in the same business industry. Then, try to make a shift in the present business model by collaborating with digital savvy peers 3.Prepare organized data: A customer-driven product can be successful if the business compiles organized and consolidated data from the customer. Moreover, a day-to-day evaluation of the challenges to reach the customer in a better way should be the foremost aim of any business 4.Collaborating with new channels: To bring a small impact many businesses attempt to upgrade their software. However, some business leaders go outside and partner with other companies to bring remarkable disruption using innovative technologies. This helps in

offering an exceptional customer experience for the product Consumers are gravitating toward online and mobile platforms for more of their brand interactions, therefore digital technologies are dominating strategic innovation talks. As consumer habits shift, organisations must rethink their marketing and engagement strategies to keep up with changing expectations. To stay competitive, organisations must develop programmes that support both the digital and human parts of the consumer connection. According to Steven Van Belleghem, author of When Digital Becomes Human, it is critical for businesses to understand what is pushing enterprises to embrace digital and how they can allow such a future. How have customers become the biggest disruptors within the digital space? One of the reasons is speed. The external clock is beating the internal clock. Customers may change their minds overnight, but firms must adjust the direction of a larger ship, which is more difficult. The issue is to keep up with this pace. Facebook is an excellent example. When Facebook went public, the reaction was unfavourable since the company earned very little money in the mobile environment. That was back in 2012. The mobile world accounted for the majority of Facebook's income in 2014. They altered the ship quickly, and as a result, they were immensely successful. Customers generate disruption because businesses are slower than the market. The collaborative movement is another reason. Many of these new famous enterprises are all involved in the collaborative realm, where consumers assist other customers. Everyone is aware of well-known examples such as Uber, but the fact is that there are hundreds of these firms operating in a variety of industries. The collaborative economy brings a more human element to business. It gives it a more human touch. In this digital age, the human aspect of business is becoming more valuable. The ancient economic rule of scarcity comes into play: if something gets rare, its value rises. The human aspect of business, on the other hand, is becoming more sparse. That is one of the many reasons why the collaborative economy is so popular. That is why customers are causing havoc in the industry. Why is customer centricity so critical as the business world becomes

more digital and mobile? Without a doubt, digital means putting the client first. Technology is making our lives simpler, and technology itself has become quite intuitive and simple to use. As a result, client expectations are rising on a daily basis. Companies may develop a new, more extreme kind of client centricity —a customer relationship in which they combine the advantages of the digital world (automation, ease, etc.) with the advantages of the genuine human contact (emotion, empathy, and creativity). Companies that grasp the strengths of both dimensions will pleasantly surprise their consumers. Customers desire convenience as well as emotion. Humans and machines are not at odds; they both have unique skills that offer value to the customer's experience. In today's digital age, we must excel at both to earn the customer's heart and actions. Over the past 200 years, advancements have been developed to help humans overcome physical restrictions. We need automobiles because we are not quick enough. Humans need machines because we are not powerful. Today's and tomorrow's advancements are here to help us transcend our mental constraints. Our phones have already become our external storage devices. Technology will become a part of our bodies as chips become more widely available to the general public. At that moment, technology will really serve as our sixth sense. This transformation will have a significant impact on healthcare in particular. We will transition from a reactive to a proactive health-care system. It's no longer about making people better. It is all about keeping people healthy. The same thing will happen in business. When everything is linked, customers will demand customer support that is quicker than real-time. When items become smart, they will be able to predict when they would fail. Consumers will demand a remedy before they discover the issue at that point. Some people predict an all-digital future for customer interactions. You don’t agree. Why not? We are on the verge of entering an age of 'human-like' customer service. An period in which it will be difficult to distinguish between digital and human interfaces. Consumers may prefer the digital

interface over the human interaction since it is quicker, more up to date, and maybe more friendlier. People, on the other hand, like to interact with genuine people. We like to have human backup, especially when anything goes wrong. Even Amazon now has a 'Mayday' option on its Kindle. Mayday links clients with a live Amazon employee. The Amazon staffer is assisting the consumer from a distance. The idea is to address problems rather than just digitise everything. Are there any other examples of companies that successfully integrate the digital and human world? A good example is Walt Disney World. Since 2014, MyMagic+, a new form of vacation management system in which the customer holds a pivotal position among a broad variety of cutting-edge interaction possibilities, has been utilised by 50 million tourists each year. The 'MagicBand' is the concept's central piece. Every guest is given an armband with a Mickey Mouse emblem embedded in it. This wristband enables them to unlock their hotel rooms, visit the amusement park, make payments, and so on. MyMagic+ is a wonderful idea. It improves the consumer experience, increases Disney's financial value, and creates the smartest database ever constructed by a huge firm. When you visit Disney World, the lines between online and offline dissolve. In my view, if you want to see what the future of the whole globe may be like five years from now, schedule a vacation to Disney World. You won't want to live anything else when you've experienced it. You can also see immediately away at Disney World that customers don't care about privacy if the experience is good. Disney developed a system in which data and connection enhance the client experience. How can companies enable similar initiatives? It's all about Large Data for the client, which is all about big relevance. Modern customers want some type of additional value in exchange for all of the information they offer. A three-step pyramid model demonstrates how data may be utilised to increase consumer relevance across digital and human channels to guarantee they understand it. And when you utilise technology to improve human interactions, disruption leads to consumer loyalty. Many of today's most recognised corporate success stories are

attributed to 'disruption.' As a start-up goal, for example, the notion suggests a variety of things, not the least of which is that the offer is so unique or foresighted that it may upend hitherto impregnable market rules. Since it initially garnered broad notice in the mid-1990s, the concept of 'disruptive innovation' has been adopted across the globe, despite the fact that few organisations can back up their claims with bottom-line results. However, providing radical disruption has the potential to be very effective post-COVID. Consider the 'Top 10 most popular Nasdaq stocks in 2020,' which is populated by a number of game-changing industry 'newcomers,' such as Amazon, Tesla, Nio, and Nikola. Even more established firms in the group, such as Apple and Microsoft, have introduced significant innovation to their own ways of doing things. Indeed, both of those businesses have effectively recreated themselves, with self-imposed disruption yielding enormous rewards. Many of these IT businesses, and others, have also shown extraordinary endurance in the face of the upheaval caused by COVID-19. According to the Nasdaq, "COVID-19 has made "big-tech" even larger." It's no secret that COVID-19 has helped corporations like Amazon and Zoom. However, the virus, as well as the consequent work-from-home and contactless environment, has expedited the economy's structural and fundamental move toward automation and digitalisation." But what comes next? What will fuel the next wave of upheaval in a post-COVID landscape? Today's expectations have shifted tremendously, and entrepreneurs who can capitalise on the open-minded excitement for digital innovation will be among the next generation of tech unicorns. Indeed, we must abandon the notion that 'disruption' is only an attention-grabbing keyword that has been stolen by companies as a marketing tactic. Instead, as a post-COVID survival goal, organisations must discover their own form of digital disruption. Previously, the idea was to discover new methods to run business or supply services that would greatly increase efficiency, costeffectiveness, and profit. In a world where face-to-face connection is impaired, digital channels have become the major (and often the only) consumer engagement model, while automated processes have become the primary engine of productivity. Increasing levels of digital literacy brought about by the urgent shift to remote working, as well as

tremendous expansion in the usage of collaboration and communication technology, will also have a big influence. Organizations and people alike have been on a steep learning curve to accept and leverage services that were previously irrelevant or, at most, of marginal relevance. As a consequence, long-term digital-led disruption necessitates some soul searching on the part of any organisation: Do you know where the value in your company will be and how you'll get there? How quick are you? Do you have the necessary talent/skills/software for recovery? What are the most critical investments to make in order for your company to thrive? And, at a time when there has never been a greater demand for accurate and fast data-led insight, how many firms can really understand how they can develop value using data and advanced analytics? Those organisations seeking to develop new business capabilities via the use of data, software, and the power of the cloud ecosystem must rethink and improve their connection with technology. From software and data engineering to new product development, advanced analytics and data science, cloud, IoT, and ML, businesses that can connect data, software, and purpose to do something new, something better, or both will be the disruptors in a post-COVID landscape where the ability to interpret and visualise data has become much more prevalent. Companies that can do this will outperform their competition, expand faster, and enjoy exponential commercial benefit. We live in a world dominated by mobile devices, cloud computing, smart analytics, and the Internet of Things (essentially, everything is automated), and digitising processes and procedures is becoming more vital as a result. We're presuming you're checking your emails on your phone, managing work tasks on your tablet, and having some form of news site open in a different tab on your laptop or desktop at the same time you're reading this. We won't tell whether one of those gadgets is playing Netflix or showing your Facebook page (and you've just sent a Snapchat). Society has gone digital, and the growth of digital technology has produced a major change in how organisations have adopted and must adapt new and developing technologies to satisfy the changing demands of today's customers and show the value of the services they provide. This is all part of the quickly expanding trend of digital disruption that we've been seeing on social

media. Businesses may utilise digital disruption to rethink how they use technology and how they might use it differently to improve their business operations. What advantages do you stand to gain as an executive, manager, or associate wanting to streamline in 2018 and beyond? Turn off Netflix and continue reading! Here are few trends: 1.Creating and showing value: In circumstances like digital disruption, it pays to hop on board and not ignore the revolution that is occurring in their sector. In reality, organisations that stick to traditional business models are more likely to be driven out of business by younger, more nimble, and tech-savvy competitors. Companies that implement new digital technology frequently see a higher return on investment than companies that continue to invest in their old, legacy systems, which are no longer conducive to the changing technological landscape and the evolving needs of today's consumers, who are turning to the latest and greatest, such as Amazon. 2.Long-term cost savings: While the initial cost of new technology may seem considerable, the long-term cost savings often surpass the original cost. Furthermore, since strategically applied technology helps organisations to cut operating expenses and manage business processes and procedures more effectively, a company that is continuing to progress may take the initiative to keep prices lower for customers. 3.Improved data and information utilisation: Finally, the adoption of new digital technology enables businesses to do more with information that was previously underutilised by traditional systems. Whether it's structured or unstructured data, automated solutions, such as a document management solution, enable businesses to make better data-driven business choices by using the data coming into their company. Whether your document management processes and procedures have changed substantially or just slightly since the manual methods of the past, digital disruption provides an opportunity for businesses to reconsider how they handle this information. How is your firm being disruptive and making a significant impact in how it handles data and satisfies customer needs? Disruption is a natural by-product of market economies, leading to breakthroughs and new technology that improve people's quality of

life. It has existed from the beginning of time and will continue to do so in the future. As a recent worldwide phenomena, digital disruption has altered value chains and sectors, offering new possibilities, dissolving some incumbents, such as Kodak, and driving others, such as Apple, to new heights. It is critical for incumbents to identify their weaknesses while using their advantages to create barriers to entry and competitive advantage via a delicate and balanced act of exploration vs. exploitation. Digital transformation is not a new concept. Business disruption has existed in some form or another for over 50 years. For example, Swiss watchmakers were one of the top manufacturers of mechanical timepieces for centuries until Japanese digital watches, such as Casio, took over the market in the late 1960s. Then, in the 1980s, Swiss watchmakers remerged, emphasising flair and design while harnessing new technologies. Another example is Kodak, which was a market leader in chemical film manufacture until the advent of digital photography, which caused Kodak to go bankrupt. Interestingly, Kodak anticipated the new technology revolution and began investing in digital transformation in the 1980s, but it was unable to complete the transfer. However, Nikon, which was also a pioneer in film cameras, saw it coming and was able to make the move by concentrating on its expertise in lens production. A similar disruptive pattern was observed in the telco industry; with the rise of cellular technology in the 1990s, companies such as Motorola and Nokia, BlackBerry, or Palm rose to riches, and with the introduction of the iPhone in the 2010s, a true game-changer that redefined the dominant design in the industry, they all faded away in an industry shakeout. Similar disruptive trends have been observed in the music industry, with the rise of record stores such as Circuit City, their demise, and the appearance of various types of digital file-sharing and digital distribution platforms such as Napster or iTunes, as well as the current success of streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify. The ondemand music streaming industry has had an effect not just on record shops and merchants, but it has fundamentally affected the economic model for artists, producers, and record labels, as well as influenced how we as consumers consume music. In the entertainment industry, video-on-demand services disrupted the market, and companies such as Blockbuster went out of business, while Netflix, a DVD by mail

business model, adapted and transformed from being a DVD by mail business to being one of the leaders in streaming and online demand content. As a result, certain businesses may make shifts throughout a technology revolution. In the retail sector, a similar tendency was found. For most of the twentieth century in America, Sears was the dominant retailer, followed by Walmart, which used information technology to develop the supply chain, and then by Amazon, which pioneered the whole consumer experience around online shopping. The introduction of Uber and Lyft revolutionised the taxi and limo services industries, since these businesses are not exploiting a big technology shift, but rather transforming and redefining the business model customer experience, generating new values. With the emergence of businesses such as Tesla, Google, and Uber, the car industry, which had witnessed a century of stability with the introduction of the internal combustion engine, is now being challenged by electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles. The fourth industrial revolution has been dubbed digital transformation, and with the advent of new, nextgeneration digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, Big Data, and robots, digital transformation will be pushed even further. While each industry revolution has the potential to disrupt current business models and marketplaces, it also presents new chances for new companies, new markets, and inventive options for upstarts/start-ups, new entrants, and established firms. Disruption is arguably a natural product of market economies. Disruption leads to innovations and new technologies that better the quality of life for humans, and there are many different types of disruption in the marketplace. Here are the trends: 1.Technological — for example, digital watches used electronics technology to further enhance the value offering of mechanized windup watches. Or digital cameras also used electronics to replace chemical film-based cameras. These are both examples of radical changes in the fundamental technology within an industry. 2.Architectural — for example, the Sony Walkman came about not with any fundamentally different or new technology, but utilized existing technology that existed in different types of cassette players

shrank it and made it a portable player that consumers could wear on your side while walking around or going for a run. So, while the underlying technology didn’t change, the way they organized and packaged the value proposition had changed, architecturally. 3.Business model — for example, Airbnb comes along and leverages communication technology as a way to create market efficiencies in the accommodation industry, redefining the market and value proposition. Here, existing and established technologies are leveraged to change existing business models. 4.Consumer side, the high-end — such as the iPhone, which came in with a completely different set of features at the high-end of the market, at three to four times the expense of some of the other phones that were on the market at the time. 5.Consumer side, the low-end — for example, Nintendo Wii. With two dominant players, Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo came in with arguably a much, much technologically simpler machine, one that cost a fraction of the cost of the other players, had an innovative game control, allowing the development of creative games that resonated with the marketplace, and entered in at the low-end and ended up disrupting the whole market, becoming the winner of its generation. Another example is Wikipedia, which is arguably not of the quality of an Encyclopaedia Britannica, but with its new model of using crowdsourced information allowed it to have a very low-cost entry and free entry for usage by individuals. 6.New market — for example, the Word Processor disrupting the typewriter industry, the automobile redefining transportation and putting horse-drawn carriage industry to bed, smartphones redefining several different industries including cameras, mapping, and the like. 7.Value chain — for example, Craigslist or other online listing portals. While craigslist didn’t directly compete with newspapers but it disrupted their value chain as it took away their revenues. Digital disruption has the potential to be disruptive in many different ways. Here are five main avenues: 1.Data — we now have huge amounts of data available to consumers and companies to leverage and advance the products they offer. For

example, Waze is an app that leverages people’s cell phone data to determine when there are traffic jams and to crowd-source reports of accidents or road constructions. By leveraging data, Waze can create value. 2.Innovation — in the world of a digital economy, we’re able to do quick testing with innovation, speeding the cycle, and allowing companies to run real-time experiments and run prototypes in a very inexpensive way. For example, social media networks such as Facebook can offer new features and new offerings on their platform in a way that allows them to experiment and learn in real-time before rolling it out to the masses. 3.Competition — digital transformation, reduces transaction costs and therefore eases entry by other players within an industry. Therefore we would expect increased competition in any number of domains where digital transformation is having an impact, potentially even blurring defined boundaries between different industries. Companies that were once partners are now increasingly rivals, for example, Google, Apple, and Amazon are increasingly competing in various domains within the larger digital technology space. 4.The value created for customers — what we’re seeing is new ways to deliver value in creative ways, leveraging digital technology. Take Uber, for example, leveraging social and communication technologies to offer a new value proposition to customers looking for traditional livery services. 5.Customers — themselves, are evolving, becoming highly informed, and potentially be less loyal than they were in the past. For example, Best Buy suffers from the fact that many customers will come to their stores, sample their various products, and then, pull out their cell phones, look on Amazon and purchase the product then and there. So, customers are becoming more sophisticated, and they’re becoming less loyal to previously established offerings. With the advent of the digital revolution, traditional sources of competitive advantage will largely disappear: 1.Natural monopolies formed through resource scarcity — while they’re still important today, but in many industries, place, and space are becoming less important. The obvious example is in the retail

sector. As retail goes online, those positional advantages, the geographic or location advantages become less and less important. 2.Natural monopolies formed through resource scarcity — while they’re still important today, but in many industries, place, and space are becoming less important. The obvious example is in the retail sector. As retail goes online, those positional advantages, the geographic or location advantages become less and less important. 3.Scale or economies of scale will be under threat — in a digital environment, it can often be quite easy and cost less to scale. For example, Facebook went from two guys in their Harvard dorm room to a billion-dollar business in a matter of a couple of years. The ability to leverage digital platforms to scale a business and its technology is greater than what it had ever have been before. 4.Learning curves and operational know-how can be acquired easily and cheaply — while clearly, learning curves still do exist, the ubiquity of information provided by the internet and other data sources is making those learning curves less and less pronounced, and allowing others to catch up relatively quickly, by having access to valuable information on how to create and deliver value. 5.Vertical integration is becoming irrelevant — while historically, large industrial companies vertically integrated their value chain to create value and serve as a deterrent to others trying to compete with them in their marketplace, digital technology is making it easier and easier for people to disintegrate vertical supply chains and specialize in different components of it. For example, the telco industry has unbundled its vertical integration, allowing innovative and competitive horizontal layers to form. So, we want to think about four underlying drivers that try to drive digital economies and have this disruptive potential. Here are the trends: 1.Network effects and externalities — is the idea that a good or service improves in value as others consume that good or service. The classic example is the telephone. Having to be the first person to own a telephone is not very valuable, but as others begin to buy telephones, the value to you of owning a telephone starts to go up. This is the main driver of value for social networks such as Facebook,

Instagram, or Twitter. 2.Winner-takes-all markets — the various network effects that we are prevalent in digital economies, tend to create winner take all markets, where there might be one dominant player within an industry. Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple have all in various ways leveraged network effects to create quasi-monopolies, where they have advantages of a winner take all markets. 3.Platform technologies — the internet, mobile, and cloud computing are all examples of platform technologies where an underlying technology that has great value across a wide number of sectors, allows different companies to plug into it in different ways. Traditionally, the advent of the automobile had a similar platform impact in the sense that a whole set of suppliers accumulated around the automobile industry to support it. 4.Complementary capabilities — are other ways of delivering value by offering some specific capabilities that allow you to leverage other platforms or established externalities to your advantage. Perhaps it’s manufacturing capability or great customer service that you provide, but no matter, you’re going to need to find that specific way in which you can uniquely deliver value, given the ubiquity of these other different platforms and technologies. 5.The S curve — refers to the common pattern in sales or revenues that we see over time. 6.There are three revenue phases in an S-curve — emerging or introduction, growth, and maturity. Sometimes, the emerging phase can take decades to occur, for example, in electric vehicles which had existed even back at the early stage of the automobile industry, or it could pass very quickly. The growth phase s is the sweet spot of the S curve where we see a lot of growth in sales. And eventually, there is a mature phase where growth starts to decline and we reach a stable level of sales. 7.There are three competitive phases — annealing, shakeout, and disruption. Annealing is this idea that over time, there’ll be a coalescing around the ‘dominant design’ of the technology, showing how the technology looks moving forward. Shakeout refers to what happens to the number of competitors within the industry, generally,

early on, a few intrepid entrepreneurs or incumbent firms enter, as the market starts to take off, others come, eventually, competition dwindles and we get a shakeout in which firms either go out of business or merge, limiting the number of companies in the market. The general question here is — depending on the industry — what is the competitive outcome during the shakeout phase (prior to maturity with stable dividends)? How severe will the shakeout be? And what will happen to the winner-take-all dynamics? 8.Margin dynamics could vary depending on the industry — in many industries early on, margins might be negative, with no profits being made but as the industry starts to grow, they’ll improve. Sometimes, with increasing competition and if winner-take-all dynamics do not exit, then margins might get compressed. If incumbents can hedge their downsides and capitalise on their advantages, get the economics of innovation right, including timing, and build barriers to entry by investing in intellectual property, core capabilities, and strategic complementary assets, they should be able to maintain their market leadership despite disruptive revelations. Incumbents have continuously met their end due to industry disruptions throughout history. The question here is: why do incumbent firms often fail when faced with these disruptions? There are three possible answers: 1.There are no better positions when new entrants with an innovation or new technology come along. In essence, the innovation renders existing capabilities valueless, either technologically, organizationally, or market-wise. 2.Incumbents could see the entrants coming, but have inherent and natural core rigidities. The idea here is that, what made an incumbent successful in the past, what may have been a core capability, becomes a core rigidity as the industry shifts, because they are unwilling to change. Such cases are Borders, the retail bookstore in the US that saw its investment into stores a sunk cost if it did not recoup profits after the entry of Amazon, or the case of Kodak, whereby its chemical engineering prowess and capabilities were different from digital technologies and hence made change hard for the company.

3.Incumbent choose to not change and fail. Maybe there’s a fundamental trade-off between the long run competencies they need and the short-term advantages that they have or maybe they’re worried about cannibalizing their existing products. For example, Blockbuster believed that it shouldn’t try to transform to be an online streaming business. They had no inherent capabilities there and needed to milk the cash cow they had, their retail stores until it went out of business — planned obsolescence. On the flip side, it becomes a question as to how do some incumbents survive disruption and profit immensely from change? Here are the trends: 1.Innovation might require extensive capital and expertise. Sometimes an innovation will require large amounts of R&D spending and access to expertise that are recruited or protected by large firms. 2.Customers’ preferences may aim towards assurance from established firms. Maybe the customers are risk-averse or unwilling to try new brands. It’s going to be interesting to see how BMW and Volvo will perform in the electric vehicle market as two wellestablished and well-respected brands that are becoming more aggressive into electric vehicles. 3.Incumbent firms may leverage some type of complementary resource or capability to their advantage. Think about Nikon and the camera industry, where they were able to make the transition to digital by focusing on their lens technology. 4.The incumbent firm has a dynamic capability. This is the ability to adjust to changing business conditions. The prototypical example of this in recent years has been Apple, where they were able to create a dynamic ability to reinvent themselves in the face of changing market conditions. And in many ways, this is the golden ideal that many companies are trying to achieve when they think about their innovative capabilities. How do we create a set of capabilities to allow us to be dynamic and responsive to changing marketing conditions as we might go through an industry transformation? An observation is that those who invent or those who pioneer a market are not always the ones who win a disruptive transition such as digital. The invention of innovative disruptive technologies is not as important

as extracting appropriates value from them. The total value created by innovation is shared by several different stakeholders including the innovator, customers, suppliers upstream, and other imitators and market entrants. The big question is, how big is the slice of the pie that each of the stakeholders end-up capturing, especially the innovator? The reason this is important is that timing is everything and there are different strategies that different firms might pursue based on their set of capabilities or the nature of the market. Here are the trends: 1.Sometimes, being first-mover matters — for example, Amazon, the early mover advantage allowed them to learn immensely about the online retail operations and build up infrastructure associated with that. 2.And sometimes, being later-mover is more advantageous — to let others advance the technology or market and then come in as a quick imitator, with advanced technology, and dominate the marketplace. Microsoft over the years has been very successful with this type of strategy in particular with their office suite. Intellectual property could be for example, a patent on technology or a copyright on a written piece, or something about the underlying nature of the technology and the market. A strong intellectual property protection, tends to favour innovators and weak ones may favour others, thee second movers. When is an intellectual property strong? Here are the trends: 1.When there are legal protections, patents, copyrights, trademarks. It’s important to recognize that simply having a patent or copyright does not necessarily mean you have unassailable rights to it. At the end of the day, you have to be able to fight for it in a court of law 2.When there’s some form of first-mover advantage. The firstmover advantage of an innovator needs to translate into some sort of sustainable competitive advantages such as increased know-how, lowered costs, more quality or value, or customer loyalty and branding. 3.When it becomes the industry standard. Becoming the dominant

design of the industry, can lock a firm down as a winner and makes it very hard for others to compete with it. This is in essence another form of intellectual property that gives a competitive advantage. 4.When its difficult to imitate. If imitation of a firm’s technology or operations is slow, then its another form of tight intellectual property protection. Many companies forgo patents and instead use things like trade secrets that are hard for others to imitate. 5.When it diffuses quickly among customers. Examples of this include Facebook as a social network or Pokemon Go the game.

Some questions to ask to find position during a disruption: 1.How long will each phase of the competitive lifecycle take? Do we expect the mature phase to be decades long or is this just going to be a matter of a few years? How long is that emerging phase? 2.Is this a slowly evolving industry, one that might be relatively stable for decades or is this maybe a hyperdynamic industry? 3.How severe will each of these transitions be? Are the disruptions more radical in nature or more incremental in nature? What will the annealing process look like? A single dominant design or will there potentially be multiple competing designs that can coexist? 4.Will there be a winner-take-all market during the shakeout? Will, there be one single winner or will it be a duopoly or an oligopoly? 5.Are there first-mover advantages? Does timing matter here? Can we wait and be patient and have a second-mover opportunity? 6.What is the role of the complementary assets? Do we need marketing, distribution, etc. as success factors. In the last few decades, digital technology has progressed exponentially, disrupting lives globally in previously unimaginable ways. And there are three laws, all exponential in mathematicalnature, that explain this progress and rapid growth: 1.Moore’s law or the law of processing power — says that every 18 months, our computers will have twice as much power to process information. We can achieve this by increasing the number of transistors in chips, change the way we design chips from 2D to 3D, change the material we use to make chips from silicone to graphite, or move towards using quantum computing. 2.Butter’s law or the law of communication — states that the amount of data communicated through a single optical fiber doubles every nine months. There’s a variation of this law for other communication media, whether wireline like ADSL, VDSL or wireless like 3G, LTE and more recently, 5G. 3.Kryder’s law or the law of storage — states that the amount of data stored per centimetre square of a hard drive will double every 13

months. The trend has recently slowed down to double every 16 or 17 months but remains faster than Moore’s law. These laws describe the theoretical technological potentials and only part of that potential goes into performance improvement for the mass market while the other part, goes into consumer cost reductions so that computers, internet connection, and storage capacity become not only better but also cheaper for the average consumer. Because our brains are wired to see and anticipate the world in terms of linear advances, we tend to underestimate exponential technological advancement. As a result, businesses often underestimate or become oblivious to the influence of digital technologies and revolutions. If businesses advance linearly while technology develops exponentially, there will be an ever-widening gap between the company's value providing and what is technologically conceivable. Individuals and businesses alike must overcome the issue of linear perception and comprehend how digital technology is expanding fast. Traditionally, industries were organized via a vertically integrated value chain, the succession of many suppliers, producers, and distributors, transforming raw input to market-ready material, all that one step at a time. Companies would integrate multiple steps in the value chain to become a member of an oligopoly with a couple of other vertically integrated competitors. Vertical integration was the right strategic answer to traditionally managing the flow of goods and information for two reasons: 1.High transaction costs — a company required lots of resources to operate and manage its value chain or coordinate with suppliers and distributors to figure out the best price or the right quality standards. A vertically integrated value chain meant lower costs and faster time to market. 2.Scale of operations drives competitive advantage — for example, the more smartphones a company manufactures, the more its gathered experience and know-how translates into efficiency, and the more profitable it becomes. Both incentives to reduce transaction costs and scale of operations require the accumulation, exchange, and processing of information to

happen, and this is where digital technology has increased capacities and reduced costs to store, process, and communicate information in digital form. For example, in practice, it became much cheaper for companies to directly check the inventory of their distributors through an ERP integration or to instantly compare prices between suppliers through an online portal. Consequentially, links in the vertically integrated value chain became looser and started to unbundle as functionally specialized and independent layers with a multiple number of players. Global productivity growth in the last decades has not been in par with the growth in information technology spending including hardware, software, data centres, networks, service, new tech, and the related human resources. This amount is nearly $6 trillion per year and grew by a factor of almost 20 between 1980 and 2015. However, in the same time frame, global GDP barely quadrupled. This is referred to as the Solow Computer Paradox inferring that technology investments didn’t help us create more economic value. There are three theoretical explanations for this pattern: 1.Technology has beneficial impacts, just not on economic productivity or the GDP, which is a very narrow measure. Technology has changed efficiencies in the workplace such as communication via Skype or numerical modelling to design mechanical parts in only minutes. These advancements have led to more efficiency, stronger risk management, and more value-adding products. All these efficiencies will at some point have trickled down to the GDP and helped it grow. 2.Technology has beneficial impacts on the GDP, but will only show after a long time lag. In every massive change, we should expect that only a small fringe of a company or society would be early adopters, therefore creating a delayed bump in productivity growth and this would mean that we are already in times where technology impact is visible. 3.Technology has beneficial impacts on GDP and in the short term, but it was neutralized by some other negative business phenomenon. One major factor could be complexity, for example, in 1955 CEOs committed to between 4 and 7 performance imperatives,

while today it’s between 25 and 40, with many of those requirements being contradicting. When it was enough for a car to be safe in the 50s, today it needs to be also innovative, cheap, have a good brand name, easy to maintain, and have tons of functionalities. Despite the Solow Computer Paradox, investments in technology have shown to reap economic returns. A study found that technology adoption leaders outperformed laggards by 13 percentage points in yearly revenue growth in developed markets and by 15 percentage points in developing ones. In the financial services industry, digital leaders outperform digital laggards in customer loyalty and revenue growth. There is also a positive correlation between technology investments and gross margins whereby top-performing companies tend to have higher technology intensity index compared to the industry average. Technology changes quicker than human intuition can keep up with. Information processing power, communication speed, and storage capacity have all increased tremendously during the previous three decades, resulting in quicker, better, and cheaper technological breakthroughs. These technology improvements have caused transaction costs to fall steadily, upsetting value chains in a variety of sectors. While industries and businesses used to be vertically integrated in order to reap economies of scale, they now organise in several interoperable levels. Some layers continue to be scale sensitive, becoming near-monopolies at times, while others remain more fragmented, with numerous specialised firms competing on creative products. Companies that invest in the right technology may expect to see meaningful returns on both revenue growth and profitability levels as a result of these improvements. Schibsted, the Norwegian media conglomerate, took a daring choice a decade ago: to make classifieds, the major source of income for its daily operations, available online for free. The corporation had previously made major Internet expenditures, but knew that in order to develop a pan-European digital stronghold, it needed to up the ante. During a presentation to a potential French partner, Schibsted officials mentioned that current European classifieds sites had little traffic. "The market is for sale," they said, "and we aim to take it." 1 Today, internet

classifieds account for more than 80% of their profits. At about the same time, the boards of other major newspapers were debating the potential of a digital future. They undoubtedly imagined and argued hypothetical scenarios in which Internet start-ups drained off the rich print classified advertisements that the industry referred to as its "rivers of gold," much like Schibsted. Maybe these situations didn't seem scary enough—or maybe they were too deadly to even consider. However, very few publications followed Schibsted's lead. From the vantage point of 2016, when print media has been broken by a flood of digital disruption, it's simple to argue about who made the "right" choice and who made the "wrong." When one is in the thick of disruption's uncertain, much-hyped early phases, things become even murkier. Steel titans notably misjudged the potential of mini-mills in the 1980s. The personal computer put an end to Digital Equipment Corporation, Wang Laboratories, and other minicomputer manufacturers in the 1980s and 1990s. Recently, digital shops have challenged traditional stores, while Airbnb and Uber Technologies, respectively, have revolutionised housing and automobile transport. Examples range from database software to packaged beef. What they have in common is that incumbents often find themselves on the wrong side of a major shift. Incumbents can't seem to push back the wave, no matter how robust their incoming balance sheets and market share are—and often because of those exact characteristics. The disruptors are significantly more often the attackers than the entrenched incumbents. The good news for incumbents is that digital disruption is still in its early stages in many sectors. Print media, travel, and housing all give important examples of the road that a growing number of people will choose. Most people have ample time to answer. What is the secret of those incumbents who survive—and, in some cases, thrive? One factor is undoubtedly the capacity to identify and overcome the normal pattern of reaction (or lack thereof) that defines organisations in the incumbent's position. This often requires foresight3 and a willingness to answer courageously before it's too late, which generally involves acting before it's evident that you have to. As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings pointed out (just as his firm was transitioning from DVDs to streaming), most successful corporations neglect to explore for new things their consumers desire

because they are fearful of jeopardising their main industries. "Companies seldom die from going too rapidly, and they regularly perish from moving too slowly," Hastings plainly said. In retrospect, we're all terrific strategists. The difficulty is what to do when you're in the thick of it, with the real-world limits and demands of operating a major, contemporary corporation. This examines the four phases of disruption from the viewpoint of an incumbent, the challenges to overcome, and the options and actions required at each level. It may be useful to visualise these phases as an S-curve. Young businesses suffer with uncertainty at initially, but they are adaptable and prepared to explore. Companies now prioritise learning and optionality and try to create value based on the anticipation of future profits. The new model must then achieve a critical mass in order to become a viable business. Mindsets and realities shift when they age, or become incumbents. Routines and procedures are ingrained in established businesses. They smooth out and normalise variation in the face of increasing organisational complexity. In the pursuit of efficiency, they eliminate strategic possibilities and reward executives for consistent performance. The delivery of steady, expanding cash flows in the here and now is now the measure of success. The optionrich anticipation of future gain has been replaced by a treadmill of ever-increasing performance requirements. During a disruption, a firm at the peak of the old S-curve is confronted with a new business model at the bottom of a new S-curve. The creative destruction cycle is restarted, but this time the shoe is on the opposite foot. Two major obstacles loom. The first step is to identify the new S-curve, which begins with a short slope and oftenunimpressive profitability and does not first demand attention. After all, most businesses have shown that they are adept at dealing with clear situations, quickly mobilising resources, and responding decisively. They are, however, struggling to cope with the steady, silent growth of an unclear danger that does not make itself known. Second, the same variables that help organisations run well at the top of an S-curve may also be detrimental at the bottom of a new one. Because several modes of operation are necessary, doing the right thing is difficult— even when you believe you know what the correct thing is.

This simplified model of a new S-curve smashing into an old one in slow motion allows us to look at the issue from the incumbent's point of view, and to comprehend the true obstacles that each instant offers along the route. The new S-curve is not yet a curve in the first stage. In the second, the new business model is verified, but its influence is insufficient to substantially alter the incumbent's performance trajectory. However, by the third stage, the new model has reached critical mass and its influence is palpable. In the fourth stage, the new model becomes the new normal as it matures. PolyGram was one of the world's leading record companies in the late 1990s, with a roster that included Bob Marley, U2, and notable classical musicians. However, in 1998, Cornelis Boonstra, CEO of PolyGram's Dutch parent company, Koninklijke Philips, travelled to New York, met with Goldman Sachs, and orchestrated a $10.6 billion sale of PolyGram to Seagram. Why? Because Boonstra had discovered information indicating that customers were primarily utilising the new recordable CD-ROM technology (developed by Philips) for one purpose: to duplicate music. In retrospect, this is an excellent illustration of how, in the early phases of disruption, demand starts to "purify" and shed the distortions put on it by firms. The MP3 format had only just been established, Napster was only a twinkle in Sean Parker's eye, and PolyGram was nearing the apex of its S-curve —but Boonstra saw the first hints of revolutionary change and resolved to move quickly and aggressively. Within a decade, sales of compact discs and DVDs in the United States fell by more than 80%. Similarly, Telecom New Zealand anticipated the deterioration of its Yellow Pages business and sold it in 2007 for $2.2 billion (a nine-time revenue multiple)6, while several other telecom firms stayed on until the businesses were almost worthless. There was no scarcity of comparable signals in the newspaper sector. Marshall McLuhan, a media theorist, stated in 1964 that the industry's dependence on classified advertisements and stock quotations left it vulnerable: "Should an alternative source of simple access to such diversified daily information be discovered, the press would crumble." The emergence of the Internet offered precisely such a source, and startups like eBay pioneered a new method for individuals to advertise products for sale without relying on newspaper classifieds. Schibsted

was one of the first media organisations to see the danger and capitalise on the potential. The firm was persuaded as early as 1999 that "the Internet is created for classifieds, and classifieds are meant for the Internet." It's hardly surprising that the majority of other publications did not respond. At this early level of disruption, incumbents see no influence on their core operations except on the outskirts. In other words, they do not "need" to act. Making a preemptive step requires exceptional foresight, especially in the face of competing stakeholder demands. Furthermore, determining which trends to ignore and which to respond to might be challenging. To get greater insight and escape the myopia of the first stage, incumbents must examine their own "narrative" and disrupt long-held (and often implicit) ideas about how to earn money in a specific sector. "These controlling ideas include broadly believed concepts about consumer preferences, the role of technology, regulation, cost drivers, and the foundation of competition and difference," our colleagues said in a recent paper. They are often thought to be inviolable—until someone comes along to violate them." The process of reframing these guiding assumptions entails finding an industry's primary concept about value creation and then flipping it upside down to discover new forms and processes for value generation. The pattern is clearly obvious. The fundamental technical and economic motivations have been established. At this juncture, existing organisations must commit to developing new projects in order to gain a footing in the new sector. More importantly, they must guarantee that new endeavours are independent of the main company, even if the objectives of the two operations contradict. The objective is to act before one is forced to. However, since the effect of disruption is still insufficient to slow profits momentum, motivation is often lacking. Even when internet ads for autos and real estate took off and Craigslist gained traction, most newspaper publishers lacked urgency since their own market share remained mostly unaffected. And it's not like the newcomers were earning a fortune (yet). There was no sense of performance jealousy. Schibsted, on the other hand, was able to find the essential drive. "When the dot-com boom broke, we continued to invest despite not knowing how we were going to earn money online," remembers former CEO Kjell Aamot. "We also let new items

to compete with existing ones." 10 Although offering free online ads directly competed with its newspaper business, Schibsted was ready to take the risk. The corporation did not only act; it acted dramatically. Now, let's be honest about how difficult it is for a firm's executives to commit to supporting experimental projects while the company is climbing the S-curve. When Netflix disrupted itself in 2011 by moving its emphasis from DVDs to streaming, the company's stock price fell by 80%. Few boards and investors can bear that level of suffering when the necessity is questionable in the short run. The hazy longerterm threat does not seem to be as severe as the current misery. After all, incumbents have current income streams to safeguard, while startups only have upside to capitalise on. Furthermore, management teams are more at ease devising strategies for firms they understand, and are naturally hesitant to join a new game with rules they don't understand. As a result, most incumbents dabble, making tiny expenditures that will not flatten their present S-curve and will protect them from cannibalization. They usually place too much emphasis on identifying synergies (always striving for efficiency) rather than encouraging bold innovation. It's all too easy to imagine that this dabbling will get you into the game. Many newspapers developed online extensions to their classified operations, but few were ready to risk cannibalising conventional income sources, which were still considerably larger and more lucrative at the time. And keep in mind that, at the time, Schibsted had not yet been rewarded for its early action: its results appeared quite comparable to those of its rivals. Naturally, bolder action will be required over time, and leaders must commit to developing potentially dilutive and modest next-horizon enterprises in a pipeline of activities. Managing such a portfolio requires a high tolerance for uncertainty, as well as the ability of executives to react to changing situations, both within and outside the organisation, while maintaining the goal of delivering good results for shareholders. 11 The problem is that there is a propensity to defend the core at the cost of the periphery. Not only are there significant short-term financial incentives to safeguard the core, but it is also sometimes difficult to shift attention away from core companies in which one has an emotional as well as a financial interest. Accepting that the former status quo is no longer the baseline is a significant

element of the difficulty. With its low-price approach, grocery store Aldi has challenged countless incumbents throughout the world. While Aldi was still a newcomer to the market, its potential success was obvious. Nonetheless, many incumbent supermarkets elected to forgo the short-term pain of raising entry prices and enhancing their privatelabel goods. In retrospect, such decisions would have been very netpresent-value positive in terms of prevented loss, since Aldi has proceeded to develop rapidly over three continents. The future is currently hammering on the door. The new model has shown to be better to the old, at least for a critical mass of adopters, and the industry is moving in that direction. The incumbent's task at this level of disruption is to aggressively transfer resources to the new self-competing initiatives it cultivated in stage two in order to speed its own transformation. Consider new firms to be venture-capital investments that only pay off if they expand quickly, while existing businesses are subjected to a private-equity-style workout. Making this difficult transition requires overcoming the lethargy that may plague businesses even in the best of circumstances. Indeed, our experience shows that stage three is the most difficult for incumbents to manage. As corporate performance deteriorates, tightening budgets, established organisations naturally cut down on peripheral operations while concentrating on the core. The senior decision makers, who often come from the largest corporate centres, are adamant about not depriving their still-profitable (albeit more slowly developing) domains of resources in favour of untested upstarts. As a consequence, leadership often underinvests in new projects, while imposing high performance standards on them. Instead, legacy firms continue to get the lion's share of resources. By this point, the exact causes that are putting pressure on the core are making the company even less willing and able to address those pressures. The instinct to save resources arises precisely when you need to aggressively reallocate and invest. Boards also play an important part in this. Far too often, boards are hesitant (or unable) to adjust their perspective on baseline performance, compounding the situation. Often, a board's (understandable) response to poor performance is to press management even harder to meet aggressive targets within the present paradigm, while disregarding the need for a more fundamental

shift. This just exacerbates the situation in the future. To make things worse, incumbents with initially strong positions may take false comfort at this point, since the industry's smaller firms are hurt hardest first. It's all too easy to buy the notion that "it's not happening to us." The key is to keep a tight eye on the fundamental factors, not simply the financial consequences. "I don't have to outrun the bear... I only have to outrun you," the storey goes. Except that method just buys time when it comes to disruption. If the bear continues to run, it will eventually catch up with you. The average conventional newspaper operator, too, was not oblivious to a change in the market, but it seldom managed to launch an aggressive enough reaction. Axel Springer, a previous digital laggard, was one prominent exception. According to Financial Times Deutschland, before 2005, the German media firm was "a simple Internet midget." By 2013, it had gone on a buying spree, purchasing 67 digital domains and establishing 90 of its own ventures. 13 It, like Schibsted, recognised the value pools shifting to online classifieds and decided to take the plunge. The lesson is that incumbents can win even with a late start if they pour themselves wholeheartedly into the race. Currently, digital media accounts for 70% of Axel Springer's profits before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation. The core has devolved into the periphery. To achieve the necessary acceleration at this point of the game, incumbents must begin on a daring and unwavering reallocation of resources from the old to the new model—as well as demonstrate a readiness to manage new companies differently (and frequently independently) from the old. Nothing emphasises this point more than Axel Springer's 2013 spinoff of some of its best heritage print-media items, which accounted for around 15% of its revenues, to Funke Mediengruppe, Germany's number-three print-media player. These goods, such as the Berliner Morgenpost, which Axel Springer has owned since 1959, were previously ingrained in the company's DNA and served as symbols of its journalistic culture. But not any more. They understood that the future worth of the company depended on the construction of a new economic engine rather than the continuance of today's revenues. When incumbents lack the inhouse competence to launch new enterprises, they must instead seek to buy them. The problem here is to timing acquisitions such that the

business model is proven but values are not too high—all while ensuring that the incumbent is a "natural best owner" of the new enterprises it buys. In the financial industry, examples include BBVA's purchase of Simple and Capital One's acquisition of the design company Adaptive Path. Getting used to the new normal: The disruption has progressed to the point that businesses have no option but to embrace reality: the sector has fundamentally transformed. For incumbents, their cost base is out of sync with the new (likely much shallower) profit pools, their profits are collapsing, and they are ill-equipped to assume a dominant market position. This is where print media is at the moment. The classifieds' "rivers of gold" have dried up, making survival the first goal, followed by sustainability and expansion. "We know that at some point in the future, we will be largely digital or digital-only in our urban areas," said the CEO of Australia's Fairfax Media at the International News Media Association World Congress in 2013. 14 True, some heritage mastheads have built robust online news assets with substantial traffic, but display advertising and paywalls alone are seldom enough to sustain a healthy revenue line, and social aggregation sites are driving unbundling. Typical media companies have had to go through numerous painful cycles of restructuring and mergers in order to seed growth and find methods to monetise their brands. The adaption phase presents additional obstacles for incumbents who have taken the shift, such as Axel Springer and Schibsted. They are totally exposed to the volatility and speed that come with the territory now that they are mainly digital firms. That is, their adaptive response is a continuous process of self-disruption rather than a one-time occurrence. Consider Facebook changing its business strategy to be "mobile first." 15 You can't be pleased with the first pivot; you must be willing to keep doing it. In other circumstances, incumbents' skills are so inextricably linked to the old business model that rebirth via restructuring is unlikely to succeed, and leaving is the only option to retain value. Eastman Kodak Company, for example, may have been better off exiting the photographic industry far sooner since all of its many initiatives failed to preserve it. Even full foresight of the end of film or CDs would not have addressed the primary issue that the digital replacement is essentially less lucrative when a firm is

established on a legacy technology that is categorically different from the new standard. The truth is that new profit pools may not be as deep as previous ones (as many newspaper publishers have come to believe). The difficulty is to adjust and fundamentally realign cost bases to the new realities of profit pools, while also accepting that the "new normal" would most certainly involve significantly fewer "rivers of gold." On top of being one of the most hyped terms in recent years (along with digital transformation), digital disruption is primarily used in the sense that an industry, way of doing business, or ecosystem (e.g. societal) is significantly challenged by existing (mostly tech) companies, newcomers, or incumbents who have mastered digital business skillsets and developed solutions, business models, and approaches that cause a significant shift in customer behaviour and market context, requiring existing players (which can include ‘digital businesses’) to change their strategies as well. However, disruption is not limited to disruptive activities by newcomers or incumbents. Disruption, in the end, is about people, about consumers. Disruption, in the end, is a transfer of power in relationships. Disruption, as a human phenomena, is generated by changes in, among other things, how people utilise technology, as well as changes in their behaviour and expectations. These shifts might be triggered by new technologies and how they are embraced or utilised by disruptive entrants. However, the shift may have a larger context that has nothing to do with technology. Is it still referred to as 'digital disruption'? No. However, in other circumstances, digital technology might be used to meet such shifts in behaviour, expectations/needs, and so on. Disruption is common in the final mile (of the customer experience). We would argue that, in general, disruption occurs at the many edges of the company; the same edges we just mentioned: the last mile, the customer, the larger ecosystem, and so on. In the context of the larger ecosystem, it is critical to consider the disruptive impact that changing economic realities and legislation, for example, might have, emphasising the need of putting digital transformation guidance into context. The fact that digital transformation often focuses on the edges, as previously said, is evident when you consider the disruptions and expanding demands at the edges (consumer

expectations, the knowledge worker at the end of a business process, etc.) that drive digital transformation. “Disruptions” and digital (business) transformation can be caused by numerous factors: 1.Technological innovations (technology-induced), which are more impactful than ever before. However, again, it’s not the technology that drives the disruption or transformation. It’s how it is used and adopted by customers, partners, competitors and various stakeholders. Technologies with clear disruption potential include IoT, artificial intelligence, edge computing, virtual and augmented reality and blockchain. However, the most disruptive potential occurs when they get combined and enable new applications as we see in the convergence of AI, IoT and big data analytics. In industrial transformation the convergence of IT and OT is also a game changer. 2.Customer behaviour and demands. This so-called customer-induced transformation and disruption is not necessarily related to technology. Technology often enables or, as just mentioned, causes it, when adopted and turned into business challenges. An example of a force that drives digital transformation and is not caused by technology but merely strengthened by it in combination with other factors: the demand of customers for ease of use and simplicity in dealing with businesses is far older than today. It goes back to times when even the Internet didn’t exist. In that sense, digital transformation can be simply catching up too because businesses don’t have another option anymore (it’s not as if they didn’t know the importance of making interactions and support for customers easy and frictionless decades ago). Customer behaviour and needs can also be impacted by disruptions on a societal level. 3.Innovation- and invention-induced. Entirely novel approaches to human and business challenges, as well as innovations and inventions that create a new reality, whether it’s in science, business, technology or even a non-technological context of true innovation can be disruptive. The invention of medicines that change healthcare and society (as has happened several times in the past), the printing press, the train, what can be next? Your best bet is probably in life sciences and the application of technology within the human body and

mind. 4.Ecosystem-induced. Organisations are part of broader ecosystems. Economical changes, demands from partners who want you to adapt, evolutions towards collaborations in transformational business ecosystems, regulatory changes (consider the transformational impact of the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR for example), geo-political changes, societal shifts, unexpected events, they all can impact and drive the need for digital transformation. And this ecosystem aspect brings us again to this essential aspect of digital transformation: the interdependency and interconnectedness of everything – and according need to think holistically, across industries and with present and future shifts in mind as mentioned before. Everything overlaps and is connected; from disruption, business processes and models to business activities and each single activity of the organisation and the broader ecosystem in which it operates. It’s the butterfly effect in action. Think about how virtually all business processes de facto are linked, the interconnectedness of business activities from the customer perspective, the way information runs across all digital transformations, the impact events can have on an economy, and much more. Scenario planning is important here.

5 aspects of digital disruption 1.Change of mentality The entry of digital technologies affects everyone in the company, but now we are going to focus on managers. From their role, which entails greater responsibilities, we know that managers are especially involved in the process of digital transformation. But a strategic vision cannot remain the blind introduction of new technologies, but must be oriented to the success of the company and think about the consequences of the measures taken. Digital disruption, as its name suggests, is ground-breaking, and requires a strong change of mentality from positions of responsibility. We could say that managers will have to “think digital” from now on. The survival of your companies will often depend on it.

2.A new way of working Digital technologies are used in the day-to-day of every company, this

is something that everyone knows. Not in vain, we have been using them for decades, and they have already caused very profound changes. However, the wave continues to grow and affects businesses in an increasingly forceful way. Nowadays companies whose operation does not depend crucially on technology are rare. And that dependence increases. Large companies, and even many smaller ones, deploy, day by day, a vast technological network that allows them to function and is a sort of great nervous system on which the activity depends. Concepts such as server, network or database were rarities just a few years ago in the same companies that today are given maximum attention. And it is that its activity depends on its good functioning; a change, without a doubt, of a great depth.

3.A new market The digital market is very different from traditional markets. New rules of the game, a wide range of possibilities, new players in the market. This affects companies at all levels. Competition is multiplied by the tools that digital technologies provide. Change the channels of communication with customers, suppliers… And even the tastes and dynamics of the market change in a profound and surprising way. And not only that. In addition, the digital market is intermingled with the traditional market and affects it decisively. Therefore, companies that do not take it into consideration will not only be out of the new game, but their classic business will be decisively affected.

4.A different way of dealing with customers Customers are at the centre of the digital transformation. New technologies have provided both users and companies with a multitude of opportunities to establish all kinds of relationships that were unthinkable just a few years ago. Social networks, apps, online shops, virtual communities… The tools are multiplying at the same time as personalization increases and the bond (sometimes even affective) between users and companies reaches unusual levels.

5.New disruptive phenomena All these changes are translated into concrete, striking phenomena that can even take the business model of a company. Collaborative economy, growth hacking, IoT, Industry 4.0, fintech, blockchain… definitely, disruptive phenomena are multiplying, arise with an increasing frequency and force companies to be very attentive to new dynamics and to participate, if possible, in them. These are some examples of how digital disruption is affecting both businesses and markets (and will continue to do so for years to come). As we have already seen, technology is today fundamental for the proper functioning of the vast majority of companies. And in some it is so much that the attention must be maximum. Luckily, as technology develops, so do the tools that control its performance. And among them the monitoring systems occupy a very relevant level. Monitoring systems are responsible for controlling the technology used by a company (hardware, networks and communications,

operating systems or applications, for example) in order to analyse its operation and performance, and to detect and warn about possible errors. Here are ways technology has the potential to alter the art business environment: 1. Global and remote access has been expanded. When art was only evaluated and sold at auction houses, it was natural for art market activity to be concentrated in places like New York and London. However, internet-based auction houses like as Paddle8 and Auctionata allow buyers and sellers from all over the world to communicate with one another, decentralising and increasing the marketplace. This has contributed to the market's internationalisation and provided chances for regional dealers to reach a larger audience. Top-priced artworks will continue to be sold in live auctions, according to Klein, but the vast majority of transactions under $1 million will be conducted online. It also adds "pocket listings" – art for sale that is exclusively accessible to a select set of purchasers — to the endangered species list. "The future will be all about openness and effectiveness." "It's about creating truly global marketplaces where all information is accessible and reliable," says Howard Tullman, an art collector and the CEO of Chicago-based business incubator 1871. Similarly, education-focused businesses like One Art Nation educate new collectors and their advisers on the complexities of the art world, allowing a new generation to swiftly learn to recognise art market patterns and negotiate the buying process. Collectors become more confident and familiar with the art market as they gain experience, and they are better equipped to analyse art purchases as investments. 2. Power transfer from gallerists to collectors. Remember the last time you read the papers or inquired about a new restaurant in town? That was before the advent of internet restaurant review sites. A convergence of various tendencies is causing a comparable upheaval in the art world. For starters, virtual-reality technology promises to increase access to art masterpieces in private collections or distant galleries. Second, data-driven firms like Aura collect user feedback on art. When a diverse group of art enthusiasts weighs in on new work, some of the star-making power that has traditionally been reserved for

collectors and gallery owners is transferred to the vox populi. "We're establishing a new class of tastemakers," Klein adds. This implies that an artist or piece of artwork that appeals to a large number of people might benefit from the increased exposure. "Even if they don't have typical financial support or a huge sponsorship, that artist may be the next great up-and-comer." Mass audience tools and virtual- and augmented-reality platforms also have the potential to broaden the reach of art by allowing more people to watch more work and foster community among followers of various artists and media. A second class of art-tech companies seeks to use big data to the art market in a novel manner, by analysing market patterns and historical performance to forecast the asset value of new works. For example, ArtAdvisor.io forecasts an artist's longevity and impact based on an algorithmic examination of criteria such as an artist's history, medium, and critical response across time. 3. Going digital for art tracking and provenance. Tracking an artwork's provenance and arranging the transaction are two of the tougher elements of art purchase - at least outside of the main auction houses. Deloitte's Luxembourg team recently unveiled a prototype of a system that may use blockchain technology (a cousin of bitcoin) to monitor the provenance of a work in a reliable manner. Startups like Athena Art Finance Corp. enable customers to pay for their art over time by utilising it as collateral, reducing friction from the buying process. "As our capacity to trace the history of each item improves, it will reduce a significant amount of energy that is now spent asking, 'Where did this originate from?' and 'Who previously had it?'" Tullman adds. According to Deloitte's Klein, the most important element propelling the art market toward more transparency may not be technical, but cultural: The auction houses and galleries that sell high-end art are aware that they must adapt. "The art market is perceived as mysterious, esoteric, and hazy as an asset class," he explains. "The market recognises the need for change, as well as the necessity for norms and regulation." It will take time for these rules to be implemented, but everyone agrees that they are necessary." These technical advancements have resulted in substantial changes in a variety of industries. The phrase "digital disruption" attempts to cover the all-encompassing influence of today's rapidly evolving digital

technology on our society. It is defined as "an impact created by or manifested via digital capabilities, channels, or assets that modifies the basic expectations and behaviours in a culture, market, industry, or process." The focus is on the nature of the transformation. Digital technologies are disruptive in the sense that they cause fundamental shifts in consumer and company expectations and behaviours that are fundamentally different from those of the past. There are several instances of digital disruption all around us. Amazon Go, the company's physical shop, is a fantastic example. In 2018, the first Amazon Go location opened. An Amazon Go store seems to be similar to many other physical shops where food products are put on shelves for consumers to peruse and buy. However, there is no cashier or checkout queue. Shoppers at an Amazon Go location just take the things they wish to purchase, and Amazon charges their payment cards as they leave the shop. How is this even possible? Sensor fusion, computer vision, and deep learning algorithms are among the cutting-edge digital technologies used to make this "Just Walk Out Technology" a reality. 4 An Amazon Go shop is outfitted with several cameras and sensors that monitor an item's position, weight, temperature, and other characteristics, as well as processing systems that analyse the data from those sensors and cameras. 5 When a consumer picks or returns a product from the shelf, these electronics detect the change and maintain track of the picked-up item in a virtual cart. When customers enter or depart the store, they scan a QR code on their cell phones using the Amazon Go app. This enables the retailer to recognise customers and record the start and finish of each shopping excursion. When a customer leaves the store, Amazon immediately charges their payment card and issues a receipt. At the time of writing, seventeen Amazon Go locations exist, with six more planned in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle. Amazon plans to build up to three thousand shops by 2021. The Amazon Go store benefits both customers and Amazon. Timecrunched consumers will undoubtedly appreciate the quick shopping experience without having to wait in a large queue to check out. Additionally, shoppers are no longer need to bring a form of payment,

such as cash or a credit card. All that is required is the Amazon Go app on a smartphone. This will be quite useful for individuals who have not planned to shop but need to get a few items. If they chance to pass by an Amazon Go location, they may stop in for a quick visit. An Amazon Go shop also delivers a clear value proposition to Amazon. Amazon does not need to employ cashiers or numerous shop personnel since everything is automated and managed by sensors and computer equipment, including the checkout procedure. Because the store requires significantly less staff to run, it may remain open for longer periods of time at a reduced cost, which is likely to improve revenue. Furthermore, since there are no checkout stands or lines, the store takes considerably less space, yet it can manage a high number of customers because their shopping excursions will be finished much more rapidly without the separate checkout procedure. These advantages would not have been attainable without the appropriate digital technology. In this regard, technology has played a critical role in the development of this sort of new business opportunity and consumer experience. As a result, digital technologies have the potential to change the way organisations function. The daily running of an Amazon Go shop is dependent on the performance of the store's software and hardware components. It cannot operate as a storage without them. Store clerks and managers, on the other hand, are far less crucial since sensors and data analytics can create the necessary information to enhance shop operations without needing much input or assistance from those store workers and managers. Naturally, Amazon will place a high priority on the IT side of the Amazon Go shop, prioritising it above the HR side. Customers' expectations may vary as a result of new sorts of companies, such as Amazon Go. People will be unconcerned with shop workers' pleasant demeanour and helpfulness. While these have historically been key considerations for consumer happiness, a business that does not need a separate checkout procedure renders them obsolete. Instead, the efficient operation of the Amazon Go app, as well as the precise and timely monitoring of picked-up products, become critical to a positive shopping experience. Shoppers at an Amazon Go location will also spend much less time than at other physical locations. As a result, they are less likely to be concerned with how large or lovely the

shop is. Because there aren't many people shopping at Amazon Go right now, their experience isn't normal. Consider a world in which all shops functioned similarly to the Amazon Go store. We can quickly understand how this might alter our way of life and how we manage our everyday routines. A smartphone would be a must-have gadget since it would serve as a de facto wallet. There would be no more anonymous purchases since all shopping actions and things bought would be linked to the individual who picked them up and paid for them. Because the store would monitor every item's placement on the shelf in real time, customers would be able to instantaneously determine if an item was in stock and, if so, where it was located in the store. Even at peak hours, businesses would be substantially less congested since customers would not have to wait to check out. Stores would become very computing-intensive as they were outfitted with a plethora of sensors, cameras, and other gadgets to detect sales. They would also no longer be built as places for individuals to wander and explore. Stores would be utilised more and more like huge vending machines, with few store employees present and consumers arriving and leaving quickly with the things they need. Digital disruption is alarming, powerful and unsettling said Dr. Jeanne W. Ross, Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Centre for Information Systems Research. Three years ago she explained how digital disruption is changing the competitive landscape across most (if not all) industries in two primary ways – relationship with and products offered to customers. This is certainly true within financial services as the emergence of new challenger banks is changing the relationship between traditional financial institutions and their customers by providing new interfaces that limit direct interaction. Disruption is also altering the value proposition of the products financial institutions offer their customers. Today products can be wrapped in information and services and customers expect innovative and easy-to-use solutions. How do we deal with this? How should we evolve our business and customer offering? For Dr. Ross it’s all about integration. Take everything your business does and deliver it as a whole to provide a more viable product and a richer customer experience. Her advice highlights five ways in which we can successfully face digital disruption:

1.Don’t hire a cheap digital officer (e.g. don’t rush out and hire one until you’re ready). People need to understand that digital is everyone’s job. 2.Organisation surgery is mandatory. We have to completely rethink how we do business. No more silos. 3.Value chains are becoming irrelevant. Think of the confluence of things you need to do and then think of synchronizing those activities. 4.Get a digitized platform. Wire in the end to end processes that simply do not need to be handled by humans. 5.Focus on solutions not products. Identify problems that your customers do not even know they have.

Use these tips to help you navigate and survive in this digital challenging environment. 1. Accept that change is inevitable It might be tempting to hope the challenges of digital disruption will abate, but all signs suggest disruption will be the new normal. Society is now digital, and the web and smartphones are intrinsic parts of modern life. These factors will not change, and they have already changed the people that use them. Their impact will be greater still for those generations who have never known anything different, and these younger generations will someday be your customers. So learning to adapt now will place you in a better stance today to predict and plan for the changes that will become reality tomorrow.

2. Watch other industries Digital disruption has already taken place in other sectors, such as book and music retailing. While they might seem a world away from financial advice, they still involve a brand marketing a service to a client whose behaviour and expectations are significantly different to what they were two decades ago. The best opportunity to profit from disruption is to understand the mistakes of other sectors and avoid repeating them. For instance, while selling of traditional books is in decline, sales of books through electronic reading devices is growing. Therefore, would communicating with your clients through different

channels be appropriate?

3. Be curious about your own industry No one can know the future, but it is possible to extrapolate possibilities based on current observations. While robo-advice might be responsible for a tiny fraction of funds under management today, it is growing, and can be assumed to play a bigger role in the future. As with all technology, it is also likely to become both more sophisticated and cheaper over time. Study emerging technologies and models within your industry and ask what would happen if these went mainstream, and what opportunities might they unlock?

4. Learn how disruptors disrupt There are no secrets regarding the tools that digital disruptors use to gain a foothold in markets. Learning about these tools can provide insight into how they work, and also into how they might work for a traditional business. Common amongst these tools are digital marketing and service delivery, data gathering and analytics, and a culture that stays close to customers and incorporates feedback into ongoing product development. Can you use these tools to redesign your own services?

5. Explore new channels Almost everyone carries a smartphone today, but rarely are they used to make telephone calls. They are a person’s portal into a world of information and services. What other opportunities does a smartphone present in terms of enabling your clients to engage with your services? Could a secondary service offering delivered purely through a smartphone open the door to a market segment that is otherwise unable to pay for advice? Talk to local mobile specialists such as TigerSpike, Outware or Appster to learn the options.

6. Get close to your customers Your customers are with you for a reason, and would rather stay with you than go elsewhere. When was the last time your surveyed your customers to ask them why they like working with you – or what you could do better? Are there other services that they would like to buy from you? And what would they be prepared to pay? Online tools such

as SurveyMonkey provide a simple tool for soliciting feedback. Staying close to customers not only keeps them loyal, but may see them advocating on your behalf – and hence sending you more clients. Furthermore, happy customers can also act as a testbed for your ideas, enabling you to test concepts quickly and inexpensively.

7. Collect and use data Companies that win in digital disruption are often those that are best at gathering data and using it to find competitive advantage. Are you capturing client data in such a way that you can generate insights across your entire client base? What do you know about their demographics and broader circumstances? Invest in a customer relationship management system such as Salesforce or SugarCRM to harvest client data. The goal then is to look for correlations between clients of a similar profile and use this to craft new service offerings that will either draw in similar new clients, or unlock cross-selling opportunities your client pool?

8. Find partners The complexity of digital disruption means it is impossible to take on all possibilities on your own. Many new market entrants have shown willingness to partner with incumbent businesses to accelerate their growth. What new entrants could you potentially partner with, such as robo-advisers like OwnersAdvisory or Betterment, to expand your existing service offering, and defend your client base from other new competitors? After all, if you can’t beat them, why not join them.

Turning disruption into opportunity One of today’s major buzzwords is ‘digital disruption’, which sounds scary, but in fact offers many opportunities for contact centres to improve their service levels. ‘Digital disruption’ is a term that seemingly combines hope and fear into one catch-all phrase. After all, ‘digital’ is positive, conjuring images of newer, faster, better and more awesome technology. ‘Disruption’, on the other hand, is inevitably negative in its connotations, bringing to mind thoughts of disturbance or interruption – in fact, the dictionary definition is that of ‘forcible separation’. While there is no doubt that digital disruption has left many enterprises confused and even a little nervous, it should not be

looked at as something to fear. Rather, it can open up some fantastic opportunities for higher levels of customer engagement. Those corporations that step up to the plate will be able to take advantage of the rapidly shifting digital sands, to deliver first-rate experiences that will boost customer loyalty and retention rates. Here are the trends:

1.Go social So how does digital disruption impact upon contact centres? The most obvious way is the rapidly increasing number of channels which customers expect to interact with businesses, including text, email, chat, and the various social media platforms, to name a few. This has led directly to the desire for omnichannel contact centres. Most notable among the new channels is that of social media. Although this channel can multiply the effects of a bad customer experience – simply due to the audience – it can do the same for good service. More importantly, a new generation of tech-savvy young customers are now entering the market, and for these Millennials, social media is often the communication channel of choice. Thus, this new channel presents contact centres with easy access to a whole new customer base, while, when used correctly, also enabling them to foster closer, more intimate ties with these consumers. As an increasing number of customers consider phone-based conversation as little more than a last resort, social media opens up a new method of communication with clients who are increasingly using it for everything from submitting complaints and claims to finding out more about a company’s products or services. In a similar manner, the rise of mobile applications is another example of disruption that is helping organizations to innovate. Here, it is through the development of their own customer service apps to communicate with users. These should also improve the consumers’ experience, as it will enable them to simply and easily interact with the business whenever they choose.

2.Get personal Big data is a major part of the current digital disruption, and also offers enormous opportunities, thanks to the use of analytics. As customer service becomes a key business differentiator, so the desire to anticipate customers’ needs grows. Contact centre analytics offer

enterprises the opportunity to bring together information from a wide variety of sources, such as phone calls, surveys, web chat, billing systems and more, with the goal of creating actionable insights. Analytics can then make the relevant connections around customer preferences that will provide the business with a picture that allows it to anticipate customer needs precisely. And of course, once you can anticipate their needs, you can personalize the offerings you provide to them, which creates increased value for both the business and the consumer. The new digital world has also erased concepts like normal office hours, and customers today expect 24/7/365 support; they expect to be able to contact the enterprise anytime, anywhere and via any device. Fortunately, disruptive new technologies like robotic process automation and artificial intelligence are enabling chatbots which can provide exactly such a service.

3.Improve intimacy Video chat is another technology that has had a disruptive effect on the contact centre because it requires an entirely different range of skills to a standard phone call. Not only does it mean your agents must be smart and presentable, but they need to be able to control their facial expressions while correctly reading those of the customer. However, despite these challenges, the opportunity presented here is fantastic. As video calls move towards true live support, the face-toface contact with the client that this ensures presents the contact center with a wonderful chance to establish a much more intimate relationship with each customer – one that can be leveraged to increase loyalty and brand advocacy. Considering the cost of winning new customers, developing long-term loyalty with customers once you have them is more critical than ever. This means that service teams need to exploit every opportunity, channel and contact point with customers to the fullest extent, in order to continuously build loyalty. The proliferation of new channels, such as video chat and the aforementioned social media platforms, to name just two, offers these teams a wider variety of touch-points to utilize for this purpose.

5.Behavioral shifts Perhaps the biggest disruptive aspect of the rise of digital is not so

much the emergence of the new technologies discussed, but rather the shift in customer behaviour . Deloitte suggests that the market leaders of tomorrow will not be decided by the amount of technology they deploy, but by how they evolve their whole service operation to respond to the changing customer. For example, companies need to start proactively reaching out to customers with information, advice and where necessary, forewarnings. This means acting more like a partner than a service provider to customers, by advising them how to make the most out the organization’s services and reduce costs for themselves. These are the kind of high-value services that will differentiate businesses from their competition. Customers today demand more, so your service teams should not only be focused on answering questions and resolving issues, but should instead be seeking to take things further. One way of doing this – which is a real opportunity for improved service, and thereby further differentiation – is to build customer communities both in the online and real world. These will not only serve as a self-help network for consumers, but will also help to generate valuable user content and may even provide new product development ideas. So while digital disruption may seem concerning on the surface, it also offers a wealth of new opportunities: opportunities to build an ongoing dialogue with your customers, opportunities to learn from your customers and opportunities to ultimately increase the relevance of your products and services. Digital disruption is going to affect every company sooner or later. Either the company will be disrupted, or it will be the one causing the disruption. Regardless of whether you are the disrupter or the one suffering disruption, the change can be stressful. There are ways, however, that you can avoid many of the pains associated with digital disruption. Here are the trends: 1.Define the problem that you need to solve. Is the disruption causing your company to lose sales, or is it driving sales that are greater than your capacity to produce? What is the nature of the disruption, i.e., is it a new mobile device for which your app is not optimized, or is it a shift in consumer attitudes? Do you need to solve issues related to your BYOD policy, or is the disruption affecting your company’s public reputation? Knowing exactly what problem the disruption is causing is critical to finding the right solution.

2.Compile a list of possible solutions to the issues caused by the disruption. Get the people most directly affected to provide you with their thoughts on what they need if they are to combat the disruption successfully. Be willing to “think outside the box” when examining potential solutions, and do not be afraid to combine elements of more than one possible solution if the outcome might be improved. 3.Identify or hire the right people to handle the issue. No one in your organization is likely to have every skill that might be needed to handle the disruption, so you will need to assemble a team. Look for team members who understand your business goals and are committing to helping achieve them. They also need to be able to function as part of a collaborative team in which credit and responsibilities are shared. 4.Plan your strategy. You will need at least a framework initially that shows the different steps in handling the disruption. Before things progress too far, add the details, such as assigning areas of responsibility or delegating authority for approving certain tasks. 5.Keep the scale appropriate for the disruption. It is fine to plan for scaling up at a later date, but it can be a costly mistake to address a disruption through a large-scale solution that is not necessary to handle the immediate problem. 6.Make sure you allocate the funds that will be needed to deal with the disruption. Whether you are on the giving or receiving end of the disruption, your staff members cannot handle it if they lack the tools they need. Having your financial affairs in order is essential if you will be seeking funding from a venture capitalist or a traditional loan, but even if you have the means to finance the initiative yourself, you still need to examine matters in terms of dollars and cents. 7.If you have to deal with multiple issues, plan to build for mobile and the cloud first. The use of smartphones has been increasing at a very brisk pace in recent years. Being mobile-friendly can pay handsome dividends, and it is typically less costly in the long run to start with mobile and then adapt for desktops than the other way around. 8.Never underestimate the importance of security to your digital users. The disruption may create “chinks in your armor” that need to

be addressed immediately, even if you have to handle the problem as a separate project. As you go forward, be sure that your solutions do not create security risks for your customers, your employees or your overall business. 9.Above all, stay calm. Disruptions are inevitable. Do not panic, and do not allow yourself to “dive in without checking the depth of the water.” Act promptly, but do not be reactionary. Digital disruption can provide your company with the opportunity to modernize IT and completely remake itself for the digital age. Alternatively, it can destroy everything you have achieved in far less time than it took you to reach your current level. You cannot prevent digital disruption, but you can ease many of the pains that come with it. Here are the top 10 digital disruption myths, and the reality behind them.

1. Disruption is a bad thing “When you hear the word ‘disruption,’ you probably have negative thoughts,” Smith said. But in reality, “It’s not always a bad thing,” he added. Something disruptive will always have positive effects and negative effects, and be a threat to some and an opportunity to others, he said. “Disruption is always good for someone,” Smith said. “You want to figure out how to make you the someone it’s good for.” Business recommendation: Take advantage of the opportunities created by disruption.

2. Disruption is an overused, meaningless buzzword Disruption fatigue is real, Smith said, but “disruption is the most critical subject to master in the digital age,” he added. Business recommendation: Pay attention to disruptions, and don’t ignore them when they are real.

3. Any change is a disruption People tend to grasp at straws and call any change a disruption, Smiths said. But in reality, “disruption is a fundamental shift in a system or environment, not any change,” he said. Sometimes a new feature or fad is mistaken as a disruption, Smith

said. The major difference is longevity. For example, Pokemon Go was a fad, while the iPhone was a disruption, he said. True disruptions are long-term and have many secondary effects, and more disruptions enabled by their existence, he added. For example, consider how the iPhone led to the creation of apps and the replacement of dozens of physical items. Business recommendation: Ensure your strategy reflects the postdisruption landscape

4. Disruption is only a technology issue “Often the most impactful disruptions are in society, industry, and business, not technology,” Smith said. Business recommendation: View disruption in the context of what models have been disrupted in business, technology, industry, and society. SEE: Internet of Things policy (Tech Pro Research)

5. Disruption is only for the digital giants Google, Amazon, and Facebook are not the only disruptors in the game, Smith said. While the digital giants do often get there first, the bulk of disruption happens across thousands of small, medium, and large companies, he added. Business recommendation: Examine the secondary effects of disruptions, which will affect a broad range of companies and individuals. Take Apple CarPlay, Smith said: It is now accepted by almost every car company as standard equipment. It’s basically an “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality, he added.

6. Digital disruption happens only in consumer markets Disruption often happens in consumer markets first, because these markets tend to be faster moving, Smith said. However, it goes way beyond them into all areas. Business recommendation: Apply consumer scenarios to understanding digital disruption in B2B. Recognize, prioritize, and respond.

7. The most hyped disruptions are the most disruptive

If you were to ask someone “What are the most disruptive technologies?”, the answers are always the most hyped technologies, like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality (VR), Smith said. However, for something to be disruptive, it must first reach mainstream adoption, which those technologies have not, he added. While hype declines over time, the secondary effects from actual disruptions do not, Smith said. Business recommendation: Use Gartner’s Digital Disruption Scale to determine when a disruption is hyped versus when it is mainstream based on evidence.

8. Innovation, transformation, and disruption are all the same Innovation and transformation are two different things that exist in a cycle, that are sometimes interrupted by, guided by, or result in disruption, Smith said. Business recommendation: Incorporate disruption analysis into your innovation and/or transformation efforts.

9. Disruption is someone else’s problem IT people want to support and bring value to the business, and are uniquely qualified to do so, because so much of what’s happening in the world of disruption is related to technology, Smith said. Business recommendation: CIOs and technologists should work with CXOs to leverage disruption in their strategies. “Establish yourself as a disruption CIO,” Smith said.

10. We don’t have to worry about disruption. We are unassailable. Complacency may be the most dangerous myth of all. “Nobody is unassailable,” Smith said. “Even the disruptors can be disrupted.” For the last five years, digital disruption has had an impact on organisations across all industries, both in terms of performance and economic impact. With these consistent digital transactions, transformational technologies like as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have gained prominence in the eyes of investors. Business models are becoming more resilient, and tech

innovators with broad and diverse thinking are beginning to embrace digital disruption. So the fundamental challenge is how to participate in this continuing digital change. Here are a few strategic guidelines to follow as you make your way through the digital disruption1.Recognize the shift by adopting new logic– Hundreds of IT inventors and CEOs have made the mistake of referring to "digital transformation or disruption" as a cloned technology with a finite shelf life. Wrong! There is always a purpose for the introduction of new technology. Because it fits "consumer expectations," digital disruption was and continues to be largely embraced. Digital disruption provides an opportunity for your company to be entirely reformed, rebuilt, and redirected toward overall consumer happiness. Customer consultations, new labour rules, and enhanced logistics may all help you get started with digital strategy reformation. "Data has become the new corporate asset class, and digitising everything a company does is the greatest method for it to be generated and accessed." Customer contacts may be digitised to give a wealth of information for marketing, sales, and product development, while internal processes can be digitised to create data that can be utilised to optimise operations and boost efficiency." — Holger Hürtgen and Niko Mohr -Kinsey McKinsey McKinsey McKins 2.Creating your client's future- Instead of focusing on customer retention, concentrate on addressing their requirements at a deeper level. Understand their wants by using both your imagination and your observations. "The objective is to find out what they're (customers) going to desire before they do," remarked Steve Jobs. The majority of businesses depend on privileged access to their consumers. Cocreate new items with them, confer with them on a regular basis, sample their responses, and then adjust to their demands. Companies such as Philips, GE, Tesla, and Siemens have increased their income by focusing more on their consumers and then devising new methods to improve their company. 3.Define a new strategy for implementing disruptive technologiesDigital technologies operate as a catalyst for altering your operational strategies. Companies that are ready to embrace digital disruption must rethink marketing, financing, and information technology as a

whole. This begins with something as simple as hiring. Instead of hiring blockchain architects and cloud specialists, put together teams with a diverse mix of expertise in consumer experience, business strategy, and innovative software and hardware applications. In brief, search for individuals that are all-arounders, meaning they are knowledgeable in business, experience, and technology. "We normally identify the evolution of an industry with the adoption of new technologies." However, although new technologies are often important, they have never altered a sector on their own. A business strategy that can connect a breakthrough technology to an expanding market demand achieves such a change." - Harvard Business School Review 4.Profit from unused digital assets- Taking advantage of underutilised digital assets is the most effective digital disruption method. Why is this approach feasible? Because digital disruption decreases friction and opens up new possibilities. You may do the same for your own firm, for example, by installing cloud computing to increase the processing capability of your own machines. Digital disruption is essential for providing meaningful hospitality experiences. This comprises a number of technological applications that businesses should investigate this year: 1.Virtual concierge: The advent of virtual assistant technology is permeating the hotel industry, opening up intriguing new engagement and income potential. Consider ChatBotlr, the virtual concierge at Aloft Hotels. Guests may communicate with the virtual assistant by SMS at any time, from any location, using their smart smartphone. They may SMS service requests, inquire about the hotel, and even listen to the company's "AloftLive" music. Early studies indicate that two-thirds of Aloft guests are communicating with or making requests using ChatBotlr, which has a five-second response time. It doesn't end there; there's also a voice-activated voice concierge with translation services. 2.Voice-activated technology: As the globe increasingly embraces AI assistants, voice interactions are progressively replacing screen time. As customers depend increasingly on conversational engagements to plan travel and communicate with travel providers, hospitality firms

must prepare for a paradigm shift. Travel is hard, and voice innovations aren't easy, yet significant investment and demand are fuelling the growth of speech technologies in hospitality. Customers may now have a "Alexa/Google Assistant"-like experience in their rooms thanks to voice-activated gadgets that provide both textual and speech language translation in real time. Language barriers are being dismantled... 3.Stronger Authentication & Biometrics: Verification and identifying data may be utilised to alter check-ins and check-outs, thereby bypassing the procedures entirely. For example, IoT (beacons, surveillance analytics) may identify a visitor's presence and deliver a digital key card to their mobile device instantly. Then, using the same information, hotels can configure the room to fit the precise preferences of that visitor before they ever walk through the door (keep in mind 73 percent of guests want in-room components like temperature to be automatically adjusted based on preference). Eighty-five percent of visitors want real-time updates for things like room readiness, booking confirmations, revisions or difficulties, and new room alternatives. An innovative omnichannel system based on open communications infrastructure promotes proactive guest interaction, eliminating typical mistakes and delivering better results faster. Using this technology, hotels may send out alerts automatically or manually based on property or visitor requirements, proactively reaching out with information, updates, and compelling multimedia. Integration with an IOT platform is also required in order to send messages to visitors, security, or emergency services. As more IoT/Sensors are installed, a scalable notification system will be required to guarantee that all urgent situations are handled in realtime. 4.UCC integration: Over 60% of our survey participants think that staff's inability to properly interact with visitors has a negative impact on the guest experience. However, only half of them can handle visitor concerns via methods other than phone and email (i.e. live chat, video, SMS). To maximise the value of each client connection, hospitality firms want an end-to-end engagement solution that seamlessly incorporates dynamic communication channels. Internally, they should aim for a single app that combines audio, video, texting,

conferencing, and calendaring to keep workers productive on any device, from any place. A next-generation smart desk application gadget transforms the standard hotel room into a cash generator. It's more than just a phone, but it's completely linked with your communication platform. At the touch of a finger, this gadget may be used to regulate in-room necessities (TV, restaurant/spa bookings, watching local events), order room service, or make appointments. Over 60% of hotel managers polled felt that improving in-room services would considerably enhance the quality of the guest experience at their hotels. A more intelligent in-room communications centre improves experiences, revenues, and return (reducing costs of overhead for staffing). Finally, it allows you to dial 911/112/000/999 in an emergency, which is essential for all hospitality situations under the law. 5.Mobility: Mobile is opening up new options for the hotel sector, with 48 percent of our research participants saying that mobile applications have the largest influence on the visitor experience of any technology. As a result, 81% plan to develop high-functioning mobile applications over the next five years in order to better interact and serve visitors. Some possibilities for a next-generation mobile app experience include interactive property maps, push alerts for events, activities, and bookings, and live chat with front desk employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Consider your "VIP visitors" being able to be contacted from anywhere while on facility, and even offering free international calling inside your own application if wanted. These improve visitor experiences and foster strong brand loyalty. Technology businesses and hotel brands are collaborating to address the numerous obstacles associated with introducing cutting-edge technologies into the hospitality market on a large scale. These problems must be overcome in order to appeal to a customer base that is used to and expects smart technology in all aspects of their travel experiences, just as they do with their gadgets at home. The above-mentioned technological applications will progress from emerging to mainstream during the next several years. Digital twins will be seen in this sector, as will more automated deliveries, but all with the goal of increasing customer experiences and staff efficiency. Brands who realise the potential and emphasise digital innovation will

win. Digital disruption is unleashing a Schumpeterian storm of creative destruction over the global economy. These winds of change are bringing forth significant improvements in consumer welfare. A smartphone's luminous glass screen gives us access to the repository of all human knowledge. We have the ability to order any possible commodity or service at the touch of a button. Nonetheless, new competitive issues are emerging. Firms that are experiencing the brunt of digital disruption are looking for regulatory relief. Firms that ride the winds of change gain tremendous market power. Global debate is raging about the degree to which regulatory involvement is necessary. So, what are the consequences of 'digital disruption' for competition? What is causing the rise of competitive difficulties, and what can we anticipate in the next years? This page includes a description of the many sorts of competition difficulties that may arise, as well as some history and context. For decades, high-tech sectors such as aerospace, robotics, electronics, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and computer science have pushed the boundaries of competition law. Such sectors have well-known competitiveness difficulties, which are linked with high innovation, high sunk costs in research and development (R&D), and high intellectual property (IP) intensity. Many high-tech sectors have seen market rivalry in the form of an IP right that has granted temporary market strength. However, most of the present digital disruption is happening at a cheap cost and without significant R&D investment. Was Marcus Persson, for example, really involved in a 'high technology' business when he created and sold the game Minecraft for USD 2 billion, especially given that he allegedly programmed the software in his bedroom? The solution to the Minecraft issue is that the present wave of digital disruption contains a convergence of enabling "high technologies" that have been coordinated in such a manner that they have enabled low-cost commercial exploitation through simplified application software. In this way, although the foundations of digital disruption have required many billions of dollars in historical R&D, a software developer may today stand on the shoulders of the R&D titans to design and market a specific software programme. A developer may also employ enabling

software programmes as "building blocks." Non-experts may now write software thanks to such programmes. For example, the author's 8year-old daughter recently created her own iPhone game during a vacation "coding camp" utilising enabling software. As a result, the idea of 'digital disruption' in the twenty-first century might be understood as a high technology ecosystem. This ecosystem has included high-tech businesses that have facilitated low-cost innovation by developing a digital platform for consumer-friendly, mass-market software. This high-tech ecosystem consists of the following elements: 1.The ubiquitous conversion of information and content into binary data through the use of complex coding algorithms; 2.affordable pocket supercomputers in the form of smartphones, which are now available at low cost (even in developing markets) to provide high levels of data processing power; 3.broadband Internet communications, which enable high-speed transmission of large volumes of digital data between all manner of devices anywhere on the planet; 4.complex proprietary 'operating system' software that allows advanced device capabilities to be easily accessible by simpler application software; 5.user-friendly application software (known colloquially as 'apps') that is often now delivered to consumers at a very low or no cost in the form of a 'digital platform,' such as Internet search, email, video calling, data storage, and product ordering; and the use of the 'digital platform' to intermediate and co-ordinate the delivery of content, services, advertising, physical product, and logistics using a diverse range of business models, typically facilitated by Internet access. 6.The following Schumpeterian cyclone of invention is now sweeping throughout the world, sector by sector, industry by industry, market by market. The aforementioned ecosystem is supported by intellectual property, which takes the form of computer code (i.e., software), rather than actual things. The importance of software to digital platforms has a number of significant ramifications stemming from the affordability, replicability, and flexibility of software itself. In August 2011, Silicon

Valley venture capitalist and successful Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen wrote for the Wall Street Journal titled 'Why Software Is Eating the World' that provided insights into the future impact of software in the context of digital disruption and digital platforms. The following were four major insights: 1.Access to the global market: The digital platform necessary to change industries via software is now operational and can be offered on a global scale at a reasonable cost. Software is the key to unlocking an enormous global market of billions of smartphone users worldwide. Andreessen added: "Six decades after the computer revolution, four decades after the development of the microprocessor, and two decades after the advent of the modern Internet, all of the technology necessary to alter industries via software now works and can be widely provided on a worldwide scale." Broadband Internet access currently serves over two billion people, up from maybe 50 million a decade ago... With decreased start-up costs and a greatly wider market for online services, the consequence will be a global economy that is completely digitally connected for the first time—the ideal of every cyber-visionary of the early 1990s, finally realised a full generation later." 2.Low overheads: Historically, software has been costly to design (due to significant sunk costs), but cheap to copy (involving a marginal cost near zero). However, once software is installed, technology may be used to start a company without the physical expense of current businesses, frequently by coordinating existing physical resources and distribution channels. Programming tools and Internet-based (cloud) services allow software-powered start-ups to be launched without the need for significant physical infrastructure or people. 3.Adaptive flexibility: Because software is extremely adaptable and can be updated quickly, it allows for continual and ongoing innovation and adaptation, resulting in dynamically shifting business models. As a result of digital disruption, business model innovation and rivalry are becoming more intense. 4.Disruptive potential: The software revolution is largely an opportunity for incumbents in sectors with a significant real-world component, such as oil and gas. However, in many businesses, new software

concepts are allowing software-based start-ups to penetrate established industries, resulting in increased rivalry. Andreesson added: "In my opinion, we are in the midst of a big and wide technical and economic revolution in which software businesses are set to take over vast swaths of the economy." From entertainment to agriculture to national defence, more and more key enterprises and sectors are being operated on software and offered as online services." "Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology businesses attacking and upending established industrial hierarchies." Over the next ten years, I predict software will disrupt many more sectors, with new world-beating Silicon Valley enterprises doing so in the majority of situations." According to Silicon Valley estimates, software-driven digital disruption will next affect the banking, energy, healthcare, and logistics industries. Meanwhile, the Schumpetarian storm is raging across retail, telecommunications, media, and transportation, including software-driven firms such as Amazon, Skype (Microsoft), WhatsApp (Facebook), Netflix, and Uber. Characteristics of digital disruption Competition implication Unsettling of Innovative business Alex Chisholm, Chief social norms models may be subject to Executive of the United complaints based on the Kingdom (UK)’s unsettling of social Competition and Markets norms, raising wider Authority, commented in a societal questions. speech in December 2014 Many societal issues as follows:7 arising from digital “Until our societal and platforms have not yet political processes have been fully resolved by digested these questions policy-makers. more fully, competition authorities will have to For example, to what extent should personal play a more modest role information gathered by on these wider questions – shining a light on smartphones remain competition trade-offs and private? Should personalised consequences for the quality of the consumer

Internet newsfeeds be experience”. sacrosanct from commercial or political adjustment and manipulation? Regulatory Extant regulation may Competition policy favours barriers to create barriers to entry or regulation that does not entry favour a legacy business discriminate in favour of model. particular business models incumbent Taxi licensing sits or uneasily with Uber’s ‘ride technologies. sharing’ model. Where regulation impedes legitimate market entry, Smartphone-based policy payment systems face a competition maze of financial market promotes deregulation and regulatory reform . regulation. Rent-seeking Market entry by Regulators must incumbents disruptive businesses determine whether the places intense pressure market entry is a on existing businesses. manifestation of Rent-seeking and competition or involves competition complaints anti-competitive conduct are a common or potentially both. response. However, The investigation of such complaints may Google by the European also be legitimate. Commission, for example, raises such challenges. Bundling, The market entrant may The so-called Internet tying and use an entry strategy that ‘browser wars’ between leveraging utilises existing markets Netscape and Microsoft in which it has high over the period 1997-2002 market power – are illustrative of a effectively leveraging its bundling strategy in which market power across a market entrant could different markets. leverage its market power

between different markets. Amplifying Proprietary software can Virtual bottlenecks raise of market be used to deny access the same issues of power to a device or other potential discrimination software functionality, and excessive pricing as creating strategic physical bottlenecks. bottlenecks. Control of resource Apple’s iStore, for bottlenecks can be used to example, has become a raise rivals’ costs or deny key gateway in the functionality. utilisation of the iPhone. Multi-sided Disruptive business Multi-sided markets may markets models often involve accentuate network effects matching of buyers (as a and facilitate leveraging of service provided to market power. buyers) with sellers (as a Complications may arise, service provided to for example, where one sellers), creating ‘two- service is fully crosssided markets’. subsidised by another In multi-sided markets, service so is effectively the more price-sensitive free. service may be cross- Google’s free Internet subsidised by the less search product, for price sensitive service, example, is crosspotentially increasing subsidised by AdWords barriers to entry. advertising revenue. DisinterInternet-based business Businesses that mediation models have altered the historically offered a ability of businesses to bundled offering (e.g. pay bundle and unbundle TV over home cable), are through the value chain, now facing competition creating significant from unbundled offerings changes in product (e.g., pay TV over any offerings and distribution Internet device), and vice models. versa.

Accordingly, business Questions of access, model competition is exclusivity, foreclosure increasing. and bundling may arise. Network In information-based When faced with network effects and industries, network effects, a market entrant ‘winner takes effects are common. would need an innovation most’ tipping The more users of a of sufficient magnitude to service, the greater the dislodge the industry benefit gained by other leader. users, creating demand- An example is the rapid side economies of substitution of SMS phone scale. messaging by WhatsApp Markets that are subject in some markets. to network effects may Social media and be subject to ‘tipping’. communications software A firm with an early are particularly susceptible advantage may be to network effects, selected including Facebook, disproportionately by new LinkedIn, Twitter, customers, creating a WhatsApp and Skype. ‘winner takes all’ (or Network effects are ‘winner takes most’) amplified by compelling consequence that tips ‘walled’ exclusive content. towards a monopoly. Globalisation Internet-based e- Services are being of markets commerce is often blind reconstituted around to national borders, market segments that enabling a firm in have a need for a Country A to supply over differentiated product. the internet to a However, many of those consumer in Country B. market segments are As a consequence, orders of magnitude larger markets are becoming than they used to be, more globalised and involving supply into global competitive. markets.

PlatformThe owner or operator of Digital platform owners based the platform may own or and operators may seek to competition create only one piece of secure access to exclusive the ecosystem. content and features (including IP), thereby Many complementary the products may be added preventing of to the ecosystem for the establishment competing platforms. digital platform to be popular with IP rights may be fiercely consumers. defended. High Platforms often include Switching costs for switching disincentives to customer consumers may be high, costs churn, including including forfeiture of restrictions on porting existing valuable content. digital content. For example, an iPhone is Free cloud storage may effectively bundled with act as a ‘lock in’ to a iTunes-purchased digital particular digital platform. content. Path High-tech markets are A company, or a small dependency often highly “path number of companies, can and first dependent”— market rapidly obtain and sustain mover winners can be a significant market share advantages determined by the order that can be hard to in which companies act. reverse. A first mover can benefit Given tipping effects, there from ‘tipping’ and ‘winner may be substantial ‘first takes most’ network mover’ advantages. effects. Standardised A standard itself may Where inter-operability products and exhibit path-dependency issues arise, the owner of interand tipping effects, such the favoured standard operability as the QWERTY may possess substantial keyboard. market power, as Complications arise demonstrated by historic where a technology is litigation over access to

protected by intellectual software source code. property rights. Realisation Combining Pro-competitive mergers of synergies complementary assets and business practices enhances innovation allow for the more efficient capabilities and thus combination of spurs innovation. complementary assets. Complex devices such as In the context of digital an iPhone, for example, disruption, a merger could incorporate multiple facilitate the realisation of physical components, a highly innovative substantial intellectual product. property, and sophisticated software. Along with the expansion of software-based firms, the information revolution – informally known as 'big data' – is driving digital disruption. The phrase "big data" has been around for a long time, as have data analysis skills. The pace, diversity, and amount of data have all increased considerably in recent years. In the previous several years, 90 percent of the world's data has been generated. As former European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda and VicePresident of the European Commission Neelie Kroes said in a significant address in March 2014: "We are now in the midst of a new industrial revolution: the digital revolution." Cloud computing is its new motor, and big data is its new fuel. Transporting the incredible internet and internet of things advancements. Running on broadband rails: quick, dependable, all-encompassing... Take all of humanity's knowledge from the birth of civilization until 2003 - that is now created in only two days." Data storage prices have also come down to the point where it is no longer a major financial issue for many enterprises. Meanwhile, computer processing power has risen to the point that 'big data' can be processed to extract high-quality competitive intelligence. In her speech, Neelie Croes used the following metaphor: "That is the miracle of finding value in a sea of data." The correct infrastructure, networks, computer capability, and, most importantly, the right analytical methodologies and algorithms

assist us in breaking through the mountains of rock to locate the gold inside." Software-driven digital platforms often include business models that make use of data processing capabilities to supply products and services that are more suited to the specific demands of certain customers. Customer information is a strategic corporate asset and valuable commodity in the twenty-first century, and it may provide a digital platform with a competitive advantage over its competitors. With this analysis in mind, the question arises as to whether specific competitive difficulties occur in the context of digital disruption that do not exist in other high technology businesses. The table on the next page provides an answer to this issue by leveraging lessons from the economics of information industries. As seen in the chart, digital disruption has numerous distinct features that give rise to competitive concerns. While Microsoft famously argued that rapid disruptive innovation is sufficient to prevent anti-competitive harm (because market power is only transitory), it is also clear that the potential extent of imperfect competition in Internet-based markets will give rise to regulatory pressures and competition issues for many decades to come. The World Economic Forum refers to this shift as the "Fourth Industrial Revolution," owing to the unparalleled pace and scope of disruption. The growth of technology-enabled, peer-to-peer and business-tobusiness platforms that allow trade is a prominent theme of this revolution. These platforms, often known as the "sharing economy" or "collaborative consumer economy," have evolved tremendously in recent years, challenging conventional business structures and value chains in developed and developing nations alike. Notably, rising internet and mobile penetration fuelled the rise of disruptive enterprises and technologies like Uber and Airbnb in a number of middle- and low-income nations. However, as highlighted in the 2016 World Development Report, for this digital revolution to be inclusive and produce dividends for the poor, its "analogue complements" – such as institutions accountable to citizens and regulations allowing workers to access and leverage this new economy – must also be in place. The worldwide spread of these collaborative platforms presents new hurdles for authorities attempting to keep up with quickly shifting

business models. This topic was discussed at the 2016 Business Environment Forum in Washington, D.C., by Corey Owens, former Head of Public Policy at Facebook, Uber, and DJI, and Andy Gavil, Professor of Law at Howard University and former regulator at the Federal Trade Commission. Some of the tasks performed by conventional regulatory frameworks may be performed by new collaborative platforms. This may happen in a variety of ways. For starters, many technologies have effective feedback systems in the form of producer and customer ratings. These feedback systems foster user trust and eliminate information asymmetry in a more transparent, dependable, and efficient way than conventional regulation. This helps to safeguard and ensure the safety of consumers. Second, the private proprietors of these platforms are now amassing unprecedented amounts of data in the marketplaces in which they operate. Data collected covers tax payments, consumer habits, traffic patterns, and driving safety, to mention a few. These newly accessible insights are especially significant since they are emerging in places where data has historically been limited, if not nonexistent. Data may be used by regulators and tax authorities to create policies, enhance implementation, increase revenue collection, and achieve better regulatory results. Third, since all transactions supported by the platforms are documented online and via bank accounts, collaborative platforms may provide a chance to increase formality in activities that have previously been difficult to oversee. What critics refer to as the "sharing economy" encompasses at least four distinct for-profit and non-profit activities with vastly differing consequences for competitiveness and the economic climate. Forprofit operations include a wide range of economic activities, from renting assets (AirbnB, Bikeshare) to offering a mix of asset rental and service supply (ridesharing apps like Uber), to solely selling services (TaskRabbit). As a consequence, formulating a consistent regulatory response is very difficult. Reduced barriers to entry for platform builders and service providers, as well as lower transaction costs and less information asymmetries for customers, are common denominators for technology-based platforms. These characteristics contribute to the platforms' success and often make conventional operators (such as hotels or taxis)

antagonistic to sharing-economy participants. In order to exclude innovative business models, incumbent corporations seek sanctuary behind rigid legacy rules that mirror their industry norms. A recent example is the ban on Uber's discount services provided by nonprofessional drivers in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, where local taxi drivers successfully argued that certain ridesharing offerings constituted unfair competition for standard taxi services and did not comply with strict transportation regulations. Receptive governments have reacted by shifting away from prescriptive criteria and toward more adjustable performance standards. A taxi, for example, is not technically defined by performance criteria as a yellow automobile for hire with four passenger seats, a taxi metre, and a sign on top, but rather any private car carrying people for rent. While more adaptive performance requirements provide issues for weak regulatory regimes, they also often need more auditing resources and allow companies greater latitude in enforcement. As a result, although prescriptive, black-and-white policies may be simpler to administer and less prone to corruption, they may also operate as entrance and innovation hurdles. Striking a balance between flexible regulation to allow new platforms on a level playing field and reasonable public-interest regulation puts strain on local institutions. Occupational safety and consumer protection, for example, cannot be totally entrusted to private firms. Even if private actors are better placed to preserve the public good, their economic interests may disincentivize private attempts to do so. Furthermore, policymakers should be aware that disruptive businesses may ultimately achieve a disproportionate market share as a result of network effects, a circumstance in which market power concentration may place enormous pressures on local institutions. Developing nations may be more vulnerable to such pressures since the number of platforms operating locally is likely to be restricted in comparison to more established markets. Furthermore, the aggregation of personal data raises a slew of privacy issues. Regulators should create strong frameworks to account for privacy and consumer protection issues, as well as monitor how private businesses monetize the use of user information. Individuals' ability to connect, collaborate, share information,

exchange assets, and receive services is genuinely transformational. At the same time, since we are in the early stages of this new period, the magnitude of change in the way we conduct business is difficult to fathom. Although collaborative platforms have the potential to destabilise local industries, businesses, and communities – and even to destroy conventional employment — their advantages may exceed their risks. Shared-economy facilitators, if properly regulated, can improve outcomes for the bottom quintile of the population by opening markets and unlocking opportunities for the poor, both as producers and consumers, by empowering citizens, increasing productivity and efficiency, increasing overall employment, improving market access, lowering transaction costs, and even lowering carbon footprint. Here's a survival strategy for digital upheaval: 1.The first and most critical step is to notice the shift and accept that it is taking place. Do not reject the new digitally empowered rivals around you; instead, see them as organisations from whom you can learn. 2.You must begin going forward with purpose. Without reacting or panicking, think and plan your company's future. Change your business model immediately and establish your own sustainable strategy that supports your unique talents while winding down assets that are no longer required when the disruption completely takes over. In addition, the new strategy should be evaluated and refined on a regular basis, and new goods and services should be tested with actual clients. This will offer you a head start if industry changes occur, and you will be able to move quickly as a result of your early start. 3.By developing your identity, you can focus on your right to win. Create a strong, unique identity for your business. Build on current strengths and core skills to develop a system of different cross capabilities without abandoning your previous business strategy that brought you here. You earn the right to win by approaching each challenge with the expectation of triumph. 4.Attempt to shape your clients' future. It assists in meeting all of the customer's wants so that they will want to be affiliated with the firm for the rest of their lives. Focusing on the customer's future and

anticipating what they will need before they understand it themselves will go a long way. This would imply making things simpler for them while simultaneously lowering the amount they must pay. For instance, most successful consumer-oriented businesses rely on privileged access to their clients. While developing new items, they receive first-hand information and feedback from their clients. 5.To boost demand, you must reconsider your pricing strategy. Price reduction is one of the most significant repercussions of digital disruption, and consumers respond strongly to it. When it comes to establishing a wider consumer base, no other disruptor can compete with cheaper costs. This may sometimes include using digital technology in novel ways to scale up your new company model and strive for long-term scalability and market share. 6.You must focus on maximising the value of underutilised assets. You must discover new methods to generate value from unused assets. These assets do not necessarily have to be tangible; they may also contain exclusive knowledge, specialised talents, or data gathered. It may take some time to build a compelling and successful strategy to your assets. However, as you are developing your strategy, consider segregating the assets that are holding you back or need continuous expenses. All of your assets should either contribute to or profit from your unique strengths. 7.Maintain control of your section of the platform. A disruptive firm does not accomplish everything on its own, but instead depends on the talents of others. These capabilities are developing business-tobusiness big digital platforms that will assist organisations in transforming by delivering new methods of producing value from digital assets on a much larger scale and at much lower prices. As it crosses industry borders, digital technology enables you to leverage platforms to break away from the constraints of your own business. Some businesses thrive by becoming platform providers, but you can also concentrate on a subset of the platform by developing safe standards for a whole ecosystem. 8.Concentrate on integrating rather than separating yourself in order to develop your future. Change does not occur in silos, but it does need a much wider digital effort. Any digital side projects, such as

programmes, goods, or services, must have a relationship between the activity and the main organisation in order to stand on their own. Being connected with the rest of the organisation will provide these initiatives with the necessary support and capabilities to be long-term. Even the core firm does not learn or profit from their talents if they are not integrated. 9.You must go against the rules. If a rule or government structure is impeding consumers from receiving what they want, it may be time for a disruptive action. Most rules are enacted for a purpose, and if you can tailor your operations to that reason and aim rather than the letter of the law, you will succeed. Given that you have no influence over the rules and regulations established by law, it is your perception of them that is in your hands. Comparing interpretations with your rivals can assist you in determining which limits you can afford to relax. 10.Consider developing a fresh inventive style of working. Despite the fact that many businesses have experimented with new technologies, the ones that have been successful are those who have employed digital technology to improve the way they function. They re-align marketing, information technology, and finance, and every part of their business reflects that knowledge. You may begin by assembling teams of individuals who can mix diverse abilities and function at two separate conceptual levels. This will have enabled the development of novel goods and services. After that, consider the consumer and staff experience. Digital disruption may be both a blessing and a chance to rethink your firm. Your task is to develop a new business model and value proposition, as well as to position your organisation for long-term success. In my experience, I’ve found that there are three key characteristics of disruptive technologies: 1.It solves a problem. This should be obvious, but understanding why your technology is necessary in the first place should be the very first thing you do before moving forward. Figure out why the existing process is broken and insert your technology into the marketplace as a solution. Additionally, a disruptive technology should make things easier, not harder. We see so many technologies in the marketplace

that make things worse before they get better. Simply making something digital does not necessarily mean it is solving a problem. Keep your value propositions and customer experience at the forefront in the development stage. 2.It changes the competitive landscape. Disruptive technologies usually take the marketplace by surprise. Who would have thought Apple, a computer company, would become the biggest competitor of photography companies like Kodak, or cellular companies like Motorola? Truly disruptive technologies make almost any industry a target; differentiating them from emerging technologies, which focus on particular industries. Disruptive technologies have the flexibility and longevity of morphing into something that almost anybody from any industry can find valuable. This is why disruptive organizations must constantly be thinking outside of the box; finding innovative, better and smarter ways of doing things. 3.It causes a behavioural shift. This is probably the most important characteristic of all. Digital disruption can be classified as a movement. Disruption cannot happen until the end user group adapts to the technology, embraces the technology, and eventually can no longer live without the technology. The most successful technologies are the ones that people never realized they needed. Believe it or not, there was a time when your telephone, email, camera, address book and video games did not all exist within the same device… and just about everybody was okay with that. But would anybody with a smart phone ever be willing to return to that antiquated way of life? Remember when we said disruptive technologies should solve a problem in the marketplace? Truly disruptive products and services uncover problems that end users never realized were problems in the first place. This is all part of a change in behaviour, and it is crucial for disruption. As a CEO, how you deal with digital disruption is more important than ever; do you perceive it as a serious threat or an opportunity for creativity, and what questions must you address to avoid becoming extinct? Surviving with a status quo attitude may not be enough in this digital era, when challenger company models are prospering. When we look at some of the previous lessons, three golden principles stand

out as crucial questions that executives and directors must address. First, decide if you want to be a leader of change and disrupt business models, a quick follower who embraces innovation from others, or a fanatical concentration on incremental continuous improvement to create safe, dependable services with a limited stomach for risk. There is no right or wrong answer here; what matters is that you make an informed choice about your digital strategy. In today's world, having the strategy for digital innovation agreed upon upfront is just as crucial as the risk appetite statement you may see in the boardroom. The second golden guideline is to cultivate an innovative culture in your organisation. Firms with good governance and risk policies are unlikely to disrupt given their inherent strength in constantly aiming at a precise Return on Investment (ROI) in a time period. Innovation, especially disruptive innovation, requires a culture of experimentation, a financing mechanism that allows for testing and learning, and a methodology that 'quick fails' ventures that do not show evidence of success. This culture must be fostered in well-managed risk-averse organisations. As a result, coping with this difficulty is critical. Do you establish a distinct competitor subsidiary on the outside of your company? Do you modify your financing approach to foster experimentation? Or do you give them greater leeway to experiment and learn within specific parameters? And how do you cope with disruptive innovation that threatens your present products? Some of those that have been disrupted have neglected this final one and have locked up their innovation for fear of losing their conventional offerings. Regrettably, others catch up and ultimately overtake. All of these are issues that many leaders have directly addressed in the past in order to thrive. The third golden rule is about teamwork. Partnerships with leaders, especially those in the technology and supply chain, are required for digital disruption and innovation. In this environment, who you work with is more important than who you work for. The extent of research and development (R&D) with appropriate universities, relationships with upstream and downstream partners to ensure horizontal and vertical integration, and whether the right operating environment, or ecosystem, has been created for stakeholders to interact and innovate even further are all questions to ask. When you look at the leaders in

digital disruption, you can plainly see that they are following these golden standards. With its ambition to disrupt with new products that transform people's lives, Apple has a strong R&D culture; it formed agreements with telecoms providers to launch the first iPhone, and it developed an iTunes ecosystem for music, applications, and now radio. IBM sold PCs with MS-DOS pre-installed, whereas Amazon built an ecosystem that has expanded beyond books to host other companies. However, not all businesses are as innovative as these technological giants. Choosing how to cope with disruption in your sector, whether you're a bank, law firm, small company, or government institution, is critical. Is there any use for digital disruption in central banking? There is, without a doubt; we, too, must cope with disruption and must react in a manner that fosters a stable environment while yet allowing for innovation. In the Bank, for example, we have opted to leverage the innovation offered by global technology giants to our procedures. A Microsoft and Linux server infrastructure that is 80% virtualised increases efficiency and shortens installation times for the technology that underpins the essential financial systems that underlie our economy. You can see how this could aid in the development of industry testing environments for banking, markets, and payment systems — you might call it an industry cloud for testing. A mobile bring your own device (BYOD) environment, with over 30% penetration throughout the Bank, enables flexibility and convenience for our employees. Externally, the construction of a real-time payments system would stimulate industrial innovation and fulfil customer needs for speed in the digital era. When dealing with disruption, it is evident that the method must be incorporated into the organization's objectives and entrenched into the DNA of the organisation, particularly the culture, which may lead to the acceptance or rejection of new ideas. To summarise, disruption is all around us, there are several possibilities for us, and dealing with disruption is feasible. If you want to maximise your development potential, you must first observe and learn from the patterns of the leaders. Building digital disruption strategies into the corporate dialogue and embedding them into your company's objectives and cultural DNA is critical.

6 Realities about a Digitally Driven Workforce: 1.Employees are excited about the possibilities. They already anticipate the possible advancements from greater use of digital technology, particularly innovation. Even more traditional attributes such as agility were cited as benefitting from greater use of digital tools. 2.Employees expect significant digital transformation. By a wide margin (82 percent), employees said they expect digital technology to transform the way they work over the next several years. Forty-four percent said they anticipated that level of change to be significant. 3.Employees want a digitally driven workplace. The desire for digital technology isn’t personal; it’s a professional expectation, especially of younger employees and millennials. They expect their organizations and leadership to commit to—and embrace—the different work environment that digital technology can introduce. 4.Employees don’t really ever disconnect. Younger employees, and even some from generation Y, see a less distinct separation between their personal and professional lives. Given the connectivity of the internet and other tools, they’re used to being in touch and available. In the workforce, there are now at least two generations of workers who are comfortable with indistinct lines between home and work. 5.Employees expect digital tools to be available . Today’s workers believe digital advancement shouldn’t be a solitary effort. They expect access to the best digital tools to enable them to do their job. They will look askance at any organization that fails to recognize the value of sufficiently adopting and investing in digital systems. 6.Employees are preparing for digital change. Not only are younger employees inherently more comfortable with digital technology, they are taking it upon themselves to prepare for digital change. Once an anticipated digital disruptor has been discovered, businesses should enter a period of preparation in which internal processes are aligned and altered to better deploy the newly recognized digital process. This cycle should include the following steps: implementation, connection development, maintaining a "first and

foremost" emphasis on innovation, ideation and brainstorming, and lastly, the deployment of a formal innovation management system. When it comes to dealing with disruption, one of the most critical variables is adaptability. An old Confucius statement aptly describes this principle: "The green reed that bends in the wind is stronger than the huge oak that breaks in a storm." When a business environment becomes disruptive, the scale and infrastructure of a huge corporation might become a liability rather than a strength. In this day and age, it is critical for all businesses to maintain lean and agile techniques to guarantee that they are flexible enough to respond to any change that comes their way. This is not to imply that all businesses should go on a firing spree, but they should make every effort to remove any roadblocks that may arise if they are forced to take this step on short notice. Staying connected to the market, business partners, and consumers is also critical to executing digital disruption 'right' before the tides of change begin to shift. Changing business models may result in a huge change; for example, one of the most regularly observed and frequently referenced instances of digital disruption is the absolute acceptance of digital cameras over cameras that utilized rolls of film, which led to the downfall of Kodak. Maintaining continual discussion and touch with your consumers, as well as making market research a priority, are both critical measures in ensuring that rapid pivots do not catch your company – and its bottom line – off guard. Plan for innovation all the time: digital disruption plan innovation To effectively deploy digital disruption, innovation must be emphasized and preferably established inside an organization as a formal discipline (or, at the at least, as a formal job description, such as Chief Innovation Officer, or CINO). Qmarkets' experience working with companies implementing formal innovation management programmes has proven that efficiently handling disruptive digital business practices is far more straightforward for companies that have already made some sort of formal, systematic effort toward undertaking innovation development. A persistent emphasis on innovation entails making innovation a management priority and ensuring that the company as a whole is striving to ensure the strategy's fulfilment. One of the most important disciplines in conducting a successful innovation programme is brainstorming. It is also a fantastic way for various

company divisions to communicate information, as well as insights into what digital disruptions they perceive rising from the horizon. This may help a lot in terms of improving the overall responsiveness of the business unit, as well as enabling for the cross-pollination of information and ideas across isolated silos. Regular brainstorming meetings across departments and teams are a key tool for facilitating collaboration between diverse aspects within your company throughout the frequently fast-paced process of reacting to disruptive developments in the digital business environment. Complete platform deployment throughout all aspects of your business will guarantee that you can not only endure the shock and turmoil of incoming digital disruption, but will also aid you in releasing your own digital disruptions into the market. Finally, the most crucial stage is to put the new technologies, techniques, or procedures that have been discovered in the preceding phases into action. This should include, at a minimum, preparing the necessary internal resources to welcome the change, ensuring compatibility between existing systems and those expected to enter the market, and preparing best and worstcase scenarios for how the competitive landscape may evolve in response to the change. The deliverable value of goods and services has been impacted by digital disruption. With this level of dynamism, it will be tough to keep up with the constant changes. When the technology is initially introduced, the developers are ready with a superior version of it. Companies are ready to deliver a fresh version to their clients when technology becomes outdated. Customers, on the other hand, are always free to choose from a variety of technologies. However, such breakthroughs may cause disruptions that impede a company's progress. It might result in cannibalization of their own product. Surviving the technological difficulties of such goods might be aggravating for consumers at times. The transparency of a newly introduced technology is initially examined by the government and regulatory organizations. Companies are only granted licenses after thorough evaluations and testing. For example, in the instance of Amazon's drone delivery, the regulatory authority had imposed limitations on its operation. They did so in order to determine how Amazon would assure compliance with these requirements. However,

after a series of trials and measures, officials eventually granted Amazon authorization to conduct drone services. Uber is in a similar situation in Las Vegas. This is due to the taxi industry in Las Vegas working hard to protect Uber from snatching their business. Uber's ability to operate in other locations is also restricted. This is due to the government's uncertainty on how to regulate such a business model. Gartner has identified the top 10 government technology trends for 2022 that can guide public-sector leaders in accelerating digital transformation and mitigating disruption risks. “Government and public sector CIOs (chief information officers) now need to sustain the momentum of digital acceleration after the initial chaos of the pandemic,” said Arthur Mickoleit, research director at Gartner. “CIOs can use these top trends to establish future-ready organisations by demonstrating how digital initiatives deliver value to diverse and evolving constituent needs, support new workforce trends, enable efficient scaling of operations and build a composable business and technology foundation.” Government CIOs must consider the collective impact of the following 10 trends on their organisations and include them in their strategic plans for 2022 and beyond. Not doing so risks undermining the quality of government services and the capacity to deliver mission value in the long run. Here are the trends: 1.Composable government enterprise By 2024, over 25 per cent of government RFPs (request for proposals) for mission-critical IT systems will require solutions architecture and variable licensing that support a composable design approach. Composability enables governments to focus on citizen-centric services, rather than on the frequently used, siloed, program-centric approach. A composable organisation exhibits composability in three areas – business architecture, technology and thinking. Government CIOs should implement modularity and modern design principles to enable the transition towards composable government. 2.Adaptive security A total of 75 per cent of government CIOs will be directly responsible for security outside of IT, including operational and mission-critical

technology environments by 2025. A lack of continued awareness programmes, cybersecurity practices embedded throughout an organisation and a robust talent acquisition team can disrupt an organisation’s response to security threats. Government CIOs must address the essential human element of cybersecurity by growing expertise from within through in-depth training programs and broad employee support through engaging awareness education. 3.Digital identity ecosystems Gartner predicts that at least a third of national governments and half of US states will offer citizens mobile-based identity wallets by 2024. But only a minority will be interoperable across sectors and jurisdictions. The scope and challenges for digital identity are quickly expanding as governments look to identity proofing, bring your own identity (BYOI), identity wallets, organisation and objects identity, and identity ecosystems to ensure trusted and convenient access to services. 4.Total experience By 2023, most governments without a total experience (TX) strategy will fail to successfully transform government services. TX offer governments a way to improve talent management strategies and develop stronger digital skill sets across their organizations, while improving service delivery to citizens. The lack of a TX strategy can increase service friction, leading to risk of service delays and underwhelming service experiences. 5.Anything as a service (XaaS) Gartner analysts said that 95 per cent of new IT investments made by government agencies will be made in XaaS solutions over the next three years. XaaS includes several categories of IT infrastructure and software services, including those delivered in the cloud as a subscription-based service. 6.Accelerated legacy modernisation When the pandemic began, core legacy business systems failed to handle the surge in demand for these services. CIOs will thereby need to make modernisation a continuous activity and not look at it as a one-time investment. Without legacy modernisation, return-to-normal

initiatives will be further delayed as Covid-19 variants continue disrupting businesses globally. 7.Case management as a service (CMaaS) Case work is a universal workstyle of government. CMaaS can build institutional agility in government by applying composable business principles and practices to replace legacy case management systems with modular case management products. By 2024, government organisations with a composable case management application approach will implement new features at least 80 per cent faster than those without. 8.Hyperautomation 75 per cent of governments will have at least three enterprise wide hyperautomation initiatives launched or underway in the next three years. Hyperautomation offers more than the opportunity to deliver connected and seamless public services in an efficient way. It also aims to increase government effectiveness through cross-cutting initiatives that focus on end-to-end process and not just automation of siloed tasks. 9.Decision intelligence By 2024, 60 per cent of government artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics investments aim to directly impact real-time operational decisions and outcomes. Planning and decisions should be increasingly predictive and proactive, using AI, analytics, business intelligence and data science to significantly reduce the cost due to late intervention. The aim is to make government service delivery responsive and timely. 10.Data sharing as a programme Data sharing in government is often ad hoc, driven by high-profile incidents. On the contrary, data sharing as a programme is a systematic and scalable approach to enable data reuse and services innovation. Fearless experimentation and quick, iterative software development are enabled by digital engagement, which is powered by an agile approach to data. The FAANGs were the first digital disruptors to emerge. Most of us now depend extensively on Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google for information, entertainment, connection,

shopping, and other purposes. How did these corporations become so successful and ingrained in our daily lives? What can the next generation of digital-native companies learn from them? The solution is digital engagement, which is powered by an agile data methodology that allows for daring experimentation and quick, iterative software development. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, agrees. He remarked that the success of the firm "is a function of how many tests we undertake each year, per month, per week, and per day." Bezos has also been cited as stating, "If you decide to do just what you know will succeed, you're going to leave a lot of potential on the table." In summary, in order to win in today's market, businesses must be able to swiftly run a huge number of data-driven experiments. Consider Facebook's wellknown "like" button. The developer behind the product did hundreds of trials before hitting on this concept and proceeded to iterate to make it better in order to discover what would actually engage consumers and keep them coming back. Today, the website's like button and enlarged emoji "reactions" have a significant impact on what users read, click on, buy, and pay attention to—all at a look. Iconic features like these would not be achievable without the freedom to experiment and iterate fast. These mechanisms are what allow Amazon to influence people's purchase choices, Netflix to keep viewers viewing, and so on. Although quick iteration and experimentation are critical for digital innovation and disruption today, it's fascinating to observe how agile data stacks are making their way from software teams to IT teams and now to data teams. The most prominent bottleneck to software development in the past was IT; however, with cloud and DevOps, that bottleneck has mostly been solved in contemporary firms, only to be replaced by a new bottleneck in the data layer. Batch data systems and processes are trapped in a waterfall paradigm. These systems are inflexible and stiff, making it difficult to iterate throughout the cycle as data mountains accumulate. Just as IT transitioned from waterfall to agile, with cloud stacks serving as the primary facilitator, the same is now occurring in data, with contemporary real-time data stacks serving as the primary enabler. Agile recognizes that change is continual, and that each phase of the software development process should be guided by feedback from the people who will actually use the product. This short feedback loop enables development teams to

be iterative and adaptable, allowing them to better fulfil the demands of their customers. Unlike the inflexible, step-by-step waterfall technique, the quick, iterative loop of contemporary software development allows various teams to collaborate and work alongside consumers to deploy software progressively to guarantee its effectiveness. FAANG behemoths were the first digital disruptors because they were able to establish their own data infrastructure centered on developer freedom. They achieved this by assembling enormous data teams of hundreds (or even thousands) of individuals. Needless to say, not every company can afford to recruit an army of data engineers. As a new generation of digital disruptors arises, its key problem will be choosing how to transition to a contemporary realtime data stack. Agile data techniques combined with current real-time data stacks are empowering the next generation of digital natives to disrupt sectors that have long been static. And that is already taking place. Ritual, for example, has utilized data to flip the health and vitamin business on its head with its custom-formulated supplements meant to assist cover frequent nutritional gaps in diets at various life stages. When you combine this with its subscription-based delivery strategy, it's evident that the way consumers think about and buy vitamins has changed for the better. Similarly, Command Alkon is taking one of the most well-established industries—construction and heavy building materials—and utilizing real-time analytics to adapt to changing circumstances across the chain, ensuring products arrive on schedule. Customer expectations have always been high, but with large corporations setting an amazing example for customer experience (CX), we can only expect them to rise even higher. Digital disruptors are staying up by following the example of firms like Amazon and Facebook in undertaking trials, emphasizing quick iteration, and leveraging real-time data and analytics to provide consumers with what they need, faster.

Chapter 7: Digital Governance Companies' governance structures developed around their digital efforts have two types of impacts: 1.Sharing: Local units share similar skills and resources (including people and technology) 2.Coordinating: Local units coordinate and synchronise their endeavours (prioritization, compliance with standards and policies, etc.) Investigations revealed a plethora of strategies that businesses are using to strengthen their digital governance skills. Three, however, Mechanisms like as shared digital units, firm-level committees, and new digital positions are the most often used. Several corporations established joint divisions to provide digital services for the rest of the organisation. The tasks of these common units differ from firm to company, but many of them contained the following functions. By removing duplicate activities, people, and technology in local units, shared units may minimise the cost of digital transformation. "It would not make sense for the various entities of the company to build all the digital things independently," a senior executive in a global insurance firm stated. It is costly in terms of both time and money, and it requires collaboration. And, by doing it solo, they would miss out on the company's collective experience." Several businesses developed a "digital service catalogue" to demonstrate local units what the shared unit can provide. Aside from improving communication, the catalogue assists early adopters in avoiding repetitive activities and later adopters in moving quicker. Shared units may also make corporate-wide investments that individual business units might not be able to do. Unified customer databases, a corporate wireless platform, and powerful analytical tools are a few examples. In our phase 1 analysis, the most prevalent impediment to digital transformation was a lack of expertise. Skill shortages in areas such

as mobility, analytics, and social media were noted by 77% of the organisations. They are aggressively seeking specialists in various fields, with varied degrees of success. Several of the companies have decided to consolidate new digital talents in a joint entity. . "Of course, having the appropriate personnel is critical. It must be a mix of our present personnel and newcomers with fresh perspectives. And, when it comes to service sectors, we need that sort of expertise," noted one auto executive. While some sectors struggle to locate expertise at fair prices, others are more effective in luring talent. "We've started employing analytics people from various businesses," said a restaurant executive. We provide them the opportunity to take on more senior roles than they could at their prior companies, where their talents are in more demand." "Our digital section hires folks from Amazon and other places you would expect them to go...quite a talent!" stated one apparel executive. Another method that digital units create capabilities throughout the company is via training and information exchange. Nestlé's "Digital Acceleration Team" multimedia lab accommodates specialists from all over the globe so that they may share their skills in social media and associated technologies before returning to their local offices. For mobile apps, the company used the same approach: "[We have] a mobile App lab where we exchange best practises for designing Apps." We don't want to centralise app development; we want to keep it close to the user in the marketplaces. However, there are common practises, best practises, and efficient app construction, and we have a lab for it so that others can tap into it and we can help them in producing successful Apps. Adoption of digital technology presents problems for CEOs such as, "How do we prioritise and finance digital efforts in the face of ambiguous business cases?" How do we distribute resources? What policies are required to achieve regulatory adherence? What internal policies should we implement to maintain a consistent client experience? What should be done at the national level, and what should be done at the local level? Steering committees are responsible for making key judgments, such as ratifying policies,

making investment decisions, and prioritising conflicting interests. Steering committees can make investment choices that may not be feasible for a given business unit. Some digital projects will be shared across business groups, while others will be strategic investments with questionable business justifications. An example is an investment in a worldwide customer platform by an apparel company: "This investment was mostly based on what I would call a 'art business case,' rather than a'science business case,' and it was the correct thing to do." "We did it large enough to be successful, but small enough not to be dumb," a top executive stated. Some businesses have established committees to discover technology-enabled business possibilities and to adapt to changing employee or consumer habits. These committees are less prevalent than steering committees and have a narrower function. "We cannot be sluggish to think about these technologies since our field force adopts them rapidly," one insurance executive says. We have regulatory issues to address, as well as training and education problems. We need individuals with diverse opinions discussing these developing technologies." Having individuals from other disciplines in the room increases the dialogue and leads to a better integration of IT and business perspectives. "We're bringing together all the folks who can say, 'Wow, we could accomplish this,'" one executive remarked. It's not an issue.' That is our IT architecture team. And then there's everyone else asking, 'Well, how can we maintain confidentiality if we do this?' How do we keep data? How do we practise? What would it take to make this useful before we formally sanction it for use in the field?' As a result, IT brings all of the necessary perspectives to the table." Governance often extends beyond corporate structures to include individual leaders. These new positions include "digital czars," who manage digital change at the company or business level, as well as lower-level liaison positions. Starbucks Coffee Company announced the appointment of Adam Brotman as Chief Digital Officer (CDO) in March 2012, reporting to the company's CEO. "[Digital] has been a vital element of how we establish our brand and communicate with our

consumers," says Brotman, "and there's been such a seismic change [in our contacts with customers] that we wanted to tie it all together and make it a priority." The areas of duty for these "digital czars" differ from one organisation to the next, depending on the firm's digital strategic aims. Brotman oversees online, mobile, social media, cards, loyalty, e-commerce, Wi-Fi, and the Starbucks Digital Network, as well as the company's developing in-store digital and entertainment departments. Volvo appointed a senior executive to oversee a particular new feature of the company's digital strategy — linked automobiles — across many silos such as product design, production, marketing, and after-sales support. Some of the firms we spoke with have placed liaisons in business units to oversee digital transformation at the local level. Prisa, a Spanish media conglomerate, has allocated CDOs in each division to manage the implementation of digital transformation in their respective divisions and to collaborate with the corporate CDO. According to a global insurance group executive, "the function of [digital liaisons] is first to enable business units take the digital component into consideration and second to promote the use of central resources." Some liaisons are more concerned with information exchange than with leadership. Nestlé's "Digital Acceleration Team" accommodates professionals from all over the world to help them build their digital knowledge and bring it back to their home offices. "We have around 15 individuals from various markets who are interested in or have prior experience with digital, and who are sharing and engaging with the world in general via the Internet and social media." They are developing knowledge and then sharing it with others in the industry. . Mechanisms of Governance : 1.Digital Czar: Creating a successful connected-cars experience for end users requires close collaboration across marketing, manufacturing, R&D, sales, and other groups that previously had distinct connections with Volvo's traditional B2B emphasis on partnerships with dealers. To meet this problem, the company employed a senior executive in charge of connecting conventional silos such as production, after-sales services, and marketing.

Figure 7.1 Common Digital Governance Mechanism 2.Firm-Wide Committees: Every week, a "Connectivity Hub" comprising middle and senior managers from throughout the organization (including R&D, marketing, and IT) meets to discuss tactical choices. The "Connectivity Committee," made up of senior executives from various departments, meets quarterly to discuss strategic issues. Other committees exist to guarantee that connection teams and technology teams, such as mobile applications and innovation, are well aligned. 3.Volvo has also formed a common technology support unit, the scope of which goes beyond the connection plan. It is not acceptable to leave digital governance to chance. Ineffective governance leads to waste and lost opportunities, making digital

transformation riskier and more expensive than necessary. Governance requires deliberate planning and participation by the company's most senior leaders. No governance approach is ideal for every company, but a lack of governance is never ideal. In accordance with the company's structure, culture, and strategic aims, the proper governance model enables suitable degrees of collaboration and sharing for digital activities. InvestCo is strengthening collaboration and sharing to maximize the value of its digital projects, a road Volvo adopted in the early 2010s when it launched digital services centered on automobiles. ApparelCo effectively built digital capabilities in silos and recently established a common unit to achieve synergies amongst digital activities. PRISA is reorganizing communication and collaboration between its separate business groups utilizing digital governance. Senior executives should plan on revisiting their governance frameworks on a regular basis. Executives may determine when to alter their governance models by paying attention to the behaviors that governance is designed to improve and changing governance to promote new behaviors. Some governance systems may become obsolete when collaboration and sharing become part of the culture. Changes in the competitive environment may necessitate a shift in the amount to which corporations exercise centralized control. When it comes to governance, senior-executive participation is critical. There is no onesize-fits-all governance approach. The best model for today may not be the best model for tomorrow. However, building and expanding digital governance is critical to assisting your firm in thriving in a digitally altered globe. Companies all across the globe recognize the need of integrating digital technology into all parts of their operations and transitioning to platform-based operational and business models — the most efficient method of connecting customers, partners, and sellers ever conceived. Using these concepts, customer-centric digital natives have radically changed consumers' expectations of how they engage with firms from which they purchase. From agriculture to virtual gatherings through Zoom, every industry is being impacted. According to McKinsey, "since 2000, more than half of Fortune 500 businesses

have been purchased, merged, or declared bankrupt, with no end in sight." The only way to compete is to embrace these tried-and-true strategies and become digital as well. The C-suite is fully aware of this, but they are in a difficult position. On the one hand, they recognize the urgency and significance of digital transformation, which has been highlighted by the pandemic's fast, huge alterations in the way we work, learn, and socialize. On the other side, there are several instances of massively costly "less-than-successful!" digital transitions. According to Bain & Company, just 5% of attempted changes fulfil or exceed objectives. There appears to be a bewildering number of reasons for the failure, including: a lack of top management support; insufficiently clear, consistent, and compelling communications; a lack of urgency or deadlines; poorly defined goals; employee resistance; poor coordination across the organization; and a lack of actionable, verifiable feedback to test and reset the transformation as needed. The good news is that, although the situation is complicated, it is not as perplexing and chaotic as it seems. Poor governance, it turns out, is a key factor to nearly all transformation failures. Every area of an organization and everyone inside it is affected by digital transformation. Structured governance is required to guarantee that everyone approaches shared objectives in a coordinated and timely manner. It also includes systems for monitoring progress, addressing difficulties, and adjusting objectives as needed, since no one works in a static market. According to IDC, worldwide investment on digital transformation would reach $2.3 trillion in 2023, accounting for half of all ICT spending. For a decade, traditional businesses have struggled to adapt digital natives' methods and replicate their success, enduring digital transformation programmes that have mainly failed, at significant financial and often reputational cost. The most often quoted number is McKinsey's 70% failure rate, although Wharton Business Consulting cites a Couchbase study that showed 90% of digital transformation initiatives fell short of objectives, produced very moderate gains, or failed entirely. This was based on replies from 450 CIOs, CTOs, and digital executives at firms with more than 1,000 workers in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and

Germany. So, although digital transformation is critical, the data to far suggests that the odds of it succeeding are quite low. What is the solution to what is maybe the most pressing issue confronting businesses throughout the world? In a nutshell, governance: It may not get your blood pumping, but it should. API and application integration governance has a critical and broad role in effective digital transformation. Failure to include governance into digital transformation strategy planning is likely to reduce or eliminate return on investment (ROI). Governance must be applied to all aspects of a company and all of its personnel, and not just for the period of a specific programme: it has far-reaching ramifications for whatever actions the enterprise takes next. Factors of Digital Governance: 1. What is the significance of API and application integration governance in digital transformation?: Digital transformation efforts are very complicated. "It's like playing three-dimensional chess because you have to look at the problem from so many different angles," said Richard Warley, CenturyLink's EMEA Regional President (renamed Lumen where he is now Vice President EMEA). Governance is not a set of rules written and consulted by a small group of professionals in the back office. Because digital transformation is a planned, multi-faceted strategy to move a complete organization and everyone inside it toward the targeted business results, it is a coordinated, multi-faceted plan. To transition from a product- or service-oriented organization to a datadriven, customer-centric digital corporation, careful, innovative thinking and preparation are required. Governance is a road map that outlines both what is necessary and how it will be accomplished. It also includes systems for testing the plan's performance and how effectively it is being implemented on a regular basis, as well as for making revisions. Torry Harris Integration Solutions (THIS) collaborated with its customer Schneider Electric to create an Application Integration and API Governance Framework to assist the

organization in managing change throughout a transition. The framework was divided into four sections: organizational and people, business processes, technology, and applications and services. It is important to note that this was just done to assist organize the thoughts into digestible pieces, rather than to deal with these topics in isolation: Understanding the link and interdependencies between them, as well as identifying overlaps and gaps, is part of the planning for digital transformation and a vital component of its implementation. This is why a firm undertaking digital transformation need a specialized API and application integration governance team that looks at the whole picture, not just sections of it. Making personnel accountable for governance supervision on top of their full-time tasks ensures that governance is always a secondary issue. It is recommended that external specialists with transformation expertise join the team to supplement the internal team's grasp of their firm and its inner workings. 2. Do not begin with technology and do not conclude with full-stack. There is so much to consider with digital transformation that it may be difficult to know where to begin, but the beginning point must always be what business results you want to accomplish. Proctor & Gamble has been accused of pursuing change for the sake of transformation rather than to achieve particular business objectives, and their costly transformation trials drove the corporation to its knees when the economy tanked. Many businesses, particularly those focused on technology or engineering, are prone to embarking on ill-conceived initiatives spurred by the promise of new technologies such as artificial intelligence. They often fail to recognize that the building components required to make the technology function, such as useable data for analytics, which is itself a building block of AI, are missing. "When I meet CEOs who may be dabbling here and there with AI or the cloud, I tell them that's not enough," Thomas M. Siebel2 wrote in McKinsey Quarterly. It's not about flashy things. Tinkering isn't enough. My advise is that they should be talking about it all the time, with their boards, in the C-suite, and across the organization." Another blind

hole that results from being technology-led is the belief that once the entire stack is in place, transformation is accomplished. The harsh reality is that change is never complete - digital natives are always concerned with how they can better harness technology to enhance customer experience. However, it also demonstrates a lack of awareness of the nature of digital transformation and the reality that technology is just one piece of the tale. The issue isn't so much what the technology can do as it is what you need it to perform to meet your business objectives. "You have to start with the consumer experience and go backwards," remarked Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. This is a difficult attitude to grasp since many businesses do not understand how to design and execute API and application integration governance, or how it fits into the company's broader governance and culture. This is critical to the success of a digital transformation programme since application and system integration is the cornerstone of digitalization, and automated integration, along with scalability and platform-based business and operational models – which leads us to APIs. 3. Taking use of integration, automation, and scalability : According to Gartner analyst Kristin R. Moyer, "the API economy [the exchange of value between users and providers] is a facilitator for converting a company or organization into a platform," which is a key aim of digital transformation. APIs are defined by the TM Forum as "basic coding instructions that enable diverse software systems to interact without the need for expensive, time-consuming integration... They allow plug-and-play component compatibility inside IT systems and networks." Much of Amazon's success may be credited to its founder and departing CEO, Jeff Bezos, and his vision for the usage of APIs. According to a former Amazon employee, Steve Yegge, Bezos issued an order in 2002 mandating the usage of APIs to connect systems or risk being fired. In addition, he said that they "must be constructed from the ground up to be externalizable." That is, the team must plan and design in order to expose the interface to outside developers. There are no exceptions." One of the most

interesting aspects of APIs is that they allow businesses to turn their internal capabilities, assets, and data into goods and services for thirdparty consumption by exposing them in regulated, defined ways. This is how an online bookstore produced Amazon Web Services, one of the world's largest public clouds. The startup made it simple for individuals and businesses to rent its idle compute and storage capacity on-demand, transforming a cost center into a profit producer in one fell stroke. Another example is Telefonica's data business, LUCA. It uses the operator's own, anonymized data, together with other data sets and its analytics and AI skills, to become a leader in insights creation, according to Forrester. LUCA's services are sold to a wide variety of industries, including advertising, finance, culture and sport, transportation, retail, Industry 4.0, mass media, and others. Although the apparent first step in using APIs is to identify any current routes that may be automated, since doing so is a wonderful way to save money and enhance customer experience, the next step is to examine new markets for the company's unique data or capabilities. Then, make them accessible via APIs that may link previously separate systems. Many businesses understand what APIs are and the flexibility and speed they can provide, and they invest significant time and effort in establishing them. Despite this, THIS has discovered that as low as 5% of the 400 or so APIs developed by corporations are reused. Instead, since they are out of touch and out of sync with other teams in their organization, each team creates its own. Reinventing the wheel is time-consuming and costly, and it impedes business and operational agility, scalability, and automatic integration. According to TM Forum's latest study, the major motives for communications service providers (CSPs) to use open (meaning common and publicly accessible, like open source) APIs are to decrease costs and complexity. This is because many companies report spending over 80% of their IT resources on integration and customization, leaving just 20% for innovation. To change this ratio, they are resorting to open APIs (and open IT architectures). BT is a pioneer in the usage of APIs in telecommunications (as is the Forum's API work). Following the purchase of mobile operator EE, it collaborated with THIS to establish an agile API farm approach to integration, allowing diverse lines of business to share APIs from a centralized library.

4. Resisting opposition: Managing cultural change and people during the transformation process is perhaps the most challenging, but crucial, component. It is a given truth that firms' digitalization journeys will not reach their desired goal unless they acquire employee buy-in. Setting out the objectives, priorities, beneficiaries, and timetables for the projects and incorporating them into governance helps to clarify thinking, but it also aids in the development of a communications strategy. People are often wary of change, and their default posture is to oppose it. Employees will be resistant if they do not understand why they are being asked to alter the way they operate. There are two fundamental success principles: The first is visible and continuing C-level executive support. The most commonly stated cause for transformation failure is a lack of senior management support. The BBC in the United Kingdom was fast to see how digitalization might revolutionize how it generated TV and radio material, but five years after it started, its Digital Media Initiative was discontinued and £98.3 million ($135.7 million) in worthless technical assets were written off. It lacked the necessary technical skills, but continued because there was no senior top executive control to direct and keep the endeavor on track. Transformation journeys may take on a life of their own without such involvement and monitoring, and their aims might be overshadowed. Furthermore, in order to maintain their confidence, the 'troops' must see, and see it regularly, that their leaders are involved in and embracing change themselves. Second, change requires a programme of engaging, clear, and consistent messaging geared to certain groups of workers at various phases. This must be done in conjunction with another part of governance, a Resistance Management Plan, which should encompass all levels of personnel, from top executives to function-oriented staff. Schneider Electric's whole staff was directed through the phases shown in the graphic above, which is part of the company's API and Application Integration Governance Framework, as well as THIS, which we mentioned

before. Given the large-scale and well publicized failures, it's understandable that many be wary. A smart way to assist kids get over the first barrier is to choose a reasonably discrete area that is relatively straightforward to handle, then celebrate when they achieve their objectives. This boosts confidence and excitement, so make sure that all achievements, no matter how little, are celebrated and that those who helped make them happen are recognized. It is critical to identify and resolve areas of opposition constructively, avoiding confrontation whenever feasible. A recurring issue is that if a manager at any level is opposed to any or all of the changes, their subordinates are likely to be as well. Corrective action must be taken via communication, but in a different way than before: If the CEO's presentation and updates haven't done the trick, consider a workshop or gamification. A resistance management strategy must collect continual input from a number of sources – talks, checks to see whether work habits have changed, and so on – so that it can be validated, analysed, and handled. It exemplifies a closed loop. 5. How do you know if you've won? : It's hard to determine how well or poorly the transformation process is going unless you can monitor and verify progress. As previously said, this pertains to individuals, but it also applies to priorities, timing, and budget, among other things, which will vary over time as markets and conditions change. The present epidemic is a sad but stunning example of a company being forced to respond with unanticipated circumstances rapidly. A typical error is to count savings achieved through the reuse of assets such as APIs or facilitated by them as return on investment, which is certainly an essential metric of success. It is not the case. RoI is a continuous measurement of the value of the transformation, which, if effective, will vary over time, as indicated in the picture below. GE Digital intended to control the industrial internet, but the company failed. On several fronts, it had significant investment and large-scale activity, whereas smaller, more focused teams would have been more efficient, effective, and instructive. To control the spiraling change, GE made the error of adopting profit and loss to

oversee transformation performance, characterizing success as shortterm growth rather than long-term strategic goals in the middle. As previously said, corrective action is required on a continuous basis, based on input, analysis, verification of feedback, and verification of governance plans. This ongoing monitoring is required to guarantee that the digital transformation achieves its goals. This is a complicated task that requires regular recalibration when the unexpected occurs and resistance remains. THIS has observed that one of the most significant organizational difficulties is project teams' propensity to avoid integration. There is a widespread belief that the services-based approach impedes project delivery and that it should be more of a "black box" – with API-enabled integration seen as an internal mechanism rather than exposing a service for consumption. This kind of thinking also leads to inadequate practices for interacting with the project and API integration teams. Mismatched interface requirements, modifications made but not documented, poor interteam communication, and dealing with ‘moving goals' as the project proceeds all contribute to surprises during integration testing. These and other shortcomings may be caused by willful violations of rules and guidelines - many individuals find it difficult to 'unlearn' a manner of doing things that has become second nature to them due to lengthy familiarity. However, since automated integration is critical to a digital firm, governance to detect and address these concerns must be properly thought out and implemented consistently. If there are insufficient API and application integration governance team resources to achieve this, saving on governance people may turn out to be a costly, false economy later on. Customization, manual adjustments, and reverse engineering are all things that digital natives shun. MarKeith Allen, Diligent's senior vice president and general manager for mission-driven organizations, highlights the significance of strong governance in digital transformation success. Why the success of digital transformation is dependent on solid governance image. Good governance enables organizations to provide the clarity and responsibility required for success. The COVID-19 problem forced firms worldwide to accelerate their digital transformation activities.

Companies who were previously behind the curve were forced to adapt everything from remote working to full digital storefronts in a matter of days, faced with the stark decision of becoming a digital-first corporation or having no business at all. According to McKinsey research, the digital initiatives launched in reaction to the pandemic leapfrogged seven years of advancement in a matter of months, as corporations moved 20 to 25 times quicker than they had anticipated. This acceleration of digital during the crisis resulted in a sea shift in CEO views on the role of technology in company. Fast forward to today, and corporate executives are investing in technology for competitive advantage, orienting their whole organization around cutting-edge technologies, and establishing a business culture that actively encourages experimentation and innovation. As organizations go all-in on digital transformation to meet changing consumer demands or expectations, promote collaboration, and allow improved data-driven decision making, ensuring long-term success will rely on making ethical decisions. This entails conducting oneself ethically. Governance will be crucial as digital services and disruptive technologies such as AI, big data, and robots enable organizations to react to internal and external events quicker and more effectively than ever before. Digital not only allows you to accomplish things quicker, but it also affects what you do and how you do it. Failure to establish the missions that will execute on the company strategy, as well as the metrics required to measure and assess progress, puts the attainment of successful or desired results in jeopardy. As a result, organizations must ensure that their governance structures are capable of prioritizing and expediting the proper digitalization initiatives, as well as implementing suitable risk management. With trust and reputation now at the top of the consumer agenda, businesses will need to make informed strategic decisions about how they plan to drive revenue and market growth, because stakeholders, both internal and external, are becoming increasingly intolerant of companies that blur or ignore ethical lines. The recent high-profile whistleblower disclosures regarding Facebook's careless treatment of user data and efforts to conceal the harmful effect of its products are a case in point. Because digitization is so much more than a technical activity, achieving a

strong supervision of the digital transformation plan is critical. Indeed, its transformational character affects every part of the firm and covers a wide range of concerns. Everything from cyber security and data governance across the supply chain to regulatory compliance is covered. Finally, delivering on corporate purpose and innovation intent genuinely will rely on organizations’ ability to integrate their transformation programmes with quantifiable environmental, social, and governance commitments and objectives that raise industry standards and improve business performance. As a result, corporate executives should keep the following critical governance issues in mind from the start: what are our controls for this process, how will our digitization plan be monitored, what does success look like, and how will we know when things are going wrong? Ethics by design in digital transformation is a must-have, not a nice-tohave. In terms of the ethical principles behind digital transformation, for example, organizations must guarantee that data is used responsibly and ethically, without being invasive, manipulative, or disrespectful to others. This involves being open about how companies gather, utilize, and monetize data, as well as assessing how permission is maintained when providing consumers with access to digital services. Similarly, rigorous governance and audit systems would be required to identify and resolve concerns such as algorithmic bias. As organizations grow more dependent on machine learning algorithms to make millions of choices every day, digital workers who build and implement digital services must be on the lookout for hidden biases that might be harmful to people or the organization as a whole. Board directors may set the tone here by ensuring that talks about what ethics, transparency, and inclusion imply occur across the organization and shape the planning phase of any digital transformation initiative. This involves ensuring that management teams use a rigorous approach when applying governance to digital transformation programmes to decrease the possibility of errors or omissions. Because digital innovation is, by definition, new, company leaders

must ensure that the rules, procedures, and governance models in place support, rather than obstruct, digitalization and are appropriate with the technology being deployed. Appointing a core team of responsible leaders will aid in focusing and clarifying governance tasks. They may guarantee that every transformation project starts with a governance mentality and is controlled by behaviors that include a desire to 'do the right thing' as governance champions. The digitalization of governance procedures and control mechanisms will assist lower the risk of compliance failures as part of this process. Today's governance platforms may assist in removing the guesswork from digital governance programmes, allowing for the creation of highly organized frameworks that decrease systemic risk. Providing organizations with the ability to rise to the challenge of being digitalfirst in a genuinely ethical and streamlined manner. Finally, knowing how digital technology supports an organization's business model in a manner that offers an improved customer experience has a beneficial influence on the organization's relevance and long-term viability. When it comes to IT, data, and technological innovation, adequate supervision will be required to guarantee that privacy and security issues are handled, as well as that the duty of care duties to all stakeholders – workers, customers, and business partners – are met. For some organizations, moving away from today's dominant profitoriented focus and toward a broader, longer-term definition of what constitutes reliance and success will inevitably entail shifting away from today's dominant profit-oriented focus and toward a broader, longer-term definition of what constitutes reliance and success. Leveraging digital transformation requires a systematic strategy to review and prioritization to guarantee that implementation goals are met effectively. For some companies, enabling digital innovation at scale will start with standardizing data standards so that procedures can be carried out centrally – and collecting consumer feedback so that efforts can be monitored and modified. Ensure that failed efforts are terminated before they become ingrained in corporate processes. Organizations will be able to generate the clarity and accountability required to ensure the successful attainment of digitalization objectives by adopting a systematic approach to digital transformation

governance. Assuring that choices are guided by purpose-related objectives and that governance techniques and procedures can be regularly updated in response to the fast growth of today's digital world. Governance is best understood in the context of BT (Business Transformation) as the formal framework for integrating Information Technology (IT) strategy with entire corporate business strategy. Developing and implementing a formal framework enables businesses to achieve quantifiable outcomes in the pursuit of strategic objectives and goals. Furthermore, a formal framework, whether established internally or obtained outside, takes stakeholder interests into consideration. Including their employees' wants and expectations, as well as the methods they use. An organization that addresses the demands of all stakeholders is better positioned to maximize the value of business information while safeguarding and generating enterprise value. Because technology plays a crucial part in many operations within a company, having a formal structure and framework will optimize the cost of IT services while reducing value leakage, as well as assist keep IT and business-related risks at acceptable levels. If you ask any CEO from any sector to name their top three investments for the next five years, technology will almost always be on the list. Technology investments are at an all-time high, and corporations are attracted for one particular reason: commercial value. Executives anticipate that investment in information technology (IT) and digital transformation will result in increased corporate value. Despite the fact that money are set aside for technology acquisition, many executives are dissatisfied since the advantages do not materialize. This confounds decision-makers. Every business headline they read advises them to invest in more technology since the return on investment is high. Despite this, their firm is losing money and hasn't developed since they invested in additional technology. SAP’s Cobit 5 (C5) Framework of Digital Governance: 1. Meeting the Needs of Stakeholders:

Organizations, regardless of size, have several stakeholders. Employees are an example of an internal stakeholder, whereas suppliers and investors are examples of external stakeholders. A prevalent thread across a few stakeholders is that they each have a distinct perspective on what is essential. Despite their varied perspectives, stakeholders agree that the organization's principal goal is to produce value, which might include delivering public services, making revenues, or offering philanthropic services. During business transformation or value creation, your organization's choices on resources, risk assessments, and rewards must take your stakeholders' requirements into account. C5 asks three questions to assist identify and understand the requirements of your stakeholders. i)Who stands to gain? ii)Who is responsible for the risk(s)? iii)What are the resources required? There may be competing requirements among stakeholders at times, and several elements such as industry, market, culture, politics, and risk appetites (to mention a few) complicate the situation. C5 considers diverse stakeholder demands as well as internal and external issues, and suggests that governance may aid in discussions and decision making across these varied needs. In reality, it suggests implementing a bespoke governance and management framework based on "The Goals Cascade." The Goals Cascade is a technique that assists companies in translating stakeholder demands into a succession of progressively precise goals that are closely tied to the overarching objectives of the company. Because businesses' aims vary, anticipate to adjust C5 based on your organization's goals cascade. Transform high-level corporate objectives into manageable particular IT and process-related goals, and then map these to specific procedures and practices — this helps you satisfy the demands of your stakeholders.

2. End-to-end Enterprise Coverage: C5's scope encompasses all information and associated technology in the company, which is handled by taking into account the governance and administration of all IT in the business. This implies that C5 incorporates IT governance into enterprise governance, and it encompasses all activities and procedures that regulate and manage information and associated technology. This is how you will cover the business from beginning to conclusion. Integrating IT governance with enterprise governance enables firms to effortlessly incorporate both kinds of governance while taking into consideration the most recent governance viewpoints and advancements. The C5 strategy takes into account all information and technology management activities, including all essential internal and external IT services, as well as internal and external business processes. This comprehensive method consists of four major components: i)The governance goal of producing value ii)Enablers are variables that, both individually and collectively, impact whether or not something will function. iii)The third aspect, which consists of jobs, activities, and connections, helps us realise how much of the organization we are focused on. It is worth mentioning that C5 encompasses all organizational activities and procedures (not only the IT function). It regards information and associated technology as assets to be managed in the same way that any other organizational asset is. 3. Implement a Singular Integrated Framework: Because of constant changes in technology and demand from customers, suppliers, regulators, and legislators, organizations have the difficult challenge of managing and administering their information and associated technologies throughout a business transition period.

Making sense of all these jobs and responsibilities requires a framework that can adapt to your company and offer coverage and consistency. C5 is well-positioned to serve as a unified and integrated framework for four primary reasons. i)It considers the most recent standards and frameworks, positioning C5 as a superstructure that can be utilized to harmonies all governance and management processes (C5 is positioned as a single integrated source of guidance). ii)It serves as the platform for incorporating other frameworks, standards, and procedures. iii)It offers a basic and straightforward structure for organizing guide materials and ensuring a consistent product set. iv)It serves as a comprehensive resource for information, technology governance, and management best practices. 4. Facilitating a Holistic Approach: Effective IT governance and management throughout the enterprise requires the consideration of several different and interconnected components. Typically, you make a choice after gathering as much information as possible, which implies that the first stage is to have a comprehensive understanding of your business. C5 delivers enablers to provide you with a comprehensive perspective of your company. Enablers are factors that have an impact on the result of governance and management actions. You may use them singly or in combination to get a comprehensive picture of your organization's IT governance and management. Please keep in mind that enablers apply to the whole company and should encompass all internal and external resources (relevant to governance and management of information and related technology). It's also worth noting that enablers cover the actions and responsibilities of both IT and non-IT business departments.

C5 identifies seven organizational enablers: i)Policies, Principles, and Frameworks ii)Processes iii)Structures of organizations iv)Information Services, Infrastructure, and Applications Culture, Ethics, and Behavior v)Individuals, Skills, and Competencies Before you make a choice, recognize that enablers are organizationalwide resources that must also be managed and controlled, such as people and services. When you examine the collection of C5 enablers, you will discover that they are linked. That is, in order to be successful, each enabler requires the involvement of other enablers. Processes, for example, need knowledge to be successful, and organizational structures require skills and behavior. Enablers, in turn, give output to other enablers. Processes, for example, transmit information, whereas skills and behaviors make processes efficient. 5. Distancing Governance and Management: When working on BT governance initiatives with corporate partners, we often observe a difficulty to distinguish between governance and management. C5 distinguishes between the two by recognizing that they serve different purposes and have various duties, as well as requiring different sorts of activities and supporting organizational structures. In summary, C5 use the mnemonics EDM (Evaluate, Direct, and Monitor) for governance and PBRM (Plan, Build, Run, and Monitor) for management. Governance, sometimes known as EDM, is the process of ensuring that stakeholders' demands are "evaluated" in order to create consensus goals that must be reached, directed via prioritizing and decision making, and monitored for performance and compliance against objectives. Management, or PBRM, is the process of ensuring that all actions conducted and monitored are in line with

the direction provided by the governance function. C5 contains a process reference model that splits corporate IT governance and management processes into two categories: EDM and PBRM. This reference model identifies 37 processes related to governance and management. We appreciate the Cobit framework because it understands that businesses vary in size, structure, and complexity. Allowing your organization to structure its operations in whatever way it sees suitable - as long as the relevant governance and management goals are met. As you get more acquainted with the framework, you will have a better understanding of how to use the enabler ideas and remember the fourth principle–create interactions between governance and management structures and processes to produce an efficient and effective governance system. As a result, the governance implications of digital transformation affect the whole organization. The scope includes not only regular business governance, such as determining whether strategic goals are met and ensuring legislative compliance, but also a portfolio of IT governance, innovation governance, and data governance requirements — three domains that the modern board is generally unprepared to oversee. Below are few factors of Digital Governance in general : 1.IT management: A crucial difficulty is assuring a solid strategic fit of what may be a young but proven technology inside the organization, as well as an IT architectural fit that will not cost a lot to accomplish given the normal technical debt that the organization may be facing. This might include a level of complexity that would be difficult to manage without the necessary abilities. Another problem is articulating the IT risks associated with what may be an emergent technology, which go beyond some of the typical IT governance risk imperatives such as dependability, scalability, and vendor management. Another problem is implementing ways to monitor the advantages afforded by new technology, given that shareholders are increasingly expecting that IT expenditures produce demonstrable results. There is also the issue of

ensuring that both the IT culture and the organizational culture are aligned with the new technological paradigm; culture has been identified as the single most essential success element in IT. 2.Governance of Innovation The topic of innovation governance is front and center for shareholders as organizations embark on new technology adventures in order to preserve continuous relevance and viability. This is because organizations are spending more in investigating new technologies, which may be a significant expenditure in terms of overall cost to the firm. Without proper control, these expenses might rapidly grow in the search of a legitimate use case for the new technology. According to emerging practice, there are two components to innovation governance: monitoring of the innovation process and oversight of the actual substance of the innovation. These are intriguing places for the contemporary board to hone their skills in. 3.Data management and governance: As is usually the case, there is a significant need to understand the quality of the data used as input into transformative technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as the metadata requirements that assist guarantee that the correct data is mapped for the application. Without knowledge of the raw data, the output of, say, artificial intelligence systems cannot be trusted enough to make choices on. There are also issues with data transfer validation, which is a procedure that tries to demonstrate that the data utilized in transformational technology is an exact reproduction of the data in the source systems, which is also a legal requirement for globally systemically significant institutions. The privacy and security implications of the new data flows are also essential, since they may need modifications to the present privacy and security regimes. Assurance will be needed to guarantee that neither compliance,

security, or reputation risk exceeds acceptable risk tolerances throughout the process. 4.Transformational leadership : By definition, digital transformation incorporates (developing) digital technology, which may place significant strain on the board's technology skills matrix, as stated in the preceding section. However, before embarking on digital transformation, an organization must determine if it is ready to incorporate new technologies. According to Forbes magazine: i)'Many firms undergoing change have a problem: they are not prepared for innovation.' However, they need innovation to shift their competitive posture in the market. Many businesses now expect their IT departments to collaborate with the business to offer chances for innovation and supported services that drive change.' ii)Forbes nails the issues of the need to change, the situation of not being ready for it, and the necessity for IT to engage with business in one brief statement, emphasizing what has already been expressed. iii) So, how can a board evaluate an organization's preparedness for digital transformation? Whether the intended change is for a business unit, an operational division, or a whole organization, preparedness across all three pillars of digital transformation must be reviewed. 5.Considerations for the Operating Model: Other elements of the operating model than people, process, and technology are touched by digital transformation, but let us limit the discussion to the effect of these three operating model components. First, as with any IT intervention, ensure that there is a shared knowledge of your fundamental operational process, or how value is

produced for the in-scope region. If there are any gaps in comprehension, these must be filled. Next, ensure that the suggested technology's capability is related to the process. They are often mismatched. The simplest solution to handle the mismatch is to adapt the process to the workflow of the new tool. The difficult method to bridge the gap is to customize the tool. Both are complicated in their own way, and, more significantly, might need significant resources to handle. Finally, determine what adjustments will be necessary to the capacity and competency of the affected team, keeping in mind that having the correct culture has been highlighted elsewhere as the most crucial success element of any IT intervention. The gaps will be in capability, capacity, and culture, and measures will need to be put in place to address all of these. 6.Considerations for the Business Model: The business model is concerned with how the organization generates revenue. This generally takes the form of a cash transfer from the consumer in return for a product or service. The difficulty here is to discover flaws in the application of the business process, supporting technology, and supporting employees throughout the organization in enabling this value exchange. If these gaps are not detected in advance, the transformative endeavor may increase the effect of any or all of them. 7.Considerations for the customer experience: Finally, how will the transformative endeavor affect the customer experience? If it cannot be proved that the change improves customer service as assessed through the customer's eyes, then concerns must be posed about whether the transformation is actually significant to the organization. After all, the goal of digital transformation is to increase the organization's relevance and sustainability to its customers, and if the transformation is unable to create greater relevance, and thus increase the organization's sustainability, then the

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Why do so many businesses struggle with digitalization structure and governance? Governance of digital transformation faces various challenges: 1.Getting others to agree. Obtaining buy-in for a digitization plan may be difficult; similarly, strategy governance can be difficult. 2.Having clear responsibility is also essential. However, transferring ownership to each strand of the digitalization transition process may be difficult; ensure that each part has separate and clearly articulated owners. 3.Identifying and resolving inconsistencies in corporate processes. As previously said, digitalization encompasses challenges ranging from security to user experience to supply chains. To provide a holistic, non-duplicative approach, governance must discover and capitalize on synergies across procedures in all domains. 4.Understanding the components of a governance programme. Because digital innovation is, by definition, new, it might be difficult to grasp the necessary governance procedures and standards. 5.Interpreting the data gathered and gaining insights Having rules in place and collecting governance data is useless if the data is not analyzed and leveraged to drive progress. Organizations seeking best practices in digital transformation governance must recognize: 1.Transformation is about more than simply technology; it is also

about culture. It is essential to have a culture that is open to and tolerant of digitalization. To instill this culture across the organization, board members must thoroughly comprehend the benefits and drawbacks of a digital strategy. Directors may set a good example here by, for example, using a digital approach to meetings and board management. 2.A core team of responsible leaders, working with the board, may assist to provide focus and clarity around duties. Digital governance champions can assist in getting the word out to all of your locations and business streams. 3.Digital change should be seen as both an opportunity and a danger. It is a mistake in governance to focus simply on risk without considering the advantages of digitalization. Organizations that want to realize the benefits of digitalization must adopt a governance strategy that supports and enables digitalization rather than one that hinders it. 4.For your digital transformation programme and governance, you need a defined framework and ecosystem. A rigorous approach reduces the possibility of omissions or mistakes in your governance plan. 5.Technology is your ally. Of course, technology is fundamental to digitalization. However, technology also plays an important part in digital transformation governance. There are governance platforms that can help with digital governance. These solutions eliminate uncertainty and instill confidence by assisting you in developing a systematic framework for your digitalization governance initiative. A well-governed digital programme must satisfy many stakeholders across a company and be flexible enough to accept diverse sorts of initiatives while maintaining enough rigor to ensure strategic alignment and efficiency. Regrettably, most firms still depend on conventional governance models that focus compliance and risk mitigation. As a

result, CEOs must reconsider their governance strategy for digital transformation in order to favor active enablement over control. According to Andy Weir, CIO of Bankwest, "the executive's job in digital governance is to eliminate 'blocks.'" They must assist teams by exhibiting quick decision-making and eliminating roadblocks to growth." Below are 7 more principles of Digital Governance: 1.Principle 1 of Digital Governance: Centralize information regarding digital efforts rather than the initiatives themselves: Surprisingly few digital executives have a comprehensive or clear perspective of their organization's digital efforts portfolio. Indeed, CEOs are typically confronted with a fragmented digital ecosystem characterized by varied degrees of ownership and accountability. This is particularly frequent in corporations with a decentralized culture, where the focus of authority is in business units or country organizations. As a result, making a list of digital efforts is a good place to start. This may seem to be a simple chore, but it is often difficult. People are hesitant to give information because of fear of losing control over their projects. As a result, it is important to emphasize that the inventory phase is about centralizing information regarding digital efforts, not exercising control over them. Fred Herren, senior vice president of digital and innovation at SGS, the world's leading supplier of inspection, testing, and certification services, recognized that imposing norms from on high seldom works in decentralized societies. "I believe it is more important to walk the path than to provide directions," he said. Because I'm not instructing staff to halt [their actions], I've gotten a lot of information. I go around and ask folks what's new, and I usually get a nice response." Adopting a collaborative strategy — one that focuses on creating trust and fostering an information-sharing culture — lays a solid basis for your next critical governance initiatives. 2.Digital Governance Principle 2: As digital maturity increases, shift from centralized to decentralized governance of digital endeavors:

Organizations disagree on where to locate digital projects. According to our findings, 84 percent of firms have formed a specialized or centralized digital group. When Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW), a regional German energy business, began its digital transformation in 2016, it chose a centralized organization. However, two years into the change, the digital team started to see redundancy and overlap across several groups. To reduce them, they established communities to handle shared efforts that did not need direct engagement from the headquarters. Although most people believe that a central unit or team should commence a digital transformation journey, many businesses realize the need to gradually decentralize digital activities and empower local business units. "I believe the ultimate aim is for everyone in the firm to be a CDO," said Mark Klein, chief digital officer of Germany's Ergo Group. "I'll be obsolete as soon as everyone recognizes the need of digital transformation, embraces it, and makes it a reality." 3.Principle 3 of Digital Governance: Decentralize ideation while centralizing concept appraisal and prioritization: Different techniques are used by organizations to find and evaluate new ideas. Companies that get it right often discover that, although ideation should be dispersed, the assessment and prioritizing process should be centralized. Nestlé, for example, created the "InGenius" initiative in 2014 to capitalize on the innovation of its around 300,000 workers globally. Employees may present their ideas on a software ideation platform and get comments and votes from their coworkers. The program's main purpose, according to Eberhard Ruess, previous director of Nestlé's CIO office, was "to shorten the gap between the individual who has an idea and the ones who can make it happen, and bring the innovation process closer to more people." When a concept reaches a certain level, most businesses establish a centralized decision-making authority or a digital innovation committee to assess new ideas against strategic goals. This committee is often chaired by the CDO or another senior executive and comprises members from all

of a corporation's business divisions. "We set up an innovation board chaired by the global head of innovation," explains Bart Leurs, Rabobank's chief digital transformation officer. Each business line has an innovation leader who is also a member of this board. They manage the innovation funnel together, giving initiatives the same opportunity to succeed, fail, or be terminated swiftly." Companies require a systematic way to funneling ideas into an efficient and transparent pipeline for examination and prioritization in order to utilize the creative force of the whole business. Principle 4 of Digital Governance: Ensure that KPIs accurately reflect the true effect you wish to accomplish with each endeavor: Setting proper key performance indicators (KPIs) is an important task, especially for digital efforts that are heavily reliant on strategic considerations connected to the company's future vision, success, and implementation goals. However, when we asked executives how they assess the success of digital projects, the majority of them replied in one of two ways: "we don't" or "it depends." Many firms relied on general success measurements, such as adoption rates of new digital technologies, but neglected to examine if any genuine benefit was made. According to Edouard Zuber, former CDO of AXA Hong Kong, leaders may struggle to determine the business impact of new initiatives. "One of the drawbacks of transformation is that if you are not watching carefully enough, after a couple of years, you've spent a couple million dollars and you are not completely sure about the return," he says. According to our findings, digital activities are often launched to have an influence in a certain dimension. Revenue growth, new market development, and enhanced consumer satisfaction are all common aspects. We advise digital leaders to explicitly outline the intended effect of each endeavor and to regularly monitor suitable KPIs in order to create genuine outcomes. Leaders might, for example, utilize personnel turnover rate, satisfaction ratings from pulse surveys, or competitive benchmarking as KPIs for an effect dimension like workplace happiness. Companies may use indicators such as retention rate and net promoter score to have an influence on

customer satisfaction. 5. Digital Governance Principle 5 : Avoid isolated solutions by guaranteeing data interoperability, technological consistency, and the continual integration of new projects with current systems. One critical — but frequently overlooked — concept of digital governance is ensuring that new digital efforts are incorporated into a company's current IT standards, systems, and capabilities. Digital transformation is an all-encompassing process that is inextricably linked to back-end corporate operations and systems. The effective transformation instances we observed were often based on a standardized approach to infrastructure, rather than operating on top of a hodgepodge of poorly linked or compartmentalized old systems. Ikea, for example, concluded that the only way to accomplish digital innovation at scale was to standardize data standards throughout the organization. "Through data standards, we can see that if something has worked effectively in Italy, [and] exploit it for the betterment of Ikea internationally," said Ikea's CDO Barbara Martin Coppola. Transparency, visibility, and accountability are therefore enabled." This data-driven strategy enables Ikea to determine which goods and procedures are working internationally and which are not. Similarly, Nestlé embarked on a multiyear endeavor to carefully analyses and consolidate the many IT systems utilized across the organization. It would have been difficult to bring out a suite of enterprise-wide digital capabilities without this shared foundation. 6. Digital Governance Principle 6 : Implement a "fit-for-purpose" mapping system that identifies the value potential and degree of feasibility for each effort. Organizations must map digital projects into appropriate categories after they have a list of digital initiatives and a governance framework in place. According to our findings, this mapping procedure may be carried out by evaluating each project along two dimensions. The first

dimension is value potential, which relates to the amount of money at risk as well as the opportunity cost of not proceeding with the endeavor. Executives should consider their transformation goals and how much value each initiative adds to that aim. The second factor is degree of feasibility, which relates to an organization's (perceived) capacity to execute a project effectively based on ease of implementation, present context, capabilities, and organizational structure. When efforts are evaluated along these parameters, four kinds of digital initiatives emerge: i)Quick Wins are referred to as Quadrant 1. These are high-feasibility, low-value projects, such as applying a basic digital solution to a recognized business issue in a narrow region of the firm. These projects provide instant results but seldom have a long-term influence. ii)Initiatives in Quadrant 2 are difficult to accomplish and have a poor value potential. They've entered the Kill Zone. Despite their unappealing nature, we observe a lot of efforts that meet this criteria. iii)Initiatives in Quadrant 3 have poor feasibility but great value potential. These are called Moonshots. These initiatives strive to investigate radically new, trending, and possibly disruptive ideas and technologies. iv)Quadrant 4, the most appealing quadrant, includes ventures with high feasibility and high value potential. This quadrant has been broken into two sections depending on how they are executed. The first section is known as Enterprise Anchors. These initiatives aim to effect change in the present business at a large scale. A new digital platform to change B2B customer service and sales is one example. These efforts often need extensive cross-industry coordination. Ventures is the second section of Quadrant 4. The purpose of this sort of effort is to harness digital technologies or business models that are not already in use inside the firm. Ventures often employ new channels and partners and seldom perform effectively inside the

organization's present structure.

Key: CTO = Chief Transformation Officer CDO = Chief Digital Officer BU = Business Unit CIO = Chief Innovation Officer TMT = Top Management Team

Figure 7.2 Digital Governance Framework Heineken, a worldwide independent brewer with a presence in over 180 countries, exemplifies how a firm may handle several governance frameworks for various digital initiatives. Heineken initially built a coordinated transformation methodology and road plan for efforts focused on digitising its routes to market. Following that, the corporation began pilot testing in certain areas and delegated authority to local teams to discover critical client requirements. After a local minimum viable product solution had been confirmed, the original

pilots were expanded to further markets. Simultaneously, Heineken established centralised capabilities to enable the worldwide rollout of digital solutions. This is a case study of how Heineken transformed a digital project into an Enterprise Anchor. Heineken, on the other hand, adopted a totally different strategy with Beerwulf, their direct-toconsumer e-commerce portal for craft beers. Beerwulf's managing director, Hans Böhm, recognised that "creating a new direct-toconsumer business model would need a totally different strategy." It didn't make sense for Beerwulf to administer the programme in a centralised, corporate manner. Instead, with an agile approach, the firm utilised client input to develop its proposal, and was prepared to "test, learn, and fail" as it discovered what worked and what didn't, according to Böhm. As a result, Heineken chose to develop Beerwulf as an unique start-up initiative, apart from the ordinary corporate structure. This method freed Beerwulf from reporting and resource-allocation limitations that would have applied if they were just a project inside the usual company. As a consequence, the nascent firm was also able to establish a distinct but compatible IT infrastructure, which was critical to providing the requisite flexibility and speed. 7. Principle 7 of Digital Governance: Evaluate various possibilities to proactively steer digital projects toward full-scale effect. The sorts of digital initiatives are not fixed. A Moon-shot mission meant to test a daring new concept might one day become an Enterprise Anchor. What is crucial is that these transitions be handled in a manner that is consistent with organisational strategy while also giving sufficient resources to each effort to achieve its potential. In the Kill Zone, a disciplined approach is also essential, either by ending failing efforts or integrating them into current corporate activities. Instead of letting ad hoc governance mechanisms to dictate direction, developing these routes allows the organisation to take control of the transition. Organizations may become more flexible, efficient, and customercentric as a result of digital transformation. While these advantages are generally acknowledged, organisations that ignore the governance side of digital transformation risk violating data privacy and security standards - something no company can afford. To make things even

more complicated, rules are continuously changing, and many are geographical or industry-specific. To stay on top of things, governance executives must collaborate with stakeholders from throughout the organisation to ensure that nothing is neglected, while also staying up to date on impending regulatory changes. Several planned legislation are related to cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. While these technologies may provide significant advantages to firms, they are not without danger in many circumstances. Governance leaders must consequently get a thorough awareness of them in order to handle possible difficulties before they escalate. There's a lot to discuss. However, as the following guidance demonstrates, governance executives who prioritise these concerns will guarantee that digital transformation programmes are both compliant and commercially beneficial. Three top priorities for leaders in governance: 1.Management of stakeholders: To ensure compliance requirements are fulfilled throughout digital transformation programmes, governance executives must identify and collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders, including IT teams, operational leaders, and finance and legal departments. "These are the metrics necessary for a firm to achieve its compliance difficulties if the organisation has a chief compliance officer, chief privacy officer, chief risk officer, or data privacy officer," says Robert Meyers, channel solutions architect and fellow of information privacy at One Identity. "However, they should not be the only persons interested in governance, compliance, or privacy." According to Brian Kane, cofounder and COO of privacy compliance firm Sourcepoint, every staff, from marketing to IT, must be involved and aligned with an organization's approach to privacy. "The accumulation of data that accompanies digital transformation initiatives, whether external or internal data, means that all stakeholders must be adequately trained not only on internal processes, but on basic privacy principles," he says, adding that privacy must become the company's "guiding principle." This should be extended to the board of directors as well. "One person on the board should be accountable for compliance," argues Nigel Jones, co-founder of the Privacy Compliance Hub and

former associate general counsel and head of legal for Google in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. "A governance leader, such as the data protection officer, must report directly to that board member, and compliance must be on the agenda of each board meeting on a regular basis." He refers to this as "managing up," and adds, "A competent governance leader must establish expectations with the accountable member of the board and explain that any compliance programme would fail without their cooperation on the board and across the organisation." 2.Regulations are changing: Not least when it comes to data privacy and security, regulations are continuously being amended and new ones implemented. How can leaders of government keep up with all of this change? Or, even better, keep abreast of forthcoming regulations? "Get engaged," Meyers advises. "It's difficult to keep up if you're sitting on the sidelines." He recommends governance executives to join the International Association of Privacy Professionals and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (previously known as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association), both of which educate auditors for cybersecurity and governance. "I'd also start listening to podcasts and following certain Twitter feeds to stay up to date on the newest news and legislative developments," he says. The practical truth is that governance leaders must accept the fact that they will not be able to keep up with every development. That is why they must have the proper culture in place, which must be maintained on a regular basis via a compliance programme. George Ioannou, managing partner of Zensar business Foolproof, also supports for improved working partnerships with regulatory and standardising agencies. "This might lead to the co-creation of future compliance standards and rules based on a better knowledge of the intricacies and goals of digital transitions." Keeping up with a continuously changing regulatory environment, according to Jones, is as much about having the proper culture in place as it is about having the correct technology. "The practical truth is that government leaders must accept the fact that they will not be able to keep up with every development," he argues. "That is why they must have the correct culture in place, which must be maintained on a regular basis via a

compliance programme." This guarantees that the relevant issues are addressed. "It's pointless to know that the data retention term for tax returns in Austria has just changed if no one in an organisation has been informed on the easy actions they can take to keep data secure in their digital workplace," he adds. 3.The Impact of Technology: Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) are becoming more common in a variety of sectors and corporate processes. However, this does not imply that bots may be left to their own devices. The usage of AI may raise questions of fairness and prejudice. "Of its foundation, RPA is a scalable, cost-effective reproduction of human decision making, which means it might reinforce some of our unconscious biases in certain situations," explains Dr Michael Kollo, chief economist at Faethm AI. "AI and RPAbased systems are programmed in nature, making them more vulnerable to regulatory scrutiny," he says. "So compliance's duty is to ensure that their algorithms are running in an impartial way, and if they aren't, to avoid little biases from spreading throughout the organisation and causing greater fundamental difficulties." Many AI solutions are "black box," which means "it is difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend how judgments are produced and hence if conclusions and suggestions are consistent with regulations," according to Dr Lars Rossen, CTO of Micro Focus. "On the other side, you can actually utilise AI approaches to help uncover and pinpoint compliance concerns in an organisation, for example, by utilising AI to locate information in unstructured data that needs GDPR attention." "Certain components of compliance responsibilities are quite data-driven," Kollo continues, "usually including gathering data and comparing it to transactional standards to determine if something is compliant or noncompliant." These duties may be greatly automated by systems like as RPA, which gather enormous amounts of data and provide rulesbased outputs for a compliance expert to examine, saving them a significant amount of time in the process." Could bots eliminate the need for compliance professionals? "There are also numerous compliance components that pertain to more strategic concerns that need human management rather than quick discovery and eradication," explains Kollo. In other words, a distinct skill set that is

unlikely to be mechanised in the foreseeable future." For the time being, the future seems to mix the best of humans and technology. Companies often believe that they do not have time to rebuild or establish a new digital foundation in a world where digital innovation advances at a rapid speed. "We need to be nimble and inventive," they reason. Governance just slows down the process." "We have too many challenges with our organisation, tools, and procedures," for example. Then there's the ever-present, "We don't want to recreate the wheel." When a company decides on the best strategy to expand and drive digital business transformation, it's unavoidable that diverse stakeholders with opposing opinions will stall the process. Each stakeholder may wish to execute its own vision over the portion of the website that it owns—some may have valid business grounds, but their ideas are incompatible with an ideal digital transformation that focuses on integrated corporate goals and strategy. Any digital endeavour may be derailed by a lack of clarity about who owns certain choices about content, design, information architecture, platforms, and so on. Without such decision-making clarity, the digital transformation process takes twice as long and costs twice as much as planned. Organizations must simplify decision-making, foster collaboration, and, ultimately, maintain their digital experience. They need a digital governance structure and roadmap that will allow for quicker, smoother, and more efficient processes. Without governance, digital development is bureaucratic and ineffectual. Governance is a facilitator. It enables companies to reduce development uncertainty by explicitly outlining responsibility and decision-making power for all digital concerns. This isn't to say that those who aren't decision makers can't supply feedback or come up with fresh and unique ideas. Rather, it implies that once all information has been evaluated and the organisation has a clear understanding of how choices will be made. A framework for providing responsibility, responsibilities, decision-making power, and change management authority for an organization's digital presence is known as digital governance. A well-designed digital governance framework reduces time and expense while ensuring digital business maturity. The initial priority should be to build governance and break down silos while adhering to the following standards:

1.Governance and strategy 2.Digital culture and organisation 3.Technology 4.Analytics and data 5.Automation 6.Insights and participation First, digital teams should assess their level of digital maturity. Once identified, they must describe the company's digital business aim and strategy, ensuring alignment across all areas for digital governance as below: 1.KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): Where practicable, they should be developed and standardised to facilitate monitoring and optimization, as well as test and learn culture. These insights must be applied to the strategy, investments, experience, engagement, and operations. 2.Framework for decision-making: The decision-making process is so aligned and validated. It helps to prevent the overwhelming sensation that comes with making large decisions and enables you to concentrate on the most critical activities. 3.Model of digital strategy: organisational alignment and management tools This creates alignment between the company's ultimate goal of success and the methods through which executives and individual contributors achieve business achievements. It assures the transformation's efficacy and the path to digital maturity. After developing these strategic blueprints, executives must develop a communication plan to educate and sell the digital transformation objectives and methodology to the team and the business as a whole. With the digital transformation plan in place, the time has come to put the digital governance structure in place. Stakeholders should establish the short- and long-term action plans and activities required to meet the organization's strategic goals. At this time, the organisation should have established a digital committee (in charge of stakeholders) and a programme manager to develop a project plan, discuss the vision, offer resources, and define critical success criteria. Here's how it works:

1.Create a strategy. This might involve resource planning and RACI definition, strategic alliances and collaborations that correspond with your transformation goal, and speeding up and improving the quality of your efforts. 2.Create and implement policies that promote the strategy's success. Program management, delivery process, decision making process, vendor management, change management process, rules and playbook, app governance, and compliance and risk management are examples of such activities. 3.Priorities and methods should be established, and as much as feasible should be automated. 4.Create and carry out a change management strategy and plan. 5.Create governance for requests, platforms, investments, and priorities. 6.Define the method, agenda, and cadence of the committee. The journey of an organization's digital governance framework does not stop with installation; executives must monitor and manage stakeholders' usage of the framework, as well as measure KPIs using analytics. Building an effective enforcement programme entails people management (with a combination of engineering, legal, and administrative skills and competence), staffing, training, vendor management, and strong communication to detect hazards. As firms' worldwide omnichannel footprints and roadmaps grow, digital governance becomes a critical success component. It is critical to designate a clear decision-making authority for digital strategy, digital policy, and digital standards in order to eliminate arguments and diversions about an organization's digital presence. We advocate forming a digital committee to handle the following duties: 1.Breaking down divisions, encouraging cooperation, simplifying efforts, reducing redundancy, and avoiding team discontent 2.Reducing compliance, responsibility, and inconsistency 3.Enhancing the brand experience 4.Managing and lowering total cost of ownership via technical basis, key features, and roadmap alignment

5.Increasing the organization's go-to-market speed by simplifying support for standards, solutions, and shared skill sets. 6.Keeping an intake mechanism in place to create, manage, and prioritise the backlog of solutions, platforms, and features. 7.Reducing rework and accomplishing more with prioritised tasks According to a 2019 MIT study, governance issues are a "high priority" for those managing Digital Transformation initiatives in most firms. According to this study, which is based on comments from 1,030 digital executives, inadequate Structure and Governance of Digital Initiatives is the primary cause for them to fail or offer subpar outcomes. CIOs often bemoan that company leaders lack digital savvy. In one of its papers on the subject, the Drucker School of Management states that Monofunctional Perspective is a barrier to effective Digital Transformations. According to one of the respondents in their survey, "90% of our general management teams don't understand technology at all." The typical Board Member does not know more about technology than the ordinary person on the street." Below are 7 key principles of Digital Governance in Digital Transformation : 1.Centralize Shared Information — Rather than the initiative itself, centralise information on Digital Initiatives. 2.Decentralize Digital Initiative Governance Over Time — As digital maturity increases, shift from centralised to decentralised initiative governance. 3.Ideation should be decentralised. Decentralize Centralize Idea Evaluation and Prioritization

Ideation

but

4.Ensure KPIs Measure True Effect - Ensure that your KPIs accurately reflect the true impact you wish to accomplish with each endeavour. 5.Avoid silos by guaranteeing data comparability, technological consistency, and ongoing integration of new projects with current

systems. 6.Implement a "Fit-for-Purpose" Mapping System — Create a "Fit-forPurpose" mapping system that identifies the value potential and degree of feasibility for each effort. 7.Scenario Analysis - Evaluate various possibilities in order to proactively steer Digital Initiatives toward full scale effect. So, how does all of this assist to shape the character of the questions that a board of directors should ask management about its digital transformation operations in pursuit of digital transformation governance? The questions are divided into three categories: micro-, meso-, and macro-scale and they are: 1.Micro-Scale Issues: Micro-scale issues are not incompatible with sound corporate governance, particularly when such activities expose the business to risk that exceeds its established risk appetite (before controls). These issues, at the most detailed level, involve the scope of the planned digital transformation. Is it simply one main process, a collection of primary processes for a business unit (BU), or all of the organization's core processes? What are the dependencies and risk factors for these interventions in each situation, and what are the resource requirements? 2.Meso-Scale Issues: These concerns, at the mid-level, involve the scope of the planned digital transformation. Is it at the level of the operational model, the business model, or even the strategic level? What influence will it have on the business model if it is at the operational model level? What are the consequences for operating model support if it is at the business-model level? More basic concerns regarding the technology become pertinent at this point, with usual technological inquiries

concerning promised benefits, maturity, support, operational costs, architectural fit, and strategic alignment being asked. What, once again, are the interventions' dependencies and risk factors, as well as their resource requirements? 3.Macro-Scale Issues: At the most fundamental level, the concerns involve the nature of the organization's digital transformation response in light of the environment in which it works. How can digital transformation capitalize on the strengths of the organization? Are the prospects well described, and how will digital transformation capitalize on them? Are the dangers defined correctly, and how will digital transformation minimize them? What will the competitors say? What steps are being taken to guarantee that most consumers react positively to customerfacing developments? Is it simple for the competitors to replicate these breakthroughs, and if so, is there a fast-follower development on the horizon? Companies are rethinking every aspect of their business in order to become customer-centric digital firms. And process governance - the methodologies, tools, standards, and regulations used by an organization to record, manage, and improve processes throughout the company – is becoming the strategic ‘mission control' that allows those firms to fully realize the benefits of their transitions. By carefully mapping and coordinating the moving parts in your organization – including those that do not yet exist because they are the intended outcomes of the ongoing transformation – you can dramatically reduce risks, build new visibility and insights across the organization and into the future, accelerate operations, devote more time and energy to customers and growth opportunities, and increase the likelihood that your digital transformation will drive business. Today's business owners may discover a plethora of process automation suppliers with products aimed at automating outmoded or just inefficient procedures. But what if your company wants to coordinate and harmonies all of those newly automated activities and processes so that they function together gracefully, effectively, and profitably? If process governance

is not integrated into your transformation project to guarantee those goals are met, you will have built islands of automation that do not link with and complement one another, limiting the commercial value you can produce from them. As you try to reap one of the most significant benefits of digital transformation – the ability to refine and optimize your processes at the speed of your customers – you'll have to go through and overhaul each and every one of those automations one by one, because they were all created in isolation. To assure up-todate and better company processes, modern visual process management solutions may combine organizational methodologies, guidelines, and process governance rules. The greatest tools are intended to help you prevent process isolation disasters and instead harvest every ounce of business value from your transformation initiatives. A contemporary process governance strategy enables you to develop a well-organized and simple method to manage a "process portfolio," which allows you to see how your processes are working, where the interconnections are, and where possible risks may occur. As a consequence, your firm will have a considerably better chance of achieving the condition to which every organization strives in today's disruptive times: a state in which constant improvement and innovation are in your DNA. Creating trust via strong data governance also helps firms in retaining and attracting consumers while generating revenue. How can enterprises achieve the demands of implementing digital transformation and reacting swiftly to client requests while preserving corporate intellectual property and customer information? According to the HBR study, successful data governance is built on five pillars: (1) data policy, (2) corporate culture, (3) organizational structure, (4) technological infrastructure, and (5) workforce development and here they are: 1.Data Policy: The first step in developing data policy is determining what data governance is acceptable for your firm. Data governance is a data

management system that guarantees that high-quality data and controls are used to support business goals across the data life cycle. It promotes data accessibility and correct usage throughout the enterprise while also providing responsibility for data quality and encouraging data availability, usability, consistency, integrity, and security. Experts believe that one of the basic elements of successful data management is effective data governance. Data governance defines what data will be gathered, how it will be acquired and safeguarded, and how data compliance and confidentiality will be met. Creating effective data policies and methodically distributing them across the business will guarantee that all workers are aware of and follow necessary data security and management standards on a regular basis. The next stage is to characterize all important or potentially valuable corporate data, including all customer data, and then conduct a data policy gap analysis. The study should encompass all business divisions and take into account both internal and external policy. To detect and fix gaps, a risk-assessment heat map should be constructed. Now, based on the findings, establish or amend policies, giving top emphasis to areas with the greatest ROI and potential effect. Finally, establish a continuous review process to keep the policies up to date as required, depending on commercial, legal, and regulatory compliance, as well as changes in the economic climate. 2.CULTURE OF THE COMPANY: For a business to become a data-driven corporation, considerable changes in corporate culture are often required. Why is it critical to foster a data-driven culture? According to Gartner, "the top two hurdles for data and analytics executives are culture and data literacy" (gtnr.it/3kSGIv3). By overcoming these impediments and fostering a data-driven culture, firms may better serve their consumers and make faster decisions. Data-driven cultures, according to Tableau, need five fundamental elements: trust, dedication, talent, sharing, and mindset. "Becoming really data-driven requires altering ideas, attitudes, and habits—embedding data into the organization's identity." People must be motivated to utilize data and to urge others to do the same. People

in a Data Culture ask difficult questions and challenge beliefs. They get together with a same goal in mind: to use data to enhance the company and themselves. Leaders inspire by action, based on evidence rather than intuition" (tabsoft.co/3iRLs2q). To effectively implement these new cultural norms, executives must choose and implement a change management technique that includes a robust communication strategy. 3. ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE: The most successful firms have incorporated the post of chief data officer to bring about long-term transformation in developing a datadriven culture (CDO). According to New Vantage Partners' Annual Big Data Executive Survey 2018, 62.5 percent of top Fortune 1000 business and technology decision makers have appointed a CDO. The major responsibility of the CDO is to offer leadership in the treatment of data as an organizational asset, with strong and thorough data governance. CDOs collaborate with IT and business-unit executives to find and explain the commercial value of data, and then they lead all areas of data strategy, including governance. The chief information security officer is another significant C-suite post with a special emphasis on developing information security activities and programmes relevant to internal and external threads (CISO). More than half of the regulated industry businesses polled by HBR agreed on the importance of the CISO's function. Having a CDO and CISO is insufficient. Effective data governance requires cross-functional collaboration and leadership. Senior executives must see the value and ROI of data as an asset and become its guardians as well as ardent champions of data governance. Because of their extensive knowledge of financial and organizational data, CFOs may play an important role in leading the push. All business-unit executives must support the data governance plan and adhere to the appropriate rules and procedures. Good data governance will boost consumer trust while lowering the danger of data loss. 4.TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE:

Investing in security infrastructure and monitoring data governance promotes governance maturity. Leading companies invest in antimalware, data-flow tracking, e-discovery, and behavior monitoring. Using the right technological tools, understanding what data exists, which data is secret, and how the data is utilized may be simplified. Furthermore, deploying frequent infrastructure upgrades decreases the chance of breaches, offering customer comfort, which is crucial in preserving both B2B and B2C customer connections. 5.WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: Most firms' personnel is their weakest security link. The majority of malware breaches are the result of staff error. Organizations need "soft" training (for example, how to spot phishing attempts, comply with security/privacy regulations, and so on) in addition to training in any new technologies. Data policy, business culture, organizational structure, technological infrastructure, and workforce development are the five main pillars of effective data governance. Although data governance is often lagging behind digital transformation, by concentrating on these pillars, data governance may catch up and promote digital transformation innovations while preserving company IP and consumer data. Governance occurs in a number of settings, including: 1.Corporate governance: Provides the procedures, organizational structures, and connections that allow a business to function efficiently. 2.IT Governance: Establishes an infrastructure that enables the IT department to support the strategic objectives of a firm. 3.Financial governance: Establishes safe and compliance controls, management, and reporting of financial concerns. Gartner defines Digital Governance as the practices that assure an

organization's effective and efficient use of IT in order to accomplish its goals: "Organizations guarantee that competing IT investments are effectively evaluated, selected, prioritized, and funded; manage their execution; and extract (measurable) business advantages." The appropriate governance structure is determined by the customer lifetime. Given the importance of customer experience today, the customer lifecycle drives the governing body's structure as the consumer travels through the phases of: 1.Looking for the best product or service 2.Choosing the desired item • Conversion when the consumer decides to buy The framework should contain the capacity to handle information related to these phases, as well as any additional entities that serve as consumer touchpoints. For example, a client may provide comments that should be sent to product development teams or engineering design. The governance team must work with other decision-making groups, such as budget and financing, compliance, marketing, and sales, but it must also be able to make and execute choices. It should have a say in the adaptation of strategic strategies as needed to enhance the customer experience. The governance team is the focal point for all actions related to the creation and upkeep of the governance programme, Coordinating talks, making suggestions, promoting issue resolution, implementing solutions, and assessing results are all part of the job. When concentrating on a specific issue area and deciding on a remediation strategy, the following points should be addressed: 1.Statement of the Problem: Customer pain points and needs should be recognized. Customer data, interviews, or proxies may be used to get these. 2.Implications: After defining the existing condition, explore the implications connected with these concerns and estimate the

commercial effect of resolving these issues. 3.Measures: Determine which metrics are being gathered and evaluated in relation to Consider the customer procedure and if it is the best way to get the required results. 4.Systems: Determine which systems and tools are being utilized to provide customer-facing or customer-supporting capabilities and if they are optimal for the purpose. 5.Procedures: Examine the customer-facing processes that are already in place and how they should be modified, updated, or enhanced to better suit the demands of the customers. 6.Departments: Determine what additional persons or departments assist the people who perform those duties, as well as how the performance of the departmental functions is assessed. Determine the effect of customer misery on each department. Governance should be designed with the demands of main stakeholders in mind. It should be used to socialize, communicate, and carry out plan and they are: 1.Take into account the organization's consumer strategy. 2.What is the overall picture in terms of the organization's customerfacing strategy? 3.Market: Define the market's major features. Is it constant, increasing, or decreasing? Are other corporations getting involved or staying away? 4. Current situation: Determine what works effectively in the customer

approach and what needs to be improved. What kind of data are utilized to describe the client journey? 5.Goals: Outline the targeted results. What activities will assist attain them, and what obstacles will stand in their way? 6.Resources: List the resources and tools that are available for use. Is the company lacking in the resources required to achieve its objectives? 7.Process: Consider how people and processes should interact. How can tasks be prioritized if resources are insufficient to cover all initiatives? 8.Engagement: Determine the stakeholders that must be involved and the KPIs that will assist make the case for a governance programme. What information must be conveyed. The usefulness of performance measures is heavily reliant on the quality of the governance programme, hence measuring the governance programme itself is a smart practice. The governance team's success may be measured in a variety of ways, ranging from a simple count of the number of policies produced and executed to the number of goals met. Any aspect of the governance team's actions may be evaluated as a potential metric, but the best ones assess performance as directly as feasible. For example, the number of meetings conducted is less essential than its achievements. A better method to assess success would be to look at how effectively compliance objectives are satisfied. Documenting that data stewards have been appointed to each domain is a useful statistic since it confirms that someone is responsible for the availability and quality of the data under their oversight. Even a list of activities is helpful, since the range of activities represented in the governance programme is a sign of its life and efficacy.

Digital governance may be divided into two approaches: central and decentralized. Central Governance acknowledges that the fast-paced nature of digital necessitates a distinct governance framework, as well as a separate, unconstrained execution arm. Decentralized Governance acknowledges that digital must be fully incorporated into the organization's current structures and processes, and therefore governance must as well. Both have value; which is best for your company is determined by its history, strategy, and skills. Here's how they're usually put into action: 1.Central Governance: Two groups are formed: a digital steering committee, which is in charge of keeping up with trends, organizational strategy, and establishing the direction for online, social media, and so on. This organization would convene on a semi-annual or yearly basis. The second group, a digital working group, is the plan's arms and legs. The digital working group might be a distinct department, or it can be placed inside IT or marketing, or it can be completely or partly outsourced. The digital working group reports to the steering committee on the efficacy of its activities and offers onthe-ground advice to the steering committee. 2.Decentralized Governance: Under this paradigm, each group in the business is accountable for digital strategy and execution within the framework of its real-world accountability. An HR department, for example, might implement an online recruiting campaign as part of their broader recruitment strategy. Alternatively, a customer care department may include Twitter monitoring and reaction into their entire customer service strategy (and into their call center technology.) The marketing and technology departments work under a shared service model in this approach, offering functional knowledge and delivery capabilities as needed. Which governance approach is the most effective? Either way, the crucial issue is that your firm has implemented digital governance. However, as the business evolves,

so should the governance, eventually leading to a third method, Strategic Governance, which acknowledges the advantages of both. 3.Strategic Governance understands that not every group inside the firm is as "digitally connected in," and that a central digital steering committee that can channel sharing, teaching, and digital innovation has importance. The steering group is also in charge of ensuring overall strategy alignment. Individual departments, however, are expected to take responsibility for promoting innovation within their own group, unlike Central Governance: after all, who understands their mission better? And who would be the most knowledgeable about best practices (as well as competitive efforts) in their functional areas? With Strategic Governance, digital execution would be a hybrid: certain activities would be outsourced to a working committee, as with Central Governance, while others would be carried out by individuals inside each department. For example, search engine optimization may be done by the working group, while job advertisements may be handled directly by someone in HR. Governance does not have to be complicated or time-consuming — it just has to be done. Here are 12 Democratic Governance Principles for digital Transformation: 1. Election Participation, Representation, and Fairness 2. Responsiveness 3. Effectiveness and efficiency 4. Transparency and openness 5. Rule of Law 6. Ethical Behavior 7. Capacity and Competence 8. Openness to Change and Innovation 9. Sustainability and Long-Term Orientation

10. Effective Financial Management 11.Human Rights, Cultural Diversity, and Social Cohesion are all important considerations. 12.Accountability Experts advocate a variety of modifications to governance in order to meet today's concerns. "In order to meet the board's, executives', customers', and stakeholders' digital objectives in the digital era, CIOs must build a new paradigm for IT governance." "A typical one-size-fitsall, command-and-control-based IT governance capability lacks the breadth and agility required to address the objectives of digital business,". Here are the trends: 1. Ownership of IT governance must migrate from CIOs to wider company leadership: "Governance is an enterprise competence that must be defined and championed by the business's top leadership." "It is owned by the board of directors and the executive team," Gulzar explains. "The CIO's responsibility is to advise or verify the architecture of IT governance; they are a key player in how governance runs throughout the organization." Thomas agrees, noting that it is up to the board to set the boundaries for problems like risk tolerance, security, and compliance, as well as the goals that everyone must strive toward collectively. 2. Business executives must revise their perspectives on governance: Rather than seeing governance as a set of constraints, Gulzar believes leaders must recognize that strong governance is a digital facilitator. Others concur. According to Thomas, executives (even CIOs) may wrongly believe that governance hinders IT innovation and implementation; yet, strong governance increases agility and speed by creating decision-making power at the appropriate levels of the IT

organization. "Previously, we had to wait weeks for an advisory board to make approvals," he says. "However, governance can delegate responsibilities to a party or individual who has the technical capability and understanding to make a decision, so decisions are made at the right level with the right competence [when needed]." According to MacMillan, Emblem Health’s IT governance strategy operates in this manner. The investment committee, which is co-chaired by MacMillan and several other executives, makes macro-level decisions but empowers managers further down the chain to make micro-level decisions — a strategy that supports the agile development process that Emblem Health and others have adopted to stay competitive. 3. Governance should be centered on results rather than set methods: "As digital companies, ecosystems, and platforms gain traction, they generate decision-making needs that conventional governance techniques cannot meet." Gulzar says that "traditional control-based IT governance cannot scale to satisfy the demands of fast-paced digital company." "Leading digital organizations have an IT governance competence that is focused on results that must be delivered with the flexibility to modify as often as required to account for situational awareness (for example, of the competition, strategy, and so on)." Consider Emblem Health. It created a governance structure to ensure that IT work matches evolving market expectations, positions the firm as a digital leader, and generates top-line development, according to MacMillan. 4. Automation may aid in the promotion of governance adherence: According to Steve Zipperman, vice president of consulting services at Insight, IT should leverage the same technologies that are automating business workflows and apply them to IT processes such as provisioning, incident management, and problem management to enforce consistency and support the speed required to keep up with business today. "That process layer needs to be re-engineered for the

digital era," he says. 5. Governance must be adjusted to the actual and specific demands of the organization: There are several governance frameworks, many of which are being modified to satisfy organizational demands in light of digital transformation. ISACA, for example, revamped its COBIT methodology, which was initially introduced in 1996, this autumn. However, according to Thomas, organizational leaders often believe that frameworks should give solutions to all of their problems when, in reality, this is not their duty. "They're actually more of a model for corporations to develop their own framework," he explains. This was Emblem Health’s point of view. Instead of using an existing framework, MacMillan claims that it designed its governance principles around the particular demands it had as a result of a multiyear investment in transformation technology deployment. 6. Governance must be altered on a more regular basis than in the past: According to experts, there is no set schedule for refreshing a governance programme; rather, it should occur anytime organizational values alter or develop. That is now taking place at Emblem Health. According to MacMillan, as the organization's digitization matures, he and his senior colleagues are refining the governance model. "We've introduced or are in the midst of introducing so much technology that we're still finding out what precisely we need to control," he adds. CIOs and their colleagues in the C-suite must accept that such constant effort is the new normal for IT governance. "Doing business at the pace of digital needs organizations to regularly examine whether their decision-making skills match their digital vision," Gulzar writes. To be successful, transformation is a complicated process that needs

cross-functional cooperation, good governance, and a thorough change communication effort. Examine how choices are made, how and what sort of performance is rewarded, and how the team is held responsible for progress on transformation goals to prepare your company for new ways of doing things. Changes in how the finance organization is organized and handled may pave the path for larger change and help prevent problems. Aspects of your operating model may also have an impact on culture and performance, encouraging the finance organization to think more broadly about their job and the company as a whole. Consider the following: 1) Update your decision-making engine with a diverse set of viewpoints: Making the CFO the single decision-maker seems to streamline the process, but simpler isn't necessarily better. If the CFO is the primary decision-maker, transformation teams may tailor their strategy, measurements, and updates to what is important to that single individual, perhaps leading to prejudice or lapses. Even if that single point of view is intelligent and objective, it is difficult for a single individual to know everything about a situation. Additional value or hazards may not be discovered if diverse views are not used. Consider forming a steering group that will be held responsible for pushing key decisions connected to your transformation. Regardless of structure, you should put in place frameworks to guarantee that the CFO is not the only decision-maker and that others are encouraged to participate and feel responsibility of the results. 2) Form a diverse steering council for the change programme: Digital revolution affects every part of company. Even when a transformation project is focused on finance, having commitment from the finance leadership team or even the C-suite to make decisions

jointly guarantees buy-in and forward momentum. The steering committee directs transformation programmes' investments, direction, and results. This team, which is a subset of the leadership team, will be held responsible for change and should be varied enough across business and financial divisions to force those results. The effort should be led by a day-to-day operational leader. To ensure that you can develop responsibility, assess achievement, and define direction via a wide range of opinions and interests, this group may comprise the following members: i)There are two to four business unit leaders. ii)The Chief Accounting Officer and the FP&A Director. iii)The leaders of financial technology and information technology. Having a varied and well-represented group of executives allows you to jointly define the success of the transformation programme and share responsibility and accountability beyond the finance team. 3) Finance has a once-in-a-lifetime chance for enterprise-wide leadership: Few jobs need the transformational finance leader's enterprise-wide vision, business understanding, financial acumen, and data literacy. Finance offers a unique viewpoint on business planning since they aggregate data from throughout the firm to estimate performance for the next month or quarter. Today's finance leaders are uniquely positioned to lead the business into the future by instilling a culture of curiosity and problem-solving, developing broad digital-age skillsets, implementing powerful data insight capabilities, and improving the frameworks and processes that govern business decisions. ITG(IT Governance) has an influence on a company's operations, strategy, and business outcomes. A good ITG may provide value to a company (Ross and Weill 2004). Poor ITG, on the other side, may

result in value loss, innovation lag, missed opportunities, and liabilities. The original emphasis of ITG research was on the decisionmaking power and IT activity organizational structure Early studies focused on the idea of who should be engaged in IT decisions and what framework should be in place to optimize return on investment monetary investment ITG is not a new issue, and several papers explore, debate, and hypothesize about it. Topics such as the utilization of ITG committees are examples of the advantages of a practical, cautious, and well-aligned ITG. Management of technology expenditures and investments. Organizational and ITG Governance links between IT management and business management, alignment IT security governance, and ITG success and implications. Examples of existing research include. As a result, there are several meanings for ITG. According to this study, ITG "is an essential component of business governance and includes of the leadership, organizational structures, and procedures that assure the organization's IT's long-term viability and broadens the organization's plans and goals". Despite considerable ITG study, There hasn't been much discussion of its link with DT. Disruptive technologies and new digital business models are being developed. requiring new IT support and alignment, including ITG processes and assessments (Osterwalder and colleagues) Pigneur, 2010. For example, DT may compel a rethinking of how IT Governance decisions are made, therefore pushing it in more informal or agile ways ITG Archetypes existed prior to the DT phenomenon, and the uncertainty and agility contexts were not included in the examination of how choices are made. By researching Ross and Weill (2004) mapped six mutually incompatible organization types across 250 firms in 23 countries. As examples of structures, or "archetypes," consider the following: Business Monarchy – Decisions of IT CxOs, IT Monarchy – Corporate, IT specialists make IT decisions, feudal – independent business units make decisions, federal – hybrid IT decision-making, A duopoly consists of IT executives and one business group, while anarchy consists of each tiny group, makes choices The study also intends to benefit from more recent studies that investigate the components of a successful ITG and their effects on IT and business outcomes In that regard, we shall rely on provided

a complete and integrated model. This model illustrates how ITG works. should be created in order to be effective, as well as the organizational impact of a successful ITG. The effects are stated as follows: Alignment of Business and IT Activities, Transparency of IT Costs, and IT services and controllability are driving business outcomes. This study recommends that, in addition to the model, IT ambidexterity should be included as one of the effects of a successful ITG. Given the research's emphasis on DT impacts, the study is particularly interested in the effects of organizational agility as a business outcome. A governance service to ensure that the programme and/or live services are meeting the business case and the digital by default service standards. Finding the right balance and coherent governance between agile, scaled agile (sAFE), business case, strategy and policy objectives. Supporting the in-house team with capacity and capability. Here are the trends:

Features: 1.Highly experienced and pragmatic, multi disciplined, senior team 2.Global skills in finance, real estate, healthcare, digital technology, security 3.Deep transformation knowledge (+60 HMG digital services), UK wide deploy quickly 4.Technology agnostic, highly independent systems integrator 5.Empathetic approach to dealing with complex problems 6.Proprietary tools for capacity / capability planning of agile teams 7.Reconciles financial, resource and technology planning 8.SC/DV Security Clearance, Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation 9.Scrum Kanban or tailored Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) approach

Benefits: 1.Gain perspective from colleagues across HMG and valuable learning 2.Co-design with policy, technical teams, users and stakeholders 3.Reduces reliance on external support, resolves capacity and

capability gaps 4.Reduces duplication of effort, reduces failure demand 5.Knowledge and skills transfer to civil servants 6.Increased confidence and pride for in-house teams 7.High level of challenge from a trusted advisor 8.Work as One Team with the client and other suppliers 9.Greater speed of change and reduced cost API governance does not have to be a barrier to creativity. Indeed, Capital One's Matthew Reinbold believes it has the potential to boost digital transformation strategy and execution inside an organization. APIs are one of the most significant resources for digital transformation. APIs, according to API Evangelist Kin Lane, enable organizations to better describe what they do and become more nimble and transparent. API governance is becoming increasingly significant as more organizations attempt to establish their own digital transformation plans with APIs at the center, and its strategic relevance should not be underestimated. While most people associate API governance with laws and enforcement, Capital One API and Event Streaming Platform Services Director Matthew Reinbold has a different perspective. "Governance, to me, is about how we create systems. How can we construct networks such that the most people can go to the most destinations in the safest manner possible? Yes, it may imply rules – but rules are only a method. It might be a learning experience. It might signify a number of various things "In an interview with Coding Over Cocktails, he adds. Aside from regulations and education, Reinbold believes that government should include the need for improved accessibility and how everything relates. API governance ensures that APIs are discoverable, compatible with standards, and secure. While they are crucial, Reinbold believes that governance should begin with determining who is responsible for moving the organization forward. "Who gets to make the rules? How can we get those messages across? How can we establish virtuous feedback loops so that those who are sticking to these principles can provide input into the system and we can co-evolve these things over time to ensure that we are providing what we need to?"

Governance, on the other hand, is still governance. And if enforcement is in place, one would believe that it will limit how organizations develop and possibly stymie a successful digital transition. Reinbold contends that this is not the case. "The governance that is used is not a barrier; rather, it is part of how they enable individuals to accomplish things better." API governance may help firms gain a competitive edge by ensuring that APIs are consistent and standardized. However, according to Reinbold, obtaining perfection is not the objective. "Perfection is the inverse of completion. As a result, if our objective is to have the ideal set of laws for all time, we will fail. It isn't conceivable "He elaborates. He goes on to say that the goal of governance should be to create a repeatable and secure procedure that can change and improve over time, rather than to create a "perfect API style guide." "That is also how we should think about government. We take the initial action, then examine the consequences of that move. We examine to see whether it's meeting the objectives, and then we take another step, and another step, and another step." According to Reinbold, defining these norms and procedures is critical in order to effectively set up the enforcement required to achieve governance. "Once those regulations are in place, you can move on to management and enforcement." API governance, as Reinbold points out, should not stand in the way of an organization's effective digital transformation. As a result, governance should be capable of allowing employees in the organization to perform more effectively while also changing behaviors. "Your API governance must be as well informed in organizational transformation — how to alter organizational behavior – as it is in the nuts and bolts of API nuance." However, changing one's behavior is not as simple as it seems. Because most individuals are resistive to change, this presents a substantial problem for organizations pursuing digital transformation. "It is not sufficient to just repeat what we did yesterday with new tools. It is about modifying our behavior when confronted with specific issues or possibilities. People find it very difficult to modify their behavior "According to Reinbold. The first step, according to Reinbold, is for organizations to grasp the terrain. The decisionmaking and incentive structures to which individuals react differ each organization, and being acquainted with them, according to Reinbold,

is critical. "You must first comprehend where you are before you can tell others where to go. That's why it's so tough to throw individuals like consultants into a firm and expect them to succeed, since they're bringing their own experiences and preconceptions with them. They may also be unfamiliar with the terrain." According to Reinbold, the most effective governance initiatives he has seen were headed by persons who understood the "human" aspects of the organization. The leaders of these successful initiatives "...were highly experienced in things like negotiation, dispute resolution, and even communication, as they are, the specific technology that they may have done five, 10 years earlier." The second thing an organization must do is create positive momentum by reducing the number of adjustments that must be made. Reinbold advises, based on his experiences, that extreme actions aimed at achieving larger changes are directly proportionate to the opposition that may result. "It may be required, but in order to get traction, you must first generate positive momentum. And the simplest way to do this is to reduce the amount of change requested "he claims. Reinbold proposes that organizations begin with the "uncontroversial stuff" and work their way up to the larger, more challenging issues along the road. "Once you've made that decision, you'll be better prepared to tackle the larger, more difficult obstacles. It won't be pretty if you start with the difficult things when you're still figuring out what the connections are and how to deal with the individuals." Finally, Reinbold stresses the need of communication. "Even if you think you've told it a thousand times and you're blue in the face and sick of the message, I promise there are individuals who haven't heard it yet and aren't on board, and they simply need to hear it numerous times." Capital One employed Event Storming, a workshop-based strategy that is engaging, quick, and lightweight. This strategy aids in the blurring of organizational divisions by "pushing stakeholders in a room to come to an accord," as Reinbold puts it. "Unsurfaced assumptions are the worst thing that may happen throughout the API design process. Because that is when you get the API design out the door and the customer uses it for the first time and says, 'That doesn't do what I wanted it to do.' You now have a versioning issue." According to Reinbold, communication models and approaches are critical in API

design and governance. This approach assists an organization in developing a "shared language" and eliminates misunderstanding. "Regardless of the extent of the endeavor, I promise that gathering these stakeholders in a room will result in the discovery of assumptions. You end up finding previously unknown features of language." In this episode of Toro Cloud's Coding Over Cocktails podcast, we talk with Reinbold on API Governance and the necessity of organizational communication in digital transformation. "IT governance (ITG) is defined as the practices that assure the effective and efficient use of IT in allowing a company to accomplish its objectives," according to Gartner. IT demand governance (ITDG— what IT should work on) is the process by which businesses guarantee that competing IT expenditures are effectively evaluated, selected, prioritized, and funded" (Gartner, 2017). The following are the primary aspects of IT Governance (National Computing Centre, 2005): alignment between IT and business, IT value delivery, risk management, and resource management. Governance is critical for organizations because: there is a general lack of responsibility and clarity of responsibilities within projects; there are some major communication failures between clients and suppliers; there are many gaps between what clients require and what IT can deliver; organizations do not have a perception of the value IT can bring; it is necessary to measure the risks of IT implementations; IT is very complicated and constantly evolving, necessitating improved administration and control (National Computing Centre, 2005). To avoid all of these issues, IT Governance gives a structure with a route to follow. When well implemented, governance provides many benefits to organizations, including increased transparency and accountability for costs, processes, and decision making, ensuring a Return on Investment (ROI) and value for Stakeholders (understanding the best practices for applying IT in accordance with the company's strategy and objectives, allowing stakeholders to understand the risks and returns that IT can bring), and creating new opportunities and partnerships (enab). Providing greater performance by using IT as more than simply a support tool, resulting in better practices and minimizing needless expenses (National Computing Centre, 2005).

There are a number of tools available to assist with governance implementation, as well as beginning points for governance model creation. As can be seen from below, there are several frameworks that businesses may employ to attain the best governance practices. Here they are: 1.Library of Information Technology Infrastructure : ITIL: ITIL is a comprehensive, consistent collection of best practices derived from the cumulative expertise of thousands of IT practitioners worldwide. ITIL focuses on important business processes and disciplines required for high-quality service delivery. The British Standard BS15000 arose from the ITIL framework. BS15000 is the world's first standard for IT service management. All activity is divided into two major categories: service management and service delivery. According to this concept, IT quality is defined as the degree of congruence between IT services and real business demands. As a consequence, enterprises may develop their best practices independent of certain technology. 2.Information and Related Technology Control Objectives: COBIT was created as a universally applicable and widely regarded standard for excellent information technology (IT) security and control procedures (Lainhart 2000). The tools include: (1) Performance Measurement elements, such as outcome measures and performance drivers for all IT processes; (2) a list of Critical Success Factors (CSF), which provide succinct, non-technical best practices for each IT process; and (3) Maturity Models, which aid in benchmarking and decision-making for capability improvements. 3.ASL (Application Services Library): A guide on best practices for managing application development and maintenance. It is a distinct public domain standard for application administration from the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), but it is related to it in terms of adhering to standards for managing processes and offering a consistent, rigorous public domain set of guidelines. ASL is a language that is part of the IT Service Management (ITSM) Library. ASL distinguishes three forms of control: functional application, technical control, and administrative control. Whereas the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a well recognized standard

for coordinating technical administration, the Application Services Library (ASL) provides a framework for organizing application management. 4.The Model of Capability Maturity : CMMI: A approach for developing and refining a company's software development process. The model depicts a five-level evolutionary path of processes that get progressively ordered and systematically more mature. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a research and development facility financed by the United States Department of Defense, created and promotes CMM (DoD). The CMM recommends five levels of software process maturity: initial, repeatable, specified, managed, and optimized. CMM has evolved over time by merging many activities, i.e. CMM Integration (CMMI). Whereas CMM is based on the traditional waterfall paradigm, CMMI focuses on iterative development and is more outcome driven. 5.Six Standard Errors : Sigma six: Techniques and tools are provided to increase capability and eliminate flaws in any process. By continually assessing and fine-tuning the process, the Six Sigma technique enhances any current business process. Six Sigma does this via the application of the DMAIC approach (Define opportunities, Measure performance, Analyze opportunity, Improve performance, Control performance). Six Sigma Process Improvement focuses on customer needs, design quality, metrics and measurements, staff participation, and continuous improvement. COBIT 5's business orientation entails integrating business objectives to IT goals, giving metrics and maturity models to monitor their success, and specifying the roles of business and IT process owners (ISACA, 2012b). Information is essential for all companies, and technology plays a significant role in the company's operations. It is critical to improve and maintain high quality information to support business decisions, use IT effectively to achieve business goals, use technology to promote operational excellence, ensure IT risk is managed effectively, ensure organizations realize the value of their IT investments, and achieve compliance with laws, regulations, and contractual agreements in order to use technology as a value to the

company . Geisinger Health launched a multiyear digital transformation programme to transform patient and caregiver experiences in early 2020, with the goal of leveraging best-in-class technology solutions and innovation from the digital health ecosystem, as well as transforming IT infrastructure to support digital health experiences. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, Geisinger's leadership reiterated its commitment to the digital transformation roadmap and the key technology investments needed to speed the change. Geisinger created a Digital Transformation Office to manage the road map's execution, offer unified governance, and allow technology partner selection for key parts of the planned road map. The DTO was able to speed the transformation path, boost digital engagement, and provide millions of dollars in benefits thanks to extensive cross-functional participation and cooperation. "Governance models in healthcare businesses are developing, and there isn't a single model that suits all organizations," said Damo Consulting CEO Paddy Padmanabhan. Padmanabhan, who will speak on digital transformation in healthcare this week at HIMSS, believes governance is the most important part of digital transformation. "One thing that does assist is establishing a digital role with centralized control for digital health initiatives at the company level," he added. "One method to do this is to create a digital transformation office with a defined mission, a set of resources, and a budget."

Figure 7.3 COBIT 5 - Processes of Governance of Enterprise IT (ISACA) He highlighted that since digital transformation projects need extensive collaboration among solution suppliers, business stakeholders, and internal IT, the centralized approach helps in keeping the various activities in sync and going ahead in lockstep. The front end of digital transformation is sometimes referred to as "digital front doors," which is a catch-all phrase that encompasses anything from telehealth for virtual visits to a variety of digital engagement tools for enhancing access to treatment. According to Padmanabhan, this may also involve the marketing role in relation to digital engagement activities. "Today, there is a broad and expanding landscape of solutions that cover the numerous facets of digital front doors," he stated. "The problem for healthcare companies, particularly health systems, is determining whether to employ native EHR system

capabilities and when to search outside for best-in-class or creative new solutions." On the back end, this entails having the appropriate integration tools and governance in place, as well as a robust and scalable infrastructure to support the deployment of these solutions, and finally, a data management and advanced analytics function to generate insights to drive digital health programmes. Among the technologies and platforms emerging as significant accelerators of change, according to Padmanabhan, are telemedicine, CRM, conversational interfaces (e.g., voice, chatbots), automation, cloud, and AI. "Digital health executives who want to drive change throughout the organization must start by building an enterprise roadmap – one that looks at a three to five year horizon and identifies critical goals as well as a business case for the necessary expenditures," he added. The roadmap process must involve stakeholders from all roles and groups to ensure that everyone has a say in investment choices and is completely on board with them. Finally, leaders of digital transformation must guarantee that resources and money are available to support large-scale transformation activities.

Figure 7.4 COBIT 5 governance practice Organizations that want to become agile must prepare for continuing business change as society and business models grow more digital (data-driven). Clearly, Chief Finance Officers, Chief Data Officers, CIOs, and other business executives must prioritize information asset governance as a priority in corporate IT investment strategy. "Data Governance" refers to the management of such corporate aspects. Data Governance is not seen as a set of rigorous rules by savvy CxOs at market-leading companies. Instead, they recognize that Data Governance frameworks (for example, master data models and related governance processes) ultimately enable their organizational models to be adaptable enough to respond to any change, whether it is an ongoing merger and acquisition mode, the merger of brick and mortar with web commerce, or other such fundamental business transformations. Because Data Governance is increasingly required as a strategic endeavor spanning numerous divisions throughout the company, businesses are resorting to an overarching layer of Data Governance to manage and coordinate the corporation's business aspects. As firms attempt to adapt to the networked economy and become data-driven businesses, such "Enterprise Data Governance" will be the future key to allowing both business and IT to manage change efficiently. Key Business initiatives to drive Enterprise Data Governance: 1 – Organizational Transformation: Companies are continually changing to produce new value via product and process innovation, new business models that solve limits imposed by new legislation, or an underserved market, and as a consequence, help grab a bigger share of wallet. Companies that alter themselves are more likely to withstand nimbler competition, technological disruption, and shifting consumer preferences as global economies shift to a customer-to-business (C2B) "pull" model, rather

than the B2C "push" one of previous decades. An iterative method focused on in-process learning and refinement is more likely to provide solutions with the least amount of risk. Enterprises must be able to restructure themselves, adapt business processes to new operational and business models, simplify and streamline IT systems to become more flexible, and select specialized programmes to assist the wider transformation endeavor in order to cope. To achieve business leadership buy-in, a company's capacity to implement changes in a controlled way is considerably strengthened by doing proper scenario research (including pro-forma effect analysis and applying future structural changes to past data sets). This method may assist businesses in achieving a "minimum feasible transformation" in the face of limited resources and crippling limitations. 2.Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance: Finance executives are subject to quality difficulties in management and financial reporting without a defined governance-operating model, leading in public humiliation, regulatory scrutiny, and financial re statements. Furthermore, regulatory organizations such as the SEC are increasingly calling firms to task by establishing standards for reporting openness and response times, compliance checks, and massive fines for violating regulations. To manage such risks, corporate finance departments depend on Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) efforts. Compliance with privacy and financial rules in the digital economy is complicated by the rapid growth of company structures, product and service innovation, and consumer expectations. Data Governance helps cross-functional stakeholders to develop a common business view via policy-driven discipline and collaborative consensus building. It also encourages shared ownership and responsibility across departments and lines of business, which are necessary for accurate reporting and successful decision-making. 3. Acquisitions and mergers (M&A) :

Due diligence is an essential component of every merger, acquisition, or demutualization. Finance, sales pipelines, product portfolios, and inventory assets are all scrutinized by M&A advance teams. Due diligence in this context searches for potential to reduce expenses via synergies promised to joint shareholder bases. Furthermore, due diligence for M&A transactions may involve scenario analysis and modelling of target information assets, as well as organizational structures into which they may map or be integrated. Establishing a pre-event awareness of these linkages is crucial for visualizing synergies, finding overlap, and developing a data-driven understanding of the joined entities. Following the event, the same scenarios may be altered to speed up integration and enable coexistence designs as needed to offer a customized coupling of assets that can be integrated at the ideal rate sought by decision makers. 4. Business Analytics "Operationalization" : In a data-driven future where Big Data is a crucial element, such business analytics must be progressively incorporated into the enterprise's operations, not only decision-making. To support the supply of essential financial indicators, associated hierarchies, mappings, and reporting characteristics, an agile company needs Data Governance. A financial data warehouse, for example, may be used to support corporate performance management efforts such as financial planning and budgeting, financial consolidation, profitability, cost management, tax reporting, and more. The next generation of such Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) capabilities will need to include *new* C2B business models as well as (increasingly) real-time "operationalization" of such analytics. This is in line with the business demand to be more predictive and prescriptive in both the front and back offices (sales and marketing) (supply chain, accounting). Trustworthy reporting and successful decision-making need cooperation among enterprise stakeholders to reach consensus on enterprise dimensions and business indicators. Business analytics

and intelligence may be "operationalized" by putting in place a governance structure that ensures dimension conformity. Clearly, Data Governance in the context of business analytics and reporting entails providing referential integrity across distinct but linked business viewpoints. This guarantees that when changes occur, they are reflected in the following areas: + Marketing view of revenues by market segment + Sales operation view across territories + Product line owner view of comprehensive product hierarchy + CFO view across several geographic locations. Key Capabilities Enabling Enterprise Data Governance: 1. Foundation for Policy-Driven Data : Organizations must be able to model many business entities simultaneously and across various constituencies. as opposed to a single. The need to manage enterprise data assets is fundamental to the business case for Enterprise Data Governance. As an example, Changes both outside and within the organization must be encouraged, since those on the outside of the organization are frequently in the greatest position to detect changes because they are closest to them. In order to accomplish their day-to-day work, the lineof-business user must be able to access the view that is most relevant to them. They must, however, be confident that their point of view is part of the overarching "shared" business model. This collaborative methodology ensures "referential integrity in the face of change." Individual adjustments will not violate downstream (or upstream) regulations or standards, nor will they ensure conformant behavior across the company. Rich versioning, which includes "as is," "as was," and "should be" views that can be created on demand, helps to reduce the maintenance load of historical data sets inside one's data warehouse, resulting in more agility and reduced costs to make these business intelligence initiatives feasible. Because data and connections change over time, the ability to reconstruct previous and predicted future master data linkages is required. These "time machine" historical functionalities are necessary not just in Finance

master data but also in Customer and Product master data. 2. Relationships in the Enterprise Hierarchy: The modelling of complicated connections is critical to the enterprise's knowledge of itself, its business operating models, and the ability to assist with difficult business choices. Multi-dimensional queries such as "how are we performing in this specific sales channel, in this particular location, in this particular micro client segment?" are examples of choices. These complicated interactions are often depicted as agreed hierarchies and taxonomies exhibited as conformed dimensions in an enterprise's multiple reporting levels. These hierarchies govern entity attribution, attribute inheritance, calculation and aggregation techniques, data granularity rationalization, and data mapping, in addition to reporting structures. 3. Metrics and Measurements: Poor or non-existent standard metrics and measures have a significant influence on application alignment and logical reporting and analytics. Errors in such reference data may have a cascading effect on the quality of master data in each domain, affecting the quality of all dependent transactional and analytical systems. Errors in reference data may have a significant negative and multiplicative business effect since it is utilized to drive important business processes and application logic. 4. Workflows for Collaboration: Much of the industry conversation about Data Governance is mainly focused on the concept of "data stewards" attempting to cooperate via Councils and Committees. The Enterprise Data Governance perspective is to allow "contextual data-driven processes" to drive change management—not only among Data Stewards and Subject

Matter Experts, but across and within organizational hierarchies as well. Clearly, front-line business users must be the authoritative sources of change, but collaborative processes will be required by all stakeholders involved to enable agreement, enrichment, and associative augmentation. Enterprise Data Governance enables changes to originate with front-line business users and to be reconciled across all information silos—front office, back office, and performance management office (for example, Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) groups). 5. Integration & Enablement of the Cloud : A critical component of corporate transformation is the creative management of business processes, information systems, and associated information assets across a heterogeneous IT environment. As businesses develop and expand, business models often become outmoded, expenses rise, and organizations must take a step back and review revolutionary architectures. Transformational events include an enterprise's choice to buy a company, enter a new market, adopt a new business model, outsource a business function, reduce in-house IT workers, and move to cloud-based applications (off-premise, hosted). 6. Create a Business Case: Many firms would merely look to cost avoidance when developing a business case for Data Governance, such as avoiding the expenditure of restating financial reports and paying regulatory authorities for noncompliance with watch lists. Responsible CxOs, on the other hand, concentrate on ROI value, such as decreased expenses for duplicating data quality controls and associated IT and labor costs, the realization of economic savings from lowering the number of syndicated data contracts, and so on. Data Governance programmes are increasingly being used to support critical business activities like as mergers and acquisitions, financial transformations, and the

consolidation of ERP or Data Warehouse systems. Another highimpact area (both in terms of cost avoidance and concrete ROI) is the implementation of Enterprise Risk Management systems to control credit risk connected with certain locations and sectors. 7. Inventory and prioritize the information assets to be managed: Data profiling software is often used to inventory (find, record, and value) critical information assets and assign Data Governance priority. A relative weighting is provided to each information asset when it is discovered and classified. Such relative values are critical indicators for ensuring that the most valuable information assets are prioritized for Enterprise Data Governance. 8. Align Enterprise Data Governance Outputs with Key Business Initiatives: Enterprise Data Governance champions and sponsors must ensure that their outputs are quantifiable and connected with both existing and planned transformative business projects. While this is true for any large IT investment or organizational re-engineering initiative, the consequences of failing to do so with Enterprise Data Governance may be exceptionally devastating to current and future Data Governance efforts. Already viewed as "bureaucratic overhead" or "IT procedures impeding business," such governance measures must have substantial public support from the senior ranks, even if one of the CxOs has this as part of their measurable portfolio for that fiscal year. And, although salary and public recognition should be clearly related to the high-level executive, such alignment should not be to a single CxO personality, but to that functional group. This reduces the risk that the CxO will quit the firm, and the absence of a key patron will sink the Data Governance programme (s). 9. Revise Organizational Roles to Allow Agility and Interlock:

Organizations should evaluate the business motivations, project scope, responsibilities, and individuals performing each function when developing an Enterprise Data Governance programme. Such "operational frameworks" for Enterprise Data Governance will often mirror the enterprise's organizational style(s) (e.g., strong centralized management vs. decentralized vs. conglomerate, etc.). The governance rules and procedures that govern staffing models must also take into account pre-existing data quality processes and personnel, societal conventions, and the business-operating model. Data Governance is more than just a product or a process. It is an ecosystem of products, processes, people, and information that is frequently comprised of a set of customized workflows, user interfaces, and forms designed by a third party consultancy to fill the void left by master data management solution providers' failure to provide such an integrated set of governance processes. 10. Update Data Governance Tools to Support Data-Driven Growth: Due to a lack of sophisticated and integrated IT capabilities to support this approach, Data Governance initiatives have traditionally relied on people and procedures. As a consequence, Microsoft Excel and SharePoint have become the leading software tools for documenting and sharing regulations pertaining to "governed" data assets. While such systems are inexpensive for most firms, they lack the core features for Enterprise Data Governance highlighted in this white paper. I identify four key components for effective redesigned data governance programmes: 1. Safeguarding: Your data's security has always been a priority, but the stakes have never been greater. Not only is the value of data increasing, but dangers are getting more sophisticated and rules are becoming more

stringent. To make things worse, consumer knowledge of breaches, as well as the danger they face, is at an all-time high. Your data must be safeguarded wherever it resides, and this process begins with data governance. When you know where your data is, you can put sensible data security policies in place to secure it. 2. Working together: Data governance is a team sport, and everyone engaged must be in regular contact. Data stewards and policy and process owners must be able to communicate material and practices with one another in order to see what works and what doesn't. Meanwhile, IT must maintain ongoing communication with the business in order to match its design, processes, and infrastructure investments with the objectives and policies that the company really values. 3. Quickness: Whether you are the disruptor or the disturbed, you must act swiftly (and maybe break things, challenging the status quo). A successful data governance programme must keep up with the times. It must be adaptive, progressive, and, above all, efficient. If it takes you months to finish the data discovery process or weeks to create a report, you won't be able to demonstrate its worth. Real-time learning and adaptation is a vital ability. 4. scale: Your data governance endeavor may, and often should, begin on a modest scale. However, in order to assist your data-driven digital transformation, it must expand into a company-wide initiative. This requires two types of capabilities: dealing with the sheer amount and diversity of data that must be managed in various applications and systems, and supporting the diverse demands of different lines of

business. Most Data Governance initiatives, in our experience, struggle to reconcile the primary aspects of effective data governance programmes' physical realizations in applications and systems. We discovered Informatica's data governance platform to be one such solution, which comprises of a group of products built on top of the Informatica Intelligent Data Platform to achieve effective data governance automation. Functionally, digital governance encompasses at least six axes that reflect the level of maturity in digital service uptake, integration, and consolidation. It carries the equation of traditional settings on one side and the growing relevance of the digital ecosystem comprised of integrators and partners on the other. The most common axes are: 1.Strategy: to maintain the digital strategy in line with corporate goals. 2.Analytics: to create the most effective resource allocation for big data projects, IoT, and other analytics needs. 3.Integration of services: establishing correlations between numerous digital sources and transmission of insights, as well as ensuring that the appearance and delivery of digital services is uniform across the business 4.Data: To industrialize the processes that transform data into business insights (this is not to be confused with analytics governance). 5.Adoption: create rules for digital role-based training and change management, covering elements such as security, consistency, and digital culture quality. 6.Optimization is the process of identifying new digital possibilities and testing multiple scenarios both inside and outside of the company (driving continuous improvement fed by the aforementioned digital ecosystem and keeping balance with the legacy environments) Major technical, environmental, geopolitical, and socioeconomic developments have transformed company expectations and

operational contexts since the turn of the century, necessitating a reexamination of corporate governance concepts and board procedures. These developments, in particular, have made environmental, social, governance, and data stewardship (ESG&D) issues far more relevant to the primary goal of businesses - sustainable value generation. This is eroding the traditional distinction between a shareholder-centric model of corporate governance focused on financial and operational risks and opportunities, on the one hand, and a stakeholder-centric model of corporate responsibility and citizenship focused on environmental and social risks and opportunities, on the other. The recent significant economic recession caused by the present global public health crisis is the most recent evidence of the increased materiality of ESG&D aspects in our more linked and interdependent society. This crisis, which comes on top of recent protests about inequality, injustice, and climate change, #MeToo scandals, air, water, and climate-related production and financial losses, employee health and safety disasters, trade war-related supply chain disruptions, cybersecurity breaches, and growing concerns about personal data privacy and ownership, and skilled-worker shortages and immigration restrictions that companies have faced in many countries, should put any doubts to rest. As such, they must be more thoroughly incorporated into company governance, strategy, and operations rather than being segregated and de facto subjugated as issues of corporate social responsibility, as they have historically been. Stakeholder capitalism is defined by such integrated corporate governance. It is required to put into practice the vision and principles articulated in the World Economic Forum's updated statement on The Universal Purpose of a Company in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the US Business Roundtable's revised Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, as well as a growing number of globally aligned regulatory and voluntary frameworks. As they emerge from crisis management, the leadership requirement for boards and their executive teams is to put these broad ideas into concrete practice. If stakeholder capitalism is to be more than a pipe dream, it will need to be adequately defined in operational and governance terms, and such practices must be widely embraced by boards.

We find six interconnected areas in particular that need more Board stewardship and Governance: 1: Align strategy and capital allocation with long-term value development drivers: Boards must link their strategic ambitions, especially capital allocation priorities, with key drivers of long-term value development. Companies must intensify their focus on intangible drivers of value as they adapt to a new economic context, changed workplace conditions, and raised expectations as a result of the pandemic, as well as ongoing environmental constraints and the acceleration toward digital transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. These include research and innovation, employee well-being, talent development, company culture and human rights respect, and building external stakeholder connections and trust. Priorities for capital allocation must be carefully questioned in order to balance near-term shareholder returns with investments in long-term growth possibilities, supply chain resilience, and human, social, and natural capital and infrastructure. Collective initiatives such as the World Economic Forum's Compact for Responsive and Responsible Leadership, Focusing Capital on the Long Term, the Embankment Project for Inclusive Capitalism, and the Aspen Institute's Long-Term Capital programme are examples of what leading companies are doing, and more of it is needed. 2: Integrate important management:

ESG&D

variables

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corporate

risk

Boards must obtain a better grasp of fast emerging environmental, social, governance, and data stewardship (ESG&D) risks as part of their risk oversight duty for operational, financial, reputational, and regulatory risks. They must give supervision on the major risks that these represent to the company's own financial position and operational performance, as well as the significant dangers that their company's actions cause to people and the environment. They must

also be able to thoroughly assess alternative investment, innovation, and technology choices for managing present risks and preventing future ones. Committing to science-based climate objectives and reporting to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) are becoming more important for most business boards. Setting public objectives for water stewardship, nature-based solutions, and contributions to a circular economy is also a good idea. Respect for human rights, protection of people's health and safety, greater inclusion and diversity, and investment in addressing inequality and building skills for the future are significant goals in terms of the "S." Clarity about company mission, ethics, compliance, anti-corruption, tax payments, and political activity are all governance challenges. Furthermore, major data stewardship goals for boards include cybersecurity, the use and control of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and privacy and data ownership problems related to data collection, administration, and usage. In all circumstances, regulators and investors are increasing their expectations for precise company pledges and responsibility. 3: Increase readiness and resilience in the face of crises and systemic shocks: Financial crises, recessions, and political confrontations are all on the increase, as are natural catastrophes, the effects of climate change, and pandemics. Boards play an important role in overseeing their company's capacity to react to and recover from these events. To improve preparedness, they must conduct more frequent and sophisticated scenario analysis and horizon-scanning activities, ‘stress-test' the company's resilience against shocks that could have system-wide implications, and implement crisis response and emergency succession plans for mission-critical roles at the executive and operational levels. The Board's duty in a crisis management scenario is to assist management in putting people first, particularly the health and safety of workers and other stakeholders, supporting vital activities and operations for company continuity, and giving supervision of financial risks and resilience. As quickly as feasible,

directors should meet with management to discuss recovery alternatives, potential changes to strategy and business models, and opportunities to increase operational, cultural, financial, and technological resilience in the future. 4: Involve the company in collaborative initiatives to improve its operational environment: Boards have a greater stake than ever in the health of their company's operating context, particularly the strength of the social fabric and the norms and public institutions that underpin the functioning of the rule of law, respect for human rights, and fair and efficient markets in jurisdictions where their company has significant operations. They should, for example, collaborate with management to: i)Form the firm's investment in education and training to educate the future workforce and promote an equitable transition for individuals whose employment and livelihoods will be impacted by automation, transitions to online and remote working, the transition to a low-carbon economy, and other fundamental economic transformations. ii)Examine their worldwide tax policies and procedures to guarantee that business taxes are paid fairly in order to fund public goods and services and effective public institutions. iii)Identify areas where the company can play a role beyond its own operations in addressing structural inequality and injustice based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and/or household income, for example, through investments and advocacy to expand economic opportunity and advance social justice. iv)Consider how their firms may contribute to common public agendas such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement, particularly via policy conversation and lobbying.

5: Coordinate the preparation of the company's mainstream reporting: There is an increasing need for Boards and management to prepare the company's mainstream disclosures in an integrated manner that integrates financial reporting with reporting on key ESG&D risks and possibilities. Because these factors have become more material, wellgoverned corporations must include them in their mainstream disclosures and ensure greater transparency and accountability to investors and other stakeholders by setting public targets, providing independent assurance on performance against these targets, and analyzing strategic risks and opportunities. The World Economic Forum's International Business Council is leading an effort to identify a core set of ESG metrics and disclosures that are common across industry sectors and can be integrated into mainstream reporting on a consistent and comparable basis, in collaboration with Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PWC. Furthermore, efforts such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board are underway (CDSB), The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Climate Disclosure Project (CDP) are offering guidelines on additional issue- or sector-specific disclosure objectives. All Boards should be aware of, and capable of overseeing, the developing agenda for corporate transparency and responsibility. 6: Align the structure, composition, and involvement of the Board with these imperatives: Boards must include these concerns into how they are constituted and arrange their work. The incorporation of ESG&D oversight into multiple Board Committee charters, as well as the establishment of a specialized Board committee to handle these concerns, is an important topic for study. Similarly, ensuring the appropriate balance between Committee-based work and incorporating these issues into full Board discussions on corporate purpose and culture, strategy, risk

management, scenario and competitiveness analysis, major investment decisions, business planning, target setting and performance oversight, executive compensation, and succession planning. To be suitable for purpose, directors must have a considerably broader range of talents, experiences, gender, color, nationality, and age. Furthermore, boards must boost internal participation, including but not limited to the company's top management team, as well as external interaction with stakeholders ranging from investors to scientific, community, and political leaders. This six-point leadership action plan should be considered by every Board, regardless of jurisdiction, ownership structure, or business style. It is a call to action and practical resource for Boards looking to keep up with changing economic circumstances and social expectations – to "walk the walk" of stakeholder capitalism – as they emerge from the current crisis and reset their firms' operations and governance in accordance with lessons learned. Boards must incorporate these ideas and practices across industry sectors and nations if business is to regain and preserve public confidence and achieve the full potential of stakeholder capitalism. Such integration is necessary in today's society to produce long-term sustainable value for shareholders and other stakeholders equally. What is the missing link? Governance built for the industrial era and established in ever more sophisticated legally mandated systems, carried out by complex software’s and unnecessary paper puzzles. Given the size at which certain firms operate, some of this is practically unavoidable. What exactly does this mean? Following are some examples: 1.I've seen firms where even the most ordinary procedures, such as travel and spending, are designed to account for the 0.01 percent of individuals who would scam the system. The remaining 99.99 percent suffer. 2.I've seen businesses grow and discover there are process levels for even the most basic of tasks. They increase friction.

3.I've seen procurement timelines increase at a time when automation and approval procedures may and should significantly shorten time to action. 4.I've seen pricing strategies emerge that make it hard to modify an SKU within six months. All in the name of 'policy' or 'governance,' of course. Each adds to the cost of providing products and services. The cost of congested supply chains, repurposing, and refitting must be in the billions of dollars. All of this before we even begin to consider any kind of change that would result in effective efficiency in the digital era. In that sense, Brian Sommer is certainly shouting at the moon when he recently lamented the finance department's ongoing spreadsheet obsession. That's an excellent point. Then there are firms like GM, which is taking on Uber via its relationship with Lyft. Readers with long memories may remember that GM declared bankruptcy in 2009 and was bailed out by the US government for $50 billion. While the bailout cost US taxpayers $11.2 billion, GM emerged significantly leaner, albeit smaller, and has since made regular, albeit small(ish) profits. The reasons of GM's bankruptcy were various, but they can be boiled down to two elements that loom big in people's general thinking about the future of business, as well as one crushing catastrophe it could not avoid: 1.Product-centric rather than customer-centric. 2.Focusing on the bottom line rather than investing in actual innovation (think process strangulation.) 3.A significant commitment to prior employee pensions that proved too onerous in the context of how GM was functioning. Governance? It is, indeed, the secret beast inside and among these three.

Recently, the once-mighty IBM has been more shaky. It can't seem to get a break from financial experts, and for good reason. Its business model is under attack in numerous dimensions, but more importantly, it is unable to address process-bound challenges rapidly. IBM has been here before, and the experience was not pleasant, resulting in a near-death experience. Some may say that in recent years, IBM has hollowed itself down in a manner similar to GM, with an irrational push towards an unattainable financial aim. That seems to be the case, but development is glacially slow. As a result, it was intriguing to learn that IBM is discontinuing the yearly review. This is a significant development, yet it is fraught with difficulties. When the cause for the change is stated, it is self-evident: ...through the year, "new things [would] come up," according to [Diane] Gherson [CHRO]. IBM workers are "iterating and experimenting," she adds, and this frequently means they aren't working toward the yearly goal they set for themselves. Nonetheless, Gherson says, personnel would find themselves in a "irrelevant conversation" in December, attempting to determine whether they'd met the targets they'd set 11 months before. This has substantial HR governance concerns, but if properly implemented, should have a large beneficial effect on all stakeholders, including workers, IBM, and its customers. Unfortunately, there are no comments on that item, so the issue, which was made over nine years ago, remains unanswered. I've never seen a suitable set of alternatives, but Taylor's work has echoed unnervingly through the years. Growth, in my opinion, leads to acquired governance, which leads to institutional stagnation in the middle tiers of management and, once acquired, is very difficult, if not impossible, to move without a near-death experience. Why? Careers are built on sustaining the status quo, and it's remarkable how simple it is for individuals to hide behind vast hierarchies for years on end,

doing just enough to avoid the difficult issues. It comes as no surprise that what began as a process-establishing exercise gradually but ruthlessly changes into atrophied systems bound together with mountains of meaningless paperwork and where the motivation to automate is nil. Even when commanded by the C-suite and enabled by technology, change becomes almost impossible. I remember a small but intriguing programme that had the potential to assist one organization recognize top achievers in a novel manner being crushed into near-complete irrelevance once middle management got a hold of it. Endless rounds of debate and correspondence instead of 'just getting on with it' in the name of policy, governance, and budget reshuffling. What caused this to occur? The C-Suite advocate lacked the time to cut through the red tape. Is there a solution? For many organizations, implementing a digital transformation agenda may be a difficult task. To ensure that digital transformation efforts are effectively planned, financed, and executed, strong governance is required to balance risks and opportunities. Unfortunately, robust organizational governance is often overlooked in favor of quickly deploying various technologies throughout the firm, which not only adds complexity to the technological stack but also raises friction for many stakeholders. In this post, we'll look at some of the important topics that are developing in organizational governance and digital transformation. Many employees in major businesses recognize the need of a culture transformation that leads to data-driven decision-making and adaptation. In their essay "Adapting to a New World: Facing the Challenges of the Post-COVID-19 Landscape," PwC looked at this. The writers discuss how the epidemic affects the economy and how firms should adapt in the face of increased uncertainty and risk. The advises firms to ‘rethink, fix, reconfigure, and restart' their roadmaps, and in some instances significantly rebuild them, in order to protect their enterprises in the future. Despite this, huge corporations face inertia when it comes to making drastic changes. While many executives realize the growing need for governance, it is frequently

difficult to persuade decision-makers farther down the organizational hierarchy of the need of a comprehensive governance system. Without an organizational governance structure that enables fast change, these organizations risk slipping behind smaller, more agile rivals that understand how to execute a successful digital transformation by: 1.Adopting a culture of collaboration 2.Increasing security 3.Including DevOps in a successful company plan 4.Choosing API management that allows them to connect with developing technologies. In many circumstances, the sheer size of an organization stops it from moving ahead and growing at a rate that keeps up with technology. Many organizations have an uneasy connection between organizational governance and digital transformation. Department silos exacerbate the issues that major corporations face when it comes to changing organizational governance and digital transformation. Department heads who have never employed a digital strategy previously may be unaware of the need for change. They may also lack the skills required to use information technology, much alone newer technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchains. Some departments inside the organization may see the significance right once. It only takes a few holdouts to stymie the digitalization required to create effective company operations that save costs while enhancing consumer experiences. Because the silo mindset is resistant to change, decision-makers may need to take efforts to get everyone on board with the new vision. When departments refuse to forsake outdated systems, the CIO may encounter severe challenges in identifying a solution that will lead to digital transformation. In certain circumstances, short-term solutions may include APIs that allow new tools to communicate with old systems. Every system, however, eventually outlives its usefulness. In this way, organizational

governance and digital transformation are inextricably intertwined — breaking down silos within an organization is a vital role of a governance system. When done correctly, an organization's governance programme will not only provide a lens for corporate risk management, but will also provide consistency across the organization. Someone, such as a Chief Digital Officer (CDO), should ideally take responsibility and make it clear how the organization must evolve. This transition, however, is handled via established organizational governance, which can steer the organization through this shift in a controlled and successful way. More focused attention to digital transitions is becoming more important in corporate governance. This study uses design science to create an information technology and innovation (IT&I) committee as part of corporate governance for organizations undergoing digital transitions.. We conclude from our study that the seven Dutch organizations analyzed that are undergoing digital transformations have corporate governance difficulties as a result of these developments. These difficulties include a lack of digital competencies and expertise, as well as a lack of passion and emphasis on digital transformation. The audit committee in most firms covers the risks connected with information technology, especially digital transitions. However, our study indicates that the audit committee does not, by default, concentrate on the commercial prospects of digital changes. Our study presents a framework for an IT&I committee that improves corporate governance while also creating long-term value via IT, technology, and innovation. The IT&I committee advises and oversees digital transitions, as well as assisting the board of directors in making decisions. Overall, our findings imply that establishing an IT&I committee enhances corporate governance for organizations undergoing digital revolutions. We concentrate on the board of directors in our study and cover organizations with a one-tier board as well as organizations with a two-tier board. Engaging in digital transformations raises corporate governance issues and requires more in-depth IT skills. Internal

(executive) directors and long-serving chief information officers (CIOs) serve on the board of directors. Legislators also underscore the significance of these concerns by enacting particular digital laws, such as Australia's Digital Continuity 2020 Policy and the General Data Protection Regulation and cyber security in Europe. Enterprise information and technology governance is an essential component of board governance. IT governance at the board level is described as "the board's efforts to guarantee that the organization's IT supports and expands the organization's strategy and objectives". We define digital governance as the board of directors' oversight of all IT-related renewal and innovation, as well as digital transformations supported by new technology, including the adoption of new business models. In our study, innovation is defined as technological innovation, with a greater emphasis on the integration of business and information technology. Creating a committee guarantees that executives with specialized knowledge may devote sufficient attention to a subject. As a result, a successful audit committee strengthens corporate governance. It has competent members with the power and resources to defend shareholder interests via thorough oversight efforts by assuring accurate financial reporting, internal controls, and proper risk management. This will increase the separation between company management and shareholders, with boards protecting shareholders' interests. According to agency theory, shareholders need to be protected since corporate management (agents) may not always behave in the best interests of the shareholders (principals). To address this agency issue, the board of directors takes on an oversight function that often includes reviewing corporate management, approving plans, and monitoring the control system. An IT&I committee, as an inherent aspect of corporate governance, is required for organizations to further strengthen corporate governance engaging digital transformation. Organizations may institutionalize a focus on digital transitions by engaging and appointing (non)executive board members with the appropriate profile to their corporate

governance. Some organizations have previously established a committee to handle these issues. However, such a committee exists in only a few organizations, and its authority and tasks are not clearly recognized. This is becoming increasingly serious as a result of the difficulties connected with digital transitions. Our study goes into great depth on the composition of this committee. As our study area, we defined corporate governance with a focus on technology and innovation. The audit committee, based on the ACE framework, and the emerging technology committee serve as the cornerstone for this study. This comprises a literature analysis as well as combined desk research on charters of analogous committees from fourteen worldwide organizations, which are included in Appendix B. A Google internet search for "IT committee charter", "board of directors digital transformation", "innovation committee", and "technical committee" was conducted since the charter papers are part of the disclosure of corporate governance arrangements and therefore publicly available. The authority and purpose specified in the charters, as well as professional judgement, were utilized to guarantee that only relevant charters were included in this study when selecting charters for the design of the artefact. We did not distinguish in our design for the corporate governance structure, including country peculiarities, nor for organizational performance or senior and non-executive profiles. Case studies have been used to test the IT&I committee's design. The primary purpose of the case studies in this study is to describe a developing phenomena — corporate governance of information technology, which is one of the three primary goals of case studies . The use of ex-post naturalistic assessment methodologies, such as case studies in design research, results in higher internal validity. We performed seven in-depth Dutch case studies on organizations undergoing digital transitions, as well as six paired interviews with executive and non-executive directors whose duties include information technology, for this study. The seventh case study is based on a single interview with an executive board member in charge of information technology. Publicly accessible resources, such as

annual reports and business brochures, are used to support all case study interviews. Because the seven case studies have varied business features, the case study analyses do not contain a crosscase study analysis. The organizations analyzed were chosen based on their accessibility to interviewees for the researchers, but they are typical of the Netherlands in terms of corporate size and industry variety. The case studies include privately owned businesses, publicly traded enterprises, and government-controlled organizations. An "exploratory-descriptive" case study was the most suited research approach. This allows one to elicit data and information from informants in order to develop a new model rather than evaluate an existing model. Each interview lasted 45 minutes to an hour and was filmed and transcribed. Six open questions were used in the semistructured interviews to determine how corporate governance overseeing digital changes is organized. By collecting the concepts and phenomena expressed by respondents, the interview transcripts were reviewed and reread to determine the enabling function of committees in this area. We concentrated our analysis on digital strategy and transitions, as well as involvement and meeting frequency within corporate governance. The data was analyzed in three stages: preliminary data analysis, formal data analysis, and final data analysis. The preliminary analysis was already completed during the interviews. Following that, the material gathered was submitted to an interpretive analysis in order to organize it in a way that corresponded to the study topic. This entailed combining ideas with actual evidence. According to the charters examined, the IT&I committee aids and advises the board of directors in carrying out corporate governance tasks, with an emphasis on one or more of the following topics: 1) Information technology, 2) digital changes, and 3) technological advancements This involves providing supervision, evaluation, risk assessment, and advise on this domain to ensure that, given their significance and related risks, these topic areas get enough attention at the board level. Board resolutions may eventually be developed and approved by the complete board of directors. It is necessary to adhere to the corporate governance concept that each individual member of

the complete board of directors is always accountable for all decisions made.

Figure 7.5 Six Principles of IT&I Committee for Digital Governance When transformation governance is ignored or weakened, especially in organizations with more than 1,000 employees spread across many regions, teams will soon confront a slew of unwanted difficulties. While things may seem cosy, collegial, and pleasant in the beginning, the consequences of poor transformation governance are certain to emerge over time, causing turmoil, uncertainty, and political complicity. Senior stakeholders, such as the CEO, will finally be obliged to intervene since poor governance has failed. Newly hired transformation leaders often set out to meet what they've been told are the crucial success aspects of change: Management of People,

Processes, and Technology in Innovation. While satisfying these common requirements is important, none of it will result in the desired business results until the appropriate transformation governance architecture is in place. And it's only a matter of time until poor governance becomes the core source of unpleasant problems. In many situations, as teams are putting out flames, an experienced eye will see that transformation governance has been missed or weakened, and that this is the root cause of the fires that are raging left, right, and center. If you are leading a transformation initiative within an organization with 1,000 or more employees, which may span multiple countries or continents, you should be working with someone who has been involved in the establishment of robust governance models that address four main types of governance – preferably on a scale equal to or greater than the organization in question. By appropriately addressing the governance model "upfront," you can significantly decrease misunderstandings later in the process and minimize misalignment of expectations across the different business units or enterprises. Consider this for a moment: if your finance, procurement, or human resources processes and procedures are compromised, you realize that's an open invitation to disaster, right? As a result, it should come as no surprise that when change governance is jeopardized, turmoil ensues. So, let's look at four forms of governance that should contribute to your overall transformation governance model, as well as some (but not all) of the variables to consider for each: 1.Governance of Programs: Program governance offers a linking mechanism, monitoring, and control to assure alignment across numerous initiatives, corporate strategy and direction, and the path to attaining the firm's desired goals. When creating programme governance, five elements should be considered:

i)Quality assurance and control ii)Structures such as the steerco, programme office, project, and programme organizations iii)Mechanisms for providing direction on issues such as escalation, decision requirements, and policies iv)Controlling the scope and the changes v)Management of resources 2.Governance of Global Solutions: Global solution governance is in charge of overseeing the design and approval of technical deliverables, as well as the actual construction of the solution. Global solution governance specifies who will own and manage the solution, as well as how ownership will change when it is deployed in multiple physical locations and business divisions. When building global solution governance, there are five elements to consider: i)The present control culture at the firm ii)Future business model (centralized or distributed systems and decisions) iii)Availability of resources iv)Current business model and landscape of IT systems v)Strategy for the overall technological environment 3.Governance of Organizational Change Management (OCM): OCM governance focuses on what has to be done by whom and with whom to guarantee that workforces and business units are adequately prepared for business transformations. When designing organizational change management governance, there are five elements to consider:

i)ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES RACI ii)Strategy and plan for OCM iii)Assessment of business preparedness and decision making iv)Assessment of the effect of change on people and business operations v)Communication with, and participation of, stakeholders and the broader workforce

4.Governance Following Go-Live: Post-go-live governance is concerned with production support as well as the roles and duties of your technical centers of excellence and business divisions. When building post-implementation governance, there are five elements to consider: i)RACI of roles and duties in production support ii)Detecting and preventing cybercrime iii)Ownership iv)Integration with broader governance The five characteristics listed in each of the four forms of governance are far from comprehensive, and your transformation management adviser will assist you in ensuring that your governance model is both solid and flexible enough to suit the demands of your specific environment. Until such a compromise is reached, a snowball of uninvited problems will gather velocity and continue to wreak havoc wherever it chooses. Keep in mind that we're talking about complicated programmes in huge organizations that are often distributed across numerous nations. Not small local projects where teams often enjoy basic advantages like co-location and simple management decision making.

There are three major lessons from this catastrophe that businesses should bear in mind when they relaunch. Begin your digital transformation journey right now. There is no one-size-fits-all approach; each organization is unique, but manual procedures cannot be relied on, particularly if regulated. There is just too much at stake, and the dangers of penalties, reputation, and failure are far too great. Prepare for remote working as a long-term and sustainable option. The disaster struck without warning, leaving little time to prepare. But, at this point, you should have a solid idea of what worked and what needs to be improved. Remote working may be incredibly efficient if done correctly, but you must have a plan in place and adopt technologies to manage teams and processes digitally, ensuring that it is done safely and in accordance with laws and regulations. Companies' decision-making procedures will be permanently altered. Consider meetings of the board of directors, shareholders, and committees. Because these discussions could no longer be conducted in person, it was discovered that the digital counterpart was usually more efficient and just as successful. Indeed, we feel that virtual meetings are the greatest long-term answer beyond coronavirus for the following reasons: 1.Everyone gets easy access to material, allowing them to prepare well in advance of the meeting. 2.Meetings are shorter and more focused on objectives and goals, making them much more cost effective. 3.Decisions are promptly recorded, allowing for improved monitoring of decisions and activities. 4.Furthermore, since there are fewer displacements to go to meetings, the CO2 footprint of meetings is substantially smaller.

Digital governance is a framework that aids in the establishment of lines of responsibility, responsibilities, and decision-making power for an organization's digital presence. Websites, mobile sites, social media outlets, the internet, and internet-promoted businesses and services are examples of digital tools. Digital governance specifies who has decision-making responsibility for managing all digital tools and procedures for the company, as well as who is accountable for doing so. The rules, procedures, principles, infrastructure, and support that shape how digital tools and services contribute to produce value for the organization are referred to as digital governance. A set of guiding principles and performance targets are also part of digital governance. Your organization's digital policy should outline the acceptable criteria for what the company accepts and disallows on the internet, as well as internet-related activities. A digital governance policy is a series of written declarations that control how risks are managed and guarantee that people participating in digital operations do not diverge from the company's purpose or other fundamental values linked to the organization's online presence. A digital policy also establishes the parameters for the nature of a company's online presence, such as digital quality and efficacy. The EDGE operating model of governance is based on agile concepts, which are used to strategy creation and execution tasks. Today's governance has devolved into an unbalanced state comparable to that of software development around the year 2001. The agile manifesto at the time attempted to prioritize functioning software above extensive documentation. Most governance models concentrate an emphasis on activities and often impose restrictions and constraints that limit value generation. Governance, as it is generally implemented in bigger organizations, is one of the most significant impediments to business agility and product innovation. The basic goal of governance under EDGE is to: 1.Ensure that goals, bets, and projects are aligned with customer value objectives (including budgets); 2.Allocate and manage the decision-making authority necessary for

accountability; and 3.Ensure that efforts adhere to internal and external norms and standards. Traditional portfolio management and project governance systems, we find, put a significant focus on documenting deliverables and finishing tasks to avoid errors and limit risk in most organizations. The EDGE operating paradigm recognizes that it is simply impossible to remove errors. Instead, EDGE calls for a governance approach that improves organizational capacity to "recognize errors early and react quickly, therefore limiting costs and decreasing risks." To put it another way, the EDGE governance model encourages learning from experimentation in order to optimize for customer value. Below are the Transformation :

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1.Create a shared understanding. A successful digital transformation requires the coordination of organizational, cultural, technological, and procedural changes. A consistent knowledge of language and techniques serves as a model for everyone engaged in planning and executing across all lines of defense. 2.Consider the long term while acting iteratively. Develop your risk and control strategy as you go. Delaying your digital transformation to achieve "perfection" from the start is not only impractical, but it is also risky, since engagement and maturation via learning will result in a better process in the long term. 3.Organizational preparedness should be prioritized. Prioritize analyzing and improving competencies and skills, as well as establishing the appropriate organizational structures and operational models. This may initially take the shape of specific teams, but in the long run, a more comprehensive strategy will be required.

4.Implement specialized yet integrated governance. Establish a programme office with necessary leadership supervision and an overarching transformation programme oversight strategy (e.g., council or committee). Ensure that your technical, operational, and security risk governance serves as a check and balance for programme governance. 5.Define the basic minimal security and configuration requirements. Assist in the development and updating of security and other configuration standards and principles in light of new work. During the beginning stages, there should be a clear description of the minimal criteria that apply to a specific type of workload (based on the criticality of data or business function). 6.Define the initial risk as well as the compliance supervision. Create early risk monitoring frameworks and iterate regularly depending on experience and learning; they should contain particular metrics and related thresholds or restrictions. Use independent expertise and testing to evaluate ideas and initiatives, especially in the early stages. 7.Maintain open lines of communication with boards and regulators. The first line of defense should show proactively to the board of directors, and separately to regulators, that the firm has sufficient risk management in place. Risk, compliance, and audit activities should give an unbiased assessment of the level of controls and risk tolerances. 8.Development of skills and training Make certain that the business has a complete training strategy in place for all employees to build deeper experience in cloud technologies, in order to facilitate a secure future shift of responsibility and execution from small specialized teams to the larger organization.

9.Create detailed security and configuration guidelines. Require precise rules, standards, and frameworks for how cloud installations are to be carried out and how such standards are to be followed. This should allow for the development and deployment of "classes of workloads," rather than simply specific projects. 10.Modernize IT service delivery. Determine how technology and business divisions are planning to gradually modernize the software development life cycle in order to benefit from and maintain the cloud's security risk mitigation capabilities. Integrate security and configuration standards across the life cycle and tools. 11.Integrate risk management. To reflect the organization's evolving usage of the cloud, update risk and control taxonomies (risks, controls, and effects). Change supervision mechanisms, such as Risk and Control Self Assessment, to account for new responsibility and accountability models, such as those of the cloud provider. 12.Extend the monitoring of continuous control. More of your controls may be defined as code or otherwise systematized when implementing technologies in the cloud. Utilize this cloud property to continually monitor important controls to ensure they are installed, active where anticipated, and working in accordance with specified goals. 13.Connect the cloud to other risk management systems. Oversee changes to linked risk programmes, such as third-party risk assessment and resilience programmes, to reflect the organization's usage of the cloud to supply technology while also taking advantage of lower risk and more transparency in cloud services. 14.Motivate cycles of continual development. Assess the organization's capacity to improve on a constant basis. Are controls regularly monitored, employing cloud-based technologies and security controls? Are architectures improved on a regular basis to allow

controls that were previously judged unworkable? Is new cloud provider functionality being used? 15.Maintain current knowledge of cloud best practices and revalidate assumptions on a regular basis. Change regulatory and standards monitoring regimes to detect and react to changes in external cloud requirements and best practices. In light of this, and as your organization's usage of the cloud matures, modify scenario planning techniques geared to analyses tail risks. 16.Concurrently manage legacy. Ensure that the risk and governance apparatus remains properly focused on existing technology, and that decisions on maintenance, upgrades, and other day-to-day management are compatible with the continued safe operation of legacy systems.

Figure 7.6 Digital Transformation for Collaborative Data Governance Framework Data governance and digital transformation are inextricably linked. Neither can exist in the absence of the other. An effective data governance structure may help any transformational endeavor by providing the following advantages: 1.Increased Data Quality: Currently, data is collected and stored throughout the company in diverse systems, apps, and processes. Each of these data sources is made up of fragmented, old, and duplicate information, resulting in massive disorder and disconnection. Messy data is kept in antiquated systems that can't keep up with technological changes. The most common source of data quality issues is a segmented, fragmented organizational environment. When data is erroneous, inconsistent, or incomplete, decision-makers may base long-term or short-term strategies on false data. Furthermore, organizations may have ineffective data management and submit inaccurate reports to authorities, resulting in expensive fines and penalties. Commerzbank was recently fined $38 million for failing to maintain adequate data controls (Source). The process of deploying new technology may be hampered if the data is not clean or "excellent" enough. Firms are unable to go ahead and expand their company with low-quality data because it rapidly filters down the corporate pipeline. People, processes, and technology that are compartmentalized should be brought together as part of the digital transformation. Effective data governance connects the disparate organizational environment. It establishes methods and policies to guarantee that poor data quality is discovered and remedied on a continuous basis. Rather of manually correcting the inaccuracy, users may reconcile the process or rule that generated the data problem in the first place. Having clean, structured data puts businesses in a better position to develop and implement new technologies.

2.Improved Business Decisions: Enterprise silos, as outlined in our previous piece, continue to keep firms process-defined rather than data-driven. Firms cannot acquire a comprehensive perspective of the data and indicators that drive their decision-making with separate platforms. Incomplete or erroneous data leads to incorrect insights and bad business choices, both of which have a detrimental impact on operations and the bottom line. How can a company make a judgement based on incorrect data? Effective data governance breaks through company silos, giving business users end-to-end (E2E) access into their data, insights, and trends for improved decision-making. With an E2E perspective, businesses can forecast and respond to trends, introducing efficient and innovative technology for their staff and customers. 3.Advantage in the Market: Maintaining a competitive edge may be simple for startups and enterprises with huge IT resources. However, for smaller businesses or those with limited resources, being able to recognize trends and act on transformative opportunities ahead of rivals is critical to staying ahead of the competition. With a strong data governance structure in place, businesses can be certain that their digital transformation efforts and investments are being directed to the most successful and distinguishing projects. They are also able to employ best-in-class solutions from others for commodity things. This is because they can look across their data as the underlying environment changes. They can even look across data as they replace outdated solutions with new ones, ensuring that the output is proper. Enterprises must clarify their data governance policy before embarking on digital transformation activities to guarantee E2E visibility and continuing data quality. Any digital transformation effort will almost likely fail if the underlying data is inadequate.

Chapter 8: Digital Dexterity Digital dexterity refers to their capacity to adapt and accept current and new technology in their sector in order to create better outcomes for their firm. Because the digital world is always evolving, personnel must be willing to adapt and innovate with new technology. There are three ways to assess digital dexterity. However, before you begin an evaluation, be certain that everyone involved knows why the measurement is necessary, the advantages of dexterity, and how the results will be utilised. Digital Dexterity often referred as DD. Step 1: Assess Your Digital Dexterity: I propose anonymizing any survey answers to ensure that the aim of improving overall organisational digital dexterity is prioritised. Methods for Measuring Digital Dexterity: i)Assessment ii)Declarative iii)Observation i)Method #1 - Assessment As the name implies, this is a formal assessment of a worker's competence to utilise digital technologies. Assessment is not a new concept. For many years, businesses have conducted word-perminute typing examinations. Furthermore, many firms run role-based fundamental tests on popular technologies such as the Microsoft Office suite of products, Windows, and other key applications. This is without a doubt the most intrusive measuring procedure. I advise you to use a professional digital dexterity evaluation instrument. These tools may be used to assess certain skills and knowledge areas in order to identify strengths and deficiencies. Although these tools are often used to teach employees, the evaluation section gives good analytics. ii)Method #2 - Declarative

This method of measuring is based on the development of a survey for workers to describe their general aptitude for the usage of various technologies. Create the survey in order to have an insight of their attitude toward technology. Create questions to uncover data that isn't accessible in standard evaluations. Include inquiries such as: 1.Investigate how your staff utilise technology. 2.When and why do they utilise it? 3.Their attitude toward modern technologies The declarative method has the benefit of acquiring a grasp of an employee's goal and ambition in terms of technology. iii) Method 3# Observation: Existing, the observation technique is mostly used to analyse employee utilisation of currently installed technologies. Many software systems provide activity tracking and give both high-level and specific use statistics. There are two approaches to acquire an idea of an employee's desire and ambition in terms of technology: 1.Understanding how to utilise modern tools 2.In contrast to the utilisation of legacy technologies, new methods of working (like email)

Step 2: Baseline and Benchmark Your Numbers It is difficult to turn the notion of digital dexterity into a more real project without data. Data gathered via evaluations may be used to create a baseline against which your business can compare itself to other companies. Here are 6 indexes suggested by Gartner: 1.Consumerization – constantly changing work requiring judgement calls 2.Team-based collaboration – a desire for organic, non-directed conversations on high-level shared interests 3.Nonroutine work – valuing personal growth through new adopting

new emerging technologies and techniques at work 4.Nondirected social engagement – a desire to work closely with team members 5.Tech positive – a desire to solve problems with new technology 6.Work anywhere – the ability to work ad-hoc, not chained to a desk Step 3: Align Digital Dexterity with Current Business Goals and KPIs: This is the most important phase and adds the most value to your digital dexterity. The ultimate purpose of your metric analysis is to find the actions that are directly associated to better or lower baseline scores. For example, attempt to link corporate objectives such as enhanced staff retention or improved sales performance to higher dexterity ratings. Then you'd have a strong case for why additional digital workplace initiatives should be funded. Digital Dexterity is the ability of an organization's personnel to be selfsufficient and hence capable, nimble, adaptable, and successful in embracing any current or developing technology for improved business results. Below are few benefits to DD: 1.It assists firms in aligning their company strategy, training their workers, developing a better customer solution, preparing for digital disruption, and streamlining corporate objectives. 2.The purpose of Digital Dexterity is to make a company nimble and adaptive to cultural and technical changes. 3.According to Gartner, digital transformation (DD) promotes employee autonomy and consumerization of technology. 4.It offers workers the confidence to be a part of the organization's future by proactively upgrading themselves on a regular basis to readily meet organisational expectations. Technology is evolving and changing at a breakneck pace. While some businesses struggle to adapt to change, others plan ahead of time and build their infrastructure to support the future changes. The distinction is DD. For example, Apple pushed the boundaries and provided its clients with an experience that no other company in the market could match. Many firms took almost 5 years to catch up with Apple, while others, like as Nokia and Blackberry, lost market share

and finally disappeared. The explanation for this is DD. As technical innovations accelerate, the growth and fall of enterprises occurs at the same rate. It is typically difficult for organisations to pivot in the midst of an operation. The problem is a lack of digital dexterity. There are crucial characteristics that a person must possess, as well as additional qualities that the business must give, in order to maintain Digital Dexterity. Here are the eight most important factors that each firm must consider: 1. Establish your objectives and plan for the future: Before embarking on this journey, businesses must first outline their aims and objectives. Every firm has a unique goal, and understanding the "Why" can assist you in developing a strategy. Furthermore, the "Why" should not be confined to the objectives but should aid in the development of long-term goals. It is possible to do this by examining current market trends, competition, and other variables affecting your firm. Introspection is also necessary since it will assist you in understanding the gaps in procedures, technology, and skills that may be needed with the most recent transformative initiatives. 2. Maintaining a Positive Attitude: A clear mentality is a combination of having a clear digital and personal clarity from the perspective of an organization. If a company wants to be successful in its transition, digital adoption must be a top priority. However, in order to allow it, the company must function as a unified unit and be proficient in Digital Dexterity. To accomplish DD, HR, Team Leaders, Managers, and C-suite executives should educate and raise awareness among their staff about the advantages of being in the DD mode. It will assist workers in overcoming mental barriers and motivating them to acquire a healthier mentality on a personal level. In order to do this, firms must concentrate on building a mentality in which each person has a natural propensity toward data and applicable digital solutions to increase productivity, creativity, and customer experience. An company with the right mentality will be able to get a lot out of the implemented solutions. Furthermore, they might

always consider upgrading to superior technology at any moment in order to enjoy the most benefits. Once the mentality fusion is complete, firms may innovate, re-invent, alter, and deploy new procedures to remain ahead of the competition. 3. State of Receptivity: Change, like Digital Dexterity, is an ongoing process. Technologies is always changing, and many firms are trying to integrate new technology. But did you realize that employee resistance accounts for 70% of all transformation attempts that fail? Even if staff have a clear mentality, too many changes may be overwhelming. It finally becomes an issue later on since they will be resistant to change. It's like shooting a moving bob while blindfolded. The preferable way would be to adopt a Digital Adoption Platform like Apty, which can handle major organizational transformations easily. It enables your employees to seamlessly embrace any deployed application. It eliminates dependencies and saves time during deployment. 4. Improving your digital dexterity: Many organizations are becoming digitized, yet there is a considerable difference between having digital aptitude and having digital dexterity. The difference is in how well you've honed your DD skills. An organization that values cooperation, communication, and a datadriven strategy is more likely to succeed than one that does not. It is critical to break down silos and collaborate as one cohesive entity. To promote greater transformative initiatives, the company must improve cooperation and communication. Collaboration across all departments and personnel is required for success, whether in HR, Marketing, Sales, IT, Testing, Finance, Operations, or Services. It allows individuals to freely and effectively convey their views. It also makes it easier to spread the newest solutions and technologies across regions and divisions without encountering any pushback. In our fast changing world, it is critical to be data-savvy. Employees must be at ease with

drawing insights from accessible data in order to make critical choices. Investing in cutting-edge software is pointless unless you utilize it to its maximum potential. As a result, it is equally crucial to fully use your programme. A collaborative and data-driven workplace fosters a culture of knowledge sharing and adaptability. 5. Adaptability and Agility : We already know what makes a company stand out, but a few more characteristics are required to attain Digital Dexterity. For a company to attain DD, agility and flexibility are also required. Trends change all the time, and having an agile strategy across the business opens up a plethora of opportunities. They might revert if the begun method is unsuitable for a certain department or if the trend shifts. Developing an agile attitude in the business process, technical efforts, and cultural change will make any organization competitive and a leader in their area, if done consistently. 6.Increased Engagement and Digital Tools : Once the methodology and mentality are in place, firms must concentrate on increasing engagement with the newly implemented technology. It is critical for businesses to require their workers to interact with the most recent application over time in order to gain the most benefits. However, in order for this to happen, firms must prioritise effective staff training. There are several conventional ways, such as: i)Live-online training ii)classroom instruction iii)Session Pre-Recordings iv)PPT v)LMS

vi)PDF These strategies are beneficial and should be used; however, they should be supplemented with current Digital Adoption Solutions. Because it saves time and leads workers through the application from one step to the next. Because it is an in-app guidance solution, it serves as a ready-to-use guide and knowledge store. 7. Digital Expertise : According to a recent Capgemini poll, more than 77 percent of firms believe that a lack of digital skills leads to the failure of their digital business transformation. It is a real worry for contemporary firms, and obtaining the proper digital skills may prove to be a mammoth challenge. The truth is that if the talent gap is that large, the best way would be to educate both new and current personnel to meet organizational and industry expectations. However, the most difficult challenge in this scenario is determining how the employee utilizes the programme and how far they have progressed after the supplied training. In this scenario, extracting insights is critical for mapping employee growth and analyzing application difficulties. Apty is a tool that may help you draw Application and Walkthrough insights. Application insights assist in gaining an understanding of how the programme is being used, where the true faults are in the application, and how the user is using the application. Walkthrough insights teach you about how on-screen instruction is utilized and suggests adjustments that might boost employee engagement. 8. Training on Demand : Employees, Partners, and Customers may become digitally capable, but they may encounter certain challenges from time to time. The

user's path to being dexterous may be impeded if he or she is not comfortable with change and is content with the supplied answer. The ideal method to combat this is to reduce dependence and make the user feel comfortable and capable at all times. It is possible to do this by having a solution that is always present in the application and advises users when needed. These are often in-app navigation tools that serve as an interactive knowledge base. It delivers walkthroughs, required documentation (in any format), videos, and knowledge base connections to users. Furthermore, these technologies may be tailored to each job function for a more personalized user experience. Gartner, an analytics group, has invented a new word, digital dexterity, along with many business advice. You're not alone if you're unsure what digital dexterity is. Craig Roth, vice president of Gartner Research, defined it as "the capacity and desire to apply technology for improved business results." That term may still seem hazy if you're not clear where talent and ambition fit into the effective use of technology in business, but diving a little deeper helps make the entire thing more comprehensible. According to Helen Poitevin, vice president and analyst at Gartner, digital dexterity is less about technical capabilities and more about "a certain set of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors." In a nutshell, digital dexterity is the process of creating a tech-friendly company culture. It's not so much a technological idea as it is a cultural one. "Business models increasingly rely on their workforce's digital dexterity to leverage technology to achieve digital transformation objectives," Roth added. Any new technology project, product release, or change in the way things are done demands a workforce that is ready to fully engage with new technology, modify their work style to accommodate it, and rapidly grasp how it fits into an organization's broader objective. "No matter what new technology or method a firm determines it has to use, the transformation will not occur until people completely participate with it," Roth noted. The CIO's involvement in transforming a corporation into a digitally savvy one. So, what role does the CIO play in all of this? According to Daniel Sanchez Reina, senior director

and analyst at Gartner, they are "essentially the cornerstone of the whole notion." "The CIO will play a critical role in encouraging desirable behaviors and modifying the processes, procedures, rules, and management practices that influence how work is done." It may be difficult to shift an entire company from one that opposes, or at best accepts, new technology. CIOs have a difficult path ahead of them, but it is not insurmountable. Roth advises CIOs to adopt the following initiatives to assist cultivate a more digitally savvy workforce: 1.Begin by conducting surveys or focus groups to identify variables that decrease workers' motivation to modify their behavior. Determine what went wrong in the past and how it may be corrected. 2.Create a benchmarking/measuring mechanism for assessing workers' (and general cultural) attitudes regarding new technology in the workplace. With such information, you may decide where and how to direct your efforts (e.g., on one department or a particular kind of technology). 3.Consider creating a "future visioning endeavor" that envisions the future of your specific organization. People may be more likely to embrace new technology if they perceive it as a component of a better future. 4."Training in citizen programming, citizen data science, and any other areas where non-IT professionals may identify a need that technology could address and work independently to fulfil it." Digital Dexterity is the secret sauce for establishing an agile and adaptable workforce that is critical to the success of digital transformation programmes in the corporate environment. It enables businesses to adapt to new technology, changing consumer expectations, industry developments, and so on. And achieving digital dexterity entails more than just being digitally literate. Aside from improving technical capabilities, DD is about matching personnel and company strategy in order to get better business results. When you

introduce new technology, DD assesses if your staff are prepared to change their workflow to accept the new programme. Thus, it all boils down to easily and quickly recalibrating human and digital resources to match ever-changing technology and market circumstances. Some of the top characteristics of digital dexterity include a consumerized workplace culture (facilitated by the use of contextual in-app advice tools such as Whatfix), long-term vision, and a willingness to try, fail, and learn from failure. Take the time to teach people on new technology and explain how it fits into the bigger picture. By demonstrating where a product fits and how it may improve collaboration, make data collection simpler, and help the business move ahead, users may become less hesitant to using it. Implementing a culture shift toward more digital dexterity is a massive undertaking, particularly in big firms with tech-resistant staff. CIOs have a lot of work to do if they want to establish digitally agile businesses. Companies are speeding headlong toward a future brimming with disruptive corporate technology, as outlined by Ray Kurzweil in "The Law of Accelerating Returns." This is particularly true since SaaS technology makes it so much simpler for businesses to try out various software solutions. As a result, according to the current adage of ‘survival of the digitally fittest,' it is critical for businesses to 'adapt digitally or perish'. And, in the frenzy to shift from the old-school PC era to the more complex SaaS, AI, and IoT eras, internal workforces are not moving as swiftly. As a result, there is a growing gap between the 'pace of technology introduction' and the 'ability of employees to use the technology.' This chasm-like digital dexterity gap is one of the most significant impediments to digital transformation. Close this gap, and your organization's use of technology to provide value to consumers and workers will most likely shift. According to Gartner, people with high DD are 3.3 times more likely than those with moderate DD to begin, complete, and get the consequences of digital transformations. To that end, here are seven actions your company can take to

improve its readiness for digital Dexterity: 1. Visualize your company's digital future: First, examine the market and anticipated technological advancements. Next, identify the new technologies that your organization intends to use in the near future in order to keep one step ahead of the competition. Then, consider how these technologies and digitizing activities will affect your company and current procedures, as well as what new skills your staff will need to master to remain relevant. 2. Discover what motivates workers: Instead of disregarding how end users feel about IT changes, business executives should investigate what they can do to keep them engaged. You may learn how your workers feel about new business technology by using surveys and focus group talks. You might inquire about their technological difficulties and what solutions would be most effective in achieving their objectives. You can separate personnel into homogenous groups after you understand their various demands. Then, you may tailor digital dexterity development programmes to each of these well-defined groups. You may even encourage workers to gain digital dexterity by providing incentives and bonuses based on the success of their company's digital activities. Like a result, by approaching staff as customers, you can plan a tech-friendly work environment and workflow. 3. Remove any impediments to dexterity: Hands-on learning modules, design thinking (empathy and customer journey maps), and A/B testing may make adopting and utilizing technology simple and stress-free. You might also use Digital Adoption Platforms (DAP) like Whatfix to take a more developed

approach to software onboarding. Its intelligent Interactive Guides are an excellent onboarding assistance tool that reduces barriers to access and increases agility, which enhances digital dexterity. Also, keep in mind that good communication is critical to preparing your staff to be "digitally ready" for the shift. As a result, ensure that you ‘set the digital business narrative,' emphasizing the relevance of DD for the success of your tech-led business endeavor and how everyone can participate to it. You may utilize various media (emails, internal forums, launch parties, etc.) to explain to your staff how the new IT system or software will help them achieve company objectives more effectively. 4. Emphasis on ongoing learner-centered training : One of the most significant impediments to digital dexterity today is a scarcity of competent personnel. Indeed, according to a McKinsey Global Institute poll, more than a quarter of workers would need to be retrained or replaced between 2018 and 2030 due to AI and automation. Businesses can help to alleviate this problem by providing quick access to tailored software and soft skills training. You may improve the efficacy of your training programmes in real-time by using Whatfix's in-app assistance system. It is also feasible to increase workers' capacity to utilise digital tools and reduce resistance to change by making corporate technology simple to use and accessible on-demand. This on-demand system also assesses training efficacy using sophisticated analytics to offer customised learning modules. Prioritizing experience-based learning programmes will help you increase staff capabilities, which are essential for digital dexterity. Innovation initiatives, process shadowing, academic alliances, employment rotations, peer advocacy, and reverse mentorship are examples of these. Singapore Airlines (SIA), for example, developed SIA Future@Work, a development programme aimed at improving workers' digital skills and capabilities. This programme focused on innovation and included "training, seminars, expert presentations, and peer-learning sessions on data analytics, design thinking, and agile skills." Such measures undoubtedly aided SIA personnel in being adaptable and supporting continual learning. Furthermore, by allowing

technological self-service, employees may execute activities without relying on IT or support personnel. You might use Whatfix's contextsensitive self-help widget to cut helpdesk support costs and obtain real-time assistance. 5. Make an investment in leadership development: Aside from educating your employees, it is also critical to provide business unit executives and department heads with knowledge of upcoming technologies that may disrupt their sector. Then teach them how to freely debate digital possibilities and choose the best tools to support development. They should also be able to shift attitudes and create new digital-friendly workplace models by altering current procedures and flows. According to Heidrick & Struggles' study, leadership's digital dexterity may be measured by their ability to mobilise, execute, and adapt with agility (META). 6. Encourage diversity: This is a process in which the HR department must be heavily engaged. It is critical to have a workforce with diverse viewpoints to encourage digital competence. It would also be beneficial to have personnel with a wide range of specialised skills, from technology to psychology and communication, to call on in order to ensure the success of the digital revolution. As a result, the HR leaders, in collaboration with the business heads, should: i)Using data analytics, identify skill shortages in the current workforce. ii)Maintain a current list of talents necessary for your firm to be digitally agile. iii)Allow technical personnel to make business choices and business personnel to make technical ones. 7. Initiate a societal shift: Employees that are really digitally dexterous are not just tech-savvy, but also thrive on risk-taking, learning, and collaboration, work

iteratively, learn from setbacks, and embrace inventive and systems thinking. In order to stimulate personalization and innovation, the company will also support enhanced data monitoring and analysis. P&G does this with its Decision Cockpit, which provides a single data and analytic repository for decision-makers across regions. It also features "Business Spheres" meeting rooms for collaborative decisionmaking. To achieve such cultural changes in your workforce, you must make strategic adjustments to your organization's procedures, incentives, budgets, policies, and management. Not sure whether your staff are prepared to deal with changes in your company's digital landscape? Here's a brief check list to see whether you're ready for digital dexterity: i)Is your company open to new technologies? Have the past three to four IT initiatives yielded a favourable ROI? ii)Do workers receive real-time, contextual help with new technologies? Is it possible for them to learn how to utilise the new tool while they work on it? iii)Have you digitised your core operations? iv)Is your organisation on the lookout for new employees with a diverse set of digital and cultural skills? v)Are your company's choices supported by data and analytics? vi)Is your company supportive of collaborative problem solving and learning? vii)Is your company's employee performance measure linked to the success of digital initiatives? viii)Do your workers embrace new roles and methods of working to assist digital projects? ix)Is your team adaptable enough to take part in new technological

efforts with ever-changing requirements? x)Do you create digital change collaboration with your employees?

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xi)Are your digital transformation project schedules set up in a way that allows for failure and learning from mistakes? If you replied 'no' to more than half of these questions, it's time to go back to the drawing board with DD. There is no fast route to digital dexterity, so prepare to spend substantial time and effort in making your team digitally competent. If there's one thing business executives can agree on, it's that digital dexterity is rooted in company culture. Employees will have trouble accepting the digital dexterity concept and may reject it totally if the environment is not receptive of innovative ideas and risk-taking. Promoting digital dexterity at work entails encouraging certain habits that will enable it to thrive. While computer savvy is definitely an important component of digital dexterity, so are other characteristics. Employees must be collaborative, adaptable, and receptive to new ideas. In reality, even those with little technical skills may find themselves on the upper end of the digital dexterity spectrum if they are ready to take risks and experiment with new methods of working. Surprisingly, according to Gartner research, digital dexterity is not always confined to younger generations. Millennials have not been proved to be more technologically savvy than their elders. However, certain sectors and job functions exhibit more digital dexterity than others, particularly those in tech-focused companies or who occupy more senior positions. Digital dexterity at work is difficult to come by, but the advantages provided by people who are extremely technologically dexterous are priceless. According to Gartner, these people are three times more likely than their colleagues to have a positive influence on business results. Here are a few examples of how digital dexterity might assist your workplace: 1.Greater adaptability. Employees that are digitally savvy are more

likely to explore new positions and wear multiple hats in order to aid the company's transition to a digital workplace. 2.More freedom. Employees are more eager to work on projects with changing or ambiguous aims and requirements. They recognise that they have a role in defining the foundations of these programmes. 3.Increased efficiency. Employees take use of and adapt to new digital possibilities in order to increase the efficiency of their respective departments. 4.Workability from a distance. As long as the necessary technology are in place, the workforce can work from anywhere. 5.Consider the larger picture. Employees with high digital dexterity see the advantages of digitalization for the firm as a whole and are prepared to take risks to achieve this end result. Living in 2020 has taught us various things, like how to organise productive virtual conferences, work from home, and digitally improve ourselves. Digital dexterity is evident in everything these days, from ordering your favourite pizza on a delivery app to calculating its merits on a health website and searching YouTube for simple homemade recipes. Digital dexterity seems to be a key standard for organisations, including both employers' and workers' usage of contemporary technologies. While some companies love experimenting with new technology, their rivals may take weeks or months to adapt, resulting in significant financial losses. As a result, being digitally savvy may make or break an organisation in these unpredictable times. We will explore what digital dexterity is and how businesses may use it in their workplace to increase employee engagement while keeping humancentric and tech-centric factors in mind. Employees are only reluctant to change when they are unsure of its advantages; nevertheless, here is where you may inspire them to improve their critical competence and skill set. So that's everything you need to know about digital dexterity.

Digital dexterity is described as workers' ability to adapt to current and new technologies in order to achieve certain business goals and outputs. Employees should be encouraged to adopt digital information, which will have an impact on the company on an individual, team, and organisational level. We're not just talking about improved abilities here; we're also forecasting a shift in mindset. As a consequence, you would be looking forward to working with a progressive and future-oriented workforce that has adaptable mindsets and ideals in order to achieve useful outcomes. Those with outstanding dexterity are more willing to try out new digital tools, technologies, and projects. With the introduction of digital dexterity, organisations can cope with evolving industry demands, consumer expectations, business goals, personnel processing, and workflow adjustments to accommodate new technologies. When combined with a long-term aim, flexibly strategized processes and a positive temperament to learn from errors are beneficial in workplace digital dexterity. As a result, digital dexterity has the potential to revolutionise cultural and hierarchical institutions in a timely, collaborative, and efficient way. Digital dexterity has improved dramatically in recent years, implying that sophisticated technology will soon be prevalent in the majority of contemporary jobs. Employees increasingly work on digital platforms, which necessitates learning about various technologies. Business strategies are most effective when combined with digital abilities to optimise processes and procedures for a better customer experience. The following are the benefits of digital dexterity: 1.Remote working: In times of pandemic, digital dexterity is a godsend for ensuring that workers can do their tasks in the safety and comfort of their own homes utilising current technology. 2.Increased efficiency: Employees may use greater digital chances to increase efficiency in their tasks and departments. 3.Greater autonomy: Using digital technologies, team members may

work at their own speed and perform better on projects with variable deadlines. 4.More adaptability: As they adjust to the digital change, employees are interested in experimenting with job definitions and duties. 5.Support the organisation: As team members have a better understanding of the company's long-term objectives, they may use digital technologies to help the department. As previously said, digital dexterity is more than just upskilling yourself and your team members; it is about bringing about a shift in thinking and mindset. Nonetheless, the following are the conditions for creating a digitally powerful workplace: 1.Willingness to try new things and the desire to do so: Open-minded individuals are willing to try new things in the workplace; nevertheless, it might be difficult to persuade senior employees for a variety of reasons. This is where human resources and leadership join in to guarantee open and clear communication about the advantages of digital dexterity in terms of employee career advancement and company development objectives. 2.Business strategies that are flexible: Agile firms may strategize rules and processes while also adapting to changing market conditions. They do not have to deal with long bureaucratic procedures because of their superior organisational, strategizing, and operating abilities. Instead, they may concentrate on larger prospects. This requires recognising and integrating appropriate technologies into your process. 3.Technical ability: Technical expertise is unquestionably important, and qualified personnel may learn to work with digital tools, which is advantageous in the era of cloud-based apps and other on-site IT platforms. They

may also upgrade their products to include new features and other capabilities that can be included in the onboarding and training process. Though adding 'digital dexterity' to your calendar for the next months is simple, it is tougher said than done. This is how you break down a long-term objective into manageable tasks: 1.Determine the ultimate aim: Experts in digital can assess present and future technological and commercial developments. Determine the tools your organisation will need and how they will affect its business operations and results. Examine how staff can be prepared for digitalization and what new skills they will need. 2.Include a variety of abilities: Employees must be equally skilled in psychology, communication, and technology, in addition to hard skills. As a result, HR departments can identify skill shortages and enable employees to build and retain their digital abilities. People that are digitally aware are eager to take chances, cooperate, create, and learn, which will improve your work culture in policies, incentives, management, and budgets. 3.Assist them in honing their digital abilities: Employees often get overwhelmed with IT upgrades and other changes at the start of a digital transformation. Group talks and surveys may assist corporate executives in determining what is and is not working for their personnel in terms of attaining their objectives. Furthermore, launch parties, internal forums, welcome movies, and emailers may explain why a certain product is needed and how to utilise it effectively. Even once the team has become acclimated to the system, the focus should remain on ongoing learning and leadership. Discuss digital technology alternatives and methods for ensuring corporate development, shifting attitudes, changing processes, and

creating tech-friendly workplaces. Your objective as an employer is to empower your staff by using developing technologies for their careers and your goals. If you invest in their future, they will invest in your company's success as well. "We are experiencing what will undoubtedly be recognised as a historic deployment of remote work and digital access to services across every area," Intel CEO Bob Swan recently said in a letter to customers. He's right: in reaction to the coronavirus, numerous firms were compelled to adjust to a remote world almost immediately, reducing what would normally be a multi-year digital transformation strategy into days or weeks. Those with technologically savvy personnel, on the other hand, had an advantage. The phrase "digital dexterity," coined by Gartner a few years ago, does not refer to a specific hard talent or set of technological skills. Gartner describes it as "both the skill and motivation to utilise and use current and upcoming technologies for improved business results." And this soft competence provides a substantial competitive edge to businesses. According to Gartner, highly digitally savvy individuals are 3.3 times more likely to execute digital projects swiftly and effectively—and McKinsey research suggests that making aggressive steps to embrace digital technology early and at scale is associated with greater predicted revenue and profit growth. While your company may have adapted to remote work, being more digitally savvy might better position you for the next technology shift. Here are a few ways HR may help a digital dexterity strategy build a more resilient and forwardthinking organisation. According to Gartner's study, just 9% of workers now have high digital dexterity, thus keeping digitally savvy individuals should be a goal. Examine current teams and interact with management throughout the business to determine which individuals are taking the lead in advocating for, implementing, and maintaining efficient and successful digital solutions and procedures. These early adopters have the potential to shape the future of your firm, so urge management to acknowledge their achievements and engage them in co-creation

possibilities. Cheerleading training programmes and transformative projects may also be able to assist convert people around them. Hiring at your firm may have slowed or stopped for the time being, but that doesn't mean you can't assess your hiring process to verify it still corresponds with your objectives. Do you have any interview questions or tests in place to evaluate prospective candidates' digital dexterity? And, if not, how can you modify your procedure to account for this? This might be as basic as asking applicants about their expertise using current digital solutions or analysing new ones. However, whichever technique you use, ensure that hiring managers across the firm understand why they should be assessing applicants for digital dexterity and how this will help their team. When companies depend on out-of-date, on-premises IT solutions, it sends a message to workers that their employer does not respect digital proficiency. Workers may be discouraged from acquiring new digital abilities if they have no need for them at work, while tech-savvy prospects may be discouraged from applying. The most technologically savvy firms seek out robust digital solutions— technology that is nimble, efficient, and available from any location. Most workers are already used to utilising technology like this in their personal life, so it's critical to assist bridge the gap between their experiences as a consumer and as an employee in order to demonstrate that your firm isn't falling behind. The good news is that you may already have migrated some of your solutions to the cloud in order to offer the mobility and flexibility necessary to support a dispersed workforce. However, even if the transition to remote work is merely transitory, reliance on cutting-edge technology should not be. Cloud solutions allow workers to collaborate and access businesscritical information in real time, regardless of where they are or what devices they are using, making your workforce more nimble, efficient, and informed as a whole. This is critical during times of crisis, but it is also a benefit your firm should not overlook when things are going well. In these days of fast digital technology development, a myriad of innovative tools are making their way into our workplace as part of

digital transformations. As a result, a rising proportion of workers' work is being done utilising digital tools and platforms. As a result, it is smart for company plans to obtain the most recent digital skills in order to improve internal processes and produce a better end-to-end experience for digital firms. This is when digital dexterity enters the picture. Digital dexterity is seen as a transformative capacity that may be used throughout the whole organisation of various sectors. It outlines the crucial "people" component required for digital firms to prosper. It is commonly acknowledged that any opposition to change, particularly from workers, has the potential to stymie even the most strategic organisational transformation. It is advised that in the pursuit of digital transformation, a number of tactics be used to inspire workers to embrace change and make the most of investments made in digital capabilities. Organizations seeking a high degree of digital dexterity need people with the cognitive and social skills to utilise new talents, data, and technology in novel ways. As a general rule, organisational structures for developing digital dexterity should avoid rigorous stages and severe deadlines. Instead, they try to set critical milestones for each aim and then re-evaluate plans after those milestones are met. Similarly, data analytics combining qualitative measurements should affect decision-making. Developing a staff that is digitally savvy is critical for digital enterprises to survive in today's business market. However, many organisations are perplexed about who should be in control. Because of the technological side of digital transitions, it may seem sensible for the IT division to take the lead. However, fostering an organizational-wide adjustment in mentality is beyond the scope of our technological expertise. The Human Resources division should be in charge of initiating the initiative to encourage digital dexterity in worker practises, in full cooperation with line-of-business management. They should establish and execute a plan for recruiting, developing, and keeping the best possible mix of employees with the necessary skills, talent, and competencies. Initiate and manage a digital training service, providing a diverse choice of programmes and tool options based on existing and emerging digital technology capabilities. It is critical to improve the average technical competence of all teams, which will need a more

developed approach to software onboarding and personnel training. As previously stated, the growing speed of technology progress will favour personnel who exhibit the capacity to learn and use new digital technologies. This will be critical for the uptake of cloud-based SaaS programmes, where upgrades and new features are delivered out on a constant and timely basis. Engage staff in digital dexterity-building initiatives such as hackathons, innovation programmes, citizen development, and IT job rotations. To assess and monitor effect, use digital workplace initiatives in conjunction with an organisational maturity model to methodically develop digital dexterity and workplace analytics. Fill digital dexterity shortages via talent search throughout the business, worker realignment, and deliberate recruiting procedures, as well as using outsourced labour. Align digital dexterity projects with your company's data science strategy and digital transformation goals. This requires systematically developing key citizen data science capabilities throughout the enterprise, including HR and business stakeholders. Moving forward with a strategy to foster digital dexterity would need strong leadership and acceptance, not only training programmes and technical assistance. HR will need to lead the way, while team leaders should prioritise using workplace data to meet the requirements of individual workers. Mentorship, clear communication, and, most crucially, more successful software onboarding are all examples of this. Getting workers to create a true interest in the vision of digital technology adoption, like any transformational endeavour, requires an open mind on the part of the business. If dexterity is a prerequisite for adoption, then an open mind is a prerequisite for dexterity. To drive digital dexterity investments, leadership must embrace the favourable association between technological advancement, the future of work, and employee engagement. Employees who embrace how the company is changing and desire to improve their digital abilities will be crucial in propelling your corporation ahead. . It is the Chief Information Officer's responsibility to build a digitally savvy organization. The CIO is in charge of promoting and supporting desirable behavior as a requirement for change management.

However, transitioning an entire company from one that refuses, to one that welcomes, new technology may be very difficult. CIOs have a difficult path ahead, but it is not insurmountable. Following these principles, CIOs may instill digital agility in their employees: 1) Begin by determining what hasn't worked in the past and how it can be fixed. Use surveys and focus groups to uncover variables that cause workers to be resistant to change. 2) Develop a metric for assessing workers' attitudes about new technologies in the workplace. This data can assist you in identifying areas that need more attention, such as a certain department or procedure. 3) Create a vision for your workplace's future and share it with your staff. This will increase your workforce's willingness to adopt new technologies as a stepping stone to a digitally changed future. 4) Thoroughly train users on the new technology, emphasizing the advantages of enhanced cooperation, efficient data collecting, and improved business efficiency. As a result, they will be less resistant to change. Many organizations have fallen behind due to the increasing rate at which technology is changing. Businesses must step up the pace, restructure their business models, and adapt to this new technological reality in order to stay competitive and at the forefront. The success of firms such as Airbnb, Zomato, and Amazon stems from the fact that they not only scaled up their digital efforts, allowing them to disrupt traditional business models and create attractive customer experiences, but also guaranteed the digital dexterity of their personnel pool. Simply said, digital dexterity allows organizations to integrate their digital business strategy with personnel capabilities. As companies implement new-age technology in their pursuit of digital transformation, they must also improve their workforce's current skill

sets and competencies in order to optimize overall business results. Organizations will be vulnerable to delivering on digital promises to their consumers if digital efforts are not aligned with business goals and personnel skills. According to statistics, organizations who embrace digital transformation have a 16% gain in sales, a 26% increase in profitability, and a 12% boost in market values. To bridge the gap, businesses must arm their workforce with agile practices, as well as build their knowledge base and skill set of new age technologies such as AI, ML, IoT, and Data Analytics – all of which are required to accelerate their digital transformation goals and achieve business objectives. To encourage digital dexterity in your company, you must first discover which attributes are most closely related with those talents and then create strategies to cultivate those qualities across your organization. Here are seven of the most crucial: 1.Thinking forward: Is your organization looking forward or trapped in the past? To succeed in today's ever-changing economy, you must keep a close watch on current trends while also forecasting what's to come. In terms of technology, this entails seizing chances to be an early adopter and assisting your employees in mastering a solution ahead of the competition. 2.Mindset adaptability: Often, teams get locked in an outmoded "if it ain't busted, don't repair it" mentality. That makes sense, considering that humans are creatures of habit, preferring to remain in places where we are most at ease. However, when your team is strongly committed to outdated

goods and methods, it restricts innovation. Businesses must foster adaptability and exploration to overcome this. Employees should realize that failing is OK as long as they learn from their mistakes. 3.willingness to change: Negativity spreads quickly, particularly when it comes from the top. Employees typically drag their feet and fight change since that is the prevalent attitude in their department. This is why it is critical to identify and develop change champions who can assist ignite forward momentum. 4.Prepared for digital transformations: When it comes time to adopt a new solution, how prepared are your employees? Readiness requires more than a quick email or statement during an all-hands meeting. To increase your company's digital dexterity, make sure they have early access to new projects as well as a location to obtain information, such as a knowledge management platform, so they can swiftly overcome the learning curve. 5.A digital-first strategy: Do you consider using new technology to solve an issue or meet a consumer demand when you encounter one? Becoming a digital-first firm entails incorporating digital solutions into every decision and relying on digital goods or platforms before relying on conventional ways. It takes time to develop a digital-first mindset, but it will ultimately become second nature. 6.Decisions based on data: Rather of depending entirely on gut or preconceptions, digitally savvy leaders examine the data first and utilize those insights to guarantee

they're making the greatest possible decision. After all, one of the most significant advantages of digital transformation is increased access to data. And the more data you gather, manage, and utilize, the better off you will be. 7.Increasing employee engagement: If you work in an authoritarian company where top executives make all decisions behind closed doors and subordinates are simply given commands, you'll never develop advanced digital dexterity. Instead, strive for openness and a culture that encourages people to explore, invent, and share their opinions. Giving your staff the flexibility and support they need will provide the groundwork for long-term digital competence. Digital dexterity is improving the digital employee experience (DEX) is a great place to start. DEX refers to how workers engage with the IT department and any technological capabilities available in their workplace. Adopting a digital experience management (DEM) solution that can assist monitor and simplify the end-user experience is the best method to improve DEX. Businesses must adopt workplace practices and tools that are adaptable and adhere to the norms and constraints that vary on a daily basis as they adjust to hiring a hybrid workforce. Employees will feel more consistent whether they work from home full-time or engage in a hybrid approach. The DEX is critical to the overall success and productivity of a digital workplace. According to a recent McKinsey survey, most corporate leaders regard hybrid work as the dominant paradigm in the workplace, with nine out of ten organizations saying they have embraced a hybrid model or aim to make it a staple in the way they conduct business. However, 68 percent of respondents said they don't have a precise strategy for how the hybrid model would function or what it implies for their day-to-day operations. DEX is a vital goal for 67 percent of IT executives questioned for our recent The Future of Digital Workplaces research, yet it's not monitored internally by half of the C-Suite. Furthermore, the same C-level respondents predict a 14% increase in

productivity with the appropriate DEX, and 90% agreed that digital experience would be a priority post-pandemic. Aside from the many benefits of emphasizing DEX, the poll shows a clear profit potential when organizations concentrate on their IT operations. C-level respondents said that if they could greatly enhance their DEX, they would save 18.1 percent on total business expenditures. Extrapolating it over the Fortune 500 would result in a $4 trillion revenue potential. Working in a hybrid workplace necessitates the rapid implementation of optimized IT solutions in order to decrease downtime and boost productivity. After all, if an employee spends four hours on the phone with IT waiting for the server to come back up, that's half a day lost. Every day, the typical employee suffers 25 minutes of downtime due to IT difficulties. That equates to two hours of productive time every week. Having the correct DEM technology in place may greatly boost staff productivity and engagement, decrease or avoid distant network difficulties, and reduce employee burnout, particularly among IT workers. Implementing digital apparatuses is only an investment of non-living resources, but gaining copious results from digital business endeavors is secured by bright and ambitious people. This review research intends to shed light on an essential behavioral attribute of workers, namely, digital dexterity (DD), which has emerged as a prognostic module of beneficial digital transformation. Through the use of digital business literature, the review effort produced an understanding of DD in the context of HRD. Personal innovativeness, self-efficacy, and technical self-efficacy were used to better define the unique idea of DD for practical applications. Then, solutions for developing DD in the workplace were addressed from the viewpoints of individuals, leaders, and corporate organizations. The study conclusions may help HRD managers, industry experts, and academic specialists build a proper plan of action that prioritizes the employee in the context of digital transfusion. This study would give a deeper understanding of the HRD industry, as well as the Management Information System field, in order to stress employee-level innovativeness at the workplace.

Digital dexterity is the ongoing organizational competence to restructure and deploy both human and digital resources fluidly and dynamically in response to rapidly changing technical and market circumstances. Digital dexterity is generated not just by technology, but also by people who use digital technologies to think, act, and arrange themselves in novel and productive ways. Digital dexterity is generated not just by technology, but also by people who use digital technologies to think, act, and arrange themselves in novel and productive ways. Most major corporations are not recognized for their agility and nimbleness. So, how can these firms build the digital agility required to succeed in this day and age? We did a multi-method research at MIT with my colleagues to explore the organizational experience of digital transformation. We polled 299 professionals, managers, and higher-level officials from 146 firms across numerous sectors and in over 30 countries as part of this study. This study discovered four interconnected traits that equip firms to react with digital agility to multiple waves of future innovation over the long term, rather than a single practice. A digital mentality is characterized by a proclivity to seek out digital solutions, to utilize technology as a tool for competitive advantage, and to address business data in a systematic manner for customers, partners, and workers. Employees and managers enjoy the advantages of speed and connection more often when they automatically resort to their digital tools and data to enhance operations or develop new products. According to the findings of our poll, having a digital mentality is strongly and favorably related with having digital dexterity. Businesses in our sample with the greatest levels of digital dexterity had digital mindset measures that were 12 percent higher than firms with medium levels of digital dexterity and 30 percent higher than organizations with the lowest level of digital dexterity. People with digital mindsets like to innovate with technology, they feel their goals are feasible, and they actively experiment with digital solutions. As they achieve and advertise success with these solutions, positive attitudes begin to spread across the entire

corporation. Following choices and activities are influenced by new attitudes. Leaders, for example, may spend more in data quality or data collection. They may also attempt to improve their analytical capabilities or to increase their staff with specialized or complementary skill sets. Many businesses are beginning to digitize their operations. What actually matters in terms of digital dexterity is the extent to which firms participate in collaborative learning and data-driven decision-making. Collaborative learning entails cooperation and partnership that is not limited by discipline, location, ownership, or other conventional restrictions, and it guarantees that ideas and solutions travel quickly and easily across borders. Data-driven decision-making entails constantly utilizing data to guide choices rather than intuition or the highest paid person's opinion ("HiPPO"). According to the results of our poll, data-driven decision-making and collaborative learning are both favorably related with digital dexterity. In our dataset, firms with the greatest levels of digital dexterity reported collaborative learning measures that were 17 percent higher than organizations with average levels of digital dexterity and 46 percent higher than organizations with the lowest level of digital dexterity. Similarly, high dexterity firms demonstrated data-driven decision-making measures that were 18% higher than medium dexterity businesses and 50% higher than low dexterity organizations. Our case studies show that collaborative learning may help conventional businesses create positive attitudes and beliefs about digital transformation across their organizations. Once in place, these shared attitudes, as well as common standards for utilizing data and disseminating information, allow receptivity to flexible and fluid methods of working that are not hampered by disparities in expertise, position, status, or affiliation. As regular and well-defined jobs are mechanized, the remaining labor positions become more creative, open-ended, and non-routine. According to our poll, significant success factors for this workforce include technological expertise and digital abilities, but especially strong engagement. Competence, motivation, and self-direction are all

signs of engagement. According to our poll, many firms feel they have the essential technical expertise. Companies with high levels of digital dexterity, on the other hand, have a significant advantage in terms of digital skills (24 percent greater than average dexterity businesses; 54 percent higher than lowest level dexterity organization’s) and engagement (16 percent and 36 percent higher than average- or lowdexterity organizations, respectively). It is critical to create digital dexterity by combining collaborative learning standards with an entrepreneurial, motivated workforce. Collaborative learning may help all employees develop the skills, competence, and perspective needed to manage entrepreneurial efforts. Organizational leaders may assist by establishing clear objectives, promoting cross-functional cooperation, allowing open access to pertinent information, and then trusting their employees to bring the greatest expertise to bear on each difficulty. Surprisingly, the source of assistance for digital dexterity consists of assets such as digital tools and data. When skills, competence, and engagement are developed, the ease of access to data and communication technologies supplements performance-related results. Companies with high levels of digital dexterity outperformed those with medium or low levels of digital dexterity on measures of data availability (16% higher than average; 33% higher than lowest dexterity organization’s) and collaborative tools in our dataset (20 percent higher than average; 51 percent higher than lowest dexterity organizations). Access to quality data (that is, data that is timely, accurate, and full) is critical to digital transformation. Workers benefit from accurate and timely data when it comes to optimizing internal company processes and efficiently reacting to client needs. Workers utilize data-driven ways more regularly as they understand the advantages of data-driven results, generating a virtuous cycle. Access to effective communication, collaboration, and coordination technologies is also critical for enabling essential behaviors such as collaborative learning and decision-making, as well as sustaining the social relationships that foster participation.

Developing digital dexterity in an organization necessitates rethinking how we have previously approached skilling and training. We require a significant amount of cooperation and coordination throughout the business to establish mission-driven teams that are goal-oriented and adhere to the firm's values and principles. Having defined objectives and projects, rewards based on talents and abilities, minimum hierarchies, open flow of information and feedback, and high levels of trust and transparency are just a few of the variables. Here are a few more critical tactics for developing digital dexterity in your organization: 1.Digital fundamentals and strategy: Begin by educating teams and executives about existing technologies and how they relate to the company, workers, and consumers. Assist them in identifying and comprehending new digital tools and technologies that have the potential to provide maximum value; this will aid in rebuilding and reinventing old business models to incorporate a greater digital component. 2.Concentrate on the following critical aspects of digital transformation: Train your workers on all important areas of digital transformation, as well as a mix of technical and behavioral issues. These include, but are not limited to, disruptive technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence (AI); data sciences such as data visualization and big data; agile methodologies and culture; social media marketing; computational thinking; cross-functional collaboration and continuous learning. 3.Learner-centered training: Ensure that the training develops key skills for today and future so that learners may see an immediate influence on their work and careers. Such training should ideally make use of tailored learning tools, consumer-grade UX to keep learners interested, enable micro-learning, give learning flexibility, and present the student with a best-in-class collection of assets and information sources.

4.Invest in leadership development: The value of making leaders digitally savvy cannot be overstated. Leaders and managers need additional aid and support in the form of easily available training, resources, programmes, and technologies that help them develop not just classic leadership abilities (such as how to lead teams through a difficulty), but also more current skills (like how to build agile leadership). Furthermore, the notion of leadership must be broadened to encompass shared leadership, in which anybody who makes the greatest use of the available training may be a leader. 5.Measure and evaluate: Finally, ensure that there is data and analytics to track the success of all actions. Create powerful feedback systems that allow learners to communicate with one another and contribute on their learning journey. Making the workforce digitally savvy isn't simple, but there are many of solutions on the market that can help. Whatfix, for example, provides a real-time training platform through which workers may access all of the training materials they need inside their company's online application. This will allow them to save time, eliminate mistakes, and boost overall production. The platform is simple to use since it enables management and leadership teams to generate interactive training manuals without any coding skills. The Whatfix platform will utilize powerful analytics to monitor employee engagement and estimate the efficacy of the training programme once the training guide has been produced and made available to workers across different touchpoints. Corrigo, a business that specializes in mobile apps, has employed the same technique as part of their client training methodology. Customers were confused whenever Corrigo launched a new version, and the company's support service was swamped with requests for help. Because Corrigo has a broad variety of functions and a diversified client base, creating a one-size-fits-all training programme was not an option. The problem has been resolved thanks to the Whatfix platform, and Corrigo's clients are now supplied with step-bystep assistance and training for each update the firm provides.

Here are four strategies for improving internal and external digital dexterity: 1. Transformation of the workforce: Most utilities have prepared for, and have already implemented, modifications to their operations, ranging from limiting meeting sizes to completely shutting down work sites and preparing contingency field staff. IT teams collaborate closely with peers on network and communications infrastructure. They must assure company continuity while transitioning to a remote workforce, including data security. Moving to remote collaboration tools and cloud-based platforms reduces on-site staffing difficulties, increases decision-making time, and allows for remote knowledge to be brought in from any place. Employees will also need confidence in order to get the most out of these platforms. Some re- or up-skilling may be required to ensure the necessary trust. i)What does it imply for businesses? Consider this a chance to forecast future worker trends. To create better business results and customer experiences, combine your data and analytics with intelligence on cloud-based systems like as Dynamics 365. These will also enable your staff to swiftly and securely access the information they need, when they want it, from wherever they are. ii)What it implies for workers? Working from home does not imply being isolated. Microsoft Teams enables workers to talk, meet, or collaborate in real time and securely. App integration is available for maintenance, job scheduling, job task fulfilment, documentation, and remote help, and it works on a variety of devices for field, office, and home employees. By incorporating some automation and using platforms that simplify procedures, your

staff will have more time to engage in upskilling to keep up with the workplace change. iii)What it implies for clients? Moving to cloud-based solutions allows you to deliver a unified perspective of your customers. This means you'll be able to present your consumers with up-to-date, contextually relevant information. Reduce the time it takes to solve issues and utilize data to build better experiences. 2. Customer satisfaction: Photograph of a lady working on a Surface book in her living room. She is dressed in a long white sweater dress and has shoulder-length blonde hair. Because call centre personnel and availability will be affected, you will be able to use new technologies such as chatbots, apps, and websites to provide digital customer experiences. Customers will be most affected by an increase in their energy cost as they work from home, as well as a probable inability to pay. Use analytics to improve customer engagement, anticipate customer attrition, and identify vulnerable consumers to whom you may give proactive assistance. i)What does it imply for businesses? Use a platform like Dynamics 365 to provide workers with a unified picture of client information, and rely on digital channels to assist affected contact center personnel. Create simple solutions using PowerApps to instantly notify workers of fresh information, points of contact, and provide them the option to update their bosses on their changing status. ii)What it implies for workers?

Chatbots that are automated may assist in answering commonly requested queries. Data and analytics will also give customer-specific information and interaction recommendations. These will allow personnel to devote more time and expertise to providing personalized customer service. You can reduce physical onsite presence and simplify operations by using IoT solutions for remote monitoring, remote control, and automation of basic activities. You can then use the collected data to create workflows and quickly respond to changing working habits. You can provide intelligent, connected field service by shifting from an expensive break–fix approach to proactive, predictive maintenance.

iii)What it implies for clients? Customers from both business-to-business (B2B) and business-toconsumer (B2C) will be affected. Consider switching to non-time-ofuse tariffs, allowing consumers to change their energy plans in the middle of the cycle, instituting bill payment holidays, and proactively contacting customers to provide guidance. 3. Automation and remote monitoring: With IoT solutions for remote monitoring, remote control, and automation of basic activities, you may reduce physical onsite presence and simplify operations. You may then use the acquired data to design workflows and swiftly react to changing working habits. By shifting from an expensive break–fix approach to proactive, predictive maintenance, you can provide an intelligent, connected field service. i)What does it imply for businesses? You may utilize data to forecast, identify, and fix problems before they become a problem by improving facilities and assets with technology

and providing field employees with mobility tools. This saves you time and money. Timely data analysis will concentrate operational efforts, prioritizing work on important assets and postponing repair on less crucial assets. ii)What it implies for workers? Your technicians will have enough time, equipment, and knowledge to fix issues properly the first time. Use remote assistance and augmented reality to enable technicians to interact more effectively from various places. iii)What it implies for clients? Remote monitoring and automation assure constant and reliable operations, which means reduced downtime. 4. Recognize and foresee change: Focus on forecasting and predicting an ongoing drop in demand (US energy consumption was 3% lower in March 2020 than in March 2019, a loss of approximately three years of sales growth), as well as a shift in energy consumption patterns, not just on your network, but in the context of customer churn and bill revenue losses. Use cutting-edge technology like as artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics on both forecasting and debt models to guarantee that projections do not swing dramatically and push up prices. i)What does it imply for businesses? Data and analytics may help to improve today's complicated forecasting models. This will provide more resilience in projecting demand, future purchasing habits, and debt position shifts. The rise in residential energy use will not replace the void created by the decline

in industrial clients. With a shifting timetable owing to economic volatility, precise forecasting has become more important. There is an opportunity to concentrate on renewable energy integration and the integration of dynamic grid balancing into new business models for real-time prediction. ii)What it implies for workers? Employees will be able to immediately drive change by utilizing accurate load forecasts to guarantee operations are not disrupted in the future months and to avoid power outages. By taking over some administrative activities, AI and data analytics may help minimize stress for your staff. They will therefore be able to concentrate on more vital tasks, increasing the efficiency of internal operations, resulting in lower costs and better service. iii)What it implies for clients? You will be in a better position to give consumers with dependable service. You will also guarantee that expenses are not pushed up as a result of variable projections. This is particularly important since clients may be unable to pay bills or request payment vacations. CIOs may encourage digital dexterity in their organizations by implementing the following practical directives: 1.Learn all there is to know about your firm, even if you don't believe you need to. 2.Consult with other executives to determine how to prioritize corporate objectives. 3.Find solutions that match your company's specific demands and can automate procedures and workflow for increased efficiency and results. 4.Keep abreast of new and developing technology, and don't be afraid to include them when they may assist.

5.Identify important internal leaders from outside of IT who can help the organization's digital transformation at all levels. The role of librarians in higher education is always changing, as it should be. There was a time when academic librarians just needed to be digitally literate, which is defined as having "the capacity to utilize information and communication technology to access, assess, produce, and convey information, needing both cognitive and technical abilities" (American Library Association). Being technologically literate is no longer sufficient. Librarians are being encouraged to become more technologically savvy. Digital dexterity was initially characterized in the business field as the "cognitive capacity and social practice required to harness and exploit diverse forms of media, information, and technology for benefit in unique and highly inventive ways that optimize personal and company values" (Gartner 2015). The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) has endorsed it, stating that "digital dexterity is a core feature of the purpose of university libraries... and is a crucial component in the development of digital societies." CAUL is the primary leadership organization representing Australia's 39 university libraries, but it also represents eight university libraries in New Zealand; and it strives to make a substantial contribution to higher education strategy, policy, and results in the nations represented. CAUL has proposed five concepts for digital dexterity: 1.The power of research, teaching, and learning, all of which take place in a digital setting, transforms society. University libraries play an important role in developing society's digital dexterity, influencing how individuals experience information via discovery, usage, and sharing. 2.University libraries are critical components of digital knowledge and information infrastructures that support student accomplishment and research excellence.

3.Australian graduates have access to tools that will help them build the digital skills they need to flourish in a global job environment and become successful global citizens. 4.A proactive approach to lifelong learning is essential for digital dexterity, and firms should encourage staff learning in collaboration with educational institutions such as libraries. 5.CAUL supports the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Objectives, particularly the relevance of digital inclusion and citizenship in meeting those goals (CAUL, 2020). Leaders in all sectors of the organization should collaborate closely with their colleagues to ensure that processes, incentives, budgets, and regulations support — rather than hinder — digital dexterity. Here are several examples: 1. IT governance promotes and supports business-led IT. 2. Digital business results are included in company KPIs. 3. Employee work assignments allow for on-the-job training. 4. Employee performance measures place a premium on digital dexterity. 5. Change management strategies are developed in collaboration with workers. 6. Project timeframes are based on test-and-learn scenarios. 7. Matrix-based reporting lines According to a Gartner analysis, digital dexterity will be essential in establishing the supply chain professional of 2025. The next four years will be essential for organizations looking to remain competitive in their supply chains after COVID-19, and educating personnel with digital dexterity and data literacy will be key for future success. The

consultation paper addresses the talent-related problems and opportunities that Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) must address in order to stay competitive in an ever-changing market and build the supply chain professional of 2025. Employees are not yet enabled to respond with agility, according to Gartner. "If CSCOs genuinely want to establish an agile workforce, they must reinvent work and concentrate on digital skills," according to the research. CSCOs must identify and empower the people and skills required to support new digital processes in order to achieve agility, according to the support. "Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, CEOs targeted digital businesses for increasing investment in 2020." In fact, 47 percent anticipate to accelerate the pace of their digital activities in order to identify new methods to generate growth," according to Gartner. However, just 27% of CEOs polled claimed they have the expertise required to achieve current supply chain performance criteria, despite the fact that talents such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning, and natural language processing would soon be required (NPL). According to Gartner, since there is going to be hypercompetition for these technical talents, CSCOs will need to endeavor to increase the digital dexterity and data literacy of their current personnel, as well as restructure work to decrease complexity. "When rethinking work, make certain that workflows (processes, tools) result in beneficial work results." "A emphasis on simplicity and removal is critical," according to Gartner. This should contain the following: 1.Remove precise methods, partners, and regulations that employees must adhere to in order to complete workflows or achieve specified job outputs. 2.Consolidate systems and favor modern solutions that lessen the requirement for supply chain personnel to have a high level of technical competence. 3.When new, vital competences are introduced to supply chain positions, remove less important competency criteria to ensure that personnel is focused on gaining the correct skills.

4."Emerging competencies will be required to adapt to new technologies and successfully use data and analytics in the supply chain," according to Gartner. 5."In order for people to work digitally and support initiatives to become a digital organization, supply chain positions must have digital dexterity abilities." With a greater emphasis on data and analytics in the supply chain, the typical employee will need to gain data literacy abilities." Digital dexterity is driven by the following competencies: 1.Business knowledge: Outcome-oriented and conscious of how one's work impacts the end user. Prioritizes long-term company objectives above short-term and/or personal victories. 2.Adaptability: Delivers work well in unexpected, unpredictable, and confusing conditions. Intellectually enquiring. Approaches challenges with tenacity and optimism. 3.Political astuteness: Obtains backing from a variety of parties. Collaboration on Fusion 4.Utilizes the talents of peers to inform their work. Thrives in a team environment and can incorporate peer contributions into their own ideas. Unambiguous communication. Consideration of the whole 5.Understands the impact of their job on other departments and the organization as a whole.

According to research and consultancy company Gartner Inc., developing the correct supply chain talent strategy is more important than ever and should be a key area for chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) nationally. At next month's virtual Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo Americas, Gartner analysts will cover four methods for creating supply chain professionals, focusing on how CSCOs can build a workforce with the capabilities to compete in an increasingly complex, digital supply chain. "Despite the disruption created by the Covid-19 epidemic, many firms are continuing ahead with their digital targets or even accelerating supply chain automation,". "This implies that the fight for talent in domains like machine learning and artificial intelligence will continue." Rather of competing, many CSCOs will make do with what they have and try to increase the digital dexterity and data literacy of their current personnel." It's noted that the four techniques are focused on work design, digital capabilities, network-driven growth, and experiential learning. The first entails streamlining complicated operations related to supply chain tasks. This include removing less important workflow activities and competence requirements, as well as simplifying or consolidating systems and tools. "When we design work to be easy and, as a result, decrease complicated talent demands," "it will be simpler to integrate individuals into work across the business." According to Gartner statistics, the second approach necessitates the development of new technical skills and competences among workers, which just 27 percent of supply chain executives claim they are up to. "If CSCOs want to maintain pace with their organizations’ digital objectives, they must ensure that their staff are adequately prepared to function in a digital environment,". "This involves data literacy abilities as well as basic computer dexterity." Employees must be willing and comfortable taking on different responsibilities and working iteratively with ambiguous needs." The third technique, network-driven development, focuses on "connector managers" who may enhance organizational performance by interacting with others and gaining access to the abundance of information available throughout their corporate

network. "Connector managers will boost connectedness both inside and between teams, giving possibilities to break down silos, genuinely develop workers, and even provide for improved career visibility,". Finally, emphasizing "experiential learning" is the greatest way to equip people to thrive in an increasingly complicated digital world. "For more sophisticated skills, such as digital dexterity competencies, 70 percent of learning should be experiential–on-the-job development via interventions such as learning-based career pathways, stretch assignments, and action learning groups." Formal training accounts for just 10% of the total. Based on compound annual average growth rate (CAGR) for organic revenue, study found an exclusive group of organizations (among the world's biggest 500 corporations by market capitalization) that regularly beat others. These "super accelerators" distinguished themselves not via industry, region, or strategic emphasis, but by their capacity to mobilize, execute, and adapt with agility - what we call META. META, at its most basic, indicates that the firm adapts and pivots quicker than its rivals, which is crucial in the digital era. Leadership teams have a disproportionate impact on corporate success. According to our findings, the senior teams with the best performance on the META performance indicators (out of the 3,000 teams analyzed) had a 22.8 percent larger economic impact than other teams. Senior leaders must consequently grasp the skill of mobilizing, executing, and adapting with agility in order to build digital dexterity. A critical first step is to have a thorough awareness of new technologies and non-traditional rivals who may disrupt their market. For example, one healthcare chief operating officer we worked with assigned her leadership team to monitor various market areas, such as patient preferences, regulations, and technological innovation, and then established a regular time to triangulate weak signals and adjust the company's strategy as needed. This resulted in the early identification of an emerging trend of leveraging blockchain to enhance the interoperability of electronic healthcare data, enabling the

firm to plan a strategy before rivals. Leaders should also tap into the organization's collective scanning capacity, all the way down to the front lines, by methodically collecting, distributing, and adjusting strategy and tactics in response to fresh market signals. Another effective practice for keeping on top of change is to expose the leadership team to disruptions on a frequent basis. Tom Gorman, former CEO of shared-logistics company Brambles, accomplished this by travelling to Silicon Valley with his board and leadership team to visit emerging start-ups and discuss digital innovation challenges with other established companies; the company eventually opened a digitally focused outpost in the area. Gathering this kind of information will assist senior teams in not just developing new services, but also in redefining their goal. Through acquisitions and investments in firms such as Cruise Automation, Lyft, and Maven, GM CEO Mary Barra and her team have been preparing for disruptions such as autonomous cars, connectivity, and sharing. With these actions, Barra is attempting to change GM from a vehicle business to a transportation company, therefore revolutionizing consumer value. While redefining an organization's mission and inventing products that consumers demand in response to new technology might be difficult, bringing all of that to market can be much more difficult. The issue is one of talent: according to our latest poll, just 27% of small businesses and 29% of big businesses think they have the appropriate personnel for digital transformation. Senior teams must guarantee that they have the proper competencies and that the right individuals are groomed internally or recruited across the organization. In addition to bringing in external talent to drive change, leaders must give abundant chances for learning and career mobility to existing personnel in order to reinvent both themselves and the firm. It is critical to identify methods to elevate workers' responsibilities by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and other automations into crucial processes to decrease repetitive or manual activities, allowing people to undertake more strategic and problem-solving work, and assisting them in upskilling. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has championed a

shift to more cellular technologies, which necessitates new skill sets such as cloud computing, coding, data analytics, and other technological competencies. Recognizing the market's scarcity of technical talent, the business spent $250 million on staff education and professional development programmes, as well as more than $30 million on tuition aid, from 2013 to 2016. While the entire ROI has yet to be realized, speed and efficiency have already risen, and AT&T has continued to engage in upskilling its staff, therefore assisting in the transformation of the education sector. A last challenge to consider while executing strategy is that, in attempting to promote innovation and produce new products, leaders often generate complexity, which ultimately delays or hampers the change they intend to accomplish. In the 1990s, LEGO increased its number of unique bricks and expanded into computer games, clothes, and theme parks. These improvements complicated the company's supply chain, raising out-of-stock issues and confusing consumers. To speed up decision making, then-CEO Jrgen Vig Knudstorp reduced product offerings, simplified procedures, and improved team cooperation in 2004. For years, we've been hearing about the push toward digital transformation - in markets, businesses, and even people. And we witness that in a variety of ways, as digital natives utilize their dexterity to swiftly learn new technology while their parents struggle to connect to a Zoom family gathering. To be fair, companies are also hurting. The majority of big corporations have yet to digitize critical functional areas. Even while 87 percent of top business executives agree digitization is a firm priority, according to Gartner, 80 percent of corporate strategists have no idea what the business model transition should look like. As it turns out, the layer of cultural change required for this shift is rather deep. And the transformation has not occurred as swiftly inside the workplace as it has outside. Culture transformation, which was formerly the duty of HR, is now a top-level focus — and responsibility — of the IT department. This new digital workplace culture necessitates cross-functional cooperation, selfdirected teams, and unpredictability. Finance and legal are called in because markets do not accept unclear results. As a result, the issue spills onto the streets. The need for additional nurturing develops

when competing timescales, technological advancement, and generational cycling mix mindsets, attitudes, and behaviors. Organizations seek to improve business results by improving their workers' technical abilities, but merely educating staff isn't enough. We observe in our daily lives that creativity and social connection are still what decide life's most satisfying results, and our digital dexterity is only a tool for producing these consequences. In our non-work life, we readily cope with this digital upheaval. Family and friends take on positions that enable them to provide value to the group. Digital dexterity, a concept created by Gartner to define a mentality that assists employees in delivering quicker and more meaningful outputs from digital projects, occurs naturally within a group that is not motivated by a profit and loss statement. Big sister sends an SMS back channel to Mom and Dad to inform them on how to attend the Zoom conference. No pressure, no failure. Then, all of a sudden, "There you are! "Now we can see!" Everyone is content. However, digital dexterity inside organizations must take place against a background that cannot afford phases of failure. As a result, this digital shift into a cultural one is flourishing at work. While we're entering a period of digital transformation acceleration — when mostly digital natives in the workplace manage mostly digital natives — what we're learning right now is that even after that happens, digital dexterity may be the new ante, but the game will still be won with creative and social skills. We live in a time when global markets and technology are altering our economy. As a result, many businesses are striving to digitally transition. According to IDC, global investment on digital transformation will hit $1.3 trillion this year. However, the grim fact is that almost half of these initiatives fail, and 20% of CIOs privately feel that their company's Digital Transformation (DX) is a waste of time. Wipro Digital (Wipro Digital 2017) Unfortunately, the majority of these attempts fall short of their goals and fail to persuade their employers to change. Most of the time, they only add to the technical debt that is already drowning many businesses. Instead of a DX, they find themselves in Digital Quicksand, bogged down by legacy gunk and restrictive ecosystems. This happens because they are too focused on

the tree—the shiny new technology (e.g., social, mobile, analytics, cloud, AI, IOT, VR/AR, and so on)—rather than the forest. The forest contains the ingredients that enable businesses to control the lifecycle, harness their data, integrate their ecosystems (product, organizational, customer experience [CX], and other technology), and alter their culture. They serve as the foundation for constructing a flexible and data-driven business that will use the best people and resources to disrupt rivals. Companies must improve their digital dexterity in the future. Organizations can no longer live in a vacuum focused just on execution, attempting simply to squeeze out incremental savings. The most powerful weapon a company can have is flexibility—the ability to adapt and disrupt quickly. Without it, you would not be able to compete by transforming quickly enough, leaving your business open to disruption. To become more adaptable, companies must undergo comprehensive transformation in order to adjust to changing market circumstances. To do this, you must have a laser focus on your company objectives and data-driven outcomes, as well as a mentality of delivering digital value wherever feasible. For example, although boosting productivity and lowering expenditures is always a positive thing, what you should truly be aiming for is improving overall operational efficiency throughout the whole firm. Simply cutting your IT costs by a few percent will not improve your organization. DX is about a linked lifecycle—a continuous digital product lifecycle with ties to other critical ecosystems such as CX, organization, and other technologies. The key to it all is adaptability. The majority of CX initiatives should direct the client back to an upgraded or enhanced product or service. The issue that firms should ask themselves is, "Does our use of data bring consumers back to us, either directly or indirectly?" If not, why aren't we adding more value? Personalization is becoming increasingly important in today's digital society. This, along with the pervasiveness of technology, will continue to increase product complexity. Organizations must increase their time-to-market while also allowing for an ever-growing convergence of hardware, electronics, and embedded software, with an increasing number of possibilities expanding at a combinatorial (in other words, very, really

enormous) pace. But, more crucially, they must accelerate the transformation of cooperation and ideas into innovation. In a recent blog post titled "Own the Lifecycle," I argue that the quickest way to address the demands of your future customers is to "Own the Lifecycle." This is the "crystal ball" at the center of every organization's DX journey. In brief, you leverage data from the product lifecycle and other ecosystems to continuously adapt your organization so that it is in sync with consumers, markets, and employees. The alignment of ecosystems and how they connect to the product's lifecycle—ideally, a fluid Digital Thread—is critical to becoming a world-class organization. Unfortunately, the majority of organizations’ product lifecycles are not digitally integrated and do not have good data governance. Even fewer have virtual setups of their actual assets in the field. I could go on and on, but the point is that if the operational (product lifecycle) ecosystem is unconnected, there is no way to use data to generate a better customer experience, a shorter time to market, or any real gain in operational efficiency. You are not using your data to comprehend and adjust to future issues. Many firms adopting DXs unintentionally commit to a certain vendor's technology stack and price. When the competitive environment alters and their vendor no longer meets their demands, they are trapped. These locked dependencies are like hidden landmines, ready to detonate when you need to stretch the most. All corporate technology should be open (public open APIs and schemas) so that your firm can genuinely pivot, adapt, and scale up and down in response to market needs. The current segregated organizational structures that maintain the status quo and inhibit cultural change are one of the primary reasons of failing DX attempts. If the transformative effort is contained inside an operational silo, it is just tactical and not a real DX endeavor. This issue needs its own book, but in a nutshell, if your company's organizational model is set in stone, focusing largely on the execution of static annual plans with matching budgets, you will not perform well versus more adaptable companies designed to welcome and capitalize on volatility. Ask yourself whether you're prepared to face new risks and possibilities, or if you'll have to wait until next year's budgeting cycle. Do you provide teams the authority to solve

challenges throughout your organization? Can you simply change your resources to concentrate the appropriate people on the right challenge in order to outperform your competitor? Every organizational model is comprised on ecosystems that interact with one another and with the client. Businesses that can swiftly adjust to market circumstances, innovative technology, and economic instability will do well in a fast changing digital world. Flexibility helps a business to not only make true changes, but also to move laterally—to dodge challenges and pounce with agility on chances to disrupt rivals. These are the firms that seek to create sustainable goods and services as quickly as feasible. Organizational architectures and cultures that are intended for mobilization, cross-functional cooperation, empowerment, and data democratization, in my opinion, are more flexible, respond quicker, and are less vulnerable to disruption. While the speed of ideas and the promise of technology may seem appealing, if organizational inertia slows the rate of organizational and cultural change to a crawl and leadership is unable to alter it, then you are wasting your money since the company will suffocate any DX endeavor. A agile competitive firm has a digital product platform that provides open access, connectivity, and system flexibility. The seamless internal and external Digital Thread serves as the foundation for a linked end-to-end value chain from product production to consumer and back. You provide your business flexibility by owning the lifecycle. This includes a comprehensive perspective of the operating ecosystem, which provides a better knowledge of how your goods and services are utilized and how they may be enhanced. You democratize your data so that all parts of the value chain can access it, resulting in quicker and better choices. You improve your capacity to interact, resulting in true synergy across your business and supply chain. You develop a real-time capacity to react to client requests at all levels of the organization, as well as support new products in collaboration with customers, partners, and suppliers. It is about implementing and adapting digital resources to increase team agility and company development for Digital Dexterity. Below are

few tips for achieving digital dexterity: 1. Recognize the company's requirements: One of the most typical errors in technology purchasing is selecting a solution without first asking the company what they need. It's easy to be distracted and swayed by checklist features rather than concentrating on what the technology allows your teams to do. Pose the following probing questions to yourself: i)How will this provide value to the company and its customers? ii)How will this minimise friction, promote collaboration, and break down silos? iii)Will this solution work with our current systems? iv)What tools have emerged organically inside the company? v)How would this help us outperform our competitors? 2. Make a list of probable vendors: When compiling a list of possible providers, spend time reviewing their client case studies and absorbing actual demonstrations that are relevant to your unique company requirements. Investigate the related expenditures and calculate the ROI; what is the quantitative value that each solution provides? i)What is the supplier's road map like? ii)What amount of assistance can they provide? iii)Do they have prior experience in your field? 3. Carry out a proof of concept

Run a proof of concept to assess the solution's viability and feasibility. Collect input from both management and end users by asking probing questions and paying attention to what they say. After all, if they don't support and buy in, the product will languish on the shelf. Consider the following questions while doing a proof of concept: i)How will this solution be accessed by my users? How will I use it? Is it compatible with my Active Directory and secure with Multi-Factor Authentication? ii)Where will my users be able to find the solution? Is there a mobile capability, and if so, how significant is it (hint: it should be!) iii)What additional administrative chores would I be required to do on a regular basis in order to keep everyone up to speed on the software? iv)What are the major use cases that I need people to explore to ensure that the solution meets their requirements? Is it already documented, and if yes, how long does it take (and how much time will we save)? 4. Evaluate your available resources and create deployment priorities. All technology will come with varied degrees of maintenance and support; consider how your choice will remain current and not cost more in the future. Recognize the amount of commitment and resources available to support new technologies. Choose your priorities and be aware of your capacity to deliver on them. Is it critical, for example, that new technology connects with your ecosystem, or is it more about addressing a specific challenge? Consider the following crucial questions:

i)How much time and effort will it take to manage this solution? ii)Is this the time to make a significant change? iii)Will this help the company in the next 6 to 12 months? iv)How will you onboard people and guarantee that the solution is adopted? v)Will someone in the company accept responsibility for the solution?

Chapter 9: Digital Technologies Sectors In this section, we will discuss the various industries that has implemented digital technology. Furthermore, this e-Book is solely based on my findings on Digital Technology from my professional and personal work experience via working on different sectors and different projects. 9.1 Finance From acquiring new clients to simplifying banking, digital transformation may help financial services organisations enhance their customer experience in a variety of ways. Customer centricity, or a strong emphasis on addressing the requirements of customers, is critical throughout this process. Digital financial services (DFS) are financial services (such as payments, remittances, and credit) that are accessible and supplied through digital channels, including mobile devices. These include both traditional instruments (such as debit and credit cards) given largely by banks and emerging cloud-based options. Financial services users, digital finance providers, governments, and the economy all benefit from digital finance and financial inclusion, including increased access to finance for lowincome individuals, lower costs of financial intermediation for banks and Fintech providers, and increased aggregate demand for financial services. What exactly is digital finance? The phrase "digital finance" refers to the influence of new technology on the financial services business. It encompasses a wide range of goods, applications, procedures, and business models that have altered the conventional banking and financial services delivery paradigm. One explanation for this is that mobile money has the potential to improve the velocity of value transfers. Furthermore, digital transactions increase transparency, making it simpler to provide and get finance. Small companies, in particular, may profit from mobile payments, which make it easier for them to rent, purchase, and get paid. Digital payments may boost an entrepreneur's profitability by making financial transactions with consumers, suppliers, and the government easier, safer, and less expensive. Wage payment through digital means helps

workers while also being safer and more cost-effective for companies. Below we describe an Use case of Digital Implementation in Finance in Indonesia. According to the product life cycle hypothesis, every firm goes through four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Innovation is one approach for advancing to the mature stage. Digital finance refers to financial service industry innovation. Digital financing facilitates business access, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Indonesia. Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) is the foundation of the Indonesian economy, hence the function of SME is critical to increasing the development of the Indonesian economy. Financial services consumers, digital finance providers, governments, and the economy all benefit from digital finance and financial inclusion; yet, a number of concerns remain that, if solved, may make digital finance function better for people, companies, and governments. The concerns mentioned in this are pertinent to the ongoing discussion and country-level efforts aimed at increasing financial inclusion via digital finance in developing and emerging countries (Ozili, 2018). Ozili (2018) investigates the influence of digital finance on financial inclusion and the stability of financial systems. This paper focuses on digital finance and investigates the influence of digital finance on financial inclusion and financial system stability - a subject that has not been addressed in the literature. The debates also explore the advantages and hazards of digital finance, digital financial inclusion, and financial inclusion on a conceptual level. Since 2010, the G-20 and the World Bank have spearheaded an endeavour to enhance financial inclusion in developing nations in order to assist alleviate poverty in developing and emerging economies (GPFI, 2010). (Ozili, 2018). Today, policymakers and scholars are focusing on the importance of digital finance and financial inclusion for poverty reduction and economic development, owing to a variety of concerns that, if solved, may make digital finance operate better for people, companies, governments, and the economy. Financial services users, digital finance providers, governments, and the economy all benefit

from digital finance and financial inclusion, including increased access to finance for low-income individuals, lower costs of financial intermediation for banks and Fintech providers, and increased aggregate expenditure for governments. Despite its advantages, digital finance and financial inclusion have not reached a large enough proportion of the population (G20 Summit, 2013) in (Ozili, 2018), implying a gap between the supply of finance, its accessibility, and utilisation. Digital financial inclusion, financial data inclusion, and digital finance are three areas where disparities are prevalent and are attracting more attention, notably from Fintech companies. The link between these, as well as the challenges they provide for financial inclusion, has gotten relatively little attention in the literature. Furthermore, Fintech providers might boost economic development during good times by increasing the amount of financial transactions in the financial system; nevertheless, it is uncertain if Fintech providers and their operations can worsen economic crises during poor times. This topic is also covered in this (Ozili, 2018). According to Michelle (2016), digital financial services are important to the public since it increases the security of their cash and is more convenient than storing money at home and travelling with the money. However, multiple parties such as banks/financial institutions, mobile network operators, financial technology suppliers, regulators, agents, retail chains, and customers are involved in the supply of digital finance. Infrastructure improvements are also required for digital banking mechanisms in order to make services more user-friendly, secure, and cost-effective. Michelle (2016) conducted study to determine the impact of digital finance on financial inclusion in Kenya's banking system (Michelle, 2016). Internationally, digital banking has been recognised as an appropriate tool of promoting financial inclusion by lowering the costs of delivering these services (Asian Development Bank, 2016) in Michelle (2016). Advanced account administrations are progressively becoming an essential portion of the junction between development and monetary consideration. The utilisation of computerised money related administrations has turned out to be more common among people who have had little prior involvement with official monetary administrations (Villasenor, Darrell,

& Lewis, 2015). (Michelle, 2016). The growth of digital payment systems has created opportunities for impoverished individuals to connect with providers of savings, credit, and insurance goods (Radcliffe & Voorhies, 2012). (Michelle, 2016). Furthermore, sophisticated account administrations advancements and business sector advancements have created doors for lower-wage people with limited money management alternatives (McKee, Kaffenberger, & Zimmerman, 2015). (Michelle, 2016). Beck (2016) analyses and discusses current developments in financial inclusion measurement, as well as a review of the research on the influence of financial inclusion on individual and aggregate wellbeing. According to theory and empirical data, financial deepening (rather than financial inclusion) has a significant influence on structural change and poverty reduction in emerging nations. Among the many financial services, increasing access to payment services seems to have the greatest and most direct influence on individual wellbeing. Financial innovation, such as new delivery channels, new products, and new intermediaries, has significantly increased financial inclusion in several countries over the last decade, but it also has implications for how we define financial inclusion. Recent advances in measuring and monitoring financial inclusion has been critical for policy analysis and goal formulation. However, extreme care should be used when reading headline indicators (Beck, 2016). Based on the above explanations from past research, it is possible to infer that there is a link between Digital Finance and the Strengthening of Financial Inclusion and Growth. This study focuses on the importance of digital finance in increasing financial inclusion and SME growth in Indonesia. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Indonesia play an important role in strengthening the country's core economy. Most SMEs have difficulty obtaining funding from commercial banks; thus, the availability of digital finance may enhance financial inclusion and boost the development of SMEs in Indonesia. The problem statement for this study is to investigate The Role of Digital Finance in Strengthening Financial Inclusion and SME Growth in Indonesia. From the standpoint of a practitioner, digital finance refers to financial

services offered through mobile phones, personal computers, the internet, or cards connected to a dependable digital payment system. Similarly, according to a McKinsey research, digital finance is defined as "financial services supplied through mobile phones, the internet, or cards" (see Manyika et al, 2016: p.4) (Ozili, 2018). According to Gomber et al. (2017) in (Ozili, 2018), digital finance comprises a wide range of new financial products, financial enterprises, finance-related software, and unique modes of consumer communication and engagement provided by FinTech firms and creative financial service providers. While there is no universal definition of digital finance, there is some agreement that it includes all products, services, technology, and/or infrastructure that allow individuals and businesses to access payments, savings, and credit facilities via the internet (online) without visiting a bank branch or dealing directly with the financial service provider. In Europe, the internet has evolved as a widely recognised distribution channel for the banking business, and both conventional banks and new entrants are finding its usefulness in comparison to other channels (Barbesino, Camerani, and Gaudino, 2005). (Ozili, 2018). The purpose of financial services made accessible via digital platforms is to help reduce poverty and contribute to developing nations' financial inclusion goals (United Nations, 2016). (Ozili, 2018). A digital transactional platform, retail agents, and the usage of a device – most typically a mobile phone – by clients and agents to transact through the digital platform are the three fundamental components of any digital financial service (CGAP, 2015). (Ozili, 2018).. To use digital financial services (DFS), the DFS user must have an existing bank account (or third-party accounts with approved permission to use them) with available funds (or overdraft) to make cash payments (outflows) or receive revenue (cash inflows) via digital platforms such as mobile devices, personal computers, or the internet (Ozili, 2018). This is the arrangement of some combination of monetary and instalment advantages that are delivered and managed using portable or Web advancements and a network of experts (Peake, 2012). (Michelle, 2016). According to the World Bank (2015) in (Michelle, 2016)), computerised monetary administrations refer to the utilisation

of advanced innovations (web, portable correspondence innovation) to gain access to monetary administrations and execute budgetary exchanges. Thus, digital financial services broadly refer to the broad variety of technologies accessible to conduct financial services from a diverse set of suppliers to a diverse set of receivers. This is made feasible via the use of digital remote methods such as e-money, mobile money, card payments, and electronic financial transfers (Asian Development Bank, 2016). (Michelle, 2016). Computerized Financial Services (DFS) are essentially about saving money, obtaining credit and protection, and carrying out transactions using modern channels such as mobile phones, cards, PCs, tablets, and so on. in (Martin et al., 2016) (Michelle, 2016). In times of crisis, digital financial payment solutions enable consumers to obtain cash from farflung business people, family, and friends, minimising the risk that they would fall into poverty in the first place (Klapper, ElZoghbi, & Hess, 2016). (Michelle, 2016). When compared to storing money away at home or travelling with money, advanced budgetary administrations, for example, flexible cash, provide individuals more prominent accommodation, security, and, in general, greater security (Villasenor, Darrell, & Lewis, 2015) in Michelle (2016). Computerized back also plays an important role for small businesses since it allows them access to funds alongside safe budgetary items, electronic instalment frameworks, and the possibility to build a financial history (Mujeri, 2015). (Michelle, 2016). There are certain advantages to using digital finance. For example, since almost half of people in the developing world now possess a mobile phone (WorldBank, 2014), digital banking may lead to increased financial inclusion, the spread of financial services to nonfinancial industries, and the provision of basic services to individuals (Ozili, 2018). Two, digital finance has the potential to give low-income people in developing nations with inexpensive, convenient, and secure financial services (CGAP). Recent advancements in the accessibility and affordability of digital financial services throughout the globe have the potential to assist millions of impoverished clients in transitioning from cash-based transactions to formal digital financial transactions on secure digital platforms (CGAP). Three, digital finance has the

potential to boost the gross domestic product (GDP) of digitalised economies by facilitating easy access to a diverse range of financial products and services (and credit facilities) for individuals as well as small, medium, and large businesses, thereby increasing aggregate expenditure and thus GDP levels. Digital finance may also contribute to better economic stability and financial intermediation, benefiting both clients and the economy in which they and their family live. Four, digital finance innovation may have a long-term favourable impact on banking performance. Scott, Van Reenen, and Zachariadis (2017) investigate the influence of SWIFT adoption on bank performance in (Ozili, 2018). SWIFT is a network-based technology infrastructure and set of standards for international interbank telephony. They investigate 6848 banks in 29 European and American nations. They discover that SWIFT adoption I has a considerable long-term influence on profitability; (ii) these profitability effects are larger for small banks than for big banks; and (iii) demonstrates a significant network effect on performance. Five, digital finance helps governments by offering a platform for increased aggregate spending, which provides more tax income as the number of financial transactions increases (Manyika et al, 2016). (Ozili, 2018).. Sixth, financial and monetary system authorities gain from digital finance since widespread use may greatly lower the circulation of bad (or fraudulent) money, etc. Other advantages of digital banking for clients include better control over their own finances, faster financial decisions, and the capacity to make and receive payments in seconds (Ozili, 2018). Finally, digital finance should benefit people and enterprises that have official bank accounts and sufficient cash in their bank accounts to conduct various financial transactions. However, the anticipated advantages of digital banking can only be fully realised if the cost of delivering digital financial services is minimal or non-existent (Ozili, 2018). Digital financial inclusion is defined by the CGAP as "digital access to and usage of formal financial services by the excluded and underserved population" (CGAP, 2015). (Ozili, 2018).. Currently, novel digital financial services delivered through mobile phones and similar devices have been introduced in at least 80 countries (GSMA, 2014) in order to persuade millions of impoverished clients to utilise digital

financial services entirely rather than cash-based transactions (Ozili, 2018). The process of digital financial inclusion starts with the premise that the excluded and/or underserved populations have formal bank accounts and need digital access to conduct basic financial activities remotely. If the excluded and underserved populations understand and can be persuaded of the intended benefits of digital financial inclusion, an effective digital financial inclusion programme should be tailored to meet the needs of the excluded and underserved populations and delivered responsibly at a cost that is sustainable for providers while remaining affordable for customers (Ozili, 2018). This refers to households and enterprises having access to and using a set of acceptable financial services, which may assist disadvantaged families improve their lives while also impelling financial mobility (IDB, 2015). (Michelle, 2016). Budgetary incorporation additionally implies that formal money related administrations, for example, store and bank accounts, instalment administrations, credits, and protection are easily accessible to customers and that they are actively and effectively utilising these services to meet their specific needs (Klapper, El-Zoghbi, & Hess, 2016). (Michelle, 2016). Financial development, on the other hand, is the change or expansion in the pool of monetary administrations that are specifically tailored to the needs of all tiers of the general public (Bharat, 2014). The benefit of increasing financial inclusion extends well beyond financial depth and encompasses a broad variety of development objectives (IDB, 2015). (Michelle, 2016). There are several advantages to digital financial inclusion. Digital financial inclusion promises to help banks save costs by eliminating queue lines in banking halls, lowering manual paperwork and documentation, and maintaining fewer bank branches (IFC, 2017; Manyika et al, 2016) in developing countries (Ozili, 2018). With digital financial inclusion, a significant number of depositors may simply transfer banks in minutes, putting pressure on banks to deliver better services or risk losing depositors to competitors. For financial and monetary system authorities, digital financial inclusion also aids in decreasing the quantity of physical currency in circulation and is

critical in lowering high inflation levels in emerging and impoverished nations (GPFI, 2016). (Ozili, 2018). Individuals and enterprises who have a trustworthy digital platform via which to access cash in their bank accounts to carry out financial transactions may benefit from digital financial inclusion (CGAP, 2015). (Ozili, 2018). The anticipated advantages of digital financial inclusion may be fully realised if the cost of getting a digital transactional platform by impoverished persons is insignificant or cheap, with a digital transactional platform referring to mobile phones, personal computers, and associated equipment (Ozili, 2018). Digital financial services are seen as critical monetary solutions for improving monetary consideration (Buckley & Malady, 2015). (Michelle, 2016). The DFS technique has had a good impact on local and rural economies by increasing cash distribution, company growth, and job possibilities (European Investment Bank, 2014) in (Michelle, 2016). To achieve financial inclusion, the gap between cash and digital payments must be bridged (Dayadhar, 2015) in (Michelle, 2016). Poor families often need to collect quantities of cash via digital financial services in order to invest in their micro-enterprises and to have precautionary funds on hand in case of unanticipated shocks. Furthermore, once users are linked to a digital payment system, they may send money swiftly and inexpensively to friends, family, and business partners (Radcliffe & Voorhies, 2012). (Michelle, 2016). Empirically, a study by Kama and Adigun (2013) in (Michelle, 2016) on financial inclusion in Nigeria, its challenges, and the experiences of other jurisdictions discovered that inadequate and wasteful innovationbased offices by financial establishments have limited the achievement of critical expansion in budgetary incorporation level in Nigeria. Bayero (2015) examined the relationship between the cashless economy approach and money related incorporation in (Michelle, 2016) and discovered that mindfulness, shopper/client esteem recommendation, and foundation had a solid noteworthy association with budgetary consideration while monetary administration suppliers' plan of action had an insignificant association with money related incorporation. Andrianaivo and Kpodar (2011) investigated the relationship between data correspondence

innovation, monetary incorporation, and monetary development in (Michelle, 2016) and discovered that the spread of cellular telephones reinforces the impact of monetary consideration on monetary development, particularly in nations where portable budgetary administrations take hold. According to Ketterer (2017), the financial services sector has begun a phase of accelerated transformation following the conclusion of the Great Recession of 2007–10. New business models based on convergent technical breakthroughs are disrupting a long-established and conventional industry's status quo. The goal of this paper is to look at the most recent changes in the financial services sector and examine how they may influence the capacity of organisations, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and people to obtain finance. The Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) Connectivity Markets and Finance Division (CMF) examines the issues that limit access to productive finance in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) area and analyses how to increase access via public policies and financial engineering. The overarching thesis of this paper is that it appears plausible to believe that new business models of financial intermediation and capital market organisation emerging from the adoption of convergent technologies facilitate access to finance for SMEs and unbanked individuals, resulting in positive incentives for firm formalisation and financial inclusion. This viewpoint is supported by the following points: With alternative intermediation methods and better credit scoring procedures, new market lenders are challenging established incumbent banks and pushing the financial services sector to reduce lending spreads. They are also broadening the pool of bankable companies and people. The use of e-commerce, e-payments, and other digital channels enables businesses and people to establish a genuine and transferable digital history or identity. These details may be incorporated into artificial intelligence-powered credit score systems, which provide more accurate credit ratings. These enhanced procedures lessen asymmetry of information between borrowers and lenders, allowing for easier access to credit. Furthermore, the rising advantages of having a digital history or identity are encouraging more organisations and

people to formalise and participate in the financial system. New collateral-handling approaches and processes, backed by blockchainbased registries, are making collateral usage more efficient, costeffective, and safe. This allows for an increase in the utilisation of collateral and, as a result, an increase in the number of enterprises that may receive financing. Money markets that are more efficient, safe, and affordable, structured around blockchain-based networks, would free up bank capital that can be redirected to lending. Other advancements in payments, reporting and compliance, insurance, trade finance, and other financial disciplines will lead to a more efficient financial services business. The first change driver is the exponential expansion of a group of technologies that are converging toward new business models that are posing a challenge to the contemporary financial services sector. Cloud computing, robotics, distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) (also known as blockchain), virtual currencies, biometrics, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, the Internet of things, virtualaugmented reality, and advanced identity management methods are the most important technologies for the financial services industry's dynamics. These technologies are effective in stimulating competition because they allow low-cost business models of entry. For example, the ability to use computing as a service through cloud computing enables new entrants or rivals to launch their businesses with little or no capital outlay. This is an example of a broader trend of obtaining resources and assets through pay-as-you-go methods, which is fueled by developments in digital connection. The second motivator is a shift in client preferences. Consumers have gotten used to their previous digital experiences (e.g., Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, AliBaba, Tencent). They now anticipate a positive digital experience as well as services that are free, customised, and simple to use ("me-easy-freenow" customers). Customers are eager to provide their information in exchange. This new mentality makes it difficult for both incumbents and new entrants to establish business strategies that can monetize user data. 1 The third change driver is the set of new financial laws enacted in the aftermath of the financial crisis (Ketterer, 2017).

Financial inclusion is one technique for eradicating or alleviating poverty, but it is not the only one. Other poverty-reduction tactics include direct government action via the provision of welfare and unemployment benefits, as well as direct or indirect intervention by foreign governments, generous donations from philanthropists and charitable organisations, among others. Poverty reduction via increased financial inclusion may be driven by the public or private sectors, or through combined coordination by the private and public sectors (Ozili, 2018). The private sector promotes digital finance as a means of increasing financial inclusion. Private sector participants, such as Fintech and financial services firms, may provide digital finance goods and services to the impoverished and excluded people in order to enable them to join in the formal financial sector via digital channels on their mobile phones. If members of the excluded population have digital banking credentials (such as an online banking login password or other types of digital access credentials), they may connect their bank accounts to digital payment channels to conduct basic financial activities. Furthermore, if the cost of access to digital finance is low, low-income and impoverished people will engage in the digital financial system, which will have a good impact on financial inclusion (Ozili, 2018). It depicts the critical role played by the government, FinTech, and banks in financial inclusion and poverty reduction. While there is no clear-cut theoretical framework underlying the distinction between financial data inclusion and financial inclusion, the idea underlying the differentiation of financial data inclusion and financial inclusion is that full-scale financial data inclusion is required for digital finance to reach its full financial inclusion potential (Ozili, 2018). Financial data inclusion entails linking the whole population's biometric data to their bank accounts, while financial inclusion entails expanding the number of (usually poor) persons who have access to formal financial services, mostly via the use of official bank accounts. From a policy standpoint, financial data inclusion is simpler to accomplish than financial inclusion. Merging people's biometric information with their

bank accounts can accomplish two things: it allows financial transactions via digital channels to be verified and traced back to individuals or businesses, and it can help monitor the income and demographic characteristics of digital financial service users (Ozili, 2018). If the excluded population is willing to actively engage in financial data inclusion by gaining online banking login and other types of digital access credentials, they will be able to utilise digital channels to perform basic financial services, resulting in increased financial inclusion. If the excluded population refuses to engage in financial data inclusion by refusing to have online banking login or other kinds of digital access credentials, they will be unable to utilise digital channels to carry out fundamental financial services, resulting in a reduction in financial inclusion. In this regard, full-scale financial data inclusion and population desire to engage in the digital arena are required for digital finance to achieve higher financial inclusion (Ozili, 2018). The Role of Digital Finance in Strengthening Financial Inclusion and SME Growth in Indonesia is that the availability of digital finance may generate financial inclusion, allowing for easier access to funding, particularly for SME, the majority of which are not bankable. SME may get money and funding for operating, investment, and development opportunities via financial inclusion based on digital finance. The automation of conventional banking services, known as digital banking, is the key to increased consumer engagement, profitability, and control. It changed banking by replacing a bank's physical presence with an online presence and eliminating the requirement for customers to visit a branch. Customers may transact via various secure digital channels while the bank handles data protection, risk mitigation, and regulatory requirements. This is accomplished through merging online and mobile banking services with cutting-edge digital technologies such as analytics, social media, novel payment solutions, and mobile technology, as well as surpassing client expectations for convenience and experience. In the past 20 years, technology has brought about unfathomable

developments in the banking business all around the globe. Internet and mobile connections have reached the most distant corners of the globe, connecting individuals and organisations all over the world. Customers' expectations and the way companies functioned were altered as a result of this. Fintech businesses joined the banking industry and introduced a range of customer-friendly solutions using mobile connection and associated infrastructure. To stay competitive, banks have to reengineer their processes and offerings in order to retain their clients. This resulted in the development of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), which marked the start of digital banking. The next step was to exceed the new level of consumer expectations. This forced banks to develop better ideas, goods, and services. By the end of the twentieth century, banks were using technology to provide consumers with services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers nowadays take their financial services with them at all times, everywhere, on their cellphones, without even engaging the banking personnel. All records are kept in digital form with digital banking, data is converted to valuable information using analytical techniques, improved customer involvement is provided, and more business is produced via customer-specific contact. All of this leads to increased operational efficiency and more revenue for the bank. The Indian government's ambition of a cashless economy has been accelerated by expanding internet connectivity across the country, with online banking becoming more important as a result of Covid 19. Digital banking aims to make life easier for the customers of a bank. Some of its benefits are: 1.The convenience of banking from the comforts of home 2.24*7 availability of access to banking functions 3.Paperless banking 4.Enables set up of automatic payments for regular utility bills 5.Facilitates online payments for online shopping etc 6.Extends banking services to remote areas 7.Reduces the risk of counterfeit currency with digital fund

transfers 8.Strengthens privacy and security for customers 9.Allows misplaced credit cards to reported and blocked instantly 10.Restricts the circulation of black money 11.Lowers the minting demands of currency Despite massive rise in smartphone penetration and rising demand for digital banking, the majority of nations continue to rely largely on cash. Around 2 billion individuals worldwide do not have a bank account, demonstrating that cash is still vital for financial inclusion. Cash is also deeply embedded in the economics of many industrialized markets. In the United Kingdom, the wide measure of money supply, which includes coins, notes, and cash-like objects, reached £82 billion in late 2018, up from about £68 billion four years earlier. One research indicates that boosting digital payments in 100 key cities may create a direct net benefit of $470 billion per year. Small companies, in particular, may profit from mobile payments, which make it easier for them to rent, purchase, and get paid. Cashless payments may assist supervisors, central banks, and commercial banks in doing their duties more effectively. Electronic payments provide for more complete control and surveillance, as well as the ability to influence central banks' monetary and economic policies. Greater transparency improves credit process management, enabling banks to make more informed lending choices. Cashless societies may also have less evident advantages: During the European sovereign debt crisis in 2012, several economists suggested that central bank measures to slash interest rates to zero would be unsuccessful unless accompanied by a cash ban. It makes sense to put money beneath the mattress if consumers have to pay to make bank deposits. Where the cost of cash is high (transportation, ATM service, security, labor), technology use is growing, or the government is struggling to collect sales tax, digital is an appealing alternative. According to a Harvard Business Review research, many nations fit one or more of these criteria. Developed markets such as France, Belgium, Spain, and Germany are among them. However, there are still challenges to

adoption. We've found five major points of resistance and they are: 1.The High Cost of Electronic Payments. Electronic payments incur significant fees and charges. The British Retail Consortium said in 2018 that, despite regulation of interchange fees, the all-in cost of digital payments had risen in 2017. UK retailers spent an additional £170 million to process card payments, for a total cost of almost £1 billion. Increasing card costs were driven entirely by scheme fee increases, which rose 39%, measured as a percentage of turnover; the problem was exacerbated by limited market competition, the BRC said. Most payments systems are monopolies or duopolies. 2.A Lack of Customer-Centric Solutions. Payments solutions are often designed without customers’ needs in mind and with a focus on technology rather than user-friendliness. Many countries offer a fragmented patchwork of solutions that lack interoperability. In many cases, you cannot make a payment from one brand of e-wallet to another. Consumers habitually need to carry multiple cards to meet their daily needs. As a result, the penetration rates of person-toperson (P2P) solutions have remained relatively low (below 15%) outside the frontier markets of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. 3.Minimal Coordination Between Government Entities. Lacking a central authority to drive transformation and coordination, projects are likely to fail. In addition, a lack of proper governance, planning, and education on the implementation frontline is likely to result in fragmentation, bureaucracy, and parallel processes. 4.Insufficient Trust in Electronic Payments. Banks and companies are under rising pressure to protect their customers against cyber attacks. More than a few large companies with global operations have been hacked in recent years, resulting in massive losses of customer data. The UK’s national crime agency said in April 2018 that seven of the country’s biggest banks reduced operations or shut down systems following an attack the previous year. One reason is that, in many cases, attempts to increase cyber resilience do not keep pace with the rapid uptake of digital payments. In some countries, consumers are concerned about the impact of digital payments on the cost of living and their control over their own budget. Japanese consumers remain wedded to cash, for instance, and visitors to the country are often

struck by how many transactions are still conducted using notes and coins compared with neighbouring China. Uptake in Germany is also relatively slow. The data created by digital transactions is a valuable commodity. It may bring significant benefits to companies, even though consumers in many countries experience a “trust gap” and are less certain of those benefits. Even in Sweden, the most cashless society globally (about three-quarters of all purchases are made by card), there are residual doubts, particularly over security. In early 2018, Sweden’s central bank governor, Stefan Ingves, urged his government to consider the vulnerability of the payment network in case of extreme circumstances. 5.The Absence of Supporting Infrastructure. Infrastructure is a key element of a thriving payments ecosystem. Equally, its absence can be a hindrance. Rural areas in particular may not have infrastructure in place. In some places, there is a gender divide, with women excluded from internet access. In many countries delays of two to three days in real-time interbank transfers are common. The necessary standards to support infrastructure are also often absent. For a digital-payments system to take root, support in the form of legal frameworks, electrical networks, and security is also necessary. 6.Establish the right incentives. Targeted incentives will encourage consumers and merchants to consider moving away from cash. This might be achieved through reducing the cost of digital payments, introducing cash-handling charges, or restricting the use of cash above certain thresholds (the EU is currently considering this final measure). In Sweden, a consortium of banks launched a free mobile payments app, which was adopted by 50% of the population within four years of launch. PromptPay, the electronic payment service under the Thai government’s e-payment plan, encouraged uptake by removing charges for online banking. Chinese mobile payment leaders Alipay and WeChat Pay are engaged in an ongoing battle to attract users to their e-wallets, offering incentives that include cash rebates, free bus rides, and even the chance to win gold. Governments and companies might also consider consumer-friendly schemes such as weekly prize drawings based on transaction IDs or systems with specific demographics in mind.

7.Encourage competition and ensure a level playing field. Competition naturally exerts downward pressure on prices and encourages innovation, helping to offset the high cost of electronic payments. Measures to enable point-of-sale solutions are likely to help, as are rules for transparency regarding fees. And governments can seek to actively support innovation. The UK, for example, offers research and development tax relief and has introduced a number of tax-related initiatives as part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, including for investors in startups. The country’s Faster Payments Central Infrastructure is open to established banks and challengers and creates a mechanism for fintechs to access payment systems. Some countries encourage competition by encouraging or enabling the creation of privately owned payment rails. This has long been the case in the US, where The Clearing House operates several privately owned payment rails that integrate with the federally owned rails. 8.Provide world-class supporting infrastructure. Infrastructure is the key enabler of a cashless payments model and should encompass the internet, mobile and payments technologies, regulation, security, and electricity networks. Governments should in parallel encourage innovations that promote real-time interbank payments for retail transactions and strengthen operations through new business and operating models. Already, some countries have transferred responsibility for payments infrastructures from central banks to private companies or consortiums of banks. The UK Faster Payments Service, an initiative to reduce payment times between bank accounts, is run by privately owned Vocalink, for instance. In 2018, a group of Australian financial institutions and the Reserve Bank of Australia launched the New Payments Platform, which is based on ISO 20022 messaging formats and enables consumers, businesses, and government agencies to make real-time, data-rich payments between accounts. And Hong Kong and Singapore, among others, have built multicurrency payment systems for interbank transfers, strengthening their positions as global trading hubs. 9.Streamline and enforce regulations. Targeted and proportional regulation can strengthen confidence in electronic payments and enforce financial inclusion. Initiatives such as rapid dispute resolution

mechanisms, licensing schemes, and fee caps have been highly effective in boosting the uptake of cashless solutions. A strong and proactive regulator is essential. For example, the US regulator made a big push after 9/11 to enforce an electronic check exchange standard. If the regulator does not make this kind of effort (for example, in realtime payments), everything takes longer. 10.Partner with the private sector. Policymakers should seek to collaborate with stakeholders to foster innovation; already around the world many are doing so. Thai state authorities, for example, have joined with the private sector to launch the National e-Payment Master Plan. The plan’s PromptPay initiative enables interbank fund transfers using mobile phones and has signed up more than 2 million merchants to QR-code payment. In Europe, the Cashless Poland Foundation provides small and medium-sized retail businesses with point-of-sale terminals and subsidizes them to take low-value card payments, which otherwise might not be cost-effective. Noncash payments in Russia grew from approximately 25 per capita in 2010 to roughly 150 in 2017, amid collaboration between banks and government. Russia’s Sberbank, with its 55% market share, employed 10,000 meet-and-greeters in bank branches to provide information and encourage adoption. As digital lifestyles expand and more people around the world get connected, it makes sense that payment systems will adapt. Consumers, companies, and governments stand to benefit, and the rise of e-commerce requires an efficient electronic payments infrastructure. However, after thousands of years of fiat currencies, policymakers and corporate leaders should not underestimate the challenges. The solution should be a holistic approach, comprising the right infrastructure, legal frameworks, technologies, and a willingness to partner and collaborate. The task is complex, but the prize is faster growth and an economy enabled for the future. Digital payment systems can link entrepreneurs with banks, workers, suppliers, and new markets for their products and services in a quick and cost-effective manner. By decreasing travel time and expenditures, these technologies help expedite business registration and payments for business licences and permits. Access to savings

accounts and loans may also be improved via the use of digital financial services. Electronic salary payments to employees may improve security while also reducing the time and expense of paying employees. However, there remain obstacles since many entrepreneurs and workers lack bank accounts, digital gadgets, and dependable technological infrastructure. Digital payments speed up and lower the cost of payments between businesses and their suppliers, workers, consumers, and governments. Digital financial systems make it simpler for entrepreneurs to get credit products to establish and develop their enterprises, while also encouraging formal entrepreneurship by making regulatory and tax duties easier to meet. Governments in poor nations may encourage digital financial services by investing in required infrastructure, cooperating with private companies to provide training to prospective users, and ensuring sufficient security and regulatory measures are in place. Entrepreneurs may use digital payment systems to pay for products or services electronically, rather than with cash or cheques, by utilising a mobile phone, the internet, retail point of sale, and other widely accessible access points. Access to digital payment networks is more than simply a convenience for enterprises, particularly in emerging countries. Digital payments can speed up company registration and minimise the time it takes to transmit payments for business licences and permits for companies just starting out. Access to digital platforms may boost e-commerce participation. It may also help with supplychain management and communications with customers and suppliers. Employees who receive electronic salary payments save time, decrease expenses, boost transparency, and empower themselves by providing them with an account and access to financial services such as loans. Entrepreneurs may establish a credit history, which can increase their access to working and investment money. Digital applications such as e-filing of company and employee taxes, as well as social benefits, may help larger-scale enterprises minimise the cost of tax compliance. Moving from cash to digital payments may boost an entrepreneur's profitability by lowering operational expenses and making trade contracts, delivery records, and accounts receivables simpler to handle. Making and receiving digital payments may expand an

entrepreneur's e-commerce involvement and improve connections with customers, suppliers, and financial institutions. For example, digital records may assist entrepreneurs in better managing their inventory supply and making more cost-effective purchase selections. Small business owners, for example, may measure sales by product type and day of the week and use this data to improve inventory management. Entrepreneurs may make more regular digital payments to suppliers, decreasing the number of days of extended trade credit and working capital charges (by reducing accumulated interest on supplier loans). Digital financial transfers also increase transparency and record keeping by generating a readily traceable electronic trail, which helps prevent document-related fraud. Entrepreneurs who accept digital payments have less cash on hand and so have a decreased risk of theft. Digital payments may be particularly vital for female businesses' success. Women are often prevented from going to far suppliers or bank offices due to long travel distances, societal standards, and family duties. By making it simpler to access money and the marketplace, digital payments may help people overcome such mobility constraints. Digital applications such as e-filing and e-payment of licencing fees, registration fees, income taxes, and property taxes may cut the cost of tax compliance and reduce travel time and face-to-face encounters with tax authorities for larger-scale enterprises. This may also boost company formalisation and assist governments generate a broader revenue base. Greater formalisation of labour contracts provides employees with social benefits and protections, while digital technology may make it simpler for businesses to pay employment taxes and social security online. By immediately depositing funds into the accounts of the intended recipients, digital financial transfers may increase the effectiveness of government initiatives to assist small enterprises. This increases the openness of financial transactions and decreases "leakages," or the propensity for intermediaries to steal tiny quantities of money. In India, for example, researchers assessed the effect of using merely a fingerprint to biometrically authenticate cash payments to recipients of a government job programme in the state of Andhra Pradesh. They discovered that this technique of transmission was quicker, less corrupt, and more predictable.

Making the switch to digital salary payments may save money and time for larger-scale enterprises employing workers. Employees have access to formal financial services like as accounts and loans as a result of these digital payments, giving them more control over their financial life. According to a research conducted in Bangladesh, the typical manufacturer cut salary distribution expenses by more than 50% within two years of paying employees directly via digital bank accounts . Historically, factory owners have spent significant sums of money sending in cash-filled trucks to give salaries to employees. Guards must be employed to protect the procedure, and production time is wasted while employees wait in line for their pay. These inefficient behaviours are eliminated by electronic salary payments. They also assure the accuracy of employees' payments and have the potential to aid in audits and supply-chain accountability—for example, the date and amount of salary payments are already recorded in monthly digital transaction records obtained from the bank or mobile payments provider. A research conducted in Afghanistan backs up these findings, revealing rapid and large cost savings for companies that migrate to digital wage payment systems, owing to the security advantages of eliminating cash transactions . Furthermore, computerised salary transfers provide significant advantages to workers. According to a research conducted in Bangladesh, workers' satisfaction with salary payments put into an account grew with time. Employees said that they did not want to return to cash payments. Digital payments may also be more secure for workers than cash payments, which can be stolen or mishandled more readily. While security is always a worry when travelling with significant sums of cash, this is particularly true when it comes to regular cash transfers, such as salaries, that are collected at publicly recognised places and times. Employees may also keep money in conventional banks or e-wallets with electronic salary payments. They may cash out their paychecks whenever they choose or immediately transfer monies to pay for things like power bills or school fees for their children. Evidence from the United States shows that when the government introduced the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) in the mid-1990s, and thus switched from delivering social cash transfers by paper checks that had to be cashed to electronic debit cards, the

overall crime rate was reduced by nearly 10% over the next 20 years . Moving to digital salary payments may also help women's economic empowerment in a variety of ways. Women may be unable to manage their own money and assets due to socio-cultural barriers and other causes. However, electronic payments may allow users more control over how their money is spent, especially if the payment is linked to a stored-value product, such as a formal account or an e-wallet, making it more difficult for relatives and friends to access the cash. According to the evidence, digital transfers empower women inside their own households: Unlike cash payments, the arrival of a digital payment is usually kept confidential. This permits the receiver to keep the contribution hidden from other household members or friends who may demand money that might otherwise benefit the whole household. A vast body of empirical data demonstrates that women's income, when compared to men's, is connected with greater gains in child health and higher expenditure on healthy food, health, and housing . Electronic salary transfers have the additional advantage of attracting a significant number of previously unbanked workers—those who do not utilise the services of banks or comparable financial organisations but have steady employment and verifiable monthly incomes—into the formal financial system. By providing a significant incentive to perform frequent formal financial transactions, this helps these employees to become more financially proficient. Migrating private-sector companies from cash to electronic salary payments will bring an estimated 280 million unbanked individuals into the formal financial system. This may act as a gateway to other digital financial products, such as savings, credit, and insurance services, which provide better security, convenience, and economic benefits, particularly for lowincome people. Digital salary payments also provide the possibility to integrate employees into a system of automated deposits, scheduled SMS reminders, and positive default alternatives, which may assist individuals in overcoming psychological hurdles to saving money. A large body of research indicates that tiny "nudges" may have a big influence on future financial and nonfinancial behaviour including defined-contribution pension accounts and commitment savings products that enable users to save money over time.

Digital payments may also improve an entrepreneur's access to traditional financial services, such as loans. According to World Bank Enterprise Surveys, half of all enterprises globally need a loan, while only 35% have a bank loan or line of credit. Small-scale enterprises, in particular, sometimes have restricted access to formal loans. Credit information bureaus are fledgling or non-existent in many developing nations, making it difficult, if not impossible, for financial institutions to price risk when making a loan decision. As a result, these financial institutions charge exorbitant interest rates, require substantial collateral (typically more than 100 percent of the loan's value), and need guarantors. As a result, new and small-scale enterprises that have not previously banked or do not have the requisite collateral and guarantors are often unable to acquire loans. Entrepreneurs may overcome these problems by digitising financial services. Data analytics of digital transactions such as digital payments to suppliers and customers, as well as electronic payments from an account for utility and rent payments, may assist an entrepreneur generate a qualifying credit score to start or develop their firm. In the United States, for example, included utility and telecom payment records lowered the fraction of persons who were financially "unscorable" from around 12% to 2%, as well as the predicted loan default rate. Lower-income Americans, members of minority populations, and younger and older Americans reaped the biggest advantages. For example, people earning less than US$20,000 per year witnessed a 21% rise in loan approval rates . Forprofit, peer-to-peer digital lending services have also evolved, expanding loan availability beyond social networks and family members. Traditional banking institutions have turned down the majority of the businesses seeking these loans. Countries with sophisticated and widely utilised payment systems may already have physical infrastructure in place to handle digital payments. However, creating a suitable physical network to send digital payments to all parts of the nation is a huge difficulty in lowincome countries with more primitive banking institutions (whose infrastructure is focused in metropolitan areas). Furthermore, there are considerable infrastructural problems for digital payments. The absence of energy to power mobile phones and cell towers, as well as

limits in mobile network coverage and inadequate transportation networks, all impede the spread of digital financial services in rural regions. Finally, although digital payments may be more cost-effective in the long run, developing a sufficient physical infrastructure for dependable payments would need considerable upfront expenditures. Furthermore, whereas 54 percent of individuals in high-income OECD nations reported accessing the internet (through a mobile phone or computer) to make online payments in 2015, just 10 percent of adults in emerging economies did . Poor network quality and coverage may result in lost connections and transaction failures, eroding trust among users of such services, particularly in rural locations. Customers are often required to produce essential papers such as government-issued identification cards or birth certificates in order to create a bank or mobile money account or to conduct most digital financial activities. However, according to the World Bank, more than two billion people globally lacked proper identity in 2014. This might make it difficult for enterprises to get legal registration, labour contracts, and banking services. Employees may also be prevented from creating an account to receive electronic salary payments. Despite the fact that nations such as India, Pakistan, and Kenya are attempting to create a database based on a national identification card system, many individuals still lack a government-issued identity document. Entrepreneurs and workers with low levels of financial literacy and numeracy may find it difficult to utilise digital financial goods effectively. For example, just 33% of individuals in more than 140 nations could properly answer questions on three of the four issues listed above: inflation, risk diversification, simple interest, and compound interest . Inadequate financial aptitude makes it difficult for entrepreneurs and their staff to make sound financial choices. There is conflicting research on whether classroom or online training can increase financial understanding. A meta-analysis of 188 publications on the effect of financial education finds that it may alter various financial habits, such as saving and record keeping. However, the research on how much general financial literacy training influences real behaviour is inconsistent. Customer protection regulations and

dispute resolution processes relating to digital financial transactions, on the other hand, may boost consumer trust and appropriate usage of such services. Education about financial safety, such as the importance of keeping PIN numbers private, disclosure policies to ensure financial service providers have clear and easily accessible information, and legally authorised redress mechanisms to dispute any unauthorised transactions are all examples of effective consumer protections. Despite the advantages of digital payments for labour force participation, most developing nations overestimate entrepreneurs', workers', and consumers' willingness to use such programmes. When a new form of payment instrument, such as point-of-sale payments, is launched, success requires the simultaneous growth of both the supply and demand sides of the product. Otherwise, payment providers will face a conundrum: without a large number of entrepreneurs accepting the product, customers will be hesitant to sign up; however, without a large number of customers willing to pay with it, entrepreneurs will be hesitant to accept it—especially if they must pay to use the digital service. Workers' reluctance to accept technology such as electronic salary payments may also be a significant issue. Given that employees who are used to cash may struggle with the transition to digital payrolls, investing in technology, staff training, and offering on-site support agents is necessary. Entrepreneurial possibilities facilitated by well-functioning digital payment systems may play a critical role in increasing labour force participation in developing nations. Governments and financial service providers must work together to provide access to and promote the use of digital payments by entrepreneurs, as well as their consumers and staff. Governments must guarantee that digital payments are secure and dependable. An suitable financial consumer protection framework should be in place to enable an electronic payment system. Without such a structure, beneficiaries may lose faith in the system, and financial inclusion goals may not be met. Furthermore, it is critical to note that digital payment channels might have security flaws, such as card or account details being stolen. A dependable payment system should have measures in place to defend against fraud and cyberattacks, as well as an emergency response strategy in the event

of a breach. Governments should also create an enabling regulatory framework that stimulates innovation and competition, as well as collaborate with the private sector to build dependable infrastructure that can reach rural regions. They should also assure strong and secure digital networks, as well as provider interoperability and competitiveness. Governments may assist digital financial services by reforming their banking and communications rules. Banks and other financial service providers, for their part, should provide innovative products and services for small-scale enterprises, particularly those in rural regions. They should devise novel approaches to assessing the creditworthiness of new enterprises and create user-friendly financial apps. It would also be appropriate for them to raise awareness among entrepreneurs about the benefits of digital payments and to develop specific initiatives to strengthen the financial competence of prospective users. Banks and service providers should make certain that employees who receive electronic wage payments understand, for example, how the electronic payment programme works, the significance of PIN numbers, and what to do if anything goes wrong. Successful digital payment system improvements have shown that entrepreneurs and workers swiftly adapt to their introduction, fast developing competence and comfort when utilising suitably designed, easy, and efficient systems. With the increased rate of digital platform acquisition during the pandemic, demand for digital payment platforms, digital wallets, and credit cards has increased. Furthermore, SMEs and entrepreneurs from all over the world have begun to take advantage of the digital earnings and loans made accessible by easy, quick, and secure fintech solutions supported by powerful infrastructure procedures. With rising consumer awareness and SMEs warming to the concept of employing digital finance solutions to power their financial operations, the Fintech sector is well positioned to capitalise on digital transformation. With digital lending systems including novel features such as video-based or social security-based authentication and personal identification, financial counsellors may simply access consumer data and get clearance, resulting in increased productivity. Outsourcing Data Analytics services may aid in the better understanding of client portfolios, allowing for more efficient credit

processing. Another beneficial use of data is in the identification of fraud, when consumer behaviour is collected and utilised to assess possible fraud. It is critical in today's competitive financial scene to make online operations extremely safe, easy, and successful. And here is where financial services digital transformation comes into play. Advanced digital solutions not only reduce the financial sector's intricacies, but also make operations more user-friendly. A feature-rich fintech application, for example, may serve several functions while automating procedures and improving user experience. As a result, digital transformation in the banking industry is essential. Following the lessons learned from the last financial crisis, an organization's capacity to increase its agility has emerged as a critical industry trend. However, in order to enable the kind of ongoing growth and improvement that is the cornerstone of agility, financial firms need rapid, dependable access to expanding volumes of data without resorting to time-consuming manual labour procedures. Customers are flocking to mobile services for their financial needs as a result of the global pandemic, which is hastening digital financial transformation in the banking sector. While mobile banking is not a new idea, Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) reported a 200 percent increase in new mobile banking registrations in April 2020, when the first lockout was implemented. Mobile banking traffic increased by 85 percent, highlighting the need for digital transformation in the financial sector. The widespread use of smartphones in our daily lives has influenced our preference for digital banking for common financial services such as electronic bill payments, pooled payments, and fast transfers. According to Deloitte, 72 percent of customers currently use their mobile phones to reach their main bank.

The Benefits of Digital Finance Sources: 1.Increased Security: Digital footprints provide greater transparency and hold individuals and institutions accountable, reducing vulnerability to fraud and corruption. 2.Time and Cost Savings: Digital services are quicker and more efficient, lowering costs for both providers and consumers.

3.Financial Inclusion: The lower costs and convenience of mobile services make them accessible to more people, including those living in remote or rural areas. 4.Women’s Empowerment: Women with access to financial services like loans, savings accounts and mobile payments can achieve independence. It has been found that women with digital savings accounts also spend more on development endeavors like education. 5.Higher Tax Revenues: Digital finance has been proven to increase tax-paying compliance, and in turn, government revenues. 5 Trends are reshaping the Financial Services via Digital Transformation and they are: 1. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Improve Customer Experiences: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two of the most important developments driving the banking sector, and they are a critical component of financial services' digital strategy. They're already bringing about change across the board, managing processes that were previously regarded to be uniquely human. Analysts believe that they may save financial institutions more than $1 trillion over time. One of the most intriguing AI solutions for IT managers is the automation of low-value repetitive operations and customer questions, freeing up IT employees to work on more complicated and high-value processes and projects. Erica, Bank of America's virtual assistant, has now topped six million users and completed over 35 million queries, demonstrating the potential of chatbots in customer interaction. 2. Mobile banking is becoming more popular: Consumers are flocking to mobile solutions for their regular banking demands as a result of the worldwide epidemic. While mobile banking isn't new, during the shutdown in April, new mobile banking registrations increased by 200 percent, requiring IT Managers to place a greater focus on their company's digital capabilities. The pervasiveness of smartphones in our daily lives has led to an increase in the usage of mobile devices for ordinary banking operations such as electronic bill payments, peer-to-peer payments, and rapid

transfers. According to Deloitte, 72 percent of customers currently use their mobile phones to reach their main bank. Adopting mobile communication is becoming an increasingly crucial component of the company for IT Managers. Use an employee communication app to keep employees up to know on the newest upgrades and improvements. That way, you can keep in continual touch with your personnel no matter where they are, ensuring that crucial information is not missed. 3. Big Data Allows for Digital Innovation: Data is all around us. In fact, there is so much of data that no IT Manager could ever extract all of the insights that lead to opportunity on their own. According to Seagate Technology, the worldwide volume of data will exceed 175 zettabytes by 2025. The banking industry is already recognising Big Data's promise. Banks are devising new methods to sell their services and utilise data to provide more tailored experiences for their consumers as technology becomes smarter and quicker. One of the most important ways large banks will be able to exploit their troves of customer data is to train ML algorithms to automate their procedures, saving IT employees hours of labour. IT Managers must improve their communication skills while introducing new technology. Use Video Alerts to introduce digital changes to employees and demonstrate the advantages of digital transformation in banking. By utilising the potential of passive communications in common places such as staff rooms and kitchen areas, digital signage is a great tool for promoting wide employee awareness and encouraging buy-in. 4. Cloud Banking Opens Up New Business Prospects: Finance firms are increasingly looking to the cloud as a means of digital innovation. According to an IEEE research, cloud computing has changed the duties and responsibilities of IT professionals, allowing them to concentrate on providing better services. The cloud provides a location for financial services to outsource data storage and get access to innovative software applications. It allows IT managers to spend less time 'keeping the lights on' and more time developing new procedures to support innovation, generate value, and raise revenue. Traditional financial services are adopting cloud

technology due to the significant decrease in IT expenses it delivers, both in hardware and IT Operations management, as well as in labour costs. Cloud migration saves around 15% of total IT cost, with small to medium-sized firms saving up to 36%. Desktop Tickers are an excellent approach to keep employees informed about the development and implementation of the cloud migration. They may deliver IT personnel status updates in the form of a news feed, capturing the excitement of the newest developments as they happen. 5. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Simplifies Banking Operations: Financial organisations are under intense pressure to reduce expenses, increase ROI, and increase efficiency. RPA has already shown to be their saviour, bringing increased efficiency and production across the board. They are expected to be a $2.9 billion business by 2021. RPA refers to a virtual robotic workforce that optimises company operations by doing onerous and repetitive office duties often performed by bank employees, notably those in the IT department. According to Gartner, almost 80% of finance executives have deployed or intend to use RPA. The ability to automate save and recovery systems to safeguard the company from possible disc losses or damages caused by human mistake is a big benefit automation affords IT Managers. It is critical that IT Managers assist support personnel in learning and adapting to the new technologies that will be used to propel the company ahead. Employee quizzes may assist in reinforcing companywide skill training for new tools, products, and procedures introduced throughout the transition. Sierra Leone was one of the most impacted by the 2014–16 Ebola epidemic. Frontline response workers totalled over 60,000 and were vital in halting the pandemic. Cash-based payments to these employees, on the other hand, constituted a serious issue, since missing, decreased, or delayed payments became a major source of strikes. Sierra Leone and the donor community switched to mobile wallets in December 2014 to pay frontline response personnel. The relatively high level of connection in Sierra Leone was a critical aspect behind the practicality of the mobile cash transfer technique. Sierra Leone started the crisis with 95% mobile phone coverage and a countrywide network of over 5,000 mobile payment agents capable of

converting mobile payments to cash. 21,22 Moreover, amid the Ebola outbreak, the Bank of Sierra Leone released mobile money instructions. Despite the fact that virtually all response employees had mobile phones, only 15% of them were enrolled for mobile money at the start of the programme. Authorities attempted to expedite minimal know-your-customer (KYC) standards so that response workers may be registered and begin collecting digital payments as soon as possible. A lack of identifying papers posed a significant challenge in this respect. Only 15% of Sierra Leoneans are covered by the country's national identity system. Furthermore, 70 percent of the population shares the top ten most common surnames, complicating the task of identifying payees. While fingerprint scanning was troublesome due to the potential of Ebola virus transmission via physical contact, the use of face recognition software provided an excellent biometric identification option. The mobile transfers were well received by recipients, who expressed their gratitude. During the course of the programme, 98 percent of response employees were paid on time and in full. Mobile transfers also successfully halted unlawful deductions by managers, which might amount to up to 50% of employees' hazard compensation when paid in cash. As a consequence, strikes decreased. According to Bangura (2016), mobile transfers saved the government, development partners, and response personnel a total of US$10.7 million. Digital salary and tax payments guarantee social separation while also being more cost efficient and safe. When opposed to cash and cheque payments (which are physically handed over and paid), digital payment of salaries, taxes, and transfers to workers, the government, and other companies helps both payers and payees by better preserving social separation. Bangladesh and the Philippines are two countries that have digitised their salary payments, while Tanzania has benefited from digitising B2G (as well as P2G) payments. Distributed computing has the potential to alter payments and securities settlement, as well as back-office activities, by lowering costs and enabling direct business-to-business (B2B) transactions that do not need intermediaries. Contactless digital payments for P2P transfers and in-store purchases might help preserve social distance and limit the spread of COVID-19.

Existing digital payment modalities (debit/credit cards, online banking, mobile wallets, digital payment applications, Unified Payments Interface service, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, and bank prepaid cards, mobile) are increasingly employed by households worldwide. As an example, a recent poll of Indian households found that the usage of digital payments increased during the COVID-19 issue. Some governments are presently incentivizing people to pay for products and services digitally, using mobile money or e-wallets. Uganda, for example, has reduced mobile money transfer fees, while Egypt, Liberia, and Myanmar have increased transaction size limits. In response to the pandemic, authorities in Bangladesh, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, and Zambia have implemented both sets of measures (reducing mobile money transfer fees and increasing transaction size limits). As the dependence on online supply of goods and services grows throughout the pandemic, there will be an increased need for digital payment methods that are suitable with online usage. In times of crisis, digital means of payment, such as mobile money and digital currencies, may help with remittance processing. This is particularly true when conventional methods of remittances need actual queues. In the Pacific, for example, the United Nations Capital Development Fund is collaborating with mobile network providers to temporarily eliminate costs for mobile remittances in order to assist continue the flow of remittances, which is a critical source of revenue for many Pacific island economies. Aside from the social distancing advantages, the digitalization of P2G payments has the potential to increase tax revenues. Tax payments made digitally may increase transparency, which may aid in the fight against tax evasion and corruption. In Senegal, for example, digitalization programmes for mobile payment of municipal taxes increased tax receipts by a factor of seven in three months. Higher tax collections may be especially crucial during the continuing epidemic, considering the significant fiscal spending requirements that most governments would confront. IMF | Research | Seven rules and a competitiveness policy Such loan supply may be especially important in the informal sector, for SMEs and the tiniest enterprises, about whom little public information is

accessible and who may experience difficulty obtaining credit via standard bank channels. This is especially crucial during crises, when knowledge gaps may increase credit rationing. In China, reliance on fintech-based loan supply has been proven to boost SMEs' shock resilience both before and during the current epidemic. By minimising the need for entrepreneurs to physically travel to the bank to communicate with or provide papers to loan officers, digital, contactless credit supply to enterprises may also assist implement social distancing during the COVID-19 issue. Finally, if bank balance sheets are harmed and lending is restricted, new nonbank lending platforms may become increasingly essential during the crisis. P2P lending networks may provide advantages, which may rise during a crisis. P2P lending platforms have minimal overhead and provide their services at a cheaper cost than conventional financial institutions. Such platforms are mostly used by small to midsize lenders. Lending software suppliers develop solutions to expedite loan processing, while lenders seek to expand into new regions and demographics. Prior to the current crisis, some examples include the case of Brazil, where the central bank authorised P2P lending across the entire country, Malaysian authorities introducing a P2P scheme for first-time home buyers, and P2P lending in the United States, which is recognised and regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission as other financial instruments. Because of recent developments in lending technology and completely automated loan procedures, new P2P lenders often give better service than existing financial institutions. P2P financing systems may help people get credit, as seen by the rise of P2P lending platforms in China and payment-to-business (P2B) crowdfunding platforms in a number of countries. In times of crisis, when bank funding may be more difficult to get, such platforms may offer an alternative possible source of credit for certain families and enterprises that would otherwise be credit rationed owing to their small size and probable lack of paperwork. By minimising the need for families to physically travel to the bank to communicate with or provide papers to loan officers, digital, contactless credit supply to households may also assist implement social distancing during the COVID-19 issue. Here are 5 key factors that are crucial for successful digital

transformation programs in the financial services industry: 1.Put customers at the core – Consumer today want seamless experiences across every channel, service and product. They also expect financial services firms to create personalized products and services that address their specific preferences and goals, with robust underlying platforms, provide competitive pricing, that can educate consumers and can support additional tools. 2.Accelerate time-to-value – Somewhat like Moore’s Law that predicts the doubling of transistors in an integrated circuit every 2 years, consumers expect their banks to double down on their value proposition within 18 months or less. This means that banks need a smooth innovation delivery pipeline that tracks market trends, tests innovative products and uses fast feedback mechanisms to iterate for continuous improvement. Such an agile, on-demand innovation pipeline will help banks improve customer stickiness by catering to changing consumer preferences. 3.Leverage the potential of minimum viable product (MVP) – A recent PwC report shows that while 61% of respondents from financial services and FinTech firms feel they are good at generating ideas, only 41% feel they are good at developing MVPs [1]. Achieving customer-centricity as an enterprise goal calls for a consumer-driven focus among product teams where continuous feedback is used to drive continuous improvement. This requires strong collaboration between business and technology teams, a robust tooling ecosystem and an incremental approach to creating MVPs. Such a strategy will help banks quickly roll out much-needed capabilities across digital channels and avoid becoming obsolete. 4.Modernize legacy to keep pace with digital – While digital technologies such as cloud, big data, analytics, can improve efficiency within firms, they still depend on data residing on-premise and information flow across legacy systems. Thus, a crucial aspect of digital transformation is modernizing the core systems using Microservices, APIs as well as DevOps processes for continuous integration & continuous delivery leading to faster release cycles. 5.Upgrade the workforce – As per the Future of Jobs Report - 2018 by World Economic Forum, 56% of workforce in financial services

industry will require learning new skills and 29% of the workforce will be employed in new emerging roles by 2022 - up from 15% in 2018 [2]. As automation replaces routine tasks and machine learning accelerates process efficiency, companies must take due care to manage concerns around ‘automation anxiety’. This can be done by organizing hackathons and ideathons, infusing entrepreneurial thinking in the workforce, investing in cross-functional teams and reskilling employees on emerging technologies to create a culture of learning, that is vital for firms to thrive. The ultimate aim of digital transformation might be portrayed as a roadmap of to-be-achieved milestones, features to be provided progressively, or a chart of intended outcomes to be realised over time. Agile teams have the benefit of seeing the larger picture, which allows them to better identify the actions required to accomplish small and major objectives. Such teams are made up of multi-skilled individuals that work effectively together with the larger organisational ecosystem to unearth difficulties, create ideas, and implement remedies with accuracy. Agile teams also use agile methods such as iterative delivery and regular presentations to business teams to increase collaboration and align IT with business. A top US insurance firm adopted Agile to improve business-IT cooperation on a significant digital transformation effort, reducing time-to-market for new products by over 80%. Many firms still see agile as a purely technological approach for enhancing project delivery by finding problems, meeting deadlines, and reaching milestones. In actuality, agile is a new way of thinking for organisations that extends beyond project delivery to include customer-centricity, business-driven IT, outcome-oriented transformation, and generating business value from each project. Agile projects are provided continuously, meeting high priority needs first while adapting to changing and growing requirements, with consumers at the centre of thinking while designing, testing, and deploying. A renowned broker/dealer used agile to transform their legacy platform into a distributed transaction posting system, which improved their capacity to manage market volatility and more than quadrupled their legacy throughput in terms of transactions per second. Creating a continuous lifecycle to discuss ideas, establish new skills, and provide high-quality services and products is what

organisational agility is all about. This requires a well-defined technology and tools ecosystem to expedite idea generation, feature development on a cadence, and delivery on demand through DevOps. A large Australian bank successfully used DevOps for a critical digital banking effort, resulting in shorter time to market by speeding release cycles. DevOps capacity increased the business feedback loop in retail banking digital projects by 20X, providing for quick reaction to changing market demands. While digital transformation looks different at every company, digital businesses share the following fundamental characteristics: 1.Collaborative: Every member of the organisation is meaningfully involved in achieving a shared vision. This means working together at different levels of the organisation and across teams to build trust, promote transparency and engage employees. 2.Cultural: Requires a shift away from traditional business structures and hierarchies and empowering employees to make decisions and contribute ideas. 3.Cloud-based: Cloud-based services are economical and agile, allowing businesses to choose those that meet their needs and streamline their IT and infrastructure costs. 4.Mobile: Customers expect ease and convenience from businesses. That means they need to be accessible on mobile devices, where more than half of all web traffic is generated. 5.Innovative: Digital businesses are always experimenting and then learning from the outcomes to inform larger changes across the company. 6.Continuous: This isn’t a project with a start and end date. Technology will continue to evolve and call for adaptations to current processes, which means you need to keep learning and evolving. 7.Data-driven: This includes not only collecting and analysing data about your customers but measuring what’s happening inside your company too. 8.Customer-centric: Ultimately, these shifts are all focused on providing a better service and a better experience for your customers. Conversational AI is becoming a foundational technology in banking.

Why? 1.Process quality. Abandonment rates for digital product applications in banking are horrendously high. Even more troublesome: just a minority of institutions follow up with would-be applicants within a business day. That’s unacceptable. Banks need to make conversational AI tools components of critical business processes— not just generic sales and service tools. 2.Data. Attempts to codify and store “data” collected through human interactions—and even from clickstream data—is incomplete, generally inaccessible to other applications that could benefit from the data, and hard to analyze. Data gleaned from chatbot interactions can overcome these shortcomings. Banks need to make chatbots part of their data management strategies—not just their sales and service strategies. 3.Personalization. Too many banks think of personalization in terms of personalized messages. Smart banks understand that good personalization requires personalized conversations. They still wrestle, however, with getting the data to deliver good personalization, and creating opportunities to have personalized conversations. However, among institutions that think they’re three-quarters of the way through their digital transformation strategy (or more), just 18% of them have deployed chatbots. A larger percentage of institutions who aren’t as far along in their transformation journeys have deployed chatbots. That doesn’t make sense. Financial intermediaries are created as a result of economic frictions such as information asymmetries and economic pressures such as economies of scale and scope. These frictions and pressures influence market structure as well. While technical developments are not new to finance, digital innovation has resulted in significant gains in system connection, processing power and cost, and freshly produced and useful data. These advancements have reduced transaction costs and spawned new business models and entrants. The production of financial services might be disaggregated since technology has enhanced information flow and lowered transaction costs. Financial services have been unbundled by specialised players, enabling customers to discover and construct their chosen suites of

goods. Classical economic factors, on the other hand, remain significant even in the era of digital manufacturing. Many areas of financial services production, including client acquisition, finance, compliance operations, data, and capital, benefit from economies of scale and scope, as well as network effects (including trust capital). Despite technological developments, consumer search and assembly costs remain high. These pressures promote re-bundling and benefit major multi-product providers, such as technology (big tech) corporations entering into financial services from adjacent industries. The digital revolution of financial services raises a number of critical policy challenges including competition, regulatory boundaries, and assuring a fair playing field. A "barbell" result with a few major suppliers and numerous specialised firms is one of the possible outcomes in terms of competitiveness, concentration, and market composition. To handle trade-offs between stability and integrity, competitiveness and efficiency, and consumer protection and privacy, authorities must communicate across financial regulation, competition, and industry regulatory organisations. Banking institutions of all sizes are striving to implement new technology and services across the board as part of the digital revolution. But what exactly does digital transformation in banking imply? The transition to supplying online and digital services, as well as the huge number of backend improvements necessary to enable this transformation, is central to digital transformation in banking. Many banks make the mistake of launching a slew of independent digital projects, which fail because they lack the support and coordination needed to compete with digital-native solutions. Instead, digital transformation in banking must be implemented from the top down, combining digital systems, customer experience platforms, applications, and infrastructure. Banking Digital Transformation Examples: Customer Data Collection, Management, and Analysis Using Blockchain Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) While digital transformation in banking may and can entail a variety of things, the concepts listed below will get you started in designing your own bank's digital transformation path.

Every bank has a website, and the majority have some type of digital app, as well as online services and features. These digital elements include the majority of what consumers think of as "digital services," but they do not include digital revolution in banking. They do, however, enable you to take a significant step toward a bank's digital transformation by digitising the client journey. How? And what exactly does it entail? Traditional customer journeys or sales pipelines often begin with marketing generating leads, passing those leads to sales, and then transferring sales to customer support. Individuals must pass through numerous departments before receiving a product or service, resulting in a fragmented, unconnected, and generally impersonal outcome. Banking digital transformation enables you to build a more integrated and personalised digital customer experience. Creating a digital customer journey entails integrating everything into a single online platform so that the client is serviced using the same tools, often by the same people, and with the same information throughout the process. Changing how teams are structured, incorporating technical individuals into sales teams, and perhaps combining marketing and retail into the same team may all assist a lot in this situation. The most significant feature of digitising the customer experience is that clients are seamlessly transported from marketing to sales as part of an online application for financing, to in-app invoicing, all the way to customer care, all inside the app. To do this, the customer journey must be mapped and tools and apps built around it, with an emphasis on certain crucial points. A digitised customer journey, for example, enables a client to click on an ad, sign up for an account online, get lessons and on-boarding material through their smartphone, receive automated loan decisions, and pay bills or transfer cash online. Understanding consumer desires and requirements, as well as investing in those wants and needs, is required for this kind of digital transformation in banking. It will, however, save you money in the long run since it enhances customer happiness, frees up personnel for value-added activities like relationship development, and ultimately saves time by automating operations. Data is more abundant in today's banks than ever before. The more

digital services you provide, the more data you acquire automatically. This data enables you to take significant steps in updating and managing your operational model, customer service, and even corporate strategy. Data enables you to get a fresh understanding of your consumers and use that knowledge to create opportunities, enhance goods and services, and automate solutions. Data mining and big data in banking affect every aspect of the company, but sales and marketing are two of the most visible divisions that benefit from a bank's digital transformation plan. Big data enables you to leverage client information to build focused marketing campaigns or financial education packages in this case. The same data is used to reduce churn by developing offers and solutions to keep consumers from leaving. Analytics can forecast when consumers desire or need loans, when loans fail, when customers are about to depart, and even when a cross-sell or up-sell may be beneficial. In turn, this data enables banks to provide highly tailored offers and solutions, either via a human or as an automated offer or solution through an app or web portal. Many bank digital transformation initiatives include automation and the use of digitally driven solutions like as chatbots and AI. J.P. Morgan Chase takes it a step further, integrating COIN to manage and process loan agreements. The same AI is used in customer care, where it provides support, account creation, and other services. In this case, options such as self-service, chatbots, and 24/7 assistance provide corporate benefits while increasing consumer experience. While there are numerous facets of digital transformation in the banking business, one of the most crucial is adaptability and willingness to change. Banks are often stymied by security, law, and stringent procedures designed to safeguard client data and privacy. Simultaneously, in terms of growth and user acquisition, new digitalnative banking products and money applications are surpassing conventional banking. Adapting policies to suit changing customer demand, fast adapting to new technology, and responding as the market evolves is critical to digital banking transformation. This might imply that genuine digital transformation in banking necessitates altering the company from the inside out, concentrating on how the business adapts to change rather than on outer offerings like web portals and chatbots. To become and be a genuinely digital business,

you'll need both. Bank digital transformation is easier said than done, with many of today's banks failing to meet their own digital transformation targets. Banks can make this shift and continue their digital transformation by changing approach, replacing legacy frameworks, and working to develop a digital culture internally before developing single-use digital features, for reasons ranging from a lack of consistency or support across new digital applications to a lack of internal agility. Once a digital culture has been established, digital platforms and services may provide significant value to customers, particularly when enabled by automation, AI, big data, and blockchain technology. The financial services industry is at a crossroads. Disruption across the industry as a result of the rise of fintechs, the effects of the pandemic, increased regulation, and the acceleration of digital innovation spurred by changing customer behaviour means that banks and traditional players are carefully evaluating their business models and concluding that solutions-focused reinvention and agility are critical. Inevitably, technology will play a role in this. Digital transformation is essential for competing in a competitive economy. Banks confront several problems, including the need to simplify processes, boost efficiency, control expenses, strengthen security, and, ultimately, improve the customer experience. In this rapidly changing climate, adopting rapid and large-scale innovation is critical for survival. "In essence, what banks want to do is adapt very quickly to fulfil the demands of their customers," says Prakash Pattni, Managing Director of Digital Transformation at IBM Cloud for Financial Services. "It's no longer a matter of if, but of when and how they can hasten this whole trip." Regardless of how critical it is, the journey is a continuous transformation in both systems and attitude that affects all area of banking operations. The first stage is to move programmes to the cloud and provide the appropriate controls to do so safely. Refining development processes and restructuring applications to make them more adaptable is part of this, as is reassessing the company's culture to ensure that it stays client-centric throughout a period of transformation. This may be intimidating for businesses, particularly those operating in many countries, and it explains why just 16% of financial institution workloads have been moved to the cloud.

According to Gartner research, although 87% of top business executives agree digitalization is a corporate priority, just 40% of organisations have scaled digital efforts. "How to safely move extremely sensitive data to the cloud has been a major challenge for financial services organisations." Because a substantial portion of their application workloads analyse this sort of data, the value they get is restricted until they can address this on the cloud." Pattni elaborates. Because of increased regulatory obligations and critical risk management in this industry, risk mitigation linked with digital transformation is non-negotiable. While there is still fear that moving data to the cloud exposes institutions to cyber dangers, legacy systems that use older versions of software or protocols may be more susceptible. When dealing with such sensitive data, financial services businesses must satisfy, if not exceed, security control standards. IBM provides the industry's most powerful encryption technologies to safeguard data in the cloud, and the significance of this security cannot be understated for financial software startup Circeo. The startup created a new kind of software that allowed banks to issue loans quickly and easily, without the need for documentation or inperson visits. This technology had the potential to take the business ahead, but since it was so new, data security had to be not just watertight, but also scalable. Circeo was able to take advantage of an industry-informed, comprehensive security architecture that embedded the controls necessary into the fabric of its cloud, allowing it to thrive, by using IBM's Cloud for Financial Services. "Five years ago, banks used safety and scalability as an excuse to avoid talking to firms like us," CEO Matthieu Job says. "They are the reason they want to work with us today." Using a cloud built for financial services to streamline the transition to the public cloud can reduce pain points for banks, allowing them to focus resources on improving their services and products rather than worrying about the potential reputational damage a breach could cause — and the resulting capital waste. For customers, the outcome is more trust in the cloud's security, which leads to faster innovation, enhanced security, and more personalised services. The advantages of embracing sophisticated technology are persuasive, with McKinsey & Company study indicating that revenue growth efforts create 41% of

the value of a digital transformation in firms that go "all-in" on change. Because of the rapid pace of digital innovation, as well as industry dynamics, banks must rethink business models and adapt to a new and evolving environment. Modernizing old systems or developing new cloud-native apps via an integrated strategy customised to the financial sector improves customers' digital transformation journey and their capacity to innovate. For banks functioning in today's dynamic environment, the ability to produce value and achieve a competitive edge is critical.

4 Benefits of a Digital Transformation in Banking: 1. Trustworthiness is gained online : Nowadays, people choose their banks depending on how they perceive the institution. Their perception is shaped by the way a financial institution positions itself online. People are influenced by social media platforms, through websites and advertisements. If banks are able to do some good online marketing, it will help them build trust in people’s eyes. There are several ways to build a relationship with a customer but there is one particular strategy that has produced great results is Online Reputation Management. 2. Acquisition of new customers is cheaper and easier : Banks require customers just as much as customers require banks. Therefore, financial institutions can no longer be passive about the way they attract consumers of financial services. The good news is, there is a cheaper and easier way to attract these customers towards you. The Internet provides great platforms to reach out directly to these potential consumers, right on their devices. This makes influencing them easier, which in turn leads to an increase in the possibility of them coming to you. It’s also called Content Marketing and is the new word of mouth. It helps to boost engagement and earns trust with both prospects and customers.

3. Personalized Offering: Digital transformation allows financial institutions to know what the

people actually want. They can formulate their financial services and offer according to customer requirements rather than guesswork. New innovative technological developments allow banks to strengthen customer engagement with personalized offerings.

4. Enables Innovation & Adaptability : Digital Transformation equips banking institutions to act upon technology and market trends and scale these efforts with gradual successes. Only if an institution is able to upgrade itself, will it be able to cater to the demands of the new-age customers. Sophisticated digital technologies have transformed the traditional way that banking was done. The emergence of shopping portals, social channels, and integrated mobile apps has opened a lot of doors for banks to reach out to their customers. Banking institutions need to embrace this new world of digital by moving towards a digital transformation. Here’s an interesting stat; Millennials are more likely to watch a 3 minute Youtube video than read a long pamphlet. That means videos are becoming more and more popular as they are concise and engaging. Digital Financial Services (DFS) refers to the supply and access of core and supplementary financial services (e.g., payments, remittances, lendings) through digital channels such as mobile, internet, POS terminals, and so on. Digital financial services are delivered through existing bank-provided instruments (e.g., debit/credit cards), as well as new FinTech solutions such as mobile payments, peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, and crypto assets built using cloud computing, digital platforms, and distributed ledger technologies (DLT). Clearly, digital financial services (DFS) give tangible advantages to service providers, allowing them to profit on the offers by: 1.Extending financial service supply to wider consumer segments/markets 2.Financial inclusion implementation 3.Accelerating the release of technology-enabled products/services 4.Increasing service delivery efficiency and quality 5.lowering transactional and operational expenses

6.Allowing for social separation during times of crisis, such as pandemics While the finance field is gaining new dynamics and nearly every financial organization is actively applying or experimenting with new technologies, a sizable number of firms are working on executing a systematic digital transformation strategy. Financial service providers are opting for different approaches to create the best value through their digital business. Some go with optimization strategies improving existing business models, processes, offerings and the customer experience bit by bit. While others choose digital business transformation in radically new ways by employing all the emerging tech and market-dictated capabilities, organizational changes and revamped processes and interactions. Though digital transformation looks like a coherent solution for the financial services sector, it is a strenuous process requiring a clear balance between looking ahead and keeping an existing steady business course while employing tech, innovating business models, and introducing new ecosystems. Financial services industry players are drudging to deliver on the investment of a long-term ROI while generating value for customers in the short term. The sharing economy and environment of today have drastically altered the connection between financial service users and suppliers. A connected and ecstatic consumer expects a seamless real-time customer experience across every channel and financial service or product, underpinned by data-driven analytics. They also anticipate specialised offerings from financial service providers that cater to their specific needs, such as affordable pricing, sophisticated linked platforms, and extra assistance. This is fueling a significant trend integrated financial business services and a connectivity strategy. Because every solution is required to become simple-to-use by default, financial services are expected to be strong microservice companies that play in sync with the digital customer's aspirations. What advantages does technology provide to Digitally Connected Finance? 1.Shifting to an ecosystem by using new technology to provide a unified digital experience for the client.

2.Capabilities for data and analytics that allow risk reduction, product innovation, and interoperability dynamics. 3.Multiple third-party facilitators redefined customer connections and identified new related services. 4.Long-term, trusting cooperation partnerships are being developed. 5.RegTech is used to handle regulatory, security, and compliance (Regulatory Technology). 6.Modernization of old software, applications, and systems in order to achieve full market relevance. The development of connected experiences has generated a market for digital experience platforms, such as hybrid cloud solutions that provide users with both privacy and customisation. Sophisticated cloud solutions are enticing consumers and organisations by liberating them from the complexity and expense of traditional IT infrastructures, offering extraordinary flexibility, giving them ownership over their data, and enabling on-demand worldwide access. The need of today's sharing economy converts into a new kind of financial innovation called as "Open Banking." This is a new financial institution standard that allows third-party providers to link applications and services using open application programming interfaces (APIs). According to Finastra, 86 percent of global banks questioned have contemplated employing open APIs to deliver Open Banking features. Open Banking, which is expected to transform every part of financial business models, will comprise transparent strategically aligned customer-centric ecosystems with banks acting as platform providers covering all area of their financial transactions. Mobility solutions are another part of linked finance. Within financial engagements, mobile is synonymous with convenience, personalisation, control, and comfort. Mobility is increasingly being used for on-demand banking, voice payments, microinsurance, mobile wallets, and ad-hoc digital assistants. The cornerstone of the linked finance idea is rethinking financial operations and using appropriate technologies. Based on a data variable analysis (i.e., operations context, lifestyle, geography, values, smart devices, etc.), technologies such as AI and IoT promote customer retention and allow the most effective tailored solutions conceivable. Due to its

information openness and great accuracy and accessibility for all parties, blockchain provides the cornerstone for new payment methods, cross-border transactions, smart contract processing, credit reporting, and digital identity verification. With its cost effectiveness, speed, and flexibility, cloud computing provides financial service providers with the tools they need to create new goods and services, manage risks, and communicate with clients and partners in an agile, connected manner. As a result, technology may become a competitive differentiator for the whole BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) industry, enabling connection and responding to the requirements of the digital-savvy client while gaining market relevance. From social media and applications to mobile phones to data-driven personalisation and timely targeted approaches, technology is increasingly seen as a consumable commodity by consumers and users. One of the important developments in the financial business, which is mostly a response to the global situation in 2020, is the capacity to adapt effectively and swiftly to a disruptive environment, i.e. to embrace agility. Financial service businesses attempt to comprehend the changing customer environment, market hidden needs, and to enable constant innovation in order to embed the essential value proposition in every element of financial solutions, all of which are the fundamentals of being agile. A meaningful user experience begins with identifying the customer's true demands within the framework of the present market situation. Technology ecosystems and well-defined tools have opened up new options for digital financial services, the most data-intensive industry, to apply agility, which establishes continuous lifecycles, develops new capabilities, and provides quality services/products that meet consumer expectations. By incorporating data strategies powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into a competence matrix, financial institutions obtain quick and dependable access to a rising quantity of data that is also backed up by specialised analytics, allowing them to see the big picture. The agile business approach is based on smart strategy, informed business choices, customer intelligence, and sophisticated analytics, all of which emphasise data and analytics as major income streams for

financial institutions in order to remain relevant and competitive. Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) professionals may acquire clear insights of the company environment and consumer behaviours, as well as staff productivity measures, by putting data into action. This allows for a more rapid reaction to changes and, as a result, better service while also increasing profitability. Another benefit of data analytics for business agility is its capacity to identify value drivers and growth prospects and then compare financial and non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs) to those. It enables the investigation of the relationship between investments and profitability across numerous aspects of the financial organisation (products, customers, services, channels, and so on) in order to plan further on valuation or growth optimization. Another major tendency enforced by technology proliferation in finance operations is the integration of new and existing services into conventional financial business models. The introduction of technology into the finance function gave rise not only to FinTechs, which are unburdened by a siloed data haul and can target specific service areas, but also to BigTechs, such as Apple, Alibaba, Amazon, Google, and Facebook, which are heavily investing in the financial services market due to their large capitalization, massive customer data pools, and established networks. FinTech, an abbreviation for Financial Technology, is an industry that exists at the interface of financial services and technology. Contrary to popular belief, FinTech is not just used by startups, but is also used by technology businesses and even legacy software suppliers. Banking, lending, venture capital, wealth management, personal finance, electronic payments, and the insurance – financial services industry are all already using technology in some capacity. BigTech, or established firms that dominate the information technology sector, is also waging a strong battle against conventional financial service providers. Those platform firms enter the finance space with a pre-existing client reach and scale, big data consumer insights, and internet banking licences, so they essentially utilise financial services as a vehicle to expand their client reach. Industry leaders are working hard to establish a truly digital financial experience, which includes a full suite of services ranging from

personal finance and automated asset management to on-demand insurance advising, all in real-time and at the customer's fingertips. To provide all of the above, financial institutions must work with timely data, obtain useful analytical insights, provide real-time prediction forecasts, and construct scalable, flexible platforms with more interconnected digital ecosystems. However, it is a significant investment with tough rivalry for financial industry firms. Understanding that technology deployment alone does not constitute digital transformation, but rather is a component of the strategic journey, is critical. As more financial services businesses see that ecosystems represent a significant possibility for business in today's environment, they are increasingly focusing on cooperation rather than rivalry with technology providers. Companies are increasingly extending their partner pool and engaging system integrators and suppliers to capitalise on the promise of innovations and technology to boost operational efficiency and offer enterprise solutions at scale. 82 percent of conventional financial institutions, such as banks, investment managers, and insurers, want to expand FinTech collaboration (PWC). Another driver of cooperation in the financial services business is strict regulation, norms, and ever-increasing compliance requirements. With the growing network of rules, regulating groups inspecting, and the soaring costs of compliance or non-compliance, financial institutions are looking to digital solutions for help. RegTech, or regulation technology, was created to aid in the effective management of day-to-day financial compliance obligations. RegTech is applying the power of digital transformation to finance regulatory compliance in order to assist firms automate practically every aspect of the compliance process. RegTech helps streamline the compliance process, processes mountains of data, parses and analyses legal texts and extracts meaningful insights, minimises human errors, connects previously siloed people and processes, and improves risk management by implementing and integrating the powers of cloud computing, data analytics, machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and more. To keep ahead of the competition, financial service sector leaders often employ flexible and agile technology enablers or collaborate with FinTechs to solve technical gaps, address

any important service delivery points, and provide distinctive consumer experiences. Experts state that personalization and connectivity are the two strategies driving the financial services evolvement within digital transformation. Customers of every age segment, from the “silver tech generation” over to millennials and up to GenZ expect increasingly personalized financial services solutions. Those include everything from personal management of all their own finances on convenient devices, to real-time engagement with simplicity, speed, security and transparency. The stats prove that the age of customer loyalty to a financial services brand per se is over and that the customer experience is becoming a new benchmark for financial institutions. A personalized approach within the financial services sector is similar to any other industry that is offering customers quality and value in their interactions. While making the customers’ lives easier, the approach is based on a better understanding of their needs and requirements. But there is one more tendency specific to financial services, the financial services connected and exuberant consumer is seeking to receive a packaged digital product; for instance, like a personalized financial plan for a young couple. So, financial service firms are turning their focus towards leveraging tech to make the most out of what they have to offer. By digging insights out of historic data and segmentation, market analytics tech is called on to: 1.Orchestrate tailored customer experiences through special offers, messaging, and individual pricing recommendations. 2.Intensify customer engagement within the key service touchpoints due to consumers’ satisfaction and brand image awareness. 3.Enhance up- and cross- selling due to indicated customer value and simplified interactions. This, at the end of the day, leads to an improved ROI, efficiency, and margins due to risk assessment and financial felony prevention. A holistic approach to every particular customer’s need is fundamental for creating strong engagement. And, a personalized experience design, triggered by big data processing, AI, blockchain, IoT, and machine learning algorithms are gaining positive perception by the consumer. Using cross-channeling like mobile, web, wearables, social

media, and AI-enabled tools so as to surface fact-based insights into a user’s behaviour thus implementing the most relevant technology methods for proactive engagement with a consumer, all help to identify customer journeys and offer personalized campaigns with timely products or services. Among the most vivid benefits of tech-supported personalization in financial services are: 1.More accurate risk assessments and tailored personalized advice on wealth or investment management with advanced analytics. 2.Consistent business processes and operations across the whole value chain, with AI-powered automation from chatbots for simple requests, to error-free intelligent claims or loan processing, and blockchained automated execution of smart contracts. 3.Mutually beneficial partnerships between banking and customercentric tech vendors and open banking platforms due to open infrastructure and the support of APIs. 4.Brand image awareness and customer engagement with technology-enabled financial marketing. The initial level of finance transformation permits the interchange of financial goods and services through digital channels. We are now seeing the next stage, which improves customer assistance via selfservice options, as well as business ecosystem expansion driven by the API economy. A transition from a project-based to a productdriven approach is now becoming a critical component of digital transformation in the financial services industry. As a result, a financial services business, whether a bank, investment broker, or insurance provider, is required to evolve into a high-performance microservices organisation that provides actual financial advising services via an allinclusive strategy. Below are the transformation as suggested for Digital transformation in Financial industries: 1.Business processes transformation is focused around specific areas of the business. By fast adoption of technology capabilities like data analytics, BI tools, API, machine learning techniques, etc., it can help reinvent numerous processes across the financial organization, commercialize on new ideas, and create additional real value pretty

fast. Mobile banking, such as a switch from boring office desktop tables to intuitive solutions with customer-centric design and elements of gamification, is a vivid example of process transformation in the banking customer experience. 2.Business model transformation implies the re-architecture and evolvement of business logic essentials with a focus on the value delivered. That’s its strategy: gaining a competitive advantage through fundamental changes of the core business axis. As an example, on-demand or micro insurance has added value to the core insurance products. Or by moving from a monolithic architecture, banks are becoming microservices organizations offering flexible services 24/7. 3.Domain transformation can be vividly observed with the initial IT industry giants, like Google or Amazon, by closing finance customer expectation gaps with technology enablement. Take GooglePay and Apple Pay’s digital wallet platforms and online payment systems, or AWS (Amazon Web Services) who is one of the most trusted cloud infrastructure and services provider for banking, payments, capital markets, and insurance. 4.Cultural or organizational transformation is the most obvious, yet the most complex layer of transformational initiatives. While moving towards agile workflows, decentralized decision-making, and altering business ecosystems, it is all about changing human mindsets, both simultaneously from the beginning and as a result of the digital transformation process. Yet, Experian, the consumer and business credit provider, moved to become a technology company by demonstrating the potency of digital through small successful digital projects, promoting agility and innovation skills, and gradually changing the organizational culture mindset towards a company-wide one. The most difficult and important opportunity for financial services providers is to recognize the transformation opportunities afforded by new technologies, be it financial services portfolio broadening or legacy systems transition to a new software or radical architecture refinements across the whole financial organization, and to understand that they can be captured even by traditional incumbents.

So with a robust strategy in place to embody 4 interdependent attributes that are backed up by tech components, there are some clear digital transformation advantages for the financial industry. Artificial intelligence (AI) is extensively used in financial services and has already altered several parts of service delivery. AI can streamline and optimise processes, actualize data-driven intelligence, and eliminate human errors, all of which contribute to more accurate strategic forecasts and market analytics, as well as actual customer sentiment analysis, all of which are critical for business continuity and resiliency. Finance businesses' rising demand for improved interoperability and operational efficiency in new working environments pushed for AI-enabled smart workspace management driven by technology. By 2025, 90 percent of new workplace applications will include AI technology into their operations and offerings (IDC). Financial risk management, fraud prediction, transparent underwriting, personalised banking and financial management (PFM) advisory, informed unbiased credit decisions, smart quantitation, algorithmic or high frequency trading, data-enabled investment, and claims management are some of the most visible applications of AI and Machine Learning (ML) in financial services, with many more to come. Digital transformation methods based on AI and machine learning (ML) are mainly a source of enhanced analytics for fact-based choices, but they are also a big facilitator of automation for financial sector organisations. Financial service firms want to depend on data, enhanced analytics, and automated solutions or platforms in a world of 24/7 accessible internet possibilities, rising client expectations, escalating rivalry, and a pandemic-induced catastrophe. According to experts, 80 percent of industry executives use or intend to employ an automation subset – RPA (robotic process automation) – identifying an enterprise-level potential for financial services. Banking and insurance are the leaders in RPA adoption, according to SSON Analytics. Automation, which is progressing towards IPA (intelligent process automation), is gaining momentum in terms of enhanced customer experience, simplifying processes, freeing up people, and providing new value possibilities, in addition to minimising back office expenses. Starting with automated virtual assistants that respond to

basic consumer inquiries, moving on to robust integrated digital ecosystems enabled by open banking, cloud-based ERPs, touchless transactions supported by DLT and blockchain, mature automation cases in financial planning and audit, automated trading systems (ATS), and capital allocation utilising machine learning technologies. The advantages of digital technology , machine learning are ideal for finance, as the industry is built on big data. With a proper machine learning algorithm and a dataset to match, a financial enterprise can tap into a deep pool of opportunities presented by AI and ML for the financial industry: 1.Automation. Paper workflows stopped being effective long ago; now, smart ML-based models that allow instant sharing and editing, as well as storage and management of information, can dramatically reduce the time and cost of dealing with documents. 2.Productivity. AI excels at tiresome and repetitive work taking reportedly up to 60% of employees’ time. When machine learning algorithms take over the mundane work, employees can concentrate on higher-value tasks and core business goals instead. 3.Operational costs. Reducing the cost of human errors by outsourcing certain tasks to machines is another machine learning benefit. 4.Security. With appropriate adherence to protection protocols, artificial intelligence allows for enhanced security and improved compliance. 5.Customer experiences. Losing a single customer might not seem like a big deal. However, if it happens regularly, due to poor communication, long wait times or inefficient problem resolution, it might jeopardize a large portion of your customer base. AI will reduce the time spent searching for information and resolving customer issues from several days to several minutes. Frictionless, 24/7 customer support shows that a business cares for its customers. AIbased virtual assistants are one example of showing you care. 6.Personalization. With the help of machine learning algorithms, AI can evaluate and analyse large volumes of data and, therefore, cater to the specific interests and needs of the customers. When your

customer buys a house, they will need insurance. When a customer opens a business, you can offer them a new bank account. Timely knowledge of needs allows you to offer individualized products and solutions. Additionally, assessing the financial health of accounts and providing personalized insights for investment goes the extra mile for your customers and your business.

Machine learning use cases in finance: As we’ve already mentioned, AI efficiently deals with great amounts of raw data and the finance industry can provide the needed training materials for machine learning. Here’s how institutions can leverage artificial intelligence and improve processes in different financial fields.

1.Automated trading This is not a new use case for AI, but it’s more relevant than ever before due to the improved accuracy and increased trading speed, which is especially valuable for large financial institutions and hedge funds. AI enables extremely accurate trading decisions based on big data. Numerous global researches predict that new developments in deep learning and neural networks will further strengthen the motivation to fund machine learning projects. High-Frequency Trading (HFT) is an example of a task people can’t perform without computers. Machines possess the ability to place bids in a fraction of a second, which is important because of lightning-fast market changes.

2.Fraud detection One of the most widespread use cases for AI and machine learning applications in finance is fraud detection. AI models based on big data allow detecting and neutralizing fraudulent activities by analysing the clients’ behaviors and online transaction histories. We’ve actually built a fraudsters identification system ourselves for one of our clients, Trōv. As a result, the fraudulent activity and loss ratios were reduced profoundly, as well as the time needed for processing claims, which enhanced the overall customer experience.

3.Marketing research

Relevant research data is essential for improving customer engagement and sales revenues. AI can make accurate predictions based on customers’ personal history of browsing and purchasing behaviours. Based on the data collected, the “perfect customer” profile can be kept up-to-date to help guide the long-term financial business’ objectives.

4.Investment management As we face unprecedented technological growth partially caused by the health, political and social crises, people begin to think more about investing in their future. Known as “robo-advisors,” these digital algorithm-driven platforms predict the best alternatives for investment portfolios based on the goals established by the customer. A comparatively new use case for AI, robo-advisors allow both customers and financial enterprises to save money and improve security through the smarter allocation of resources. What is the purpose of open banking? More data means better services, which is the foundation of open banking technology. It necessitates the exchange of financial data between conventional financial institutions, such as banks, and third-party providers, or TPPs. However, an open banking system is about the client as much as it is about improving financial services. Financial services are currently provided by suppliers that do not engage with one another. Data on a single person is dispersed across several information silos. A digital transformation of financial services is conceivable, but only if these data sources can be shared and the user grants permission. Aside from data-sharing legislation, the greatest barrier is in building the technology: the ecosystem, and, most critically, the open banking APIs (application programming interfaces) required for safe data interchange. According to Finastra, 86 percent of global banks questioned are considering leveraging open APIs to deliver Open Banking features. An API is what enables one programme or piece of software to interface with another in a safe and efficient manner. APIs may be open or closed. Apple and Google, for example, may provide APIs with terms and conditions that partners will accept because it makes

financial sense. Smaller businesses, on the other hand, will have a more difficult time convincing partners to accept proprietary conditions like that. The same is true in financial services, where huge banks will determine the norms for data sharing. This is one of the reasons for open banking and an open API paradigm. Open APIs make it simpler and more secure to exchange data, making it easier to bring innovative solutions to market. Regulations, particularly in Europe, are already starting to support this. Banking data has always been required for new financial services. To get data, the initial generation of apps, notably personal money management tools, had to rely on "screen scraping," which required clients to supply login information to the app. The software would then choose the required information from all accessible data. This is more time-consuming and insecure than APIs, which provide a more accurate data flow. However, technological hurdles do not end there. Making the decision to share data does not automatically convert into well-designed APIs that enable this to happen. Core banking systems may not be compatible with the technology necessary to provide open APIs. Banks have often developed a sophisticated collection of applications throughout time. These old systems, like any systems, have grown inefficient over time and are not necessarily compatible with current technology, including contemporary APIs. This implies that banking systems, as well as TPPs, must invest in open banking API development and technology. API design, testing, and monitoring solutions are available from technology providers. There is also a developer community that is always working to improve API architecture and functionalities. Banks and TPPs must utilise and develop these resources to provide APIs that are widely accepted and attract more developers. Of course, some banks already perceive this investment as a source of additional income. While the EU Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) requires open APIs, it does not apply to APIs that go beyond the fundamental criteria. Banks like Nordea and BBVA are seeking to gain income by developing APIs that go above and beyond the minimal needs, therefore delivering better services. True digital transformation occurs only when current firms embrace cutting-edge technology and pass the advantages on to their

consumers. According to a KPMG analysis on open banking, even if banks build up the necessary APIs, small and medium-sized businesses would be difficult to adopt. However, there is a solution. According to the research, there has to be improved communication around open banking, and technology suppliers should push this involvement. PSD2 demands, for example, enhanced security verification for online transactions above €30. A technology provider that can assist with international payment solutions through an open banking platform is delivering a critical service while also promoting participation with open banking systems. According to the same survey, high-growth and ambitious enterprises wanting to expand quickly would be the most inclined to embrace open banking systems. For example, 24% stated businesses would invest in open banking systems if payments between suppliers and customers could be performed more quickly and easily. In addition, 22% stated they would pay for a dashboard displaying bank accounts, loans, savings, and assets. Most crucially, up to 50% stated that open banking solutions from trustworthy financial service providers would be acceptable. In summary, open banking is the digital transformation of an established financial market. More data and regulations on authorized use of data can provide a lot of benefits for the financial sector like: 1.Banks will change: TPPs will force banks to improve and innovate. They would not want to be mere sources of data and not providers of useful services. 2.New payment methods: Imagine payment methods that are not restricted by region or those that leverage smartphone capabilities; there’s a lot that can change in how we pay for things. 3.Personalization of finance: Current investment services rely on human intervention. With more data available, third-party tools could find new ways to help the average investor manage finances. 4.Streamlined lending and credit: Easier access to user data makes it easier to analyse risks and offer loans. This could work for both individuals as well as businesses. 5.Accounting can be automated: If there’s real-time access to

information, it would be relatively easier for TPPs to manage accounts. Again, this can benefit both individuals as well as businesses. 6.Identity management: Open banking APIs can standardize user authentication among financial institutions and TPPs. This could mean better notification of fraud between financial institutions. Of course, any change in technology and an established system also comes with challenges. Change is inevitable. But these challenges cannot be ignored like: 1.Privacy issues: Open banking needs the sharing of data, but users might want to keep their information private. As long as regulations are not uniform, TPPs and banks need to protect the information. 2.Security issues: The more accessible data becomes, the more vulnerable it is to getting stolen. Banks and TPPs need to invest in making APIs and other processes as secure as possible. 3.Challenging outdated systems: Open banking will need traditional players to revamp their existing systems to include third-party companies. Banks have had sole custody of customer data up to this point and not all banks will be willing to give up this control. 4.Developing open banking technology: Open banking APIs are challenging, especially if banks want to offer innovative services, so investing in technology is important. Sony Bank is a commercial bank that opened its doors in April 2001. This Japanese bank has succeeded in operating as a direct bank, with no physical ATMs or branches. In a nutshell, the bank is internetbased and specialises in retail services such as debit cards, foreign currency exchange, online house loans, and so on. Despite having just a few hundred workers, the bank has been able to provide novel digital financial services such as WealthNavi Robo-advisor, crowdfunding, debit card connection with smartphones, and AIenabled house mortgage assessment. As previously said, debit cards are connected to smartphones, and these cards provide services, new card designs, and user experiences that may provide more value to consumers. Users may simply access their bank accounts and check account information by utilising such

cards. As part of its digital transformation, the bank intends to integrate more digital services, work on data and APIs, and prioritise UI/UX. Sony Bank is trying to provide customised financial services to consumers based on their wants and lifestyles by accessing user financial data and utilising Sony Group's capabilities. Sony Bank partnered with DOMO in the fourth quarter of 2019 to help the digital transformation path. The most difficult problem for the financial business is to use data efficiently. This is when Sony opted to go with DOMO in order to have a unified data management platform. This has enabled Sony Bank to provide all workers with access to the data they need and to facilitate rapid information exchange. Creating a digital bank is not an easy task, and things were no different for Orange, a telecoms operator. Orange established its bank after purchasing 65 percent of Groupama Banque. It began by repairing its systems, IT structure, organisation, and offers. Orange picked Capgemini to carry out the mission of digital transformation with outstanding skill. Orange's primary goal here was to get into business with their solution within a year! In general, digital transformation is a step-by-step process in which activities are completed progressively. Capgemini couldn't go for it with just a year to go online for Orange. Orange collaborated with Capgemini to identify the results and establish the new goals. They were focusing on developing a mobile-first bank that provides all services in accordance with client expectations. They intended to accomplish a contemporary design, a new set of banking products, real-time money transfer, chatbot self-service, and AI investment counselling. Capgemini intended to develop a Digital Operating Model for Orange in order to accomplish the aim, which would provide insight into how the new IT services will be managed and maintained. Aside from that, they attempted to establish partnerships with a number of financial and technological businesses. With just a year to manage everything and produce all of the required features, Orange Bank's executives immediately realised that they needed outside assistance. As a result, they enlisted the assistance of Capgemini to offer the services and technologies required, as well as to integrate them with the API-based service platform architecture built in-house by Capgemini. Capgemini supported Orange throughout its journey and assisted it in becoming a

customer-centric company. It accomplished this by establishing marketing and design teams and building full client journeys. At the end of the year, a limited-user test version was issued. Testing and enhancements aided in expanding the user base. By the end of 2017, the app has been officially available for users after the completion of the testing phase. Within a year, they had launched new goods such as premium credit cards and personal loans, and their client base had grown by 200,000. Societe Generale is one of these institutions that has received reputation for incorporating new digital technologies into its operations. A few years ago, they even earned a Gold Award for outstanding digital communication. The creative approach they adopted in this area enables us to comprehend the kind of prospects that such digital services provide to financial services if they choose to transform their business model via technological integration. Dynamic Cryptograms is one such model. This is one of Societe Generale's effective digital banking security measures, and it was adopted by around 150,000 consumers in only six months. This is accomplished by collecting the three-digit number found on the back of bank cards. The numerals are then shown on a tiny screen, which is reshuffled every hour. Scammers or hackers seeking for static information will be unable to utilise it in this manner. Netexplo praised and acknowledged the creative solution as one of the year's most inventive breakthroughs made by French enterprises. Aside from developing digital solutions for external usage, they launched their 'Digital for All' campaign in 2014. The answer assisted them in implementing a culture transformation inside the company. It's been a few years, and they've endeavoured, via the programme, to ensure that technology solutions are accepted by the company at every level in order to streamline procedures and link teams. In addition, the bank established an online school called Infogram to teach staff. It provided video lessons, virtual classrooms, and online courses for workers to master new skills at their own speed. They may even select the location and time that is most convenient for them, all while benefiting from such incredible educational resources. A few more Benefits of digital transformation in Finance Industry are:

1.Mobile Banking Mobile Banking reduces the need to visit brick-and-mortar banks enabling customers to conveniently transfer funds, deposit checks and apply for loans through mobile devices. Online banking ensures 24×7customer access to financial services reducing the delay. 2.Big Data Big Data plays a crucial role in the finance industry to process the data and derive analytical solutions serving the customers effectively tailoring the services based the customer insights. 3.Mobile Applications While the banks are digitally transforming, third-party financial service providers are also competing with the banks to deliver customer excellence. Banks are integrating third part mobile apps delivering enhanced services ensuring transparency and eliminating the need to have an intermediate SPOC. 4.Automated Wealth Managers AI-enabled Automated Wealth Managers use complex algorithms to calculate the best investment opportunities, enabling the financial institutions to achieve business objectives. 5.FinTech Banks are leveraging FinTechs to deliver enhanced finance services ensuring a 24×7 Omni-channel banking experience. Revolutionizing the finance sector, fintech like customer service Chatbots, expenditure tracking, and online budgeting are enabling exuberant customer support. 6.Omnichannel banking experience delivers convenient financial services to the customers on their preferred channel attaining customer loyalty. Delivering anywhere and anytime access to the customers, the finance industry is ensuring seamless interaction between the customers and their financial institutions across multiple channels. 7.Creating Personalized Banking Experience Financial institutions are deriving customer insights from a huge volume of data and are tailoring the financial services based on

customer needs. Tailoring customer-centric services enable financial organizations to enhance customer engagement and gain a competitive advantage, differentiating their services from similar institutions with the same services in the industry. 8.Build Trust with Enhanced Security A secure banking experience helps gain customer’s trust and loyalty towards the financial institution. Driving on a Digital Transformation Journey, the Financial Institutions confirm transactions with an interactive push-button and send verification codes. Digital Technologies have helped the Finance Industry to maintain the highest security standards with two-factor authentication. An industry-wide study in order to guess on the future of the financial sector, and issued eight predictions for finance in 2025: 1.Touchless transaction solutions will become more common as automation and blockchain become more widespread in financial operations. 2.Financial services will be available in real time. Periodic reporting shall not be used to influence operations and decisions. 3The banking sector will redouble its efforts for business insights and service using automated processes. 4.Self-service will become the new standard. 5.Algorithms and robotics will play an important role in the new service delivery paradigm and the diversified financial workforce. 6.Because of the advent of financial microservices and applications, traditional ERP will no longer be relevant. 7.Data standardisation will arise from the enhancement of APIs. 8.In the financial workforce, there will be a cultural and organisational transition. Advantages of Digital Transformation in Financial / Banking Industries are:

1. Great Customer Relationships An EY survey has revealed that 32,000 retail bank customers worldwide consider positive customer experience as the key to

winning, growing, and retaining consumers in today's highly competitive banking industry. You can provide a great customer experience only when your business team understands their roles and responsibilities to deliver that experience. Implement modern tools and processes in your organization to prepare your team for the most significant marketing asset - your unparalleled brand promise. It will encourage them to deliver a positive brand experience throughout a customer journey consistently.

2. Streamlined Operations Digital transformation services can help you streamline your business operations. As a result, you can save cost, time and enable your staff to be more productive and efficient. For example, Rathbone Brothers, a UK-based investment management company, replaced their legacy system with a workflow process that has modernized their marketing production and automated the inclusion of compliance teams. The upshot is a significant decrease of time and complete elimination of human errors.

3. Adaptability and Flexibility The present-day banking industry is well familiar with mergers and acquisitions. And the reason is the advancement of technology and financial services transformation. With the help of Cloud-based ERP systems (since they are a lot more user-friendly and easier to incorporate), financial institutes and banks are much likely to merge and consolidate since there is no longer any need for personalized onpremise systems.

4. Improved Brand Reputation Brand reputation is one of the most critical factors for increasing sales, and hence, revenue as well. If you maintain a positive brand reputation among your customers, it will help you gain bottom-line growth, a strong market position, and, of course, customer loyalty in the long run. According to Accenture, while only 68% of executives prioritized maintaining a promising brand reputation in 2012, the percentage is 88 now. Therefore, digital transformation for small businesses, as well as others, comes with brand management software. Such software can be significantly useful as it deals with

industry and consumer-related challenges and helps you manage and grow your brand across all important touchpoints. Aon, Ally Financial, and Rathbones are some of the financial firms that use brand management software to manage the nitty-gritty of their brands.

5. Integration of Apps, Data, and Processes The legacy core banking systems are just a set of various tools that you place together without an effective centralized data sharing capability. Digital transformation in banking sectors has enabled organizations to get rid of this issue. And the benefits you will get are manifold, such as - the tech stack of your finance firm will be a lot less in size and complexity (therefore cost-effectiveness), improved data accuracy, standardized data across multiple locations, elimination of time-consuming ETL processes, and so on.

6. Coherent Reporting Capability Along with easy consolidation of data, real-time data has emerged as a game-changer for the finance industry as well as banks can now have a more accurate and error-free approach to reporting. With realtime monitoring and accessible data, you can quickly identify issues and react to changing trends seamlessly. Since you do not have to invest much time in compiling reports, you can plan and strategize. Hence, banking staff can now have more analysis-based responsibilities instead of spending all their time in mere paperwork.

7. Maintain Compliance If you opt for digital transformation in finance and banking, financial management systems will make it exceptionally easy for you to stay compliant. A myriad of avant-garde features, such as automation of accounting tasks and auditing processes, allow you to spend less time on these activities and focus on other important tasks. You can also standardize the data and push it into the centralized system from other applications, bringing down the chances of human errors. Additionally, you can get regular compliance updates in the cloud-based payroll system; hence, there is no need to worry about changing policies and regulations. Key components of Digital Transformation in Financial Industries are:

1. Improving Customer Experience This is perhaps the most visible result of digital transformation in finance firms. As you get to access various digital technologies, you can easily simplify all the external communication channels, as well as boost sales, marketing, and analytics. This will enable your financial institute to perceive what is going on with clients, what is the best time to contact them, and when to personalize your offerings. You can even consider how to build a fintech app, create a constructive marketing strategy, and modify prices according to demands. All this results in enhanced customer relationships, both in terms of quality and quantity.

2. Smooth Organizational Processes If you are planning to change your company's infrastructure, it will definitely lead to the inception of new processes. Take this, for example; digital transformation allows you to exchange data through emails, but you cannot consider it a new process. It is just a modern and advanced way of executing organizational tasks. By doing so, you will receive a bunch of benefits like - eradication of paperwork, increased productivity, and upgraded communications. And all these benefits of digital banking come from only one change in the data exchanging model, which is the digitized workflow. With improved workflow, the awareness level also shoots up. This fundamentally reforms the decision-making and planning process, allows you to allocate resources, assign tasks, and save budget carefully. The end result of the transformation of internal processes and customer relationships can be so powerful that it can drastically change your financial firm and its position in the industry.

3. Leadership and Political Will According to BCG, only 30% of organizations successfully execute digital transformation in banking sectors. Why is the success rate so low? And more importantly, what should your organization do to succeed? Management's fear of change - is probably one of the biggest reasons for the failure. And this takes us to the concept of the political will of the leadership. The "let's give it a shot, and we will see what happens" approach is essentially incorrect. Your goal for digital

transformation must always be clear and to the point. The outcome of innovation entirely relies on how your leadership team is ready to reimagine the business practices and management styles, especially the customer journey. So, if you, as a leader, become self-aware, your internal team will surely follow the transformational pathway and dedicatedly work for its success. The financial services industry is experiencing large-scale digital transformation, which has far-reaching ramifications for how organisations in the industry operate. New technology are allowing banks, insurers, and other established financial services firms to restructure their operations and develop new ways to serve their customers. Simultaneously, the introduction of these technologies generates chances for competitor organisations such as payment service providers. Furthermore, financial services firms operate in a highly regulated environment, which necessitates managing digital change while also fulfilling stakeholder needs for increased openness and confidence. In the financial services sector, there is a significant movement toward modernising outdated systems and introducing an agile manner of working across business units. Companies are attempting to reorganise their operational models in order to become more nimble and efficient. To fulfil consumer requests, investments in new online banking, digital platforms, channel exploration, clientvalued insurance apps, and enhancing data quality to benefit from more accurate reporting continue. Adoption of technology is a vital component in enabling these transformations. Artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, data analytics, the internet of things, and robotic process automation are the top technologies in which financial services firms are investing (RPA). In addition to this, a rising number of financial institutions are turning to the cloud to modernise outdated systems, which is considered not just as a driver of efficiency but also as a change facilitator. The advantages of cloud infrastructure for financial services include cost savings, enhanced scalability and flexibility, and it is seen as a more efficient and costeffective solution to big data and analytics. Automation is a critical component of digital transformation for financial services firms. Banking and insurance, in particular, are transaction-intensive sectors that create massive volumes of data. The automated processing of

this data enables them to function significantly more effectively and to employ technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics to maintain and develop their client base while minimising their risks. Chatbots, for example, may be used to give a better customer experience, AI technology can be used to extract complicated information from documents, and analytics can be used to get deeper business insights. Many financial services firms are also capitalising on the possibility that automation gives to build new goods and services in partnership with ecosystem partners. All of the technology advancements that we are seeing are substantially enhancing the interconnectedness that exists within financial services. As a result, increased connectivity allows banks and insurance businesses to respond and adapt more quickly in the face of continual and widespread change. Greater connectivity is revolutionising the financial services industry, but it is also affecting the way financial services organisations are audited. Auditors are placing technology at the centre of their audit strategy in order to get better access to and interrogate the data held by organisations, hence improving audit quality and providing more value to audited entities' stakeholders. Today, digital technology is used in all phases of the EY Digital Audit, from early planning and risk assessment to reaching a final conclusion. EY auditors, like the corporations they audit, invest in cutting-edge technology and methodologies. These include the agile and intelligent deployment of AI, data analytics, optical character recognition and RPA, cloud-based platforms, and a variety of other developing technologies to better comprehend both the IT and business processes that firms adhere to. A big advantage of a digitally transformed audit is that it increases visibility of business and risks. Auditors may acquire improved insights from the data maintained by financial services businesses thanks to data analytics in particular. This allows them to ask more probing questions of management, making the audit more beneficial to both the audited business and all of its stakeholders. Having a great emphasis on data is especially critical in light of the newly established accounting requirements for the financial services sector. IFRS 9 Financial Instruments, IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with

Customers, IFRS 16 Leases, and IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts are among them. Companies must deal with increasingly granular data and align their financial, risk, and business data via the deployment of well-defined automated procedures, according to the guidelines. With an end-to-end data-driven audit, including the use of developing technologies to improve the auditor's risk assessment techniques, the adoption of these new standards may also be more effectively assessed. By automating certain operations and adopting technology such as AI and machine learning, organisations' administrative load during the audit process is minimised, and auditors have more time to concentrate on how judgments have been implemented. This is also a crucial factor in accounting standards. CFOs, CTOs, and audit committee members may take certain essential steps to guarantee that their firms obtain more value from a digitally transformed audit while also increasing openness. Traditionally, financial services and banking have always been some of the most challenging sectors to get into. Most banking names are well known globally, and not too many new ones are born often. Until recently, the market looked stable and conservative in its composition of players. However, at some point, it started to change. New technologies, fast speeds of living created new demands. So banks began the digital transformation by launching web and mobile apps in parallel adding new services and improving customer support. At the same time, new laws and attitudes towards industry opened up the door for small companies to enter the space. These start-ups brought other ideas, technologies, and products, changing the financial sector landscape. Few such brands have already made quite an impact on the industry—Tinkoff bank, for instance. Tinkoff Bank is one of the first digital banks. By the number of its clients, it has become the third bank in Russia in 2020. Banks like Tinkoff are industry disruptors and overtake clients from traditional banks. Other younger start-ups are still growing and inevitably will further change the scene. In this short note, I want to share a few insights on building a neo bank and the main drivers for the market transformation happening now: 1.Online. The banking and financial service industry is moving to its digital version. Client demand today is for accessible, easy, and

secure access to financial management from anywhere in the world. We now observe two parallel processes. First, banks are becoming digital, and second, FinTech projects are becoming full-time banks. 2.Innovative products in banking. New digital assets have been conquering the world for the last few years, and they are slowly gaining worldwide recognition. Services in crypto are now provided by some of the old banks and financial providers. Crypto projects have got more chances to take this niche. This is because they understand the technology and have already worked with it for some years. Among other new services now presented in banks is access to the stock market, saving features, financial management tools. In addition, some banks are following the Super app concept and offer clients a set of services in one single application. 3.The new client service. Startups are also winning the market by delivering a different comfort level to a client: 24/7 support, remote access, and a friendlier interface. 4.Speed. This metric is one of the most critical factors for all of us. It is not only fast transactions; new banking service also delivers quick issue of cards, for example. Issuing a card at Revolut takes one day ( it gets dispatched to you the next day after the order) and around 3-5 working days minimum at Lloyds, HSBC, or other traditional banks. A difference in a couple of days can be a serious competitive advantage. 5.Cost. Services delivered/provided by young fintech are always lower or free of charge. Difficulties to overcome: 1.Regulation New laws (such as Open Banking) certainly brought new opportunities for the startups to operate in payment and financial services. However, clear rules for new assets and unified global regulations are still needed to move forward quicker. 2.The Product Designing banking and financial products takes time. At this moment, the product line offered by traditional banks still looks more attractive to a client. So, as a rule, for decisions as mortgages, the consumer

refers to its traditional bank. However, neobanks possess more innovative assets, such as crypto, and continue adding new services to their portfolio. 3.Reputation and trust The financial industry is associated with trust and reputation. The old banks have been operating on the market for many years, when small projects are still newcomers and yet have to prove their reputation and build their brand. It may take time too. 4.Revenue Last but not least is the revenue of startups. It is much lower if compared to the bank’s earnings. The business model suggests that startups offering a better service will undertake banking clients. The revenue model is based on smaller commissions but a more extensive number of clients. There are other options, including adding new products which do not exist in banking. 5.The market potential A global pandemic strengthened the rise of neo banking. Market share of digital banks in 2020 equaled USD 34.77 billion in 2020, in 2021 already reached 47.1 billion, and forecast for 2028 ( which is in seven years from now) predicts around 722.6 billion. Information is taken from Statista. Customers were already turning to digital channels with increasing regularity prior to COVID-19; the pandemic placed unprecedented demand on them. The objective is to improve not just digital service experiences, but also to reduce agent time spent on low-value tasks. Given the lack of one-to-one access and the fact that many bank employees continue to work from home, banks are reconsidering how they communicate with their own employees as well as their customers. In this changing environment, real-time communication channels like SMS/text, as well as alerts and notifications, play an even more important role in preserving client connections. Banks can also integrate application programming interfaces (APIs) into their existing web portals and mobile applications to enable their employees to interact with their clients through the channels they prefer. Relationship bankers and branch personnel may now interact

through compliant, secure video as well. As more "traditional" banks develop digital engagement strategies and solutions, banking will continue to shift toward a true omnichannel experience, in which customers are served via the channels of their choice from front- to back-end, including contact centres. The foundations of the insurance sector are under attack. While the third-party broker model thrives, fintechs, or insurtech, in particular, are discovering ways to disrupt this distributional environment and deliver a more flexible, transparent, and direct-to-customer solution. Traditional insurers are reconsidering their consumer interaction and operations. Rather than only connecting with consumers when there is an annual renewal or a claim, insurance firms are increasingly aiming to start dialogues and learn from the data they gather. This necessitates electronic communication. As consumer demand grows, insurance agents, in particular, are turning to SMS and video capabilities through the contact centre to expand support channels and nurture client connections. Insurance companies are evolving to provide customers with a more engaging customer experience and user interface, allowing them to use their mobile app to report a notice-of-first-loss (NoL) and track the claim—all while integrated into the contact centre environment, where agents can see the full recorded history of the NoL as well as the customer's key information. This single experience eliminates a lot of the friction from the process, allowing the claim to be resolved quicker and providing a better client experience. Wealth advisers must now operate via as many digital channels as possible, including SMS (with OTP), phone, and video. The problem is to do so in a way that is both compliant and integrated. Even operations like customer onboarding are becoming totally computerised. Fortunately, the technology is now available, and several fintechs have led the way in providing a totally digital, mobile experience. Digital change and security are inextricably linked with wealth management, which caters to high-net-worth clients. To authenticate a user's identity, several authentication services enable multiple factor types (two-factor authentication). Ideally, your authentication provider will allow you to activate various factor types for a single user, with certain factors being necessary and others

being optional. The study also shows a rise in demand for digital automation. Nearly three-quarters (71%) of IT decision makers in financial services indicate that the rise of technology project requests exceeds the growth of IT budgets, which is higher than the worldwide average of 64%. Services relating to finance IT teams will need all cooperation in order to complete this ongoing development task. Robotic process automation (RPA) is one possible assistance that may be utilised to help alleviate the strain of repetitive work in industry, particularly software development processes. Application development requires a lot of resources, both in terms of people and money. As a result, cloud and automation may assist financial services firms in standardising processes and delivering goods to market in a safe, efficient, and effective manner. Large swaths of the world's population continue to lack access to reasonably priced banking services or accessible methods to invest their money. For example, nearly 1.5 billion persons lack access to a bank account. To further serve these groups, online investing platforms are digitising their product offerings to make them more accessible, less expensive, and less difficult than conventional banks. Fortunately, worldwide availability to digital financial goods and services is rapidly rising, and adoption has only been hastened by the epidemic. These firms, in particular, are significantly boosting accessibility in developing markets. New internet services make investment more accessible in places where many people previously did not have simple access to a bank account or brokerage services. One such example is Brazil's largest digital investment platform. For many years, Brazil's onshore retail investment market was confined to the purchase of high-yielding government bonds. However, interest rates have fallen dramatically in recent years, resulting in a larger investing culture. Since 2015, investment demand has been rising and widening. Brazil, in particular, is more digital than many EM nations, making personal touch with clients a less important barrier. This pattern was emphasised even more in the aftermath of the epidemic. Many online platform providers, like this one, have effectively extended their current client base into complementary product sets. Because it has previously built connectedness and trust, a digital investment platform, for example, may more simply cross-sell

current consumers into its banking, lending, and insurance services. As digital platforms mature and subsequently expand to include complementary items, we believe their underlying consumer groups will benefit from increased opportunity and accessibility. Financial transaction and information market data has long been opaque or simply unavailable. However, as financial services become more digitised, owners of this data are recognising they have incredibly valuable assets. Firms may use new technologies such as the cloud, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to better their decision-making. As a result, financial analysis is becoming more methodical and data-driven. Legacy financial services organisations attempting to "systematise" their activities rely heavily on software suppliers and data owners. Improving their use of technology and data may dramatically improve their operations, but they must have both the data and a technological platform capable of handling the sorts of analyses necessary for greater amounts of data. Loan officials, for example, formerly met with loan applicants to assess their creditworthiness and accept or reject applications. New software can assist businesses in using their data to develop more scalable and effective digital loan pricing procedures, resulting in improved credit results for the bank and more credit availability for the economy. This sort of technology was critical to many financial services organisations during the crisis since in-person discussions were not feasible. The integration of data, sophisticated analytics, and digital technology into all sections of a financial institution changes the way work is done, priorities are defined, and services are provided. Digital transformation requires a culture shift that challenges old systems, stimulates creativity, and rethinks all elements of risk and reward. The goal of a company's digital transformation process might be to enhance the customer experience, save expenses, simplify processes, eliminate friction, become more flexible, or boost profitability... or any combination of these goals In any event, digital banking transformation will challenge business paradigms that have served as the organization's basis for decades. This is why genuine digital banking transformation is so difficult to execute - it involves more than merely offering the same product via a different app. Prior to COVID19, every financial company was discussing digital transformation. In

fact, every firm in every other industry was doing the same thing. However, in the aftermath of the epidemic, there is an urgent need to go beyond the "talk" of digital transformation. As customer expectations shifted, so did competition. As a result, adapting rapidly became the norm. Digital transformation has become a matter of life and death. According to McKinsey statistics, the fast move toward digital channels in banking is expected to persist and maybe intensify. This alters not just the way conventional financial institutions interact with consumers, but also the range of banking choices available to the consumer. This is due to the fact that both fintech and major tech companies are developing solutions for the rising digital banking public. Depending on an organization's commercial goals, target audience, present digital maturity, organisational structure, and existing culture, digital transformation initiatives will differ greatly. Having stated that, the following are the critical success factors for digital bank transformation: 1.Become a Data and Analytics Thought Leader: To realise the full potential of digital banking transformation, data, analytics, and artificial intelligence must be used to provide an extraordinary client experience. Beyond the capacity to customise interaction and enhance security and privacy, firms that use big data and analytics into their operations outperform their counterparts in both productivity and profitability. Customers have grown to expect businesses to leverage their personal information to generate tailored solutions. Consumers have grown accustomed to the benefits of Netflix and Spotify using machine learning for entertainment recommendations, Zoom requiring only a few clicks to create video engagement, and Google Home or Amazon Alexa using voice for everything from answering questions to simplifying shopping, particularly during the pandemic. These same customers anticipate that their bank or credit union will utilise their relationship date, habits, and preferences in the same manner... or better. However, sophisticated analytics and AI should not be seen as a goal in and of itself. These methods should be used to supplement larger-scale efforts. "Instead of painstakingly seeking for all the places where AI may fit in," Wharton writes, "a preferable strategy would be for firms to assess current objectives and issues with a keen eye for the problems

that AI is particularly prepared to tackle." Some solutions range from fraud detection to assisting clients with predictive solution suggestions. AI must be leveraged to bring human-like intelligence throughout the whole enterprise now more than ever. Simultaneously, as part of the advanced analytics process, machine learning must be employed to enhance data interpretation. According to the Digital Banking Report's study, although financial institutions appreciate the relevance of data and sophisticated analytics, 75% of institutions do not consider themselves proficient at exploiting these capabilities. In truth, data and analytics are important challenges for the majority of mid-sized and big financial organisations. The application of advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning will be successful when it is used for purposes other than security and risk reduction, as well as cost reduction and efficiency improvement. It will be when businesses employ these technologies across their systems to develop new goods and services and improve client experiences. 2.Improve Customer Experiences: COVID-19 transformed customers' usage of digital technology in an instant, raising awareness of the possibilities of digital applications and establishing new digital habits. Consumers may now receive what they want practically precisely when they want it because to the integration of new technologies, increased use of data and analytics, the ubiquity of mobile devices, and new digital applications. This has influenced the way customers bank as well as their expectations of digital solutions and digital interaction. According to McKinsey, as a consequence of the epidemic, not only have customers shifted away from conventional physical facilities and toward digital choices in greater numbers, but age is no longer a difference for digital preferences. In other words, technology is no longer exclusively for the young. Consumers now want businesses to understand their specific preferences, utilise their relationship expertise, and use data from other sources to deliver real-time, contextual suggestions. According to Accenture, 75% of consumers say they are more inclined to buy from a firm that knows their purchase history and suggests items based on previous purchases. According to Digital Banking Report study, most customers want their financial institution to utilise their data, yet 94 percent of financial institutions are unable to deliver

on the "personalization promise." McKinsey argues that financial institutions must reconsider the role and future of branch networks in order to fulfil the expectations of a changing customer. This includes 1) optimising the branch footprint in light of the digital transition, 2) changing branch personnel roles to reflect new consumer behaviours, 3) developing a new omnichannel sales and service model, 4) understanding customer journeys, and 5) improving cross-channel marketing communications. 3.Encourage Innovation: A culture of creativity is required to accomplish digital transformation. For the Banking Transformed podcast, we interviewed hundreds of founders of disruptive fintech startups and executives of intriguing new digital divisions of traditional banks, and the first thing they highlight is the necessity of an innovation culture. Innovation and digital transformation are inextricably intertwined and interrelated. Organizations who are farther advanced in their digital transformation path are also leaders in innovation. As discovered during the early phases of COVID-19 lockdown, there is a potential for financial institutions to leverage digital to drive innovation and reset the paradigm for both the present and the future. Traditional and nontraditional competitors is transforming the banking ecosystem by adopting innovation as part of their business model, posing a danger to those businesses who are not supporting innovation as part of the digital transformation process. When considering the financial services market, keep in mind that technology is accessible to all institutions equally, therefore technology, by itself, does not provide a particular competitive edge. Instead, it is the leadership, culture, and human component that distinguishes organisations in the technology and innovation process. In other words, digital technologies allow for increased productivity and better client experiences. However, if the people in the company lack the innovative mindset to modify present procedures and solutions, the technology will just exacerbate organisational problems. When it comes to innovation projects, banks and credit unions must start with the demands of their customers. In other words, each attempt must be preceded by a diagnostic phase that includes in-depth consumer feedback on what they want — notwithstanding the fact that these expectations are evolving

frequently. And, rather than attempting to hit the target in a single major change, most organisations have discovered that the best way to improve a customer experience is to make smaller-scale changes to different components of the engagement that can be implemented more easily with rapid iterations over time. 4.Utilize Modern Technologies: In other words, banks and credit unions must deploy new technologies into all areas of the business, changing the way organizations operate and deliver value to customers. It also requires an ongoing challenge to the status quo, with experimentation and an increasing comfort with failure. The reason for embracing new technologies is because the playing field in banking has changed because of new competitors and a greater awareness by consumers of what is possible as they order meals from a voice device, engage with others with video, hail a cab with their phone, and get a home loan in minutes. Some of the technologies that enable digital transformation in banking/Finance include: i.Mobile apps. One of the fundamental changes in the banking industry is the movement from branch delivery to web and online applications to mobile apps. In fact, many organizations are foregoing the development of online capabilities, using mobile upgrades to be the forerunner to online improvements. The most progressive organizations are making incremental upgrades more frequently than ever, focusing on speed, simplicity and user experience. ii.Cloud computing. Cloud computing has democratized data collection and increased the capacity and security of information processing, allowing financial institutions of any size to upgrade legacy systems piecemeal or all at once. By moving most services to the cloud, banks and credit unions can move quicker and better manage scale. iii.Automation and AI. More and more functions within banks and credit unions are being automation and improved with robotics and artificial intelligence. One of the most common uses of automation and AI is in customer service, where firms use data, analytics and automated systems to respond to basic inquiries from consumers. This not only saves money, but improves the standardization of

solutions, allowing humans to be used for more important tasks. iv.Voice technologies. While still in the formative stage and many organizations, the ability to perform inquiries and transactions using voice is quickly becoming a differentiator as consumers become accustomed to the functionality of Siri, Alexa, etc. Bank of America’s Erica solution is a leader in financial services. v.Internet of Things (IoT). From smart watches to sensors throughout the home, the potential for embedded finance is becoming more commonplace. As organizations are looking for ways to make banking easier, more and more will be done using interconnected devices that talk to each other for payments, loans, savings and investments. vi.Blockchain. Distributed ledger technology has moved quickly beyond cryptocurrency and has been used by the financial services industry for everything from smart contracts to the simplification of loan applications. A consortium of banks in Canada have even used the technology to give people more power over the data collected by financial institutions. vii.5G. As digital transformation hits full-speed, the speed of data processing and customer engagement become more important. Fifth generation wireless (5G) technology will enable exponentially faster data transmission and uninterrupted connectivity, opening doors for solutions previously impossible with 4G technology. 5.Improve Systems and Procedures: Most financial institutions' capacity to properly start on a digital banking transformation plan is still hampered by the predominance of old systems. According to the Digital Banking Report's findings, legacy systems are a major obstacle to change. When a business spends 75% of its IT budget on sustaining old systems, there is a limit to what can be modernised. The good news is that there are several solution providers that can slowly modernise systems, enabling firms to concentrate on areas of most need. To stay up with the fast changes in the market, many banks and credit unions are migrating to cloud computing and embracing agile concepts, which allow for the processing of huge volumes of data and insights in real time and at a much reduced cost. Legacy system modernisation does not happen

overnight. It is an incremental procedure that varies depending on the institution's aims and projected business demands. Most financial organisations will have to integrate cloud computing, mobile technology, sophisticated analytics, cybersecurity, and other technologies. The objective is to create a versatile infrastructure that can handle both current demands and future advancements. Financial institutions must fundamentally reimagine old back-office procedures that were developed decades ago, which is just as vital as upgrading outdated technology. These processes go beyond product creation, delivery, sales, marketing, and customer support. It goes beyond merely delivering legacy solutions via a digital channel. Because digital transformation must start and finish with the customer experience, it must be constructed from the inside out. All current procedures must be rethought from the standpoint of digital delivery, which necessitates the elimination of friction, the contextualization of interaction, and an emphasis on speed, simplicity of use, and user experience. 6.Retrain Your Employees: The skills required to begin on a digital transformation path are likely to be in short supply in most financial institutions, making talent management and employee reskilling especially crucial. While some of the new skills necessary may be addressed via recruiting, banks and credit unions must adopt a long-term strategy for developing their talent base through training and cross-functional deployment. Organizations must address the adjustment of legacy mindsets that will be necessary, particularly when back-office processes and procedures are rethought, in addition to the hard skills required for digital transformation. For example, how can a seasoned product manager broaden their thinking about how a digital bank account should be constructed or how a digital loan application process might be simplified? Unfortunately, most financial institutions continue to underinvest in training in a sector with a severe skills shortage. In a very short amount of time, up to two-thirds of present employees will need to be trained to be "digital workers" and "digital producers." We must also recognise that the rate of development has resulted in a situation in which the majority of students in elementary school now will work in occupations that do not even exist today. To stay relevant

in the economy, present employees and those who have not yet entered the workforce will need to regularly reskill and embrace lifelong learning. 7.Align Leadership and Culture for a Successful Digital Future: As has often been said, digital transformation needs more than just upgrading technology or developing new digital applications. Failure to connect leadership and employee efforts, beliefs, and behaviours may cause friction and dangers inside a company. When, on the other hand, leadership welcomes the necessary changes and supports a comprehensive and collaborative effort to achieve digital transformation, all initiatives to "become digital" have a better chance of success. A critical component of any successful digital transformation endeavour is having communication and actions that support the efforts from the top of the business. It also need the support and buy-in of individuals at higher levels of the company, particularly middle management that has been doing things the same way for decades. Top management and boards must focus on communicating the cultural aspects that will help efforts succeed, such as transparency, accountability, and a willingness to experiment and even fail, in addition to making the goals of the digital transformation clear and how the process will positively impact corporate objectives and strategies. Regardless matter how the epidemic may unfold, the moment to act is now. Those who do so will be better positioned to compete in an ever-changing financial environment, with a stronger value offering, more efficiency, and improved profitability. The seven key trends that McKinsey believes are most important in Digital Finance / banking include: 1.Big tech firms are posing an increasing disintermediation threat to existing banks. 2.Many banks are moving into additional ecosystems, leveraging platforms-as-a-service. 3.The desire for digital banking capabilities has expanded beyond younger consumer to older segments. 4.Social responsibility has become table stakes for all banking organizations.

5.New back office platforms have the potential to cut costs and improve experiences exponentially. 6.Improved cyber-security will become more important than ever. 7.There will be a critical shortage of talent capable of navigating new, complex technologies. Becoming Digital Bank requires more than Technology and they are: 1.Innovative. A digital culture is supported by a ‘hunger to learn with a permission to fail’ mentality, where employees are encouraged to embrace change while being risk aware. With data at the center of innovation, there is development of new ideas based on facts and trends. There is the encouragement to think out of the box instead of doing ‘business as usual’. 2.Data-driven. Beyond simply using data and analytics to review past performance, a digital organization leverages real-time insights to drive instant shifts in decision making on a customer-by-customer basis. 3.Consumer-focused. A digital culture is focused on the customer journey, where ideas can come from outside the organization and where improving the customer experience is central to all decisions. 4.Collaborative. The working environment, both physical and virtual, is often not structured around products and services, but with intermingling of departments, functions and products. This ‘open’ structure supports agile decision making and much greater crossdepartmental interaction on behalf of the customer. 5.Responsive. In a digital culture, there is an emphasis on speed. Adjustments to opportunities and threats are made incrementally based on market trends and consumer needs/behaviors. Flexibility, scalability and agility become vital assets, with perfection sometimes sacrificed for being first in the marketplace with a solution. 6.Transparent. Potentially one of the most important components of a strong digital culture is transparency. Individuals throughout the organization must feel safe to take chances, share ideas and interact in ways that may not have been the norm previously. In addition, management must clearly communicate all strategies, goals and objectives.A digital organization must be built in anticipation of

change. This will alter the way almost every organization operates, requiring new processes, skills, products and approach to meeting consumer needs. Employees must be prepared to accept change, be aware of the ways change can impact their work, and be willing to disrupt themselves as needed in order to cope with the new digital culture. In the end, a good strategy or great technology will not overcome a culture that is not in alignment with the transformation taking place. If leaders within an organization do not engage and get the support of employees at all levels, digital transformation efforts will fail. Leaders will need to embrace and display the change in behaviour desired, acknowledging and rewarding those who exhibit the correct mentality at every chance available. Banking's future is digital. Online payments, mobile banking, and e-commerce, which were in their infancy 20 years ago, are now available at the press of a button – as banks and financial services, from start-ups to institutions, embrace new technology and services across the board. In the banking and financial services business, digital transformation mostly entails a top-down change from in-branch banking to delivering online and digital services, integrating digital systems, customer experience platforms, applications, and infrastructure. Blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, machine learning, and consumer data collecting, administration, and analysis are among the technologies being embraced. With the increased usage of FinTech (new technology that supports banking and financial services), the industry is being disrupted, garnering regulators' attention, and driving tougher regulatory requirements. But how will this digital change manifest itself? Transactions will become contactless in the future years as automation and blockchain are incorporated into financial processes, and reporting will shift from conventional cycles of quarterly or monthly reporting to real-time reporting. Self-service will become the norm, and artificial intelligence will enable new service delivery models. Nontraditional rivals such as Google and Amazon are also making inroads into the banking and financial services sectors. The possibility for financial crime is increasing as the industry undergoes this digital revolution. With the worldwide expansion in e-commerce, online banking, and quick payments, bad actors engaging in cybercrime,

payment fraud, terrorist funding, and money laundering are becoming more sophisticated. As a consequence, financial institutions have a problem in assuring compliance with evolving worldwide legislation while also detecting and combating cybercrime, payment fraud, terrorist funding, and money laundering. Regulators are concentrating on current policy areas including climate risk, digital currencies, technology, and innovation, as well as novel areas like operational resilience and anti-money laundering compliance. Compliance teams who rely only on conventional rules-based compliance risk and fraud detection systems risk being overwhelmed by the amount of warnings and failing to discover and report suspicious behaviour. Instead, banks and financial institutions must remain ahead of their compliance obligations to avoid significant financial consequences and brand harm. To do so, financial institutions must continually upgrade their operations. As clients want quicker, more frictionless, and secure transactions while banking and buying online, financial institutions must constantly implement new procedures to enhance their service and keep customers safe. Digital transformation in banking is more than just a shift; it extends well beyond just transitioning from a conventional to a digital environment. The overall notion of digital transformation strategy in banking is a critical process through which banks and financial institutions assess, communicate with, and serve their consumers. Understanding client behaviour, interests, and needs is at the heart of the fundamental approach to digitalization in banking and fintech. As a consequence, the banking industry has shifted from a product-centric to a customer-centric mindset. According to Marketsand Markets, the worldwide digital banking platform market is predicted to rise at a CAGR of 11.3 percent from USD 8.2 billion in 2021 to USD 13.9 billion in 2026. According to the research, this development is the result of increased demand among banks to provide the greatest customer experience and the rising usage of cloud technology in financial institutions. In terms of clients utilising digital banking, Statista projects that 2.5 billion people will use online banking services by 2024. Online banking apps, data encryption software, virtual assistants, KYC system software, website optimization, and other instances of digital banking transformation are provided. This raises a slew of concerns

about digitalization in contemporary banks and other commercial institutions. Let us begin by examining how the digital process in banking began, taking into account the transition from a conventional to a digital approach. Most banks started their digital banking journey with a defined plan years ago, despite significant hurdles along the road. When financial executives noticed that the majority of their consumers were using digital channels, the trend of digital banking began. The banking industry has grown more client-centric and technologically sophisticated as digital initiatives have been implemented from the top down. What is the current state of the transition from conventional to digital platforms? Let's go through the highlights of this excursion. Omni-channel gained root in financial services in particular as more clients utilised their mobile apps and websites to complete transactions. As a result, mobile banking became an essential component of the digital banking process. Traditional banks had to adapt to new technology and operating models that could keep them in the loop throughout the whole client experience in order to stay up with the ever-changing market. Simultaneously, the rise in popularity of Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) has hastened the process of modernising the banking business. Currently, banks rely heavily on an omni-channel strategy, breaking down data silos from every channel to improve the client experience.

Key factors driving digital transformation in banking: Increasing usage of smart devices, increased connectivity, and demand for high end-user experience are the key drivers of the digital transformation trend, taking banking solutions to customers’ doorstep. Along with these aspects, six essential factors highly impact the success of digital banking.

1.Importance of customers Why would banks migrate to digital platforms? Because that’s where their customers are. The digital approach is all about ensuring the needs and expectations of its customers. Banks are now delivering personalized product experience, seamless query disintegration, transparency, and security standing at the core of customer

satisfaction with modern solutions. In short, the transformation has made it imperative to adopt a “customer approach,” bringing engagement at its best.

2.Operating model Today, customers are in need of a hybrid experience, a combination of speed and convenience with personal attachment with the product. This is why the transforming banking sector follows three different operating models. 3.Digital as a business – This is generally at the management level. 4.Digital as the new line of business – This includes working at the next level as a separate digital division to take care of digital activities. 5.Digital Native – This involves a new setup with the business of their own technology stack that focuses directly on consumers.

6.Modernized infrastructure As mentioned above, achieving digital transformation is not just about implementing modern technologies. Today, the digital transformation in financial services has enhanced due to underlying infrastructure that facilitates data to the front-end operations. Therefore, modernizing the legacy infrastructure has played the most critical factor in driving digital transformation in banking.

7.The power of data Banking and financial institutions are well aware of the power that consumer data attains. This means implementing more data analytics practices to analyse and monitor customer patterns. This has helped the banking sector produce more relevant products and services aligned with customer needs. This is probably why major fintech enterprises outsource data analytics requirements to development companies.

8.Complete digitally-driven market We cannot forget how not just banking but every sector such as industrial, eCommerce, agriculture, IT, etc., are moving ahead with digital capabilities. This includes business culture, technologies, strategies, and skills that contribute to a digital transformation journey.

Hence, the entire consumer market is on the edge of transforming digitally, which is one of the driving reasons for digital banking transformation. So far, we have been talking about digital whereabouts in banking and similar financial institutions. However, we are yet to discover what technologies lead to this transformation in banking. Let’s take a broader look at some of the major tools and technologies used by banks to improve digital lending and enhance customer experience. 7 reasons why Financial industries needs digital transformation to survive and they are:

1. Start-ups, Disruption, and the Need for Forward Thinking In the early days of digital banking, it took Bank of America nearly a decade to gain 1 million new online customers. These days, they hit that same number for their banking app, Erica, within 3 months of rollout. Business size or financial clout is no longer mandatory to gain traction in the financial services market. SoFi was started by four business school students at Stanford in 2011 – it is now a multi-billion dollar firm specialising in student loans and wealth management. It took Ant Financial, China’s fintech giant, only 15 years to reach a peak valuation of $300 billion. Established banks and financial institutions can no longer take their position in the hierarchy for granted. If they remain stagnant, they will lose customers to smaller, more innovative start-ups. Disruption is the name of the game in fintech. For example, the traditional KYC/due diligence processes in banks can delay loan approval by days, or even weeks. Start-ups leveraging big data and AI can make loan decisions in a mere 10 minutes. Which company would a customer prefer in this scenario? Established financial companies have two options in this scenario – either try to buy out these disruptors for a king's ransom or embrace and nurture a disruptive ethos within their firms. A recent example would be VISA acquiring Plaid, a fintech star-tup specialising in data transfer, for a whopping $5.3 billion.

2. Customer (Experience) is King There was a time when “customer experience” was synonymous with customer support / troubleshooting in the financial sector. It was just a question of how polite and attentive the staff were towards customers. With services migrating to apps and web interfaces, the standards have changed and evolved drastically. Customer support is still a key aspect of the overall customer experience, but there are other priorities as well. Two big factors make or break the user experience in modern fintech – ease of access and ease of use. In the digital marketplace, there are multiple channels where financial firms can reach their customers – mobile apps, websites, email, social media – the wider a firm's presence on these platforms, the easier it is for users to access them. All that width has to be matched with depth in terms of user experience as well. If it is an app or web interface, it has to look attractive and deliver quick results. Even the slightest delays will get penalised with negative reviews.

3. COVID has Added Fuel to the Fire The pandemic may have dampened most aspects of the global economy. But in the realm of digital transformation, it has had an opposite effect. Even before 2020, the number of bank branches had been in steady decline. In the UK alone, it halved between 1986 and 2014. Several factors contributed to this. The newer generation of customers is more comfortable with digital banking. As profits declined, branch closures, combined with digital transformation, presented an easy way out. And now, even those customers who preferred physical banking have been forced to head online. As for the banks and financial firms themselves, stints with work from home / remote working have presented a possible roadmap for the future.

4. No Time for Rest and Recuperation Firms that succeed in delivering a smooth user experience across multiple channels will outperform their competitors by a significant margin. But they will not get any time to rest on their laurels, because digital transformation is an ongoing process. With instant online surveys and rating systems, getting feedback from customers has become easier than ever before. Companies have unprecedented

access to information they need to improve their services. And if the ones ahead do not iterate and improve, they will get overtaken by the chasing pack. The most popular apps in Android and iOS stores undergo constant updates. Some are security patches to counter recently discovered flaws or vulnerabilities. Others are minor tweaks to the user interface, for UX improvements. Banking / fintech apps cannot ignore this reality.

5. From Cutting Costs to Improving Productivity Banks and financial service firms had a very compelling reason to digitise – automation of processes resulted in significant cost savings. The banking sector in particular has historically suffered from weak profitability. Reducing costs by using new technologies was a popular strategy in the financial sector in the 1990s and 2000s. While that remains relevant to this day, another aspect of increased automation is coming to the fore now. IT has taken over many of the labourintensive tasks involved in financial services – credit scoring, risk analysis, fraud prevention – these are just a few areas where the superior number-crunching abilities of artificial intelligence have come in handy. This allows human resources to be utilised more efficiently on critical projects. The data-driven approach has drastically improved the operational efficiency of modern financial services. For instance, the use of AI has resulted in up to a 20% increase in the efficiency of fraud detection teams in banks, according to some studies.

6. AI as the Game-Changer in CX The modern customer prizes a “frictionless digital experience” above all else. With traditional phone support, callers are often left waiting for minutes. Using AI chatbots allows firms to remove this waiting period altogether. The automated systems can identify and handle low-level queries, leaving the human agents free to focus on more complicated issues. And it is not just customer support – going digital has radically altered customer expectations in other areas as well. Opening an account in a traditional bank can take anywhere from several days to weeks, depending on the KYC process. In a digital bank, opening an account takes 5 minutes. With automation and AI, self-service has become the norm in banking and finance. Using AI data analysis, firms can now predict customer needs and present options

proactively. This kind of enhanced digital experience (DX) is the future of the financial industry as well. Firms can offer everything from insurance policies to investment, loans, and other financial products to their customers, using segmentation and enhanced targeting.

7. No Compromise Allowed on Privacy / Security From a customer perspective, the significance of all other features pales when compared to their security and privacy. Facebook has steadily lost users in recent years due to rampant privacy and data safety concerns. The same is also applicable to banks and financial institutions, and perhaps to a higher degree. The financial sector has been at the forefront of cybersecurity from the early days of the internet. Apart from governments and defence establishments, they were perhaps the biggest customers of security software and products. But concerns regarding data privacy is a relatively new issue. Digital transformation grants companies access to a treasure trove of user data. But there are concerns regarding how this data is being used, and who else is gaining access to this data. Governments across the world are starting to act on this – the GDPR and PSD2 in Europe are examples. In Australia, an initiative called Open Banking gives customers of major banks greater control over their banking / financial data. The customer gets to decide which entities can access this data – be it other banks, fintech apps, or financial service firms. Such an approach is beneficial for consumers in switching banks, seeking better financial products / services, and above all, in having greater control over their privacy. At the same time, this is also a warning signal for banks and service providers – be prepared to cede control over things that they took for granted (like customer data). These 9 steps may pave way for large-scale digital transform in financial services: 1. Digital Banking Units 2.Central Bank Digital Currency 3.Cor banking across post offices 4.Continued support on digital payments 5.Encouragements for Fintech 6.e-Bill Implementation

7.Digital Dashboards 8. Compliance 9. Cloud Computing, AI, Block Chain, IoT, Big Data analytics, Mobile Apps An omni-channel approach unites all of the critical criteria – online and offline channels, data and technology, consumer behaviour and experience – on a single platform. Although the concept has been around for a while, companies have been hesitant to use it to their advantage, owing to critical considerations such as an increase in the number of apps, technological support, operations, silos between branches and online services that must be broken, and competing priorities. Businesses must integrate numerous management systems when adopting Omni-channel, which is a complicated, timeconsuming, and costly process. Blockchain Technology is the most recent, and perhaps the most contentious, digitalization attempt undertaken by members of this financial industry. It includes creating a decentralised payment ledger to support quick and efficient payments. This increases security, improves efficiency, and simplifies the banking process. It enables total autonomy inside banking operations and enables clients to participate in more secure transactions with banks through smart contracts. Blockchain technology also seeks to transform intermediate banking activities such as bank-to-bank transfers, cross-border payments, KYC procedures, loans and money lending, and so on. The security feature aims to reduce fraudulent activities from personal accounts, such as illegal use of credit or debit cards, identification of anomalous activity inside accounts, and the ability to observe transactions between accounts clearly within the public general ledger. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in conjunction with Machine Learning (ML) enables banks to operate in accordance with regulatory requirements. An AI-powered digital infrastructure is frequently utilised in fraud detection and identifies suspicious activities, hence increasing security against hackers. This component of digitalization attempts to operate

closely with the previously described blockchain technology. Consider the following example: a transaction between X and Y. This transaction will be recorded on the decentralised ledger using both X and Y's encrypted account numbers. Furthermore, when used in conjunction with blockchain technology, it will be easy to determine both when the transaction was performed and how often any transaction was made between the two accounts. Using Machine Learning to train an AI system to detect these differences may readily screen out fraudulent or out-of-character conduct, providing reasonable doubt for suspicion, if not outright proof of fraud. Now that it is evident how significant the influence of digital transformation will be on the future of finance as a whole, it is critical to consider what utility firms will gain from this transition in the long term. Each digital transformation drive will have its own individual reasons relating to any of the difficulties described above, as well as those that are unique to their manner of business. However, in general, the primary goal of any transformation programme is to enhance a company's current operations and procedures in order to maximise return on investment (ROI). In this approach, digital transformation is important to the banking sector since it allows banks and affiliated enterprises to expand and change in order to remain relevant in their industry. If a company refuses to profit on the revolution and grow, it will be unable to compete with current market mood, much alone adapt to future changes. However, errors are typical when making large-scale systemic adjustments like this. Incorporating a whole new structure into a corporation that has been profitable for decades would almost certainly result in setbacks if done carelessly. Various banks, for example, erroneously commit to this digitalization process by launching a slew of disparate and incoherent digitization programmes. These fail to prosper financially because they lack the long-term focus and coordination required to compete with long-term employers of comparable solutions. Overall, when it comes to execution, digital transformation in banking should take a methodical approach. Understanding client needs, the usage of computerised frameworks, the use of relevant software, and how it all fits together in infrastructure is critical for achieving the greatest outcomes from this critical transformation.

Because of growing internet use and smartphone use, several digital financial services such as mobile banking have grown in popularity. Though this is a good practise, the rise in digital services raises a slew of security concerns. Cybercrime is another issue that is becoming more prevalent by the day. This is why every FinTech firm should consider implementing appropriate security measures, one of which is to include a biometric system on the list! Biometric security systems give customers confidence that their personal and financial information is safe, and because various biometrics technologies such as facial recognition and fingerprint identification are now included in smartphones, biometric security systems can be implemented to become a part of people's daily lives. Contactless biometric technologies, on the other hand, are expected to supplant touchbased solutions in the coming years. The success of Siri and AWS(Amazon Web Serices) Alexa has shown the importance of speech technology in our everyday lives. However, these technologies may be utilised to allow individuals not just turn down their lights and read the news, but also to make simple payments. According to reports, over 3.25 billion voice assistants are in use throughout the globe. As more people rely on their Smartphones for payments, speech technology may supplant conventional payment methods and become the next payment option. The concept of utilising virtual cards instead of physical cards is not new, but it is becoming more popular this year. One of the main reasons for its appeal is its great security; information cannot be readily stolen or duplicated unless a physical media is present. Customers would also not have to worry about what to do with their expired cards. Financial institutions may provide virtual cards to their employees to help them better control their costs, and several corporations have already put such systems in place. Gartner issued a bold and worrisome forecast in 2018: by 2030, 80 percent of legacy financial institutions will be out of business. 1 These anticipated closures are being attributed to digitalization, with businesses that fail to embrace digital transformation losing market share to "global digital platforms, fintech companies, and other nontraditional players," according to the research firm. The COVID-19 epidemic has hastened the adoption of online banking and digital

payments, eliminating many customers' reliance on cash and conventional brick-and-mortar institutions. However, the digitalization of the global financial system does not necessarily imply that currency will become obsolete in the near future, nor does it portend the demise of banks. Banks can transform their business models to thrive in the digital age by embracing technological advances to improve their products and services and improve consumer experiences. Those that update their branch models and achieve a balance between physical and digital will continue to play a significant role in local communities and the global economy as a whole. The financial sector is experiencing a massive upheaval, owing primarily to shifting customer expectations and tastes. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, management consultancy company Kearney2 anticipated that one-quarter of Europe's 165,000 bank branches will close within three years. As people use cash and checks less often, their demand for conventional banking services connected with those payment methods diminishes, while their desire for digital choices grows—both of which have ramifications for banks. Changes in customer demand have resulted in the closure of several branches. Between 2017 and the third quarter of 2020, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition reported a 5.13 percent loss of bank branches in the United States. Some of these closures, however, are the result of huge national chains addressing overcapacity in their branch networks or adjusting their regional footprints in reaction to demographic shifts or other factors. The areas where individuals spend their time5 have evolved since the COVID-19 pandemic: For example, as remote work becomes more popular, individuals in the United States are spending more time at home and less time at work; many are spending more time in parks and less time on public transportation. These adjustments, especially if they continue when pandemic limitations are released, will have an impact on where banks situate their branches. Digital change is unavoidable—and already underway—in both new and old bank branches. One explanation for this is because newer generations of bank clients do not anticipate to wait in line to deposit a check or exchange big cash notes for smaller ones. One-third of youngsters have never visited a real bank, and 17% do not have a bank account. 6 Nonetheless, for

young people who do use banks, physical channels remain a significant component of their experience. According to recent study, 72 percent of Generation Z customers visit a bank office at least once a month. Despite conjecture about a "cashless world," physical money and banks are not on the verge of extinction, owing to their important functions in the global financial system. Some argue that conventional bank branches are a thing of the past. Despite the fact that the number of branches has dropped, having a physical presence is essential. Smaller, more efficient branches are being paired with better self-service technologies. The idea is to provide options by merging digital and in-person banking experiences, enabling customers to effortlessly shift between mobile applications, automated teller machines (ATMs), virtual bank tellers, and other services. Banks offer vital services to small and medium-sized companies (SMBs), representing a considerable development potential for retail banks and credit unions. SMBs account for more than 90 percent of global enterprises and employ more than half of the global workforce. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), boosting financial inclusion for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the Middle East and Central Asia may enhance economic growth by up to 1% and create 16 million new jobs by 2025. The constant need for cash is another constant driver of branch necessity. During their third-quarter 2021 earnings call, Visa claimed that the dollar amount of cash taken from ATMs was 98 percent of what it was in 2019. Because access to cash is crucial for many groups of the world's population that still depend on it—low-income families, the elderly, migratory communities, and others—it is critical to maintain effective cash infrastructures and procedures. Furthermore, the banking industry accounts for more than 90% of finance in developing nations and more than two-thirds internationally. Financial institutions' funding may help determine a country's or region's destiny. Consumer dissatisfaction with antiquated banking procedures might conceal the critical role that financial institutions play in society. Banks that have not adapted to today's technology may be difficult to deal with, expensive to run, and unavailable to customers who want digital solutions. However, banks that embrace technology in the service of their basic purpose—enabling access to crucial finance that helps

people, families, companies, and communities succeed economically —will remain community cornerstones. According to a worldwide poll, 93 percent of respondents had moderate or total confidence in their banks. While digital payments and other forms of technology are becoming more popular, consumers typically prefer to visit a branch in person to get wealth management advice, solve difficult issues, or manage their business accounts. Prior to the coronavirus epidemic, physical branches were where two-thirds of new bank accounts were established. Having said that, the way customers engage with bank offices is evolving. Innovative technologies such as video tellers, ATMs that enable consumers to choose the currency denominations they like, and even cashless branch locations may assist banks in creating a richer experience and meeting customers' increasing expectations. Banks that reinvent how new digital tools and in-branch experiences may actually collaborate, cooperate with fintechs (financial-technology businesses), and invest strategically in technology will position themselves for growth rather than obsolescence as consumer behaviour continues to develop. Banks will not perish as a result of digital change, contrary to common opinion. Instead, technology is becoming the lifeblood of financial services, enabling banks to be more customer-centric, innovative, and, perhaps most significantly, future-proof. Six Trends in the Financial Industry for Digital Transformation and they are: 1.First and foremost, mainstream technology's evolutionary trajectory is quite evident. To stay up with the changes, the financial sector no longer hesitates to integrate technology into day-to-day operations and must continually boost investment in new technologies. Mobile technology provides innovative user experiences, cloud-native technology encourages the development of microservices and APIs, cloud computing meets the computing and storage demands of AI and big data, and 5G is now available for more types of devices to help support the popularity of video meetings, short videos, and the live streaming market. Public cloud services are increasingly being employed in the global financial sector to enhance user experience by

fostering mobility, 5G technology is being used to generate creative scenarios, and obsolete equipment and systems are fast being phased out. The most important issues we must address today are how to properly acquire, handle, and utilise data, as well as how to extensively use AI technology. 2.Second, digital payments are progressively replacing cash payments. With the broad use of mobile applications, the advancement of real-time risk management technology, the enhancement of user experience, and the creation of fintech platforms, digital payments are fast expanding in more parts of the globe, while credit cards and cash are slipping into obscurity. We are slowly but steadily moving toward a cashless world. Digital payments are made on mobile phones in order to improve user experience using mobile wallets, moving away from the time-consuming payment method based on conventional bank cards. By using vast volumes of payment and scenario data, fintech businesses have readily penetrated numerous financial service industries, such as wealth management and consumer loans, and are driving the digital payment market. According to Statista, worldwide digital payment users will reach 3.8 billion in 2021, with total payments totalling around US$6.68 trillion, accounting for more than half of the payments industry. 3.Third, we must accelerate digital transformation. Many difficulties arise as a result of the constantly shifting circumstances, such as global supply chains being disrupted, the economy experiencing shortterm inflation as a result of loose monetary policies, and investors and consumers losing confidence in the face of future uncertainty. In the financial sector, we must deal with operational obstacles while also dealing with the cost pressures brought on by digital transformation, as well as issues such as inadequate investment in science and technology and delayed progress in cloud transformation. Accelerating digital transformation is critical to meeting these problems. 4.Fourth, the financial sector is changing how it interacts with its clients. As physical networks, ATMs, online banking, and other traditional media become less popular, social networks, mobile apps, video meetings, AI robots, and other emerging media are becoming the primary means in the financial industry for improving user

experience and satisfaction through customised services. According to FinancesOnline, mobile applications accounted for more than half of bank client traffic in 2019, and this ratio is expected to rise to more than 80% by 2025. 5.Fifth, bitcoin is progressively being included into the banking system. It has grown to a US$2 trillion market cap as more people join in: fintech companies are using cryptocurrencies as payment tools, financial institutions are beginning to add cryptocurrencies to their portfolios, multiple countries and regions accept cryptocurrencies as financial assets, and El Salvador has even adopted cryptocurrencies as legal tender. According to a Bank for International Settlements research, more than 36 central banks across the globe have created central bank digital currencies in an attempt to digitise fiat money. 6.Sixth, authorities start enforcing anti-monopoly rules and regulations in the payments business. In China, where internet giants have a monopoly in the payments market, regulators have issued rules to limit the excessive development of internet giants, avoid potential systemic risks, and encourage a multi-platform payment market in order to provide banks with fair opportunities to compete with internet giants. Other nations are following in the footsteps of the United States. Various nations' regulators have previously proposed more precise regulatory requirements for Amazon, Apple, Google, and other internet companies in anti-monopoly, charging methods, consumer privacy, and other areas, and have limited them via digital taxes, penalties, and other measures. This tendency adds to the difficulty of the financial industry's digital transition. Five Major Challenges for Financial Industry Digital Transformation: 1.Biz-Tech Synergy: To assure the effectiveness of digital operations, the financial sector must break through conventional organisational barriers while building, connecting, and running. This requires business teams and technology teams to be well coordinated and linked. 2.Cost: While supporting digital transformation, the financial sector must assure the production and operation of old systems. The costs will be considerable, thus finding effective methods to adapt and iterate existing and new systems to reduce costs is critical.

3.Management teams must define clear and achievable plans, as well as the drive and competence to execute firmly. Strategic uncertainty and indecision are often cited as the primary causes for failing to accomplish digital transformation. 4.Cloud Transformation: This transformation focuses on developing customer-centric goods and services, as well as novel user experiences and business models. The success of cloud transformation is decided by how microservices remould existing services, big data platforms and AI are employed, and data security and regulatory compliance are handled, all of which are critical to achieving business agility. 5.Human Resource Portfolio: The portfolio must be built by recruiting and training new employees. A majority of personnel should be proficient in digital design, operation, and technologies, such as cloud computing, mobilisation, big data, AI technology, and user experience (UX) design, in order to support digital transformation. One of the most difficult tasks is integrating technological abilities into business organisations. Banking, like any other industry, is becoming more competitive; even tech behemoths such as Google and Apple are looking for ways to enter the financial services sector. In 2019, Apple will issue its credit card, while Google plans to create consumer bank accounts. The engagement of IT giants in banking poses a challenge to banks since these businesses are specialists in digital transformation and data analytics. They have access to the majority of the people' data and know how to exploit it. If Tech Giants continue to invest in their financial services offerings, banks will struggle to acquire a competitive advantage. The graph below depicts the revenue-based attractiveness of banking operations and how well digital behemoths might fit in. Retail deposits, SME payments, consumer wealth management, corporate deposits, and wholesale payments are examples of banking activities in which they may choose to invest. Contactless, online-only, and self-service transactions were nonnegotiable in the last year, and financial services organisations did all they could to make transactions simpler and safer for banking consumers. While some of these efforts were prompted by an

extraordinary business climate, these improvements have proven to be very profitable, and financial institutions are already making investments to guarantee they become a more permanent element of their hallmark experience landscape. However, underpinning it all are the systems that were established decades ago to serve financial institutions and offer what is most convenient for them to do business – not necessarily how clients desire to have their needs fulfilled. As these companies continue to accelerate their digital experimentation and innovation, they will attempt to reengineer their process environment and create experiences that put the consumer at the core of it all. The end result will be creative digital solutions, but the consumer experience will be intuitive, personal, and comprehensive. To achieve this, service providers will continue to engage in mining for and exploiting data insights in order to understand not just what clients want, but also how and when they want it. Future financial services operations will be data-first and cloud-first, with data feeding into every important component of the organisation to offer human experiences. Speaking of operations, the year that past by also saw financial services organisations more extensively adopt a mix of automation and digital conveniences. These technologies augmented remote employees as they carried out a slew of everyday tasks ranging from analysing customer claims in the context of credit and debit cards to processing loans and payments, among other things. Aside from increased cost discipline, the advantages included fewer mistakes, quicker customer problem resolution, and less human bias in decisionmaking. Fewer human interventions and more automation resulted in improved security and compliance hygiene. Financial institutions are clearly seeing what this can mean for them in the future: greater operational agility, employees freed from routine, applying themselves to solve difficult customer problems, data assisting in the discovery of new market-relevant solutions, and new avenues for growth and value creation. It is becoming more clear that excellent digital operations can provide the framework for service providers to position themselves for distinction and development. For financial service providers, various digital relationships have been

swiftly formed and expanded with a variety of organisations — from industry behemoths like Infosys to tiny, creative start-ups and fintechs. The pleasant consequence has been jointly packaged services, shared data, and new solutions that helped serve clients throughout the epidemic. Together with these same partners and others in the platform economy, organisations in the financial services area will be able to establish ecosystems that generate greater value in the future. Platforms will lay down the digital runway, allowing companies to accelerate their pace of innovation and generate new ideas with better efficiency, flexibility, and scalability. Simultaneously, their own digital infrastructure will be expanded to allow for continual technological infusions and upgrades with minimal disturbance to business continuity. The platforms will unbundle, re-bundle, and churn solutions for the advantage of both service providers and their clients. While profit has always been king, financial services organisations will prioritise revenue growth and social impact in the post-pandemic age. Understanding personal objectives, collecting real-time interactions, and interacting with clients via intelligence-led operational models will generate income from banking services other than regular fees and loan servicing. Next-generation data architecture and sophisticated analytics skills are important to enabling institutions provide customers goods they need and desire – at the right place and right time in context, especially when challenger banks and FinTechs offer free and no-fee solutions. Financial wellness and inclusion remain a primary goal, driven by consumer demand. Millennials, for example, like to invest in sustainable assets, which drives investments in ESG assets. They are also prepared to spend extra for something that corresponds to their social ideals. Balancing financial development with social aims requires a cultural transition as well as a technology shift. Both may be attained if business and IT executives emphasise productivity, evolution, and long-term development. In FSIs, security, compliance, and regulatory challenges will always be crucial. The intrinsic importance of the information that banks and other corporations store makes even the best prepared a target for hackers. Advances in cloud security, both public and on-premises, offer limitless potential for financial institutions to better protect consumer information while using automated "reg-tech" to enable regulation and

compliance at a cheaper cost with better results than depending exclusively on human resources. Digitalization is a critical component in developing a future-proof company strategy. Banks that are not following or are trailing behind in this development may struggle to compete in this competitive climate. Our fundamental issue as regulators is to maintain financial stability and prudential soundness while also allowing for technological innovation. One of our supervisory tasks is to collect information on the digitization process of monitored banks in order to have a horizontal picture of where banks stand. This information is required for us to keep a continual communication with banks on this subject and offer them with recommendations. Another major area of emphasis in our discussions with banks will be the external firms with whom banks are partnering in order to transition to a more digital strategy. Banks will need these firms to grow ahead and stay competitive in the new digital environment. But outsourcing may also introduce new dangers — it might be impossible to monitor external systems, for example, and services may get concentrated among just a few suppliers. We must be able to observe how these risks are handled. Take, for example, cloud computing, which we are all too familiar with. Cloud computing is becoming more vital for banks looking to grow their IT systems, and this is having a huge influence on how banks organise their businesses. More and more operations are being performed in the cloud, which is constantly growing and, despite this, is more cost effective than banks maintaining their own data systems. The desire to outsource activities to third-party service providers has grown. We constantly monitor such outsourcing agreements within supervision to ensure that they do not result in banks becoming empty shells or obstruct effective monitoring. It's important to note that it's not only banks that have work to do. To properly supervise banks' digital transitions in this new age, supervisors must also increase their supervisory skills and resources. Traditional supervision approaches face new problems as a result of technological advancement. Fragmented value chains, for example, result in more diverse access to consumer data. Similarly, a high level of customization of algorithmbased tools may not necessarily allow for oversight via standard

supervisory techniques. Insights from market players will assist us in expanding our expertise and strengthening our advise for supervisors on how to evaluate banks' digitalization efforts and the risks associated with particular use cases. Governance and risk management, IT and security management, and data quality management will all demand more of our attention in the future. Cyber resilience will continue to be a key issue of supervisory attention in the face of growing and diverse cyber threats. This necessitates the prioritisation of IT risk and the associated focused analysis on and off site. In the case of digital platforms, regulatory authorities may not always have enough information regarding the sort of data acquired, permission collecting from end users, or if digital entities are monetising consumer data. Supervisors can benefit from technology in this situation. We are also aiming to optimise our internal procedures, such as simplifying reporting lines and combining reporting frameworks through the creation of a unified data dictionary. I anticipate that this will lead to even more advancements and increased efficiency in the future. For example, it may enable us to develop systems that provide supervisors with direct access to banks' data systems, enabling them to easily and efficiently "extract" necessary data as and when required. Finally, authorities are becoming more conscious of the changing times. The European Commission's digital agenda includes new legislative measures such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the Regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA). On the front of cyber-testing, TIBER-EU establishes a new framework, and international fora such as the Financial Stability Board and the G7 are increasingly debating digitalization problems. It is good that lawmakers are taking measures to develop harmonised European methods to guarantee that new modes of service delivery are suitably regulated and overseen. We will contribute as much as we can to these regulatory and legislative issues. 5 Banking Digital Transformation Challenges and Opportunities and they are: 1. Ensuring the Security of Social Media Communications: According to an ABA research, over half of bankers believe that within

the next five years, clients would depend on social media as their major way of contact with banks. This might be a good method for banks to establish their social media strategy by emphasising how it streamlines and simplifies interactions with their consumers. Given the tremendous reach of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, investments in these channels will only increase. However, using social media to expedite customer interactions offers two of the most significant digital banking issues ever: security and compliance. It's also frighteningly simple for someone to submit anything that's erroneous at best, and a regulatory violation at worst. Furthermore, you cannot afford to leave your social channels vulnerable to malicious infiltration or employee carelessness. The security of social media channels should be a top priority. All communications should be routed via a centralised monitoring system that automatically identifies and mitigates breaches of business policy before they reach the public. The need of adopting effective but userfriendly controls on social communications cannot be emphasised in an industry where trust is essential. 2. Transitioning Away from Legacy Applications: Many banks' lack of technical expertise is concerning, and customers desire more than ever to have an experience that conventional banking systems just cannot provide. Many large financial systems, for example, are written in the COBOL programming language, which has been around for more than 60 years! These outdated systems were just not suited for today's linked digital world, necessitating a major overhaul of back-office technology. It can be difficult to make the transition from dated and disparate legacy banking systems to a modern, digitally connected environment. The essential software, unique procedures, connections with other systems, security, and upkeep will need a significant upfront expenditure. Furthermore, personnel will need to be taught and kept up to date if you want to optimise your investment and get the most out of it. And, when you think about it, modern technology is intrinsically safer and more in line with compliance regulations, owing to the existence of centralised systems for monitoring security and compliance. This demonstrates that you care deeply about your consumers' data and privacy, which

increases their trust in your company. 3. Resolving Security Issues on a Large Scale: Aside from safeguarding social media channels, one of the most significant digital transformation difficulties faced by banks undertaking or contemplating digital transformation is the security of their IT infrastructure and all of the data contained inside it. There was a time when IT security was simple. You'd just install a firewall and call it a day. That is clearly no longer the case. Nowadays, a typical banking environment contains tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of networked computers and other connected devices. When social, cloud, and mobile channels are added to the mix, the potential attack surface grows rapidly. How do you maintain security on such a large scale? The good news is that the digital revolution in banking is also fuelling the desire for customised security and compliance solutions that can scale in response to demand. No matter how extensive a bank's digital asset portfolio is, there are now solutions that scale to nearly any size, using automation and complete cloud enablement to secure everything - from WhatsApp conversations to Facebook status updates. SaaS solutions' scalability is precisely what makes them crucial in the retail banking market. 4. Breaking Down Silos and Risk Mitigation: Banks have historically been compartmentalised institutions. Different departments, each with its own set of aims, use diverse systems. As a result, growth is stifled, scalability is constrained, and customer happiness suffers. In fact, more conventional banks have a notorious reputation for giving consumers the run-around whenever they request for a new service or need assistance. Banking's digital transformation heralds the arrival of a single platform that centralises data and integrates numerous systems and divisions. It successfully solves the problems that silos generate. Keep in mind that information silos may also pose security and compliance problems since there is a basic lack of collaboration and consistency in company policy-making. And, since that marketing is the new frontline of brand protection, CMOs and CISOs should collaborate to build integrated solutions that benefit everyone. 5 Choosing Between a Physical Store, a Digital Store, or Both:

Despite the emergence and growth of digital technology, a sizable proportion of customers still prefer to transact inside the confines of a physical bank. That is a proven fact. Players in the banking business must see this as one of the industry's ongoing digital banking problems and opportunities: finding a happy medium where they can meet the demands of all their clients while also achieving change. Some consumers choose to check balances on their phones yet transmit payments from a desktop computer. Others prefer the ease of filling out a quick online questionnaire to apply for a loan. Nonetheless, more than two-thirds of consumers believe that having a local branch nearby is important. Since everyone is talking about digital transformation these days, there seems to be a widespread misunderstanding that bank branches are doomed to go extinct. This is simply not true, because many people still prefer face-to-face interactions when discussing important financial matters such as personal loans and mortgages. Digital technology isn't designed to completely replace these conventional connections; rather, it's supposed to supplement them. Overall, if banks do not want to be left behind by the advancement of digital technology, digital transformation in the banking industry is a must. However, where most people see obstacles, banks should see opportunities to improve services and build strong relationships with their clients. Because, at the end of the day, it's the customers' happiness and trust that matters. 10 Questions to Ask Your IT Team in Finance industry before Investing in IT The Digital Transformation: 1. How Does the Company Make Technology Decisions? To effectively approach digital transformation in finance in 2021, you must first examine how your company currently makes technologyrelated decisions. Seeing any shortcomings in your company's existing strategy will help you design a better one in the future. You should ensure that you understand the decision-making process at every level of your organisation. If the decision-making pipeline isn't the same, it's critical to spend time aligning your IT staff with the rest of your departments. 2. How does the company keep track of and maximise the value of its

investments? You should be particularly concerned in how your company measures and optimises the value of its technological investments. It is critical to consider whether the technology in which your company is investing is worthwhile. Looking into your technology investments on a regular basis will help you make more focused choices. The more experience you have with investing in technology, the more equipped you will be to make future judgments on these investments. 3. How often does the IT team solicit user feedback? When it comes to creating and launching a successful product or service, collecting data about user experience is critical. User testing is often included as part of project management. If you want to impress your consumers and clients, you must ensure that your IT teams take the time to go out to people and solicit feedback. 4. Who Are the Company's Top Engineers? Identifying your organization's greatest technical talent is critical to ensure that you're using the best personnel your company has employed. However, having the greatest engineers isn't enough for your organisation. When you employ these engineers, you must put them in the greatest locations inside your organisation. Why would you squander the finest talent on the lowest-paying jobs? 5. How many projects did IT fail to finish? It may seem strange to concentrate on initiatives that IT did not finish, yet these projects (or lack thereof) might reveal a lot. For starters, it can tell you whether or not IT is reviewing initiatives before they begin. Every team should make certain that the tasks they are working on are worthwhile. If your staff are squandering time on meaningless tasks, your organisation will suffer. 6. How Long Does Your Company Take to Release New Applications? Timeliness is critical, particularly for businesses striving to finish projects. One of the most important project management standards is to stick to the project timetable. The most common reason of project delays is poor technology. Technology, whether it's a lack of communication or an ineffective platform, may make a significant

impact in your team's project-building process. 7. Which of the company's IT capabilities are provided by vendors? Next, consider the capabilities that your present providers offer your business. The main point here is that your company's desires and demands should correspond to your providers' capabilities. If you have a vendor relationship that isn't helping your business, it's time to discontinue it. You should target vendor connections in the future to guarantee that your firm gets the most out of the vendor-company relationship. 8. How Much Custom Development Work Is Involved in Creating New IT Solutions? The quantity of custom development work that your IT team needs to complete might indicate how far your project has progressed. Having to conduct too much bespoke development work might cause a project to go far beyond its deadline. As a result, by measuring and controlling the amount of custom development work done on each project, you may significantly reduce the time it takes to accomplish tasks. Not to mention the fact that you'll make future initiatives simpler for your crew. 9. What percentage of the company's decisions are made with the help of AI? In the digital transformation plan for financial services, artificial intelligence is a valuable tool. It may make all the difference in a company's decision-making process. The more AI you include into your company's decision-making process, the simpler each choice will be. AI facilitates commercial transactions. This involves keeping track of resources, defining timeframes, and anticipating dangers. 10. Is the company's developers being hampered by cybersecurity? Needless to say, cybersecurity is a significant project that is associated with digital transformation in banking and financial services. You must safeguard yourself, your staff, your customers, and your company as a whole. If your cybersecurity is so disorganised that it is interfering with your team's work, you may need to reconsider how your company's cybersecurity system operates. A few initiatives that the new age financial services have adopted to

make it a digital transformation are as follows: 1.The digital experience for the customers by adopting “Direct to Consumer” mode. The customers have been provided an option of directly reaching out to the financial service provider through a digital mode and make an application. 2.Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), including natural language processing and psychometric recognition capabilities across customer touch points. 3.Identifying potential partner FinTech’s in various categories such as credit underwriting, on-boarding, payments and partnering with them quickly to enable contactless services and usage of alternate data. 4.Allocating appropriate budget for digital acquisition and technology adoption. A proportion of marketing dollars are kept aside to be used for digital technology and automation that enhances the revenue and profitability. 5.Strengthening the usage of alternate data in combination of traditional data. These alternate data may be transactional information, partner transaction data, digital footprint that reflects the customer behaviour to provide him a customized offering. 6.Digitally enabling the sales force to generate sales within the work from home (WFH) model. 7.Developing the corporate ability of remote collaborative working and enhancing employee experience with digital interfaces. Setting up digital collection process has also become key focus area for lenders. 8.Adoption of new digital tools such as Video Customer Identification process (VCIP), Digital Address Verification (DAV), Video Personal discussion (VPD) is becoming the norm. Lending organizations are partnering with specialized service providers to accelerate digital acquisition process while ensuring customer convenience. 9.Focus on customized offerings for customers that includes digitally originated, digitally underwritten, digitally disbursed and collatable loans. The requirements of short-term credit are expanding. As customers’ needs are moving more towards “essential” nature of consumption the product economics are govern towards inclusiveness, contactless, transactable flexibility.

10.Fintech and technology companies are facilitating digital transformation in financial services and the speed has been tremendous in last few months. Innovation is coming from everywhere and consumers have never had more flexibility and convenience. Organizations will also witness a cultural shift as they will realize the importance of being more agile and open to new ideas and experimentation. All stakeholders need to heavily invest in tech and digital capabilities. Simply said, digital finance is a new way of working that uses digital tools and procedures to make finance better, faster, and more cost efficient. It represents the influence of technology improvements on the financial sector, whether via products, systems, and procedures, or new business models, which have altered the way conventional finance was organised. These emerging technologies enable consumers and organisations to access payments, savings, and credit products without having to visit a bank. This new reality brought about by digitisation suggests that a smartphone may be used as a wallet, chequebook, bank branch, and accounting ledger all in one. Because of the extent of development achieved in technology, digitalization in finance is not a far-fetched notion. Data availability, the capacity to synthesise it using algorithms and tools, and developments in connection devices and systems such as cloud computing and sensors. It's worth noting that many of these technologies already exist in other industry verticals, and it's up to us to capitalise on this existing expertise by learning from other business functions and modifying our approach. VMware's distinct approach to security aids in risk mitigation and compliance: 1.A Pervasive Software Layer to Counter Dynamic Threats: VMware offers a transformational security platform that allows financial IT teams to meet today's dynamic threat environment by deploying a ubiquitous software layer across infrastructure and endpoints, regardless of the underlying physical infrastructure or location. The platform gives insight and context into user-app interactions, as well as information to comprehend them. It also allows for the incorporation of third-party security services for intelligent

protection. 2.Granular Défense with Micro-Segmentation: Even endpoints with the most up-to-date software, email filters, and other protection may be compromised: all it takes is one person to open a malicious attachment or click on a phishing email. Legacy approaches that rely only on network perimeter security are insufficient for digital organisations. Once malware has gained access to a data centre, it may travel from task to workload. Microsegmentation is a feature of VMware NSX that adds stronger, microgranular security by segregating networks from one another and automatically applying appropriate security rules down to the app level. 3.Increase your visibility and control from beginning to end: VMware solutions provide end-to-end visibility and management of the user and endpoint, extending from the user into the data centre or cloud without interfering with the user's consumer-like experience. Users can safely access corporate applications and data from anywhere on any device thanks to VMware's strong approach to security from data centres to smartphones. During planned or unanticipated outages, business important applications and data are always securely accessible, guaranteeing company continuity. IT departments may also monitor and mitigate attacks in real-time across all endpoints, lowering the chance of data loss. The financial services sector is undergoing a digital revolution that is upending old business models and procedures, whether in customer-facing or internal activities. Rising consumer expectations, more competition, and stronger regulatory requirements are driving businesses to embrace new digital-based processes – all while avoiding runaway costs or margin challenges. But 'digital transformation' isn't simply the newest buzzword craze - it's resulting in actual commercial achievements across the board. We're seeing sophisticated mobile banking applications that allow clients to pay bills, make deposits, get electronic warnings about suspicious behaviour, and transfer money to pals. Fitness applications, mobile claims filing, microinsurance plans, and smart gadgets that track driving behaviours are all being rolled out at a quick pace by insurers. A rising number of investing

organisations provide robo-advisors to assist customers in making better selections. In addition, numerous back-office operations are benefiting from automation on a previously unheard-of scale. These new technologies, powered by AI and behavioural economics, machine learning, robots, and sophisticated analytics, are ushering in incredible operational economies, speeding time-to-market, and allowing enhanced consumer experiences via personalisation – all at vast scale. Such accomplishments, however, do not happen by chance. Digital transformation creates a huge set of problems for the accounting and finance departments inside these financial services businesses. Let us discuss how to make these judgments as banks decide on the best digital transformation strategy and go through their own digital transformation stages: 1.Getting things right: While many organisations seek to "meet the stated wants of their consumers," success goes to the innovators — those that build a product or service that anticipates the needs of their customers. PayTm, for example, provided a legitimate alternative to the banking sector, which was battling with depleted cash disbursal capacity at a time when India was still coping with demonetisation. Again, at a time when conventional hotels were considering simplifying fixed cost structures, AirBnB upset the hospitality business by enabling ordinary people to transform their homes into rentable apartments. No surprise, technological advancements have allowed organisations to generate disruptions, providing them a competitive advantage across sectors. As a result, digital business transformation in banking involves more than simply improving existing systems to make them quicker or saving money — it is about reinventing possibilities for consumers. 2.What is the value of your digital transformation plan to you? New rivals, new technology, and new customer expectations are having a greater and quicker influence on the banking business than ever before. On one level, digital transformation allows businesses to gain access to new client bases. It also provides improved insight into consumer behaviour via sophisticated analytics of structured and unstructured data, allowing businesses to locate or design the best

goods for their consumers. The power of analytics, as well as the availability of extensive data sets on customer behaviour, have made it much simpler for marketers to reach and target new customers, as well as adapt goods to each individual customer. As both conventional retail banks and investment banks continue to explore digital as a method of attracting new clients, the borders between them are blurring. The majority of them are using technology to develop more hybrid items and provide more tailored products and services to their clients. 3.The key to success is an effective digital strategy: The banking sector has always depended on personal interactions between bankers and their clients. Today, the usual client journey is undergoing some form of development. To begin, today's bank consumers prefer to utilise social media to get recommendations from their friends and peers on goods or services, such as a loan or a mortgage. Second, they are doing much more in-depth research than ever before in order to hone down on a certain product. As a result, financial institutions must not only communicate with their consumers, but also exploit the power of suggestion and network. They must be able to promote targeted interaction and provide personalised suggestions based on what consumers are saying. What's vital is that this first interaction, onboarding, and ongoing dialogues take place without the intrusion of bank staff, which would depersonalise the experience. The ability of banks to utilise the potential of this infinite loop is totally dependent on the efficacy of a digital strategy that focuses on high engagement. 4.The shift from Omni-channel to Mobile-first, and then from Mobilefirst to Device-first: IoT-enabled gadgets are fast gaining popularity and producing massive amounts of data based on customer preferences. Cuttingedge data analytics tools are transforming that data into useful information about customer purchasing habits. Today, digital is about reimagining how you reach people quicker, not about creating a new or faster user experience. Digital serves more than just client demands; it also serves what is being thought or viewed. Most large banks now communicate with their clients through omni-channel

touchpoints such as branch networks, smartphone applications, and websites. They are devoting a significant portion of their IT resources to developing and sustaining an omni-channel presence, even while traffic across channels continues to fall. Customers want the bank to visit their house, or rather their smartphone or wearable gadget, in this era of tailored content. In developing nations, where a big portion of the population is unbanked and financial inclusion is an economic imperative, a mobile-first approach is a safe bet for reaching the greatest number of people. I ascribe this to the availability of low-cost data packages and the ease with which a sizable portion of the population may get cell phones. Clearly, in a mobile-first world, banks must reconsider their investment allocation across elements of an omni-channel strategy. As smart gadgets put orders for beer or music, your refrigerator or the Amazon Echo device on your tables will transform very soon. In no time, Echo will be connected with Amazon Bank, and deliveries will be completed via Amazon online shops. As a result, a forward integration merging numerous sectors is in the works, and for any commerce to occur via wearable devices and/or IoT, banks must immediately discover methods to integrate into the device(s) ecosystem. 4.Should you personalise or digitise? Banks are looking at methods to reach out to a broader consumer base with services that are traditionally reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Some are already developing robo-advisor services for mass-affluent clients. Is digitalization eroding the personal touch that financial advisers provide? While this is disputed, the fact remains that roboadvisors are now closer to clients, accessible on-demand on their mobiles or wearable devices. Digitization allows for the customisation of each product, service, and transaction with the consumer, enabling banks to become closer and more involved with their customers. It also allows financial advisers to concentrate on higher-margin clients, making it critical for banks to maximise their advisor relationships by making greater use of technology to serve low-end consumers. 5.Fintechs: Are they altering the game? Fintech firms are perhaps the most significant disruptors in all three financial services segments: payments, lending, and personal finance.

While banks clearly have an edge in terms of speed, agility, and user experience, they are offering financial services that rely heavily on trust. Indeed, the quick rise and fall of payment wallets in India gives critical insight into the fintech-bank-customer interaction. Customers may favour Fintech businesses' products in the near term owing to their speed, convenience, and agility. Customers, on the other hand, are more inclined to retain their accounts with a bank in the long term since confidence is so important in financial transactions. Their paths may eventually intersect, but given that this field is still emerging, collaborations between banks and fintech start-ups would be a winwin scenario for everybody in the medium to long term. 6.Innovation is the key to the future: Technology advancements will soon change traditional banking processes as we know them. The recent thefts involving Punjab National Bank and Nirav Modi of Gitanjali Jewels have spurred numerous discussions about banking system flaws and how greater system auditing and technology usage may have averted some of the difficulties. Blockchain technology has the potential to increase the transparency of financial transactions. However, it is one of several technological disruptors that may assist banks, and all such investments in technology improvements need financial allocations. As a result, the banks' capacity to generate value for their clients will be determined by their choice as to where to spend first or where to invest most. 7.What is the best course of action? Let's face it: digital disruption is all-encompassing in today's banking business. The introduction of new technology, competition from new players into the game, and ever-increasing client demands have all left conventional banks more susceptible than ever before. They must innovate in fresh and imaginative ways or risk becoming little more than a back-office utility. Banks that embrace innovation and new technology quickly have enormous opportunity to enhance the way they offer financial services. They have a relatively clear path ahead of them: Make it quicker, more agile, and more transparent. But, more significantly, reconsider what you're doing and how you're doing it. Keep your consumers at the core of your digital transformation

journey, is the motto to follow while reinventing the future. Financial services (FS) organisations have been incorporating computer technology into their operational processes for more than six decades1, while cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and business analytics/artificial intelligence (AI) have been in place for about a decade. Despite the fact that a new generation of online-first or solely online ("pure play") entrepreneurs has used these technologies to challenge the incumbents, digital disruption on the size of Netflix, Uber, or Airbnb has yet to materialise in the world of finance. Digital disruption is a transition that happens when both technology and business models influence the value proposition of the incumbent's present products and services. While FS pure plays are more nimble and innovative in embracing and leveraging technology, their core business models have stayed relatively similar to FS incumbents, owing to significant regulatory constraints and existing infrastructure. Consumers may still establish accounts and execute transactions using traditional banking or credit card information with digital payment fintech businesses such as PayPal, Revolut, and Stripe. For the most part, individuals cannot utilise digital payments to replace their conventional FS accounts. This is fundamentally different from the digital upheavals in the entertainment, transportation, and lodging sectors, where companies like Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb have established disruptive business models to replace incumbents. The FS sector's digitization has followed two major themes. First, incumbent "too big to fail" corporations have been developing digital capabilities to facilitate frictionless transactions, enabling them to keep their market dominance, despite the fact that rigorous laws and intrinsic product/market constraints have hindered their digital revolutions. 3 Second, pure-play fintech companies have unbundled existing corporations' service portfolios and deployed revolutionary technology to compete in specialised product/market niches. However, fintech firms are a relative newcomer to the heavily regulated financial services sector, and while they have proliferated in terms of both the number and volume of transactions, their impact (beyond a few subsectors such as payments) on the digital capacity of established financial conglomerates has been minimal. The COVID-19 epidemic has further hampered the FS industry's delayed digital

transition. In this essay, we will evaluate the digital transformation in information-centric sectors and describe the pre-pandemic condition of digitization in financial services organisations. Following that, we look at the regulatory and product/market variables that have delayed the speed of digital change in the financial services sector and prevented the establishment of a fintech-led disruptive business model. Then, in the face of the epidemic, we analyse how quickly governments reduced laws, financial services organisations adjusted their business procedures, and consumers accepted digital technology. Finally, we look at how, post-COVID-19, incumbent businesses may continue to dominate in financial services by working with fintech pure plays and profiting on their scale, expertise, and regulatory compliance experience. As a result, there will be a significant increase in largescale strategic digitalization initiatives and fintech mergers and acquisitions (M&As). And Big Tech corporations — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google — will almost certainly play a large part in the FS industry's digital revolution. Over the previous several decades, technology-led frictionless commerce has significantly increased efficiency in a variety of information-centric businesses. In the 20 years since its inception, about 70% of the US population has shopped online. In the case of digital products, the total number of customers in the United States to main streaming service providers (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, and Apple TV+) is over 485 million. 6 The nearinstantaneous distribution of digital goods and tremendous advances — from same-day to same-hour delivery of physical products — demonstrate the efficiency in these sectors. In certain informationcentric industries, such as entertainment, communications, and retail, digitalization is practically full, comprehensive, and revolutionary. Digital transformation has also been seen in businesses where information technology has historically not been critical to success or played a role beyond basic transactional processing systems. The digitally disruptive business concepts of Uber and Lyft, for example, have revolutionised the transportation sector; eBay has digitally disrupted fragmented used goods market transactions throughout the US; and Airbnb and Priceline, respectively, have revolutionised the hotel and travel industries. Challenger enterprises delivering

seamless, efficient, and cost-effective alternatives to incumbent corporations' goods and services have all driven such successful disruptive models in retail, transportation, entertainment, and secondary markets. Traditionally, the financial services sector is more information-centric than the retail business, more technologically advanced than transportation and accommodation companies, and more important in people's lives than entertainment services. Money is the most important aspect of the financial industry. With just 10% of the global money supply in physical form, the primary transactional resource of financial institutions is predominantly electronic. In most financial transactions across the globe, the storage, organisation, access, retrieval, and transfer of money are simple database activities. With the advent of online accounts, mobile technology, and cloud computing, the majority of financial transactions no longer necessitate the physical movement of goods (i.e., money and documents). In sharp contrast to the transportation and lodging sectors, whose primary assets and transactions are still physical, it is noteworthy that digital disruptions like to Airbnb and Uber have failed to occur in the financial services business, despite decades of technological integration. The information-dominated financial services business has seen fractional, fragmented, and transactional digitalization. Everything that can be digitised is being digitised, although at varying degrees, speeds, and intensities. The word "financial technology," from which the shortened term "fintech" is derived, was invented in the early 1990s by Citicorp when it founded the Financial Services Technology Consortium, although FS organisations had been using computer technology for decades before the term became widespread. Since the 1960s, computing technology has played a critical role in reducing geographical and temporal obstacles to financial transactions. ATMs (1960s), credit cards (1970s), online brokerage (1980s), Internet banking (2000s), and mobile banking are some notable examples (2010s). Customers may now use online or mobile channels to submit applications, establish accounts, examine statements, dispute transactions, pay bills, make claims, arrange appointments, deposit checks, and transfer money. The use of technology into operational procedures has enabled financial institutions to reduce transaction

costs while continuing to develop organically via product-market innovations. This organic development, along with M&A-led expansion initiatives in the 1990s, has enabled incumbent corporations to preserve their FS market dominance. However, technological adoption in the financial services sector has been fragmented, with no overarching or revolutionary vision. Firms have continued to develop digital capabilities, but have not fully tapped the promise of digital technology to improve efficiency. The inefficiencies in the FS industry's banking, insurance, investing, and real estate sectors are evident. After all, closing a house loan might take up to 42 days, and clearing checks can take up to two business days. 9 Even in the postInternet age of information openness and disintermediation, the costs of financial intermediation in real estate and insurance have remained relatively stable. Indeed, the 6% real estate fee is still the norm, with US house sellers paying an estimated $100 billion to agents each year. 10 Traditional financial services businesses, on the whole, have been unsuccessful in meeting many of the wider society's financial demands. Today, 6.5 percent of US families (about 8.5 million individuals) do not have bank accounts, while up to 25 percent are unbanked or underbanked, 8.5 percent are uninsured, and 30 percent do not have credit cards. The financial services business has a direct influence on people's lives and the economy of countries. In order to ensure financial stability, safeguard customers, and maintain market trust, these businesses are among the most regulated. There are regulations and procedures in place for preserving records, processing, auditing, securing transactions, and protecting client information. As a result, the technology enabling today's digital disruption models — cloud computing, IoT, and data analytics/AI — cannot be used in the business effectively and quickly owing to a plethora of security, privacy, audit, and control-related compliance requirements. Many of the rules that do exist are out of date or have not been kept up to date, creating loopholes or impeding innovation, while other pre-Internet age legislation lack explicit criteria for online banking. In these days of fast money transmission, for example, existing US federal rules enable banks to keep at least some amount from a deposited check for up to three days. Regulations also require notarized documents

and appraisals in mortgage closings, as well as "know your customer" and anti-money-laundering policies in banks. While technological advancements present significant opportunities, the heavily regulated financial services sector cannot fully capitalise on these opportunities in the absence of a supportive regulatory environment. Traditional financial firms have a long history of complying with regulatory standards, and their business models and processes have evolved accordingly, whereas fintech pure plays are newer to the market and have less experience with these regulatory frameworks. Fintech firms are often internet enterprises or technology-oriented firms. Apple Pay, Ant Group (previously Ant Financial and Alipay), and PayPal are all associated with Apple, Alibaba, and eBay, in that order. Stripe, Robinhood, and Square, on the other hand, were founded by entrepreneurs in the IT industry. Neither of these two groupings of organisations has the breadth and depth of regulatory expertise that conventional financial services firms have. The FS sector's comply-orperish reality also hinders the rate of digitalization. In many cases, fintech companies must collaborate with established financial services organisations to benefit from their regulatory experience. Because financial services organisations are custodians of people's financial assets, trust, risk management, and security are important considerations for success in the field. Because the majority of financial investments and transactions are now conducted electronically, technological advancements must be scrutinised carefully. FS businesses are responsible for securing their clients' personally identifiable information in addition to their financial assets (PII). Today's technologically disruptive models, such as Airbnb, Uber, and Netflix, rely on Amazon Web Services' public cloud infrastructure (AWS). However, because to regulatory constraints and security concerns, most FS organisations are hesitant or unwilling to move data and essential applications to the cloud. Before deploying public cloud infrastructure, security compliance requires proper supervision and monitoring, geographic constraints, and control over data management. The vast amount of client information held by financial institutions provides tremendous opportunity for producing customised products and improving the customer experience. These companies must, however, maintain proper protection for extremely sensitive data

and balance data analytics potential with privacy and security compliance obligations. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)15, for securing credit and debit card transactions against fraud, and the recently enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)16, which governs how global businesses can use personal information of California residents, apply to both established FS firms and fintech pure plays. Compliance, risk management, security, and trust are all integrated into the core business operations of conventional financial services organisations. The standard credit card transaction method does not allow for direct data transmission between merchants and consumer bank accounts. These safeguards include many parties, including the cardholder, merchant, card association (e.g., Visa, Mastercard), merchant's bank, cardholder's bank, and payment processor, and each credit card transaction requires a 2 percent -3 percent processing charge. The EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2), which was recently changed, intends to protect clients, stimulate innovation, and safeguard transactions in the online payment sectors. The open banking aspect of this regulation allows for direct data transmission between a customer's bank and a merchant, allowing for significant efficiency potential. Legacy procedures in other FS areas are also difficult. As previously stated, the average mortgage loan closing process takes 42 days and involves numerous parties such as lenders, borrowers, real estate agents, title companies, insurance companies, home inspectors, notaries, and appraisers. Most major financial institutions provide a front-end web interface via which mortgage applicants may submit numerous applications. However, although it eliminates bank trips and paperwork, such digitisation does not greatly enhance the process. Similarly, although credit card applications and approvals may be completed in minutes utilising online or mobile apps, receiving a new card might take 7-10 business days. This is in sharp contrast to the Apple Card, which may be used instantly after acceptance. Furthermore, many financial services business operations are underpinned by outdated technological infrastructure. In many cases, digital transformation necessitates the replacement of this legacy infrastructure, which may have a wideranging influence on the operations of businesses. Even in these days

of immediate real-time possibilities, incumbent FS organisations have continued to use the benchmark of days, weeks, and months for many operational transactions in the absence of business process reengineering and improvements in the IT infrastructure. As a result, the digital transformation of financial institutions necessitates a considerable shift in organisational culture as well as a fundamental shift in attitude. While staff are younger and more technologically savvy, many conventional financial services organisations continue to rely on old IT infrastructure built on COBOL and mainframes. It is estimated that 60-year-old COBOL systems handle $3 trillion in daily FS trade. 20 Checking and savings accounts, debit card networks, ATMs, and mortgage services are all supported by COBOL. Mobile apps and other advanced features are written in new languages, but they must work in tandem with legacy COBOL systems. The digital transformation of the financial services industry will necessitate a large-scale technological transformational project. Legacy IT infrastructure has gotten more sophisticated and costly to upgrade over the previous several decades, mostly as a result of mergers and acquisitions. For example, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's IT infrastructure conversion project took five years and cost more than one billion Australian dollars. The likelihood of such initiatives failing is significant, resulting in nightmare situations such as failed transactions and client data loss. These dangers have led to delay and a risk-averse mentality across the sector. The culture of financial services firms is to prioritise short-term profits over risky longterm projects. The cultural transition from "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" to "let us repair it before it breaks" requires a fundamental adjustment in attitude on the part of senior management and the board of directors, as well as a cultural shift on the market side. According to a recent poll, 73 percent of the US population does not utilise the newgeneration online-only bank, often known as "neobank," since they are satisfied with their traditional brick-and-mortar bank. There is a natural reluctance among FS customers to switch to alternative options. Declaring the end of digital transformation in the financial services sector does not imply a totally harmonious and utopian merger of technology and financial services. It is a proclamation that the pandemic crisis has put an end to any argument about how important

technology is and will always be in financial services. They are and will always be inextricably linked. In 1989, two years before the Soviet Union's demise, Francis Fukuyama, an American political economist and historian, released his divisive piece ""History Has Come to an End." In it, he contended that the centuries-long conflict over political ideology had finished since the discussion over which type of government should triumph had ended. As a result, there is no longer a threat to capitalism and liberal democracy. Many criticised the piece for taking a premature victory lap. It was not, according to Fukuyama, a statement of an ideal form of governance, but rather a significant historical evolutionary and factual occurrence. Similarly, this pandemic and epidemiological catastrophe should signal the conclusion of the argument about the role of technology in the financial services business, the end of the "need to change," and the end of the slow rate of technology adoption that has plagued the financial industry for years. Transition occurred, and the transformation phase should lead to a period of intensive technological optimization, quicker deployment, and use in the financial services business. For years, the conversation and argument over the role of technology in the financial business became more heated with the introduction of each new technology and the advent of fintech firms seeking to disrupt the financial sector via the use of technology. Many predicted that existing financial institutions would fail due to their failure to adapt to a technologically driven environment. Financial institutions of all sizes have been developing long-term plans for technology adoption and investing in technology modernisation, with some spending more than others. Every year is designated the "year of the fintech," and every few months, a new saying is released declaring that "Big Tech" has won "will seize control of the financial sector. Despite this, most people's financial life throughout the globe moved in a relatively orderly manner as a result of the crisis. So far, the integrity of financial markets and the stability of the financial system, although still confronting difficulties and vulnerabilities, have withstood this unprecedented turmoil, thanks in large part to technological advances. According to recent polls, research, and statistics, numerous financial institutions have digitally converted their services. Payment, clearing and settlement, wholesale

finance, insurance services, capital markets, lending, and other critical financial services have all made the transition to the cyberworld quite well. This shift is owing to the fact that, previous to the pandemic, many institutions were already working (albeit far from finished) on enhancing their data management structure, updating key infrastructure, adopting AI, and leveraging the cloud. These financial institutions have already begun a modernisation journey to improve customer experiences, operations, compliance, and efficiency (including resiliency and security). Financial institutions with a clear vision have made technology a fundamental component in their development plans—not to become a technology firm, but because they understand that financial services must be driven by technology if they are to survive. Meanwhile, many fintech businesses are seeing double-digit growth because they have already established technology as a key mechanism for providing clients with essential financial services. Furthermore, Big Tech firms have shown to be key partners to financial institutions by delivering vital and necessary technologies that will push financial institutions' innovation and development. To yet, Big Tech's business model has prioritised cooperation over competition. A new financial digital world has evolved and is being put through its paces. So why keep emphasising "transformation" when change has already happened as a consequence of these historical events? In fact, the sector has already put its new technology infrastructure through a real-world stress test. There are certain essential concerns and imperatives for all impacted stakeholders to build on the evolutionary momentum, harness the lessons of the crisis, and make the financial sector as effective or functioning as feasible in the face of this digitally altered reality: 1.Reimagine the New Business Model. Digital transformation is more than simply the use of technologically advanced tools and capabilities. With the recent transformation, institutions must analyse and adapt their operational procedures and business models in light of new experiences and digital technologies. A stronger integration of digital, business, and operational strategies is required to (a) improve the evolving customer experience and fulfil the expectations of the new

customer-engagement model, (b) empower the workforce, and (c) reimagine product/service development and deployment cycles. 2.Reevaluate Your Relationship With Technology Providers. In light of their recent pandemic-related experiences, institutions should re-start their due diligence process with their technology providers to reevaluate how these providers fit into their developing risk management framework, long-term business strategy, and digital optimization strategies. In view of the major transition to the digital channel, a new heightened degree of due diligence, supervision, and performance evaluation is necessary, with the understanding that the level of monitoring will vary based on the systemic relevance of a specific usage of each technological application. Financial institutions will need to allocate trained and qualified resources to perform oversight and management functions, access appropriate information and data from providers for monitoring purposes (e.g., availability history, service disruptions, outages, and scheduled maintenance times), agree on key performance indicators relating to the provider's commitment to resiliency, scalability, and/or capacity, and establish a regular monitoring performance cadence. Given the importance of technology to the functions and new operations of financial institutions, there is a need for deeper integration and collaboration between a financial institution and its third-party service providers to manage expectations regarding every aspect of the business, including capacity management, scalability, and resiliency of the systems and infrastructure. 3.Reaffirm Compliance Commitment and Invest in RegTech Financial institutions' business practises, operational procedures, client interactions, and product and service launches have all altered dramatically. This development necessitates a reevaluation of how the digital revolution and new virtual environment effect present compliance controls and procedures. For example, are AML rules for client identification and due diligence scalable enough to match the rapid move to digital and mobile banking? Financial institutions should look more closely at technology in order to continue to optimise and expedite their compliance controls and systems, and therefore keep up with the ever-changing regulatory changes and regulations, as well as newly developing cyber dangers and schemes. Furthermore,

institutions should examine how their data and that of their customers are utilised, as well as how technology affects the breadth of usage, storage, and transfer, particularly when a third-party technology provider is involved. For example, a financial institution should be completely aware of where data is housed in the cloud, what laws and regulations govern if the data is hosted and stored outside of the country, and how technology providers use and access the organization's data. To guarantee effective legal and ethical deployment and use of AI/ML systems produced by third-party providers, institutions must maintain a closer check on the working of the algorithm and accept responsibility for the AI/ML system's outputs. 4.Examine Cybersecurity Controls Again. To mitigate the increased risk of going virtual, institutions and their providers must strive to evolve their cybersecurity policies and procedures. The use of encryption technology that meets or exceeds international standards to protect and secure data at all times (whether in storage or in transit), or the use of multi-factor authentication (i.e., requiring users to go through multiple validation procedures to gain access to the service) to limit data access, should be a given and should extend across institutions and their providers. Meanwhile, the cybersecurity strategy should be reviewed to verify that not only the technology is enough to offer a strong line of defence, but that the security team is adequately staffed, qualified (with the necessary technological expertise), and scalable to meet the increasing needs. Institutions should verify that any technology provider with whom they contract protects personal information adequately, both in transit and at rest, by using rigorous security measures that meet or exceed international requirements. Financial institutions should also have mechanisms in place to provide efficient security threat monitoring and a complete response mechanism to such threats. At the very least, institutions must ensure that the provider (and the technology) is appropriately certified and maintains robust security measures and security policies, as well as that such security and privacy controls are aligned with international standards and controls such as those outlined in the SOC 1 and SOC 2 assessment frameworks. 5.Reevaluate and revise business continuity and disaster recovery plans. The crisis's developments served as a stark reminder of the

crucial need of practical and operational business continuity planning. Financial institutions sought to digitally grow quickly and with little downtime or service impact. Institutions also rapidly discovered that their business continuity and disaster recovery plans are heavily reliant on the plans of technology suppliers, particularly cloud providers and collaboration tool providers. Re-examining data backup methods and frequency, support systems, incident response plans, redundant infrastructure, system scalability and robustness, and capacity are essential elements in optimising technology infrastructure and systems. 6.Coevolution should be practised. In The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Niall Ferguson uses the word "coevolution" in the context of financial services. He characterised it as a situation in which diverse species collaborate and adapt to one another. Coevolution is defined formally as "an evolution including consecutive changes in two or more interdependent species (such as a plant and its pollinators) that alter their interactions." The financial crisis has shown that the possibility to coevolve in the business is larger than ever. Traditional financial institutions, fintech start-ups, and technology suppliers now have an unparalleled chance to collaborate and complement one another in order to optimise and accelerate the financial services industry's digitalization. The rapid pace of change necessitates a deeper look at prospects for financial institutions and fintech businesses to collaborate in order to reach the size, speed-tomarket, and technological acumen required to satisfy clients' digital aspirations, among other things. Meanwhile, rather than competing with or displacing banks and fintech firms, technology businesses will continue to partner with them. Together, these businesses will speed compliant innovation by increasing technological scale, adopting a new approach to design and deployment, and establishing a strong compliance culture. Coevolution should replace a culture of hostility between these "species" and prove to be an opportunity for institutions to expedite their road to digital optimization, regardless of their size or IT or R&D expenditures. It is an opportunity for fintech startups to work with institutions that can contribute size, core skills in financial services, and a strong compliance culture. The acceleration of transformation and the move to technology

optimization implies that regulators must adapt and expedite their own usage of technology. In this virtual environment, they must keep up with the rising job of compliance supervision. Regulators, more than ever, must employ technology to effectively and efficiently carry out their supervisory and oversight tasks, a field known colloquially as "SupTech." Existing SupTech technologies, such as data analytics tools and AI systems, as well as other infrastructure, allow and will enable regulators to grow while continuing to fulfil vital supervisory responsibilities. The necessity for investment by public agencies and governments, as well as the hiring of skilled individuals, to support the growth of regulatory tasks, is more critical and pressing than ever. However, there are common use cases that have been observed that would be beneficial to any firm looking to undertake their first steps toward RPA while implementing digital transformation in Finance industries and they are: 1.Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable automation – Bots are configured to capture and interpret information from invoices, recognize patterns and run business processes across multiple applications to execute activities, including data entry and validation of information. 2.Underwriting Assessment – Business agility is increased by using bots that collect, assemble and present data for easy assessment of data by underwriters. When coupled with the speed in which these reports are generated, underwriters can review cases within an hour of receiving the information – offering a 40% – 50% reduction in processing time. 3.End of Month Accounting – The financial monthly close and reporting process encompasses a number of tedious tasks and processes which includes salary accounting, closing out sub-ledgers, importing and exporting data between software and creating and delivering financial filings to regulatory bodies. The process involves many systems, departments, and individuals and requires posting data from sources such as Excel to these sub-ledgers, a tedious undertaking carried out seamlessly by bots. 4.Credit Report Automation – By digitalizing credit management, banks reduce the risk of losing creditworthy clients to competitors as a

result of slow approval processes. In addition, it complies with constantly evolving changes in regulations and governance, saving time and cutting cost by 50%. Our bots generate reports on command and present them to analysts in specified formats. 5.Audit and Compliance – Gathering and analysing financial and operational performance is a business-critical function, however, processing and delivering this information is a tedious task and is often prone to delays and worse, errors. Bots are programmed to carry out the task of checking and recalculating balance sheets for any discrepancies. Once completed, reports are generated and emailed to the users. Enlisted here is the importance of digital transformation on financial sector: 1. High Standardization: Finance functions are always considered as high performing. When these are integrated with technology systems with standardized processes and data; leads to a high standardization. 2. Highly Automated functions: Adoption of new technology tools lead to higher process automation for services such as money remittance, procurement orders, invoice generation, and KYC verification. 3. Faster Performance: With the adoption of big-data and other machine learning tools in finance, it is easier to predict and forecast budget allowing teams to finish month-end cycles before time. 4. Insight-driven functions: Digitalization has modified financial models in such a way that the resources concentrate more on deriving insights rather than focusing only on transactions. 5. Improved customer and employee experience: The same level of information is available with customers and employees and thus less chaos in transactions. 6. Better Service Delivery: The legacy systems integrated with new technologies have changed the finance’s operating model. The structured processes have improved service delivery. Some of the basic elements of cognitive computing in the financial

industries with digital transformation are: 1.It enables financial organizations to obtain personalized information about the customers and use the same to notify about payments, bills, and other reminders. Cognitive computing also offers suggestions regarding exceeding customer payments and other intelligent automation services. 2.The cognitive computing also ensures the creation of conversation interfaces for placing customer queries and responding to them. Chatbots are the best example of AI-powered digital assistants, developed to respond to customer queries thereby improving consumer services and CRM. 3.Robo-advisors too are a part of cognitive computing but are not AIpowered. The Robo-advisors use algorithms to read through data and come up with a suitable suggestion. 4.Cognitive technology works similar to human thinking but is considered as key to security. Protection of financial data is vital; hence cognitive computing is the solution. 5.With complex laws and regulations within the financial sector, poor knowledge of data policies can make finances a challenge for customers. With cognitive computing, real-time updates on rules and real-time implementation of the policies help in keeping policy documents updated and encourage good compliance. 6.Cognitive computing has enabled real-time trading analysis and improved trading systems so that customers can be served faster and better. 9.2 Healthcare Digital health is a wide area that includes, among other things, electronic health, mobile health, telemedicine, and health data. It provides solutions to boost health systems, such as delivering health services directly to people's homes and underserved neighbourhoods, assisting in the mapping of disease epidemics, and integrating digital technologies that make health care more responsive and productive. However, in addition to giving benefits, digital health brings some significant concerns. Can digital health guarantee that patients get high-quality care? How do we guarantee that individuals who do not

have access to or understanding of digital technologies do not fall behind? How can we ensure that sensitive health data is appropriately safeguarded so that consumers may use services with confidence? The answers to these concerns are critical to the future of health in the WHO European Region. This is why, among vaccines, mental health, and behavioural and cultural insights, digital health is identified as a cornerstone in the European Programme of Work. The term digital health may conjure images of advanced, futuristic technology, but in fact it can include a range of interventions, including: 1.electronic health records and standards underpinning the exchange of data; 2.mobile health apps for monitoring and prevention; 3.public health portals that provide transparent access to an individual’s personal health records and contacts with the health system; 4.telemedicine; 5.integrated care delivery; 6.clinical decision-making support tools in primary care; 7.robotics; 8.personalized medicine; 9.nanotechnologies; 10.artificial intelligence. Digital health management blends technical advancement with transformational services to provide individuals with the assistance they need, when and when they want it. It has the potential to upend "business as usual." Here are four particular digital health management key skills for increasing patient engagement and happiness, improving outcomes, and differentiating your firm in today's competitive market. 1. Provide a holistic solution to support the whole person: Most organisations recognise that patients need more holistic care to improve their health, but few believe they have the means to do it.

Many firms structure their teams on certain circumstances. Alternatively, they've invested in a variety of point solutions, such as wellness programmes, condition-specific applications, or SMS services. While well-intentioned, this technique has the potential to overload patients. More practises that support the complete person, enhance the patient experience, and exhibit distinctive value must be implemented by organisations. Instead of allowing patients to handle several applications or various care teams, enterprises should provide health recommendations related to a single solution. This solution may incorporate chronic or complicated diseases, comorbidities, care transitions and care navigation, lifestyle, wellness, and social components, among other things. Personalized solutions like these are more likely to leave patients feeling more supported, more involved in their therapeutic programmes, and better equipped to manage their health on their own. 2. Develop insights that will allow for early intervention: Patients' interactions with their mobile clinical applications, as well as digital exchanges with their care teams, may create massive volumes of data in digital health management. A digital health system that uses this data as analytics may provide unique insights into patient needs and habits that go well beyond the four walls of in-person treatment. Care teams will be able to better analyse patients' development and give prompt, proactive care as a result. A good digital health management system will also use survey instruments from mobile applications to collect critical social determinant data, such as if a patient has trouble picking up their pills. Interaction through two-way texting or video chat may assist care teams in developing long-term patient connections and uncovering critical information that they would not have otherwise. 3. Extend staff reach to engage more patients: Care teams can provide comprehensive, tailored, and timely assistance by adopting digital health management, which allows them to create long-term, trusted patient connections and enhance results. A good digital health management system will enable care teams to function more effectively and on a larger scale. Transformation of care teams is a vital component of this approach. A concierge method,

often known as a "hub and spoke" model, is one such example, in which a care team includes a staff person who acts as a single point of contact for all patient requirements. This staff person can do research, troubleshoot problems, and locate convenient and inexpensive care choices for you. Remember that digital health solutions will never be able to replace the human ties that care teams establish with their patients. Rather, they should assist employees in reimagining how to effectively serve patients. 4. Provide demonstrable value and strive for ongoing development: Due to absent, insufficient, or poor digital health management systems, many companies struggle to identify the relevant patient demographics to target and/or measure the total impact of the optimization programmes they execute. An successful digital health management system may provide the groundwork for patient targeting, enrolment, and engagement. Once patients are onboarded, data collected from descriptive and predictive analysis may be used to enhance operational decision making. The same data may be used to calculate the total effect of digital health management initiatives. Finally, this assessment may help companies by allowing them to constantly improve patient outcomes while also distinguishing their services. Digital health, or the use of digital technologies for health, has emerged as a prominent area of practise for addressing health issues via the use of ordinary and creative forms of information and communications technology (ICT). The phrase "digital health" is derived from the term "eHealth," which is defined as "the application of information and communication technologies in support of health and health-related sectors" . Mobile health (mHealth) is a subset of eHealth that is described as "the use of mobile wireless technology to public health" . Recently, the phrase "digital health" was used to refer to "...a concept embracing eHealth (which includes mHealth), as well as developing disciplines, such as the application of sophisticated computer sciences in 'big data,' genomics, and artificial intelligence" . Digital health has piqued the attention of the medical and public health communities, particularly in low- and middle-income nations where mobile connectivity has opened up a new channel for overcoming

geographical inaccessibility to health treatment. Since 2008, over a thousand digital health deployments have been reported , indicating just a fraction of the digital health applications that may exist but are not officially documented. Governments, funders, and international organisations have all recognised the potentially revolutionary significance of digital technology in boosting health-care systems. The World Bank Group, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Health Organization (WHO) urged for the "application of the digital revolution to scale up health initiatives and involve civil society" in a joint paper issued in 2015. The unanimous approval of the World Health Assembly Resolution on Digital Health by Member States in May 2018 shows a collective acknowledgment of the usefulness of digital technology in promoting universal health coverage (UHC) and other health targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) . This resolution asked health ministers to assess their use of digital health technologies and to prioritise, as appropriate, the development, evaluation, implementation, scaling-up, and increased use of digital technologies as a means of promoting equitable, affordable, and universal access to health for all, including the special needs of vulnerable groups in the context of digital health . It also charged WHO with providing normative guidelines in digital health, including "the promotion of evidence-based digital health initiatives" . Despite the increased attention, digital health has been characterised by widespread implementations in the absence of a rigorous review of the evidence base on benefits and hazards . The excitement for digital health has also resulted in a profusion of short-lived implementations and a dizzying array of digital tools, with little understanding of their influence on health systems and people's well-being. This concern was most prominently expressed in the WHO Bellagio eHealth Evaluation Group's consensus statement, which began, "To improve health and reduce health inequalities, rigorous evaluation of eHealth is necessary to generate evidence and promote the appropriate integration and use of technologies" . While acknowledging the creative role that digital technologies may play in upgrading the health system, it is also critical to analyse their contribution to ensure that such investments do not unjustly drain resources away from other, non-digital alternatives.

UHC aspires to guarantee that health services are of high quality, easily accessible, and affordable. However, gaps persist in providing access to everyone who need health services, as well as ensuring that they are provided with the desired quality without causing financial hardship to those who use them . The Tanahashi framework, released by WHO in 1978, is a time-tested paradigm for evaluating health system performance gaps and how they restrict patients from receiving the expected coverage, quality, and affordability of health care . This cascading model depicts how health-care systems lose performance as a result of obstacles at successive levels, each of which is reliant on the preceding one. Geographic inaccessibility, poor demand for services, delayed provision of treatment, inadequate adherence to clinical procedures, and expenses to individuals/patients all contribute to incremental losses un health system performance, which have a cumulative effect on individual health. These shortcomings restrict the capacity to reduce coverage, quality, and cost disparities, as well as impair the possibility to attain UHC. This guideline enhances the conceptual basis of the Tanahashi framework, as follows, in order to provide effective and economical coverage of health care to everyone and they are: 1.Accountability – Accountability coverage represents the proportion of people in the target population (registered as a subset of the total population) in the health system (for example, through civil registration and vital statistics mechanisms, population censuses, the issuance of national or health identifiers), which crucially establishes the various population denominators of health care provision. 2.The availability of goods and equipment, as well as human resources and health facilities, promotes access to suitable services with skilled health professionals in geographically accessible health facilities, where and when patients need them. Even if health services are accessible, target groups may face hurdles to obtaining them. 3.Demand - boosting demand and improving access may help to guarantee that gaps in contact coverage (the difference between total service availability and actual interaction that persons have with facilities, health professionals, and services) do not exacerbate health system performance. Individuals often need many encounters and

follow-up with the health system for health treatments to be successful, and continuous coverage refers to the degree to which the whole course of interventions is accomplished. 4.Quality is linked to effective coverage and may be jeopardised by gaps that occur when health treatments are administered sub optimally, such as when health personnel fail to follow treatment procedures. 5.Affordability — the patient's direct and indirect expenditures might have disastrous financial consequences. Efforts to safeguard people from destitution as a result of health treatments are represented in the affordability layer as enhanced financial coverage. Digital technologies provide up new avenues for addressing healthcare system difficulties, with the potential to improve the coverage and quality of health-care practises and services . For example, digital health interventions might be used to provide targeted communications to people through reminders and health promotion messages in order to generate demand for services and extend access to health information. Health professionals may also benefit from digital health treatments that provide them with more rapid access to clinical procedures, such as decision-support mechanisms or telemedicine consultations with other health workers. A digital health intervention is defined in this context as a distinct feature of digital technology used to accomplish health goals . The variety of digital health treatments is extensive, and the software and technology – digital applications – that enable these digital interventions to be delivered continue to expand within the field's essentially dynamic character. The WHO Classification of digital health interventions v1.0 , which is described, provides a starting point for classifying the various digital health interventions being employed to tackle stated health system issues. Finally, digital health interventions are implemented within the context of a nation and a health system, and this is made feasible by a variety of reasons. These are: (i) the health domain area and associated content; (ii) the digital intervention itself (i.e. the functionality provided); (iii) the hardware, software, and communication channels for delivering the digital health intervention; and mediated within (iv) a foundational layer of the ICT and enabling

environment, characterised by the country infrastructure, leadership and governance, strategy and investment, legislation and policy compliance, workforce, standardisation, and standardisation. This guideline responds to the 2018 World Health Assembly Resolution on Digital Health, which requested WHO to offer normative guidelines to Member States to inform the implementation of evidence-based digital health initiatives. Member States expressly seek in the Resolution: that WHO builds on its strengths by developing digital health guidance, including but not limited to health data protection and usage, based on existing guidelines and successful examples from global, regional, and national programmes, including through the identification and promotion of best practises, such as evidence-based digital health interventions and standards . The primary goal of this guideline is to present recommendations based on a critical review of the evidence on emerging digital health interventions that are contributing to health-system improvements, including an assessment of the benefits, harms, acceptability, feasibility, resource use, and equity considerations. The suggestions in the guideline analyse the degree to which digital health treatments accessible via mobile devices can address health system difficulties at various tiers of coverage along the road to UHC. This guideline aims to provide health policymakers and other stakeholders with recommendations and implementation considerations for making informed investments in digital health interventions by reviewing the evidence for various digital interventions and assessing the risks against comparative options. This recommendation encourages readers to acknowledge that digital health treatments are not a replacement for well-functioning health systems and that there are major limits to what digital health can address. Through processes such as increasing information transmission, digital health treatments should complement and strengthen health system functioning. However, digital health will not be able to replace the key components of health systems, such as the health staff, finance, leadership and governance, and access to vital drugs . To guide investments in digital health, a knowledge of what health system concerns may realistically be addressed by digital technologies, as well as an evaluation of the ecosystem's potential to absorb such digital interventions, is required.

The following interventions were examined in this guideline: 1.Notification of a baby's birth through mobile device 2.Notification of death through mobile devices 3.Mobile device stock notification and commodities management across all health conditions 4.Telemedicine from customer to provider for all health concerns 5.Telemedicine from provider to provider for all health concerns 6.Mobile devices are used for targeted client communication (TCC) (spread across five population groups for sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health [SRMNCAH]) 7.Decision assistance for health workers using mobile devices across all health conditions 8.Mobile device-based digital monitoring of patients'/clients' health status and services across all health conditions 9.provision of health professional training through mobile devices (mLearning) across all health conditions The systematic studies incorporated mobile device accessibility to guarantee that these digital treatments may be used in low-resource contexts where comprehensive computerised systems may not be accessible or practical. However, the proposed interventions may be delivered through any digital device, including stationary devices such as desktop computers, and they can also be delivered using nonmobile digital devices. This guideline's core audience is decisionmakers in ministries of health and public health practitioners, who will use it to get a better knowledge of whether digital health treatments have an evidence foundation to meet health system requirements. This guideline may also be useful to organisations who invest in digital health systems as implementation and development partners. This paper intends to improve governments' and partner institutions' evidence-based decision-making on digital approaches by fostering the mainstreaming and institutionalisation of successful digital interventions within supportive digital systems. Although WHO has produced a number of materials on digital health, it has yet to provide normative guidelines outlining which digital health

treatments are backed by tangible evidence for solving particular health system concerns.Several WHO clinical and public health guidelines have been published, with suggestions for digital technology included alongside other treatments such as medication adherence and community health worker assistance. These are some examples: 1.Consolidated recommendations for the use of antiretroviral medicines for the treatment and prevention of HIV infection, 2016 2.Guidelines for the treatment of drug-susceptible TB and patient care, 2017 update 3.The World Health Organization published a recommendation in 2018 on health policy and system support to enhance community health worker programmes . 4.Digital health treatments are included as part of a bundle of suggested alternatives in these instances. This guideline, on the other hand, will offer clear recommendations on the added value of particular digital interventions while also incorporating, when applicable, the recommendations of earlier WHO guidelines. 5.The National eHealth Strategy Toolkit, published in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), reports from the Global Observatory for eHealth, the Classification of digital health interventions v1.0, the Digital Health Atlas, and the Be He@lthy, Be Mobile initiative are among other WHO resources on digital health. 6.The WHO/ITU National eHealth Strategy Toolkit is a core resource for guiding policymakers at ministries of health in developing national eHealth/digital health strategies, which are required for national governance and a supportive digital health ecosystem . 7.The WHO Global Observatory for eHealth reports are based on periodic surveys of Member States' eHealth usage. The most current eHealth report was published in 2016 and included survey results from 125 countries . In 2011, a similar study on mHealth was published . 8.The WHO Classification of digital health interventions v1.0 establishes a common vocabulary for describing the applications of digital technology in health care, defining distinct digital capabilities applicable to clients, health professionals, health system

management, and data services . 9.The WHO Digital Health Atlas is a website-based technology registry that tracks national and subnational digital health activities in order to better equip governments, technologists, implementers, and donors to better coordinate implementations, monitor their functionality and geographical growth, and identify gaps against which to collaboratively target investments . 10.The Be Healthy, Be Mobile programme is a cooperation between WHO and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to use mobile technology to communicate about noncommunicable disease (NCD) risk factors The maturity of the ecosystem, which includes the enabling and ICT settings, has a significant effect on the relevance and impact of the suggested digital health treatments. The enabling environment is described as the attitudes, behaviours, rules, and practises that enable organisations and programmes to run effectively and efficiently. For digital health, this includes factors such as leadership, governance mechanisms, regulatory and policy frameworks, strategy and financial investment, workforce capacity, standards and interoperability, and sociocultural considerations – as articulated in the WHO/ITU eHealth Strategy Toolkit's pillars . The infrastructure and methods for performing the digital health intervention, such as hardware and digital apps, comprise the ICT environment. There is significant benefit in analysing the ecosystem in a specific context or nation, examining health system requirements, and adjusting expectations and plans for the adoption of various treatments depending on the ICT and enabling environments available in a setting. There is a danger of a proliferation of disconnected systems and a negative influence on the efficacy and sustainability of digital technologies in the absence of a strong enabling environment. Several resources are available to help assess ecosystem readiness and maturity, including the WHO Score assessment tool , MEASURE Evaluation's Health Information Systems Interoperability Maturity Toolkit , the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health's ICT planning workbook , and the Global Digital Health Index . Digital health treatments, like any other new invention or method, need

behavioural adjustments and transitions to new practises. Moving away from established paper-based processes and toward digital ones is one example. Implementations will be successful only if consumers accept the digital health intervention, offers value, and supports the intended change or action. As a result, implementers must be aware of the incentives, challenges, and aversion to disrupting the status quo that may impair deployment fidelity, and realise that this may mitigate the potential value of digital health treatments. Adoption of the suggestions in this guideline should not exclude or compromise the provision of high-quality health care in areas where digital interventions are not available, or because they are not acceptable or cheap to target groups. Furthermore, in contexts where the ecosystem may not be mature enough to support specific digital health interventions, a focus on strengthening the health system and addressing gaps in the enabling environment should be prioritised in order to facilitate future implementation of these recommendations.. The goal of digital health interventions is to integrate with and fit into a larger digital health infrastructure. The digital health architecture offers a high-level overview or blueprint for describing how various digital applications (software and ICT systems) and associated activities will interact with one another in a particular setting . While the unit of analysis for this guideline is the value of individual digital interventions, there is an equally critical requirement to promote a coherent strategy to implementation in which diverse digital interventions may work together rather than as duplicative and separate implementations. A careful evaluation of the advice offered in the following complimentary sources would help stakeholders. The WHO/ITU National eHealth Strategy Toolkit (18) provides government agencies with a framework and methodologies for producing a national eHealth vision, action plan, and monitoring framework - all of which are key aspects in creating an enabling environment. The ITU Digital Health Platform Handbook: Building a Digital Information Infrastructure (Infostructure) for Health provides guidance for ensuring that investments in digital health systems are planned systematically as part of an enterprise architecture that establishes core systems (such as health management information systems, logistics management information systems, and electronic

medical records) and common functionalities (such as registries, data exchange, and terminology management). The Principles for Digital Development are nine living ideas meant to assist implementers in integrating existing best practises into digital programmes, avoiding frequent errors, and encouraging the adoption of techniques that have shown usefulness through time. These concepts include designing with consumers, understanding the ecosystem, reusing and improving current digital solutions, and addressing privacy and security issues. The Principles of Donor Alignment for Digital Health provide ministries of health with tools to hold signatory donors and technical partners responsible for making digital health investments that are aligned with national digital health initiatives that complement national health goals. This study also recommends a greater emphasis on design, standards, investment frameworks, privacy protection, and thorough operational and monitoring strategies. The upcoming WHO Planning and Costing Roadmap for Digital Interventions in Health Programmes will serve as a guide for ministries of health to operationalize these suggestions into a costed strategy for their health programmes. The Guide provides a systematic approach to assessing health system gaps and needs, a step-by-step approach to identifying appropriate digital health interventions within the digital ecosystem, and costing implementation planning tools that are applicable within and across health programme areas within a ministry of health. Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) , including standards-based tools and services (resources), is available to enhance the way digital health systems work and interoperate to provide patient and population care. Communities of practise focusing on building capacity and implementing digital health via knowledge-sharing and collaboration include (in alphabetical order): 1.African Alliance of Digital Health Networks (African Alliance) 2.AeHIN (Asia eHealth Information Network) 3. Global Digital Health Network 4.Working Group on Digital Health and Interoperability, Health Data Collaborative 5.Community of Practice for Open Health Information Exchange (OpenHIE)

This guideline contains suggestions on a prioritised list of digital health treatments available through mobile devices, which represents a subset of a much wider variety of digital interventions. This guideline intends to progressively embrace a larger spectrum of developing digital health treatments in future iterations. The WHO Classification of digital health interventions v1.0 , offers a starting point for addressing the developing nature of digital health and identifying interventions for inclusion in future recommendations. This version applies WHO Guidelines Review Committee processes to a prioritised list of new digital innovations, while recognising that future guideline versions will need to include evidence for additional digital health treatments. This method of modifying WHO standards is referred to as "living guidelines." The live guidelines model also makes it easier to update current recommendations when new information becomes available, as well as to include other health areas that may not have been included in the first release. For example, the evidence and recommendations for the digital health intervention of targeted client communication (TCC) were limited to certain health sectors; however, a future edition of the guideline will extend on this area to include the use of TCC for noncommunicable illnesses. But what exactly is "excellent digital health"? In practise, this translates to: 1.Being able to direct our own creative focus 2.Performing intellectually enjoyable "deep work" on a regular basis 3.Being focused on one activity at a time rather than multitasking 4.We must liberate ourselves from the petty and useless. 5.Overcoming Digital Fears (like instant availability and the cult of busyness) To Improve Good Digital Health , Follow the below Guidelines: 1.Keep in mind: i)Track your internet activities automatically - keep track of how much time you spend online and how much of that time you agreed to spend. ii)Examine how much time you spend on electronics, and then determine what constitutes a "unhealthy" connection.

iii)Understand how and when you get distracted - it takes roughly 23 minutes to refocus after being distracted by emails, phone calls, work applications, or co-workers. iv)Keep your workstation ergonomically comfortable, buy a standing desk, perform active work, and get out of your chair every now and again. v)Embrace boredom rather of reaching for your phone or filling a void with mindless social browsing. vi)Procrastinate effectively - If you need a little break, strive to do a modest helpful job. 2.Make an effort: i)Make a goal for each day and know what you want to accomplish to hold yourself responsible for your digital activities. ii)Remove the "shallow work" that keeps you busy without providing value, such as filling out time sheets and submitting expenditures, by automating low-value, repetitive chores. iii)Schedule frequent breaks - We need regular breaks to operate well; arranging them helps to set boundaries between work and leisure time. iv)Do serious work on a regular basis, focusing on projects that are really essential for lengthy periods of time without interruption. It's the most mentally stimulating approach to work that exists. v)Make time for "offline" activities — take care of your mental and physical health by unplugging often. vi)Try time blocking — it's a good method to organise your day and commit to one job at a time. vii)Make templates - adhere to the "Don't Repeat Yourself" philosophy to prevent duplication of effort in your workflow. 3.Take command: i)Establish communication channel norms - a basic communications framework will keep every engagement relevant and effective. ii)Disconnect completely - be totally present in your downtime and resist the impulse to check email or respond to Slack conversations.

iii)Set availability hours — schedule a time each day to respond to emails and let colleagues know when they may reach you (and expect a response). iv)Select digital tools with caution - avoid clunky and intrusive technologies that continually break your attention. Apps that accomplish one thing very well should be prioritised above those that attempt to tackle all problems. v)Decide when to let alerts in - learn how to configure notifications options for all your applications – such as "mute" or "snooze" – and only enable them when you are ready to reply. vi)Purchase an ad blocker - it is your first line of defence against the attention economy. vii)Get rid of useless programmes - if they don't provide you with value, don't use them. viii)Unsubscribe from email lists - why are you still getting dull sales updates from that 2017 conference? Prior to the advent of the new coronavirus and the ensuing pandemic, the health and care system had a dismal track record of large-scale use of digital technology. However, in reaction to the epidemic, the health-care system quickly created new instruments, many of which were technological in nature, to enable health-care delivery when physical contact was not allowed. The approach to integrating digital technologies in health care delivery is changing dramatically and quickly. Many of the technologies used during the first phase of the pandemic were already established but not extensively applied; the maturity of the technology allowed the provision of health care through remote consultation to become much more popular much faster. Despite the recent fast acceptance of digital technology, the health and care system is still in its early phases of digital health, with many solutions mimicking physical techniques and procedures rather than capitalising on what makes digital distinct. In this video, we look at the technologies that are most likely to transform health and care in the next years. Some of the technologies we explore are just around the corner, while others are already in people's wallets, local surgeries, hospitals, homes, and communities. However, few are being used in a systematic manner in the health and care system, and none have

attained their full potential. Each might indicate an opportunity to enhance patient experience by achieving better results or providing more efficient treatment. The below technologies change the Digital Health Transformation and they are: 1. Smartphones and wearable technology: It's been more than a decade since the introduction of the pocketsized gadgets known as smartphones. While they were once seen as a luxury item, they quickly become indispensable companions. The technologies within these devices have improved iteratively, and we now have access to computing power capable of steering a spacecraft, GPS, a high-speed internet connection, and high-quality imaging capabilities in the palm of our hands, as well as a slew of sensors for health-relevant data (e.g., movement and location tracking), as well as a touch-screen interface. Despite the fact that nearly four out of every five people in the UK own a smartphone, the use of smartphones in health and care falls short of the potential to create and monitor personalised digital biomarkers that combine with new data sources to improve prevention, treatment, and help people make long-term behavioural changes.Despite the fact that almost four out of every five people in the UK possess a smartphone, the use of smartphones in health and care falls short of the potential... to enhance prevention, treatment, and assist individuals achieve longterm behavioural changes. Wearable devices are a newer type of technology that includes smartwatches (for example, an Apple Watch), activity trackers (for example, a Fitbit), and linked patches (eg, a smart bandage or smart plaster). These are often in close touch with the user for extended periods of time, providing enormous amounts of data on certain biometrics or behaviours. Many big technology firms are marketing these gadgets as health or wellness devices rather than medical devices, so avoiding regulatory constraints. However, these gadgets have the potential to be extensively employed in health and care, as well as by people to enhance their health and care. A wearable sensor monitoring heart rate, for example, may provide a more accurate indicator of a person's heart rate at different stress levels (sitting, standing, walking, etc.)

over time than a single one-time assessment in a surgery, which might be erroneous owing to patient fear or stress. Thousands of health and wellness applications are currently available in app stores, ranging from food diaries and mindfulness advice to period trackers and musculoskeletal rehabilitation help. However, the health and care system's adoption has been spotty owing to a variety of difficulties such as quality, evidence, clinician knowledge, confidence, and abilities, and integration into pathways. Efforts to select the finest quality applications, such as those in the NHS App Library, have had limited success in mainstreaming the use of apps for health. A rising number of applications now take a direct-toconsumer strategy, focused primarily on health information, self-care, or monitoring. Apps for technologically assisted interventions have also been created (these are known as digital therapeutics). The NHS has created its own NHS App to provide residents with simple digital solutions to basic health care requirements such as arranging appointments, reviewing medical records, and obtaining repeat medications. This might be the first step in developing an app-enabled health care system, with the NHS App serving as the entry point. Online consultation providers (such as consult) are being connected with the NHS App, allowing for easier triaging and text messaging with health care specialists. Patients Know Best and other personal health record (PHR) services are now integrated with the NHS App. PHRs may consolidate a person's disparate health and treatment into a single record kept by the individual. Combining services and PHRs with the NHS App facilitates the transition to person-centered care and interdisciplinary care delivery. As new services become available for integration into the NHS App, the functionality will grow deeper and more tailored to the individual's health and care requirements as well as their skills. Smartphones, in conjunction with the cloud, may serve as a central hub for wearables, linked devices, data, and sophisticated new diagnostic and treatment technologies. People with type 1 diabetes, for example, are pushing the development of a 'artificial pancreas,' which connects continuous glucose monitoring and insulin-delivery devices, all controlled by a smartphone. It will tailor its insulin delivery algorithms to a person's physiology. Smartphones and wearables are

powerful data collecting devices that can record a great deal about people's life. People may use their cell phones or wearables to assist researchers collect enormous volumes of real-world data about health issues and their factors, in addition to monitoring their own health condition. Smartphones and wearables are very effective data gathering technologies that may assist researchers in collecting enormous volumes of real-world data on health issues and their factors. Programs designed expressly for medical research are now being developed, owing to open-source frameworks (such as Apple's ResearchKit and ResearchStack for Android smartphones) that have made it easier to move apps from one platform to another. These applications may poll users and allow them to opt-in to research through permission forms, as well as enabling the sharing of data collected automatically on their devices such as step counts, heart rate, and so on. Since 2015, these platforms have spurred a new approach to illness research, with a number of long-term and largescale opt-in studies performed. For example, over 4,000 individuals joined in a Parkinson's disease study in 2016, over 400,000 in an atrial fibrillation research in 2018, over 8,000 in an asthma study in 2017, and 250 people are being selected in 2020 for enrollment as 'citizen scientists' in an adolescent arthritis study. The sheer quantity of people recruited in a short period of time would not be conceivable without a digital app-based strategy. These studies have the potential to increase our knowledge of how illness evolves over time and the accompanying lived experience of patients, as well as the use of cellphones and wearables as digital endpoints for medical research. Researchers will be able to use this data in the future to construct individualised baselines, quantify an individual's lived experience, track digital biomarkers that help enhance diagnosis, and correctly monitor illness progression and treatment effectiveness. For the time being, these features remain tantalisingly out of grasp. To work, most, if not all, digital tools and technologies rely on infrastructure (devices, connection, sensors, and so on). Infrastructure, in the form of hardware that runs the software tools, and internet connection are vitally necessary for contemporary digital tools. However, health and care systems are sometimes hampered by less expensive or older technology with limited functionality and inadequate connection.

Health and care systems are often hampered by low-cost or obsolete technology with limited functionality and inadequate connection. Virtual machines provide an alternate method that functions similarly to screen sharing in video conversations. The distinction between virtual machines and desktop computers is that screen sharing happens with a computer in the cloud that the user may operate. This implies that the internet connection only needs to transport the screen picture and certain control information (for example, if the user touches on an onscreen button), resulting in a reduced internet speed and data use. It also implies that the user hardware must do less processing, making it less prone to crashing, halting, and so forth. Using virtual machines allows you to avoid the problems that come with outdated or less capable hardware. Virtual machines might allow digital to jump ahead and fulfil patient and consumer needs in health and care systems where resources are limited and infrastructure is often years behind consumer technology. 2. Diagnostics at home or on the go As a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, there has been a significant movement toward telemedicine replacing face-to-face communication. As a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, there has been a significant movement toward telemedicine replacing face-to-face communication. Current technologies mostly concentrate on facilitating virtual communication. However, there is space to enhance and distinguish telemedicine by providing functionality in the digital domain that is not available in the physical consultation room. Live picture tracking, for example, might quickly assess a patient's motion, which is not achievable in face-to-face consultations. In the future, colleagues may be able to drop in on virtual consultations to provide coaching, mentoring, and peer support. With the availability of equipment such as e-stethoscopes, linked blood pressure monitors, and connected pulse oximeters, connectivity has become virtually ubiquitous. They are inexpensive enough for many patients to purchase, or they are easily accessible for clinics and surgeries to distribute to patients for short-term usage at home. Diagnostic technologies that were previously only available in hospitals may now be utilised in the home and community. These include portable x-ray machines, ultrasound equipment, blood-testing kits, and other technologies that can deliver

an increasing number of diagnostics needed to support health care, with far-reaching implications for how the health-care system is organised. Butterfly IQ is a point-of-care ultrasound system with a specialised ultrasound probe that uses a smartphone (or tablet) for computational processing, networking, and display, resulting in a very portable point-of-care ultrasound system. New functionality, such as virtual help from a clinical specialist, is also made possible through the smartphone (or tablet). Many persons with disabilities or long-term ailments utilise assistive devices to aid them in doing tasks or activities that are made more difficult for them by their impairment or condition. These are often included as part of NHS and social care packages. Several new advancements are being motivated by the idea of employing these to acquire information in addition to completing a specified goal. Propeller Health's smart inhalers function by passively tracking each usage, its location, and the surrounding air quality, providing insights into what causes asthma episodes. Another example of smart technology is Seeing AI, which describes surrounding people, text, and objects to assist the sight handicapped. 3. Drug delivery methods that are smart or implantable: A third to half of the medicine provided to persons with chronic diseases is not taken as prescribed. A third to half of the medicine provided to persons with chronic diseases is not taken as prescribed. Several emerging technologies might help patients and healthcare providers monitor and enhance adherence to a prescribed drug regimen, either via automation or by giving more information about medicine consumption (using smartphone reminders and location information). Several novel medications and biologics have low solubility, making administration challenging - it may be time consuming, unpleasant, and variable. Technological advancements have refocused attention on novel techniques to administering these medications at the point of need. Implantable drug delivery methods provide the substance locally, reducing negative effects that might occur when medication is taken orally or intravenously. Existing drug delivery technologies include drug eluting stents, balloons, and sinus implants, but new automated drug delivery technology is in the works. Researchers and firms are working on implantable devices that have hundreds of tiny, sealable reservoirs that open when a modest electric

current is delivered and controlled by an integrated microprocessor. The hope is that such devices will be able to discharge dosages automatically for more than ten years from a single chip. The next level of research will be to create these devices using bioresorbable materials - that is, the material dissolves after medication delivery is complete, eliminating the need to recover the device. Microchips are also propelling the development of more complex closed-loop systems that can communicate with cell phones and optimise dosage. 4. Immersive technology and digital therapies: Digital therapies are evidence-based health or social care treatments that are given fully or mostly through a technology (a smartphone, tablet, virtual-reality or augmented-reality system, or a laptop). They successfully incorporate clinical practise and treatment into a digital format. These interventions, at a bare minimum, integrate the supply of professionally curated information about a health problem with guidance and procedures for coping with that illness. A physician, for example, may prescribe an app to a person with a history of depression or anxiety that includes, for example, breathing exercises, meditation, or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Such an app might provide frequent assistance with self-care to assist a person in overcoming periods of depression without the requirement for the individual to seek in-person counselling and wait for an appointment. Whether entirely automated or a combination of automation and supervision (or coaching), the treatment provided may be adjusted to the unique requirements of the user. Digital therapies are often touted as a solution for assisting in the management of long-term disorders that need behavioural adjustments or for the long-term prevention of diseases. The use of computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in the NHS has a rather lengthy history. A recent independent research of early computerised CBT found that the strategy was ineffective because young individuals did not finish the course. However, a new wave of automated digital treatments based on CBT has recently been created, with the goal of delivering CBT at scale with more participation. Sleepio is one such example: a six-week personalised online programme aimed to relieve insomnia while also reducing anxiety and despair. Randomized controlled studies have

had favourable outcomes. The treatment is personalised in response to data supplied by the patient, and the course is made more interesting by using cutting-edge design and delivery techniques through an animated avatar. Design and customisation are crucial components that are likely to boost engagement and hence results in all sorts of digital treatments. Virtual reality has the potential to be used in a variety of fields, including pain treatment, eating disorders, and rehabilitation. For many years, virtual-reality and augmentedreality technologies have been on the verge of mass consumer acceptance, but have struggled to materialise despite major technological improvements. Virtual and augmented reality have the potential to increase accessibility, features, and results by expanding on digital treatments. These technologies will give immersive and personalised health care access via more advanced digital treatments than are now available, all from the comfort and convenience of a person's own home. Virtual reality has the potential to be used in a variety of fields, including pain treatment, eating disorders, and rehabilitation. Virtual reality is entirely immersive — it shuts out sound and sight in favour of computer-generated visuals and sounds. This implies that a patient may be immersed in a virtual environment that can assist them manage pain, present situations to modify their behaviours, or play activities to enhance their mobility. Augmented reality is being investigated as a method of increasing the quality of surgical operations in two ways: training and live guiding. Augmented reality superimposes computer-generated elements such as arrows or text on top of what is already visible around us. It may be used in training to enhance surgeons' perception and interpretation of anatomy during operations. Augmented reality may also assist in guiding an intervention by recognising what a physician is viewing. This may be accomplished via software that recognises certain areas of the body to highlight specific characteristics of interest, or it could be accomplished by a more experienced peer joining remotely and annotating the live shared video to help and train colleagues. 5. Genome analysis: Advances in genome sequencing and the related discipline of

genomics will provide us with a better knowledge of how illnesses and drugs impact different people. With a person's condition's genetic profile and information of their response to therapy, it should be feasible to learn more about the potential success of medical treatments, such as providing medications to treat a disease (pharmacogenomics). The first full genome sequencing of a live creature was completed in 1995, and the first human genome sequence was completed in 2003, at a cost of around $2.7 billion over a decade. The costs of genomic sequencing have altered dramatically since then. In 2003, it was widely assumed that a $1,000 genome sequencing cost would open the door to personalised therapy. With the cost now approaching a few hundred dollars, this goal has been met. However, we have yet to see the major effect of genome sequencing since the initial expenses for equipment and training to read the complex genome are still considerable and will likely stay so for some time. Because of improved sequencing methods, the cost of sequencing might be reduced even lower. Major programmes are underway across the world to collect and analyse enormous databases of genomes in order to discover links between people's genetic make-up, illness risk and experience, physical traits, and behaviour. We have yet to witness the major effect of genome sequencing since the initial expenditures for equipment and training to read the complex genome are still considerable and will likely stay so for a long time. In the United Kingdom, the 100,000 Genome Project, launched in 2012 by then-Prime Minister David Cameron, accomplished its goal of sequencing 100,000 genomes by 2018. Since then, the NHS in England has built the Genomic Medical Service, which includes laboratory services, directories, sequencing services, and informatics infrastructure, in order to use the breakthroughs to bettering the nation's treatment. The government released Genome UK: the future of healthcare in 2020, a vision to expand on the 100,000 Genome Project, with an emphasis on diagnosis, screening, and research. In the United States, Project Baseline (a research cooperation between Verily Life Sciences and the medical schools of Stanford and Duke) is analysing massive volumes of linked genetic, lifestyle, and physical data from participants. The programme will get a better knowledge of how all of

that data appears when a person is well and discover alterations that suggest sickness at an earlier stage than is presently known. Genomics gives insight, but it is just one piece of the puzzle; family history, socioeconomic status, and environmental variables may all have an equal, if not greater, impact on an individual's health. Genomics gives insight, but it is just one piece of the puzzle; family history, socioeconomic status, and environmental variables may all have an equal, if not greater, impact on an individual's health. To bring these disparate datasets together, new tools and methodologies must be created and scaled up. The Accelerating Disease Detection project aims to do precisely that. The effort, which is partially financed by UK Research and Innovation, will integrate information for five million people in order to predict and prevent illness onset. This massive interconnected dataset will fundamentally alter how we see and handle illness risk, prevention, and prediction. 6.Artificial Intelligence (AI): Artificial intelligence (AI) is a broad phrase that refers to a variety of ways in which software mimics capabilities that were previously associated with human intellect. This encompasses a broad range of talents like as visually detecting and categorising items, turning voice to text and text to speech, and so on. The NHS AI Lab was established in 2019 with the goal of assisting AI development in the NHS and tackling implementation issues with AI technologies in health care. Until recently, computers were not very adept at detecting patterns in jumbled data. Or, more accurately, the way they were designed meant they weren't very good. New methodologies in applied mathematics and computer science have now been created, allowing for more effective use of computers for jobs like this. In tandem with the advancement of graphics processing units, artificial intelligence has benefitted from a renewed emphasis and increased funding, allowing for the discovery of insights in big and complicated datasets. One such area is machine learning. It is a sort of artificial intelligence that allows computers to learn without being explicitly programmed, which means they may educate themselves to adapt when presented with new data. Several new companies intend to employ machine learning methods

to enhance care delivery by providing diagnostic help. Deepmind, for example, has published studies demonstrating better effectiveness of AI used to breast cancer screening, while firms such as Ultromics are using machine learning to improve speed and minimise variability in the detection of cardiovascular illness using ultrasound pictures. Machine learning algorithms will be able to quantitatively analyse photographs in the future to build digital biomarkers that forecast illness beginning. The EVAREST trial is a multi-center research that aims to verify blood and imaging biomarkers as the first step toward diagnosis using machine learning-powered digital biomarkers. Machine learning algorithms will be able to quantitatively analyse photographs in the future to build digital biomarkers that forecast illness beginning. Many of these technologies make use of machine learning, but not adaptive algorithms, which learn and evolve as they are used. If legislative, safety, and cultural obstacles can be addressed in the future, software that evolves and improves dynamically with each usage will be available. The exchange of information, both verbally and in writing, is complicated, with complexity in sentence structure and word choice - there are an almost endless number of ways to convey a statement. As a result, it is very difficult for a computer to comprehend written or spoken phrases. Natural language processing is a subcategory of artificial intelligence that focuses on how to create software that can process, analyse, and reply to spoken or written words. It is still a developing area, but it has enormous promise in the realm of health care. Microsoft, for example, is investigating how natural language processing might automatically gather consultation information for electronic health records, while IBM is creating chatbots to boost information awareness among frontline personnel at the Royal Marsden Hospital. Computers that can understand, store, and display pertinent information will increase efficiency and minimise strain in the health care system in the future. This kind of tool may also assist a person become more involved in their own health by overcoming health literacy and literacy challenges. 7. Automation and robotics: Over many decades, the continuing miniaturisation of electronics and motors has permitted the development of more sophisticated and

powerful robotic systems. They have the potential to be employed in health and care settings when paired with advanced sensor technologies, medical imaging data, and safety mechanisms. Robots offer many distinct advantages, including no tiredness, the capacity to carry big objects easily, the inability to be injured by x-ray radiation, the ability to reproduce jobs with high degrees of accuracy, and the ability to come in a variety of forms and sizes. With these advantages and adaptability, robots have the potential to enhance diagnosis, therapies, and care delivery in health and care settings. This might range from basic duties like assisting porters in moving patients to complex applications like surgical treatments. Robots with more dexterity and degrees of motion than humans, and, more significantly, more arms, may be created. Robots with more dexterity and degrees of motion than humans, and, more significantly, more arms, may be created. In the near future, hospitals may use a multi-arm robot to hold numerous ultrasound probes at the same time to do multiple foetal ultrasound scans, allowing for more accurate and larger numbers of foetal imaging. Improved picture quality and quantity will allow for better image processing and interpretation, perhaps detecting issues that are now missing. This is precisely what the iFIND initiative seeks to do. The project, which has received £10 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, aims to provide a high-quality scanning service that does not require expert sonographers during routine scans, resulting in fewer babies with major problems being missed. Because of their extreme accuracy, robots may be ideally adapted to doing minimally invasive surgery. 'CE'-marked robotic systems that meet European requirements for health, safety, and environmental protection are widely accessible, but they may need additional research to enhance results beyond conventional (non-robotic) surgery in order to justify the system's high cost. Robotic systems offer the potential to enhance surgical uniformity and quality by allowing surgeons to employ clinical judgement and knowledge to perform procedures that are presently not feasible. Robotic systems offer the potential to enhance surgical uniformity and quality by allowing surgeons to employ clinical judgement and knowledge to perform

procedures that are presently not feasible. During live x-ray interventions, several forms of cardiac surgery need the use of ultrasound imaging. To protect themselves, a nurse or other highly trained member of staff must wield the ultrasound probe while wearing a lead apron. Lead aprons are heavy and inconvenient, and since they are ineffective, a member of staff is still exposed to x-rays. Holding the probe for the length of the intervention may be exhausting, and movement might cause delays or even mistakes during surgery. In the future, nurses might employ robotic equipment to manipulate, hold, and position the ultrasound probe while avoiding excessive radiation exposure. 8. The networked community: People are at the heart of all technology. The internet, as well as the gadgets and technology it has allowed, have encouraged the establishment of various communities, bringing individuals together around a similar interest, shared identity, social movement, or simply a hashtag. Connected communities for health are expanding in size and variety. Several platforms bring together individuals with interests in health and care from all over the globe to support one another, exchange knowledge, and even offer a platform for recording their health data or assisting them in managing their condition. MedHelp, PatientsLikeMe, and HealthUnlocked are just three of these healthrelated social networks. In addition to these specific networks, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which dominate the social network industry in many countries, have become important locations for spreading and debating health and care information and best practises. Individuals, hospital clinics, and GP surgeries have created closed Facebook groups for clinical diseases in order to increase health literacy and empower patients in making educated choices about their own health. Closed groups may lead to the spread of misinformation; however, groups set up and administered by trustworthy organisations such as health care professionals and charities can mitigate this by putting credible information at the fingertips of patients and allowing group assistance. The internet, as well as the gadgets and technology it has allowed, have encouraged the establishment of various communities, bringing individuals together around a similar interest, shared identity, social movement, or

simply a hashtag. Some online communities are helping to fund research into their health issues by giving members the opportunity to be "data donors" and providing an easy mechanism for them to share their data with researchers. PatientsLikeMe data has been used in published research in a variety of clinical domains, including depression, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and multiple sclerosis (MS). HealthBank, which bills itself as "the world's first citizen-owned health data transaction platform," takes a different approach. Members pay a one-time charge to securely store health data and control who has access to it. Because the organisation is a co-operative, all profits produced from the patient data are distributed to its members in the form of dividends. The use of technology to simplify operations, improve the patient experience, and make on-demand medical care more accessible and affordable is referred to as digital transformation in healthcare. Online appointments, electronic medical records, and unified platforms for data interchange are all examples of how digital transformation is affecting the healthcare business - all while enhancing patient experience and increasing interoperability. In Massachusetts, for example, the Brigham Health hospital network lets patients to arrange online appointments and get on-demand treatment through video chats. The hospital received a 97 percent satisfaction rating, and 74% of patients thought that such an encounter strengthened their connection with the care provider. Here are a few instances of digital transformation in the healthcare business that have made significant progress toward adoption as of 2021: 1. Telemedicine and virtual visits: The rise of virtual doctor visits is one of the most visible innovations in healthcare trends. These enable patients to meet with their physicians through video chat rather than physically visiting the office. The coronavirus pandemic hastened the adoption of virtual visits, with clinicians seeing 50-175x more patients through telehealth than they did before to COVID-19. Though it's easy to dismiss virtual visits as a fad spurred on by the desire to stay put, the fact is that this practise was gaining traction long before the outbreak. The amount of

providers delivering virtual visits increased from 5% in 2015 to 22% in 2018. And it seems that the trend is here to stay—83 percent of polled patients intend to continue utilising telemedicine in the future. It's simple to see the benefits. Doctors can perform wellness visits, quickly and simply screen patients, and then schedule them for in-person follow-ups if necessary. Patients no longer have to spend hours commuting to doctor's offices and sitting in waiting rooms thanks to virtual hospitals. The absence of travel also makes healthcare more accessible to persons who live in remote or rural areas. Virtual visits are often used by the Brigham Health hospital network in Massachusetts. Patients may make appointments online and utilise their phones or desktop computers to video chat with their physicians. According to a poll done by the hospital, 74% of respondents believe virtual visits have enhanced their connection with their clinician. The visits also let patients and physicians engage more, which helps both sides keep track of symptoms and therapy. There are fewer individuals in waiting rooms when fewer people schedule in-person appointments, and it is simpler to encourage social separation. 2. Patient Access Portals: Patient portals are another important technology in healthcare trends. Patients may use these platforms to access their health information, book appointments, communicate their physicians, and more. According to a study of health systems, 82 percent regard patient portals to be one of their major tools for engaging patients. This approach encourages ease of use and openness. People may readily access their test results, treatment histories, and doctor visit notes online. They can quickly share this data with other providers, reducing the need to contact and transfer records manually. This is more convenient for the patient and lessens the workload on office personnel. 3. Data Compilation: While patient portals aid in data collection on the patient end, many institutions are also attempting to aggregate back-end data. Currently, data is arriving in physicians' offices from a number of sources, including: i)Patient-supplied information

ii)Electronic health records are used internally. iii)Electronic health records from other sources (such as from outside specialists or urgent-care centers) iv)Results of laboratory tests v)Insurance claims imaging vi)Data derived from medical equipment vii)Data from pharmacies With all of these sources, it's easy to miss vital patient medical history information. Data aggregation helps physicians to make quick, educated patient-care choices, and they don't have to worry about losing critical information. The primary motivations for data collection are enhanced patient care and cost reduction. All of a patient's data is combined to build a thorough patient profile. With a single source of truth, staff spends less time combing through patient data and documentation, resulting in shorter patient wait times and fewer administrative hours. Mayo Clinic is seeking data aggregation by collaborating with Google on cloud solutions. They utilise the cloud to centralise data storage and analytics. Google's cloud provides a centralised, secure place for storing, organising, and retrieving patient data, enabling more thorough diagnoses. Simultaneously, Google's cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities will support the Mayo Clinic's research endeavours. 4. AI Evaluation : The usage of artificial intelligence is another emerging trend in technology and healthcare. To screen patients and lessen the workload on patient care employees, hospital systems have used automated speech systems and chatbots. This technology has been around for a while, but it became more commonly used when the epidemic increased the responsibilities of physicians and workers. AI screening assists in determining who need treatment first and directing patients to the appropriate communication channels. It may, for example, refer people to the main scheduling line or the drugstore. This reduces the amount of individuals who assemble in waiting rooms needlessly and relieves staff of some of the early patient interaction obligations. Artificial intelligence screening may take the

form of automated phone systems that gather information and route calls to the appropriate person, decreasing wait times and transfers. Chatbots may also screen patients and assist in the scheduling of virtual or in-person sessions. Another method AI minimises worker strain is via automated scheduling. The Partners HealthCare Covid-19 Screener is one such. A chatbot assesses if patients need a COVID19 test. COVID-19 has resulted in the loss of life all around the globe. Nations are devoting the majority of their resources on halting the spread of the lethal coronavirus, which is having an influence on the treatment of chronic or episodic illnesses. The pandemic has broken the constancy of National Health Costs, resulting in large short-term healthcare expenditures. On the other hand, postponed treatment and reductions in different services to prevent infection risks have resulted in lower health-care costs. Aside from the economic impact on the healthcare system, the following are some additional significant effects: 1. An Overburdened Healthcare Infrastructure: Even the most sophisticated countries' healthcare infrastructure has been overwhelmed by the global health crises. People have complained about a lack of beds, healthcare staff, and other medical supplies. To remedy this, a significant number of patients have chosen for home-health care. According to McKinsey, just 17% of persons seeking healthcare were admitted to hospitals for intermediate treatment, while 7% were treated for serious situations. 2. Healthcare Digital Transformation Accelerator: COVID-19 is a healthcare transformation accelerator. Significant increase has been achieved as a consequence of the high level of confidence and good attitudes around digital healthcare. Global corporate financing for digital health firms has more than quadrupled to $21.6 billion. Investment in telemedicine alone has reached an astonishing $4.3 billion. Furthermore, in October 2020, telemedicine service Teladoc purchased digital illness management business Livongo Health for $18.5 billion, making it the biggest acquisition in the industry in the US. 3. Supply Chain Digitization:

All firms' supply networks have been impacted as a result of the epidemic. Because people's lives are at risk, the healthcare business must increase its reaction speed and contingency planning more than any other industry. According to Capgemini, 60% of firms are considering boosting their investment in the digital supply chain, with a greater emphasis on automation, AI/ML, and robots. For example, Melbourne Health Logistics has launched a Supplier Improvement Pilot Project, which comprises ten Australian SMEs and attempts to solve supply chain and inventory management difficulties via digitalization. The project's three main target areas are data capture technology installation, data quality improvement, and exposing suppliers to the usage of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). It also collaborated with the nationally supported AusIndustry Entrepreneurs programme to help suppliers build digital capabilities. To maximise the digital-first strategy and establish a healthcare system that meets the demands of patients, it is critical to investigate digital healthcare technology trends. Here's how the following digital transformation trends are helping to digitalize the healthcare world: 1. Telemedicine: Telehealth is changing how patients engage with healthcare professionals. Patient portals, telemedicine, mobile health (mHealth), video conferencing, and remote patient monitoring are some of the most influential telehealth technologies. During the epidemic, telehealth is being aggressively employed to promote patient involvement and lessen the pressure on hospitals and healthcare facilities. Telehealth may also be used in conjunction with IoT devices and wearables to better manage high-risk patients by monitoring their activity data. The COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition performed a Telehealth Impact Study to assess patient satisfaction. The following are some of the most intriguing findings: i)83 percent of respondents said patient-physician communication was effective. ii)79 percent of patients said they were pleased with their telemedicine appointment. iii)When compared to an in-person appointment, 67 percent of

patients paid less for their telehealth session. 2. Healthcare and Artificial Intelligence: AI is the pinnacle of healthcare innovation. It is important not just for improving the patient experience, but it also has applications in medical imaging, precision medicine, drug development, and genomics. In Oncology, for example, AI can evaluate hundreds of pathology pictures of various kinds of tumours and recommend the best feasible anti-cancer medicine combination. AI-based technology is also used in chatbots and virtual assistants. Moxi and other droids are intended to help nurses with everyday duties. Furthermore, AI has the potential to reduce drug research delays by four years, resulting in savings of up to 60%. 3. Patient Analytics and Data Management: The healthcare business extensively relies on Electronic Health Records (EHR) to centralise patient data. However, due to the nature of manual data entering, there is a possibility of human mistake. As a result, healthcare providers are increasingly turning to better technologies for getting, managing, and analysing data, such as big data, blockchain, and wearables. 4. Hospitals and Big Data: Hospitals may gather data from a variety of sources in order to give data-driven actionable insights. To optimise staffing, big data may be utilised to anticipate the number of patients expected in a hospital. Given how overburdened healthcare personnel have been throughout the epidemic, resource management is critical. Big data analytics may also be utilised to provide real-time warnings and make educated strategic decisions. 5. Blockchain Technology and Medical Records: Blockchain records every transaction in real time and identifies any contradicting information, resulting in 100 percent accurate and decentralised data. Countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom are using blockchain to handle medical data. Medicalchain, for example, is a blockchain firm that keeps records on a distributed ledger. Patients may manage their EHRs through an app, and physicians, pharmacists, and insurers must seek access to their data.

6. Wearable Technology for Health Monitoring: Wearable technology promotes preventative healthcare by enabling individuals to track their interior problems. For example, the usage of oximeters to assess the patient's oxygen level has grown during COVID-19. Smart watches and fitness bands frequently monitor a person's health and provide suggestions. If a person has atrial fibrillation, the Apple Watch can transmit real-time notifications to their doctor and family. 7. Virtual Reality in Patient Care: According to research, the worldwide market for virtual and augmented reality in healthcare would reach $5.1 billion by 2025. Virtual reality is significantly altering the way patients get therapy. It is a more effective and safer alternative to pharmaceuticals. It is used to treat chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and stroke. 8. Internet of Things and Patient Interaction: The Internet of Things (IoT) alters how healthcare practitioners engage with patients. Healthcare workers may actively follow data for increasingly critical patients with IoT-based wearable devices. Hospitals may also utilise IoT to manage assets such as nebulizers, oxygen pumps, and wheelchairs by monitoring the real-time position of medical equipment such as nebulizers, oxygen pumps, and wheelchairs. With the data created and gathered by IoT devices, it has the potential to significantly contribute to digital transformation in healthcare. Digital transformation in healthcare is a foundational component of a patient-centered approach to healthcare. It will assist healthcare providers in streamlining operations, understanding what patients need, building loyalty and trust, and providing a better user experience. Online appointments, electronic medical records, and unified platforms for data interchange are all examples of how digital transformation is affecting the healthcare business - all while enhancing patient experience and increasing interoperability. Healthcare innovation is creating new opportunities to treat patients remotely, enhance patient flow via digital visits and acute discharge, access medical data on the road for community practitioners, and communicate information from emergency services en way to hospital. Some of the ways that the promise of digital health has been realised

include the use of digital tools such as contact tracing applications to track outbreaks and online consultations to assist keep health professionals and patients safe while delivering ongoing treatment. What is the definition of a Digital Health Platform for Healthcare Providers? DHP technologies allow a new architectural approach to swiftly establishing digital capabilities using current cloud services. The DHP strategy allows a CIO to alter the application portfolio in response to business change. Key potential benefits of Digital Health Management are: 1.Reduce the use of trial-and-error medication. 2.Reduce hazardous medication responses, including mortality, through increasing our knowledge of illness. 3.Increase the availability of preventative healthcare; improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis; reduce the time, burden, and expense of medication development; improve patient adherence to treatment; and reduce high-risk invasive diagnostic procedures. In every sector, Big Data is changing the way we evaluate, exploit, and manage data. Healthcare is one of the potential areas where technology may be used to prevent avoidable illnesses, improve quality of life, minimise treatment costs, and anticipate epidemic breakouts. Health experts can gather vast amounts of data and figure out the best ways to utilise it. The use of Big Data in Healthcare may have beneficial and life-saving consequences. With developing technology, it is now possible to not only gather critical healthcare data but also transform it into important insights for improved treatment. Health practitioners can foresee and fix problems with datadriven insights before it's too late. Let's look at how big data can be utilised in healthcare and what advantages it may provide: 1.Patients anticipate more personnel: A healthcare shift manager is often faced with the question of how many individuals to put on duty at any one moment. If a management maintains too many employees, you may incur unneeded labour expenditures and resources. On the other hand, having too few staff may lead to poor customer service results, which can be hazardous to the patient's health. Big Data has the potential to fix this problem. Data

from a variety of sources may be utilised to develop daily and hourly forecasts of how many patients will be present at the hospital or clinic. In Paris, four hospitals affiliated with the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris have utilised a range of sources, including 10 years of hospital admission data, to generate daily and hourly projections of how many patients are likely to be present at any one moment. As a result, gathering data and applying it to uncover trends to anticipate behaviour may aid in improving staffing by anticipating patient admission rates. 2.Alerting in Real Time Real-time alerting is another important use of big data analytics in the healthcare business. Clinical Decision Support Software is used in hospitals to evaluate medical data on the spot and offer guidance to health practitioners to assist them make educated choices. Wearable devices are used to continually gather and transfer health data from patients to the cloud. For example, if a patient's heart rate unexpectedly rises, the system transmits a real-time alert to the doctor, who may then take action to decrease the rate and contact the patient. Because IoT devices create large amounts of data, incorporating intelligence into them may assist health professionals in making critical choices and receiving real-time warnings. 3.Strategic Planning Based on Health Data Big data in healthcare makes strategic planning easier. Healthcare administrators may examine the outcomes of patients' examinations in different demographic groupings. They may also identify variables that deter patients from seeking therapy. The University of Florida created heat maps targeting particular topics such as chronic illnesses and population increase using free global health data and Google Maps. As a result, healthcare data may be utilised to create informed initiatives. 4.Keeping Human Errors at Bay Many times, it has been discovered that experts either send a different drug or mistakenly administer the incorrect medication. By examining prescription medication and user data, big data may be utilised to

decrease such mistakes. The big data healthcare application can monitor prescription data obtained from various medical specialists. The programme may detect prescription errors committed by any physician and potentially save countless lives. Prior to the arrival of the Internet of Things, patient-doctor contacts were limited to physical visits and text messages. There was no means for doctors or hospitals to continually monitor a patient's condition and take appropriate measures. IoT-enabled gadgets offer remote monitoring in the healthcare business, unleashing the potential to keep patients healthy and safe while also enabling doctors to give better treatment. Patient happiness and engagement have increased as IoT has made contacts with physicians more efficient and convenient. Remote monitoring of patients' health also aids in reducing re-admissions and shortening hospital stays. IoT may also help to lower healthcare expenditures while also improving treatment results. IoT is transforming the healthcare sector by reshaping people's interactions in the delivery of healthcare solutions. The use of IoT in healthcare helps doctors, hospitals, patients, and insurance companies. Physicians may monitor patients' health in real-time using home monitoring equipment coupled with IoT sensors and wearable gadgets. IoT enables healthcare providers to be more vigilant and proactive in their interactions with patients. Data collected from IoT devices may assist physicians in determining the optimal treatment method for patients and achieving the desired results. Fitness bands and wirelessly linked heart rate monitoring cuffs, for example, provide patients access to individualised care. IoT devices are used to remind people about medical visits, calorie counts, the amount of steps they take in a day, blood pressure, heart rate, and many other things. IoT allows for real-time remote monitoring, which is advantageous for older patients. It employs an alarm system and notifies worried healthcare practitioners and family members. In addition to monitoring patients' health, IoT devices may be employed in a variety of other areas in hospitals. IoT devices with sensors are used to track the realtime position of medical equipment such as nebulizers, wheelchairs, oxygen pumps, and other devices. Hospitals must also cope with the transmission of infection, which is their major concern. IoT-based hygiene monitoring devices aid in reducing infection in patients. Smart

IoT-enabled cameras, for example, may identify whether patients are washing or sanitising their hands before eating or taking medicine, or if visitors are not sitting near to the patient. In addition, IoT devices may aid in asset management by, for example, monitoring refrigerator temperature and humidity. Health insurers can handle underwriting and claims procedures more efficiently using IoT-connected equipment. Insurance firms may utilise data collected from health monitoring devices to identify fraudulent claims and spot underwriting possibilities. In the underwriting, claims management, risk assessment, and pricing processes, IoT devices provide transparency between consumers and insurers. Customers may be retained by compensating them for utilising and sharing health data collected by IoT devices. They might provide rewards if a person maintains a healthy lifestyle and keeps track of their normal activities. It will significantly assist insurers in reducing claims. Insurers may also use data provided by IoT devices to check claims. With the vast volume of data created by IoT devices, IoT may help to digital transformation in healthcare. IoT technology offers a straightforward four-step design that can be used to any industry. Virtual reality is a technique that employs a computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional picture or environment to enable a person to hear, see, and interact with it using specific equipment such as headsets. The technology generates a virtual world in which users may immerse themselves. Unlike typical user interfaces, VR immerses users in a virtual experience rather than just showing a screen. Virtual reality is being used in the healthcare business to provide better treatment to patients. For example, one of the patients had chemotherapy once a week for around 6 years to treat colon cancer. She used to spend her 4.5-hour treatment session reading, conversing, or watching TV. She wanted to go to the beach to rest during infusion. Unfortunately, she was unable to attend in person since her skin was too delicate to be exposed to sunlight. However, Virtual Reality fulfilled her wish by replicating a beach-like atmosphere in which she could feel as if she were sitting on the beach and enjoying the sunbath. She is not the only one who enjoys utilising virtual reality in a hospital context; many patients like this experience as well. Virtual reality is blooming in the clinic and hospital rooms, and

it is projected to continue to increase in the future years. According to GlobeNewsWire study, the market for Virtual Reality in Healthcare will reach $7 billion by 2026. Because healthcare is still in its early phases of technology, the healthcare sector has begun to recognise where it may be employed and the obstacles provided by VR. Here are some examples of how virtual reality might benefit the healthcare industry: 1.Relieving Pain: In 2019, Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC, trialled a programme that featured a virtual reality headset for children who needed emergency department operations such as stitches, sutures, and foreign bodies removed. Around 40 youngsters aged 7 to 23 participated in the programme. To reduce germs, each youngster was given a VR headset that was wrapped in protective gear. The youngsters then chose from a variety of situations, such as wandering through a jungle, conversing with a friendly snake, and riding a roller coaster. VR headsets were linked to displays, allowing parents to monitor what their children were viewing. Kids did not suffer any discomfort throughout the whole activity, and parents were overjoyed since their child was cheerful and endured the treatment quietly. As a result, several healthcare institutions are using VR technology for pain management therapy. 2.Accelerating physical therapy recovery: By immersing patients in a virtual world, you may make physical therapy more fun for them. According to one study, children with cerebral palsy saw a considerable increase in their movement after receiving VR treatment. One of the major suppliers of Virtual Reality Physical Treatment, Neuro Rehab VR, has devised a gamified approach to physical therapy. The business has created VR training activities that use machine learning to tailor each exercise to the patient's therapeutic needs. This is how virtual reality is being increasingly utilised in physical therapy to accelerate rehabilitation. 3.VR simulations to comprehend challenges from another person's point of view: Embodied Labs use Virtual Reality to mimic what it is like to live with pre-existing medical issues. Wearing a VR headset and engaging with 360-degree media enables users to experience life from the viewpoint

of someone else. We are Alfred, the company's first lab, transforms users into Alfred, a 74-year-old African-American with high-frequency hearing loss and macular degeneration. "Students would put on the headset and, despite reading in their introduction that they were going to embody Alfred, they would instantly exclaim, 'There's something broken, I can't see.'" "Or, 'Turn up the volume, I can't hear,' and then realise [that was the idea]," adds Embodied Labs Founder Shaw. Embodied Labs can use VR to alter what the person can and cannot see and hear. As a result, VR simulations like this one help others grasp how someone suffering from a terrible illness feels and perceives it. It may also assist students who are investigating and studying that particular condition in understanding its symptoms and how it feels in real life. Artificial intelligence simplifies the lives of physicians, patients, and hospital administrators by doing jobs that people normally perform at a fraction of the cost and in less time. AI is redefining and renewing contemporary healthcare via machines that can interpret, anticipate, learn, and act, from uncovering genetic code linkages to driving surgery-assisting robots, monitoring chronic conditions, and performing risk assessments. Artificial intelligence (AI) has many benefits over clinical decision-making and conventional analytics. When learning algorithms interact with training data, they may become more accurate and exact. It enables people to get previously unattainable insights into care procedures, treatment variability, patient outcomes, and diagnoses. Here are some of the ways artificial intelligence (AI) is ready to bring digital change to healthcare: 1.Error detection and reduction:

Medical errors and misdiagnosis of sickness were responsible for 10% of all fatalities in the United States. AI is one of the most intriguing technologies that has the potential to enhance diagnostic procedures. Large caseloads and insufficient medical histories may lead to fatal human mistakes. AI, on the other hand, may assist forecast and detect illnesses faster than any medical practitioner. In one of the investigations, for example, an AI model employed algorithms and deep learning to identify breast cancer faster than 11 pathologists. Breast cancer is the second highest cause of cancer deaths among women in the United States, and screening mammography has been shown to lower mortality. In the 1990s, computer-assisted detection and diagnosis (CAD) software was developed to aid radiologists in improving the predictive analytics of screening mammography. Unfortunately, statistics indicated that early CAD systems did not increase performance. However, because of deep learning's outstanding effectiveness in visual object identification and recognition, radiologists were able to improve the accuracy of screening mammography using deep learning methods. 2.Pathology Image Analytics: Pathologists are one of the most important sources of diagnostic data for providers throughout the care continuum. "Seventy percent of all healthcare choices are dependent on a pathology result," says Jeffrey Golden, MD, Chair of the Department of Pathology and Professor of Pathology at HMS. Pathology results account for between 70 and 75 percent of all data in an EHR. So, the more precise we are, and the sooner we arrive at the correct diagnosis, the better off we will be. That is what digital pathology and AI have the potential to provide." Proscia, one of the digital pathology systems, use AI to detect patterns in cancer cells. It enables pathologists to eliminate bottlenecks in data management and to use AI-enabled image analysis to connect data points that aid in cancer detection and therapy. AI may also boost efficiency by investigating key elements in presentations before a doctor sees the material. 3.Using smartphone selfies to create useful diagnostic tools: Experts believe that by leveraging the capability of portable devices, photos acquired from cellphones and other sources may be an

important addition to medical grade imaging - particularly in poor countries. Because smartphone quality is rising year after year, phones can now provide photographs that can be analysed by AI systems. Some UK researchers have developed a programme that detects developmental problems by analysing a child's facial photograph. The system can detect discrete aspects like the child's eye and nose positioning, jawline, and other characteristics that suggest a craniofacial anomaly. As a result, it's a fantastic chance for us to turn a large amount of data into important insights. Smartphones may be used to capture photographs of skin lesions, wounds, drugs, infections, or eyes to assist disadvantaged regions handle a dearth of experts while also shortening the time it takes to diagnose certain ailments. 4.Electronic Health Record Administration: Every day, significant amounts of data (including patient information, fresh research discoveries, and diagnostic details), generally known as "Electronic Health Record (EHR)," are created in the healthcare business. Artificial intelligence in EHRs enables enterprises to obtain insights in order to communicate with patients and make educated choices. When integrated with AI, electronic health record systems may enable healthcare providers to manage their observations rather than manually entering data. AI in EHRs allows healthcare practitioners to study current data and derive substantial insights that they may utilise to make recommendations. AI enables healthcare practitioners to better exploit the information contained in EHRs, making them into virtual assistants capable of providing value to healthcare professionals. Healthcare providers using AI-powered EHR may get notifications regarding factors to consider when suggesting a medicine or therapy. For example, if a drug is not suitable for a patient based on gene profile, the AI-based system may provide a more appropriate prescription. 5.Drug and Vaccine Development: Before we get into how AI helps to medication development, it's important to understand the drug development cycle. Researchers have identified a specific protein that is triggering the sickness. They spend a long time scrutinising such proteins. Otherwise, there's a

good chance you'll waste a lot of money on the incorrect protein. The research protein then attempts to investigate a chemical or drug that may have an effect on the protein. The chemical should be able to change the protein in order to properly identify the disease-causing protein. During the procedure, inefficient compounds are discarded, and only safe and efficient compounds are advanced for medication development. Because the whole procedure is laborious and timeconsuming, AI enters the picture. Because there are hundreds of thousands of compounds out there, human researchers are unable to personally evaluate each of these molecules. However, without evaluating each of the compounds, it is impossible to tell which molecule might be most useful in combating a certain illness. First, professionals would input the settings into AI. They go through all of the molecules and compare each one to criteria. The AI-enabled system will continue to learn from the gathered data and identify one or more chemicals that are most suited to combat the condition. Similarly, with the assistance of artificial intelligence, vaccinations may be effectively produced and tested. 6.Automating Repetitive Tasks: AI technology is ready to automate mundane healthcare sector activities, freeing managers to focus on higher-level ones. Everything from eligibility checks through data transfers and non-judicial claims may be automated so that employees can focus on providing superior patient care. One of the AI-as-a-service solutions, Olive, may be simply incorporated into a hospital's current software, eliminating the need for costly downtimes or integrations. 7.Notifying physicians when a patient is in distress: Many hospitals across the globe are using Google's DeepMind Health AI to effectively move patients from diagnosis to treatment. The DeepMind Health Program notifies clinicians when a patient's health deteriorates and may potentially aid in illness diagnosis by exploring the vast dataset for associated symptoms. The clinician can identify the condition more effectively and rapidly by collecting patients' symptoms and putting them into the DeepMind platform. Amazon's voice assistant has already shown to be popular in people's homes and smart workplaces. Nurses, physicians, patients, and

pharmacists will all be utilising Alexa in their jobs in the coming years. Voice technologies, such as Alexa, may help healthcare practitioners and patients communicate like: 1.Enabling Diabetes Patients to Effectively Manage Their Solution: In 2018, AWS and Merck & Co., Inc. collaborated to launch the Alexa Diabetes Challenge, which had a $250,000 prize pool. Wellpepper won the competition with its Sugarpod, a professionally validated and Alexa-based digital platform for diabetic care. Alexa, in conjunction with Sugarpod, can assist diabetes patients in managing their therapy and successfully tracking progress. It demonstrates how Alexa may be used to alter chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes. 2.Improving Hospital Interaction: Aiva, a Los Angeles-based company, employs an Alexa-enabled platform to assist patients engage with caregivers such as nurses and control in-house entertainment. Patients may use this platform to ask Alexa to turn on/off the television, change the channel, and contact the caregivers using their mobile phone. It enables patients to seek immediate care, and many experts believe that this interactive technology may also help patients overcome loneliness. 3.Alexa Skills for Blood Pressure Management: At a time when life seems to be hectic, Omron, a prominent medical equipment company, has released a watch dubbed "HeartGuide" that can detect blood pressure and communicate data to an Alexa skill. 4.Waiting time reduction: Hospitals may activate Alexa Skills, which allow patients to get contact information for specific departments. By notifying patients about the wait time at each clinic or hospital, that Alexa skill may save both time and worry. It enables the patient to arrive on time and avoids catastrophic circumstances. The COVID-19 epidemic has hastened the confluence of various trends in the health care business, most notably customers' preference for ease and availability to treatment. Leading health systems see digital transformation as a means of becoming more consumer-friendly while also transforming their operations, culture, and technology usage.The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions

teamed with the Scottsdale Institute to better understand how health systems are transforming health care via the use of technology. We engaged Scottsdale Institute members in multipronged research to better understand health systems' digital transformation journeys: We performed a poll of 25 health system technology executives, interviewed five health system technology leaders, and chaired a panel discussion of three health system technology leaders. We discovered: 1.Digital capabilities are seen by health systems as a means of radically transforming their interaction with customers. The majority of poll respondents (92 percent) expect an improved patient experience as the most desired consequence of digital transformation. To enhance patient experience and expand on innovative forms of care delivery utilising digital technology, health system interviewees and panellists addressed using a consumer-centered, outside-in approach —designing processes and experiences from a consumer's viewpoint as a method to develop trust and loyalty. 2.While the route to digital transformation is lengthy, health institutions are concentrating on intermediate milestones to demonstrate value. When asked how far their businesses are from an ideal digital state, the majority of survey respondents (60 percent) said they are in the middle of their travels. As the prospects and definition of digital transformation broaden, respondents and panellists from health systems admitted that the transformation path is taking longer than they had anticipated. They also emphasised the need of establishing periodic checkpoints to assess the worth of initiatives rather than waiting until the initiatives are completed to assess returns on investments (ROIs). 3.In addition to funding, there are difficulties to overcome in terms of talent, data, and establishing key performance indicators (KPIs). Survey respondents, interviewers, and panellists all agreed that one of the most difficult challenges to overcome was a lack of skills to support digital transformation activities. In addition, one-third of respondents said that talent is their top investment priority over the next three years. To solve data problems, survey respondents and interviewers identified investments in data interoperability and the

development of appropriate KPIs as key goals for the next three years. Despite the fact that funding is the most often mentioned limitation, two-thirds of respondents anticipate spending in digital transformation efforts as a % of overall information technology (IT) expenditure to rise over the next three years. 4.An executive champion is vital to digital transformation success. Leadership (80 percent) and implementation management (68 percent) are seen as major accelerators of digital transformation by survey respondents, whereas culture (60 percent), communication ownership, and transparency (48 percent) are viewed as significant impediments. Interviewees and panellists from health systems identified organisational leadership as a critical component in the success of their digital transformation projects. Our new health care consumer survey results reveal that consumers are increasingly exercising agency, involvement, and control over the majority of health and well-being choices. To meet customers where they are, health systems could consider expediting their digital transformation efforts by developing a digital culture, establishing a governance model, attracting and keeping the necessary personnel, and monitoring the performance of their programmes. Consumer agency and activation have increased in recent years, according to health-care systems. 3 According to roundtable participants and interviewees, as consumers increasingly take ownership of their health choices, health systems are aligning digital investments to their broader business strategy—a strategy centred on consumers. Almost all of our survey respondents (92 percent) said that enhanced customer happiness and engagement are the most important objectives their companies want to achieve via digital transformation, followed by improved care quality (56 percent ). Patient experience (88 percent), IT/cyber (80 percent), and clinical care delivery (68 percent) are the functions getting the greatest digital investments today, and they are closely associated with the top results. Interviewees from health-care systems also mentioned adopting a "consumer-centric" strategy, concentrating their digital investments on enhancing patient experiences and emerging kinds of care delivery, particularly since the outbreak of the epidemic. This is consistent with our previous study on the prospects for consumer-

facing technology in health systems to improve the patient experience. "With COVID-19, it became vital to speed consumer-facing technology, and now there's no going back," stated one of the respondents. Many great health systems are adopting six fundamental ideas to go ahead digitally: 1.Make a digital leadership and governance structure that is in line with the overall company plan. 2.Create a digital culture in which leadership drives support via communication and openness at all organisational levels. 3.Prepare for next-generation talent by emphasising workforce numbers and quality. 4.Recognize that cybersecurity is the other half of digital and that it should be included at every step of digital deployment for better risk management. 5.Play the long game by implementing with flexibility and scalability to handle ever-changing technology. 6.Create quantifiable, accountable, and scalable KPIs to understand the performance of digital efforts with many milestones throughout the trip, even if the path is lengthy. Companies gathering their own health data from medical equipment, particularly wearable technology, is another trend of the digital revolution in healthcare. Previously, most patients were content with getting a physical once a year and only seeing their physicians when anything went wrong. However, in the digital era, patients are focused on prevention and maintenance, and they are seeking more information about their health on a regular basis. As a consequence, healthcare organisations are taking a proactive approach by investing in wearable technology devices that can enable real-time monitoring of high-risk patients in order to predict the possibility of a severe health crisis. According to a recent estimate, the wearable medical device industry is predicted to exceed $27 million by 2023, representing a dramatic increase from over $8 million in 2017. Among the most common of these devices are: 1.Heart rate monitors

2.Fitness trackers 3.Sweat metres are used to measure blood sugar levels in diabetics. 4.Oximeters — measure the quantity of oxygen in the blood and are often used by individuals suffering from respiratory ailments such as COPD or asthma. The heartbeat rate is shown on the screen of the Apple wristwatch. Other advantages for healthcare organisations that invest in these goods include: 1.Personalizes the healthcare experience — medical gadgets provide patients a feeling of ownership in their health-improvement journey. 2.Insurance pricing - data from wearable devices may help insurers more properly estimate a patient's risk of disease. 3.Insurance incentives are available — individuals who take preventative actions to enhance their health might get decreased insurance rates. 4.Allows for gamification - Some medical gadgets, such as fitness trackers, may set competitive objectives for users to meet via exercise, diet, and nutrition. 5.Furthermore, wearable technology may assist healthcare organisations in saving money. According to one research, health apps and wearables for preventive care might save the US healthcare system over $7 billion every year. We previously discussed how big data may give healthcare firms with predictive analyses regarding admission rates and assist them in effectively staffing their facilities. Predicting which ailments and diseases will become important concerns in the near future is another aspect driving the digital revolution in healthcare. Data gathered from Big Data and other marketing sources may assist healthcare organisations in developing healthy living suggestions for their patients. You may, for example, pay an analyst to examine keyword activity across social media platforms and major search engines to find the most popular searches for medical diseases, illnesses, and general health. The analyst may then create a prediction model that predicts where and when the next major health issue will occur, as well as how your firm should prepare for it. On a lesser scale,

predictive research might assist firms of all kinds in determining when to employ temporary workers owing to imminent epidemics of colds and flu, which could result in a labour shortage. Because of the bitcoin bubble's demise, blockchain has lately earned a poor name. Now, the ordinary individual thinks of blockchain as a hazy, perplexing idea that has little bearing on their lives. In truth, this technology will soon play a critical role in ensuring the accuracy and security of their electronic health information. Blockchain is a digital ledger or a computerised transaction database. It is distributed over a network of computers and lets consumers to securely communicate financial information with suppliers without the involvement of a third party such as a bank. By spending millions in this sector, the healthcare and pharmaceutical companies have already attested to its efficacy. A new estimate predicts that the blockchain in healthcare business would be worth $890.5 million by 2023. Blockchain has been shown to be a successful tool in healthcare for avoiding data breaches, enhancing the quality of medical information, and lowering expenses. For years, health authorities and specialists have struggled to find workable solutions to the issue of fragmented medical records. An electronic health record (EHR) is essentially a computerised version of a medical chart that contains information such as a patient's medical history and diagnosis, as well as treatment plans, vaccination dates, and test results. It also includes their home location, former employers, and financial information such as credit card numbers. This is what makes EHRs such a tempting target for hackers, who sell them on the black market for up to $1,000. Nonetheless, despite their importance, hospitals are falling short in administering their EHRs. Currently, medical data is captured in unstructured forms and spread across many EHR systems. Doctors and nurses, who are already understaffed, struggle to manually record in every piece of information. This results in significant inaccuracies such as duplicate medical records, misdiagnoses, delayed treatments, and even fatalities. Some nations, including as Australia and the United Kingdom, have begun to experiment using blockchain technology in order to handle medical information and transactions between patients, healthcare providers, and insurance companies. Conflicting information is instantly identified thanks to a decentralised network of

computers that manage the blockchain and simultaneously record every transaction. Records are not only completely correct, but also more difficult to hack. Regulations in the United States make it more difficult for corporations to develop blockchain-based EHRs. However, some startups, such as Medicalchain, are making significant strides toward a future in which patients will control their EHRs through an app, doctors, pharmacists, or health insurers will request permission to access their data, and all transactions will be recorded on the distributed ledger. 5G mobile technology is also used in healthcare systems. Some more examples are: 1. Big data may be utilised to diagnose and forecast cardiovascular disorders in healthcare. 2. Artificial intelligence and cardiovascular disease management are two examples of healthcare technology. 3. Blockchain is saving vital time for heart patients. 4. Voice technologies and Alexa skills — from first aid to preventative measures — represent the fourth wave of healthcare technology. 5. Chatbots 6. Mobile gamified applications that promote physical activity and, as a result, lower the risk of acquiring cardiovascular disease. 7. Apps for Telemedicine 8. Platforms for automated messages and messaging 9. Sensors and educational messages Healthcare IT is expanding into centralised and comprehensive corporate IT infrastructures that aid in the improvement of patientoriented services, data management, and interoperability. Ecosystems and data-driven goods are critical in today's environment for maintaining competitive in a volatile market and avoiding corporate risks. As medical devices become increasingly networked, multiple services exchange real-time data insights, resulting in a better user experience. This new reality allows healthcare practitioners to operate quicker and more effectively while also lowering expenses. Advances in EMR and other technology are also facilitating tighter collaboration

across medical institutions, healthcare providers, and other commercial fields. According to IBM's analysis, 43 percent of healthcare workers polled believe that the lines between healthcare and other businesses are blurring. Governments, whether at the municipal, regional, or national level, have distinct ties with their healthcare systems. One apparent exception seems to be about encouraging the use of technology. Whether the existing system was government-run or market-oriented, the nations with the most technologically sophisticated healthcare took an active role in fostering digital transformation. Indeed, our research shows that governments often play a crucial role in initiating systemwide digital health programmes. Australia, for example, created the National Digital Health Strategy and established the My Health Record as an opt-out medical record for all Australians. England developed national organisations to assist and reform the NHS and social care, such as NHS Digital and NHSX . Meanwhile, the Danish government has announced an investment in the World-Class Digital Service (WCDS), an app-based platform that can be used to access all publicly held data on Danish individuals and is co-financed with local governments via the country's Technology Investment Fund. Among more market-oriented nations, the United States included financial incentives for doctors and hospitals in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to promote the use of electronic health information. 9 The Israeli government, too, intends to strengthen the country's position in digital health via grants and investment. It has announced a $33 million grant for biotech and medicine, as well as a $275 million commitment to digitise each citizen's personal health information. Furthermore, combining IT infrastructure with other government services, such as citizen-ID and consent-management systems, may speed up development by building a platform that encourages patients to use digital services. The Estonian Electronic Health Record, for example, is a component of the country's Health Information Exchange platform and is credited for simplifying the deployment of healthcare interconnection. Healthcare systems, like any other market, run most effectively when the incentives of each component are mutually reinforcing. As digital technology evolves, payers and health-standards bodies may need to

modify their payment and accreditation processes on a regular basis. This may entail, for example, reviewing new digital-first providers for quality care, including some measure of digital adoption into certification, and evaluating new software items that could be designated as medical devices. It may also entail defining a reimbursement tariff for digital services and promulgating norms for data exchange and protection among parties. Many governments are already working to update digital-related rules. In the United States, for example, a new rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recommended various policy changes. These would provide patients with additional information through an open application programming interface (API). Similarly, NHS Digital in England has produced a first set of standards for healthcare IT system interoperability. England needs health applications to acquire regulatory clearance from three organisations in order to fulfil its goldstandard accreditation.: approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), as well as registration with the Care Quality Commission, followed by an evaluation by NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). 16 France has implemented a new compensation structure for telemedicine services. The system now reimburses telemedicine consultations at the same per-visit rate as physical primary care. Digital services and innovation have the potential to change the way payers and providers earn returns in many health-care systems. That might explain why some of the most interconnected systems, notably those in the United States, have been on the cutting edge of digital adoption. The benefit of having an integrated company is the built-in internal motivation to be efficient. As a result, the employment of digital technologies that increase efficiency is encouraged. Healthmaintenance organisations (HMOs) in Israel, for example, have a significant economic incentive to manage their covered populations more efficiently if they wish to keep patients from requiring high-cost hospital treatment. In primary care, digital technologies may assist them in focusing on prevention and early intervention. Maccabi Healthcare Services, for example, is an HMO that offers a communityfocused integrated-care platform that links multidisciplinary care providers and enables them to manage patients' health via

comprehensive health promotion and preventive initiatives. Healthcare laws play a vital role in ensuring the safety of patients. However, in order to increase healthcare delivery productivity, some older legislation may need to be revised, while others may be better phased out. In certain circumstances, new rules may be warranted to accommodate industrial change. Furthermore, aggressive modifications may be required to encourage providers to embrace digital services and avoid unintended outcomes. In Sweden, for example, mobile primary-care teleconsultation providers such as KRY, Min Doktor, and Doktor24 serve patients throughout the nation under a funding mechanism meant to assist patients in finding treatment when they get unwell while visiting other locations. Setting up a single physical teleconsultation centre with health practitioners enables a digital player to remotely service the whole nation, enabling patients to access treatment in locations where they do not pay taxes. A number of nations are taking the approach of developing an open innovation platform—or ecosystem—centered on patient healthcare data, allowing providers to create their own interfaces to access the data. For example, a collaboration of many organisations coordinated by Finland's government-run Social Insurance Institution has developed a set of digital healthcare services for the social and healthcare sectors. Personal electronic health records, a prescription service, a pharmaceutical database, a patient-data repository, and archives are among the Kanta services. My Kanta Pages, the most recent collection of services, is a national data repository where residents may add information about their personal health and wellbeing. The design of the system is open, enabling software vendors to create their own interfaces for Kanta's content. Similarly, NHS England has created an open API architectural policy as well as accompanying documentation. This policy outlines the essential requirements for healthcare companies when designing, updating, or acquiring technologies in the open architecture transition. Indeed, health systems that had previously begun a digital transformation told us in interviews that if they were to start again, the biggest difference they would make is to create clear interoperability standards from the outset. A number of other nations have created open platforms. OpenTeleHealth in Denmark, for example, enables third-party vendor

development of new apps. In China, Alibaba Holding's AliGenie 21 and Tencent's artificial-intelligence (AI) open platform enable other manufacturers to build on the systems and integrate them into thirdparty goods. Healthcare organisations and systems that have demonstrated measurable improvements in clinical-care delivery, patient outcomes, or population health, such as the winners of the HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence, demonstrate the importance of beginning with a high-value, low-cost innovation. UCLA Health, for example, was honoured for three use cases, including reducing payment rejections via automated alerts to case management, enhancing depression screening in primary care, and optimising blood use utilising real-time clinical-decision support. The business has a history of leveraging cutting-edge digital technology to innovate around care delivery. It built a Global Lab for Innovation with the primary purpose of producing cost-effective outcomes, stressing the need of a rapid connection to implementation. Nonetheless, the adoption of value-added innovation is not conceivable without large expenditures sufficient to satisfy an organization's long-term performance objectives. Furthermore, the fragmented departmental budgets that are typical among healthcare providers sometimes result in significant underinvestment in novel technology that deliver advantages throughout the whole care cycle. As a result, firms that function with a centralised innovation budget may generate system-wide advantages. According to McKinsey study, organisations with a long-term perspective outperform their counterparts. To accomplish the objective of digital transformation, a core long-term investment in technologies that alter care throughout the whole care cycle is required. So, what profits can medical institutions get from digital transformation in healthcare? 1.Optimized workflow – digital healthcare can eliminate the paperwork, reduce the time needed for the patient examination and enable easier, more convenient access to accurate patient health data. 2.Better interaction with clients – provides effective online communication with patients via chats and video calls.

3.Reduces the costs – the processes automation allows providing more cost-effective services and cuts off the spendings required in traditional healthcare services. 4.Create a secure database for the electronic medical records – the EMH platform enables accessing the encrypted patient health data, as well as its on-demand sharing with other specialists and laboratories. 5.Advanced communication with medical staff – used for more accurate patient diagnosis, faster data exchange, and other internal communication. Few challenges to digital transformation in healthcare are: 1.Access to healthcare data is quite difficult. 2.Healthcare data is not uniform across providers or locations. 3.Concerns about patient data privacy 4.Concerns about technological security 5.Budgetary constraints for development 6.There are currently no regulations in place to address organisational concerns about liability and patient autonomy. 7.Preparedness of the organisation Many of the possible advantages outlined above need data availability and interoperability among centres. Despite the fact that many centres have implemented systems for keeping electronic health data, the accessibility and interoperability of these records has a long way to go before a digital health transition can occur. "Without the ability to access multiple records across a population of patients, health care providers and payers will not benefit from the value of using modern computing solutions—such as machine learning and artificial intelligence—to inform care decisions and identify trends," according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Patients' ability to move information between providers and search for treatment within their insurance networks or at reduced rates is hampered by the absence of efficient and computerised access to their own data in one, central place. A lack of efficient, computerised access to their patients' data implies that clinicians have less

information accessible while treating the patient. This is particularly true for longitudinal data housed across many locations and IT systems. In order to ensure patient privacy, secure mechanisms must be used to transport patient data. This may restrict the physician's access to real-time, 24-hour data, such as metrics obtained from a wristwatch, or to after-the-fact reporting by the patient. Remotely transferring this sort of data would also improve the physician's capacity to provide remote, telehealth care. Researchers' ability to utilise the capabilities of contemporary computers, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), is limited by a lack of access to data that is interoperable across centres. The key to creating technologies capable of assisting with clinical decision making via prognostic, diagnostic, and optimum treatment approach predictions is the collection of datasets appropriate for the use of AI/ML. Ideally, these AI/ML technologies should allow us to learn from all previous patients rather than the very limited scope of one provider or centre; however, interoperability across centres is complicated further by a lack of standardisation across centres when it comes to clinical decision making, which leads to inconsistencies in the type and amount of data available. Governments all across the world must invest in and encourage the digital transformation of the healthcare business. Many people have contributed to the cause. According to McKinsey research, for example, the US government has established incentives for healthcare institutions to employ electronic health systems to save records. There is, however, potential for development. Legislators should reconsider rules and regulations that now restrict the accessibility and interoperability of healthcare data, in addition to creating incentives for the use of digital systems and financing channels for the development of innovative healthcare technology. It is hardly a stretch to imagine that AI-enabled gadgets will soon be able to forecast treatment plans. When a healthcare system decides to use new technologies, there must be explicit regulations in place to safeguard patient privacy and define medical responsibility. That is, the patient must be educated about the technology and its role in their treatment. Furthermore, clarifying where responsibility lies (e.g., physician, organisation that adopted the technology, creators of the

technology, etc.) is critical in the event that the predictive system makes a mistake and a patient suffers is critical. Security best practises must also be included by the developers of this technology. This is particularly true for AI/ML-enabled devices, which are regularly updated with fresh patient data. While continual updating is necessary for generalizability and resolving data drift problems, a data breach or data manipulation might have an influence on model performance. Patients may suffer if model performance is hampered and it takes some time for the healthcare organisation to become aware of the security issue. As healthcare executives plan for the post-pandemic era, one thing is clear: digital revolution has just just started. According to the Accenture Digital Health Technology Vision 2021 study, 81 percent of healthcare executives believe their organization's digital transformation is advancing, and 93 percent believe they are innovating with a feeling of urgency and a call to action this year. "We are in a radically changing world marked by rapidly evolving healthcare consumer expectations, location-agnostic care needs, and an increase in new ecosystem partnerships that are accelerating the industry several years forward," said Dr. Kaveh Safavi, a senior managing director in Accenture's Global Health practise and one of the report's authors. With 87 percent of executives admitting their organization's business and technology strategies are increasingly interwoven, the industry has acknowledged that digital is here to stay. Nonetheless, Accenture has highlighted five growing themes that businesses must address in the next years in order to manage digital transformation. The business blended its own findings with poll data from 399 healthcare executives across six countries to come up with the patterns. "The executive leaders of today and tomorrow will be those who can adapt quickly to a healthcare future that puts the human at the centre of all they do while still prioritising technological innovation," Safavi added. According to the research, the first trend that firms must be aware of in order to stay competitive in the future is a strategically layered IT infrastructure. "In this new age of healthcare, technology is no longer one-size-fits-all," the report's authors said. "There are more technological options than ever before, and the decisions that a

business takes now and tomorrow may define its value offer." To gain a competitive advantage, the research recommends investing in fundamental, scalable, and flexible technologies such as cloud, microservice APIs, and analytics. At the same time, it argues that when firms create their technological infrastructures, they should emphasise data privacy and ethical designs, including bias prevention. Digital twins, such as IoT, data streaming, and 5G, are one particular technology that a quarter of healthcare executives report exploring with. "The mirrored world will enable healthcare professionals to bring data and intelligence together at new proportions; to ask and answer big-picture questions crucial to their survival; and to reinvent how they operate, cooperate, and innovate," the authors said. Accenture underlines the significance of a good data foundation for digital twins to be successful, whether they are used in a clinical context to anticipate future scenarios or on the business side to increase operational efficiency. Another trend is new technologies' capacity to democratise technology and empower individuals throughout businesses, such as natural language processing, low-code platforms, and robotic process automation. The workforce may be given the ability to optimise their job, address their own pain spots, and innovate for the whole business via technical training of these technologies, according to the paper. "This does not imply converting everyone become an engineer, but rather providing them with new tools and allowing people to think like engineers and solve issues using technology that is simple to grasp and programme." According to the survey, in addition to empowering their workers via technical training, employers may get additional benefits by embracing remote work. Almost 90% of healthcare executives feel that having a remote workforce enhances the market for difficult-to-find talent and increases competition for talent across firms. While certain aspects of healthcare must be delivered in a clinical environment, the paper claims that there are many positions that might benefit from more flexible working hours, particularly when helped by digital technologies that can build working cultures everywhere. The last tendency stems from the multiparty cooperation that used shared data platforms throughout the epidemic. "When you can interact, exchange data, and move between partners more

smoothly and securely, you have an edge in promoting industry-level change that allows better care for people," the authors said. As organisations look for new partnerships, the report recommends reviewing the hybrid solutions that worked during the pandemic, forming a team to scan prominent multiparty systems emerging in healthcare, and communicating with industry players to assess the need for and impacts of a multiparty system. Here are some of the most prevalent advantages that digitization provides to the healthcare business: 1.Effortless doctor-patient collaboration 2.Administrative duties that are automated 3.Data security 4.Real-time access to health information 5.Relationship between several healthcare professionals 6.Collaborative research and study 7.Online appointment scheduling made simple 8.Patient management has improved. 9.During medical emergencies, caregivers or nurses may be reached more quickly. 10.Medication management 11.less manual errors 12.Hospital ratings have been boosted. 13.Improved revenue direction 14.Clinical conclusions have been improved. VR & AR in healthcare has opened the door for plenty of new opportunities. These technologies offer viable solutions to some of the most critical challenges of the healthcare system and power users with a plethora of diverse opportunities in areas like general diagnostics and medical training. AR and VR are two technologies that can offer new dimensions to treatments for delivering better patient care. The benefits are: 1.Psychological relief & treatment

2.Data visualization/body mapping/interactive patient information 3.Advanced diagnostics/risk assessment 4.VR surgery run-through 5.AR surgery assistance 6.Medical education/Training (simulation) 7.Doctor consultation 8.Emergency navigation 9.Highly-effective pain management 10.Studying cancer in 3D 11.Aiding recovery from brain injuries 12.Nurturing social skills for children with autism 13.Reducing symptoms of depression 14.Helping veterans with PTSD 15.Treatment for phobias 16.Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease 17.Identifying the early signs of schizophrenia AI offers an array of advantages for healthcare over clinical decisionmaking techniques. Implementation of AI and ML in the industry can enable physicians, doctors, and patients with more precise and accurate data, allowing them to gain unprecedented insights into diagnostics, care processes, treatment variability, and patient outcomes. The Benefits are: 1.Mind-mapping through brain-computer interfaces 2.Developing next-gen radiology tools 3.Expanding services across developing or underdeveloped regions 4.Minimizing electronic health record use 5.Preventing antibiotic resistance risks 6.Precise analytics data for pathology images 7.Empowering with intelligence for medical devices, machines 8.Advancing immunotherapy for cancer treatments

9.Transforming EHR into a potential risk predictor 10.Health monitoring through wearables tech and personal devices 11.Converting selfies into powerful diagnostic tools 12.Enabling automated and accurate compliance 13.Providing better decision making 14.Predicting future diseases 15.Preventing fraudulent billing Robots help medical personnel perform routine tasks faster to help them focus on other pressing responsibilities. Such automation in healthcare makes medical procedures safer and less expensive for patients. The huge advantage of using robots in healthcare is to perform microsurgery, which humans find hard to handle. The Benefits are: 1.Shorter hospitalization 2.Reduced pain and discomfort 3.Faster recovery time and return to routine 4.Micro incisions, resulting in reduced risk of infection 5.Reduced blood loss and transfusions 6.Minimal scarring 7.Greater visualization 8.Enhanced dexterity 9.Greater precision Internet of Things (IoT) has started to impact the Healthcare Industry through smart connected-devices, systems, and things that are used by billions of users to leverage data and help them make more timely, specific, and contextualized decisions. IoT in the Healthcare industry has opened doors for many opportunities. According to a market forecast, The IoT Healthcare Market is worth $158.07 billion with 50 billion connected devices by 2020. The Benefits are: 1.Lower costs 2.Better patient experience

3.Improved drug management 4.Reduced errors and waste 5.Improved treatment outcomes 6.Real-time reporting and monitoring 7.End-to-end connectivity and affordability 8.Organized data and analysis 9.Tracking and alerts 10.Remote medical assistance 11.Research Cloud computing offers a myriad of benefits to healthcare through its elastic and virtually unlimited scalability, high availability and accessibility of data at an affordable budget. The Benefits are 1.High data availability, robust backup and disaster recovery capabilities 2.Effective data security, protecting from unauthorized access and breaches. 3.Proven compliance with regulatory frameworks 4.Collaboration 5.Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning 6.Data Storage 7.Scalability 8.Cost 9.Security 10.Greater reach, especially during times of disaster 11.Better storage – lower cost 12.Better use of big data to treat patients 13.Improved medical research 14.Remote patient care Predictive analytics (PA) uses technology and statistical methods to analyze massive amounts of information to predict outcomes for

individual patients. The information may be data from past treatment outcomes and the latest medical research published in top journals/databases. The Benefits are: 1.Increases the accuracy of diagnoses 2.Helps with preventive medicine 3.Provides physicians with answers for every patient 4.Provides staff and hospitals with predictions related to insurance product costs 5.Allows researchers to develop prediction models for overtime accuracy 6.Select the right hospital and clinic sites 7.Optimize staffing levels and improve business operations 8.Identify which households are most likely to respond to marketing messages 9.Optimize new and existing business markets 10.Support long term strategic planning initiative Digital twins, as a form of bridge between the digital and physical worlds, enable the creation of accurate, dynamic replicas of objects that exist in the actual world. In terms of healthcare, digital twins enable safe experiments and the measurement of the effect of prospective modifications to live organisms, including the human body. Technology allows for the exploration of "what if" scenarios, enabling healthcare IT providers to change from traditionally utilised non-living objects to machine-created live organisms. When combined with machine learning and AI, digital twins technology yields even more sophisticated results: it provides deeper insights into how the human body functions and reacts to certain manipulations, allowing for significant reductions in medical errors and improvements in healthcare procedures. Remote monitoring health applications can do it everything, from monitoring your sugar level with smart bands to tracking your blood pressure and other vitals. Patients and healthcare professionals with frequent virtual visits will be able to make greater use of healthcare technology-enabled patients and healthcare

professionals. Remote patient monitoring is a healthcare trend that allows patients and their healthcare providers to connect and communicate during the treatment process in order to manage severe sickness. Healthcare workers monitor patients continuously and supply them with a collection of wearable measurement gadgets. It reminds patients to take their medications on schedule and to measure their progress. Furthermore, this technological solution assists healthcare organisations in saving time and money while providing high-quality treatment without the need for physical touch. The reformed healthcare system will include four important features: 1.Accessible. To provide high-quality, cost-effective, and efficient care to everyone in a timely way, the healthcare sector will need to overcome care shortages while reducing disparities in access to excellent treatment. This necessitates the use of new telemedicine and digital healthcare technology. 2.Distributed. As technology allows us to supplement in-person care with remote care, healthcare practitioners must give the appropriate treatment at the appropriate place while using the most effective ways of interacting with more people. This will optimise care and skilled resources, resulting in increased capacity. 3.Resilient. Healthcare systems must be ready to handle increases in demand caused by catastrophes and health crises. Resilient healthcare companies can swiftly coordinate and transfer care capabilities across physical and/or virtual sites. 4.Efficient. It is critical that the healthcare business frees up resources to concentrate on the most difficult situations. This is possible by automating regular and predictable procedures and shifting care exchanges from physical healthcare institutions to virtual or digital locations. Data that is dependable and trustworthy is the cornerstone of healthcare's digital future. The only way to get accurate and trustworthy data is to manage it. Data governance ensures that healthcare firms adhere to privacy standards, security protocols, and complicated legislation from start to finish, as well as meet growing compliance needs. Data governance enables you to do the following:

1.Understand where all of your data assets are located, where the data travels, how it is converted, who consumes it, and for what reason. 2.Have a shared understanding of what data means, who the data owners are, what quality criteria and KPIs apply to the data, and who determines if the data is valid and appropriate for use. 3.Align data ownership, data consumers, and allowed uses with industry rules and company data policies so that compliance is regularly reviewed. 4.Ensure that data is utilised and shared in a secure, compliant, and patient-approved way. Healthcare systems beginning on a digital transformation path will achieve rapid progress if the following seven stages are followed: 1.Create a buddy system. Collaboration, communication, and prioritising will be used by business and IT executives to cooperatively drive the achievement of the essential objectives. 2.Make it a point to define roles, duties, and accountability. 3.Throughout the company, use a project management framework to identify and convey stakeholder responsibilities. 4.First, commit to the cloud, and then go to work. Select your core cloud ecosystem and implementation partners, then describe your corporate cloud data architecture and comprehend all of the capabilities necessary to govern it. 5.Choose the areas in your healthcare company where AI and machine learning (ML) may have the most revolutionary influence and prepare accordingly. 6.Concentrate on generating meaningful clinical or commercial benefit as soon as possible. Allow your digital transformation process to deteriorate into technical or architectural milestones that divert attention away from the ultimate aim of creating actual value. 7.Govern just enough data to quickly arrive at a value. Begin a project, establish trust, and produce results rapidly to create momentum for the next stage of your digital transformation. Cybersecurity is a major risk for healthcare institutions. Cyberattacks

may particularly target sensitive, and often extremely valuable, personal health data. Malicious assaults have the potential to interrupt treatment, resulting in patient injury and adverse medical occurrences. High-impact dangers are also difficult to forecast. For example, since a hospital database is on a private network, the likelihood of a ransomware assault through a patient-connected device is minimal. However, such an assault might severely harm the hospital's image and violate patient privacy. Such issues need ongoing monitoring and counter-measures. Privacy and cybersecurity are inextricably linked. Too many vulnerabilities in digital interventions might endanger personally identifiable information and protected health information due to the usage of different devices and apps. The loss of a patient's PHI may have major implications, including reputational damage, discrimination, fraud, and other problems. Most digital health systems store personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) locally on devices or in centralised repositories. Privacy would be jeopardised if such information was breached or inadvertently accessed. While there is no silver bullet, various steps are suggested to continually revise the security posture around digital solutions as the attack surface expands and new threat vectors arise. The use of multifactor authentication is believed to increase trust in authenticating users, particularly when at least one biometric is included as a factor. It is also vital to ensure that sensitive information is encrypted at both the data and transport levels. Furthermore, employing public-private key cryptography to encrypt and digitally sign sensitive data flows improves the integrity and privacy of the data. It is also strongly advised that any files or data saved on the device be automatically encrypted. Better still, when a user exits an app, all sensitive data acquired locally by the app is destroyed, and the user session is safely ended. To further safeguard privacy, the applications may prohibit sensitive data from being copied, shared, or printed. Data management, whether in the cloud or on-premise, should also be strengthened. While it is best to restrict the collection and transmission of sensitive data, it is important to get permission from the owner before collecting and sharing such information. Techniques for anonymizing PII and preventing total re-identification while keeping data usability for research and significant evidence gathering may be

used, but only with the cooperation of the data owners. All access to sensitive data must be role-based, with privileged user access recorded and audits and risk assessments performed on a regular basis. The integration of digital technology into all elements of how a healthcare company interacts with patients, healthcare professionals, and regulators is referred to as digital transformation in healthcare. The outcomes are usually dramatic, upending long-standing procedures inside a healthcare institution with new, constantly developing systems. However, any digital transformation consulting firm will tell you that a successful digital transformation plan is on more than simply technology. As digital consultant Niall McKeown points out, many digital transformation programmes fail because businesses are entirely focused on technology. Continue reading to learn about typical digital transformation hurdles and how the healthcare sector can quickly adopt digital health without losing sight of what matters most: providing human-centric healthcare experiences. Examine the present status of your healthcare company, staff engagement, patient expectations, and the impression of your brand in your neighbourhood. Patients and employees are often eager to offer the feedback you want. The goal is to make it simple for people to supply information through whichever channel they want, whether that is via emails, applications, or online. You will be able to choose where to begin by measuring the temperature of your business. + Analyse findings and put what you've learned into action. Gathering large data is a terrific place to start, but you must extract actionable insights to acquire the buy-in and passion needed to drive genuine innovation and change. Analytics and artificial intelligence can help with this. Your organization's IT plan should allow it to democratise and analyse data so that insights on trends and patterns may be readily shared with employees. Your digital transformation journey will be facilitated by identifying specific areas for improvement and involving the appropriate individuals in your business to course-correct along the way. As your programme evolves, integrating operational data with patient and staff feedback analysis may give crucial context, useful

insights, and prioritise programme improvement or enhancement possibilities that are most likely to yield the greatest return. Transformation to digital is a process, not a destination. Measuring the effect of actions performed is crucial for keeping efforts on track and allowing for quick modifications if barriers arise. Use real-time feedback to assist manage implementation from the patient's perspective, and provide staff with insight into what works and where internal changes are required to steer the course. + Encourage crossfunctional dialogue and cooperation. Get people out of their homes. Employees must understand how their actions contribute to wider corporate goals such as continuous business development or enhanced healthcare experience and results. While individual and departmental accomplishments are vital to overall success, how each group interacts with other teams and patients is as important. To eliminate turf concerns, healthcare organisations must foster the concept that everyone, regardless of position, is playing on the same pitch. Greater openness and information exchange as part of a comprehensive, cross-functional healthcare approach will assist to speed progress toward the desired end state. Along with On-Demand Healthcare Solutions, an increasing number of digital healthcare tools are being developed to assist physicians in analysing a patient's medical history in order to deliver the best possible therapy. BostonGene, for example, is unquestionably noteworthy. The organisation is well-known for providing comprehensive clinical and research solutions, such as the illness history analysis tool. BostonGene's technology may do an in-depth examination of a patient's prior illnesses and create a totally individualised treatment plan that might provide the greatest outcomes imaginable. After several meetings with hospital administrators about their digital transformation challenges, I discovered that healthcare providers want a step-by-step approach to build their digital health strategy. I designed a Maturity Model that seeks to divide the process into seven phases, with the hope of providing a template that providers may use to construct their own: 1.According to the maturity model, "patient engagement" is the

fundamental first step in creating a digital patient experience. This usually include SMS message or basic email outreach to encourage certain activities, such as an appointment or directions for a forthcoming video conference. 2."Enhanced patient engagement" may make this more meaningful and actionable by allowing for two-way interactions using intelligent, responsive technology like as chat bots. To date, the industry has widely used tactics like these. However, in order to make the patient experience smooth and avoid fragmenting the patient's viewpoint with walled means of outreach, physicians must... "Automated care journeys" that make the patient experience a continuous, sequential progression. The next stage in the flow might be triggered by a number of factors, including the patient's reaction to SMS outreach or an EHR change made by a clinician. This alleviates the pressure on care teams to manage the many administrative responsibilities associated with the care process. 3."Adaptive care journeys" provide the next degree of automation, allowing for flexibility and customization depending on a patient's risks and preferences. This degree of personalisation provides "sticky" experiences for patients, encouraging more meaningful involvement and increasing their probability of completing again. 4."Coordinated care journeys" are concerned with automatically allocating the next steps to providers in a more efficient manner, allowing them to act at the appropriate moment for each patient. 5."Enhanced coordinated care journeys" utilise AI algorithms to give decision support tools that supplement provider expertise and provide members of the care team the proper relevant information exactly when they need it, in order to better optimise how the care team spends their time and talents. 6.Finally, "fully coordinated care journeys" use the EHR to proactively coordinate and automate treatment throughout the enterprise, various care venues, and various patient demographics or diseases. End-toend automation provides a continuous, simplified digital care experience for both professionals and patients. The use of information and communications technology to provide digital health treatments to prevent illness and enhance quality of life

is not a novel idea. However, in the face of global concerns such as ageing, child illness and mortality, epidemics and pandemics, high costs, and the effects of poverty and racial discrimination on access to healthcare, digital health platforms, health systems, and related technology are growing in importance and evolving. Government health-care initiatives, such as the United States' Affordable Care Act (ACA), have also resulted in new breakthroughs in digital health. Despite early technological difficulties, the goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) included enhancing healthcare quality via technology. This includes, for example, enhancing the quality of EHRs and using computer modelling to monitor healthcare costs. Healthcare informatics refers to the use of technology and data to enhance patient health and treatment quality. This allows healthcare workers to evaluate new programmes, identify areas for improvement in the healthcare industry, and incorporate new technology into medicine. The COVID-19 epidemic has fuelled the continuing digital revolution in healthcare, further fuelling the fires of change. Patient-facing tools like as online symptom checks, patient portals, remote patient monitoring tools, and telemedicine are among the most influential COVID-19 innovations, according to Forrester Research. Deloitte Insights defines digital health as "radically interoperable data, artificial intelligence (AI), and open, secure platforms as fundamental to the promise of more consumer-focused, prevention-oriented treatment." AI, big data, robotics, and machine learning advancements continue to have a significant impact on digital healthcare. In addition, changes in the digital healthcare ecosystem include advancements in ingestible sensors, robotic caregivers, and gadgets and applications that remotely monitor patients. Deloitte estimates: "AI will allow substantial scientific discoveries, hastening the development of new disease-fighting treatments and vaccines. AI-enabled digital treatments and individualised advice will help customers to prevent health problems from occurring. Insights gained by AI will affect diagnostic and treatment options, resulting in safer and more effective therapies. Furthermore, intelligent manufacturing and supply chain solutions will guarantee that the proper therapies and interventions are supplied at the precise time the patient needs them." Precedence According to research, the worldwide digital health industry will

develop at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.9 percent from 2020 to 2027, reaching $833.44 billion. The increase in the number of healthcare applications, according to the Ottawa-based market research organisation, is propelling this boom. North America has the lion's share of the worldwide digital health market, owing to the region's growing older population, high smartphone usage rate, and effort to build applications and digital healthcare platforms to lower healthcare expenses. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 was developed in the United States to safeguard patients' personal data. HIPAA was updated in 2009 with the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which was intended to make HIPAA compliance more stringent. However, opponents of both statutes claim that they do not go far enough in limiting access to patient data without authorization, and that HIPAA laws are often ignored. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed changes to HIPAA concerning privacy and security standards in late 2020, which would negatively impact a patient's ability to access personal health data and impede healthcare's transition to value-based care, a model focused on value and quality of care. Under normal conditions, a healthcare CIO's bread and butter is engaging entrepreneurs and investing in new digital health solutions. During a pandemic, Forrester Research analyst Jeffrey Becker advises CIOs to reduce their entrepreneurial efforts and focus on "tried and reliable" providers and products. This provides steadiness at a time when it is critical. Introducing new digital health technologies into the mix may add complexity, confusion, and annoyance. "If it were my hospital, I would take the stance that now is not the time to begin new partnerships," he said. "It's a lot to introduce new technology into clinical processes when you don't have the ability to really mother that relationship and make sure it's going well." In the face of the pandemic, healthcare CIOs, according to Gartner analyst Mandi Bishop, should collaborate with existing partners and technology. She believes the FDA's loosened limits would benefit technologically mature healthcare systems that employ internet of things and remote patient monitoring devices and depend on analytics to monitor such

devices and assist doctors in making choices based on the data given. Remote patient monitoring and clinical decision support tools are unlikely to be a big emphasis for healthcare organisations that have yet to implement the technology, according to Bishop. "It's not something you want to introduce professionals to in the thick of an emergency,". Dykki Settle, Path's chief digital officer, said that while dealing to an epidemic like COVID-19, any technology that is not already in place inside a healthcare system should "go on pause." Path is a worldwide non-profit healthcare organisation that collaborates with governments, healthcare groups, and corporations to tackle healthcare concerns. "It is not the time to be bringing in new tools and technology during an epidemic," Settle said at Tableau's virtual healthcare conference. "Countries are absolutely overwhelmed by all of the well-intended assistance and support, as well as new techniques and tools that are presented to them. They must be kept free of it and allowed to concentrate on what is going on." Instead, Settle believes that healthcare CIOs should build on the digital health tools they already have, such as expanding the reach of communication tools to patient populations or embracing the logistics management information systems that most healthcare organisations have for supply chain management. Bishop said that relying on current vendor partners initially allows healthcare CIOs to grow on existing products today and modify later when the COVID-19 situation settles. However, Bishop believes that there are certain unique use cases in which CIOs should explore forming new relationships, even during a pandemic. When it comes to telemedicine and patient flow management, Bishop believes it may be in a CIO's best interest to take a risk on new partners. However, according to Chilmark Research analyst Alex Lennox-Miller, healthcare CIOs who invest in new digital health solutions or extend technology offerings that take advantage of the FDA's loosened regulations should keep in mind that the relaxed limits will not stay forever. That is something healthcare CIOs should prepare for right now. "People who are making those plans, adopting tools now, deploying them, and using the accelerated timelines these relaxations allow but will be able to continue to use them going forward will be in a much better place than people who just

say, 'Oh awesome, we can use Zoom now,' and aren't necessarily thinking about what it will mean when those exemptions go away," he said. According to Forrester's Becker, healthcare CIOs who want technology that their current suppliers cannot deliver should look at vendor assessments to evaluate who would be a good match for the business, particularly when it comes to telehealth. "A lot of these new connections are being formed from a virtual care aspect," he added. Indeed, Gartner's Bishop said that for CIOs who do not currently have a partnership with a telemedicine service like Amwell, Doctor on Demand, or Teladoc, there is a "instant opportunity" for suppliers. Another area Bishop feels healthcare CIOs should look into is patient throughput capacity management, which is provided by suppliers such as Philips, GE Healthcare, and Tele Tracking Technologies. "If you can assist a hospital system anticipate the patient traffic, forecast the spike so CIOs can more effectively forecast that new facility when they're going to have to spin up these mobile ICUs or remote capacity units; those are the messaging that will get through to a CIO,". As the healthcare sector improves its scientific armament, it must also acknowledge the new normal and apply developing, long-term business models. Frost & Sullivan announced its 2020 projections in December 2019, and although some remain valid, we must recognise the substantial effect and changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. This new vision for a digital future in healthcare for 2020 and beyond will look beyond measuring segment resilience, identifying business continuity plans, and emphasising the promise of digital technology to look at the implementation framework and immediate opportunities for a smoother transition. Before the actual scope of the pandemic became clear, 2020 was projected to be the year when the overall healthcare industry will surpass $2 trillion and expand at a healthy 5.3 percent. However, as the crisis evolved, it became evident that even in the most optimistic scenarios, growth would not exceed 3.1 percent. While certain areas, such as pharmaceuticals and diagnostics, will be more robust and continue to expand at 4% to 5%, medical imaging and medical devices will be the most impacted, with best-case revenue decreases of 31% and 2%, respectively. Because of the telehealth market's consistent expansion, the healthcare IT sector is predicted to increase

at a rate of about 8%. Despite certain technological advances, revenue is predicted to fall by $45 billion and as much as $92 billion if things do not improve by the end of the second quarter of 2021. By the middle of 2021, the healthcare business will be back on track; however, this will be contingent on fresh prospects, which we will discuss below: 1.Prediction 1: Virtual clinical trials will account for 40% to 45% of all studies: By the end of 2020, 33% of worldwide clinical trials would have been disrupted, threatening $3 billion in new product sales. To avoid the most urgent issues related with social distance, contract research companies and pharmaceutical sponsors will increasingly rely on clinical trial IT products aimed at hybridization of patient recruiting, retention, and monitoring. As a result, we estimate that the mHealth and wearables-driven IT industry will be worth $560 million without factoring in the cost of the devices. Despite the fact that virtual trials lowered overall trial expenditures by 15% to 20%, real-world applicability were confined to observational studies. However, the start of Janssen's first entirely virtual interventional study (NCT04252287) in 2020 has established the correct tone. The adoption rate will differ depending on the product category, especially for complicated items such as biologics. Organic factors such as coordinated efforts from logistic companies such as Marken, clinical research providers such as Science 37, contract research organisations such as PRA Health, and inorganic factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic will also accelerate the transition from traditional to hybrid to fully virtual designs across product groups and geographies over the next five years. 2.Prediction 2: Change the point-of-care (POC) testing service model by switching testing locations: Testing is the most effective technique to prevent the spread of any infectious illness. During the pandemic, bold initiatives like as free, drive-through, and walk-through testing were used, and (POC) testing was a major facilitator. According to our analysis, governments throughout the world are likely to maintain COVID-19 test volumes above 500,000 individuals per day for population monitoring

throughout the year, generating $1.98 billion in revenue. While an increase in testing is unavoidable, the introduction of alternative testing facilities such as pharmacies or ports of entry is an impending shift. Although flu testing at pharmacies has long been widespread, the year 2020 will usher in a new age in which pharmacies will provide patients with unparalleled levels of convenience. They will go from screening through clinical lab-grade diagnostics and on-the-spot teleconsultation, then to medicine dispensing and payment processing, all in a single patient visit that may last just a couple of hours. In the coming years, this model will reach new heights, with test developers like Sherlock and Mammoth Biosciences on track to achieve around $15 per test with a turnaround time of five to 15 minutes and sensitivity of 90 percent to 99 percent; SAP and Oracle offering high-grade data integration and connectivity; and pharmacies like CVS with 20,000 locations across the United States. The new paradigm is certain to gain popularity due to immediate benefits such as triaging high-risk patients and lowering lab load, mid-term benefits such as patient convenience, and long-term benefits such as speedy clinical trial enrolment. 3.Prediction 3: Surplus ventilators and remote monitoring will reshape the non-hospital and home critical care models: Several healthcare and non-healthcare organisations, including Philips, Medtronic, Getinge, General Motors, Ford, Dyson, and Fitbit, have reacted admirably to the COVID-19-induced ventilator shortage. While rapid reaction and supply are vital, they will result in an unequal excess after the epidemic is over. According to Frost & Sullivan's current forecasts for 2020, the United States will end up with a surplus of around 100,000 ventilators. Germany and the United Kingdom may be able to satisfy their demand, while France, Italy, and Spain may suffer a shortage of around 30,000 to 50,000 ventilators, which might be bought through the remainder of 2020. This is expected to reshape critical care medical paradigms, particularly if manufacturers face sales losses in the coming years until demand recovers. Though some of the excess will wind up in government stockpiles, hospitals will absorb a big chunk of it. The portable designs, in particular, will end up in homes, changing non-hospital care paradigms. Already, 95 percent of home medical equipment providers in the United States

report difficulties obtaining new equipment from manufacturers. This tendency will be accelerated by the continued transition toward homebased care, as well as healthcare labour shortages and related tiredness among current professionals. Another beneficial outcome of this excess is projected to be developments in remote monitoring technology, such as ResMed's cloud-based Airview platform. We predict the ventilator market to grow 400% by 2020, reaching $4 billion in sales in Europe and the United States combined. However, the sustainability of this growth will need a reconsideration of inventive leasing arrangements, the incorporation of remote monitoring and control into modern designs, and the use of analytics to usher in a new age of development in an otherwise mature and slow market. 4. Prediction 4: Informatics and artificial intelligence will handle process automation and operational analytics: The radiology department had a calmer first and second quarter overall. According to Frost & Sullivan estimates, there has been a 50% to 70% decrease in elective operations for cancer, cardiology, neurology, and general radiology, resulting in a revenue gap of $25 billion to $30 billion in imaging services alone. Nonetheless, with early indications of a return to normality, the pent-up demand for elective treatments is expected to rise in the coming quarters. On current trends, radiology, which now serves at a capacity of 25% to 30%, is predicted to reach a capacity of 65–75% by the fourth quarter of 2020. This much-needed uptick would normally have been hampered by the present old equipment fleet and technological obsolescence in installed bases, but new infrastructure investments in teleradiology and AI as part of the COVID-19 stimulus packages will bring the predicted boom to actuality. This next-generation imaging equipment fleet will not only answer previous concerns regarding total cost of ownership and productivity benefits, but it will also increase workflow efficiency by 40% to 50%. As a consequence, it is expected that teleradiology and AI would increase at double the rate of the third and fourth quarters of 2019, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in imaging revenue in the second half of 2020. 5. Prediction 5: Virtual consultations by HCPs will increase by more than 100 percent in the United States:

The telehealth business gained a boost when Europe and the United States passed sad milestones in terms of the number of people impacted by COVID-19. According to Frost & Sullivan, income from virtual visits will climb by 124.3 percent in the United States alone by 2020, which is the largest telehealth market and the greatest COVID19 hotspot. However, this expansion is putting current network infrastructures and models to the test; the Wall Street Journal claimed that the wait time for a virtual visit is already 22 hours. While there is an obvious and immediate need to scale up, a number of variables are causing an active shift towards the approaching age of teleconsultations. Governments are pushing hard to standardise the use of telehealth technologies, with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) introducing 80 new telehealth services and Swedish telehealth company LIVI establishing the first UK national standards for NHS general practitioners. Similarly, the commercial sector, such as Teladoc, has sought to develop telehealth capabilities into robots and virtual assistants that will aid healthcare staff. Despite the fact that the trigger is transient, we are certain that telehealth will become the new normal. Aggressive doctor onboarding, quick scaleup by vendors such as Amwell and Zipnosis, and worldwide development of payment and regulatory models will guarantee that telehealth becomes the new standard of care for the mental health, chronic diseases, and dermatological sectors. The World Health Assembly urged Member States in its eHealth resolution WHA58.28 in 2005 to "consider developing a long-term strategic plan for developing and implementing eHealth services... to develop the infrastructure for information and communication technologies for health...to promote equitable, affordable, and universal access to their benefits." Countries and stakeholders were urged to focus their efforts on developing a consistent eHealth vision that is aligned with their country's health priorities and resources, developing an action plan to deliver the proposed vision, and developing a framework for monitoring and evaluating eHealth implementation and progress. Such plans and policies have been created by more than 120 Member States, including low- and middleincome nations. The World Health Assembly passed Resolution WHA66.24 on eHealth standardisation and interoperability in 2013,

urging Member States to "consider creating... policies and legal instruments related to an overarching national eHealth strategy." Drawing on these resolutions and recognising the need to strengthen digital health implementation, the Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA71.7 on digital health in May 2018, directing the Director-General to "develop... in close consultation with Member States and with input from relevant stakeholders... a global strategy on digital health, identifying priority areas including where WHO should focus its efforts." The plan was created as a result of a collaborative process that began in March 2019 and includes discussions in online public forums, technical consultations, meetings of WHO regional committees, and the Executive Board during its 146th session1. The Seventy-third World Health Assembly approved the global digital health plan 2020–2025 in resolution WHA73(28) (2020). The global digital health plan is based on resolutions passed by the United Nations General Assembly and the World Health Assembly. WHA58.28 (2005), WHA66.24 (2013), WHA69.24 (2016), and WHA71.7 (2018); various regional committee decisions include EM/RC53/R.10 (2006), AFR/RC56/R8 (2006), AFR/RC60/R3 (2010), CD51. R5 (2011), AFR/RC63/R5 (2013), and WPR/RC69/8 (2018). 5 reports, 4 regional strategies, the two-part ISO Technical Committee on Health Informatics report on eHealth architecture, the resolution on ICD-11 and the WHO Family of international classifications and terminologies, the three-part National eHealth strategy toolkit, Member States' current digital health situation and status, actions, strategies, policies, and investments, and recommendations of various United Nations panels on digital and innovation topics. According to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development1, the development of information and communications technology, as well as global interconnection, has the potential to accelerate human progress, bridge the digital divide, and establish knowledge societies. The outcome document of the United Nations General Assembly's high-level meeting on the overall review of the implementation of the World Summit on the Information Society (New York, 15–16 December 2015) highlighted technology-enabled breakthroughs in government in the provision of health care, with greater numbers of

people having access to services and data that were previously out of reach or unaffordable. The attending ministers and heads of delegation pledged to leveraging the potential of information and communications technologies to fulfil the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, stressing that they might accelerate progress across the health-related SDGs. Underscoring the critical role of the private sector, civil society, and technical communities in information and communication technologies, the United Nations General Assembly in resolution 73/218 (2019) "encourages strengthened and continuing cooperation between and among stakeholders from both developed and developing countries," and encourages WHO to contribute to the outcomes of the World Summit on the Infectious Diseases within its respective mandate and strategic plan. With the recognition that information and communications technologies present new opportunities and challenges for achieving all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, there is growing consensus in the global health community that the strategic and innovative use of digital and cuttingedge information and communications technologies will be an essential enabling factor in ensuring that 1 billion more people benefit from universal health coverage. The digital transformation of health care can be disruptive; however, technologies such as the Internet of Things, virtual care, remote monitoring, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, blockchain, smart wearables, platforms, tools enabling data exchange and storage, and tools enabling remote data capture and data exchange and storage across the health ecosystem creating a continuum of care have proven potential to improve health outcomes. Despite significant progress made by some countries, many countries still require institutional support for the development and consolidation of national eHealth and/or digital health strategies, as well as the implementation of action plans, which typically necessitates more resources and capabilities. The global digital health plan will improve and supplement the work of current and newly established digital health networks. In resolution WHA71.7, the Health Assembly also asked the DirectorGeneral to give normative guidelines in digital health, including "through the promotion of evidence-based digital health treatments." Following that, WHO published a guideline with ten evidence-based

recommendations on digital interventions for health system strengthening. Digital health should be an integrated component of health priorities, benefiting individuals in ways that are ethical, safe, secure, dependable, equitable, and long-term. It should be built with transparency, accessibility, scalability, replicability, interoperability, privacy, security, and confidentiality in mind. The global strategy's vision is to improve health for everyone, everywhere by accelerating the development and adoption of personcentric digital health solutions to prevent, detect, and respond to epidemics and pandemics, developing infrastructure and applications that enable countries to use health data to promote health and wellbeing, and achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Digital health will be valued and adopted if it: is accessible and supports equitable and universal access to quality health services; improves the efficiency and sustainability of health systems in providing quality, affordable, and equitable care; and strengthens and scales up health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, management, rehabilitation, and palliative care, including before, during, and after an epidemic or pandemic, in a system that respects the rights of patients. The vision also aims to improve research and development, innovation, and cross-sector cooperation. It recognises that digital health has the potential to significantly improve health outcomes if sufficient investment is made in governance, institutional, and workforce capacity to enable the changes in digital systems and data use training, planning, and management that are required as health systems and services become more digitised. Digital health may increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of care with this critical investment in people and processes, in accordance with national objectives that set out a vision for the digitization of the health sector, allowing for new business models in service delivery. Implementing proper digital health technology is a critical component of a national plan, but it may be challenging, particularly in low- and middle-income nations. Exploring the potential of global solutions and shared services should be considered as part of Member States' national health strategies, while also generating evidence on the implications of applying these global solutions in health systems in vastly different country contexts for access, cost, quality, safety, and

sustainability. The goal of this worldwide strategy is to enhance health systems by using digital health technology for consumers, health professionals, health care providers, and industry in order to empower patients and achieve the vision of health for all. The plan is intended to be purposefit and applicable to all Member States, especially those with restricted access to digital technology, commodities, and services. The term "digital health" is defined in the context of this global plan as "the area of research and practise related with the creation and use of digital technology to promote health." This concept includes eHealth, as used in the Director-report, General's as acknowledged by the Executive Board. 1 Digital health broadens the notion of eHealth to encompass digital users, as well as a broader spectrum of smart and connected equipment. It also includes other digital health applications such as the Internet of Things, advanced computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence (including machine learning), and robots. The worldwide digital strategy stresses the classification of health data as sensitive personal data, or personally identifiable information, requiring a high level of safety and security. As a result, it emphasises the importance of a strong legal and regulatory foundation to protect privacy, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data, as well as the processing of personal health data, as well as to deal with cybersecurity, trust building, accountability and governance, ethics, equity, capacity building, and literacy, ensuring that good quality data are collected and then shared to support service planning, commissioning, and transformation. It is critical to retain openness and communicate properly about data security procedures. The global strategy aims to foster a shared understanding among all Member States of the importance of digital health solutions, as well as a strategy for developing an interoperable digital health ecosystem, which is defined as a digital interoperable information technology infrastructure primarily used by the health care community across all care settings, particularly by health care providers. Sharing health data in the context of a person-centric digital health ecosystem and for the public good should be promoted with the patient's agreement, when done in a way that builds confidence, protects patient privacy, secures digital systems, and safeguards

against malicious or inappropriate usage. Such collaboration is critical because it may help to improve the quality of processes, the results of health services, and the continuity of care for patients (primary use of health data). It may also lead to the creation of a knowledge base that is capable of interacting with other data systems, such as data on socioeconomic determinants of health and registries. Secondary use of health data is critical for improving health-care quality and research efficacy. It might allow for the testing, validation, and benchmarking of artificial intelligence systems and big data analytics across numerous factors and situations, as well as patient continuity of care (main use of health data). It also leads to the creation of a knowledge base, which should be able to communicate with other data systems, registries, and so on. Secondary usage of health data, together with adequate dataset de-anonymization, would allow for ethically regulated testing, verifying, and benchmarking of artificial intelligence systems and big data studies across diverse parameters and situations. When it comes to digitalization in health care, the additional work resulting from WHO's global strategy as a normative institution will provide guidance and orientation to public policymakers in Member States for their populations and health care providers, the health care industry and manufacturers, investors, and procurement authorities. The four guiding principles seek to steer the global strategy toward the proper and long-term deployment of digital health technology within the framework of national health sector and health policies and they are: 1. Recognize that governments must make a choice and commit to incorporating digital health into their national health systems. The global strategy recognises that each country is responsible for its own digital health action plan based on the strategy, within its own national context. Countries will implement digital health in a manner that is sustainable, respects their sovereignty, and best meets their culture and values, national health policy, vision, objectives, health and wellbeing requirements, and available resources as they work toward the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. 2. Recognize that effective digital health efforts need a comprehensive

approach .Digital technology are a necessary component and facilitator of long-term health systems and universal health care. To realise their full potential, digital health initiatives must be integrated into the larger health needs and the digital health ecosystem, and they must be guided by a solid strategy that integrates leadership, financial, organisational, human, and technological resources and serves as the foundation for a costed action plan that allows coordination among multiple stakeholders. These projects must be guided by solid governance mechanisms. The plan should address a method for integrating numerous health goals that is supported by standards and an architecture that allows for this integration. A historical assessment reveals that poorly planned or disjointed digital health projects result in vertical or stand-alone information and communications technology solutions that, although well-intended, often result in information fragmentation and, as a consequence, poor service delivery. 3. Encourage the proper use of digital technology for health. The worldwide plan encourages the responsible use of digital technologies as digital public goods that are adaptable to diverse nations and circumstances to assist in addressing important health system concerns and promoting equality in access to digital resources so that no one is left behind. Within the framework established by international treaties binding the Member States, it promotes the protection of people, populations, health care professionals, and systems against misinformation and information misuse, malicious cyber activities, fraud and exploitation, inappropriate use of health data, racism, and human rights violations. As digital health grows more common, "digital determinants of health" such as literacy in information and communication technology and access to equipment, broadband, and the internet become increasingly relevant. The global plan highlights the need of embedding digital foundations inside national policies, as well as the necessity to collaborate with various sectors and stakeholders at all levels. As a cornerstone of health information exchange in a connected society, the worldwide plan encourages syntactic and semantic interoperability with WHO norms and standards. Health promotion and disease prevention, patient safety, ethics, interoperability, intellectual property, data security (confidentiality, integrity, and availability), privacy, cost-effectiveness,

patient participation, and affordability are all factors to consider while using digital health. It should be people-centered, trustworthy, evidence-based, effective, efficient, long-term, inclusive, equitable, and contextualised. The expanding worldwide problem of digital waste's impact on health and the environment must also be addressed. 4. Recognize the critical need to solve the significant challenges that least-developed nations confront when using digital health technology. There is an urgent need to invest in efforts to overcome the major impediments that developing countries face in engaging with and accessing new digital health technologies, such as an appropriate enabling environment, sufficient resources, infrastructure to support the digital transformation, education, human capacity, financial investment, and internet connectivity, as well as issues related to legacy infrastructure, technology ownership, privacy, security, and a lack of a digital health workforce. The four strategic goals are designed to give direction and coordination on global digital health transformation, as well as to develop synergies between projects and stakeholders in order to improve health outcomes and eliminate related risks at all levels and they are: i. Encourage worldwide cooperation and knowledge sharing in digital health: This strategic objective seeks to align countries and stakeholders in order to collectively act on global opportunities to improve health and work toward universal health coverage, while also meeting challenges, identifying and communicating risks, and focusing on threats associated with the use of digital technologies to improve health and enable universal health coverage, which is at the heart of the healthrelated Sustainable Development Goals. This goal promotes action on shared opportunities and problems that affect all nations and stakeholders, regardless of their circumstances. Increase the effect of current and future collaborations and partnerships in the larger digital health ecosystem. Because knowledge of and investments in digital health design and execution are shared across domains, this strategic goal strives to increase collaborations and partnerships with other

United Nations organisations, governments, and other stakeholders, as well as to help develop new ones. Evaluate and promote the most up-to-date, relevant, and innovative health technology. New and sophisticated health care services and solutions are being developed through pioneering health technology. This sub-objective contributes to ensuring that the quality and outcomes of innovative health technologies are evaluated in order for them to be adopted and promoted in a timely manner. To assure the investment, sustainability, quality, security, and safety of both digital health goods and cuttingedge health technologies that are not only utilised in health care but may also be directly sold to people, norms, standards, laws, and regulations are required. Policy alternatives and actions The following policy alternatives and measures are suggested: 1) co-develop the global digital health strategy and build mechanisms for enhancing national digital health plans and executing important partnerships on agreed-upon acceptable use of digital technology to accomplish national health and well-being objectives; 2) Develop a knowledge management strategy to discover and share excellent practises, information about the application of new methods and approaches, evidence, and lessons learned in digital health across nations and worldwide communities. 3) Assist nations in developing disease monitoring information centres in order to oversee and execute prompt decisions during epidemics and other public health crises. 4) Align countries and stakeholders to address global, regional, and national challenges and opportunities collectively; identify, manage, and communicate risks; and mitigate threats associated with the use of digital technologies to improve health and enable universal health coverage, which is at the heart of the health-related SDGs. Outputs The following outcomes are planned: 1) Digital health is prioritised and integrated into health systems at the global, regional, and national levels through dedicated bodies and governance mechanisms;

2) multistakeholder groups are convened on a regular basis to support the appropriate use and scaling up of digital health and innovation in order to accelerate progress toward the health-related SDGs; ii.Implementation of national digital health strategy should be accelerated: Strategic goal 2 is to encourage and support each country in developing, adapting, and strengthening its digital health strategy in accordance with its vision, national context, health status and trends, available resources, and fundamental values. Strategic objective promotes the development of a national digital health strategy through an all-inclusive multistakeholder approach that includes actors collaborating within communities of practice and takes into account the following core components: (1) leadership and governance; (2) investment and operations; (3) services and applications for scaling up; (4) integration and sustainability, while (5) standards and interoperability are respected; and (6) a flea market. These should all be established while ensuring the essential alignment of national stakeholders in order to meet requirements and expectations with available resources. The strategic goal is to create cross-sectoral collaborations at the national level in order to coordinate resources and investments to guarantee the long-term viability and expansion of digital health. The goal also attempts to collaborate with current digital health partnerships in order to promote global digital health activities. Creating national partnerships to ensure the long-term viability of digital health advancements would hasten their adoption by Member States. Although each country is expected to review or develop and own its strategy from inception to implementation, this strategic objective aims to strengthen the commitment and systematic engagement of all stakeholders in each country in order to build human and institutional capacity for the safe and appropriate use and scale-up of digital health. The goal underlies the promotion of innovative digital technology integration into health-care systems. Policy alternatives and actions The following policy alternatives and measures are suggested: 1) Encourage and support each country to adopt or revise, own, and strengthen its national digital health strategy in a way that increases

country maturity in digital health in order to achieve positive health outcomes in accordance with national health plans, updated norms and standards recommendations, and universal health coverage. 2) Ensure that institutions, decision-makers, and people involved in the delivery of health-care services, as well as all end-user communities and beneficiary groups, are sufficiently included in the design and development stages. 3) Facilitate the systematic participation of all key stakeholders in the fulfilment of the vision and its strategic goals as part of a national integrated digital health ecosystem. 4) Develop a national digital health architecture blueprint or road map, adopt open-source health data standards, and strive for reusable systems or assets, including interoperability of health information systems at the national and international levels, in order to establish an innovative integration of different digital technologies using shared services, while ensuring data quality is good and comparable. 5) Adopt legal and ethical frameworks to ensure patient safety, data security, responsible use and ownership of health data, privacy data recoverability, and intellectual property rights protection. 6) Identify and encourage long-term finance methods to support digital health development and learning exchange in order to influence future goods and services. This is especially important in artificial intelligence, which includes machine learning, implementation, integration, and maintenance, as well as economic incentives; 7) design, implement, and monitor a change management plan to support conducive organisational behaviour in the context of newly digitised health processes and practises. Outputs The following outcomes are planned: 1) a national digital health strategy or equivalent strategic framework exists, is integrated into the national health strategy, and is actively used to guide development and accelerate progress toward the health-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals and in the context of digital transformation of health systems; 2) a dynamic digital health maturity model assessment is made in

support of national investment in digital health. iii.Enhance digital health governance at the global, regional, and national levels: This strategic goal focuses on enhancing digital health governance at the national and international levels by developing durable and rigorous governance structures and increasing digital health capabilities at the global and national levels. The goal of digital health governance is to increase nations' competencies and skills in order for them to promote, develop, and scale up digital health technology. It also intends to increase measurement and monitoring of digital health in the health sector, as well as research into its implementation. The research agenda should address the need to enhance and share evidence and information on digital health usage at all levels. Research and evaluation of digital health outcomes and effect are critical for ensuring safe implementation, establishing and promoting accountability, and justifying financial investment. The agenda should also address the need to foster the creation and testing of technologies, processes, and infrastructures that overcome barriers to applying digital health to health priorities. This agenda is directly related to research team capacity growth, as well as the improvement and sharing of methodologies and data analytics. Policy alternatives and actions The following policy alternatives and measures are suggested: 1) strengthen digital health governance at the national and international levels by leveraging existing structures and, as appropriate, creating sustainable and robust governance structures, including regulatory frameworks, and the capacity for the global and national implementation of evidence-based and proven digital health solutions; 2) Coordination of investments in evidence-based techniques to evaluate, promote, and distribute new and innovative health technologies for national scaled digital health programmes utilising a person-centered approach to support actions and investments based on informed judgments; 3) Encourage and enable the inclusion of digital health competences

in the education and training curriculum of all health professionals and related employees. 4) Encourage leaders of public health authorities, linked agencies, and policymakers to improve capacity so that they can make informed choices to support digital health initiatives. iv. This strategic goal promotes digital health knowledge, gender equality, and women's empowerment, as well as inclusive approaches to digital health technology use and administration: Through the adoption and use of digital health technology in scaling up and enhancing health care delivery, the strategic goal puts individuals at the centre of digital health. Individuals play a critical role in the delivery of person-centered, trust-based care. This emphasis includes not just patients, families, and communities, but also health professionals who must be prepared to adopt or utilise digital health technology in their job. Workforce assessment is part of capacitybuilding planning, which includes specialists in information and communication technology as well as health workers who provide care. Capacity-building, by definition multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, entails instilling capabilities, attitudes, and skills ranging from computer sciences, strategic planning, finance, and management to health sciences and care delivery, depending on the digital health application and its context. The workforce assessment should also address the consequences for the health labour market of implementing and managing digital technology. This goal would require governments to shift away from present disease-focused systems and toward an integrated strategy that places the patient at the centre. Digital health attitudes, habits, and public awareness should all be addressed. Improving digital health literacy at the population level, engaging patients, families, and communities, and educating patients about health are all possible measures. Better reacting to social and commercial determinants of health in order to enhance digital health-enabled health systems would need the participation of civil society, as well as non-health sectors and players. Another measure to explore is expanding knowledge of and access to evidence-based self-management tools. Policy alternatives and actions

The following policy alternatives and measures are suggested: 1) Put people at the centre of digital health by encouraging acceptable health data ownership, the acceptance and use of digital health tools, and the development of appropriate literacy; the emphasis will include not just patients, families, and communities, but also health personnel. 2) create approaches to population health management through digital health applications that shift health and well-being from reactive-care models to active community-based models, and reduce the burden of data collection from front-line workers by reorienting reporting-based tools into service delivery tools; 3) Develop monitoring and evaluation models to aid in tracking the contribution of digital systems to health system operations, health workforce processes, and individual and community health requirements. 4) Improve gender equality and health equity initiatives, as well as accessibility for individuals with impairments, in order to foster an inclusive digital society with improved digital health skills. When designing and prioritising digital health treatments, relevant determinants of inequality should be reviewed to ensure that the introduction of digital health technology does not exacerbate them ("do no harm") and that access is assured for specified demographic groups. Furthermore, the unique potential of digital technology to improve health equity should be capitalised on. When correctly designed, digital solutions may push inclusion since digital connection can overcome physical obstacles. 5) Put in place tools for more public engagement and openness in national and international digital health decision-making processes, such as international consultation procedures or stakeholder forums. 6) Create digital health training or MOOCs to promote digital health literacy. Outputs The following outcomes are planned: 1) Improved digital health literacy in the use and comprehension of digital health technology and systems, as well as health data, is emphasised, and verified tools are available to all populations.

2) a framework allowing individual feedback in validating the performance of digital health tools and services is implemented and used; 3) global minimum health data standards for prioritised digital health technologies and processes are established, adopted, and applied at the national level; 4) global personalised medicine guidance is developed. The global digital health strategy intends to assist and react to nations' rising requirements to deploy suitable digital technologies in line with local health goals, as well as to achieve progress toward universal health coverage and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. It also addresses the goals of WHO's Thirteenth General Programme of Work (2019–2023). To put the global plan into action, the Secretariat will collaborate closely with Member States, other United Nations entities, international partners, and other stakeholders. The strategic goals are meant to be carried forward by diverse stakeholders at the national, regional, and global levels. These stakeholders primarily include, but are not limited to, intergovernmental and international organisations; non-State actors such as nongovernmental and civil society organisations, donors and aid agencies, foundations and development banks; universities and research institutions; faith-based organisations, health insurance groups, and other health care funders; the private sector; technology developers; and the health care community, specifically health care professionals. Specific efforts for the years 2020–2025 need a timeline with milestones. The milestones should specify initiatives on which Member States, the Secretariat, and stakeholders may all agree to promote national goals for digital health development. One of the first milestones will be the creation of a core set of quantitative process indicators connected to the action plan's goals. These will be used to track development and contribute to accountability. They would primarily concentrate on Member States' and the Secretariat's actions. Financing for global plan execution will need unique resource mobilisation. This entails developing investment strategies to allow for new capital expenditures, focusing on national measures for digital health governance, adaptation of clinical and public health norms,

guidelines, and standards, health information systems architecture, capacity-building, and determining the best way to satisfy requirements, as well as reprogramming existing funds for maintenance and periodic updating of operating environments. Prioritizing the policy aspects necessary and implementing planned measures to provide results and projected health outcomes will be critical, all dependent on available resources and current restrictions. The Secretariat will seek funding to begin support for the activities outlined in the global strategy, such as the creation of a dedicated department for digital health and innovation, as well as digital health coordination across all departments and the three Global strategy on digital health 2020-2025. The ways to executing the global plan for digital health will be determined by each country's specific context, national goals for health and well-being, as well as digital infrastructure and workforce requirements and capability. Not all policy alternatives and actions are relevant, essential, or urgently required. Each Member State should assess its own health goals, existing digital health status, planned or desired future digital health state, resource restrictions, capacity limitations, hazards, and other important considerations. All recommended policy choices and activities listed in the action plan may differ based on the amount of digital health maturity a nation envisions for planning, development, and implementation reasons. Member States are encouraged to assess their health development context and identify the most appropriate, strategic, cost-effective, and optimal policies and actions that will have the greatest impact on improving health and achieving universal health coverage, as well as other goals and national policy objectives. The Secretariat and WHO's partners will continue to adapt and alter their assistance to suit the needs of Member States, while also ensuring that digital health requirements are included into the creation of norms and standards products. The timing for delivering the result, output, and policy choices and actions will differ depending on the national situation. The Secretariat will report to the World Health Assembly in 2023 on the status of the global strategy's implementation. The appendix details the recommended short-term (1–2 years), medium-term (2–4 years), and long-term (more than 4 years) measures required by Member

States, the Secretariat, and stakeholders to achieve the global digital health plan. The information technology health infrastructure to be used within an interoperable digital health ecosystem will be based on commonly agreed-upon use cases in the public health-care sector, and its functional requirements, as well as a set of functional and technical specifications, standards, and profiles derived from them, must be established on a solid legal and regulatory framework that guarantees data protection, confidentiality, and integrity of personal health data, and symbiotic relationships. Because of its sensitivity, health data should be regarded as sensitive personal data that requires a high level of safety and security. As part of the WHO guideline on global interoperability standards for digital health, Member States will agree a common set of basic legal criteria that will serve as the foundation for guidance for a national legal and regulatory framework. People's access to and processing of their health data should be ensured by establishing a suitable legal basis that covers the right to access health data, the right to transparent information, and people's consent for the processing of their health data, as well as accountability and effective audit and control mechanisms. Appropriate steps should be implemented, depending on national or regional data protection rules, to prevent unauthorised or illegal processing of health data, unintentional loss, malicious or unintended modification, or destruction of data. From a legal and organisational standpoint, all health care providers, health service providers, patients, and any other parties involved in an interoperable digital health ecosystem must go through a strong and reliable digital identification, authentication, and authorization mechanism that ensures trust in the exchange of health data and aligns with nationally appropriate means. Notified national electronic identifications will be considered. Member States will collaborate on a worldwide coordinated approach to the economics of health data usage, with a focus on health data collected and shared by the public sector or by individuals. The difference between populations and areas that have access to contemporary information and communications technology and those who do not or have limited access is referred to as the digital divide. Telephones, televisions, personal computers, and the Internet are

examples of this technology. The digital hospital delivers services both within and beyond the hospital walls, transitioning from facility-based care delivery to a smart virtual network of care centred on the patient and incorporated in the health continuum. ICD11:-The International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision, along with the other members of the WHO Family of Classifications and Terminologies (WHOFIC), promotes semantic interoperability in all relevant areas of health information for clinical documentation as well as statistics, at an individual level, for research and public health, and across time and settings. Diseases, injuries, medications, tumours, accidents, safety, gadgets, anatomy, infectious agents, interventions, functioning, and other topics are covered. In addition to conventional statistics, the digital format and degree of granularity allow big data and processing for decision support. Digital Healthcare challenges are: 1. Change Resistance: One of the most perplexing issues you'll confront is reluctance to change. You should approach change as a team with hope. We've all heard that it's easier said than done! It is your role as a healthcare business executive to spearhead digital transformation activities. You may build a unified organisational infrastructure that will assist you in navigating change. You may aim to make adjustments as seamlessly as possible. It is usually a good idea to encourage everyone to share their thoughts and contribute to the development of new initiatives. Active engagement is quite beneficial. 2. Determine Your Company's Requirements: Take a minute to consider why digital transformation is vital for your healthcare organisation. It is easier to get everyone on board when you have a compelling tale. Make certain that the storey has been well studied. You may run polls, reach out to various stakeholders, and research your competition. The insights will aid in the development of a good business case presentation. The belief is that the more engrossing your tale, the more enthused your staff will be. 3. Inadequate Data or ROI: Data is at the core of your company's operations. Stakeholders, on the

other hand, may question your reasoning for a digital transformation owing to a lack of data or ROI. Many healthcare businesses continue to struggle with data consolidation and insight extraction. Key performance indicators (KPIs) may also be segregated within each department. Such disconnects might provide an inaccurate image of your company's health. Most of the time, there is a lack of a solid plan in place. It will be difficult to keep ahead of the competition unless such issues are resolved. 4.Concerns about the budget: You and your team must be able to perceive the benefits that digital transformation brings. You might begin by calculating the money generated by the value you produce. Consider tactics that will provide you with greater revenue, profit, and scalability than your current strategy. You should also make a list of inefficient procedures. Consider how much money is lost as a result of such procedures. It should be simple to position your data once you have it in place. 5. Technology Stack Is Siloed: Organizations seldom function effectively with a segregated technology stack. What impact does this have on you? It has an impact on the patient's experience. You may also see it percolating to internal departmental communication. When considering digital transformation, keep in mind that it works best when the DNA of your firm is transformed. You can improve health-care opportunities with excellent leadership. What is the most strategic move you can make? The solution is straightforward. You must prioritise your company goals and values and structure them to efficiently fulfil the demands of patients. The goal of enhanced processes is to better serve patients. Improving your healthcare services, procedures, and systems is the best option. Some more barriers /challenges are: i)Liability to experiment quickly ii)insufficient budget iii)Risk averse culture iv)Legacy Systems v)Inability to work across silos

vi)Inadequate collaboration between IT and lines of business vii)Lack of talent or skills required viii)Cybersecurity ix)Lack of a corporate vision of digital x) Lack of change management capabilities "There is an underlying requirement for firms to be flexible and responsive, to understand corporate needs, and to produce solutions rapidly," said Uniyal, Infosys Agile leader. "Agile and DevOps empower businesses." "Agile and DevOps help businesses to outperform their competition by rapidly testing, verifying concepts, and scaling cutting-edge solutions." They provide for better flexibility and productivity. DevOps assists by automating the Agile software development process, allowing businesses to launch new features almost continuously." Visionary health care organisations who are farther advanced in their digital transformation journey have the best capacity to deploy Agile initiatives at scale. They have completely embraced an Agile mentality as well as Agile methods. Their IT development and operational teams work closely together to meet business goals. Their IT teams provide outcomes quickly enough for these legacy organisations to remain competitive and compete with digital native rivals. Such visionaries are also likely to have a strong, dependable DevOps infrastructure that supports their whole organisation. While health care organisations progress in that direction, they must also consider tighter regulatory requirements. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) in the United States and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe both increase the stakes for data security. There are two major roadblocks preventing health care organisations from making further progress with Agile and DevOps. One significant organisational difficulty is altering the culture to guarantee that business and IT collaborate from the outset. According to our data, over 80% of development initiatives are IT-led and IT-sponsored, with no early engagement of business stakeholders. Companies that can adapt their culture and mentality to guarantee early business and IT cooperation will significantly boost their chances of success with Agile and DevOps. Aside from cultural transformation, the health care

business must ensure that its staff are taught in new methods of functioning. This retraining must be extended across the company to ensure that all stakeholders grasp these new methods of functioning. While our survey results reveal that many businesses are confident – maybe overconfident – in their ability to manage fast experimentation, the fact is that Agile and DevOps methodologies are difficult to learn. Even firms that claim to have agile, flexible teams may yet use the same old organised, inflexible waterfall development methodologies inside those teams. Companies may take tangible initiatives to increase their Agile and DevOps expertise. By deploying Agile on a distributed basis, businesses may work faster and expand faster while meeting the expectations of global markets. "Companies must become more dynamic and agile," Uniyal said. "In order to respond quicker to changing markets and generate better goods and services, businesses must cultivate a culture of rapid experimentation, rapid development, prototyping, and validation." To do so, businesses must be able to see their end-to-end value chain. This is a significant difficulty in legacy firms when the value chain is likely to be fragmented. The easiest method to solve this problem is to apply Lean." Despite the fact that many health care firms compete in a worldwide economy and have access to an expanding spectrum of collaboration and communication capabilities, distance complicates any undertaking or project. Proximity, on the other hand, improves cooperation and may help reduce physical obstacles to success in product and IT development initiatives. "Value creation comes when organisations put end-to-end teams together in proximity," said Deverre Lierman, head of the Infosys Raleigh Technology Hub. "Companies should intentionally arrange their ecosystems and choose their partners with the goal of maximising creativity, speed, and responsiveness." The trick is to leverage on the advantages of high-quality, low-cost sites without compromising the benefits of proximity. Visionaries strike a mix between global delivery centres and local innovation centres." These hubs might be internal or include external strategic partners. Boston Children's Hospital collaborates with a number of institutions, including Harvard Medical School and connected device manufacturer Withing’s, to finance and promote paediatric innovation. According to

our research, visionaries are more likely than observers or explorers to have established finely calibrated strategies for grouping personnel in areas that balance cost with closeness to partners and customers. Even the most forward-thinking health-care businesses rely on the contributions and efficiency of remote development teams. Visionaries provide these teams with effective collaboration tools and put in place criteria to monitor the quality of work delivered by these remote teams. Visionaries, to the degree that they depend on global development centres, also invest in infrastructure and processes to mitigate the effect of distance. Simultaneously, visionaries know that there is no alternative for physical closeness and are eager to develop wellstaffed technology and innovation centres near key partners or clients. As a result, Infosys is developing six new technology and innovation centres in the United States, staffing them with 10,000 American people to service its clients there. Such closeness is particularly beneficial when working on efforts impacting the consumer experience, such as product development, content personalisation, and augmented reality. Companies that want to maximise the advantages of proximity should situate their technology and innovation centres near end users (i.e., customers) and in locations that have intrinsic attraction for the talent that the firm wants to recruit and retain. Locations near top colleges are particularly appealing since such institutions may offer a pipeline of individuals for recruiting as well as an environment for nurturing innovative ideas. At all phases of digital transformation, health care organisations should seek to develop a culture that attracts talent. According to our study, workers prefer to work in a collaborative and collegial atmosphere where they can concentrate on producing results rather than spending time waging turf wars. According to Infosys study, visionaries are more likely to develop partnerships because they have the process and governance maturity required to build and successfully manage them. Companies that invest in design and data management are more likely to provide API interfaces with other services for the same reason. Visionaries have also built collaborations and appreciate the multifaceted worth of a strong partnership, so they are more willing to explore and form new partnerships when possibilities emerge. The digital triumphs of health

care visionaries also give them a deeper respect for the particular skills that partners bring to the table. When it comes to the huge realm of technology, visionaries who have certain technical talents quickly realise that they cannot be experts at everything. Instead, they understand the need of concentrating on their core capabilities while having access to additional knowledge via mutually advantageous relationships. According to respondents, the finest partnerships are based on strong personal interactions between persons. According to our poll, health care organisations are prepared to collaborate on practically every digital transformation programme, but they are least inclined to collaborate on legacy modernization, where they presumably believe they have the in-house skills to modernise old systems on their own. Participants in the survey said that their firms were most likely to seek an external partner to lead and execute on advanced projects such as 3D printing, AR, RPA, and VR. More than one-fourth of incumbent organisations seek assistance from partners for these types of projects, which need specialised, difficult-to-recruit talent. The famed Mayo Clinic struck a collaboration deal with the U.K. startup Medicalchain last year to investigate the application of blockchain in health care. Health-care firms were more likely to choose internal leadership while collaborating with external aid for project execution on projects such as drones, cybersecurity, the internet of things, and APIs. These areas likewise need specialised skills and large resources, but in-house personnel may already have some experience in these areas and hence feel more secure in conducting such initiatives themselves. According to our study, firms located in the United States value intellectual property (IP) even more than their European and Asian counterparts. As a consequence, organisations operating in the United States opt to produce high-value innovation in-house more often. European businesses collaborate for IP in a more transactional way, but Asian firms are more amenable to partners taking leadership roles in IP production. Organ transplants are unquestionably an essential element of the healthcare business, with the global transplantation market expected to reach $26.5 billion by 2028. According to Matthew J Everly, around 2,000 heart transplants are performed in the United States each year.

However, over 50,000 individuals are predicted to need a heart transplant. What can be done to assist all of these heart disease patients? Improving organ care technologies is one way to this problem. This entails caring for the organ when it is outside of the body. Transmedics' Organ Care System, which is used by Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Centre, is a fantastic example. This gadget can retain a heart, lung, or liver outside the body for many hours by providing correct care, heat, and nourishment. It's likely that the future of this technology will rely on artificial intelligence to take action without the need for a doctor's involvement in order to sustain the organ for extended periods of time. Perhaps more crucially, machine learning may be able to better evaluate whether or not an organ under preservation is acceptable for transplantation. The sooner this is identified, the sooner a life might be saved. Other approaches, in addition to keeping organs alive outside of the body, should be investigated. Although it may seem like science fiction, 3D printed organs are a very real, though evolving, technology that has already entered clinical trials. Ears, corneas, bones, and skin are all clinically tested organs for 3D bioprinting. The procedure is not dissimilar to standard 3D printing. A computerised model of the tissue must first be generated. Because the materials utilised in the printing process are truly live cells termed bioink, the resolution and matrix structure must be carefully considered. They must next use stimulation to assess the organ's functioning. One method of preventing organ rejection is to use the cells of the patient requesting transplantation. These cells may be cultured and then developed into the bioink required for printing. Bioprinting has been attempted in the past, but it has not yet reached the mainstream. AI analysis of organs and recipient patient features may allow organs to be better tailored to be compatible with their new hosts. Supply chain digital transformation for healthcare would entail:

1.A shift to cross-functional teams Digital transformation efforts can help break down silos within organisations and power a shift to cross-functional teams. Together, they would align with a patient’s complete care episode, improve systems integration, and offer a holistic look with shared risks.

2.Adoption of cloud ERP Cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software helps ensure data integrity, improve transparency, and make well-informed supply chain decisions. All this requires accurate insights based on clean, current data.

3.Enhancements in merger and acquisition activity As medical centres and other entities go through M&A activities, high volumes of data will have to be safely and efficiently transferred. The responsibility for seamless data integration and related processes will fall on the SCM systems.

4.Strong focus on supply chain collaboration The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated the importance of collaboration. This will continue in the near future in the form of regional alliances, higher investments in data management and forecasting initiatives by suppliers and providers, heightened transparency, cost-sharing stockpile strategies, and reliance on more clinical evidence for purchase decisions.

5.Improved adoption of data standards Digital solutions will standardise many processes to support emergency response needs. That will result in increased efficiency, lowered costs, and improved patient safety. Cloud helps create a connected, scalable, and rapid supply chain, driving visibility, agility, and flexibility across the system.

Benefits of an SCM solution in healthcare 1.Ease of use Managers, care providers, operators, and others can work with greater ease and maintain standardised processes. Additionally, communication systems will be integrated to help hospitals manage workflows in both clinical and financial systems.

2.Scalability and superior service Consolidated management tools will help replicate processes in both single and multiple site locations. You can use technology to create

highly effective workflow designs, define implementation needs, and provide support before, during, and after implementation.

3.Supply chain methodologies State-of-the-art methods — such as Kanban, EOQ/ROP, ROP/ROQ, and consignment capabilities — and best practices for supply chain demands of specific departments can improve processes. The following are the top five digital health transformation goals identified by healthcare leaders: 1. Enhanced clinical operations (68 percent ) 2. fostering a data-driven culture (51 percent ) 3. upgrading their data platform (38 percent ) 4. Bringing dissimilar systems together (35 percent ) 5. Justification of IT expenses (25 percent ). Automation is at the heart of all technologies. However, in recent years, we've witnessed the growth of technology like robotic process automation, which may successfully replace people by replicating monotonous operations. Human burden in administrative processes such as claim processing and revenue cycle operations has been effectively decreased using RPA. Several RPA technology firms have been successful in deploying "digital employees" that can execute repetitive activities at a fraction of the cost of people. Such a value proposition was unsettling for both businesses and employees five years ago. Nonetheless, with the reality of workforce shortages staring us in the face, there is renewed interest in using RPA to ease the shortfall and perhaps transfer staff from more regular activities to value-added ones. While RPA has shown effectiveness in a restricted set of administrative duties, additional technologies are emerging as feasible solutions for clinical and operational domains that help alleviate the workforce shortage and minimise clinician strain. Voice recognition has grown in popularity, particularly in the last year, thanks to Microsoft's daring purchase of Nuance and Amazon's relentless expenditures in Alexa skills for home health and elder care. Conversational interfaces, such as chatbots, have also emerged as a result of the pandemic's forcing function, which necessitated an increase in screening for huge numbers of people with COVID symptoms. COVID-19 screening has perhaps been the most notable

use case for chatbots. Building on the success of early use cases, RPA, voice, and chatbot technologies are migrating upstream into core healthcare operations. Simultaneously, new technologies emerge as viable alternatives to reducing human involvement. While AI has yet to have a significant influence on clinical operations, it is progressing beyond administrative use cases to fundamental operations such as patient interaction and even marketing. One of the health systems I deal with has effectively used face recognition to identify patients during registration and check-in. In aggregate, a few minutes saved here and there via the use of technology may add up to a couple of hours saved every day for a physician, which can have a significant influence on the health system. In order for health systems to continue to innovate on their care delivery models, extend digital health, and increase organisational efficiency, the severe labour shortage is a driving force like no other today in accelerating the use of automation technology. Healthcare is a complicated and technologically rich business that is always innovating: in treatments, gadgets, care methods, and now in software. The essential issues for healthcare executives are whether these innovations are safe, effective, and bring value. The current means of resolving these concerns (clinical trials or long-term realworld investigations) are expensive and difficult to scale. In this paper, we claim that simulations, or digital models that mimic system operations or processes, may be utilised in healthcare to create and scale innovative technologies. However, in order to reap these benefits, collaboration is essential between technology businesses with access to the necessary technical skills and healthcare organisations and the people they serve. Despite the fact that the area is in its infancy and that expenditures are pricey, the advantages are substantial. We think that a health system that uses simulation in the methods described below would be not only more successful and efficient in its everyday operations, but also more responsive and safer - the golden grail for health systems throughout the world. There are two stages to creating a simulation in digital healthcare: 1. Gathering real-world data and handling trade-offs: Capturing data from the scenario or activity to be mimicked is the first

step in creating a simulation. The guiding premise is that the more realistic the simulation, the better the ultimate outcomes. Data may now be recorded via video cameras or a broad range of sensors, with specific privacy preservation technologies used as needed. The disadvantage is that the better the quality of the simulation, the more costly it will be to construct. One important design consideration for simulations is that they should be rich enough to solve the particular issue for which they will be employed, yet as inexpensive to manufacture and utilise as feasible. Simulations might employ just numerical data, or they can incorporate graphical or 3D geometric data - the kind and quantity of data required is determined by the simulation's desired conclusion. A digital twin of a machine in a factory may just need data from sensors with bands showing when the unit is acting abnormally. A simulation for a self-driving automobile would need high-resolution 3D representations of the surroundings as well as specified behavioural rules for traffic signals and the probabilistic behaviour of other cars and pedestrians. A simulation of an airborne agent spreading in an interior area would need a very realistic 3D model of the environment, as well as physical data such as air temperature and humidity, as well as somewhat intricate regulations governing the movement of the simulated humans inside this habitat. 2. Putting simulations to use in the real world: This stage entails leveraging the simulation's conclusions to enhance processes or foresee errors in the actual world, or, as previously noted, training agents that can later perform in the real world. Often, simulation data may be decorated with both uncertainty ranges and partly accessible actual data to generate output that corresponds much better to reality, resulting in agents that are more effective at predicting and operating in the real world. Recent simulation research has shown that training machine learning models on a mix of actual and simulated synthetic data may generate better results than training the model simply on a similar quantity of real data, and at a significantly lower cost. This is because synthetic data may be carefully built up to optimise the model's learning on edge instances or in situations when it is difficult to collect actual data that is sufficiently varied.

In healthcare, simulation may bring value at three different levels: 1. To replicate processes that occur inside the body at the individual level: Computer simulations have long been utilised in chemistry. As we acquire access to more powerful computational resources, the degree of detail and precision of these simulations has increased. This is the area where simulation methods have been used the most extensively. Microfluidic simulations for the development of medical devices, for example, or molecular dynamics simulations of molecules interacting with one another. These simulations are quite computationally demanding. This restricts the number of molecules, the size of these molecules in terms of atoms, and the time period over which we may perform these simulations. We've recently witnessed how AI can allow a significant jump. Neural networks, such as AlphaFold or RoseTTAFold, use data from x-ray crystallography to estimate the tertiary structure of proteins with a high degree of certainty, potentially offering a better prediction of the effects of enzymes and drugs on metabolic processes of interest for healthcare treatments. The value of in-silico drug discovery procedures will only grow. Increased data availability, more powerful technology, and improved algorithms will allow bigger simulations in all dimensions. This, in turn, has the potential to improve preclinical drug development by making experimentation more affordable. We are still a long way from designing a medicine totally in-silico, but the quality of computational tools for preclinical drug discovery has improved dramatically over the years. 2. To model disease processes at the individual level, including the interaction between people and their environment: Chronic illnesses, which account for the bulk of disease burden in health systems worldwide, lack a definite treatment and need continuous and coordinated activity to manage - the majority of which is done by patients themselves in between contacts with the official health system. For the first time, the rise of digital health has instrumented the management of chronic illnesses on a large scale. Despite the fact that it is still early and development is uneven, data created by digital health platforms is already being utilised to

proactively detect care requirements and even automate clinical procedures. This same data, together with the previously described approaches, may be used to predict people' future health trajectories and hence forecast demand for healthcare services, allowing for better informed healthcare resource allocation. Furthermore, simulation has the potential to be used to tailor healthcare recommendations. Now that data on individuals' intermediate health states is available (via digital health platforms), it will be possible to simulate and derive ideal guidelines for an individual and use these to inform the patient's daily actions in managing their chronic conditions, as well as any reciprocal actions required from the health system. Furthermore, clinical trial simulation is an important area of innovation in the life sciences business, where the projected agility and cost savings are intriguing. However, simulated trials have a long way to go before they can be used to get regulatory clearance for a novel therapy. 3. To model processes in healthcare companies at the organisational level: Healthcare institutions, such as hospitals or clinics, may be seen as factories with the goal of co-creating health outcomes with patients. Healthcare facilities are particularly complicated factories due to the number of different health outcomes to be manufactured and the numerous ways of doing so. As a result, simulation is probably best limited to a subset of processes within a healthcare facility, such as simulating the operations of a specific clinical service line or the flow of patients and clinicians in a hospital in order to minimise wait times and maximise productivity. Simulation may even be used to simulate the movement of airborne viruses in a hospital to reduce the effect of hospital acquired diseases or future pandemics. Interesting places where digital transformation is taking place in healthcare are: 1.Increasing drug adherence 2.Individual drug dosing optimization 3.Recruiting participants for clinical trials 4.Identifying watershed moments in a patient's life 5.The use of augmented/virtual reality in medical treatment and

surgery 6.In healthcare, digital twins are being created. 7.Creating a Biotech Garage Even when business executives across sectors saw digital transformation as the magic wand for reforming their business models, healthcare organisations were worried about the hurdles associated with healthcare digitalization. Among the most significant problems are: 1.Concerns about security 2.Data security 3.Complications in technology 4.Factors of cost 5.Silos of data 6.Maintenance Fear is what has kept healthcare organisations from taking the major step toward digital transformation. To be honest, decision-makers have a lot of reservations about adopting new technology, improving old healthcare systems, or modernising their apps. To envision the massive shift, all that was needed was a thorough grasp of the digital transformation process and its considerable advantages. Healthcare firms are increasingly using cutting-edge technological solutions to improve their operational structure and provide better patient care. Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, VR, AR, and Robotics are revolutionising the healthcare business with their diverse solutions. A recent research assessing the digital maturity of six sectors found that the healthcare industry placed third in terms of overall digital maturity, since healthcare businesses often lag behind other industries in adopting business technology that aid in consumer interaction by around a decade. According to the study's authors, the strong legal requirements in healthcare have resulted in a substantial emphasis on customer data protection, frequently at the price of innovation and experimentation. In its latest report, The Digital Transformation Race Has Begun, Virtusa Corporation, a global supplier of digital engineering and IT outsourcing services, studied the digital maturity of

organisations throughout the globe. The Virtusa-commissioned survey, performed by Forrester Consulting in September 2017, assesses the level of digital transformation in six important industries: retail, banking, healthcare, insurance, telecommunications, and media. According to the findings of that research, 85 percent of firms asked stated they will raise the funding their organisation allocated for digital transformation next year, with 37 percent suggesting an increase of 10% or more. The survey was created with the help of more than 600 digital transformation decision makers in North America and Western Europe, including 101 healthcare firms, in order to investigate the level of digital maturity across six important sectors. C-level executives, vice presidents, and directors from organisations with sales ranging from $250 million to more than $1 billion were among those who responded. Respondents in the healthcare industry included payers, providers, pharmaceutical companies, and device makers. The research used a digital transformation maturity index to assess organisations' preparedness and capability in three areas: customer experience, operational excellence, and business innovation. Firms performed somewhat higher in customer experience as compared to operational excellence and business innovation in all three domains. To effectively synthesise the data from the maturity index, the research also developed five stages of digital transformation maturity that organisations may achieve - Curious, Exploring, Deploying, Thriving, and Mastering. According to the report, organisations now lie within the lower-to-middle range of the Deploying category (26.06 out of 45). According to the report, empowered, demanding consumers have more options than ever before in determining which firms will win their business and which will fall by the wayside in the era of the customer. "To stay up, companies must develop or reinvent themselves with technology at the centre, or risk losing consumers as their industries are disrupted." According to the research, "to move ahead on digital transformation, organisations must analyse their present capabilities, then chart a route forward appropriately." Furthermore, enterprises must act quickly to keep up with the rapid rate of digital development... Firms must change or be swept away in the era of the consumer." According to the report, retail beats other sectors in all three areas, establishing the bar for providing

creative, digitally-driven consumer experiences. According to the study's authors, healthcare organisations often lag behind other sectors in adopting business technology that aid in customer interaction by around a decade. This latency is partly caused by the special regulatory constraints imposed on healthcare organisations in terms of patient data. Healthcare was placed third among the six verticals in terms of total digital maturity (retail, banking, healthcare, insurance, telco, and media). Furthermore, healthcare rated second in data optimization but last in self-service, digital marketing, and readiness for innovative business models, according to the research. Healthcare organisations were ranked fourth in terms of customer experience and business innovation. According to the study, the conservative and highly regulated healthcare business puts security above patient participation. However, "in order to survive," "health firms have made gains in managing data security; many of their technological investments have been focused more on business process and record-keeping at the expense of investments that tie directly into finding new forms of customer (patient) engagement and innovation," according to the study. "The Forrester Study confirms that, while most companies are preparing to prioritise digital transformation, they still have a long way to go before achieving any kind of mastery over the multiple disciplines required to effectively innovate," said Frank Palermo, global head of digital solutions at Virtusa, in a prepared statement. "Firms preoccupied with the customer experience may generate considerable operational savings and place innovation at the centre of their unique cultures, and they will reap the biggest advantages from digital transformation." "In today's economic environment, with sectors being disrupted at every turn, organisations must be able to swiftly adapt their goods and processes to pivot and capitalise on new market possibilities," he stated. According to the findings of the survey, "increasing digital maturity will be critical to fulfilling the changing expectations of consumers in a shifting environment." UpTop Health has created a clear, systematic method to lead your company through its next digital transition. This contains the six stages listed below: 1.Vision and strategy During this first step, we determine how your

intended digital transformation fits into your entire business strategy. Following that, we define success by establishing expectations and quantifiable goals for your digital endeavour. 2.Evaluation of the organisation. Following that, we evaluate your organization's preparedness and ability to embark on a digital transformation. What is your present state of business maturity, as well as your current software and technological infrastructure? What steps must be taken to prepare your company for a successful transformation? 3.Create a road map. We undertake customer journey mapping activities and get to know all of your important internal and external stakeholders. We evaluate digital transformation possibilities based on their capacity to engage members, assist caregivers, and boost organisational efficiency. 4.Prioritization. We employ cost-benefit analysis and other prioritisation activities during this phase to zero in on a best-fit solution to fuel your digital transformation. 5.Architectural technology. It's now time to work out the technical elements of your digital transition. Which components of your current infrastructure need redecorating, remodelling, or rebuilding? And which technological solutions will support the most priority use cases? 6.Knowledge transfer. Finally, we collaborate with your team to guarantee that your altered infrastructure is appropriately accepted and maintained. To do this, we ensure that you have the proper governance framework in place to manage your team in both the short and long term. Furthermore, we counsel you on whether and how to make strategic hiring to support your new digital infrastructure. Here are a few low-hanging fruit digital marketing tactics to assist you guide your efforts during times of crisis, such as COVID-19: 1. Create COVID-19 Awareness Campaigns: Healthcare practitioners are responsible for communicating the proper messages in the most effective manner possible as the frontline fighters of the virus epidemic. Use information bars on your website to keep your visitors up to speed on the newest developments. 2. Maintain Access to All Digital Channels

Healthcare marketers must aim to eliminate friction online and encourage people to contact healthcare organisations using all accessible channels, from online chat to contact forms and conspicuous display of contact phone numbers. 3. Inform Your Visitors About Popular Myths Wrong or false information may spread quicker than a virus and, at times, be just as lethal. Use customisable website banners to inform your visitors about the current condition. 4. Increase Health Awareness and Hygiene Social tales may be used to promote health improvement programmes, cleanliness recommendations, mental health campaigns, or emergency preparedness activities in an appealing fashion. 5. Create COVID-19 Self-Evaluation Surveys Many individuals may be in a state of fear or anxiety, and hospitals, as trustees of people's general health, may reach out to them with selfassessment questionnaires and tools. This may also give significant data on what's going on in the wider community, which can be used to launch policy and health measures. 6. Use Overlays to Display Important Updates Patients may be unable to physically access your hospital, or they may be unable to reach you through standard contact lines. In such instances, it's critical to use website overlays to notify them of any policy changes, testing methods, or emergency actions, and to ensure that visitors click and interact with your updates. 7. Create Ingenious Banners to Increase Mobile App Downloads If you already have a mobile app that can manage appointments, now is the time to advertise it. You may use a smart banner on your website to drive customers to your mobile app's download page. For example, the Mayo Clinic app enables users to request appointments and check test results. Patients may get instant treatment for common ailments with only a few taps. The app's daily health news component is what makes it so beneficial to patients. Cleveland Clinic also promotes a comparable mobile app on their website.

8. Make the Most of Automated and Newer Digital Channels for COVID-19 Outreach It's time to use automated and AI-powered digital channels like chatbots and Facebook Messenger to engage visitors, gather data, and enhance patient care. These channels may be useful, especially when resources are limited and traffic is heavy. 9. Make hospital visits less appealing. Encourage non-emergency patients to schedule online consultations instead of visiting the hospital. Simply redirect clicks from your hospital locator pages and Google Map listings to your digital platforms. 10. Provide Tailored Advice for the High-Risk Group Even though COVID-19 patients are prioritised, hospitals must recognise that there may be other very vulnerable patients who need immediate treatment. Consider combining your current patient information with a customer data platform (CDP) to get a 360-degree picture of your patients. This information may then be used to identify individuals who are most susceptible and need emergency treatment or surgery. By integrating a CDP with your current CRM platform, you can provide fast and personalised solutions and guidance to your patients. 11. Use Omnichannel Marketing to promote Teleconsultation. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, hospitals are hurrying to build up telemedicine consultation services. Teleconsultation may be an efficient strategy to minimise patients visiting hospitals while ensuring their sickness is not left untreated in the majority of nonemergency medical situations. If you believe you do not currently have the ability to do so, you may use Forrester's resource guide to collaborate with a few organisations who are already doing so. 12.Encourage the use of ePharma. Using ePharma partnerships, you may provide medications, test kits, personal protection equipment, and other items to those in need. Check out our most recent blog post on how ePharma marketers may deal with the issue. 13. Find Ways to Show Your Appreciation for Your Employees

Along with reaching out to customers via digital means, hospitals must also acknowledge and appreciate healthcare employees. True interoperability extends beyond the technical aspects of information sharing; it is the capacity of two or more systems or organisations to trust one another and then utilise the information with shared responsibility. As a consequence, despite widespread adoption of EMR/EHR systems and digital health solutions, a lack of trusted digital processes has resulted in heterogeneous HIT systems and centralised health data management models. According to industry estimates, existing centralised IT solutions for health data interchange cost around 150,000 lives and $18.6 billion to health systems worldwide each year. Blockchain technology's unique qualities enable an immutable and trustworthy process with a "single source of truth" to ensure the integrity of health data interchange, reduce cybersecurity concerns, and enrich health data governance applications. Guardtime, the data-centric security business, and the Estonian eHealth Foundation have collaborated to safeguard the health information of one million Estonian people using its unique Keyless Signature Infrastructure® (KSI®). The digital signature, which is enabled by biometrics and face recognition, is already being utilised in a variety of industry categories and is comparable to a signature in its own hand. With the increased use of management systems to centralise information in the electronic medical record of patients (PEP) and the search for greater efficiency and security in the handling and storage of health information, the digital signature has become essential to securely identify the source of clinical information in order to avoid errors and fraud. Another immediate advantage of digital signatures is a decrease in the cost of printing and maintaining medical data, supporting the paperless trend as crucial in the digital transformation path. A completely networked, cognitive hospital is the smart hospital of the future. The hospital infrastructure can continually self-monitor and inform technicians about failing components, while also automatically acquiring the soon-to-fail part and tailoring the equipment's regular maintenance. The technician is then given precise contextual information and is able to repair the component before it fails. An

autonomous company is one that can forecast and respond to the continual change of status in its surroundings. With the advancement of interoperability and communication technologies, this autonomous organisation will be able to connect to other autonomous entities with built-in health monitoring systems, such as smart clinics, smart hospitals, smart cars, or any number of smart devices with built-in biometric sensors, effectively enabling healthcare decentralisation. A few assumptions must be made in order to conceive such a facility. The designers of this smart hospital have done their homework and installed the required infrastructure to gather data while ensuring data integrity. Policies and standards have been created to provide a common language for networked devices, enabling all involved parties to gather data. Data has been consolidated on a centralised platform with built-in capabilities to guarantee appropriate data governance and security. This centralised platform is readily expandable and offers proper end-user access. Workflows integrated with analytics have been created to establish data-driven business processes by using dynamic visualisations and automatic reporting systems. The creators of this smart hospital used big data, cloud computing, and machine learning to construct an artificial intelligence–based solution to improve the operational efficiency of their hospital. Data is collected from many sources and stored on the IoT platform of the smart hospital. Networked devices transmit sensor data with near-real-time information, and edge computing and analytics let physicians make quicker diagnoses and notify users of any problematic machine activities. The CMMS data provides performance and repair metrics, as well as sophisticated analytics capable of detecting failure trends in work orders. These analytics may uncover patterns in technician labour notes using natural language processing, exposing previously unconnected information. External data from other health networks and open data sets are also collected to provide a more comprehensive picture of product life cycle, failure, and performance data. Following the collection and transformation of data, as well as the use of analytics, cognitive models with autonomous functioning and self-learning capabilities are built. Meanwhile, calculations are being performed in the cloud. The smart hospital's management is able to improve operational

efficiency by having a clear view of asset and labour utilisation based on productivity efficiencies, labour accountability, and the capacity to find solutions to poor performance indicators. They may also do comparison computations between facilities, manufacturers, models, or technicians using the data. 9.3 Real Estate No business is immune to digital change, and the real estate industry is no different. In comparison to other sectors such as banking, retail, and healthcare, real estate has been a late adoption of digitalization. However, there are other instances where digital technology improve the house purchasing experience while boosting operational efficiency for real estate brokers, such as virtual tours, automated transactions, and tailored services. The use of digital technology has caused a change in the real estate business known as digital transformation. With the implementation of digital technology, real estate stakeholders such as developers, brokers, agents, investors, and managers must accept skill and cultural transformation in order to fulfil changing client needs. To stay competitive in an increasingly competitive market, real estate firms should investigate new structuring choices, enhance operational performance, and optimise portfolios to maximise ROI. Real estate firms are rapidly embracing digital technology, according to the 2019 KPMG Proptech study. In 2018, 58% of respondents have a digital strategy in place, up from 52% in 2017 and 52% in 2018. The following are the reasons why digital transformation is essential for real estate businesses: 1.Customer behaviour and expectations are shifting: The way individuals look for property is changing. Rather of paying real estate agents, many choose to do mobile or online searches. Customers are also increasingly contacting brokers online. As a result, the lack of a strong online presence means missing out on the opportunity to interact with potential buyers and sellers. 2.Changes in technology: Companies may increase their operational efficiency by using digital technologies such as automation. A growing number of PropTech firms are providing goods and services in the following areas: 1.Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR) (VR):

Virtual tours using AR technology may be utilised to view what a property might look like. For example, PropertyGuru, a Singaporebased property search website, created its first mobile showroom where they give VR goggles to explore condominiums and apartments in order to boost consumer interaction. 2.Modeling of Building Information (BIM): Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an intelligent 3D model-based approach that provides knowledge and tools to architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals to more effectively plan, design, construct, and manage buildings and infrastructure. 3.Drones: Drones may be used by real estate agents, brokers, and commercial realtors to acquire aerial photography of properties. Drones may be used in real estate for a variety of purposes, including: i)xamining all corners of the property, including difficult-to-reach regions such as the roof and crawl space sections, and so on ii)inspecting constructions mapping the property for commercial renters who want to view a structure before leasing it 4.Contracts that are smart: Smart contracts are blockchain applications that store contract terms as computer code. When all of the requirements are satisfied, the contract is triggered, and the assets are exchanged. Smart contracts eliminate the need for bank verifications and intermediaries in the real estate business. Because the real estate business includes massive transactions, smart contracts are an attractive technology that improves transaction speed, protects against fraud, and decreases costs. 5.Apps that make it easier to find a home: Being where your consumers are is critical to digital transformation. Because of the growing popularity of mobile applications, real estate companies should consider establishing mobile apps to reach out to new consumers. Buyers and property owners can get all the information they need about a property via mobile app platforms. 6.Sponsored:

Real estate companies may utilise mobile applications to deliver services to residents in addition to property search. One example is the Emaar One app, which was created by digital transformation consultancy Wow Labz. Homeowners and renters may use the app to manage their property and request home services. 7.IoT: The internet of things is a technology that utilises the internet to connect interconnected computer units embedded in everyday items. Predictive maintenance, energy efficiency, and a more comfortable lifestyle are just a few of the advantages that the Internet of Things will bring to the real estate industry. Another IoT use that boosts the value of properties is smart home devices with integrated sensors. 8.Automation: Businesses may use RPA technology to automate a variety of manual processes such as digital marketing, invoice processing, customer support, and property inspection. 9.Analytics/Big Data: Real estate is an industry that accumulates massive amounts of data about property, owners, businesses, tenants, and agents. Data analytics tools may assist real estate companies in understanding consumer categories and forecasting customer behaviour. CRM technologies are extensively used by real estate organisations to reach out to new consumers or to gather customer data for forecasting market circumstances, property purchasing, investment views, or pricing. We would welcome your participation in our survey regarding post-COVID digital transformation trends if you wish to support our research efforts, and you will be the first to know about the findings as soon as we publish them. Since 2020, the digitization of the real estate market has been projected to increase, as Covid-19 pushes a digital transformation on any company, even the more conservative sectors that have so far resisted it. Real estate has been a late adopter of digitization in compared to other sectors such as finance, retail, and healthcare. However, there are a number of cases when digital technology improves the home-buying process while increasing operational

efficiency for real estate agents. Automated apartment matching, virtual house tours, renter portals, site management, and contactless solutions for home loans, payments, and insurance services are transforming the way real estate is bought, sold, leased, and maintained. Similar trends are growing in commercial real estate, where property owners may take control of their assets via centralised dashboards that provide insights into electricity, gas, and water consumption, as well as monitor required repairs and much more. BIM (Building Information Modelling) is a smart 3D model-based method that provides architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals with the information and tools they need to more effectively plan, design, build, and manage buildings and assets. Building information modelling (BIM) is used to save money on construction projects by optimising processes, increasing communication, and promoting collaboration. BIM software benefits architects by allowing them to manage design processes, property owners and investors may use it to keep track of operations, and engineers can use it to model systems such as HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) and energy systems. Selling a home may be a time-consuming process; consider all of the work that must be put into establishing an attractive portfolio with photos that not only display the property, but also sell it. The home imagery is one of the most important parts of promoting property for rent or sale. A smaller firm may be able to get away with manually going through images and picking the finest ones for a property portfolio. When a corporation has hundreds of properties to sell, the manual method becomes excessively time consuming and mistake prone. Companies may create a digital picture library by using machine learning and neural networks to classify and categorise photographs in seconds. These tags make it simple for agencies to categorise images by room type, feature, exterior style, or any other category they need. Aside from APIs that quickly choose the best images for your portfolio, extended reality technologies are increasingly being employed in the real estate market. The usage of virtual reality home tours is a contemporary use of these technology. Buyers may get a complete home tour this way without having to physically visit the property. This proved to be a handy option for both property sellers and purchasers, particularly

during the worldwide COVID-19 epidemic. There is a fast growing number of digital solutions for those who are presently looking for a new home that substantially ease the process of searching for houses that are matched with their wants and aspirations. These apps often include a two-sided marketplace where sellers can simply put their property for sale and purchasers can conveniently browse properties based on their interests. Mortgage calculators, which frequently include the option to contact mortgage providers, are another significant piece of technology for home purchasers. These all-in-one software are becoming more popular in the real estate market, simplifying the process of looking for and purchasing a home. Aside from digital solutions for property search, there is a significant growth in the usage of smart contracts for executing lease and buy contracts. On blockchain technology, smart contracts are used to store contract conditions and digitally sign contracts without the intervention of an intermediary. Smart contracts reduce the need for bank verifications and other real estate sector middlemen. Because the real estate industry includes a high number of major transactions, smart contracts may help to increase transaction speed, safeguard against fraud, and reduce overall costs. There is a surge in solutions that simplify the administration of your home for those who already own a property. Centralized data dashboards provide insights into your property data, such as gas, water, heating, and energy use. These centralised databases are often built to function in tandem with smart devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a technology that allows for the creation of a network of networked computer devices embedded in household items. Predictive maintenance, energy efficiency, and a more comfortable lifestyle are just a few of the benefits that the Internet of Things may provide to the real estate market. Smart home gadgets with integrated sensors, such as automated lighting systems or robotic vacuum cleaners, are utilised to increase property value through IoT. All of these devices and systems are consolidated into a single dashboard, which is often accessible as a smartphone app, allowing you to operate your house from any place with an internet connection.

What are examples of digital solutions in the real estate

industry? - Interconnected and remote control smart devices and IoT - Digital dashboards for property data insights - Smart contracts for signing a lease and buy contracts - Centralized property management systems - Virtual reality house tours - AI-powered image recognition for efficiently creating property portfolios Assume you're in the market to purchase your ideal home. The perfect digital future has already been envisioned. You don't have to navigate hundreds of portals and websites while "fending off" unpleasant agents who offer "something extra." You just make a request to a voice assistant or a bot. When you browse over the possibilities that have been provided for you, you see that they are almost 90% of what you are searching for. Each property is presented in the best possible light, with all of the information available, including films, virtual tours, and live streaming views from windows at all hours of the day and night. You don't need to write or phone the agent to find out how big the backyard is, where the main bedroom windows are, and whether there's a jogging trail nearby. You can be certain that this property is for sale at the present price. Nothing prevents you from making a viewing request. The sales flow is seamless and easy in the seller's ideal digital environment. He uses the app to get the most up-to-date information on the property (through a cadastral number) and uploads images. The tool selects the finest of them and provides a magnificent selling description at the greatest potential market price, taking your sales approach into consideration (as in advertising systems). All you need to do is click the "publish" button. The property will be available on all relevant sales channels within 15 minutes. The seller gets the first inquiry from a possible bidder within an hour (not a competitor, a neighbor or a bored housewife looking for a new experience). Does it seem easy? Even today, in 2020, it does not function as stated. (And we don't even go into the flow of the trade in this piece - the amount of phases, linkages, and procedures are much more convoluted.)

One of the most prevalent complaints raised by real estate purchasers regarding their search for home information is the inaccuracy and incompleteness of such information. The second most significant reason to reject to purchase in general is an insufficient and poor description. The house is for sale, but it has already been sold, or the house is situated on a different street (not as described)? When you phone the realtor, the pricing you saw does not match? Or did the vendor fail to explain that two of the three bedrooms need significant investment and repairs? Of course, realtor practices are as old as the globe, and you won't be able to get rid of them immediately. However, society as a whole aspires for digital openness and transparency, as well as information accessibility. In the long term, firms who embrace digital transparency will have a huge competitive edge. It is also critical since the real estate market's offer is always constrained by the physical constraints of the area and the availability of the offer at the time. Simply put, there are only 10 three-bedroom homes for sale in the vicinity of a certain school. If none of the sellers has an exclusive agreement, the identical property will be advertised in all local real estate offices and on all property platforms. This creates a "digital competition," with the winner being the one who displays his goods while taking into account all customer preferences.

Why there is no digital future — specifics of creating real estate listings? A property listing of a chain real estate agency is usually compiled from several sources and includes: 1.Own properties for sale (from owners). 2.Properties for sale through a partner network (partner agencies through Multiple Listing Service MLS). 3.Properties from developers (new buildings). 4.Property from other suppliers (banks, assessors, etc.). The types of incoming data (Ingestion resources) include: 1..xml 2.Json

3.Csv 4.Pdf 5.Api (pull) 6..xls / .doc Unstructured data from third-parties and vendors (developers, agencies) directly from CRM/MLS or email. In addition to the complex flow of data gathering from various sources, the life cycle of property preparation includes other steps. These are enriching the data, localization, metadata, properties and tags assignment. A typical example of a property's life cycle in a real estate company is the publication of housing, which the company's manager has taken from the owner. These data belong to the category of own content (they don’t come from third-party suppliers). The primary publication is done by the own staff (agent or content department). The average time to prepare and publish one new item takes about 40 minutes and includes: 1.setting parameters (addresses, features and their values) - 15% of the time 2.tagging - 5% of the time 3.photo upload and management (photo selection for the cover, an order of display, photo caption) - 30% time 4.creation of the property description (this is the most time-consuming task, since you need to create a unique selling text) - 50% of the time 5.localization into two additional languages (Spanish - English, Spanish-Russian). Translations are done automatically with further verification by the content department. How the same process looks like with data from third-party content providers (such as developers). We have a 60% share of properties from third-party directories. Most of them are offers from developers (over two hundred companies (vendors)). Each developer has its method of data delivery, and only a small part of this data is structured and possible for automatic download (via XML, Jason, API). Most developers place information in

data warehouses like Dropbox, SharePoint, intranets, providing us with a link to them, as well as sending daily change notifications to email. And only a small part of them use the benefits of self-service, placing the data through a personal account within our company. Employees of the publishing department spend the same amount of time (and even more, because we have to parse data from excels, pictures, Pdf files and translate them into a structured form) to create an object card from the developer, as well as to publish their properties from the seller. The situation looks better if the data is processed automatically. The saturation of our catalogue with other products goes much faster. But there are also some difficulties. Here are the trends: 1.primary mapping of properties and their values and further control over possible changes 2.property descriptions (very often for SEO purposes, it has to be unique; or specifications may contain irrelevant information such as direct contacts of another agency or developer) 3.image management — covering photos, an order of image gallery, tagging When importing new data from third-parties, content managers also have to check the final result and adjust it manually according to the quality policies. The same quality check procedure is also performed by the employees after the data have been imported. After publication, the offer appears in the data management platform (Inmovirto). Also, the directory is syndicated to different sales channels and market platforms at once: 1.own website and mobile app (virtoproperty.com) 2.regional MLS system (Imovilla, Inmofactory) 3.partner agencies listings 4.real estate web portals (idealista, fotocasa, pisos.com etc.) 5.promotional and retargeting feeds (Facebook, Google and others) 6.email alert application 7.digital signage management system Syndication is also carried out in different formats such as .xml,

JSON, .csv and others. Additionally, an application has been created to manage the syndication settings, which defines the rules — frequency of updates and other flexible settings. Now it takes us 10-20 minutes from the moment an offer is published to its appearance in other sales channels. The primary obstacles that agencies and portals confront while producing listings: 1.The originality of the offerings - each property is unique, and they are seldom reproduced (hardly anyone will buy and sell their apartment more than once a year). 2.Simultaneously, strong rivalry and recurrence of offerings by other agencies (it is required to differentiate themselves by providing unique and highly) relevant material, such as images, videos, and 3D tours. 3.The average time it takes to sell a home is roughly six months. This results in a hefty cost for placement (listing). In some organisations, this equates to 500 euros for a single offer, including all creation costs. 4.A plethora of inbound data sources that are challenging to regulate and manage). 5.There are several sorts of incoming unstructured data (price lists from developers as an image or Pdf). 6.There is no single property standard in the directory. Many of them have their own set of beliefs. 7.A lot of work is spent on developing an offer (data enrichment). 8.Inadequate item-to-category linkage (not all properties and tags are specified; so the item will not be shown in many listings). 9.The need for continual directory monitoring and control (availability, price changes etc.). Because of this: 1.It is difficult to keep and verify high-quality data in a catalogue. 2.A lengthy process of bringing a product to market. 3.The listing (publishing) of the offer comes at a hefty expense. The procedures for developing and administering a digital real estate catalogue are complex. It is almost difficult to create and maintain

such a directory without the use of a scalable PIM-system. With PIM, great progress may be made toward developing a single data source – the digital catalogue. It will also be feasible to streamline the flow of information and administration by posting and disseminating the offer at a faster rate. You will be able to simplify your translation and procedures, assure quality, and give an enticing offer presentation. PIM provides various opportunities for appropriate product lifecycle and information management at its core. Some of these requirements are met by off-the-shelf 'listing software' packaged solutions used by small and local real estate businesses. In our firm, we utilise the Virto Commerce PIM module. We have created systems for the production, administration, moderation, distribution, and syndication of our listings as a result of this. The ability to instantly connect to PIM and employ third-party apps to enhance the user experience is also advantageous. Among them are: 1.Public data service for cadastres. By using the cadastral number, you may get the most trustworthy information about the property, such as the year of construction, size, and other important qualities. 2.Services such as sales history and property price estimate are available. They enable you to sell your home at a market-competitive price. 3.Geolocation services that include coordinates. This allows you to distribute catalogues more quickly by taking into account all locations and their coordinates. This allows for a more precise search of properties on the map. (In Spain, for example, idealista/maps services are popular.) 4.Walkability services, cost of living databases, and location rating are examples of location data enrichment services. Any service that provides the user with as much information about the surroundings as possible. Distances to various sites of interest, district rankings, school rankings, environmental criteria, cost of living, and other factors are included. Here are a few of the reasons why a digital transition is critical in real estate: 1. Modifications in how clients seek for homes:

If you're a real estate developer, you can't afford to ignore the potential of digital marketing. One of the advantages of Digital Transformation is that your company will have a strong and effective digital marketing plan to grab the majority of prospective homeowners who use the Internet to hunt for future purchases, which will help you stay ahead of the competition. 2. Shift in client demand: It has also been observed that the majority of property sellers and purchasers do extensive web research before selling or acquiring the property offline. Customers want to know everything so that they may make an informed choice. As a result, if you do not have a strong online presence, you are missing out on the opportunity to interact with a large number of prospective customers and sellers. 3. Technological Advancement: Because of the advent of internet real estate websites, the nature of the traditional real estate business model is changing. These sites provide platforms that provide potential purchasers with a large number of house listings, replete with photos and even a virtual walkthrough. These sites also include research tools, allowing users to not only narrow their property search but also compare costs, find street locations, and do other things without leaving the comfort of their own home. You must adapt to all of these technical advancements if you want to reach out to these clients. Now that you're aware of the requirements and significance of digital transformation in the real estate business, let's look at some of the digital trends that may be implemented as part of digital transformation in the real estate sector. The following are some digital trends to which the real estate sector may adapt as the industry undergoes digital transformation: 1.Big Data: Big Data is a technology that automates the examination of massive amounts of data from a variety of sources. For example, if you want to rent or purchase an apartment, you have a few possibilities. Big Data technology can let you compare real estate assets based on a range of characteristics and choose the best one for you. It saves you time while searching for a new house. This will improve the experience of

your customers. 2.Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: AI (artificial intelligence) supports machines in performing complex and sophisticated tasks. This involves everything from evaluation, problem solving, and decision making to pattern recognition and understanding. Machine learning is widely used as the fundamental approach of AI. Artificial intelligence may be used in the real estate sector to enhance data management and advertising campaigns by scanning data and finding the most popular or necessary types of real estate assets. 3.Analytics Predictive: Using Big Data and machine learning approaches, predictive analytics examines and anticipates market trends. Predictive analytics may help you generate more leads by studying the buyer's journey over time, and real estate managers can identify customers who are interested in purchasing or renting. 4.Blockchain: Buying, selling, and estimating real estate is a murky and disjointed business. Blockchain technology has the ability to enhance this process by enhancing transparency, reducing bureaucracy, and eliminating the participation of multiple third parties. Because it automates, speeds, makes transactions accessible, and monitors them, blockchain is one of the digital trends in real estate. 5.Computing in the Cloud: Cloud computing refers to calculations performed in the cloud. SaaS software and services function and store data in the cloud, providing for simple and rapid access. It will strengthen customer interactions, provide faster responses to questions and requests, and lower IT maintenance costs for server hosting.Cloud services are used by 80 percent of top real estate performance for marketing, sales, customer relationship management, property administration, shared storage, data mining, and other functions. 6.Tours in Virtual Reality: A virtual tour is a 3-D walkthrough that enables prospective buyers to see a for-sale apartment or property. Like Street See on Google

Maps, the prospective buyer may choose which part and which viewpoint to view. Customers may get a better impression of your house by taking virtual tours. Because of the continuous covid-19 epidemic, this digital trend has skyrocketed. 7.Website that is upbeat: A website is analogous to a corporate brochure or a product catalogue. In addition, the typical client looks for properties online using a mobile device. They browse websites for photographs, house listings, and information on the home-buying process. The website will aid in the generation of quality leads and will enable the usage of additional advertising methods such as SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing, and content marketing. As a consequence, numerous of the abovementioned digital trends may be applied to the real estate business as part of its digital transformation. A worldwide pandemic momentarily hampered India's booming real estate sector's development trajectory. Despite numerous upheavals, the challenge surely brought about a slew of advantages that accelerated the shift. Technological advancements in real estate have already become an inseparable part of the global landscape, and it is a positive sign that the Indian real estate segment, which is now a globally recognised industry, is embracing technology and innovation to optimise business operations and change the industry standard in order to revolutionise the market. Without a question, the pandemic has had a significant impact on corporate operations. Changes that were formerly unimaginable have now become a reality. A digital change in the industry not only maintained the sector's inertia but also generated new development opportunities. Chatbots, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), increased usage of drones, online reservations, and other cutting-edge techniques meant that there was no breakdown in communication between developers and consumers. Furthermore, big data, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) aided in the continuation of market purchasing and selling. The real estate industry is becoming a buyer's market, with a customer-centric attitude driving development. In such circumstances, developers have to devise new methods to communicate and

advertise their enterprises. In this case, social media not only bridged the communication gap but also aided in teaching customers about their goods, resulting in increased sales. Digital adoption also aided developers in staying in regular contact with their clients. A datadriven strategy greatly reduced the time spent on decision-making by consumers and engineers. The information imbalance that existed between the two parties was much decreased, and due diligence into the product prospect, developer strength, and site possibility grew significantly. Using data, demographic trends, and market dynamics, investors were able to go forward with their investment selections. These analyses also aided developers in their targeted efforts. It is worth noting that numerous agreements were finalised using video conferencing technologies such as Zoom during the lockout, demonstrating the rising dependence on technology. A data-driven view may also result in greater market value forecasting and risk management for developers. Site visits were limited due to rigorous adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour. Virtual site tours, raw 3D films, and drones, on the other hand, enabled buyers to depend on improved images and real-time updates of the property. Developers aided consumers in making speedier judgments by fully reducing the risk of infection from site visits by applying these technological solutions. The way projects were handled and executed previously reflects a constructive and much-needed reform. Cutting-edge technologies like as drone mapping and sensors are increasing site productivity, safety, and project quality in order to meet deadlines. Tech-enabled solutions have altered the environment, and developers with a track record of success are forging forward to provide cuttingedge goods to discriminating clients. With real-time data, robust control systems and next-generation management solutions are protecting developers from incurring needless costs. Developers now have total control over their finances, ideas, execution, monitoring, and delivery. Furthermore, high-performance cameras aid in site inspections and quality control. The digitisation process not only assists trusted developers in increasing work productivity and revenues, but also in rationalising costs and expediting delivery. Customers now carefully scrutinise developers' delivery history. Quicker project delivery will result in

faster revenue recognition for developers, particularly during these testing phases. To keep ahead of the curve, developers have increased their investment in digital infrastructure. The pandemic's unpredictability has needed this even more. Developers with solid foundations and financial clout are making quicker headway on this front. The long-awaited adoption of technology is enabling the real estate industry, and by allowing for innovation in the real estate sector, which generates roughly 8-10% of GDP and is the second biggest employment, the sector may emerge as a shining example of success driven by technology. The digitally connected office model has tremendous benefits for tenants and management: • More robust data around utilities for improved efficiency. • Improved security. • The tools to do contact tracing in the future. • More accurate occupancy records. • Better visibility into building use patterns. Of course, all of this is driven by the proptech that we were all assured would be popular back in 2018, when investment in this area was surging. While that space has cooled down over the last two years, it is about to see a resurgence as companies that were waiting to buy the space management tools they once saw as auxiliary look to the market for the technology to ensure that their staff can safely return to the office after the pandemic has been declared over. This is fantastic news for those of us who provide premium, private office space with certain safeguards in place – more on that in a moment. There is no sugar-coating the fact that this epidemic has caused enormous misery for many people. For people whose livelihood is based on commercial real estate, the headlines about occupancy rates in big cities and suburbs have been increasingly discouraging. JLL estimated a 47.3 percent reduction in gross lease deals in 2020, as most of the nation transitioned to working remotely overnight last March and many have yet to return to their downtown offices. The one figure that has increased dramatically in the last year is subleasing, which JLL discovered has increased by more than 50% during this

epidemic. However, this does not assist the industry's total occupancy figures. The outlook for the coming year is bleak, but one type of office space has emerged as a potential winning model in this difficult commercial real estate environment: flexible office spaces outfitted with connected building applications, touch-free access points, and indoor air-quality control have seen increased demand. As professionals flock to office buildings that provide high-quality facilities and solitude, operators' occupancy rates are anticipated to increase as the epidemic fades. As everyone is being compelled to completely digitise their work life remotely, there is a rising need for digital workspaces and data-driven workforce management in terms of office scheduling and daily occupancy. The proptech we have in place (or are planning to add in the near future) currently meets professionals where they are rather than pushing them toward a more connected future whose usefulness they do not yet appreciate. When individuals return to their workplaces or new office spaces, their expectations will have developed to need the technology we've been anticipating for years. This trend will take time to manifest in actual statistics, but we are experiencing a sea shift. When professionals start thinking about how they'll return to work, they're not in a rush, and there's minimal pressure on them to modify their existing routines. Prior to the pandemic, the number of individuals working from home on a regular basis remained in the single digits, with just approximately 4% of the US workforce working from home at least half of the time. That equilibrium may have altered indefinitely.JLL, one of my favourite real estate forecasters, discovered that 60.6 percent of their own workers expect to return to the office for portions of their workweek while still working a significant chunk of their time from home. While the outlook for the year ahead is bleak, those of us in commercial real estate may look forward to a future in which the value of premium office space is more widely recognised by professionals and time spent in downtown offices is not a daily block of time that we all take for granted. While commercial real estate agents and investors face several challenging quarters ahead, there will be a greater appreciation for the tools behind the connected office spaces that professionals will seek out when they're ready to return, as well as a new appreciation for the cost of a safe

and secure workplace. Below are five steps that real estate companies can take to embrace digital transformation for long-term success:

1.Use Rich Media Visualization to Improve Customer Experiences Multimedia content is rapidly transforming the way real estate agencies market their homes for sale or rent. Instead of relying solely on images and written descriptions, they can offer virtual tours to their clients using photo-realistic renderings and even virtual reality experiences. Interactive media is a win-win for customers as well. They can learn more about a property without having to leave their home and experience properties as if they were at the property itself.

2.Collect Property Data with Internet of Things (IOT) Devices The rise of internet-connected smart devices is already causing disruption across many industry sectors, particularly the real estate market, and especially when it comes to commercial property management. Internet of Things (IOT) devices can provide older residences and commercial properties with powerful new automation features that also cut operational expenses. Because every activity now generates digital data, building managers are now using the information collected for proactive maintenance, utility and energy optimizations strategies.

3.Embrace Building Information Modelling Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an intelligent 3D model-based process that provides architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals the insight and tools they need to more efficiently plan, design, construct, and manage buildings and properties. BIM is used to reduce construction costs, and improve workflows, communication, and collaboration. BIM software benefits architects by enabling them to manage design phases, lets property owners and investors use it to keep track of operations, and allows engineers to use it for modelling systems such as HVAC and energy systems.

4.Employ AI-Powered Data Analytics for Transformative

Insights Real estate investors who use data as a foundation for their decision making are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to find insights into market trends, establish realistic growth goals and seek out lucrative new opportunities. AI is also transforming the real estate industry with construction automation (BIM software), streamlining property management, deal-matching and even predicting loan defaults. Looking forward, we can expect the real estate sector to continue to improve the way it uses machine-learning to control expenses, increase investment returns and manage risk.

5.Streamline Workflows with Digital Image Classification Posting pictures is one of the most important parts advertising a property for rent or sale. For a smaller agency, manually sorting through images and selecting the best ones for a property portfolio might work. But when a firm has hundreds of properties for sale, this manual process quickly becomes overwhelming. Digital image classification can automate image selection by using machine learning and neural networks to tag and categorize images in seconds. Using software, agencies can quickly classify images by room type, feature, exterior style, or any category they choose. By integrating an industryspecific image-recognition API with their marketing software systems, real estate agents can better drive website traffic, engage visitors and cut down on lengthy manual processes. The automobile industry's narrative should show the real estate market that incumbents can frequently find success in the face of change and external upheaval. However, they will only be able to maintain their position at the top if they respond fast and wisely. As a result, the automotive industry's titans played their digital transformation cards flawlessly. The cool kids in the music business, on the other hand, got it all wrong. And they did it in front of a large crowd. Endogenous innovation is defined as innovation that originates inside your sector; in our instance, this is technology that originates straight from the real estate and PropTech businesses. This kind of innovation was the first to have an influence on real estate, focusing on and improving on current methods and procedures. 'Streamlining,' 'improved efficiency,' 'cost reduction,' 'easy,' and 'paperless' are all

buzzwords you'll hear a lot. Listing portals, property management systems, and auto-valuation technologies are specific instances of endogenous innovation in real estate. Once you've grasped the unmovable truths of digital transformation in real estate and evaluated how your attempts to change will work to embrace them, it's time to articulate precisely what you want to accomplish via this process. It is a fundamental reality of transformation that the greatest methods are guided by your users'/customers' present pain issues. There is no short-cut; it requires time to undertake thorough market research and get candid input from your consumers. This will act as the basis for the rest of your change. This foundation should then inform the establishment of certain early goals – it is critical to establish them at the outset of any transformation process. You identify your clients' pain points via research - what presently irritates them about the services you and your rivals provide? What might be improved? Isn't everything taking too long? Is it too expensive? Do you ask for too much of their time/input? Create too much confusion and, as a result, anxiety? Is it too hazy? There is no place for speculation. Everything must be based on data from feedback. To make this work, you may need to incentivize a proactive reaction with incentives or presents such as a half-price membership for three months. This is always worth the time or price since it is a clear path to determining where your service presently falls short of expectations. It may not always be a pleasurable process, but you will be left with no question about what you would utilise technology to assist you with. You may obtain more robust data for analytics by using digital solutions. For example, if you digitise occupancy and market rental prices, you can more quickly adjust your rent to maximise your ROI. Traditional bottlenecks may also be streamlined with digital innovations. For example, using electronic signatures for rental contracts may save document turnaround times by up to 80%, saving landlords and tenants time and money. Better record keeping will also help you. Real estate includes piles and stacks of documentation, ranging from leasing agreements to deeds and titles. Going paperless not only saves money on paper purchases and printing, but it also helps the environment. Finally, digital solutions increase transparency

among company partners, workers, and other stakeholders. Instead of sending critical papers by snail mail, crucial documents may now be shared with the press of a mouse. Through centralised solutions such as property management software, you can easily cooperate on crucial tasks. An outline of some of the factors driving the digitalization and change of the real estate industry: 1.The tenant experience comes first, with an increased emphasis on digital experiences and services. Tenant experience is also a major driver of the PropTech scene and the focus of this piece. 2.Sustainability is also high on the mind of investors and developers, not simply because of shifting rules and demographic changes, as we've seen in other sectors, but also because of value and corporate occupier needs. With 'healthy buildings,' you can add health and wellbeing to the mix of experience and sustainability. 3.From a risk standpoint, there is a growing requirement for safety, physical and electrical security, and cybersecurity. As you'll see below, physical security and cybersecurity are critical in terms of technological investment. And, particularly in the context of facilities that we have previously discussed (think of healthcare facilities and technology in the hotel business) and where 'newer' technologies are game changers, you can add privacy to that equation as well. 4.In the context of asset value, there is a growing emphasis on the digital, smart, and connected commercial building component (which, of course, is tied to altering objectives of different stakeholders and must be viewed alongside the other factors) and the sustainable aspect. 5.Although we may claim they are intimately related with other aims and even include them in the next element, we address space management and surface optimization separately since it is a subject we will go more into later. 6.Finally, in the context of asset valuation and some of the other goals, there is the importance of decreasing costs, increasing efficiency, and since this, and other priorities, go hand in hand with technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data analytics, and

artificial intelligence, and the gradual realisation that there are new opportunities to leverage data to create additional value, whereby building information modelling can be mentioned as a game changer 5 examples of Digital Transformation in Real Estate: Don’t turn a blind eye to these five areas taking a bigger share of the real estate industry by shaping consumer expectations, catering to their changing preferences, and giving a competitive leg-up to those who are quick to embrace them.

1. Digital Presentations and Tours Digital disruption in the real estate industry has its roots in Building Information Modelling, or “BIM,” which allows architects, engineers, and construction workers to gain insight into a building’s planning, design, construction, and management using intelligent 3D modelling. However, as a real estate agent, you’re likely more concerned with the simplified consumer application of virtual and simulated infrastructure. Most agents and consumers are highly familiar with Google Street View-style walkthroughs that allow them to click through stitched images taken by special cameras. However, digital disruption takes it a step further, enabling immersive walkthroughs and overviews using Augmented Reality and a set of Virtual Reality goggles. In Singapore, PropertyGuru is one firm using this technology to create a mobile showroom for buyers. They recently set a new record, hitting one million listings from their network of over 30,000 agents who subscribe to their services, and they’re still growing.

2. Mobile Property Search Not only can buyers dive into a home’s layout and design using a virtual experience, but they can also handle more and more of the transaction process online. In fact, the increasing use of mobile apps and websites that let buyers view listings themselves is posing a major threat to even the biggest brokers. Buyers don’t want to depend on an agent to get them information on every single property they’re interested in viewing. In response, more brokers are creating dedicated mobile apps to showcase their listings and provide an accessible portal where buyers can chat with an agent and get

questions answered quickly, without having to hop on a call or schedule a meeting. Along with creating a mobile app, your brokerage can stay ahead of the move to mobile by ensuring your website, microsites, and other digital channels are responsive and optimized for mobile users across devices. Since 62% of internet users access the web with a mobile device, you should never leave mobile optimization and targeting out of your strategy.

3. Drones for Inspections and Marketing Civilian drone technology continues to advance as batteries last longer, cameras become more powerful, and drone-use regulations become clearer. At the same time, consumers have expressed their preference for the stunning bird’s-eye view images and videos drones can produce. Aerial imagery, previously requiring the use of expensive and heavily restricted aircraft, has long helped agents exhibit and sell properties with large lots, gorgeous landscaping, immaculate views, and rambling floor plans. Drones now let you do that for a fraction of the time and cost, and the MLS shows that “properties with aerial imagery are 68% more likely to sell than those without it.” Drones can help with roof inspections and make an inspection of hard-to-reach areas (such as crawl spaces) that much easier. They can also aid property mapping, which is particularly important for commercial tenants, and in managing inspections for those wishing to build on the land.

4. Big Data and Advanced Analytics Real estate agents and brokers alike are easily slowed down by the massive data sets they must process and maintain, whether they’re working with listing catalogues, property owners, companies, renters, agents, or any other people and information involved in smooth transactions. That’s why any firm in the industry should be quick to embrace big data and the powerful analytics solutions that accompany it. Your real estate firm is likely already dealing with big data, so now is the time to put that data to work. As we get further into the digital age, the value of data is becoming much more widely accepted and appreciated; most companies now treat it as a precious asset. With data analytics solutions, you can segment your customer base, predict behaviours, and improve outreach using machine learning (ML)

powered predictions and recommendations. Using big data, you can also discover new opportunities faster while nurturing leads, personalizing experiences, and impressing more clients, all while reducing manual legwork. All of that means a better reputation for your brand, which will only lead to more referrals as you grow your presence.

5. Smart Contract Management Blockchain technology first made waves when Bitcoin gained traction over a decade ago, but its application stretches far beyond decentralized currencies. When using blockchain’s secure concept, more industries are now turning to smart contracts to record conditions and manage milestones automatically, making asset exchanges fast and simple for everyone on the team. In real estate, smart contracts negate the need for bank verifications and all the “middlemen” that have long cut into a broker’s agility, speed, and revenue. Smart contracts are extremely appealing to real estate because the industry deals in such large transactions, and they can reduce cost, ensure fraud protection, and help transactions move more quickly. Here at paymints.io, we’re no stranger to digital disruption in the real estate industry. By specializing in smart contracts, we’ve helped countless brokers sharpen their competitive edge, reduce legwork, and empower their agents and clients to enjoy faster, more seamless transactions through the use of advanced technology.

The pillars of digital transformation of real estate business: After working with multiple real estate companies of various sizes, we realized that digitalization must rely on four aspects.

1. Customers A better understanding of your customers is a ground-breaking piece of insight for creating lasting experiences for sellers and buyers. Why is it important? Because 62% of customers have purchased more from a company after a good service experience, while a whopping 83% would be happy to provide a referral if asked. Investment in seamless customer experiences across all channels brings a range of gains, including lower cost to serve, increased loyalty, higher willingness to spend, and brand advocacy.

2. Optimization of key processes Optimizing key processes is an approach that helps business owners limit risks and maximize the return on investment. We get into the habit of doing things without determining whether the best process was used. The outcome is frequently unnecessary activities, delays, costs, and loss of quality. You can’t add a layer of technology on top of inefficient processes. Therefore, you need to first identify and optimize them before implementing a new system.

3. Data One of the fundamental elements of digitalization is the increased use of data to make informed decisions quickly. The information flows within the silos take much time to move from one department to another. The integration into a centralized system easily avoids timewasting and reduces the risk of errors. The unifying software enables the different systems in your company to be interrelated. Many ERP and CRM tools allow integrating systems easily, or you can opt for custom solutions with as many system integrations as you need.

4. Innovation A successful transformation also involves a change in internal business culture and thinking. Innovation requires open communication, iteration, collaboration, and experimentation with new technologies to see how you can use them to solve your business problems. And innovation should be constant, there is no total completion point. The internal company culture equipped with the right

mindset that embraces new ideas and supports initiatives will lead to long-term success. The digital signature services make it easier to sign any papers that come with the agent's job. You will provide buyers and sellers far more operating freedom with this solution. Given that 17% of consumers deemed paperwork to be one of the most difficult processes in the property purchase process, using an esigning programme like HelloSign will satisfy your clients and brokers. They will be able to swiftly and securely sign contracts for rent, sale, or lease, as well as accept proposals from any device. You can keep up with the pace of business by using e-signatures to sign all papers remotely. One of the most important aspects of real estate advertising is the use of photographs. For smaller companies, manually sifting images and picking the finest ones for a property portfolio may work. The manual procedure will be daunting when a company has hundreds of properties for sale. Digital image classification automates picture selection by tagging photos in seconds using ML and neural networks. By integrating industry-specific image-recognition API into your real estate software systems, you can instantly categorise photographs by room type and outside style, increase website traffic, and engage visitors. Digital advances are sweeping across many aspects of modern life at breakneck speed, and the pace is only increasing. Business, education, industry, and routine everyday life are all still being rebuilt to accommodate the new reality. Because the real estate industry relies on friendliness and growth, digital transformation isn't happening as quickly. In any case, real estate software solutions and the adoption of innovation into practises are now entering the circle. By modernising their core methods and structure, digitization promises to benefit the great majority of enterprises. The real estate industry, which includes a variety of organisations, has started to embrace digital transformation for its operational exercises and operations. Individuals are shifting away from traditional methods and toward digital tools for their advantage. As a result, the digital revolution of real estate is progressing at a rapid rate. Clients will undoubtedly make a final decision to purchase a house after viewing it in person. Nonetheless, financial professionals and buyers would most likely do extensive research before visiting the site. In this way, it is ideal for a

real estate agent to have a strong internet presence. Procurers would commonly explore and seek properties for lease, sell, and purchase using Google or an application that makes everything useful to collect data quickly accessible. In India, real estate has a fervent interest, enticing opportunities, government policy support, and rising speculations. However, in order to take advantage of this, housing organisations must adapt to new developments and technology. d in the country In India, digital transformation in the real estate sector has accelerated from being a conversation of great relevance to a requirement of tremendous importance. It has not only found out how to fast transform the business situation, but it has also disrupted the traditional way of doing business. Here are few trends: 1. Shift in Customer Preferences: If you are in the real estate company, you should not overlook the importance of Digital Marketing. One of the advantages of Digital Transformation is that your business will have a solid and amazing digital marketing procedure to catch a larger portion of potential property holders utilising the Internet to search for their future purchase, which will assist you with staying ahead of the competition. 2. Shift in Customer Demand: It has also been observed that the majority of property merchants and consumers do extensive research online before selling or purchasing the property offline. The customers must be aware of everything in order to make an informed decision. As a result, if you don't have a strong online presence, you're passing up a chance to connect with a significant number of prospective buyers and sellers. 3. Technological Advancement: The conventional real estate strategy is evolving as a result of the rise of internet real estate sites. These websites provide platforms that provide potential buyers with a plethora of house listings, replete with photos and even a virtual walkthrough. These firms also include research tools, allowing customers to channel their property search as well as look at prices, differentiate road areas, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, all without leaving the comfort of their own house. If you

need to communicate with these customers, you must adapt to all of these technological advances. 4. Data in Real Time: The biggest benefit of the digital era is that it provides accurate information. The real-estate sector has become more open as access to real-time data has increased. Real-time data is now possible thanks to digital real estate management. It seems to be the most current tech trend to hit headlines and attract discussion, but proptech is much more than digital change. Reason, cultural shift, and customer participation may all be aided by innovation in the property industry. Property innovation is the use of data innovation and financial stage features to real estate markets. Some goals of real estate innovation contain minimising administrative labour or making trades quicker and more efficient; it is typically associated with financial innovation. Proptech is a small part of a larger digital shift in the property industry. It examines both the innovation and attitude changes of the real-estate company, as well as its clients, to our viewpoints, developments, and exchanges, which include both structures and urban communities. To put it simply, it represents all of the businesses that are attempting to enhance the real estate industry as a result of an ever-changing digital landscape and innovative use designs. It is yet another pattern, and its magnitude will undoubtedly increase with time. Today, many sectors are emerging under PropTech: real estate marketing in essence (PropTech), smart cities and structures, the sharing economy, the house construction business (ConTech), and money (FinTech). Both ConTech and FinTech have strong ties to the real estate industry. When everything is considered, it is completely straightforward. It begins with the recognition that change is actual and unavoidable, and that it will occur with or without the involvement of real estate specialists. There is no need to be afraid of change; instead, embrace it and continue working with your consumers, both present and prospective. Here are a few helpful hints to help you along the way: 1. Keep abreast on industry developments: Regularly visit certain websites. The more knowledgeable you are, the greater your ability to anticipate market developments and meet the

concerns of your clients wherever they may be. 2. Make an investment: Invest in equipment and marketing tools to ensure that you remain cutting-edge. 3. Try new things: You're in for a treat. You already have clients and are working in a typical sector. Try out various techniques to see which ones work best. 4. Be creative: Spend at least 2 hours every week considering how you may enhance the way you operate or client satisfaction. This will ensure that you remain serious in the commercial centre, regardless of what occurs as a result of PropTech. 5. Focus on the Value Proposition: This is critical. Try your hand at answering the question, "Why do clients come to visit me?" Once you've determined the acceptable solutions, make sure you provide them consistently so clients don't want to go elsewhere. 6. Maintain Consistent Communication with Your Clients: Take the extra step. Solicit feedback from your consumers. Would they recommend you to their friends? What's the harm? Serving your customers' requirements is the best way to boost customer satisfaction. 7. Maintain Contact with the Next Generation: Maintain an open mind and be aware of their shifting use patterns. Customers of the future are those who are younger. Why is the real estate industry in need of a digital transformation? There are various options for answering this question: 1.Tenant and house buyer search tactics have evolved. You cannot afford to ignore the potential of digital marketing platforms; otherwise, your rivals will overtake you. 2.Platforms that link merchants and buyers have sprung up. Their importance as an extra channel to the traditional sales paradigm is

expanding. 3.Requirements for the relevance of information Customers want to get information on the status of the property in which they have invested as soon as possible and with as little delay as possible. 4.The need to keep property and workers under control. The real estate industry must thoroughly monitor the status of the property handled by the firm, as well as check staff performance. Aside from the justifications described above, there are several more, such as transaction history storage, contract monitoring, data analytics, and so on. By implementing a single IT system at the organisation, you will be able to easily tackle all of the previously mentioned issues. In the following essay, we will discuss many fundamental approaches to executing digital transformation in the real estate business. The most time-consuming chores for any firm that uses diverse vital data are adding data to a database and keeping it up to date. For example, the real estate sector makes use of the following information: 1.the number of presently available free property units; 2.their current pricing and other characteristics; 3.adjustments to different parameters as needed; 4.the addition of images, texts, and other data. By implementing a unified IT system in your firm, you may reduce mundane procedures, synchronise changes in real-time, improve employee job productivity, and boost overall corporate profitability. The overarching message throughout Europe is that there is a strong desire to embrace and capitalise on digital innovation. More precisely, major messages included: 1.The degree of interest in disruptive technology and innovation is really high. 2.A common denominator is identifying inefficiencies and optimising value across all operations. 3.Contract/document digitization, big data and data analytics, robotic process automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) are all becoming

more important investment targets. 4.All of these tendencies were visible prior to COVID-19, which created a brief disruption in corporate life and forced practically all participants to engage in some type of remote working. 5.Increased digitization of processes and remote access to management information are rising to the top of the priority list for many more real estate firms. 6.The goal for enhanced company resilience, as well as the requirement for managers to be as adaptable as possible, should give further incentive for transformation. The use of technology by real estate brokers in their contacts with customers simplifies and speeds up certain operations. They consist of digital instruments such as: 1.Photographs of properties taken by professionals. 2.Virtual tours, 360-degree tours, and professional movies allow you to view the houses and workplaces without having to physically visit them. 3.Renderings or virtual decorating projects may be used to explore the possibilities of a place. 4.Online service presentation. 5.Online video tours of the properties with an agent. 6.Online reservations and digital signatures are used to sign contracts using platforms that speed up the signing procedure. With the pandemic hastening e-commerce adoption, the necessity for Digital Transformation in real estate is more pressing than ever. Online property sales have risen globally, and both short-term homebuyer demands and a longer-term digital future must be considered when implementing solutions to fulfil consumers' constantly changing needs and wishes. The top five changing consumer requirements: 1.Because of the Covid-19 outbreak, homebuyers have prioritised safety and health above everything else. Even serious homebuyers are reluctant or unwilling to go on-site. 2.Despite the fact that most of the product research is done online, the

final purchase was based on a site visit and an across-the-table conversation with a sales manager. However, in the present market, many homebuyers are either unable or choose not to visit project sites in person, resulting in decision-making delays. 3.Purchasing residential real estate has always been a family choice. Vulnerable client groups, such as older folks or younger members of the family, are now unable to engage in the conventional offline homebuying process due to safety concerns. 4.New and developing homebuyer demographics, including as millennials and non-resident Indians, are on the increase and have specific requirements and expectations. 5.Late adopters of digital technology find online portals and tools difficult to use and, as a result, are hesitant to engage in digital home purchasing. Sales-related challenges include: 1.Businesses need technology that can facilitate the end-to-end digitization of real estate sales, including virtual site visits, post-sales & e-payments, and marketing automation. 2.Generic Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools are not suited for use in the Real Estate industry as they often miss critical features and functionalities which are inherent to the industry. 3.Homebuyers find it difficult to trust developers as they find transparency lacking in the process; for example, a miscommunication of critical information like property details, choice & availability of inventory, pricing, etc. 4.Traditional sales make it difficult to engage digital natives and emerging homebuyer segments like millennials and NRIs. Channel Partner challenges include: 1.Developers find it difficult to collaborate remotely with key stakeholders like In-house Sales Teams and Channel Partners without proper technology. 2.Channel Partners find it difficult to align with a developers’ sales strategy, often due to workforce or other bandwidth issues.

3.Developers are unable to track In-house Sales and Channel Partners in real-time, or access reports. 4.Managing Channel Partners’ commissions is a tedious job in offline formats. Solution - Digital Transformation for Real Estate: Today, Real Estate Developers need to challenge conventional industry thinking and prove that homes can indeed be sold entirely online! Digital Transformation helps unlock new avenues of digital sales and marketing to... Engage & enable homebuyers online : 1.Engaging new customer segments, like millennials and NRIs, via marketing automation. 2.Providing them with technology to buy properties virtually, from the comfort of their homes. 3.Re-creating the buying experience for homebuyers on a virtual platform that offers safety and convenience. 4.A transparent home buying experience is made possible to provide information on the choice of apartment, clarity on pricing, and availability of inventory. 5.Easing the transaction & documentation process to help digitally naive users buy property without any hassle. Digitize the entire sales process: 1.Enabling the Sales Team to reach out and engage with relevant target segments through lead-nurturing campaigns, appointment slotting and reminders, and collating customer insights for improved decision-making. 2.Helping the Sales Team ensure process transparency with homebuyers to build trust by offering homebuyers virtual project walkthroughs, apartment details, online inventory selection, and pricing information. 3.Developers are unaEasing the transaction and documentation process with online KYC verification, simplified e-payments, and edocumentation.

4.Creating actionable dashboards, enabling agile decision-making daily concerning pricing, discounts, Channel Partner performance, and the larger sales process. 5.Bringing Channel Partners into the fold and equipping them with technology capabilities such as easy tagging of inventory for transparency in ownership, digital walkthroughs, online meetings, and slotting. 6.Automating commissions for Channel Partners to reduce the burden on the finance team and accelerating payments. Challenges in the Real World to digitize in Real Estate: 1.Financial Plans: The financial plans that have been established are entirely manual. In addition, cost and budget planning are done manually. This necessitates more human intervention and increases the likelihood of errors. 2.Project Lifecycle: There are several parts of a project, such as material procurement, contract monitoring, and so on, that are never consistent and constantly change. Manually managing the project lifecycle is a time-consuming and inefficient procedure. 3.Land Acquisition: Due to a lack of technology, there is less visibility into progress, as well as payments and paperwork. 4.Across Campaigns, manual intervention: There is a significant loss of leads and business opportunities as a result of human involvement, which has an impact on revenue. 5.Lack of real-time visibility: When there is no digitization in place, projects need sufficient visibility on material stored, parking category, discount monitoring, and so on. Solutions Provided via Digitization in Real Estate: 1.Construction management and project planning: One of the most difficult aspects of completing any real estate project

is project planning. Infrastructure budget planning, integrated BOQ management, manual PR/indenting, and progress reports are the key bottlenecks. The digitalization of the real estate business may be defined as end-to-end integrated project management that increases progress by 20%. 2.Services and procurement: Real estate is concerned with more than simply the construction of the building; it is also concerned with the functionalities—security, taxes, parking management, and so on. Many issues, such as standard card rates, input tax credit setting, and composite supply orders, may take a long time and slow down the procurement process if handled by humans. The procurement process has become more efficient and transparent as a result of the digitalization wave. 3.Accounting and Finance: This is where digitalization has the most impact. Human effort can be reduced by 40% with the proper use of technology, making it faster, more efficient, and less prone to human error. So, whether it's an unreconciled amount in the bank account, visibility of the weekly cash flow, TES compliance, GSTR reconciliation, or vendor discounting integration, automated accounting, controls, and IMS can handle it all! 4.Transition to facilities management: Because of the digitization of real estate, it is now simple to hand over the design to facility management to guarantee the project meets all industry requirements and complies to snag monitoring need. 5.Presales: Handling hundreds of thousands of registrations by hand may be a difficult undertaking. It is practically hard to pick, categorise, and arrange the daily registrations, and it is much more difficult to provide discounts to them. All registrations are handled by the AI-powered software. Data stored in the cloud may be accessed at any time and

from any location on the planet. 6.Onboarding of Customers: Good coordination between your business's numerous working divisions, as well as between the firm and authorities such as the Real State's regulatory authority, is critical for the proper execution of any project. Liaisoning and Real Estate Regulation Association management, as well as cash flow management, are the key bottlenecks. With ERP/CRM, management becomes exceedingly simple, convenient, and organised. 7.Following Sales: Everything gets simpler when you have access to 360-degree lead visibility and other important data with CRM, whether you're acquiring an architect certificate, engaging with a customer, checking for defaulters, or organising the collection process. Because the process is digitalized, time and location are no longer relevant. Customers may communicate with the buyer and continue to explore possibilities at any time of day and from any location. The Advantages of Digitalization in Real Estate: 1.The customer experience is very smooth and enhanced, with the highest degree of transparency, ease of contact, and a greater chance for the real estate firm to pitch to the clients. 2.The visibility of cash flow and cost flow is substantially increased, so that all transactions—losses and gains—are visible and may even be analysed using AI-powered software tools. 3.The monitoring of quantity, cost, and budget becomes highly proactive, and it becomes very simple to combine the many real estate departments when contemplating a project budget. 4.There are fewer to no loopholes or delays since the transaction or project is checked at every stage. As a consequence, consistency

improves, and the project is finished on schedule. 5.Digitalized procedures are less expensive than non-digitalized procedures. Both direct and indirect expenses are significantly reduced. 6.With the digitization of real estate marketing, marketing approaches are more successful, and it is simpler to adapt and manage current campaigns. 7.Customers may also visit the locations via the website's movies, 360-degree views, and simulations. Almost every customer who is interested in purchasing or renting real estate starts their search online. This is the level playing field where buyers and sellers may interact directly with one another. The real estate industry remains one of the most competitive, thus it is up to experts to push their digital teams to come up with new strategies to captivate the masses and provide the finest first impression. Customers go to well-equipped websites and applications to obtain the most information about projects and to find the best pricing. They are the clients' one-stop shop for information regarding the property as well as nearby companies, schools, connections, and even the crime rate. Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for real estate brokerages are among the industry's most significant game changers. You may use this software to simplify and automate different operations associated with both hiring and retaining agents. These include, among other things, appointment and interview scheduling, lead segmentation, and social media search. Finally, this improves the efficiency and production of your brokerage. BrokerKit is a terrific alternative if you're still looking for the best CRM for real estate. Aside from the functionalities described above, BrokerKit offers a variety of campaign templates that you can tweak and automate for more effective, efficient marketing. It also contains integration options that link SMS and email smoothly, as well as access to credible data sources like BrokerMetrics.

According to the FBI's 2019 Internet Crime Report, the rise of real estate wire fraud is accelerating. In 2019, both the number of victims and the amount of the losses engaged in real estate wire fraud grew, reaching 11,677 victims and $221 million in damages. Unfortunately, it is likely only the tip of the iceberg, since the FBI reports that only 15% of all wire fraud occurrences are recorded. Fraudsters' techniques are becoming more sophisticated, making security vital in all transactions, from a simple online apparel buy to a multimillion-dollar house sale. However, the large sums of money involved in commercial real estate transactions make security even more urgent and important. All parties engaged in the transaction must be confident that the facts, papers, and money involved will be kept safe and secure. The app generation has taken over, and with the rise of companies like Purple Bricks, the property business is no exception. Book a valuation using the app, have your home marketed online through the Purple Bricks website and firms such as Zoopla, control viewings online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and lastly, handle any incoming bids. Unlike going through an estate agent, where you have to wait for the estate agent to contact you to inform you if a bid comes in, with Purple Bricks' convenient concept, you can view your offers at all times, and even accept them using the app — the only nondigitalised aspect of the entire process is the company calling around to put up the estate agent boards.

Embracing Manufacturing 4.0 in Real Estate: Businesses are naturally here for the long haul and for that, they will need to embrace new technologies that are driving the digital transformation in Real Estate industry and here they are:

1.Consolidate Property details with Internet of things (IoT) Devices The rise of internet-connected smart devices has been significant, especially in the real estate industry. These devices come handy while managing commercial property where they provide powerful automation features that go a long way in cutting operational costs. Building managers now rely on the data generated by these devices to

carry out proactive maintenance on properties. The information from these devices are increasingly helpful in devising utility and energy optimization strategies.

2.Improve Customer Experiences with Rich Multimedia Multimedia is rapidly changing the way realtors market properties to clients. Virtual reality and augmented reality videos are fast becoming the norm. This works very well for their customers too, who can get a near real experience of the property without leaving the comforts of their home. This is now especially relevant and useful during the COVID-19 pandemic and soon after it.

3.Use AI-Powered Data Analytics While data forms the foundation of decision making in the real estate business, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms lend valuable insights into market trends and help seek out lucrative business opportunities. Additionally, AI aids property management, dealmatching as well as identifying loan defaulters. With AI gaining momentum within the real estate industry, we can confidently predict that Machine Learning (ML) will play a huge role in this industry going forward. Whether it is risk management, property management or even controlling finances, real estate businesses will increasingly turn to technology to manage critical business processes.

4.Engage Digital Image Classification For a large real estate business managing hundreds of properties, for rent and sale, sifting through images manually is a herculean task. It is time intensive, labour intensive and needless to say, extremely cost intensive as well. Digital Imaging helps automate image selection with the help of machine learning. It can categorize images in a few seconds and tag them according to specific classifications. With the help of image recognition, realtors can generate traffic to their websites and find innovative ways of engaging with their audience. There is a lot to be cautious about in real estate: project planning, regulatory permissions, site selection, budget planning, construction, and so on. ERP systems may give profitable possibilities as well as comprehensive insights into each of these operations. As firms

expand, the number of people and activities increase, ultimately leading to more complicated processes. Real estate companies with a worldwide presence, in particular, need an ERP system that can simplify procedures, resulting in increased production and profitability. Let’s take a closer look at how an ERP system may aid the Real Estate Industry in particular: 1.Real-Time Information Availability: Data maintenance is one of an ERP system's basic functions. The technology not only allows for various data points, but it also refreshes information in real-time, keeping all stakeholders up to date. This reduces data redundancy and, more importantly, syncs multiple portions of the organisation, assisting in critical business decisions. 2.Offers Valuable Insights: Most software can handle data, but what distinguishes an ERP system is its capacity to provide dynamic, customised, and real-time reports. These studies give in-depth insights into market trends and consumer behaviour, as well as help for decision-making. 3.A Combined System: Using several tools to handle different elements of the company might be acceptable while the firm is still in its early stages. As it expands, there is a rising need to consolidate the operations under a single huge canopy that can handle the difficulties and procedures of a developing firm. A decent Real Estate ERP system is a single piece of software that includes the core modules as well as the ability to adapt it to incorporate business-specific add-ons. 4.Automation: A good ERP system combines all parts of the real estate industry, including financials, sales, leads, rentals, projects, and engineering. What used to take hours to perform manually may now be done with the press of a button. Saving time and resources eventually leads to increased profitability, which is the ultimate objective of every organisation. Posting images of property for sale or rent online is one of the most effective methods to market it. Manually looking through your available images and deciding which ones work best for your property's portfolio

may still work if you operate a small agency. However, if you have a huge organisation that manages hundreds of properties, this will not be the case. Doing everything manually may take too long and become too stressful and burdensome in the end. Digital picture categorization, on the other hand, may assist you in automating your image selection process by using neural networks and machine learning. This will allow you to quickly categorise and tag photographs. Real estate agents may simply classify photographs using software by features, room kinds, exterior designs, or any other category. Agents may create more traffic to their websites and connect with visitors by integrating an image recognition API in their marketing software systems that are industry-specific. This reduces the need for significant manual operations. Advertising on a variety of online domains aids in the development of an Internet sales strategy. The website may run the campaign for you and promote your style on several websites in addition to your own. Digital marketing companies in Mumbai may assist you in making effective use of this, as well as the square measure of the goals defined by the proportion in which you are prepared to speculate or pay the website to publish your promotional content. You may get momentum by using online advertising. You can't simply operate on cash and expect to make money, so digital marketing agencies in Mumbai can assist you figure out what ratio you need to spend in those advertising and how to utilise those dollars efficiently. According to research on the internet, the average user spends 55% of his time viewing videos. YouTube, the world's biggest online video streaming site, allows you to broadcast your advertising before, during, or after the video. Downtown digital sales firms may create video advertisements for their real estate marketplaces. It is not the same as viewing a commercial on television. When you click on these adverts, you are sent to your website, which not only increases traffic but also helps you produce purchases by eliminating the process of the user going out and discovering you. Downtown digital sales firms can assist you in successfully marketing victimisation video commercials for your items and will advise you on how much to invest to maintain the sales campaign productive. Without a question, technology is vital to the commercial real estate

business, but the market is divided between leaders and followers. Leaders are making significant progress with well-thought-out and detailed technology initiatives that will allow them to begin to enhance efficiency and decrease expenses. The companies that are leading the way understand that, in the long run, technological solutions will accomplish this via the automation of certain processes and the elimination of mistake. Furthermore, these technologies have the potential to revolutionise these real estate organisations' capacity to harness internal and external data to make better investment and operational choices. They will most likely also assist businesses in gaining access to new income sources in order to diversify their operations and decrease risk. Strategically implemented technology solutions will also assist real estate owners in emerging from the COVID-19 epidemic with more streamlined and automated systems and procedures. This will be crucial for businesses as they adapt to the new working environment. According to real estate owners, their main technological goals are to make operations more efficient and cost-effective, as well as to access new revenue sources and improve income. Improved systems and procedures, for example, will be required to permit a more flexible usage of a company's portfolio and, within that portfolio, a more user-friendly office environment. Buildings will be carefully maintained to provide for a more personalised experience, with everything from project rooms, flexible meeting rooms, and shared workplaces to social walls, virtual windows, and townhall space. Automation will also free up resources for highervalue operations, allowing you to "do more with less." "Real estate organisations are increasingly understanding they need to move to the shifting technological environment in order to remain relevant and achieve a competitive advantage," stated one US technology vendor. This is not to imply that just a select few are making progress. In terms of the industry as a whole, 69 percent of respondents place a high premium on technology as a strategic initiative, and 61 percent have implemented one or more technological tools. ¹ However, many of these technologies are still in the early phases of implementation. The enterprise architecture of a company's IT plan must be aligned with the organization's strategic direction. Without a properly established technological strategy that enables each application to

interact across the whole business platform in a fully connected architecture, companies will not reap the full advantages of adoption. The final ROI for any instrument is determined by complete integration and comprehensive buy-in from the whole culture. "The corporation sees technology as vital to the long-term vision's achievement." "It is vital to be deliberate and cautious about how technology is used," stated a US REIT.A completely developed technology plan will include the following elements: 1.To better connect with business drivers, ensure that the selected technology is linked with the company's strategic vision. 2.Enhance your capacity to employ horizon technologies to achieve further business outcomes. 3.Make smarter judgments about technology investments. 4.Enhance the visibility of diverse business processes' integration, interoperability, and interdependence. 5.Reduce total cost of ownership through increasing reusability and scalability, such as by transitioning to business forecasting models rather than one-time tactical solutions. 6.Reduce operating expenses by simplifying technology and increasing architectural variation. 7.Allow for a more rapid roll-out of items and policies. Throughout this process, the involvement of individuals from multiple disciplines — data scientists, IT specialists, and business experts — from inside and outside the firm is crucial. It is also critical to ensure that each party is fully informed of the opinions of the others (e.g., data scientists should be exposed to key business processes and pain points). It is vital to use technology in a smart and informed manner. Defining questions that the company needs to answer is a vital initial step in developing an overall technology strategy, as it will assist guarantee that the process is driven by business need and direction. This will aid in the identification of a wide variety of use cases, allowing the organisation to pick the most promising based on their technical feasibility, possible commercial benefits, and alignment with the corporate vision. To dive down into the individual aspects critical to the creation of a successful technology strategy, examine the

following: 1.The context and strategy of business 2.Examples of specific applications 3.Prioritized information requirements and data sources – internal and external data collection and management guidelines 4.Implications of technology 5.Responsibilities for data ownership and governance 6.Plans for implementation Given its relevance and the related opportunities, data analytics should be at the centre of every real estate company's technology strategy. According to 92 percent of our study respondents, data analytics is the single most critical sector that real estate owners want technology to handle. However, only 35% have implemented or created a tool to date. Many businesses have historically struggled to build successful data strategies, and the lack of connectivity between property management and investment management systems, as well as other technology, has exacerbated the problem. Data-standardization projects, such as the OSCRE Industry Data Model9, have evolved to assist businesses in developing uniform data standards and frameworks that encompass the numerous facets of managing real estate assets throughout their life cycle. This is a vital step toward improved technology integration, which will eventually hasten the transition to totally digital real estate. Real estate firms have struggled with implementation, with 58 percent of survey respondents reporting that new systems do not integrate smoothly (requiring a major change to IT or business process to implement new technology). This might be due, in part, to the several systems in use. According to a recent US survey,10 two-thirds of organisations utilise one of the three largest enterprise resource planning (ERP) system vendors, although 15 distinct systems were highlighted among the 56 companies questioned. Furthermore, many respondents employ specialty systems for specialised activities such as common area maintenance expenses, construction management, or hospitality management, which they connect directly or manually into their general ledger system. A fragmented property technology

sector, as well as expectations mismatches between real estate owners and technology businesses, are worsening the problem. "The present offer is limited to certain phases of the building's life cycle." According to a US REIT, "the proptech sector lacks completely integrated end-to-end solutions that range from asset underwriting, development, construction, sales, through purchase to actual and predicted outcomes." "The perspectives of the actors vary enormously. Proptech is unsure of what it is capable of and what needs to be developed. "People in businesses hope for answers," remarked a German investment manager. We anticipate that when goods consolidate under long-standing as well as new and rising technological enterprises, the situation will improve. As more end-toend solutions become available, integration will become simpler. There are indications that this is happening; since the start of COVID19, venture investment has shifted toward later-stage rounds and products with high uptake. These well-funded industry giants are already promoting consolidation by acquiring similar items. Real estate owners should keep two essential questions in mind: What is your business case for deploying technology, and how will it be implemented? These questions concentrate on long-term corporate objectives and the technology infrastructure required to achieve those objectives. Flexibility and scalability should be top priorities. Companies must also update their strategy on a regular basis to maintain their infrastructure current, laying a solid platform for future adoption. "A platform strategy rather than a transactional emphasis is required," claimed one Australian IT supplier. Using this method to target fast victories is also beneficial. Companies may solve major business issues while developing the skills, methodologies, tools, and infrastructure required for long-term delivery. In certain cases, a "big bang" technological transition may be suitable. Companies establishing a tech-implementation plan may want to pursue an enterprise-wide approach via successive incremental modifications, always keeping the final technical aim in mind. Finding dependable suppliers, rather than merely the cheapest option, is critical to the process, and they, too, must be seen as participants in the transformation, even if the first step is to purchase an individualpoint solution or a managed-service product. Other options for getting

started include building and maintaining goods in-house, as well as adapting existing products. All of them are tried-and-true ways for developing basic technologies. Companies should search for solutions outside of the real estate industry. It is heartening to see technology suppliers and real estate owners collaborating to develop solutions that have the potential to be marketed. These organisations are assessing the marketability of the software/IP solutions they are creating. A transformation management office is one technique to enhance programme and transformation management. Creating an actionable technology strategy is a transformative process. It requires more than specific, focused activities like recruiting a strategy champion or selecting a certain provider. It is necessary to redefine numerous management practises in order to guarantee that the technology strategy connects the enterprise architecture with the company's strategic objective. However, as our poll found, implementation hurdles and personnel concerns are two major roadblocks to technology adoption. In addition to the survey findings, we perceive programme and transformation management as a major challenge. "It's sluggish and costly, but we know if we get over the adoption hurdle, it'll be lucrative and efficient," an Irish real estate giant said. Companies report that the primary implementation obstacles are conflicting goals and the lack of integration of new technologies. Other difficulties include a lack of inhouse talent and a culture that is resistant to change. "Limited resources and conflicting priorities sometimes outweigh innovative technological solutions." A US REIT said, "Too many firms in the proptech and systems area are not connected." Establishing a transformation management office is one strategy to enhance programme and transformation management. Most real estate organisations' technological journey will most likely be continuous. As a result, establishing a centralised team guarantees the consistent and thorough integration of strategy, delivery, risk management, and realisation to ensure business goals are met. New technological solutions are sometimes overshadowed by limited resources and conflicting objectives. A targeted group led by a technology leader (perhaps from outside the sector) and comprised of individuals from across departments may improve work-stream delivery, encourage

staff buy-in, and ultimately increase value. In addition to the CTO, the firm CFO, the keeper of the keys to the corporate coffers, plays an important role in the transformation office. Companies want a really forward-thinking change agent capable of doing more than just improving the existing quo. The proper CFO will assist push this agenda in a very efficient manner. Strategic alignment, integration and innovation, governance and decision-making, value extraction, organisational change management, project and programme management, and collaboration are the cornerstones of an efficient transformation management office. Specific concerns must be taken into account when the transformation management office continues to build up its technology strategy by deploying new tools: 1.Begin transformation management at the start of the project. Waiting till go-live is a bad idea. Transformation management is a process in and of itself that takes a large amount of time and effort. Communication initiatives, for example, should begin before project kick-off and continue throughout implementation. 2.Old issues will not be solved by new systems. While a new tool or system may be included in the plans to address poor performance (along with other measures such as greater training and enhanced procedures), a new software system will not solve any genuine business concerns. 3."Decision-makers are being bombarded with silver bullets. "Some people are sceptical because of this," remarked one Australian IT vendor. 4.Consider the command and control environment. Controls are one of the most effective techniques to persuade top management of the need of using technology. This is especially true in circumstances when technology will automate operations, reducing the possibility of human mistake, which might eventually result in a breach. 5.However, those same restrictions are also a significant hurdle to overcome when integrating any new programme. Do third parties tasked with delivering new technology and assisting with integration genuinely grasp the constraints that a public or private real estate business must work within? Will they modify their integration methods to comply with certain regulatory requirements? The clash between

highly creative technology employees and rigid industry standards and regulations may be a big source of consternation. 6.Early in the process, evaluate the effect of automated controls. The incorporation of automated controls in new technology deployment must be addressed at the design stage, when the firm is establishing its business requirements. These factors are difficult to apply after the system has gone live. 7.Assess the necessity outside of the meeting room. Gathering business needs in a conference room nearly always results in the loss of critical data and use cases. Recognizing that at least some requirements-gathering is "situational" adds a layer of legitimacy to the results. 8.Keep the decision-making process on track. The majority of steering committee and task force members have day jobs in addition to their involvement in technology transformation. As a result, conflicting priorities emerge. This usually implies that issues and decision points are not addressed in a timely way or are not given enough consideration. Slow or incomplete decision-making may result in a lengthier project, more rework, and more confusion, all of which might incur extra expenses. 9.With confidence, migrate your data. Bad data ruins perceptions of a freshly deployed system or technology quicker than anything else. Many businesses postpone data migration testing until the very last minute, which means it isn't tested as fully as it should be. 10.User Acceptance Testing (UAT) should always be carried out with genuine business users. Many firms restrict UAT to system administrators logging in and testing a few essential use cases. We highly advise doing a comprehensive UAT as part of each sprint leading up to go-live. Furthermore, genuine system users must take part in UAT testing. To the greatest degree feasible, UAT testing should use actual data. 11.Organize and prioritise a high-level hypercare process. This is necessary in order to support your go-live. Any substantial system flaws (whether caused by technology, procedure, or people) are likely to emerge within the first month after launch, if at all. As a result, incorporate a high-touch hypercare phase in your strategy.

12.Crawl, walk, run, and fly. Start with the fundamentals and work your way up. Technology adoption will most likely be a continuous process rather than a one-time event. 13.Analyze old procedures in preparation for a new day. Do not just copy and paste your old procedures into the new system. Rather, thoroughly examine how you do business in order to maximise the benefits of your new system. Take advantage of the chance to examine and even redesign processes. Digital twins provide a plethora of potential for the real estate industry, solving many of the difficulties that are altering the way buildings are operated in order to maximise ROI and appropriately handle the business. Each of the following categories must manifest itself in many use cases (applications, new processes, KPIs) in order to aggregate into a strong tool that supports the company and its transformation journey. In-depth knowledge. A digital twin for a building, school, or district gives a comprehensive perspective of the collection of assets as well as insight into how effectively they interact with one another. Improved health and well-being. Understanding tenants, visitors, and workers allows building managers and developers to concentrate on increasing their comfort and well-being. In this manner, the structure reacts to people rather than the other way around. By merging different data sources required for a flawlessly functioning intelligent building environment, a powerful IOT backbone and scalable digital twin assist to allow such a living space. Sustainability and the transition to NetZero Digital twins provide information into, for example, energy and water use to find optimization potential, allowing real estate stakeholders to progress toward carbon neutrality while also benefiting the environment and their own financial line. Creating a ROI. With the correct data, decision makers may choose techniques that improve the return on investment and asset value. This may become more thorough by accounting for all transition expenses such as process and tools, skill development, and change management. However, expenses associated with the technological stack, such as SaaS, support and maintenance, software development costs for apps, IoT platforms, communication and networks, and IoT devices, must also be considered. Maintenance that is predicable. A digital twin can provide a proactive

approach to maintenance across the building portfolio by evaluating data from the BMS, weather prediction, energy use, and other relevant aspects. Space use has been improved. Real estate managers can maximise how their property is utilised if they have a thorough awareness of their renters and their behaviours. This is especially relevant for office and mixed-use buildings in the post-COVID era. As they address each of these factors, digital twins provide a practical solution to digitising process-driven activities – all while laying the groundwork for the real estate industry to handle long-term global concerns. In addition to the large-scale difficulties that digital twins are assisting the industry in addressing, many of the day-to-day challenges that real estate professionals experience may be addressed by this data-rich technology. With the real estate industry under growing pressure to address ESG, a digital twin can provide complete transparency into which processes and operations have the most influence on environmental, sustainability, and governmental KPIs. With this information, owners and facilities managers may develop interventions to achieve their projected portfolio objectives. Other connections may be formed to enhance their ESG KPIs by adding additional non-real estate data such as traffic and weather. Segregated data is a problem in numerous businesses, but it's particularly problematic in real estate. With several, dispersed buildings, various years of construction, and even more stakeholders, insights are kept in various forms and places, making it difficult to acquire a comprehensive picture of the portfolio. Taking a Building Information Modelling (BIM) of a single building to the next level with a digital twin that links numerous buildings and campuses necessitates the integration of dynamic and static data from various sources. This provides the firm or organisation with real-time data on how the facility is functioning in terms of KPIs ranging from strategic to functional. A digital twin platform with multivendor system integration, which consolidates data into a single pane of glass, offers complete asset transparency and sophisticated analytics, allowing real estate owners to assess buildings, avoid system failure, and improve performance, for example. When it comes to resolving concerns in their facilities, building managers are often reactive rather than proactive. This has a detrimental influence on the

renter experience and may be an expensive method. A digital twin may utilise machine learning models to forecast when something will break, urging management to schedule a contractor and providing them with all of the information they want about the item being upgraded. This strategy saves money and time while also safeguarding the manager's reputation. Real estate owners and managers may often establish goals and targets for their real estate portfolio, but it is not always straightforward to measure against them. Traditionally, they utilise static data to gauge performance retroactively, which makes it difficult to alter systems and processes in a proactive manner. By combining the physical and digital worlds, fresh information may be retrieved in near real-time with other external aspects like as weather, occupancy scheduling, and human effect. This allows company owners to keep track of their performance and utilise it to make choices about the rest of their portfolio. Getting the digital twin right requires a few critical steps: 1.Setting clear business goals that identify tangible use cases for the digital twin, clearly defining why a digital representation is needed and what it shall improve, by incorporating the existing data landscape to build up on an existing environment. 2.Defining the ROI for the anticipated goal. This step is critical and includes a back-and-forth balancing business and technical requirements which leads to digital twin ‘strawman’. 3.Designing the digital twin. Now high-tech comes in place to select the right technology for the right usage with a clear budget in threshold to ensure that the digital twin covers the business goals and gives the solution experts the boundaries needed to suite the digital twin into the business. 4.Implement the twin. A critical factor for success is the first go-live of the twin in an agile mode to ensure all technical interfaces are set, but also to prepare the organization for their first transformational step potentially changing the way how operations are run, how transparency has been gained and decisions are made. 5.Scale the solution. A digital twin is not a one-off. It’s a digital representation of the business and therefore needs to have the adaptability to scale and adapt along with the business itself. In step 1

this has been defined properly so scaling the twin across the real estate portfolio will need to be a natural step in the business strategy to start the journey of a digital transformation of the business. Cloud computing has had a significant influence on commercial sectors in recent years. It has grown in prominence and is currently focusing on innovation and development. Cloud computing in real estate is one of several sectors that it has altered. People increasingly prefer to hunt for the services or items that they need online. The same is true for purchasing and selling real estate. Customers acquire credibility as a result of the knowledge they have regarding assets kept on the Internet. The use of cloud computing in real estate has changed the way residential and commercial properties are advertised on the internet. It has also revolutionised the way prospective buyers look for and find houses. Only after using internet resources on a specific property should the customer call the real estate broker or agent to see the property. The consumer has most likely gathered all of the required information and is on the verge of making a purchase choice. Cloud computing has now transformed the way assets are sold. The real estate business will be able to handle data more readily with a solution like cloud computing. While there are some cloud computing potential in the real estate market, there are also some obstacles. With continual technological advancements, there are several valuable Cloud computing in real estate solution owners to help them be more productive and simplify company procedures. Every business, including real estate, is being transformed by technology. On average, it is estimated that around 80% of real estate organisations use some type of IT solution, particularly cloud computing in real estate. If you haven't already done so, shifting to a cloud system and employing cloud migration services should ideally be on your business's to-do list. Keeping up with the newest technologies is critical to being successful and ahead of the competition. This method may often save you time and money while simultaneously protecting your intellectual property. Here are some of the most important possibilities in real estate that may be found in the cloud: 1.Reduced operating expenses:

Spending is far less essential in real estate since it is so competitive. When a firm migrates to the cloud, all of its data and documents are stored on a single server. There is no need to assemble an internal staff to handle hardware memory. Instead of spending money on hiring new people, this money might be utilised to enhance operations. Furthermore, the industry may enhance procedures without incurring excessive costs. There is no need to spend money on new gear or updates. Furthermore, since the cloud is always growing, there are several options for organisations to manage expenses. 2.Trust: Cloud computing services enhance user experience by making information accessible at any time and from any location. Because real estate agents are always on the move and seldom work in the office, cloud computing enables them to run their firm from any place, even overseas. The cloud is accessible to all devices, including computers, tablets, and smartphones. Agents may complete all relevant documents and accounts in the cloud. Cloud services are adaptable, ensuring that no important documentation is overlooked. 3.Manager of Sales and Marketing: By putting their management systems to the cloud, real estate agents can monitor the success or failure of their marketing initiatives. Agents may use cloud marketing services to get real-time analytics that will help them attract new consumers. Insights may also help the marketing and sales teams interact more easily, allowing them to strengthen their whole sales strategy. Here are some of the usual problems that real industries experience while migrating to the cloud: 1.Data Safety Everyone who uses the Internet should be concerned about security. Because of security concerns, most businesses are hesitant to post their data online. In the digital era, privacy is a major issue for businesspeople. Have information about public property. However, there is sensitive information such as customer information, bid prices, client IDs, social security numbers, and other details. These are handled virtually every day, which is why security is critical. With cloud

computing in real estate, you may be certain that there are solutions available to safeguard any sensitive data with further encryption. As long as there is a high degree of authentication and encryption to safeguard all real estate cloud-based assets, all data in the cloud will be safe. 2.Customization Ideally, systems are designed to meet the unique demands of a business. Most cloud services are utilised by a diverse variety of enterprises across numerous sectors, thus there is no guarantee that the cloud will function as intended. Fortunately, the cloud has advanced in comparison to its previous state. Customers may now customise their company requirements by selecting the services they wish to employ. They simply have to pay for the resources that they use. There is now a process organisation on the cloud. 3.reliant on a network High-speed internet connectivity will improve cloud customers' access to computer application services and data processing. However, if the internet connection is weak and there are frequent network outages, the real estate agent will be rendered ineffective. For example, if an agent is in a distant place and needs to use real-time cloud computing in real estate, a lack of access to a faster internet connection may have a detrimental influence on his or her business. Insights gleaned from public and private data sources, social media, company surveys, and other publicly accessible sources of information may help an agent discover and reach their desired target market. Agents, for example, might use big data to target important consumer demographics like as age, gender, interests, preferences, and area in order to boost and optimise marketing campaign engagement. Real estate data tools may reveal whether or not a prospective customer has pets or small children. With this knowledge, the realtor may save time by focusing on houses in pet-friendly neighbourhoods or in strong school districts. Agents may assist people wishing to migrate identify regions that are most suited to their career pathways or that do not need too much sacrifice in terms of cost of living by layering in local employment possibilities. 9.4 Insurance

Nobody is unfamiliar with the phrase "digital transformation," yet it has distinct meanings for everyone. Whether it is a manufacturing company on the verge of automation, a services company shifting to the cloud and sophisticated ERPs, or just robots in design, the effect is the same - digital and technical change. With the epidemic prompting the demand, people have learnt to be more effectively prepared digitally than physically, our options have grown, and the economic dynamics have altered tremendously. In contemporary times, insurance firms are rapidly adopting digitization in order to fulfil changing client demands while maintaining the relevance of their business model. In order to meet client needs, insurers have automated their processes. The digital transformation of insurance, enabled by mobility, artificial intelligence, live chat, predictive analytics, machine learning, and other technologies, enables insurers to stay competitive in today's market and satisfy clients on demand. Gone are the days when purchasing or renewing insurance meant meeting with an adviser to assess your requirements and then selecting a plan that was recommended. The complete customer sales and service cycle is now at your fingertips thanks to innovative technology and digitization - policyholders can buy, claim, and renew from the comfort of their own homes. The digital experiences of today's insurance buyers have impacted their expectations. For insurers, the digital threshold is increasing. And, in the long run, digitalization will benefit customers by allowing them to buy insurance policies at a lower premium, making insurance plans more affordable for the purchaser, comparing all the pros and cons of insurance policies online, directly buying and renewing policies at their leisure, providing cancellation support, and so on. The insurance industry is on the eve of a major crisis as the epidemic enters its second wave. Change has accelerated, and new, unknown processes must be addressed. As the amount of data rises, the only feasible way to manage the ongoing changes is to become digital and employ technology to suit the sector's demands. Insurers cannot escape this phenomenon: as old business boundaries dissolve, platforms and ecosystems will have a significant impact on the future of insurance. People are searching for a hyper-personalized experience when purchasing insurance plans, which includes

addressing current requirements but is based around an ecosystem of quick help in lifestyle, preparing for the future, and, most crucially, satisfying healthcare demands. Insurers may utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI) to personalise and customise these one-of-a-kind experiences. AI helps insurers to get more accurate reports in less time. Furthermore, AI manages the high-speed demand of contemporary clients. Insurers may enhance claim turnaround times and modify the underwriting process by using this strategy. Digitization is also assisting insurers in "future-proofing" themselves, since these technologies will undoubtedly continue to evolve and bring new advanced prospects in the coming years. AI, machine learning, blockchain data, data analytics, and predictive analytics are laying the groundwork for insurers to become really seamless.

The 6 Best Digital Insurance Providers of 2022 1.Best Overall: Esurance 2.Best Homeowners Insurance: Lemonade 3.Best Auto Insurance: Root 4.Best Business Insurance: Next Insurance 5.Best Health Insurance: Oscar Health 6.Best Life Insurance: Haven Life Insurance Agency As the name indicates, digital insurance is a kind of insurance that is available online or via a mobile app. To draught and price policies, these platforms utilise a blend of human customer service and computerised algorithms. Digital insurance businesses provide a wide range of coverage choices and products, including auto insurance, home and renters insurance, life insurance, and even healthcare packages. While some of these organisations are younger, standalone start-ups, many digital insurance providers are actually owned and supported by well-known, reputable, and established insurance brands. With practically every part of life today leaning toward technology, it's no wonder that insurance is following suit. These developments, which are intended to save customers time, energy, and money on their insurance premiums, are often referred to as insurtech. No matter where you are in the globe, today's insurtech businesses make it simpler than ever to browse for coverage,

compare costs, manage policies, and even file claims. Of course, they also remove much of the human touch from the business, raising worries about privacy and the intrusiveness of certain insurtech firms' mobile platforms. As the insurance business grows in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), one of the world's fastest-growing markets, regional companies now have an ideal chance to enjoy the benefits of being early movers in the global digital transformation narrative. In the Middle East and Africa, IoT expenditure is predicted to expand at a compound yearly growth rate of 15.9 percent, reaching $17.63 billion by 2023. The GCC nations are also in the forefront of 5G deployment, with operators in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar having already deployed 5G services to varied degrees. So, what does a more connected and automated Gulf Cooperation Council imply for insurers? Crucially, it provides them with the ideal chance to outinnovate the competition and generate value by increasing client experience, boosting risk assessment accuracy, and lowering operating costs and claims-related losses. Digitalization is not just moving the insurance sector forward; it is also reshaping the whole value chain. Companies that fail to commit to having a digital effect at scale—right now—risk being left behind in the face of this seismic shift. Firms that have the vision to position themselves as digital innovation pioneers, on the other hand, stand to reap a greater enterprise value—the innovation premium. Some companies in the GCC have already begun to adopt the necessary technologies. IInsured, for example, has introduced an AI-powered SafeDriver PayHow-You-Drive (PHYD) app that provides policyholders with cheaper rates and incentives depending on their driving habits. Union Insurance Company also employs AI, which extracts data from documents using natural language processing, to issue motor insurance in less than one minute for the first time in the UAE. Aman Insurance, Al Wathba Insurance, National Takaful Co. (Watania), Noor Takaful, and Oriental Insurance cooperated with insurtech startup Addenda to deploy their blockchain technology as part of their digitization plan and to optimise their procedures. Customers increasingly want the information they need to be straightforward, simple to comprehend, and easily accessible. Insurers

are responding to these needs by introducing AI-powered systems that substitute human input with features like automated product recommendations and chatbot inquiry resolution. For example, Esurance uses a direct insurance digital approach to clients, eliminating "middlemen" agents in order to provide cheaper, more competitive prices. Other businesses use chatbots and artificial intelligence to give clients with access 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Lemonade, established in the United States, provides insurance to homeowners and renters with less paperwork, reduced prices, and rapid replies by replacing brokers with bots and machine learning algorithms. As a consequence, Lemonade promises to be able to insure consumers in as little as 90 seconds and pay claims in as little as three minutes. Other insurers are going above and above to help clients comprehend their plans by using augmented reality (AR) technology. Desjardins Insurance, a retirement plan provider located in Canada, has transformed the arduous and time-consuming process of selecting a retirement benefit plan into a more engaging experience using an AR app that employs video to describe people's retirement aspirations. IoT, AI, and AR are all giving insurance companies the tools they need to get more bang for their buck with their marketing dollars. AXA Insurance in the United Kingdom has employed an ARenabled game called Ingress to increase brand awareness. Liverpool Victoria, a UK-based insurance, collaborated with Blippar to create newspaper flyers using augmented reality. Other insurers are using blockchain technology to lower sales and distribution expenses, allowing them to provide low-margin microinsurance products that were previously unfeasible due to high sales and distribution costs. Surety.ai use blockchain technology to provide microinsurance to consumers in Asia, particularly those who do not have access to the services of banks or other financial institutions. Customers are not the only ones who benefit from innovations that expedite the claims process. They are also intended to lower the cost of processing claims for insurers. According to the findings of our study of claims managers at prominent insurers, inefficient procedures and a lack of digitization are common downsides of the claims management process, as seen. However, several insurers, such as Suncorp in Australia and Tata-AIG in India, are now using automated

digital systems to submit and record insurance claims. Insurers have successfully processed claims in minutes by using AI to comprehend first-notice-of-loss photographs. Furthermore, Fukuoka Mutual, a Japanese insurance company, is analysing medical records and data on operations and hospital stays using a cognitive machine-learning (ML) tool to determine pay-outs. Meanwhile, ICICI Lombard has developed an AI-powered cashless claims settlement method that can be completed in under a minute. Ping An, a Chinese insurer, saved $302 million in false claims in one year by employing machine intelligence. It also recorded a 57 percent boost in fraud detection accuracy over the previous year. Furthermore, blockchain technology is providing a variety of compelling advantages to insurers. Aside from allowing them to execute smart contracts to speed up the claims process on parametric insurance products, blockchain enables them to cooperate by securely and anonymously exchanging data, as well as expose present blind spots to better fraud detection. Insurance companies are also using IoT devices to inform consumers in real time, correct customer behaviour, and utilise data to assess risk levels and execute actions to prevent claims from occurring in the first place. Liberty Mutual has teamed up with Google's Nest to deploy linked smoke alarms and lower home insurance prices. Nest detects smoke and informs clients, boosting the odds of preventing harm in the first place. FitBit, a popular mobile fitness programme, analyses users' activity and provides them with objective statistics to assist them live a better lifestyle. And Vitality, a British insurance company, has launched a rewards programme that employs comparable activity trackers and smart wearables to help its health insurance clients earn points as they manage their health risk. Four steps for Digitalization in Insurance are:

Step 1: Identify the right use cases Firms must weigh the following three aspects when it comes to identifying and prioritizing the right use cases: Financial impact—assesses the impact on the bottom line of increased efficiency, Net Promoter Score, diversification revenues, and so on and the investment required to achieve this

Strategic alignment—measures how each use case contributes to the firm’s short-, medium-, and long-term goals, and to its overall vision Ease of implementation—covers both internal and external aspects of implementation. External aspects include the availability and maturity of technology, and the technology adoption rate by customers. Internal aspects include existing capabilities and the availability of human capital.

Step 2: Digitalize the core operations Digitalizing a firm’s core operations is a significant undertaking and serves two key purposes: i).It enables people to focus on value-add activities by automating repetitive tasks ii)It prepares the organization to absorb new initiatives in a seamless and efficient manner

Step 3: Create a portfolio of digitalization initiatives Each use case must be assigned to an initiative, and a portfolio of initiatives can be created based primarily on the time it will take to realize the potential of each initiative. Based on the time to benefit, which is primarily driven by the maturity of the technology, firms can decide to take one of the following actions for each initiative: i)Develop products that can be powered by mature technology that’s available now ii)Incubate for technology that is expected to mature in one to two years iii)Ideate and monitor for technology that is still more than two years out

Step 4: Build a strategic blueprint Even with strategic goals set, effective implementations involve extensive preparation. In the most successful use cases that we reviewed in this study, companies were very clear about how, when, where, and why they wanted to deploy different technologies before moving forward. For example, the AI use cases we studied provide extensive evidence that successful implementations went hand in

hand with firms understanding the importance of their data. The process of cleaning and preparing data for use in training an AI engine is an important step in ensuring outputs are aligned with company strategy. As a result, the pre-deployment data collection and preparation phase requires the support and responsibility of leadership, operators, and ecosystem partners alike. In our experience, it’s crucial that companies develop and follow an executable road map that can help them realize their digitalization strategy. This approach is underpinned by three key steps: Strategic blueprinting—Identification of providers for priority use cases, and design of future interaction model and go-forward capability model, including a cross-functional digitalization centre of excellence Testing the strategy—Actual or simulated transactions flowing through use cases in order to test, learn, pivot, and deploy Implementation of solutions—Broader rollout and full-scale implementation of digital solutions across the business, spanning countries, business units/functions, and products

Benefits of DX (Digital Transformation) to Insurance Companies i. Easy Comparison A key benefit of digitization for customers present in the insurance industry includes the availability of a self-service model. The customers today are defined as being present on “omnichannel”. The customers research the products online and then discuss with their closed ones using social media to gain some recommendations rather than going for buying through retail locations.

ii. Self-serviced Dashboards The self-serviced dashboards have made it easier for the customers to decrypt the complicated insurance policies, calculate monthly premiums. These options are going to have a significant impact on the customer’s longer-term financial future and plans. The complicated coverage costs of the policies can now be virtually seen, thereby,

helping the customers to understand the change rates and determining the best plans. Digitization also helps in making it easier for tracking the growing speed of their policies.

iii. Advanced Analytics The insurance companies are using advanced analytics to gain insights on the needs and preferences of their customers. Advanced analytics also offer the insurance providers and customers to tackle fraudulent claims by building a superior system to detect the frauds by using big data analytics. The phases in which digital transformation takes place in the insurance industry can be classified as-

1. Evolving: Insurance firms have just begun to recognize the potential of digital transformation. They work on several initiatives for automating their processes and calibrating the business model to meet their business requirements.

2. Matured: Insurance firms use advanced technologies and enterprise portal solutions for integrating emerging trends for rapid product development and launch.

3. Optimized: The insurance firms are working towards futuristic solutions using newer technologies by analysing integrated systems and innovative products that can transform the experience of the stakeholders.

Technological Trends in Insurance: i. Artificial Intelligence Customers have always looked for personalized experiences when it comes to purchasing a P&C (property & casualty) insurance. Artificial Intelligence has been able to offer the insurer the ability to create unique experiences, thereby meeting the high-speed demands of modern-day consumers. By using AI, insurers can improve claims

turnaround times and change the underwriting process. AI also enables the insurers to access the data fasters and minimize the human element, which could lead to more accurate reporting in shorter periods. The initial impact of AI will be related to improving efficiencies and automating the existing customer-facing underwriting and claims procedure. With time, its impact is going to be more profound as it will be able to identify, assess, and underwrite upcoming risks and identify new sources of revenue.

ii. Machine Learning Machine learning will improve as well as automate claims processing. When files are stored in digital form and are accessible via the Cloud, they can be analysed by using pre-programmed algorithms, thereby improving speed and accuracy. The automated review will impact not just claims, but can also be used for policy administration and risk assessment. The insurance companies can use machine learningpowered tools that can be used for consolidating insights from massive volumes of large-varied data. Machine learning can also be used for models like customer lifetime value (CLV) with the help of customer behaviour data for forecasting the retention and crossbuying as well as all critical factors present in the company’s future income. Machine Learning can also help insurers in predicting the likelihood of a particular customer’s behaviour.

iii. IoT IoT can help in automating the data sharing done by the consumers to the insurance firms. Insurers can work on the data obtained from the Internet of Things devices like components of smart homes and wearable technologies for better-determining rates, mitigating these risks and preventing personal losses. IoT is also going to strengthen the insurance industry with first-hand data, thereby improving the accuracy of risk assessment, giving the insureds more authority to impact their policy pricing directly.

Below are the top-5 digital transformation challenges that insurers face today: 1. Business Growth Through Customer Experience

Insurers are presumed to deliver omnichannel solutions across mobile, web, chatbots, and customer call centres for providing the customers with a seamless experience whenever and wherever needed. The agents and brokers have a significant role in the insurance industry, but most of the agent portals are going through poor customer experiences. For an insurance-like competitive market, the performance of agents and broker is crucial for acquiring newer customers and retaining the existing ones. The insurance executives hold a new mandate regarding the optimization of experiences of their teams. The top-priority agenda rests with an easy-to-use and userfriendly portal.

2. Pacing Up Competitors

Time-to-Market

and

Beating

Insurtech

Insurtech has disrupted the insurance business to a great extent. The advantages of data analysis and new technologies such as GPS car tracking or activity tracking present on the wearables has enabled the Insurtech to transform the market with more modern solutions and better customer experiences. Despite the slowing down of the startup activity in the industry, Insurtech still manages to drive the future of this industry. The most significant challenge that lies with traditional insurers is to map their experience with new ways for connecting customers, policyholders, agents as well as partners. The mix of insurers with customers needs to be done with speed, agility and the right time to market.

3. Delivering Seamless Experience Across Nations Today, most of the insurance companies are operating across different countries. The companies need to ensure that they are providing a seamless experience across the states. Each country has got its own set of regulations, and the insurers need to adapt their policies and procedures that are compliant everywhere. The challenge for the insurance companies operating in multiple countries is the ability to customize and adjust their business and user experiences quickly to comply with different kinds of federal or state policies.

4. Ensuring a Connected Digital Ecosystem With rising competition, many insurers are expanding their businesses and service offerings by plugging other companies in the existing ecosystem. A connected ecosystem can make the business processes complicated, and insurers need to connect all the different components of the ecosystem and ensure a smooth experience for customers, brokers, agents, and partners.

5. Maintaining Legacy Systems and Increasing Backlogs Innovation is an essential component for insurers to remain competitive. Most of the matured insurance companies are still rely on their complex and disjointed legacy business systems. These consume both financial as well as human resources, thus, hampering the innovation process. A slew of rapid technological developments are set to alter the fundamental essence of insurance. Risk in vehicle insurance will move from drivers to the artificial intelligence (AI) and software that powers self-driving automobiles. Satellites, drones, and real-time data sets will provide insurers with unparalleled insight into the risk around facilities, resulting in increased accuracy. Natural disaster claims processing will be automated, endlessly scalable, and lightening quick. The life insurance industry will put to market "wrapped" solutions that will smoothly alter coverage depending on its clients' changing demands. These aren't science fiction possibilities. The technology that enable them currently exist, and creative solutions may become commonplace over the next decade. Our research looked at the effect

of 10 fast growing trends that are most significant to competitive advantage. 1 Five of these 10 are set to revolutionise the insurance landscape: applied artificial intelligence, distributed infrastructure, the future of connectivity, next-level automation, and trust architecture. As a result of the popularity of these technologies, insurers may face increased competition from a new generation of digital attackers, as indicated by the increasing number of greenfield insurers established in the last three to five years. In order to survive, incumbents must adjust their operational models, products, and basic processes to a new reality. All CEOs must comprehend the implications of new technologies and guarantee that their firms are ready to capitalise on them. Leaders will need to let go of existing assumptions and business models in order to embrace new methods of manufacturing and distributing goods that will, in many instances, be radically different. While several carriers are experimenting with artificial intelligence, just a handful have effectively expanded their capabilities throughout the industry. Carriers will be able to fundamentally reengineer key operations to be more predictive in nature as AI becomes more ubiquitous and algorithm building gets more commoditized. As fundamental processes become AI-enabled, AI will disrupt distribution, underwriting, claims, and service, resulting in a "human in the loop" paradigm that boosts efficiency and allows for higher-quality interactions with consumers. Carriers have failed to properly capitalise on the value of their data assets, such as claims history and distribution relationships. In addition to reengineering fundamental operations, major carriers and ecosystem stakeholders will embrace the arrival of AI to develop data-driven goods and services. Many fundamental procedures in insurers throughout the globe are hampered by heavy on-premise legacy systems, resulting in severe technological debt. As the cloud evolves, a quick transition to the cloud for all essential systems would enable insurers to be more agile in introducing new products and providing better customer support. The cloud will also be crucial for allowing the sort of processing capacity required to completely analyse and use the massive data volumes (such as tens of millions of claims data points). As ecosystems evolve throughout the world, cloud-native insurers will be

best positioned to operate as ecosystem orchestrators, linking clients, distributors, insurtech, healthcare providers, carriers, and reinsurers, among others. Insurers have started to use telematics to update the fundamental vehicle policy in various areas. IoT adoption might result in a comparable restructuring of products in the life, health, property, and business sectors. Increasing the frequency and specificity of data supplied by IoT devices helps consumers offer a more accurate perspective of their requirements and insurers better evaluate risk, both at the moment of purchase and throughout time. Because of the rising ubiquity of 5G, this data can be transferred at reduced latencies, allowing insurers to deliver real-time services to customers. For many years, insurers have engaged in robotic process automation to assist automate procedures, particularly in back-office operations, but future technology will allow carriers to radically rethink product and service. For example, industrial IoT may offer real-time monitoring of equipment, allowing for predictive repair prior to the occurrence of claims. Similarly, digital twins and 3D and 4D printing have the potential to revolutionise the claims experience for all physical damage sectors. Across industries, insurers manage sensitive consumer information, and as goods and services evolve, customers will be required to disclose increasingly more of this information with carriers. New technology will enable carriers to more efficiently manage risk and make use of complicated customer data—an important step toward moving to a "predict and prevent" insurance model in which data is exchanged more often between parties and insurers play a more active role in claims prevention. As blockchain technology becomes more extensively used, carriers will be able to more efficiently handle customer data in a secure and uniform way, as well as ease present concerns like as identity management and verification. Zero-trust security and related technologies can assist carriers in building resilient networks that will guard against cyber assaults. These technological advances have the potential to significantly alter some of the basic inputs and key functions of insurance products. For example, in underwriting, automated warehouses (supported by

applied AI and distributed infrastructure) may radically change the type and emphasis of workers' compensation coverage by eliminating the bulk of human employees from most warehouse activities. Higherorder effects of these developments on insurance are expected to be felt when technology factors interact and build on one another. We see distributed infrastructure (such as wearables), trust architecture (enabling privacy-protected sharing of real-time health data), and applied AI (enabling real-time feedback on the impact of physical activity on personal wellness) combining to transform how insurers use data to develop predictive insights and inform a variety of interactions with policyholders as examples of this multiplicative effect. Similar developments might occur across the insurance value chain. Amara's Law states that we often overestimate the short-term effects of new technology while underestimating its long-term influence. In terms of digital developments influencing insurance, it is unclear where the sector falls on the influence spectrum. Given the quick emergence and disruption of these trends (note the rapid, in some instances exponential, rise in AI skills such as deep learning in the last three to five years), we may have crossed the tipping point and began to underestimate their long-term influence. These particular technologies are gaining traction (as evaluated by the IT trends index), and inventive insurance incumbents and new entrants have begun to use them to create new products and services. Many insurers, however, are still updating their IT stacks and are at an early stage of the digitalization journey, leaving them vulnerable to being overtaken by more agile firms. All of these issues should serve as a wake-up call for insurance executives to gain a better knowledge of where and how these developments may impact their core products and the competitive environment. The combination of applied AI, distributed data collecting, the future of connectivity, and next-level automation will enable insurers to underwrite a considerably broader range of risks almost automatically utilising real-world, real-time data from a number of sources. Drones, satellite-generated radar images, computer vision, applied AI, and smarter edge devices are rapidly being used by insurers to gather a range of data about facilities and assets. A carrier could collect a data set of radar-based and drone-generated photos and image

characteristics of an oil rig to guide underwriting in a fraction of the time that is presently needed in just a few days. Trust architectures built in IoT and high-speed mobile networks enable a diverse variety of insurance value chain actors to communicate data in a safe and public way. The nature of insured risk will alter as the degree of automation grows in traditionally labor-intensive sectors. Consider a completely automated dark warehouse staffed by robotic pickers employing applied AI and next-generation automation. When compared to mishaps caused by human mistake, the risks posed by cyberthreats and malfunctioning AI become more significant. The nature of risk will evolve, and new hazards will develop, necessitating new forms of coverage and underwriting. Managing hazards from self-driving and semi-autonomous cars will compel carriers to reconsider how auto insurance policies work. Insurers' roles may move from claims to prevention, where they are best positioned to detect and mitigate risk by collaborating with clients and using technology. In many circumstances, insurers will be required to create ecosystems and combine a plethora of data sources. The capacity to continuously engage consumers will result in products that dynamically modify premiums, benefits, or both on a frequent basis. Mortality and morbidity insurance will be a more fluid offering, allowing people to pay as they go. To properly safeguard their families from the financial disruption of high-cost medical catastrophes, many people now must get life insurance, critical illness protection, disability coverage, and long-term-care coverage. The distinctions between these product categories will become more blurred in the future, as carriers are able to provide "umbrella" coverage across risk categories that is personalised to each individual. Furthermore, with the bio revolution and the introduction of precision medicine, carriers will be required to have a much more nuanced view of a customer's risk. The capacity to "unbundle" existing protection goods to build unique packages will be regulated by greater legislation and actuarial standards that must change. As digital trends emerge and begin to gradually transform the character of insurance operations and products, incumbent carriers

will need to carefully address a number of crucial concerns in order to influence future choices and actions: 1.What effects will these developments have on the character and structure of our organisation? What changes will we need to make to our fundamental operations and processes? 2.Do we have the requisite ability and skill set to comprehend and use these new technologies? What are our gaps, and how large are they? 3.Should we follow a build, purchase, or partner approach if we were to include these new technologies? 4.What role do data and technology ecosystems play as we plan our future technological, product, and operational strategies? What should our role be if we engage, such as ecosystem owner, facilitator, or participant? 5.What is the evolution of consumer views regarding privacy and data sharing? Which technological ecosystems are best positioned to acquire data that might be game changers for insurers? 6.Where are new entrants disintermediating conventional insurers, and where do new entrants have an unfair edge in how they provide goods and services based on tech trends? Data is the most valuable asset for insurers. Insurance businesses have to chew through hoards of consumer and commercial information to make key judgments. The emergence of big data technology has been a disruptive factor in an industry that is so reliant on these data pieces. Predictive analytics, for example, can properly calculate pricing and risk selection, minimise underwriting costs, enhance claims triage, and even detect developing trends. The most disruptive technologies in the insurance sector today are machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotic process automation. AI and machine learning enable computer systems to learn and grow indefinitely. Not only that, but their capacity to precisely duplicate human talents and do so more correctly opens up hitherto unimagined prospects for disruption in the insurance industry. AI and RPA have expanded the automation possibilities in the P&C and employee insurance industries. One example is the use of

machine learning algorithms for fraud detection to discover abnormalities that even the most well-trained people may overlook. Mobile-based AI technology is being used by an increasing number of businesses for fraud detection and prevention, claims processing, and overall process efficiency. Insurers have merely scratched the surface of what machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotic process automation (RPA) technologies can achieve for the insurance industry. We can only wait and see what kinds of changes these technologies will bring in the future. Seven disruptive ideas are changing the insurance industry: 1.Workflow automation with machine learning 2.Claims processing with machine learning 3.Telematics and Risk management improvements 4.Improved conversational chatbot interfaces 5.Insurance API and innovation 6.Insurance Fraud Detection Software 7.Retaining Human Intellectual Capital According to Magdalena Ramada-Sarasola, PhD (InsurTech Innovation Leader EMEA, Willis Towers Watson), blockchain has the potential to disrupt the insurance sector in six ways: 1.Smart contracts triggered by events 2.Enhanced back-end efficiency 3.Disintermediation 4.More accurate pricing and risk assessment 5.New insurance products have emerged. 6.Reaching out to the underserved Saving money is a significant advantage that blockchain can give. It is obvious that the usage of blockchain may have an influence on claims, administration, underwriting, and product development, and now, the majority of blockchain use cases are focused on cost reduction initiatives. The use of blockchain to develop automation in claim payment is one of the first areas being investigated by insurance

firms. By validating coverage between corporations and reinsurers, blockchain has the potential to assist automate claims operations. It will also streamline claims payments between parties, lowering administrative expenses for insurance firms. According to Gartner, blockchain will deliver $3.1 trillion in new company value by 2030. We may also imagine a future in which new life insurance applications are filed through blockchain. Another possible use for blockchain is the transfer of any form of digital proof for underwriting, such as the usage of electronic health data (EHR). When digital evidence becomes more easily integrated into underwriting, we can anticipate future changes in price and product development. The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will result in the automation of insurance procedures, which will change the face of our business in the near future. However, they are still novel technologies that must be thoroughly researched before being completely used by the insurance business. Even in the digital age, the vast majority of insurance policies and claims are still handled by hand, and systems have some human touchpoints. While these manual procedures are usually functioning, there is still the possibility of human mistake and data manipulation or misunderstanding. Insurers may profit from the incorporation of blockchain technology in terms of workflow, efficiency, risk management, and better client interaction. To organize and distribute insurance contracts, the insurance business has historically depended on trusted middlemen such as insurance brokers and underwriting agents. Smart contracts, on the other hand, eliminate the need for human intervention. Smart contracts, at their most basic, are selfexecuting contracts between two or more parties that may be created electronically and are performed automatically through underlying blockchains in response to the occurrence of certain agreed-upon events. The conditions of agreements between insurers and policyholders are encoded into the code upon which smart contracts are developed in the insurance environment. Because all smart contract transactions are recorded on a blockchain, there is a high degree of transparency. This is due to the fact that every transaction on the blockchain is open to the world. Separately, by eliminating the

requirement for human intervention, the possibility of mistakes and unlawful modification of contract conditions is considerably minimized. Critically, since manual evaluation is no longer required, claims investigation, coverage analysis, and processing are much faster. This improves the effectiveness of the insurance function and may help build customer trust and confidence in the sector. Smart contracts, however, have certain inherent restrictions. Currently, technology can only handle very basic insurance policies with contract terms that work on the premise of "if A happens, the consequence is B." The technology is not yet mature enough to support more complicated contractual arrangements and conditions, or to address the intricate complexities of insurance law and regulation, such as ideas like "utmost good faith," or to fully manage fraud and nondisclosure concerns. Parametric insurance originated in the late 1990s as an objective and data-driven approach to insurance claim payouts. Claim payments under parametric insurance models are entirely dependent on the occurrence of a clearly defined event/objective quantifiable data-led criteria and give an agreed payment or an amount determined by reference to established formulas. For example, if an earthquake happens within a certain radius of a policyholder's residence (measured in kilometers), the insurance will immediately pay out the agreed-upon sum. The parametric insurance concept is appealing because it eliminates the need for subjective damage and loss assessments. While the use of parametric insurance is rising in firstparty loss classes (particularly in agricultural and crop insurance), it has not moved as quickly as predicted due to a historical lack of trustworthy infrastructure and data for properly settling these types of contracts. However, blockchain technology bridges these gaps by linking real-world data to the execution of insurance contracts. In this context, there have recently been significant breakthroughs in the field of so-called blockchain oracles. These are organizations that link blockchains to real-time data. This allows data from outside the blockchain to be obtained and utilized to trigger the execution of parametric insurance smart contracts in a manner that alleviates worries about data tampering. This increased openness in claims processing and decision-making contributes to customer confidence in

blockchain models. Because to the use and acceptance of blockchain technology, parametric insurance products are now available to nearly everyone with an internet connection. A smart contract between a farmer and an insurance, for example, may specify for payment to be issued automatically after 30 consecutive days of no rain at the specified insured site. The smart contract may be linked to dependable external independent meteorological data, such as official rainfall figures, to promptly trigger claim payouts when agreed-upon data criteria are met. In other words, claim payments may be initiated and processed without the requirement for the standard claims procedure or the participation of any other third-party service providers or internal human decision-making points. Insurers can drastically decrease, if not eliminate, traditional claims management expenses while offering guaranteed, unquestionable, and fast claims service and payment to clients. In principle, the technology and methodology are applicable anywhere independent, credible, and verifiable data relevant to the risk is available, or where the insurer and insured can agree on a payment trigger technique or other formula. Outside of the agriculture sector, for example, air travel disruption or delay claims payments may be automatically triggered and reimbursed when connected to data from official air transport authority databases. Trauma and life insurance policies might be connected to public health authority information and birth and death registries. The latter certainly raises substantial (possibly insurmountable) privacy, data, and regulatory concerns, but it serves the purpose of demonstrating blockchain's immense potential utility and application in the insurance market. Blockchain technology has progressed beyond its initial purpose as the basic cryptocurrency for Bitcoin. There are currently many more use cases that have been applied in a variety of sectors such as banking, media, healthcare, and telecommunications. Manual methods, which are still employed in the insurance sector to organize insurance policies with insureds and via intermediaries, are prone to human error and data difficulties. Insurers who innovate by investigating methods to integrate blockchain technology to their current operations would benefit from better data quality in their records and more transparency across all parties engaged in the

insurance value chain. When blockchain technology is combined with other innovations, such as parametric insurance products, insurers can create a new suite of products to target customers who are concerned with the efficiency and speed with which claims are paid in order to remain competitive and agile in the rapidly evolving global insurance market. There are several instances of how the digital transformation of the insurance sector has affected the industry. Operations are simplified, consumer contacts are conducted through chat, claims may be handled electronically, and brokers can consolidate all of their information to operate more efficiently and correctly. However, the true effect of digital transformation on insurance may be summed up in four advantages: 1.Efficient - The first and most evident impact of digital transformation on insurance is the increased efficiency it allows. Almost every aspect of insurance operations has been streamlined for speed, thanks mostly to AI and its associated technologies of machine learning and predictive analytics. With machine learning capabilities, claims may be handled promptly through an app, and policy authoring can be completed in less time. Customer service is also being accelerated by digital transformation, with live chat and digital assistants assisting consumers in their most critical moments of need. 2.Personalized — Today's customers expect to get service and attention when and when they want it. They also want it to be tailored to their specific requirements, and customization is increasingly the norm across all sectors. Digital transformation is providing insurers with the tools they need to provide outstanding service to their consumers while without overburdening their resources. AI and machine intelligence provide a more tailored experience for both consumers and brokers. Customers may use an app to pay bills, see policies, and make claims, while brokers can receive and handle all information on their end using a single system. No more waiting on the phone, unsure whether your claim has been received and handled; digital technologies are providing clients with fast feedback and assisting brokers in doing their duties more efficiently and effectively. Personalization of marketing efforts is also being aided by digital

revolution in insurance. Robust data analytics and AI systems can adapt and target insurers' marketing efforts, using the power of social media to reach people who matter. 3.Scalable - The insurance industry's digital transformation is also assisting it in becoming more agile and scalable at both the front end and back end of operations. While insurance was formerly considered "clunky," modern technology has made it more adaptable to changing needs. On the consumer side, insurers can now provide support anywhere and at any time via self-service dashboards and applications, and they can gather important data from customers through IoT-enabled devices and even wearables. On the back end, this technology is gathered and used to assist brokers and insurers in making more accurate judgments about underwriting, policies, new product offers, and other topics. 4.Agile – Digital transformation is also assisting insurers in becoming "future-proof," since these technologies will definitely continue to improve and generate more sophisticated possibilities in the coming years. AI, machine learning, blockchain data, data analytics, and predictive analytics are laying the groundwork for insurers to expand and adapt to new insurance technologies and capabilities. For the insurance sector, these technologies are only the tip of the iceberg. To be ready for a digital future, insurers must use digital transformation technologies and think creatively about how to improve all aspects of their business. In fact, 90 percent of insurance executives today say they have a long-term strategy in place for technological innovation. The digital revolution of insurance operations is transforming the industry's present and future status. Hitachi Solutions creates complex, bespoke insurance solutions that are driven by the intelligence of AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics. Our digital solutions assist insurers in developing the features, functions, and apps required to compete in this industry. Creating a self-service portal where customers and insurers may get answers to problems, perform business (transactions, orders, file a claim, pay bills, etc.), check status, send support issues, and download materials is an effective way to improve customer experience.

In the past, the insurance business has been famously slow to accept new technology. It used to seem unthinkable to think of improving procedures, switching to an online interface, or even processing claims the same day. That is, until the global digitalization of all sectors, and now the digitalization of insurance. Digital transformation is defined as "the act of employing digital technology to develop new — or adapt existing — processes, cultures, and customer experiences to satisfy changing business and market needs." Digital transformation is the redesigning of company in the digital era." Property and casualty insurers now do the bulk of their business online or via digital apps. Consumers nowadays just expect speed – they want quick satisfaction, which in the case of insurance implies rapid policy quotations, bill payments, and communication. It is unclear where the insurance industry's digital revolution will go in the future. Experts predict that new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things will have the greatest influence on claims processing and underwriting (IoT). These and other technologies are part of the current insurance digital transformation effort. As previously stated, client expectations are driving innovation and the digital revolution of insurance. And when we talk about the customerfacing or customer-impacting activities of insurance, we're talking about the insurance value chain. It is now more vital than ever to digitize and upgrade the insurance value chain. However, what exactly is the insurance value chain? The insurance value chain encompasses all of the insurance components from which businesses get value. Consider it all of the points at which carriers and consumers engage. These encounters also include customer self-service options, which are critical to today's consumer. When we talk about the insurance value chain, we mean: 1.Sales and distribution of products 2.Claims Payments Customer Service is a new firm that underwrites claims. AI, IoT, machine learning, predictive analytics, big data, and cloudbased services are the technologies and applications that compose digital insurance, and they are what have launched insurance digital

transformation. While these technologies are essential, the process of digital transformation entails much more than merely installing new software. For carriers with a complicated mix of legacy IT systems, the prospect of handling all of these digital changes and adopting new systems might seem intimidating, costly, and unsafe. But don't worry; a cloud-based infrastructure enables you to adopt an agile, multiphased approach to digital transformation at your own speed. Start by focusing on one line of business at a time and looking for solutions that allow you to successfully collect and consolidate all of your data in one place. Regardless of where you begin, the capacity of your technology to continually upgrade and stay current is a vital element to consider throughout your digital transition. With evergreen solutions, you can enjoy limitless creativity fueled by contemporary, deployable technology that is always current and always up to the job. This is the primary advantage of digital technology in insurance: it enables you to discover new strategic solutions for your clients before they even realize they need them. While digital transformation might take time, there are a few tried-and-true actions you should follow to make this process as easy as possible: 1.Stage One: Automate Existing Processes The automation of present procedures is the first step in the route to insurance digital transformation. Today's consumers anticipate high levels of speed and individualized attention, which would be practically difficult to provide without automated services. There are significant benefits to be gained here, and many activities in the insurance sector may be made more efficient and successful by using digital technology and strategies such as: i)Streamlining workflow procedures and automating underwriting algorithms to drive referrals ii)Opening claims coverage and establishing reserves automatically based on pre-defined rule sets iii)Implementing live chat services and automatically responding in real time to consumer inquiries and concerns iv)Billing and communication automation 2. Stage 2 Optimize for Strategic Focus

The optimization for strategic focus stage is the second step of an insurer's digital maturity. This level goes beyond job automation by identifying important characteristics that distinguish carriers in the market and employing digital technology and tactics to improve operations that support those market objectives. As an example: i)Product excellence - certain insurers are optimizing around product innovation, with the goal of configuring and developing new products to meet the demands of niche markets such as commercial specialty. ii)Others are aiming for the capacity to modify prices, regulations, and product offers more quickly than their rivals. iii)Customer/agent experience and service — yet others optimize around being the easiest to conduct business with, often through a chosen channel. The strategic focus stage, like the automation stage, has intrinsic value in and of itself and is not always merely a stepping stone to the next stage of a carrier's journey. Indeed, market difference may make or ruin a company. 3.Stage 3: Achieving True Digital Transformation The third and most advanced level of digital maturity is a company's entire, end-to-end transition to an open, networked "platform" paradigm. Platform organizations, such as Amazon and eBay, are structured to accommodate changing market demands by coordinating connections between customers, sellers, goods, data, and service providers – all in an open, informed, iterative, and dynamic cycle of supply and demand. While this degree of growth plainly needs strong digital foundations in order to function, the model necessitates more than just technology. It necessitates a new way of thinking and working, as well as a total overhaul of an insurer's structure and go-to-market strategy. A genuine digital transformation: i)Places the wants and expectations of the customer at the center of all decisions and processes. ii)Changes an organization's structure from distinct internal and external business divisions, each with its own set of data and procedures, to continuous, real-time communication and data exchange.

iii)Allows for the creation of dynamic linkages between market players who are always changing. iv)Changes the dynamics of interactions between partners, rivals, suppliers, and so on. The digital divide between insurers that are technologically equipped and those who are not is widening. It is no longer an issue of whether or not to replace outdated core systems; rather, it is a question of how. Many insurers, particularly small-to-medium-sized carriers and those with lesser pools of IT expertise to draw from, are essentially leapfrogging the competition by shifting to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for their key systems. Customers' expectations of digital transformation are now built in. Altimeter polled 528 digital transformation executives and strategists from various sectors and asked them to rank the objectives driving their digital transformation initiatives in "The 2016 State of Digital Transformation." The outcomes will appear eerily similar to insurers: 1.Customer tastes and habits are changing (55 percent) 2.Opportunities for expansion in new markets (53 percent) 3.heightened competition pressure (49 percent) 4.New regulatory and compliance requirements (42 percent) The inference is that revenue, retention, and customer experience concerns are driving digital transformation more than technology. At its finest, insurance's digital revolution reduces entry barriers. End users may easily accept and change via configuration rather than coding. Furthermore, IT is now accessible as an operating expenditure rather than a capital investment thanks to the cloud. Because of preintegrations and the always-ready and constantly updated status of SaaS systems, insurers can utilize and profit from increased capabilities for digital communications, data-driven decision making, and predictive analytics right away. SaaS also frees up your IT staff from monotonous and non-value-added tasks like maintenance and updates, allowing them to focus on other business concerns like refining customer experiences and preparing to leverage new data sources, such as those collected through telematics and third-party suppliers. The advantages that carriers may anticipate to gain if they

continue with insurance digital transformation, which is supported by a totally scalable, SaaS-based platform, are limitless. For most insurers, the following are the first signals of good change as a result of digital transformation: 1.Processes that are standardized 2.Cost-cutting 3.Productivity in sales 4.Rapid market entry 5.Integration across several channels They implemented changes within their operations by implementing small but critical process changes. Early adopters have honed their skills in preparation for long-term rewards. They have created excellent company values in order to get more clients and obtain complete advantages such as: 1.Faster access to market for insurance goods and services. 2.Predictive analytics enables crucial business data to be used to make quicker choices. 3.Automation of fundamental business functions. 4.Sales, productivity, and profitability all rise as a result of synchronous operations. 5.The integration of design and systems improves the consumer experience. 6.Cost and time savings in company processes. 7.Claims procedures have been improved, and underwriting efficiency has grown. Digital insurance providers need to combine all the key components that can drive customer engagement at multiple levels to ensure success and they are: 1.Innovation and Agility: Allow a customer to engage both online and offline with limited human interaction. 2.Culture and Workforce: Train your employees, customers, and partners through modern learning management systems for greater engagements.

3.Interactive Design: Provide a seamless shopping experience with clear instructions and pricing. 4.Data and Analytics: Use data to understand customer behavior and analytics to help him make informed purchase decisions. 5.Governance and Policies: Make and mark clear rules for every product and policy to stay on the right side of the law. 6.Risk and Cyber security: Update systems and website to protect data and privacy. 7.Digital Architecture: Develop Digital Experience Platforms that are robust and omnichannel. 8.Customer Dashboards: Create objective and personalized dashboards for all the stakeholders. There are 3 phases to Digital Transformation in Insurance industry: 1.Evolving: Just beginning to realize the potential of digital transformation. Working on several initiatives to automate their processes and calibrate their business model to suit their business requirements. 2.Matured: Uses advanced digital technologies and enterprise portal solutions integrate emerging trends for rapid product development and launch. 3.Optimized: Working towards futuristic solutions using NextGen technologies by analysing integrated systems and innovative products that transform the experience of all the stakeholders. List of trends that may materialise in the year 2022: 1.Interconnected Portals and Systems: In digital enterprises, communication is essential. Partner portals, corporate portals, and intranet portals have already been introduced in the insurance business. To build an omnichannel digital ecosystem, efforts will be made to combine all of them on a single platform, moving away from disparate legacy technology. 2.Dashboards that are self-serving: Seeing all of the information from a single point of view is critical when making judgments. Customers and partners will substantially benefit from having a bird's-eye perspective of their performance, policies, pricing, maturity, and

payment dates. Having all critical information in one location will become an inseparable feature of an insurance company system. 3.Compare and Buy: Consumers will go online to compare plans on numerous insurance portals in order to make a more informed buying choice. It will help them comprehend the terms, conditions, price, and a variety of other factors before making a final selection on their life, medical, car, or insurance plans. This is where corporate mobility solutions for insurance companies will become a driver for increased revenue and client retention. 4.Seamless Claims Management: To make claims, consumers will snap images, upload documents, and pick their various policies, and insurance providers will scan and review papers. The whole procedure of filing and resolving insurance claims would be conducted online. 5.Cloud computing is the way of the future. According to the report, 80 percent of insurance companies are either migrating part of their business processes to the cloud or have already switched to cloud storage. 6.Big data and analytics: As more people shop for insurance online, insurers will be able to use the massive amounts of data collected to better understand customer needs and tailor their plans to match them. They will be able to forecast the kind of insurance policies, claims management, and client profiling using sophisticated analytics to assure complete transparency. 7.Approaches of Development: The majority of IT firms choose to create their software utilising Agile methods. DevOps as the preferred approach of application development is increasingly being used by organisations to drive digital transformation. 8.IoT and InsurTech: The insurance industry is using beacons and GPS tracking to monitor the utilisation of automobiles, industrial vehicles, and a variety of other devices. InsurTech (Insurance Technology) will assist insurers in better understanding their use and logging their actions in order to produce customised insurance products and services for individual policyholders. 9.AI advancements: Automated chatbots acting as advisers will become increasingly frequent. They will even start recommending

alternative plans to certain customers based on their previous purchases and potential needs. We may even see some robots in physical verification of claim settlements, but only with limited success since the technology is still in its early phases. However, altogether, Artificial Intelligence will improve in the next years. 10.Wearable Gadgets: This has the greatest potential and farreaching implications for the insurance sector. Smart gadgets such as the iWatch, fitness trackers, and other monitors employ mobile apps to measure user activities and health in real time. This allows insurance firms to tailor their plans to meet the demands of individual users based on their health. Nathan Furr and Andrew Shipilov debunk five prevalent fallacies about digital transformation in a Harvard Business Manager and explain what digital transformation is all about. Their results demonstrate that digital transformation does not have to be disruptive in any way. Meeting consumer requirements via the use of new technology, which may be incorporated gradually, is the goal of digital transformation. Managers can regain control and develop a plan that will provide their organisation a competitive advantage. Let us apply Furr and Shipilov's results to the five most popular misunderstandings about digital transformation in the insurance business to show how insurance executives may design a digital transformation plan and obtain a competitive edge are: 1.Myth #1: We need to reconsider and revise our business approach. Reality :Use digital technologies to better satisfy the demands of your customers. Individual risk is shifted to a collective, with the insurer acting as the mediator, collecting premiums, managing policies, and paying out in the event of a loss. Despite increased digitisation, this business model will stay largely unchanged. But there's more to it than that. New technologies are providing insurance businesses with new options to handle their consumers' demands. As a result, insurers must constantly assess whether their existing business model fits the expectations of their customers. For example, if a client expects a pay out within a few days following a loss, insurers must confirm that this

is possible given their present claims procedures. If not, they must assess their process for opportunities to improve and automate it. Implementing a new technology only because it is available is a bad idea. Insurers must consider if a new technology can assist satisfy the demands of their customers or add value to the customer experience. If this is not the case, new technology should not be introduced. Blockchain technology is a fantastic example. In the past, insurers attempted to develop new blockchain-based processes and products, but these were unsuccessful because consumers saw no extra value. Insurers must first identify the client value and then develop the technology to support it. 2.Myth #2: We must transition from analogue to digital channels. Reality: Physical and digital channels will coexist in reality. The insurance industry has always been about people. Insurers did not have direct touch with their clients for a long time. As middlemen, agents and brokers were utilised, and these jobs still have a lot of client engagement, which means insurers have relatively little information about their consumers. Insurers are realising that in order to satisfy their clients' expectations, they must get to know them better. They are actively investing in the digital customer journey, chatbots, and digital solutions that will allow them to collect relevant data and keep in direct contact with consumers. Physical and digital channels are well separated. The key to success is the total integration of physical and digital channels to provide clients with omnichannel 24/7 access — regardless of whether they began their journey online or with a broker. Insurers must clean up their product portfolios, figure out how to incorporate agent and broker systems into their omnichannel strategy, and capitalise on client data. 3.Myth #3: We need to acquire and merge companies. Reality: Use start-ups as partners who can generate breakthroughs without instantly incorporating them. Insurance firms are seeing increased competition from InsurTechs, who use technology to improve the client experience in at least certain aspects of the insurer's value chain, such as digital internet apps. Despite the fact that many major insurers have chosen to purchase out startups and incorporate them into their existing value chains,

some have discovered that various cultures are difficult to merge and may lead to friction in the long term. An insurer should be cautious about merging a recently acquired business and should offer it autonomy by giving adequate resources to stimulate innovation for added value. The partnership between an InsurTech and a conventional insurer must be close enough for the parent firm to learn from the founders and get synergies from the cooperation while enabling the start-up to maintain its own culture. For example, the German insurance Allianz made a strategic investment in the start-up Lemonade, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide a unique client experience and personalised solutions. Allianz does not aim to incorporate Lemonade into its value chain at this time, but is looking into synergies and possibilities to collaborate in the future. 4.Myth #4: Digitalization is just concerned with technology. Reality: The client is at the centre of digitalization. The emphasis on technology and how it will affect the future is a typical misconception of digital transformation. However, digital transformation entails much more than simply technology. It is also about client centricity, so that insurers can understand their consumers and create tailored goods and experiences that keep them coming back. This approach will be aided by technology such as AI, but it will also need a shift in thinking among insurance workers. They must realise that "the client is king" and that it is their responsibility to keep them happy - a notion that may be foreign to individuals who are accustomed to the bureaucratic systems of certain huge insurance firms. Many insurance firms recognise this new need and are portraying themselves as "lifetime partners" to their customers, offering "tailored products and services" to match their clients' demands. 5.Myth #5: We must promptly decommission all obsolete systems. Reality: Modernize gradually as required. Digital transformation necessitates new needs for backend systems, which presents a barrier for insurance businesses that have been using the same systems for decades. An quick revamp of current legacy systems may be too risky and expensive. Instead, insurers must develop new front-end apps that fulfil client expectations while

gradually replacing underlying old systems in an agile manner. Meanwhile, the new front-end apps may be linked to older systems through middleware interfaces (APIs). Individual business units might, instead, develop new front-end and back-end solutions that are independent of old systems and function in parallel until the ancient systems are retired. HDI, an industrial insurer, successfully created a middleware interface that depended on its backend system for day-today operations. The front-end solutions were required so that the organisation could react to the client in a flexible manner while also ensuring the security of procedures and customer data. It used a "front-end layer" to separate the user interface from the rest of the IT infrastructure. Tariff-relevant data from HDI's current IT systems is now sent to the application through a separate communication layer with exactly matched interfaces. The insurance industry's digital transformation does not have to be disruptive. Major changes are brought about by new technology. However, change has always been a feature of the industry, and insurers and their basic business model have always thrived. Managers in the insurance business should see digital change as an opportunity to expand rather than a danger. As seen in the preceding chart, insurance visionaries are considerably ahead of explorers in the execution of practically all projects, while observers lag far behind and they are: 1.Watchers : These businesses often focus on just one or two digital projects at a time, with a few of others in the pilot testing stage. None were functioning at scale on the "internet of things," AI, robotic process automation (RPA), content personalization, or the most cutting-edge projects in the insurance sector. Twenty percent had completed drone pilot projects, while the remaining twenty percent had achieved scale. That was the only front-line endeavor in which observers made headway in the insurance business. Drones have shown their ability to evaluate damage in distant regions and provide data required to fund huge projects. Among the foundation efforts, cybersecurity is making the greatest headway, with more than half (54 percent) already running at scale. Insurance firms are investing in this area to secure their huge and quickly expanding collections of sensitive data due to

compliance and liability concerns. Observers are increasingly investing in Agile and DevOps, with 20% operating at scale, behind only explorers and visionaries. However, our study suggests that it is difficult to translate these minor victories into bigger project success.

Figure 9.1 Digital Initiatives across Insurance Industry The one consumer endeavor in which insurance observers have made considerable success is digital marketing. This is seen as a forerunner to future customer-centric efforts. 2.Explorers: Insurance sector explorers are farther ahead than observers, having conducted trial projects for an average of seven significant digital initiatives. Four-fifths of the projects have advanced beyond the planning stage. Despite this, they are only functioning at scale on roughly six programmes. Cybersecurity is also developing for explorers, since it is the primary area in foundation activities. Explorers – and even observers – outperformed insurance industry

visionaries in terms of cybersecurity. However, such outperformance might be explained by the tiny number of visionaries, where a small number of responses can skew the findings. Earlier investments in business intelligence laid the groundwork for big data and analytics, both of which are logical tools for the information-dependent insurance sector. Explorers have made just as much progress in this area as they have in any other mainstay initiative. In addition, organizations have achieved greater success in digital marketing than in other consumer efforts. This revenue-focused, rule-based project tends to present a clear business rationale while simultaneously emphasizing the significance of increasing sales. 3.Visionaries: They are somewhat ahead of their rivals in that they are at scale for seven projects on average and have completed pilots for seven more initiatives. Most important efforts have already completed pilots or reached scale, with the largest exceptions being cutting-edge technologies like drones (25 percent pursuing) and virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), each at 13 percent. Allianz SE, a German insurance company, uses augmented reality to highlight possible hazards in a typical house, while other insurance companies employ virtual reality to teach claims adjusters. The general constancy of development across programmes is amazing, demonstrating that achieving leadership requires a complete strategy. It also indicates the possibility of cross-initiative synergy, where success in one field, such as big data, may give basic skills for another, such as the internet of things. Because of this technology, several firms have experimented with sensor-based vehicle and health insurance reductions. Beam, a dental insurance, gives its clients internet-connected toothbrushes and then utilizes the data to determine rates. Even in the most advanced category, where growth is presumably slower than in the others, there is still consistency among programmes. This emphasizes a "lean ahead" approach that embraces the concept that today's sophisticated technology will become an essential feature of tomorrow's operating system, based on our interactions with industry leaders and experts. "There is an underlying requirement for firms to be flexible and responsive, to understand corporate needs, and to produce solutions

rapidly," said Uniyal, Infosys Agile leader. "Agile and DevOps help businesses to outperform their competition by rapidly testing, verifying concepts, and scaling cutting-edge solutions." They provide for better flexibility and productivity. DevOps assists by automating the Agile software development process, allowing businesses to launch new features almost continuously." The visionary insurance businesses that have progressed the farthest on their digital transformation journey have the most potential to implement Agile initiatives at scale. They have completely embraced an Agile mentality as well as Agile methods. Their IT development and operational teams work closely together to meet business goals. Their technology teams provide outcomes quickly enough for these visionaries to remain competitive and fight off digital native competitors. Such organizations are also likely to have a strong, dependable DevOps platform that supports the whole company. Agile was applied a decade ago by executives at the United States insurance Nationwide. According to Gigabit magazine, the corporation made a new significant effort in 2014 to spread the approach to practically all of its software development divisions. As a consequence, yearly savings of $60 million were realized. "The goods that we make are entirely information-based; they're not physical objects," Guru Vasudeva, Nationwide's chief information officer, told Gigabit. "Information technology is the manufacturing arm of every financial services and insurance organization." There are two major impediments to insurance businesses making further progress with Agile and DevOps. One significant organizational difficulty is altering the culture to guarantee that business and IT collaborate from the outset. According to our data, over 80% of development initiatives are IT-led and ITsponsored, with no early engagement of business stakeholders. Companies who can adapt their culture and mentality to guarantee early business and IT cooperation will greatly increase their chances of success with Agile and DevOps. Insurance businesses must ensure that their workers are taught in new methods of functioning in addition to cultural transformation. This retraining must be extended across the company to ensure that all stakeholders grasp these new methods of functioning. Agile and DevOps methodologies may be highly beneficial in specific areas, such as branded consumer products, where speed is

vital in order to effectively stay up with rapidly changing trends. Regulations, risk, and audit controls may stymie attempts to scale up Agile and DevOps in other sectors, such as banking, insurance, and airlines. While our survey results reveal that many businesses are confident – maybe overconfident – in their ability to manage fast experimentation, the fact is that Agile and DevOps methodologies are difficult to learn. Even firms that claim to have agile, flexible teams may yet use the same old organized, inflexible waterfall development methodologies inside those teams. Companies may take tangible initiatives to increase their Agile and DevOps expertise. By deploying Agile on a distributed basis, businesses may work faster and expand faster while meeting the expectations of global markets. "Companies must become more dynamic and agile," Uniyal said. "In order to respond quicker to changing markets and generate better goods and services, businesses must cultivate a culture of rapid experimentation, rapid development, prototyping, and validation." To do so, businesses must be able to see their end-to-end value chain. This is a significant difficulty in legacy firms when the value chain is likely to be fragmented. The easiest method to solve this problem is to apply Lean." Companies with design talents may rethink every element of their organization, from internal processes to outward client service. Superior design talents are used by insurance businesses to discover unique solutions to human requirements. According to our poll, firms with design strengths are better positioned to capitalize on possibilities to enhance both consumer and staff experiences. They are more likely to use technology such as digital product engineering, content personalization, and augmented reality. Insurance visionaries recognize that design is more than just user experience. Rather of separating user design behind its own silo, they ensure that more people in more roles throughout the firm are responsible for designing products and services that optimize user pleasure. Design-led insurance firms have strong mechanisms in place to listen to clients on a constant basis. They are devoted to putting ideas to the test and iterating on them to improve them over time. They monitor design performance and outcomes with the same rigor that they do revenue and expense tracking. According to The Digital Insurer website, "it all

begins with empathy." "Not only that, but what do our consumers feel when they connect with us?" What do they think about price and communication? But what are we missing? What are their unresolved issues? What makes them feel safe or unsafe? What is the broader context in which they operate? When it comes to seeking design-led solutions, Infosys design leader Corey Glickman cautions against over-prototyping. Too many firms, he claims, spend millions of dollars a year on prototypes and proofs of concept before going on to grow those pilots. Companies must bite the bullet and make substantial investments in times of disruptive change. It might take an industry leader or an imaginative upstart to set a new standard. "No one would have a digital twin today if GE hadn't invested millions of dollars in building theirs," Glickman said. In the digital era, systems engineering has evolved as a key position. The finest system designers are hardworking scientists with master's degrees and years of industry expertise. This sort of skill is scarce, aggravating the talent war. The good news is that a systems designer who has expertise in one domain can usually apply his or her skills to other areas. Glickman said that "systems designers understand how vast, complicated systems act." "As a subject, systems design is broad enough that someone with expertise in finance may apply their knowledge and abilities to software design or health care." On a practical, operational level, our study has shown the efficiency of dividing huge projects into small teams of highly competent programmers to handle the most difficult and crucial tasks. These all-star developers are hands-on, repeatedly working in real and virtual whiteboard settings, efficiently drawing from reusable code libraries and producing new code every day. This method may shorten development time from three months to three weeks. Companies may produce more effective programming, solve challenging issues quicker, and eliminate technical debt that may have built due to historical programming and procedures using this setup. Finally, the engagement of top executives is critical to the success of design-led digital transformations. Design is assisting in the transformation of significant components of corporate operating models, and success requires top-level buy-in and leadership. Despite the fact that many insurance businesses compete in a worldwide economy and have access to an expanding spectrum of

collaboration and communication capabilities, distance complicates any undertaking or project. Proximity, on the other hand, improves cooperation and may help reduce physical obstacles to success in product and IT development initiatives. "Value creation comes when organizations put end-to-end teams together in proximity," said Deverre Lierman, head of the Infosys Raleigh Technology Hub. "Companies should intentionally arrange their ecosystems and choose their partners with the goal of maximizing creativity, speed, and responsiveness." The trick is to leverage on the advantages of highquality, low-cost sites without compromising the benefits of proximity. Visionaries strike a mix between global delivery centers and local innovation centers." According to our research, visionaries are more likely than observers or explorers to have established fine-tuned methods for locating personnel together in locations that balance cost with closeness to partners and customers. Allstate established a new organization, CompoZed Labs, as well as a chain of innovation centers to concentrate on software development. According to software provider Pivotal, "we have our pods of product teams and matching stations," said Opal Perry, group chief information officer for Allstate's claims business. "We also have displays that show the construction pipeline very visually, and I can go around a lab with numerous projects and see straight away what's humming on green, what's red, and who's working on it." Even insurance sector visionaries rely on the contributions and efficiency of dispersed development teams. Visionaries provide these teams with effective collaboration tools and put in place criteria to monitor the quality of work delivered by these remote teams. Visionaries, to the degree that they depend on global development centers, also invest in infrastructure and processes to mitigate the effect of distance. Simultaneously, visionaries know that there is no alternative for physical closeness and are eager to develop well-staffed technology and innovation centers near key partners or clients. As a result, Infosys is developing six new technology and innovation centers in the United States, staffing them with 10,000 American people to service its clients there. Such closeness is particularly beneficial when working on efforts impacting the consumer experience, such as product development, content personalization, and augmented reality.

Insurance firms that want to maximize the advantages of proximity should situate their technology and innovation centers close to end users (i.e., clients) and in locations that have intrinsic attraction for the talent that the company wants to recruit and retain. Locations near top colleges are particularly appealing since such institutions may offer a pipeline of individuals for recruiting as well as an environment for nurturing innovative ideas. Companies at all phases of digital transformation should try to cultivate a talent-attracting culture. According to our study, workers prefer to work in a collaborative and collegial atmosphere where they can concentrate on producing results rather than spending time waging turf wars. we will look at five major reasons why insurance companies must modernize in order to stay competitive. 1. The customer's expectations have shifted: The COVID-19 epidemic has expedited a long-standing change in consumer behavior and preferences: Access to information 24 hours a day, hassle-free interactions, automated services, and tailored goods are the new benchmarks for a positive customer experience. People are also shopping around more than ever before, looking for plans at low prices. Successful insurance firms invest in technology that streamlines operations in order to attract and keep customers. 2. The role of the adjuster has shifted: Insurance adjusters are still required to do field interviews, inspections, and research, but they are now expected to do it in nearreal time. Adjusters must record critical data on the fly and transmit it to a wide range of stakeholders. Connected devices, smartphone applications, data analytics, and automated support systems assist adjusters in expediting and simplifying the claims process while providing clients with quick, secure, and effective services and insurance. 3. Technology aids in the development of company: Insurance firms are turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning to help them make important business choices. When

insurers use these technologies to massive data sets, they often discover previously unknown patterns in the data, allowing them to better serve their clients. Insurance firms can now provide coverage that is considerably more personalized to each individual thanks to advanced analytics and algorithms. 4. Cloud computing is now the standard: The ability to meet changing consumer demands, adapt to new business processes, and keep the costs of employing modern technology under control is pushing workflows to the cloud. This necessitates the engagement of back-office personnel with expertise architecting and managing cloud systems. 5. The significance of identity security is being highlighted: As insurance firms gather and retain more data to support their digital transformation activities, keeping track of who has access to that data, who should have access, and who is utilizing their access correctly becomes more difficult. An automated identity security solution allows insurers to adopt a zero-trust approach to regulating access to data and apps, reducing the risks of insider fraud and external data breaches. Insurance firms are among the most vulnerable businesses to cyberattacks because to the massive amounts of personally identifiable information (PII) they handle and the number of third-party administrators (TPAs) they deal with. Learn more about the vital role identity security plays in minimizing security threats during a free onehour virtual roundtable session with prominent identity security subject matter experts. Take advice from insurers to rewire your organisation in three easy stages so you can generate profit for decades rather than quarters and they are: 1. Creating a "Digital First" Company Designing A Digital First Entity Entails Redesigning Operations From A Customer Perspective; Using Technology To Be More Responsive + Intuitive + Generate Smart Insights At Every Stage Of The Value

Chain. The insurance business is undergoing a significant transformation. Insurance firms must now compete with Insurtech start-ups that provide lower-cost, more creative products and services. Traditional insurance firms struggle because they lack the agility and quickness of agile start-ups. It's similar to digital Darwinism: those who can adapt will live, while those who can't will die (think Blockbuster). When a business-focused Chief Digital Officer (CDO) leads the transformation agenda, the core of the firm (operations, underwriting, and claims) is able to anticipate what trends are disrupting the insurance market and plan strategies to adapt successfully. The necessity of the hour is for reimagining, not merely rethinking. IBM is assisting a growing number of insurers with the desire to better by developing a strong digital platform. Future-thinking insurers are taking a digital-first strategy, allowing all processes from distribution to New Business, Servicing to Claims to flow effortlessly and allow insurance businesses to have completely digitised operations. It will enable them to reinvent client experiences by enabling technology to effortlessly grow their operations. Insurers can use the strength of three forces: hybrid cloud, intelligent process automation, and AI/machine learning to achieve completely digital, zero-touch insurance operations. The insurer will own the client-specific insights (read data) in a completely digital operation. This is a significant departure from the conventional approach, in which the relationship (ready customer insights) was controlled by Traditional Offline / Hybrid Channels such as Agents, Brokers, or Bancassurance. Once the insurer has control of the data, the possibilities are limitless. Employees in the company will play the role that "humans" excel at: empathy and support. Client engagement will be directed by corporate standards and brand values at all stages. This is achievable because the load of repeating transactions has been transferred to technology that is best suited to the task. Insurers gain a sustainable competitive advantage by providing a "WOW experience" with First Time Right Processing (remember, no scope for manual errors); personalised experience and product innovation through the use of AI, deep learning, and NLP; and finally, the technology is scalable due to its inherent flexible architecture. A

win-win situation for both people (customers and employees) and technology. 2. Prepare, Protect, and Recover from Cyber Security Incidents with Absolute Customer Trust: A zero-trust method to advanced cyber threat defence and resolving major security concerns. We propose that you begin by committing to zero trust in your business endeavours. Make a list of your current investments. As you develop a contemporary, open approach to zero trust security, prioritise projects and integrations. Every insurance firm is racing to digitise, and while this may seem to be good news for the sector, there are several hazards involved with digital transformation. Cyber security dangers lie in the shadows of digitalization. Hybrid cloud, multicloud, hyper automation, and analytics may assist your company in growing, competing successfully, and transforming its operations. However, all of the benefits of digitalization need an updated, redefined focus on organisational security — with a zero trust strategy at the forefront. Controls and zero-trust systems combine context, cooperation, and visibility. And they are just what you need to safeguard your organization's development and change. Another critical factor in your company's success is a remote workforce and the necessity to safely empower worker productivity. Your security model should enable you to operate from anywhere on any device while maintaining secure access to the required technology and information. To protect this dispersed ecosystem, realtime security context must be correlated across all security domains. And it is a task requiring complete trust. With an executable roadmap created expressly for the shifting business model, IBM Security Zero Trust Acceleration Services assists insurers in simplifying and progressing in their transformation journey. 3. Scale in accordance with the strength of the Ecosystem: A Zero touch Insurance operation built on the basis of Zero trust Acceleration Services opens the door to the development of a digitally transformed business model. Partner-led embedded insurance has

become a reality that was previously unthinkable. Zero-touch processes provide insurers with three strategic benefits are: - First, they created a scalable technological architecture. – Second, it addresses the difficulty of siloed systems designed for specific functions as as underwriting, claims, or policy servicing. Finally, insurers will have a technological stack that is interoperable. - Finally, there will be a major transition in distribution model — from analogue to digital. Traditional distribution mechanisms are reliant on a third party — agents, brokers, bancassurance, or other people-dependent approaches. This suggests that the focus of the connection is mostly on them. With digital operations, the insurer has access to the client's data. This is where the magic starts to happen. While third-party distribution channels may continue to represent the face of the company, Insurance owns and directs all interactions. As a result, there is a tactical change in consumer involvement. With its plug-andplay structure, digital operations provide a strategic edge. As a result, insurance may become an integrated experience on any partner platform. This concept stems from what I term 'deep linking,' which allows visitors to access material from third-party websites without leaving the original website or gateway. Deep linking, for example, gives extra information on product upgrade choices, maintenance, and insurance to cover the cost of these whether looking through a product on an ecommerce platform or reading a blog about interiors. The power of data, AI, and customization have all come together to produce these one-of-a-kind experiences. As a result, insurers now have access to consumer information that were previously unavailable to them. When insights are combined with the power of hyper automation, data becomes more accessible and flows more smoothly. Insurers can reinvent client journeys and provide great customer service as a result. Insights about the market at a deeper level may

assist promote product innovation and customisation. This, in turn, enhances both the top and bottom lines. 16 Trends in Insurance Industry via Digital Revolution: 1. The growing popularity of low-code/no-code development in business IT Enterprise IT is one of the most visible trends in the normalisation of low-code/no-code development. While no-code technologies became the new standard in the SMB category, corporations, for the most part, continued to depend on conventional development projects driven by internal resources or outsourced integrators. This is changing, though, as manufacturers begin to provide mature, enterprise-grade no-code products focused on security and compliance. As a result, organisations may now delegate certain security and compliance activities to suppliers while maintaining high security and compliance requirements. The increased popularity of such tools may be attributed to the fact that they address some of the most pressing concerns confronting IT professionals. No-code tools supplement overburdened internal resources, minimise backlogs, and boost production. The most important feature that makes no-code technologies so appealing is the reduced time to market for new digital apps and products as compared to conventional development initiatives. Insurers can now develop better applications at a faster pace, improve client experience, and improve overall service quality thanks to no-code technologies. 2. The emergence of "headless technology": Although it may seem horrible, "headless tech" is quite innocuous and has been around for quite some time. The most well-known use of headless technology is in website creation. Traditional websites have a back-end, a front-end, and a graphical user interface. In some ways, headless tech is a complementing trend to no-code solutions for designing customer-facing front-ends. To design personalised digital experiences, insurers may now isolate their front-end display layer

from their back-end data capabilities. This is especially critical in the insurance industry, whose back-ends are plagued by legacy technology issues that, for the most part, render them incompatible with the current front-end experiences that clients demand. Another development we will see in the near future is the separation of customer-facing front-ends and back-end operations while ensuring that data flows easily between the two. Our guess is that additional insurance products and apps will follow the same premise. 3. Hybrid cloud architecture is becoming more popular According to Mordor Intelligence, the hybrid cloud market is estimated to reach USD 128.01 billion by 2025, growing at an 18.73 percent CAGR between 2020 and 2025. Organizations are increasingly using hybrid clouds in order to capitalise on the benefits of both cloud and public clouds. Hybrid cloud architectures boost both speed and flexibility by enabling enterprises to switch between their own tools and the toolkits of cloud providers. 4. Extending legacy IT Because of technological developments such as the emergence of nocode tools and "headless tech," financial service businesses may maintain their legacy infrastructures while enhancing the digital experience for clients and staff. 5. Providing customised digital goods The ability to personalise is the new competitive advantage. Offering a specific customer a specific product at a certain price point may dramatically boost the likelihood of a policy sale. Insurers will place a greater emphasis on providing customised digital products in 2021 and beyond. 6. Work-from-home opportunities are here to stay. For a long time, working from home was the exception rather than the

norm. However, it seems that even after the COVID-19 epidemic has passed, the work-from-home lifestyle will persist. According to a recent Bloomberquint study, the number of employees who indicate they would not return to the office full-time has climbed dramatically, with more than a quarter of those polled wanting to work remotely at least half of the time when the epidemic is over. This implies that insurers must assist their personnel in doing their jobs remotely. Manual processes were obsolete even before the pandemic, but (with a few small exceptions) there is no place for paper-based workflows that need workers' physical presence in the post-pandemic world. 7. Manual, inefficient procedures must be eliminated. For generations, inefficient paper-pushing has been the standard in the insurance sector. However, this is no longer an option. Insurers must continue to see wasteful paperwork as a necessary evil and must discover ways to enhance the client experience in this area. Customers anticipate to execute virtually all (if not all) tasks with their insurer remotely through digital technologies, from account opening to policy renewals, as eSignatures and digital forms become more common. 8. Employee empowerment via technology is a must. Managing remote and on-site teams requires a delicate mix of efficiency and empowerment. In the new normal, employee-facing tools that promote cooperation, efficient communication, and employee empowerment are essential. As a result, inward-looking innovation is expected to become a major priority in the insurance business. 9. The principal channel is a digital channel. Traditionally, insurance has been marketed via physical channels such as agents or brokers, resellers, offices, and call centres. However, the digital channel is gaining ground. Agents and brokers are increasingly using digital tools, and the self-service digital channel

is expanding in response to surging client demand. According to a late-April 2020 study of European insurance executives, 89 percent anticipated a considerable acceleration in digitalization, with the majority also anticipating a further change in channel mix. Offline procedures are increasingly migrating to the digital sphere. Even items that need offline execution at times, such as physical signatures and medical underwriting, are gradually moving to digital with the use of technologies such as legally binding eSignatures, facial recognition, and telemedicine. 10. The Internet of Things raises the need for streaming analytics in order to innovate. The Internet of Things helps insurance technology by giving accurate, real-time data. This enhances the accuracy of risk assessment and allows insurance companies to appropriately price their policies. However, using IoT for risk assessment presents several problems. Analytics is one of them. IoT data is real-time; nevertheless, real-time analytics leave much to be desired. As the market need for IoT-driven analytics rises, we anticipate a lot more innovation in this field. 11. Greater emphasis on algorithmic risk assessment Artificial intelligence is becoming more important in the insurance sector. The AI-powered technologies help insurance operations and claims resolution teams. However, the utility of Machine Learning extends beyond claims processing; it has the potential to assist insurers in automating the whole process. As data become more digital, they may be quickly evaluated using AI algorithms, removing the need for human processing altogether. Not only does this enhance processing speed and accuracy in policy administration, but it also improves risk assessment. Machine learning and AI technologies will continue to gain traction as risk assessment tools. 12. A cultural transition from heritage to innovation Insurance has always been a conservative sector. However, it is fast

evolving as a result of the inflow of fresh blood in the shape of digitalfirst insurers, IT behemoths, and inventive start-ups. There is a noticeable change in thinking among insurance executives and specialists, as the necessity for innovation becomes clear to all parties concerned. The industry has evolved from a conservative to a more innovative, digital culture. As we approach the end of 2020, it is obvious that we will see more innovation, improved consumer and employee experiences, more agility, and novel applications of current technology to age-old insurance concerns like risk-assessment claims processing and policy sales. 13. In order to compete, insurers must develop. The competition is becoming harder. According to Reinsurance News, Amazon is preparing to join the car insurance industry, while digitalfirst insurers like Lemonade are introducing new digital experiences to the market. Existing insurers are finding it harder to compete in their formerly insulated markets with these entrants. In order to compete in an increasingly digital world, insurers must shift their strategies to incorporate digital transformation solutions. 14. It is critical to maximise conversions. Simply "going digital" is no longer sufficient. Maximizing conversion and enhancing sales funnels via digital media is becoming more crucial. Converting internet traffic into real insurance sales requires both art and science. According to McKinsey's study, digitally savvy insurers convert digital consumers at six times the rate of their counterparts. Personalization and ongoing enhancement of the consumer experience seem to be the key. 15. Insurtech collaborations Partnerships between InsurTechs and incumbents are becoming more popular, and for good reason: it is typically a win-win situation. Established insurers are using existing client data and connections to generate new revenue sources. InsurTechs supply the technology,

technical know-how, and support, while incumbents use their existing client connections and data. 16. Proactive risk assessment and foresight IoT technology, including risk assessment and underwriting, is gaining traction in the insurance business. Most importantly, IoT has the potential to enable insurers to shift from their traditional position of risk protection to risk prevention. Insurtech, as the name implies, relates to insurance technology. Consider fintech, but with insurance instead of finance. Insurtech is the use of technology to increase efficiency and disrupt the present insurance market. Insurtech companies, often known as insurtechs, are corporations that specialise in this cutting-edge technology. Insurtech in action includes harnessing data to provide ultracustomized policies and dynamically change pricing premiums, as well as teaching artificial intelligence (AI) to manage brokers' day-to-day work. Some insurtech firms sell insurance directly to customers, such as Cuvva, which provides temporary auto insurance via an app, and Superscript, which specialises in offering insurance that small to medium-sized enterprises can get in under 10 minutes. Other insurtech firms concentrate on enhancing efficiency for brokers, who may subsequently pass the savings on to customers. Insurtechs may be self-contained or work in tandem with the existing insurance business. And, as technology's role in the sector grows, several longstanding industry leaders are striving to push forward their own advances. To compete, traditional insurers must modernise their operations, adopt insurtech, and enhance their services. And, if they do not leverage an existing insurtech platform, they must develop the technology from scratch. Lloyd's of London is one example of a conventional insurance firm that is using insurtech to accelerate its digital transformation. Lloyd's has developed Ki, a wholly digital and algorithmically-driven syndicate that is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on mobile and desktop. This Google Cloud-based system, which brokers may directly use, employs algorithms to analyse Lloyd's regulations. Ki intends to drastically decrease

commercial brokers' time and effort while improving efficiency, responsiveness, and competitiveness. Lloyd's of London was founded in 1686. When industry titans like Lloyd's engage in insurtech, it's apparent that it's something no insurer can afford to ignore. Insurtech is increasing industry innovation, placing greater pressure on carriers and brokers to be more flexible in their operations, simplify their distribution system, and be more creative in reaching out to communities when marketing. Insurtech is the competition that the conventional insurance sector need to go ahead. The expansion of D2C is one of the key growth areas for insurance driven by insurtech. According to the Harvard Business Review Analytics Services Survey, June 2020, 64 percent of insurers anticipate their firm to increasingly embrace a D2C model for product and service distribution, while 59 percent believe insurtechs are encouraging their organisation to adopt a D2C strategy. Technology provides insurers with several chances to interact with clients and allow them to become do-it-yourselfers. Insurtech enables clients to do business through mobile and remotely, expands the number of touchpoints via which they may manage their insurance, and allows for more direct communication between the underwriter and the customer. Insurtech has enabled the insurance business to rethink how it interacts with clients. And, although the rise of direct-toconsumer (D2C) may worry some due to the possibility of disintermediation, other insurers are prepared to adapt to the quickly changing industry. Moving away from paper and adopting D2C are just two of the changes that have occurred in the insurance business since embracing digital transformation. Insurtech has also been utilised in the insurance industry to harness the cloud, access a plethora of data, disrupt the symbiotic broker-carrier connection, and mix models and channels. Here are six particular insurance trends to keep an eye on as a result of digital transformation: 1.Trend #1 .use of digital front-end tools. Make Provisions for Hybrid Distribution

Insurance firms are still figuring out how to engage their clients in ways that rival industry leaders. How can you recreate your advisers' "soft" abilities in a portal, chatbot, or online form? How do you foster trust and empathy in an online setting? How do you customise each sales or service interaction? Many carriers are implementing innovative, digital, integrated solutions such as quoting and illustrations, eApplication, agent and client self-service portals, and Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) sales systems as part of their digital transformation. However, most carriers do not have a fully digitised and automated procedure in place to deliver insurance applications from the customer to issuance. Many applications are not completed as a result of poor UX or because the majority of customers fall outside of existing automated underwriting standards. For certain carriers, including an adviser in the digital sales process to answer queries and give assistance and comfort that is tough to produce online is the solution. The carrier and the customer gain from a more digitalized approach that incorporates advisers' empathy and trustbuilding skills. 2. Trend #2. hyper-personalization. We are entering a new age of consumer segmentation, which has the potential to allow insurers to tailor everything from product design to marketing to sales and service. We're not there yet, but new capabilities developing as IoT and AI gain pace, along with data accessibility through APIs, will deliver on the promise of predictive analytics by providing consumers with customised solutions when and how they want them. And, as our knowledge of ever-narrower client categories increases, the trend toward ever-more detailed and customised goods and marketing activities will intensify. In the near future, we may not think twice about finding niche markets of one consumer. 3. Trend #3. Building consumer involvement, not simply exceptional experiences

Insurance companies confront a one-of-a-kind issue. Creating outstanding client experiences in a single encounter, or even over an entire process, is insufficient (like policy application submission). Instead, insurers must find a method to engage customers throughout the life of the coverage. And that is problematic considering that clients seldom contact with life insurance companies. This problem is compelling carriers to develop new value propositions that will entice and force customers to make the insurer a part of their everyday life. 4.Trend #4: Prioritize health above mortality. The rising trend of shifting insurance companies' emphasis from mortality to wellness is one example of how carriers are reimagining their value offer and how it drives consumer engagement. This has resulted in the development and early acceptance of wellness programmes such as Vitality. These programmes, which assist clients in continuing to improve their health, dramatically increase client engagement because they provide daily support for actions that result in greater health. Structured programmes using IoT devices assist customers in monitoring exercise and diet while adhering to a weight loss plan, for example. They allow for frequent contact points and various types of dialogues between insurers, agents, and customers. The programme provides value to the customer, reduces carrier risk, and allows agents to have more regular dialogues with clients about their progress toward their health objectives. 5.Trend #5: Out-of-the-Box Solutions (and thinking) Building effective customer experiences and engagement initiatives requires the use of the appropriate digital technology as well as realtime access to the relevant data. One major digital transformation trend is to jump-start digitalization using off-the-shelf (OOTB) solutions that are less expensive and can be adopted fast. The traditional 'big bang' approach to the simultaneous upgrading of a full IT platform that is highly customised and takes years to deploy is becoming obsolete. Instead, carriers looking for speedy changes are embracing ready-toimplement core system and front-office solutions based on suppliers'

years of expertise baking best practises into the design. These platforms need little setup, which speeds up deployment and allows items to reach the market sooner. 6.Trend #6: Cloud Transformation

and

SaaS

Models

Facilitate

Back-Office

The majority of OOTB solutions capitalise on the shift toward cloudbased solutions offered under a SaaS format. This makes sense for many businesses, particularly small and medium-sized carriers, since it decreases the time and resources needed to manage solutions. Five essential priorities for any insurance executive to consider, and the interdependency between them is crucial to understand and they are: 1. Image Building: It is imperative to stand out and serve customers with something different. It can be in terms of innovation or customer experience. You can identify your forte and focus on specific capabilities. 2. SWOT: It is significant to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for your business. For example, providing equipment insurance to maintenance service is an excellent opportunity for an insurer. It requires to understand the target customer/ecosystem to come up with new ideas and technologies. 3. Shut Down Legacy System: Nothing is permanent but change. It is of vital importance in any business and becomes necessary to cut cords with traditional ways and keep pace with new changes. Especially when new, cheaper, and more effective AI, cloud/ SaaS, blockchain, robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent process automation (IPA) alternatives are available. These options enhance risk anticipation and reduce costs. 4. Talent Development: With the introduction of technologies, one of the task to take care of is to manage the freed-up space. PwC’s experience highlights how up-skilling existing staff can be highly effective and motivational. Partners and staff have found opportunities to enhance collective digital skills and knowledge. Moreover, it is essential to have a culture, purpose, and environment that inspires

and retains existing staff as well as people from InsurTech. 5. Effective Execution: All the innovations, plans, and changes are meaningless until implemented effectively. What we learn from the winners is their priority to customer needs beyond traditional insurance. The balance between talent development and strategic collaboration is critical for the smooth operation of companies. It goes without saying that insurers want technologies that enable them to innovate fast and capitalise on market possibilities as they occur. Adopting a decentralised Microservices design allows insurers to offer features and functionalities more quickly and on a use-casedriven basis by using tiny, system-agnostic, and independent components with clear and defined functions rather than replacing their fundamental systems. Because of the decentralised design, insurers may break complicated software systems into smaller services that can grow and update independently. Individual components may be acquired, tested, monitored, and maintained to construct bespoke solutions on the fly. They may be grown independently when additional power is required, giving insurers the flexibility to quickly issue, test, and upgrade various products and services with minimum effect. Telematics-based usage-based insurance (UBI) schemes are viewed as critical in the development of P&C insurance to be more tailored and cost efficient. Consumers gain from reduced premiums and seamless services, while businesses profit from more accurate data and risk reduction. However, how successfully is UBI conveyed to new customers? In early 2017, TeleTech researchers contacted seven major insurance firms to enquire about telematics services: Allstate, Farmers, Nationwide, GEICO, State Farm, Travelers, and USAA. They spoke with us through phone, chat, online self-service, social media, and email. Inquiries were made on a variety of problems to determine whether UBI will be provided throughout the engagement. Then, we scored each firm on a five-point scale based on channel availability, timeliness of the telematics delivered, and the value of information provided during the encounter. Here is how they fared: 1.USAA received the top marks for the availability, timeliness, and utility of telemetry information to consumers. The corporation did not

provide the tool overtly, but it was quick to reply to requests. Associates were well-informed and especially helpful in addressing privacy issues expressed by our secret shopper analysts. Allstate functioned in a similar manner, but with less extensive associate knowledge. 2.In comparison, Nationwide and State Farm only offered telematics as part of automated Get Quote internet features. Sales representatives were unwilling to explore the possibility. And Travelers employees only addressed telematics queries on Facebook and Twitter. Farmers and GEICO did not provide any telemetry services. 3.The investigation uncovered several significant industry insights. None of the insurers in the research provided UBI on the front end. In general, colleagues across channels were unprepared to talk in detail about the telematics prospect. When it was addressed, the sole inducement mentioned as a cause for adopting telematics was price. However, external research indicates that some customers might be interested in the service for other reasons. Let’s discuss some of the practical use cases that CIOs should know about and how can they be put in action to create the difference and they are: 1.Claims Processing It involves a lot of tasks that include review, adjustment, investigation, approval, or denial of a claim. Each step requires financial advisors to process multiple documents. However, this process can entirely be automated. Through that, advisors can automatically derive data from documents, approve or reject claims accordingly. 2.Risk Analysis Insurers can derive personal data about applicants that include age, pre-existing conditions, medical records, claims data, lab testing and more to accordingly set a premium for the individual. 3.Omnichannel It is equally important for insurers to develop a portal that helps them send information to customers. It should also serve as an information centre where individuals can review their policy status, download resources, make payments and submit tickets. This not only improves the customer experience but ensures that individuals do not have to

struggle to access information or reach out for help. Today’s insurance consumers can be broken into four groups: 1.Digital Native: these buyers grew up with or have become comfortable with digital “ubiquity.” The internet has always been a part of their life and interacting with sellers online is fundamental, if not “old school.” In fact, they expect to be able to interact with companies anywhere, on any digital device (smartphone, tablet, Alexa/Echo devices, etc.), with lightning speed and zero complexity. These buyers aren’t impressed with a quote in “15 minutes or less”—they want it in 60 seconds or less. While powered by the influx of Millennials (born ~1980-1996) and Gen-Z (born after 1996) into the insurance marketplace, they are augmented by many Gen-X (born 1965-1979) who came of age in the PC era and some Baby Boomer (1946-1964) technophiles. 2.Digital Adopters: with Gen-X and early Gen-Y as their largest core, digital adopters have come to expect most, if not all, of the ease and simplicity of ubiquitous digital interaction as the Natives. They may, however, be less reluctant than the Digital Natives to resort to an actual phone call to a carrier. 3.Digital Competent: while this group may not have come of age with PCs and smartphones, they have grown accustomed to and comfortable with emerging technologies. They may not handle every brokerage or banking transaction online or by smartphone app, but they know how to. Even though they may still read a physical paper (sometimes just out of nostalgia), they are regularly reading their morning news on the train on a Kindle or iPhone. 4.Digital Challenged: this group prefers the old ways of interacting with their carrier or agent—by phone or even in person—and eschews (or distrusts) most things digital. They may pay by check (or cash) rather than ACH or credit card, and they want to speak with a person, not some “interactive voice response” system. The dwindling number of the digitally challenged is partly driven by the passing of the Silent Generation (born prior to 1945) but also by steadfast technophobes and those wary of digital transactions in general. The importance of this customer evolution for insurers is clear. Currently, over 50% of personal lines buyers (Digital Natives and

Digital Adopters) have high expectations for a concrete, pervasive, simple, purposeful, and engaging digital customer experience. That’s up from under 40% just 10 years ago. By 2025, they will represent more than 70% of insurance buyers. Carriers who do not embrace those changing demographics—and take on the cause of digital transformation—are apt to be left in the “digital dust.” The digital transformation agency provides insurers with the tools they need to provide exceptional customer support while without overburdening their personnel. AI and machine learning help to establish a consistent client experience. Customers may easily pay payments, process claims, and see policies via an app. Insurers, on the other hand, may receive and handle all data on their end via a single system. You no longer have to wait to know whether your claim has been accepted and processed. You may obtain fast feedback using digital technology. Personalization of marketing activities is also aided by digital revolution in insurance. With the use of social media, AI systems and strong data analytics can adapt and focus marketing efforts for insurers to reach populations they can genuinely touch. The insurance sector has grown more scalable at both the front and back ends of operations as a result of digital transformation. New technologies have made this business more adaptable to changing needs. On the consumer side, insurers provide services everywhere and at any time via applications and self-service dashboards. Customers' valuable data may be obtained through IoT-enabled gadgets and wearables. On the back end, this technology assists insurers in making more accurate judgments on underwriting, policies, new product offers, and other matters. Vertical players are looking for a quick transition to the digital era. Some corporations undertake internal changes by investing in insurtech startups or developing creative laboratories, while the others just ponder. In the first place, what kinds of modifications should be made? The following are the primary issues to be addressed: 1.There are so many redundant corporate activities that approximately one million insurance employment in the United States alone may be automated. According to McKinsey, the industry's major potential is defined by automation and digitization. This implies that insurance

firms will be able to automate 50 to 60% of their back-office processes. 2.Insurance companies are dissatisfied with their service suppliers. According to the Morgan Stanley and BCG surveys, insurance businesses have a terrible customer experience. Approximately 60% of insurance consumers worldwide are dissatisfied with current service providers, and over 50% are considering switching to newer models. 3.Young prodigies would rather work in technology, consulting, or other financial sectors than in insurance. Only 4% of millennials are interested in working in the sector, according to Deloitte. As a consequence, firms typically lack enough technically trained workers to keep up with, much alone drive, developments. 4.In the face of the COVID-19 epidemic, customers are increasingly turning to suppliers with strong digital capabilities. According to a recent PWC poll, 41% of customers are inclined to switch insurance companies in favour of a more digital one. Besides AI-driven automation, claims management gets impacted by a broader spectrum of software solutions. Claims management is a critical business process of any insurance company, which starts with claim registration and ends with payments to the insured party. Claims management software reduces manual workflow and a number of human-to-human interactions. Clients need less time to apply and smoothly proceed down the path of claim handling. From the insurance carrier’s point of view, the company reduces labour costs via automation. Here is an example of the modern industry standard. Assume an insurance company operating in the healthcare segment.: 1.Claim management software automates information exchange between insurance and healthcare provider systems. 2.If the company deals with a number of small private practices – which still work with paper documents – the import is streamlined by image recognition algorithms that digitize the documents. 3.The system calculates coverage and payment for each claim according to set policies. 4.The system processes claims and sends them to a fraud detection

module. 5.Once the claims are approved, insurants receive their payments. 6.The policy management software must be the integrated part of the system in order to provide business users with instruments to manage reconciliations, customize business logic, manage policy rights, etc. The software by SAP, Oracle, Patra Corp, GuideWire, Claim Kit, and Insly fulfills standardized needs in claim and policy management tools for the insurance industry. However, the forefront of innovations are insurtech startups and technology consulting companies which employ the power of AI, Blockchain, and IoT technologies. Telematics insurance is a class of cutting-edge automobile insurance solutions that are placed directly in the vehicle. The gadget is equipped with a GPS system, motion sensors, a SIM card, and analytics software. A telematics box records speed, position, time, collisions, driving lengths, breaks, and other vehicle information. First, the system analyses the collected data and sends it to the insurance company for additional analysis over the mobile Internet. The driving metrics are then uploaded to the customer's personal account. Insurers can design customised insurance policies and enhance risk management by watching drivers' behaviour. For example, a corporation may levy higher fines on irresponsible drivers, incentivize consumers for safe driving, and contact authorities in the case of a vehicle accident. Adoption of telematics enables the use of disruptive business models such as: 1.insurance depending on use (UBI) 2.pay-as-you-go (PAYD) 3.pay-as-you-go driving (PHYD) There have previously been successful use cases. O2, a UK telecommunications business, has introduced a specific auto insurance policy that promotes the premise that the safer you drive, the lower your insurance premium. A specific gadget tracks users' driving patterns, and they may see their scores on a mobile app after each drive or stream data through an API. The O2 app also supports clients by providing recommendations on how to improve their driving and reduce dangers.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) insurance is one of the most disruptive business ideas that is fast gaining traction owing to an accessible technological foundation. According to the idea, a network of individuals agrees to cover identical risks by forming a unified financing pool comprised of their premium shares. The P2P concept does not need the use of conventional middlemen such as insurance firms. At the conclusion of each coverage term, any remaining funds are reimbursed. Customers save money and avoid claim disputes by doing so. However, the paradigm has significant shortcomings, including fraud sensitivity, ethical considerations, problems in reaching agreement, and a lack of trust among peers. P2P insurance has already achieved three major milestones: 1.Distribution of insurance. Friendsurance, for example, is a business that uses a mobile app to connect small groups of individuals (10-16 insurants). When an insured incident happens, the insurant files a claim with Friendsurance and receives coverage. When a contract ends, consumers get pre-agreed-upon payback from the pool of money. Friendsurance is mostly concerned with minor property hazards (e.g. a broken window in a house). 2.Insurance company. Besurance is an excellent example of a P2P insurance provider. The firm is an Insuretech risk-sharing platform that categorises insurers based on their risk similarities. The procedure is managed by actuarial software, which generates appropriate quotes for the various groups. Community members evaluate and approve claims. 3.Self-Governance. Teambrella is an example of a self-governing insuretech organisation. Teambreala provides a platform for blockchain-based insurance. It's a traditional peer-to-peer network, but it's powered by blockchain. The firm employs Ethereum smart contracts for claim and policy administration. They promote openness and self-regulation. Participants debate each claim and vote to reach an agreement on claim coverage. If the claim is accepted, each participant contributes a portion of their premium to a harmed peer. Personalization, the transition to a platform economy, automation, and real-time estimations rather than historical ones are just a few of the disruptive changes brought by digital technology to the insurance

industry. What are the most important features? Here they are: 1.Saving money. A digital insurer has a significant competitive edge over conventional carriers. According to BCG, the disruptive technological shift provides for up to a 10% reduction in premium prices and an 8% reduction in claims expenditures. The shift to the online platform ecosystem enables for lower distribution costs and improved consumer communication through social media, emails, mobile applications, and so on. 2.More precise risk assessment. When it comes to driving assistance or health and lifestyle monitoring, the digital business model provides improved risk assessment and, in certain cases, even assists in the prevention of insured events. 3.Improved client experience. The usage of mobile applications and social media integration allows for a deeper knowledge of a consumer and assures 24-hour availability. 4.Change your decision-making strategy from reactive to proactive. Insurance is a data-driven industry that must examine several client criteria and heavily relies on statistics. However, the industry continues to rely on historical data rather than real-time data. Various wearables and sensors have yet to realise their full data streaming and hyper-personalization potential. 5.Portfolio expansion. Because of the variety of data sets available, insurance companies may cover extremely particular risks and deal with new micro-segments. It also rethinks the nature of incurrence goods (e.g. bring them to a pay-per-use basis). 6.Scams are becoming less of a threat to insurers. APIs and smartphones reduce the time it takes to identify fraud and make the evaluation process more thorough. Insurance policies offer numerous areas of application for IoT which will lead to a rapid transformation of the market for this kind of insurance. During this transformation, it is crucial to get a competitive edge by quickly launching products and to start collecting, analysing and exploiting data. Below are the details: 1.Automobile Insurance Based on IoT

Let us do a thought experiment to see how an insurer that provides a data-driven, IoT-based vehicle insurance policy may develop a better risk model and quickly become a top motor insurance provider. A dongle that links to the car's OBD II1 port is an obvious approach to gather data from the policyholder's vehicle. The dongle comprises a variety of sensors, such as accelerometers, location services, such as GPS, and mobile network connection, and it communicates gathered data to the insurance company on a regular basis. In Switzerland, Dextra employs such a technology — but only for a mileage-based pricing scheme (Pay-As-You-Drive). An app on the policyholder's smartphone might be used as an alternative. Coloride, a whitelabelled product from Swiss Re, takes this method. 2.It's All About the Data Once the data has been acquired, the insurer may analyse it to learn more about a customer's driving habits. To that end, the obtained data may be supplemented with information on the weather, road traffic, and other factors. Even information about the driver's personal state, such as sleeping habits, pulse, and physical activity, may be utilised with the use of wearables (e.g., fitness trackers or smart watches). Strategic agreements with telecom providers or healthtech businesses to remotely monitor a driver's vitals are possible in this scenario. On the basis of the aforementioned facts, each policyholder may be assigned a unique driving profile. The insurance firm then computes the association between the driving characteristics and the insurance claims linked with them. Patterns will develop after collecting data over a given time period and therefore having a sufficiently big data base, allowing the insurance firm to establish an individual premium for each client. 3.Good risks are rewarded, while bad risks are priced out. The insurer may determine the risk quality of its client base using the enhanced dataset. This enables the calculation of individual premiums based on specific risk profiles. As a result, the insurer may provide appealing rates to good risks while charging higher rates to risky risks

over time. Because driver profiles do not currently exist, unique underwriting approaches must be implemented for new insurance applicants. They may use existing data from the applicant's mobile devices and the insured cars to improve the accuracy of the underwriting process. 4.First-Mover Advantage The larger the accessible data pool, the better insurers can estimate the risk quality of their consumers. Bad risks are priced out of the insurer's client base over time, whilst good risks are retained owing to cheap premiums. This will result in poor risks shifting to rivals who are not (yet) capable of distinguishing between good and bad risks. Finally, the market leader in dynamically priced auto insurance plans will reduce its claims volume as a result of collecting excellent risks in its portfolio. The amount of claims filed by rivals, on the other hand, will rise as a result of the shift in unfavourable risks. As a result, there is a self-reinforcing effect. 5.Aside from Being a Commodity Provider Customers' primary aim, in addition to having enough insurance coverage, is to avoid an accident in the first place. Insurance firms may evolve from being a simply commodity supplier to a meaningful partner for their clients by delivering safety suggestions generated from gathered data. Tips might include when, how, and where to drive. Navigation apps, for example, may be used to recommend routes with a decreased accident risk. By implementing such recommendations, the client not only improves his or her safety, but also lowers his or her dynamic premium. By positioning itself as a partner, the insurer is able to generate tighter lock-in, enhance engagement frequency, and boost client loyalty. 6.Be quick and knowledgeable about the data. For this use case, we identify two critical competencies that are required to capitalise on IoT opportunities: Be quick and

knowledgeable about the facts. For starters, there are significant early-mover benefits since the insurer that gathers data first is the one who can construct a stronger risk model first. Second, the ability to evaluate and enhance data in a meaningful manner is critical for developing appropriate risk and pricing models. Insurers are seldom known to publicly share their fraud-fighting efforts. The IoT-savvy insurer, on the other hand, may modify this practise and strengthen client relationships by exposing how the firm utilises IoT to safeguard the whole insurance collective while keeping rates as cheap as feasible. Furthermore, the insights generated from IoT fraud detection may enhance claims procedures, reducing the work required by consumers. But we're getting ahead of ourselves; first, let's look at how IoT will affect fraud prevention and detection in the insurance industry and they are: 1.Fraud as a Significant Financial Lever The worldwide insurance fraud detection market was valued at USD 4 billion in 2018 and is predicted to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.7 percent from 2019 to 2025. (Grand View Research,2019). According to an established rule of thumb, insurance fraud accounts for at least 10% of all insurance premiums (Business Wire, 2019), a figure that has been relatively consistent over the last two decades. As a result of this danger to their business model, insurers have long spent heavily in fraud prevention and detection. In general, there are two forms of fraud: soft fraud, which includes inflated statements or intended harm occurrences, and hard fraud, which is mainly conducted by organised crime and involves a planned attempt with the goal of collecting significant quantities. 2.Using IoT to Detect Fraud By using IoT apps for fraud detection, insurers' attempts to prevent fraud are no longer reliant on claims agents who rely on little information and a great deal of intuition. As smart home apps, telematics, and wearables become more common, insurers are eager

to evaluate potential fraud detection and prevention solutions based on these new data sources. Potential uses, such as the use of GPS data to trace stolen and allegedly lost products or the detection of illegally acquired daily insurance benefits using step counter information, seem limitless at first look. Some are more sophisticated and capitalise on data aggregation (e.g., combining information from smart home devices with weather data in order to detect fraudulent water damage claims). Technically, there are few – if any – limitations to the use of IoT in insurance fraud detection, as shown by the following example of a convicted Ohio arsonist: The guy stated he had dozed off before his house was gutted by fire. However, a check of the man's pacemaker data indicated that he was not only awake long before the fire started, but that his heart rate was extremely high, suggesting heightened levels of stress. This arouses suspicion and, in the end, demonstrates the attempted insurance fraud (Johnson, 2017). 3.The main effect of Self-Censorship and Proof IoT will be on soft fraud, which accounts for the vast majority of fraud incidents. For one thing, there is unmistakable evidence of greater selfcensorship (Johnson, 2017). Policyholders whose driving habits are monitored by telematics devices are much less likely to attempt to disclose misleading information about automobile accidents (Hynd and McCarthy, 2014). Soft fraud has traditionally been the most difficult for insurance firms to establish. This difficulty is significantly reduced with the use of more reliable data on policyholder behaviour. However, technical innovation has also enabled criminals to undertake cyber assaults and offered new avenues for fraudulent activity. Above all, the manipulation of IoT data used by insurance firms to validate claims or detect fraud, ushering in the next battle of insurance companies vs. criminals. 4.Impact via Target Orientation and Innovation As a result, in order to strengthen customer relationships, insurers should concentrate their IoT efforts on areas where they stand to

benefit the most from the consequences of self-censorship and easyto-prove disparities. This is especially true in the B2C sector. However, standard insurance plans in this industry have not yet taken use of IoT opportunities. As a result, insurers would be wise to grab the opportunity to build new products and services with the aid of IoT. Offerings based on data insights, for example, which necessitate data sharing and capitalise on the benefits of personalised insurance. Predictive maintenance for claims handlings in Insurance via IoT are: 1.Adding to Existing Data The connection between predictive maintenance and insurance products may not be clear at first sight. However, richer sensor data may considerably help insurers by increasing their underwriting and claims handling capacities. Predictive maintenance use sensor data to assess the state of in-service equipment in order to predict the best time for maintenance operations, hence reducing potential downtime. Accidents may be avoided because sensor data enables for greater forecasting of future machine faults, boosting overall plant safety. In addition to these benefits to the business, sensor data allows insurers to better understand the risks they are insuring. 2.Claims Processing That Is Automated Connected sensors continually offer information on the state of the equipment. In the event of damage, sensors instantly convey the relevant information to the insurance provider, which initiates the claims processing procedure on its own. Because tiresome documentation is no longer required, the customer experience improves dramatically. Furthermore, since the sensors give extensive information, claims may be handled automatically. Simultaneously, insurance firms will obtain a thorough grasp of their consumers and their risk profile. This, in turn, may be utilised to more effectively manage the portfolio of insurance policies (e.g., through a bonusmalus system).

3.The Internet of Things as a Data Multiplier Sensor data has considerably more applications than just streamlining the claims process. Sensors, when used in a large enough area, may give much more than isolated information on the state of a single equipment or an entire facility. Sensors recording weather, traffic, use profiles, or capacity utilisation, for example, may be utilised to supplement insurance-specific data. This is especially relevant for insurers with a large number of policyholders who use IoT goods since they may gather a massive quantity of data across enterprises and sectors. Data patterns, when used extensively, will provide insurance firms with a better knowledge of the factors that contribute to the occurrence of risk occurrences. As a result, insurers can better advise their customers on how to reduce their risks. However, in order to capitalise on this commercial potential, insurers must be able to evaluate vast volumes of data. Without this condition, it is difficult to effectively detect danger patterns by combining sensor data with existing information. 4.Gain Access and Enrich Wisely This use case demonstrates how insurers may utilise IoT to transform their business model and become a partner to their customers rather than a commodity supplier. This transformation, however, is a step-bystep process that involves two crucial elements: get access and enhance intelligently. The mere fact that sensors gather data does not imply that insurers have access to it. As a result, insurers should work with their customers to secure data access and usage rights. Once this is established, it is critical to develop additional abilities in order to analyse new information and make the appropriate conclusions in order to further enhance the current data. Many businesses include a self-service portal into their omnichannel support strategy. It enables consumers to file claims and seek for answers on their own while still retaining conventional means of help to relieve some of the support team's burden and appealing to certain customers' desire of speaking with a live agent. However, several

insurance firms are expanding their customer support and communication options to include online live chat (both human and chatbot), social media, mobile apps, and other channels. Omnichannel assistance may be a critical component of a company's digital transformation plan. If a company wants to prioritise contact with its consumers, they may rearrange their communication choices to include all of the key methods their customers desire to reach out and connect them to a single customer profile on the back end. As a result, whether the consumer contacts us by phone, online, walks into a branch, or initiates a claim on their own, they will always have a consistent experience. Employees and consumers alike are already thinking in terms of digital first. They will use digital technology, platforms, and applications in many aspects of their lives, from smart metres, NEST thermostats, Ring doorbells, and smart speakers to mobile banking and shopping apps and wearables to track their health. It is simple to sell the concept of digitization. However, as organisations adjust to the rapid pace of change, it is critical to pull people along with them. This entails seeing new technology as an opportunity and being able to successfully react to that opportunity. Those at the top of the organisation – at the executive and board levels – will need to believe in the technology and push for the changes it will bring to how the business runs and interacts with its consumers. As recruiting and personnel needs develop, HR plays an important role here as well. And they must all be able to successfully convey it internally so that the whole organisation is on board. This includes ensuring that the board really understands and supports the need for digital transformation, as well as its long-term advantages and the technological, organisational, and resourcing needs that will drive the change. The insurance business is undergoing digital change on two levels. At one level, digital transformation is transforming the way insurance firms connect with their consumers, making it simpler than ever to analyse requirements, give insights, and sell solutions. On a different

level, digital transformation is altering how insurance businesses acquire and analyse data, which is fundamental to actuarial science, risk analysis, and pricing. From a technological standpoint, both processes are inextricably linked: access to secure, cloud-based services is critical to both. Transforming how customers interact and communicate with a broker or carrier frequently manifests itself in mobile apps and web portals that enable customers to provide information to facilitate risk assessment, compare quotes, purchase new insurance products and add-ons, renew policies, and access detailed information about in-force policies. These interfaces may also provide better customer support alternatives such as live chat in certain circumstances. This kind of digital transformation is farther along in the business-to-consumer space for items such as automobiles, homes, and life insurance. On the B2B side, companies such as Cover Wallet (bought by Aon) and Huckleberry are pioneering similar advancements. Cloud technologies serve as the foundation of the environment that enables customer-facing digital transformation. Cloud technologies accelerate the design, construction, prototyping, and delivery of digital services while developing web applications and mobile apps. They make it far quicker and simpler to create fluid, attractive, and professional products than it would be to construct them on top of obsolete and severely fragmented internal infrastructure. Back-office procedures have significant prospects for digital transformation as well. Carriers want on-demand access to enormous volumes of data — either their own stores or data stores made accessible via agreements with other firms – in order to build and sell goods. Digital transformation enables the wider use of bigger and more dispersed data sources, big data methods, and machine learning, with the objective of obtaining quicker, clearer representations of risk, allowing carriers to employ highly specialised models to provide tailored products and pricing on the fly. Because of the complexity of the solutions, the back-office transition has been slower than the transformation of client engagement. However, as smaller and more agile InsureTech startups disrupt the industry, it is apparent that participants of all sizes will need to expedite back-office change to stay up.

The stakes for digital transformation in insurance are high: transacting electronically with employees, customers, and suppliers while protecting the confidentiality and integrity of those transactions becomes more difficult as transformation incorporates almost every process and makes sensitive data easily accessible, both internally and externally. Data breaches are costly, particularly in the financial services industry. According to IBM and the Ponemon Institute's 2019 Cost of a Data Breach study, the average cost of a breach for a financial services organisation is $5.86 million. Although a wide spectrum of criminals target the insurance business, nine out of ten insurance industry data breaches are financially motivated. That comes as no surprise considering the Ponemon report's estimate that the average price of a compromised record taken from a financial services organisation is US$210, second only to healthcare. Insurance businesses, in addition to being financially motivated targets, are also appealing targets for state-sponsored actors. The Anthem breach, one of the biggest insurance industry catastrophes in history, exemplifies this. Like Equifax, Marriott, and the Office of Personnel Management, Anthem's intrusion was linked to Chinese hackers who, having access to both Anthem and OPM data, were able to compare the datasets to provide superior information about important American intelligence operators. The insurance regulatory system has always been complicated, with laws regulating the business being developed mostly at the state level. However, the regulatory stakes are rising by the day as states begin to incorporate rising consumer concerns about data privacy into new laws that incorporate the Insurance Data Security Model Law, which was drafted in 2016 and adopted in 2017 by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in response to major data breaches. Insurance businesses doing business in New York are also subject to the NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation, which went into effect in March 2017, but has never been more essential than it is today. The NYDFS filed its first case on July 22 against First American Title Insurance Company, saying that it failed to adequately preserve mortgage records. This case is significant to the insurance industry since Nebraska's insurance regulators previously determined that First American's incident response was adequate. The precedent has now been set: not only is the NYDFS raising the bar for

compliance, but they have also shown a readiness to enforce their interpretation of the regulations even when other authorities have already acted. Cloud computing, fortunately for insurers, not only facilitates digital transformation but also provides security benefits. Modern cloud services provide security capabilities that may assist insurers in lowering the risk of a data breach while remaining compliant with increasingly severe laws. Password-based authentication has always been a problem for internet-facing apps, even before the cloud was introduced. While cloud deployments may eventually expose more apps to the public internet, employing user management services may assist assure constant strong authentication implementation. Identity and Access Management (IAM) rules offered with cloud services provide more granular access control than platforms utilised for onpremises infrastructure. Though they may be difficult to understand, it is worth the effort for development, operations, and security teams to learn how to utilise them appropriately. A trustworthy partner may assist in validating that converted apps use all of the cloud's identity security capabilities, resulting in a more secure environment. Management of encryption keys may be difficult from a data security standpoint, particularly in the insurance industry where organisations must preserve and analyse so much personally identifiable information and sensitive financial data. Data security requirements demand that data be encrypted in transit and at rest, but encryption is only effective if the related encryption keys are produced, kept, and managed securely. Fortunately, specialised cloud services such as Hardware Security Modules (HSM) and Key Management Solutions (KMS) make it simpler to manage encryption by allowing encryption to be centrally bootstrapped across the system. Choosing the correct HSM or KMS as a trust anchor for data security may be difficult, but if done carefully during the architectural phase of a cloud deployment, it can simplify encryption maintenance. In addition to data encryption, insurance firms must carefully arrange for data residency. Given the complex regulatory framework to which insurers are subject, monitoring where data sits helps an insurer to establish which rules apply to particular data and what security measures are required to comply with those

requirements. Fortunately, both public and private cloud solutions provide centralised techniques to controlling and tracking data storage locations, which may assist insurers in streamlining data governance as the organisation grows. Here’s what’s needed to support digital transformation for an insurance portal: 1.Instant personalized quote tool/calculator 2.Online advice tool 3.Plan comparisons 4.Fully digital purchase process 5.Paperless onboarding experience 6.Access to online professional advice 7.Self-help portal and/or online chatbot 8.Hotkey access to chat/phone support The pandemic COVID-19 brought to a number of behavioural and economic shifts in the world of insurers. To thrive and survive, insurance firms must adapt their business and digital strategies to a new reality, which includes: 1.Premium reductions: As previously stated, some lines of insurance will be affected more than others. Those whose income is likely to fall should cut down on expenses. Otherwise, their expenditure ratios will deteriorate. 2.Face-to-face contacts have ceased: Since the World Health Organization proclaimed a global epidemic, numerous governments have enforced social isolation measures, including, in certain instances, temporary national lockdown. As a consequence, many insurance branches shuttered, and clients now choose digital methods over face-to-face interactions more than ever. 3.Slower postal system: In the same manner, postal services were impacted, putting insurers who depend on paper-heavy communications and manual procedures under pressure to adapt and find new digital ways of communication. 4.Remote work by default affects some field operations for insurers, such as claims adjustment and cross-functional cooperation, which is

especially important for claims, underwriting, and actuarial functions. To support an effective remote workforce, insurers must be prepared to utilise digital tools and platforms. 5.Second-order issues are becoming more common, and insurers must brace themselves for an increase in fraud and early policy cancellations. Here are the top five digital optimization and transformation challenges for insurers in 2022:

1. Grow Business Through Great Experiences As observed in a survey from Ernst & Young, “40% of consumers decide to continue insurer relationships based on the quality of the experience.” Insurers are expected to deliver omnichannel solutions across mobile, web, chatbot, and call centres, providing seamless experiences wherever they are and whenever they want. But that’s just part of the challenge. Although agents and brokers play a crucial role in the insurance business, most agent portals have poor experiences. In fact, the 2019 J.D. Power U.S. Independent Insurance Agent Satisfaction Study states, "Overall independent agent satisfaction with personal lines insurers is 735 (on a 1,000-point scale). For commercial lines, that score falls to 720. These are among the lowest overall satisfaction scores in any business study currently conducted by J.D. Power, lagging even financial advisors (737)." In a competitive market such as insurance, where agents and brokers' performance is critical for acquiring new customers and keeping existing ones, executives have a new mandate: optimize the experiences of their teams. Easy-to-use and friendly portals must be at the top of their agendas.

2. Speed Time-to-Market and Beat Insurtech Competitors Insurtech has shaken up the insurance business. Taking advantage of data analysis and new technology like GPS car tracking, Insurtech has transformed the market with new solutions and better experiences. And, even though the startup activity in insurance has slowed, Insurtech continues to play a significant role in shaping the future of the industry. The biggest challenge for traditional insurers is to align their years of experience—something Insurtech companies lack—with

new ways of reaching customers, policyholders, agents, and partners. And, of course, do it all with speed, agility, and the right time to market.

3. Deliver Seamless Experiences Across Countries As most insurance carriers operate across different states and even countries, companies need to ensure they deliver a seamless experience. But different countries have different regulations, and insurers need to adapt their policies and procedures to be compliant everywhere. Not to mention that those regulations are getting tighter and tighter. In 2018, the European Union updated the Insurance Distribution Directive. And in 2016, the U.S. government expanded the Department of Labor Fiduciary Rule to add stricter governance on how an advisor deals with a client in 2017. Although a Court of Appeals vacated the rule in 2018, insurers had already put measures in place to comply. In addition, the SEC is looking at it closely and might implement parts of it in 2019. The challenge for insurance companies that operate in a multitude of countries is to be able to customize and adapt their business and user experiences quickly to comply with the different federal or state policies.

4. Ensure a Connected Digital Ecosystem As competition continues to increase, many larger insurers are growing their business and services offerings by plugging other companies into their ecosystem. For example, Pay-As-You-Go insurance is an auto insurance program that adjusts rates based on the number of miles you drive. As a result, they’re able to broaden their market to new customers, diversifying their product and services portfolio. But it also makes their business a lot more complex. Insurers must connect all these different components of their ecosystem seamlessly, ensuring a smooth experience for customers, brokers, agents, and partners.

5. Maintain Legacy Systems and Address the Increasing Backlog As we mentioned, innovation is essential for insurers to stay competitive. However, the results can take some time, which can become frustrating. Many companies, especially mature ones, still trust their business to complex, disjointed legacy systems that consume not only financial but also human resources, hampering innovation. At the same time, their backlog continues to grow. According to the State of Application Development, Insurance Industry Report, 65 percent of IT professionals said they have an app dev backlog, and for 10 percent of these respondents, the backlog was over 10 apps. Only 32 percent said their app dev backlog had improved in the last year. In addition, according to the same report, development skills are hard to find: 65 percent of organizations have hired web or mobile developers in the past year. Eighty percent of respondents described app dev talent as scarce, with hiring taking longer and costing more. Each insurance company is built on data. However, most insurers have gigabytes of data that is unconnected and kept on various platforms, making it impossible to analyse. Data analytics can provide insights from this data to enhance decision making, solve the most complicated corporate challenges, and meet expanding market competitiveness (Deloitte 2018). Deeper insights, forecasts, and suggestions are now possible thanks to new data analytics capabilities and an expanding volume of data. Most insurers have invested in Data Analytics solutions in recent years, understanding that investing in Data Analytics is critical to surviving in a rapidly changing climate of digital transformation in insurance. According to DXC, one of the key elements of digital transformation in insurance is data analytics: "the ability to perform detailed analytics for better business decision making is dependent on having a digital platform that can access enterprise-wide data and take advantage of cloud-first capabilities such as machine learning and artificial intelligence" (DXC 2018). A practical approach to enabling data-driven insights via deep analytics is to coordinate the flow of data across many systems into a single data lake for analysis without disrupting the underlying systems of

record, a technique known as digital decoupled architecture. The Obstacles to Successful Digital Transformation in Insurance are: Despite technical breakthroughs, the path to becoming a digitally transformed firm is fraught with difficulties. For example, it takes a lot of modernising for a broker to be able to visit his clients with an iPad rather than a file folder. According to a study conducted by Bain & Company, "more than two-thirds of the world's non-life and life insurers were still utilising systems from the 1970s and 1980s." Since then, there has been a lot of modernization in the business, but the change has not been completely adopted and is not being used uniformly. Here are a few of the issues that the insurance business is facing: 1.Providing a consistent customer experience: Previously, insurers' major route of interaction with clients was via their insurance agents or brokers. Insurers have recently launched digital apps that allow customers to check policy information, examine benefits, compare rates, pay bills, begin claims, and even apply for coverage from their mobile phones or desktop computers. Consumers, providers, and insurance professionals now demand convenience—both in terms of how easy it is to use digital services and the ability to access assistance at any time and from any location. In this competitive market, bad customer service or lapses in security may have a big effect. 2.The rise of Insurtech competitors: By developing new methods of pricing, manufacturing, distributing, and servicing insurance policies, Insurtech is undoubtedly flipping insurance on its head using technologies such as GPS automobile monitoring or activity monitors on wearables. According to research, 31% of customers would consider using a Neobank or a digital behemoth like Amazon, Google, or Facebook. Among Generation Z customers, this percentage jumps to 41%. This has become the most serious challenge to conventional insurance. 3.Customer data analysis: According to Accenture polls, 50% of insurance customers are prepared to share extra personal data in return for incentives such as cheaper premiums, lower interest rates, or other financial benefits. With so much data at their disposal, it may

be difficult to properly gather, manage, and retain client data. Despite having AI to handle such data properly, it seems that there has been a lack of automation at the back-end process to fill data automatically. 4.Legacy system modernization: For a long time, the insurance business has struggled with legacy systems, resulting in greater expenses for maintenance and system improvements. It is getting more difficult to get rid of old systems since there is a danger of losing vital consumer information. According to research, 68 percent of businesses consider legacy systems to be the most significant barrier to digital transformation. 5.Increased cybersecurity: Because insurance providers have access to very sensitive client data, cybersecurity is the top priority for customers when choosing a provider. They must safeguard it in order to comply with privacy and data breach rules, as well as to keep their consumers' trust. As insurers develop new and inventive ways to analyse data, they must also develop methods to protect the data from cyber-attacks. 6.Lack of engagement with IT: One barrier to success is a lack of agreement on what digital transformation entails for the business and IT. Many insurance firms are suffering from a gap between the IT position and the business plan, which raises data fragmentation, security and compliance issues, and diminishes transparency and clarity throughout the whole company. Aligning IT with business processes aids in the elimination of data fragmentation and silos, resulting in a seamless flow of data and an omni-channel experience for consumers.

Figure 9.2 strategies that insurance professionals should consider when building their strategy

Here are a few instances of successes achieved by insurers as a result of digitally converting their legacy systems using Bizagi's intelligent process automation platform:

1– Security and Compliance: According to Nasdaq's Global compliance study, 92 percent of enterprises regard compliance requirements to be very critical. It's no surprise that compliance is a major priority in an industry as heavily regulated as insurance. Transforming insurers' IT infrastructure digitally is a good strategy to assure compliance across the firm. One Bizagi client wanted to improve their historical peer review system, which was about 20 years old and had a backlog of over 500 items. A plethora of unconnected technologies and staff contact through email made it difficult to demonstrate compliance with Lloyd's Underwriting Minimum Standards. The peer review system was totally rebuilt in four months, increasing the quality of review procedures by 200 percent

while consuming 25 percent less time. The centralized platform also generates an automated audit trail, and automated procedures guarantee that compliance is maintained consistently.

2 – Quicker Operations: The ability to decrease project risk and swiftly respond to market changes are two important problems in the insurance sector. Legacy systems are often stiff and do not permit fast improvements that might provide more value to both customers and insurers. However, digital revolution in the insurance industry has provided a solution: an automated process strategy. Generali CEE Holding launched an enterprise-wide business transformation to dramatically increase productivity and efficiency in corporate risk underwriting. The insurer saw immediate advantages from moving to automated and efficient procedures and workflows. Because Bizagi's system design allows for reuse, multi-country, multi-language deployments become more effective as they expand. When compared to competing systems, the original project cost was reduced by 60%. As a consequence, the amount of time underwriters spend processing the most complicated proposals has been cut in half.

3 – Productivity of Employees A day never seems to have enough hours in it. Manual processes like data rekeying and conveying changes through email may consume a substantial amount of time. Anything you can do to make your employees more efficient is appreciated. A worldwide insurer's Asian subsidiary has implemented process automation with Bizagi for their claims process — a critical component of their mortgage insurance. They implemented a workflow system to streamline the process, then automated claim validation, evaluation, and approval. The automation of manual duties involved in the process, such as data input, Excel calculations, and email communications, freed up 15 people, enabling them to be sent to other insurance departments and saving those

remaining working in claims 2 hours each day. The automation also assures compliance by reducing the possibility of inaccurate data entry.

4 – Reporting & Visibility Complex systems with segregated data provide a significant challenge for insurers. According to Insurance Edge, nine out of 10 insurers do not have a single unified view of their client data, despite the fact that 70 percent believe getting this view is either crucial or extremely important to their company. Bizagi was hired by Prose-Chile to assist in dealing with one of Chile's most notable issues: the steady growth in the incidence of uninsured stolen automobiles. Chile's 11 largest insurers can now search, identify, and reclaim automobiles in unprecedented ways thanks to a consolidated data repository, robust process automation, enhanced workflow, and interaction with the country's Civil Registry. In a system currently utilized by 90 percent of Chile's insurance business, over one million records were consolidated and made available online. This has led in a 17% increase in vehicle recovery and a decrease in fraud in duplicate payouts owing to improved claim visibility in the system.

Breakthrough innovation via digital disruption can only help to alleviate the difficulties that insurance businesses are now experiencing. The need of obtaining general or life insurance was not realized until the globe was afflicted by a pandemic. With a deadly illness and the threat of climate change, it is critical to grasp the value of insurance. However, it is not a one-way street; prospects recognizing the value of insurance and firms realizing the significance of offering a smooth experience go hand in hand, and here is where digital disruption enters the picture. Dr. Rakesh Agarwaal, editor of the magazine The Insurance Times and author of more than 30 books on insurance, said that "COVID provided much needed impetus in the insurance market." Is it, however, the ultimate engine of digital reforms and development in the insurance industry? Digitization was previously existing in the

market, but the trend has now been accelerated. The insurance industry is more vulnerable to digital disruption than any other financial service provider. Adoption of digital payment modes by different banks, efforts done by the Indian government, and insurance regulating organizations such as IRDA have created and implemented a few measures to tackle the current scenario. 9.5 Automotive The automobile sector is experiencing exciting times, with new technology in the plant and creative consumer goods. OEMs and tier suppliers may use digital transformation to examine their processes and identify how they need to adapt to provide these new goods to consumers. The digital revolution of customers' lives is forcing automotive businesses to adapt their product design processes and begin designing autos with new features and services in response to consumer demands and new trends, such as autonomous driving/selfdriving technology. Automobile manufacturers may now reach out to customers all around the world thanks to advances in digital technology. Physical distance is no longer a significant obstacle. This implies that if an automotive firm is willing to alter itself via the use of digital technology, it will be able to reach a large number of untapped markets throughout the globe. Artificial intelligence, big data, 5G, and the internet of things are transforming the driving experience, optimising our roadways, and delivering safety, comfort, and reduced fuel emissions, all while moving us closer to the notion of smart city. When a structural change occurs in the market, like as the availability of new technology or a change in legislation, it causes an abrupt shift toward a more efficient state, which we refer to as "disruption." Google programmes such as Google Maps for navigation and Google Assistant have been incorporated into Android Automotive. The electric Polestar 2 is the first vehicle to be equipped with the new Android Automotive OS. This new OS, not to be confused with Android Auto, is a system built by Google that is available to thirdparty developers. Digitization of Weld - By transitioning from a paper-based method that

depended on human involvement to a procedure that reads data directly from laser welders, this large automobile OEM was able to not only increase their quality but also cut their cycle time of the weld process. Using this digital data, they were able to see any weld faults in real time. They would no longer have to transcribe data, sample automobiles, or deal with paper. They improved quality and lowered cycle time, resulting in a better reputation and more income. When cars come out of the paint shop, they are deposited in a big storage bin to await their turn for general assembly. Which car is chosen next will be determined by the order schedule, vehicle characteristics, and so on, in order for the general assembly process to operate as smoothly as possible. For example, there may be restrictions stating that you cannot run two sunroof automobiles in a succession, or it may have an effect on takt time. Our automotive software system can choose the best car to place on the assembly line next based on realtime data on available automobiles. By doing so, we ensure that the general assembly has the most efficient strategy for delivering the automobiles required for the plan. This may assist minimise cycle time and enhance overall performance. Analytics for Paint Quality — Using data from the factory floor, we can conduct analytics to identify the quality of the body paint. For example, by searching for flaws and Orange Peel, we may determine if a car will have paint quality concerns depending on a plethora of criteria. Using this approach will aid in the improvement of quality and customer happiness, resulting in increased brand equity and income. All of these instances are made feasible by using the massive amounts of data accessible in the automobile production and operational processes. It does not end there. New and interesting technologies are finding their way to the factory floor. Augmented Reality enables automotive companies to error-proof their assembly process by displaying operators which components to install and where to place them. Mobility is also making gains at the factory, providing insight into data and warnings. And, as manufacturers get more comfortable with making their data accessible for applications, the cloud is becoming more prevalent.

With recent developments in AI, IoT, and data analytics, digital transformation has gained traction in the automobile sector during the previous 20 years. Businesses gain greatly from digital transformation: 1.introducing new digitally enabled services or ventures 2.product design centred on the consumer 3.supply chain optimization 4.boosting productivity (i.e. decreasing operational costs) 5.enhancements to quality management The digital revolution of customers' lives is forcing car businesses to adapt their product design processes and begin designing autos with new features and services in response to consumer demands and new trends: 1.Alternative fuels/compliance with environmental regulations/autonomous driving/self-driving technology (e.g. electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles) 2.Connected vehicles: 3.the integration of additional software and hardware to improve the customer experience. 4.Intelligent components, for example, that can detect the need for maintenance and offer alerts ahead of time vehicular communication systems consumer expectations regarding improved energy efficiency and maintenance costs new habits and services such as ride-sharing and car-sharing Companies may also employ machine learning in design, using both historical data from automobiles and simulations to better the design process, thanks to new technology. Companies may build smart plants thanks to digital transformation. According to Capgemini Research, automotive manufacturing firms will convert 24 percent of their facilities into smart factories by 2022, and 49 percent of enterprises have already invested more than $250 million in this transition. Manufacturing robots are being used more often. Since the 1970s, companies in the automobile sector have used robots on assembly lines to enhance efficiency, but this is now becoming more

prevalent. Nvidia-developed material handling robots and smart transportation, for example, are used by the BMW Group. With data from IoT and neural network techniques, the robots can recognise and move items automatically. Factories employ IoT data and machine learning sophisticated algorithms to manage their production lines, such as planning and updating timetables, plaining factory maintenance activities, and identifying defective components. Intelligent components, such as sensors, collect data about vehicle performance and analyse it on the cloud to improve vehicle performance. Identify possible failure points in the future. warning drivers in order to avert accidents These sophisticated characteristics have the potential to alter the automobile service business, resulting in a next-generation service that includes new services such as software updates. By analysing production data from equipment and machinery, deep learning systems are utilised to optimise maintenance operations. Inventory and buying operations are managed using real-time data from numerous sources. The use of digitalization in supply chain operations enables businesses to improve their procedures. As a result, they can react to market shifts more swiftly. Low prices, supply chain transparency, and defect reduction are some of the benefits that digital transformation may give for businesses. To get a comprehensive picture of its shipments, Bosch, for example, may collect data from sensors in its factories and third-party logistics providers. Customers want to do virtual testing before purchasing a vehicle. As a result, businesses must establish digital platforms with virtual reality capabilities. Audi has a virtual showroom in London that offers consumers an interactive experience by allowing them to hear sound effects, open doors, and peek inside. Chatbots may assist in qualifying users, answering their urgent queries, and increasing revenue.

What are the challenges of digital transformation in automotive? 1.Investment: Digital transformation investments require significant capital. Return on investment (ROI) of these digitalization projects can be uncertain for some investments.

2.Impact analysis: It is not easy to see expected benefits of digital transformation on business performance and objectives in a short time. This can slow down new projects and investments in the automotive industry. 3.Data privacy: Companies in the industry are collecting consumer, driver and vehicle data to improve features of vehicles and design new products and mobility services. Concerns about data security arise in the automotive industry like in other industries. 4.Complexity: Digital transformation means changing business model and customer definition. It includes major changes and all operations can effect this transformation. Therefore, complexity of DX projects may be a challenge for companies. The transformation process should be managed meticulously, culture and talent change in the organization should also be prioritized. The worldwide automobile sector has changed at an astounding pace in recent years, indicating that technical advancement in this area is far from coming to a halt. We already have automated railway systems and features like ABS, intelligent parking assistance, and smart sensors that make driving safer and simpler for drivers and pedestrians alike. And it gets better: technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, big data, and cloud computing are being put to good use, bringing future scenarios closer to reality. The internet of things, in particular, has had a significant influence on the automotive sector but has yet to realize its full potential. According to experts, by the end of this year, more than 250 million automobiles would be linked to each other through an IoT network. But it doesn't end there; these automobiles will also communicate with road infrastructures, cellphones, and pedestrians. In exchange, all of this data interchange and data collection through IoT devices will make the road safer and more traffic-friendly. Fire engines will take the best and quickest path, the number of automobile accidents will be reduced, gas station lines will be avoided, and pedestrians will be better protected, for example, via technologies connected to safe smart crossing. And the ramifications of IoT go much farther, monitoring both the vehicle's and the driver's status. Sensors attached to different elements of the vehicle gather data on their state and alert the driver if

there is an issue. This manner, the driver will know precisely when any element or mechanism has to be serviced or replaced. Drivers' conduct, as well as their health and heart rate, will be monitored, resulting in fewer accidents caused by sleepiness or medical conditions. With the driver's safety in mind, technology has had and will continue to have an influence on comfort. Self-driving automobiles that depict optimum luxury are no longer sci-fi dreams, and will likely become the standard sooner than we expect. Companies are competing to be the first to provide self-driving vehicles to their customers, and they have already taken significant advances toward producing a completely autonomous vehicle. Google and Tesla have made major advances employing radar-like technologies that do not utilize radio waves, but light, and high-tech camera sensors, respectively, and all of these technologies, together with artificial intelligence and 5G, will make self-driving vehicles a reality soon. However, until self-driving cars become the norm, tech-savvy drivers may delight in already-available electric automobiles. They are not only more cost-effective, but they are also more ecologically friendly, with the potential to decrease world carbon emissions by 0.8 gigatons per year, which is comparable to Germany's emissions. Furthermore, since many manufacturers have begun to design electric motors that are driven by clean, renewable energy, purchasers now have a greater range of automobile brands to pick from, depending on their budget. Let's look at how automobile technology has altered how we look at and interact with our cars: 1.Manufacturing Automobiles got their figurative feet wet when technology was completely accepted. In December 1913, Henry Ford mechanized the manufacturing process of automotive manufacture, bringing mass automobile production to the globe — although he did not develop the assembly line idea, he definitely promoted and backed it. Prior to Ford, it took more than 12 hours to manufacture a vehicle; with the assembly line, it only 2.5 hours. Fast forward to today, and Ford's assembly line is still the preferred method of production for the great majority of vehicle manufacturers — but with a twist. Automation is

soon becoming the next great step forward in vehicle development. Welding robots make quick work of huge, time-consuming procedures, and the introduction of technology to lift and carry engine components, body panels, and other car-related components makes things even more efficient. We also can't forget about the design process and how technology frees up in the creation of new procedures. Advancements in form, chassis strength, aerodynamic efficiency, and fuel economy queries could not be studied as extensively and efficiently without new design/testing technologies. Cars would still be rudimentary, powered boxes on top of steel frames if technology did not exist. 2.Prices The creation of the assembly line resulted in a decrease in the cost of a vehicle. The potential output of the number of automobiles able to be sold surged without the requirement for 12 hours of tedious labor. This aided in making automobiles more affordable to the middle class. Vehicle pricing have also been modified and altered by developing technology as a result of research and reductions in materials utilized, strength, and longevity/durability. Simply stated, technology has made automobiles endure longer, influencing the residual value and resale potential of contemporary vehicles. Although inflation has kept typical automobile prices largely consistent over the previous decade or so, the cost of a new car in 2016 was the lowest it's been since 1983, according to a US Bureau of Economic Analysis research. 3.Safety Changing technology have likely had the greatest influence on the automobile industry in terms of safety. Science and technology have enabled automobile manufacturers to not only hypothesize and test new safety features, but also to develop solutions to ongoing problems through reverse engineering, using technological breakthroughs in computers, artificial intelligence, and software on which new vehicles rely. The introduction of rear-park assist to warn us about pedestrians and obstacles, the inclusion of anti-lock braking systems to aid in braking power, airbags for unfortunate accidents, traction control for adverse weather conditions, and so on are all examples of how technology has changed the auto industry. Consider the arrival of the autonomous driver-less automobile. By eliminating the driver from the

equation, technologies propose that human error may be eliminated from a human-on-the-road equation. By making humans permanent passengers in all automobiles, the technology has the potential to once again disrupt the auto industry. 4.Ecological Economics Since the 1980s, the influence of fuel costs on the automobile industry has raised concerns about new technologies and increased environmental stewardship. Because they were designed and conceptualized in cultures with low petroleum costs, American vehicles were historically at a considerable disadvantage when compared to their Japanese and European counterparts. Over the previous 15 years, fuel economy has progressively increased, but high-quality cars that have always benefitted from new fuel-efficiency technologies, like as the Chevrolet Volt, have always sold well in all parts of the globe. Nowadays, fuel efficiency is one of the primary – if not the primary – reasons for purchasing a new automobile or shopping about while studying cars. Over the past two or three decades, cheap energy has prompted evolving technology to think in new ways, experimenting with the social consequences of greater fuel economy, lower emissions, and optimism for the status of the environment. According to a comprehensive study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, "because gasoline prices are higher overseas, Japanese and European companies may be able to introduce costly fuel-saving technologies more quickly throughout the world than American companies." Because of the competitive nature of the market, new technology not only gets deployed, but it also develops and becomes more efficient. Here are four of the most innovative technologies that will be available in the automobile sector in the near future: 1) Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Tesla is at the vanguard of the fuel-efficiency movement, having released a series of electric and hybrid cars capable of travelling hundreds of miles on a single charge. More than 2 million electric cars were sold globally in 2016, and this number is projected to climb in the near future as more automobile manufacturers incorporate electric

vehicle technology into their product lines. Companies such as Volkswagen and General Motors have lately introduced electric vehicles to their fleets, and Volvo has said that by 2019, all of the engines they build would be fitted with an electric motor. Electric vehicles are also getting more inexpensive, with firms such as Hyundai, Kia, and Toyota releasing hybrid automobiles for less than $30,000, implying that investment in fuel economy may soon be widely accepted globally. By 2030, electric vehicles are predicted to account for 20% to 25% of total vehicle sales in the United States, with this number rising to up to 35% in China. 2) Vehicle Predictive Technology As predictive capabilities become increasingly ubiquitous in automobiles, customizing the driving experience, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will play a significant part in the future of the automotive industry. More manufacturers are using data-driven algorithms to automate the process of configuring a vehicle, including the infotainment system and application preferences. Vehicles are becoming into IoT devices that can link to smartphones and accept voice instructions, therefore altering the user experience. Predictive vehicle technology may also be employed in the form of sensors inside a vehicle that alert the owner if the vehicle requires servicing from a technician. Depending on the mileage and condition of your automobile, the technology will be able to predict its performance, schedule appointments in real time, and notify users of any safety issues associated with a malfunctioning car owing to business recalls. 3) Self-Driving Vehicle Technology Much has been written about autonomous driving technology, and although some businesses have been testing their self-driving capabilities on public roads, we're still a long way from seeing these vehicles on the road. Several vehicles already have semi-autonomous capabilities in the form of driver-assist technology. Automatic braking sensors, highway lane sensors, mapping technology that monitors blind areas, cameras in the rear and front of a vehicle, adaptive cruise control, and self-parking capabilities are among them. Waymo, Google's self-driving pod, was recently unveiled, while Local Motors also debuted a completely autonomous car. By 2021, Ford expects to

have a self-driving car on the road. 4) Automobiles-as-a-Service (CaaS) Cars-as-a-service (CaaS) is a new automobile rental business that will enable city drivers to participate in a ride-sharing service. Owners of smart devices may use an app to summon an autonomous vehicle to pick them up for transportation or deliveries. The technology is so advanced that no driver's license is required to use one of these cars, which act as a driverless Uber. The Internet of Things is a network that connects billions of complicated items such as electronics, sensors, gateways, actuators, and platform hubs. These physical devices communicate with one another over a wireless network. Connected objects (or things) exchange data and act autonomously, with no human involvement. A Gartner report predicts that more than 20 billion IoT devices will be connected by the end of 2020, estimating the potential of IoT. The first large-scale use of IoT was seen in manufacturing organizations in order to execute autonomously and minimize production costs. Later, its uses shifted toward more commercial and general applications. Nonetheless, the opportunities presented by the internet of things for the vehicle sector are enormous. Various Automotive IoT use cases have emerged, altering how people interact with their automobiles. 5 Surprising IoT Use Cases in the Automotive Industry: 1. Fleet Management The application of IoT in the automobile industry has resulted in significant advancements in the area of fleet management. Weight measuring, position monitoring, and a variety of additional sensors are increasingly standard on trucks. A vast amount of sensory data collected from a big fleet of such vehicles is kept in a cloud application. This information is subsequently analysed using various analytics tools and converted into a visual manner. This information is readily accessible to a fleet operator in order to monitor various characteristics linked with its fleet. Some of the advantages that an IoT-infused fleet management system provides to a fleet manager include: • Fleet position tracking in real time

• Weight/volume monitoring of goods carried by the fleet • Truck performance information such as fuel economy and mileage • Monitoring road traffic conditions • Route administration • Driver and time management Disclaimer: Intellia IoT, a product of Biz4Intellia, provides a full solution for fleet management operations. It includes all of the elements described above that are required to run a fleet. Learn more about the Intellia fleet monitoring system by clicking here. 2. Connected Cars: The concept of networked vehicles is not new. In fact, Gartner predicts that there will be more than 250 million connected automobiles in the globe by the end of 2020. These vehicles are linked through an IoT network known as CV2X (cellular vehicle to everything), which links vehicles and smart transportation systems. Through improved vehicle connectivity, connected automobiles enable faster data transfer and boost driver reaction time. The CV2X is classified into four groups based on its interactions with various objects: i)Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication: A V2V connection enables cars in close proximity to communicate data. The data primarily consists of information on location, speed, and dynamics. V2V connections assist to reduce accidents and let emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire engines to navigate through traffic more quickly. ii)Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) connection: A V2I connection is a network of vehicles and road infrastructures. V2I infrastructure consists mostly of traffic signals, lane markings, and toll booths. V2I often improves travel flow and avoids lengthy lines at toll booths or gas stations. iii)Vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P): A pedestrian may connect to the CV2X network via a smartphone application. A pedestrian may use this app to discover local taxis and track the projected arrival time for transits. They can also communicate with the pedestrian walking system and adjust traffic lights in order to cross a street.

iv)Vehicle-to-network (V2N): The Intelligent Transport System (ITM) and the weather prediction department may also link to the network to notify drivers of changes in weather or accidents on the road. Furthermore, a car may be linked to cellphones. As a result, the driver may use voice commands to control the car's audio system and GPS while driving. 3. Vehicle Maintenance System: vehicle-maintenance-system One of the most surprising aspects of IoT automotive is predictive analytics. Sensors installed in various automotive components gather data and transmit it to a platform. This data is subsequently analyzed by an algorithm, which may predict the component's future consequences based on its performance. IoT automotive maintenance systems also assist a person in taking the required precautions to keep their automobile components from breaking down unexpectedly. This system, like a vehicle's dashboard indicators, warns the driver of potential faults. The notifications, on the other hand, are transmitted to the driver's mobile phone well before the issue develops. This assists the driver in taking cost-effective and time-saving measures to avert component failure while driving. Predictive maintenance skills may be used to both individual vehicles and fleets. It is very beneficial for loadcarrying vehicles that travel for many days before arriving at their destination. A person may check the operation of their vehicle and fix their automobile components before they break by utilizing the automotive maintenance system. 4. Autonomous Vehicles: self-driving-cars Autonomous cars are a major issue among car manufacturers. Various automakers are attempting to produce a completely autonomous vehicle that will take over all driving tasks from the driver. Even considerable progress has been made in this area, a completely autonomous car has yet to be produced. Semi-autonomous cars, on the other hand, have been developed to aid drivers with driving, braking, parking, and lane changing operations. Semi-autonomous automobiles with IoT infusion make on-the-fly choices while partially regulating vehicle operations to minimize accidents and decrease the driver's workload. Cars are outfitted with IoT systems, in addition to various proximity sensors and cameras, to eliminate human error and

make driving more pleasant and safe. 5. Infotainment and Telematics in Vehicles: in-vehicle-infotainmentand-telematics In-car Wi-Fi capabilities supported by a 4G LTE connection have allowed IoT-based vehicle telematics services. Telematics is the longdistance transfer of electronic data. A car owner may maintain an eagle watch on their vehicle even from faraway areas by employing vehicular telematics. Car owners may be assured of their vehicle's security, surveillance, and safety at all times by using a smartphoneenabled dashboard. External sensors and cameras monitor the state of the vehicle and communicate data to a mobile application. If someone attempts to violently enter the car without appropriate access, the telematics system and real-time warning system sound an alarm on the owner's smartphone. In the event of an emergency, the IoT-enabled smart vehicle automatically contacts the appropriate authorities, such as an ambulance or firemen. Wi-Fi capabilities have also led to the development of smart infotainment systems and other smart vehicle features. Owners may link various devices, such as a car's audio system and GPS, to their smartphone and control them remotely. There are already a variety of in-built and third-party programmes that may be used to link a car to a mobile device. Voice command accessibility in these applications enables a person to listen to music, watch a video, or answer calls without lifting a finger. The GPS and GNSS technology in the infotainment systems also provides onboard navigation and detailed information on local gas stations, restaurants, and other areas of interest. Here are some of the most promising automobile innovations for the year 2022: 1. Android Automotive OS The electric Polestar 2 is the first vehicle to be equipped with the new Android Automotive OS. This new OS, not to be confused with Android Auto, is a system built by Google that is available to thirdparty developers. It incorporates Google programmes such as Google Maps for navigation and Google Assistant. Simply say "OK, Google" to start using voice commands, and Google Assistant will assist you with music, navigation, temperature control, and much more. Don't worry if

you don't have an Android phone. If you're accustomed to wireless Apple CarPlay, this system also includes it. Polestar 2 models for sale may be found here. 2. Pickups that run on electricity We included electric pickups in our 2022 list, but this time it's a bit different. Today, it is more realistic than ever before. While the Tesla Cybertruck is still a concept, and Nissan has a prototype electric pickup, the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T will both begin deliveries in 2022, and the GMC Hummer EV should be in driveways by the end of 2021. Electric pickup trucks offer many significant benefits over typical gas-powered vehicles. To begin with, electric torque yields amazing capabilities and thrilling performance. Ford Intelligent Backup Power, which enables you to utilise the Ford F-150 Lightning as a generator, is one of the ingenious options offered. 3. Electric Vehicle Crate Motors The emergence of electric crate motors such as the Chevrolet Performance eCrate is shaking up the crate motor landscape. Crate motors have long been utilized by hot rodders to install a current engine in a project vehicle or racecar. Electric crate motors such as the Chevrolet Performance eCrate and the Ford Performance Eluminator are shaking up the crate motor landscape. It's not only the established businesses that are getting in on the act. Electric GT and reVolt are two companies that specialize in this specialized industry. If you look around, you can locate an EV crate motor for your resto-mod project, to add more horsepower to your Tesla, or for almost any other use you can think of. 4. BlueCruise Ford The Ford BlueCruise hands-free driving technology is available in the 2022 Ford F-150 and Mustang Mach-E. BlueCruise is Ford's answer to GM's Super Cruise technology. When you're driving on a Fordmapped highway, BlueCruise can take control, and you can take your hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals, but it's not quite complete autonomy. This makes highway driving safer and more relaxing, but you must remain vigilant behind the wheel and keep your eyes on the road at all times. The Ford BlueCruise hands-free driving technology is available in the 2022 Ford F-150 and Mustang Mach-E. The same

ActiveGlide technology is offered in the 2022 Lincoln Navigator. Other eligible Ford cars will get an over-the-air upgrade featuring BlueCruise in the first quarter of 2022. 5. High-End Overland Upfitting Ford Expedition Timberline Concept Overlanding, which is basically off-roading across great distances for a long period, is a prominent trend in the upfitting industry. Custom truck and van upfitting is nothing new, but it's become wilder and more expensive lately. Overlanding, which is basically off-roading across great distances for a long period, is a prominent trend in the upfitting industry. Overlanding is made easier by special upfits such as roof racks filled with supplies, built-in tents, and, in extreme situations, bespoke vans with built-in beds and appliances to make it seem like an all-terrain RV. The only constraints with bespoke upfitting are your money and your ingenuity. 6.Hyundai Digital Key With the optional Premium Package, you can get the Hyundai Digital Key in an Elantra SEL. For many years, drivers have had the option of managing or monitoring some aspects of their vehicle through remote control. It is now typical for owners of modern automobiles to lock and unlock their vehicles, and remote start through a phone app is also prevalent. The 2.0 version of this technology simply uses a smartphone as the key to the whole vehicle, rather than just a remote for a few functions. This technology is available in BMW, Ford, Genesis, and Mercedes-Benz vehicles, as well as a few others. Hyundai is perhaps the most popular example of this technology that is now accessible. Hyundai offers the technology on certain reasonably priced vehicles, including the Elantra, Kona, Sonata, and Tucson. It is now only available for Android users, but we anticipate that the service will expand to include additional models and platforms in the future. Not all of the vehicles mentioned above have Hyundai Digital Key, but an Elantra SEL with the optional Premium Package, which costs about $25,000, does. That's a reasonable price for a vehicle with such modern technology. The principle is simple: all you need is your smartphone to obtain admission, start and drive your vehicle, and lock and unlock your automobile. You may even share your vehicle key remotely with someone else - think of it as a virtual

valet key. According to Hyundai, the owner of the key may also impose limits on the shared key, such as "...expiration date, allowable operating time, and the choice to enable the shared user to either drive the car or merely enter the vehicle." Because this technology is still in its early stages, many of these functions have special hardware requirements. For example, the Hyundai system needs Android 7.0 or above, as well as Near Field Communications (NFC) functionality on your handset. A Bluetooth version of 4.0 or above is also necessary. Find used Hyundai vehicles for sale. 7. Interactive Passenger Display in Jeep Jeep models continue to become more luxury and high-tech while maintaining their off-road prowess. A Passenger Interactive Display is a novel feature featured in high-end Jeep vehicles such as the Grand Wagoneer. It's a 10.25-inch screen above the glove box that allows the front passenger to enjoy the trip in a variety of ways. It may provide GPS information, control over the music and back entertainment systems, and even a view of the vehicle's cameras to the passenger. Jeep models continue to become more luxury and high-tech while maintaining their off-road prowess. This is another step toward high-end Jeeps becoming true luxury SUVs capable of competing with the likes of Land Rover. Models of Jeep Grand Wagoneer for sale may be found here. 8. LED Lighting for Classic Automobiles Dapper Lighting installed retrofit LED headlights on this Chevelle. Dapper Lighting provided the image. LED lighting is an excellent method to bring an antique automobile up to date. It not only enhances the appearance of a vintage automobile, but it also increases visibility significantly. Upgrading to HID headlights is a bit more difficult, requiring transformers and more cabling. However, since LEDs don't need much electricity, switching to them is a very simple, plug-and-play operation. Because this is such a popular improvement, a few internet merchants specialize in LED lighting for old automobiles. LED lighting built for your historic automobile may be purchased from sites such as Dapper Lighting and Vintage Car LEDs, so it is not an evident change. 9.Lucid Air 2022

Although some sceptics rejected it as "vaporware," the Lucid Air is already in production. This all-electric luxury vehicle competes with the Tesla Model S, Porsche Taycan, and Audi e-tron GT. It's Lucid Motors' debut model, and it's a significant first step into the competitive world of high-end electric vehicles. On paper, the Lucid Air outperforms the Tesla Model S in terms of range and performance. It has a maximum range of 520 miles and can generate up to 1,111 horsepower. It's also competitively priced in comparison to its rivals, with a starting MSRP of less than $80,000. Aside from its exhilarating electric powertrain, the Lucid Air has a sumptuous interior with high-tech amenities like as a 34-inch, 5K Glass Cockpit display, over-the-air upgrades, the Dream Drive suite of driver aid functions, a slick mobile app, and much more. 10.VC-Turbo Engines from Nissan Nissan has officially released a new version of the VC-Turbo engine as the basic engine for the popular Nissan Rogue. Gasoline engines have gotten cleaner and more efficient over the last several decades. Nissan's novel variable compression turbocharged engines are a prime example. The engine technology has been used in the Nissan Altima and the Infiniti Q50 for a few years. Nissan has officially released a new version of the VC-Turbo engine as the basic engine for the popular Nissan Rogue. It's the first 3-cylinder VC-Turbo engine, and it produces 20 more horsepower, 44 more pound-feet of torque, and 3 more combined mpg than the Rogue's previous engine. The car business is evolving quicker than ever before, due to the introduction of new technologies inside the plant and the launch of fresh consumer products. Automotive manufacturers have been incorporating digital technology into all elements of their operations, beginning with product design and continuing through procurement, manufacturing, and supply chain management, as well as sales and marketing. Using digital technology to enhance online customer service is a good example. Automobile dealerships, for example, that utilize eCommerce to sell their goods directly to clients. Whether it's autos, automotive components, or even automobile accessories. OEMs and tier suppliers may utilize digital transformation to review their operations and determine what changes are required to deliver these new goods to consumers.

There are several excellent instances of digital transformation in the automotive sector, spanning from product innovation to operational improvements to customer-facing changes. Here are some instances of how automakers have embraced digital transformation: 1.Mercedes-Benz collaborated with the start-up Circular to assess climate-relevant pollutant emissions and the amount of secondary material utilized in the supply chain of battery cell manufacturers. 2.Cisco and Oxbotica, a global autonomous vehicle software firm, have collaborated to demonstrate an open roaming platform that enables autonomous fleets to safely transmit massive volumes of data while on the road. 3.BMW's Regensburg factory made excellent use of an IoT platform. It helps them to reduce deployment time by 80% and quality control problems by 5%. 4.Volkswagen worked with augmented reality software developers to label automobile components with the proper equipment for use in the repair procedure. This system, known as MARTA, allows technicians to work more effectively. 5.Historically, automotive paints and materials were sold in stores. PBE Jobbers Warehouse, a wholesaler of car body equipment, connected its eCommerce, CRM, and ERP systems. Some aspects of automotive purchasing date back to the twentieth century and have altered little since then. eCommerce is for dealers and customers when it comes to selling new automobiles, but the conventional shopping experience has always been more significant. Furthermore, initiatives to include digital tools such as iPads in showrooms have improved customer service. In 2022, the world undergoes a change, and customers of all types are more likely to move online. Sellers of all types, whether offline, B2C, or B2B, may aim to improve the digital experience by interacting with customers through social media or the app. This trend has the potential to accelerate. The car industry will witness the development of a separate digital, linked supply chain over the next two to five years. It is critical for all industry players to digitally manage the company by establishing an intelligent and digital supply chain. Furthermore, the COVID outbreak has prompted manufacturers to analyses their

systems more thoroughly in order to determine how they might function more efficiently under such difficult conditions. Production is impeded by problems such as chip shortages. The need for remote monitoring and control, as well as reporting, has grown. Fortunately for automakers, the epidemic has receded, resulting in a rise in revenue for the manufacturers as more people drive rather than fly. As a result of unparalleled competitiveness, new product demands like as electrification, and other factors, automotive manufacturers are predicted to increase their digital expenditure by up to 24 percent over the next few years. Top 7 Automotive Industry Digital Transformation Trends: 1.The most crucial factor is connectivity. Connectivity is a term that properly describes the current situation. It is more than just a lovely addition. This is a condition imposed by the consumer. Many drivers nowadays desire access to software, music, and social media accounts. They essentially do not want to be restricted. Vehicle manufacturers work hard to provide vehicles that enable drivers to operate their businesses and maintain their social life while driving to fulfil their needs and wishes. Only a few years ago, people fantasized of having Wi-Fi-enabled vehicles. Because of the increased demand for digital connection among younger automobile customers, such cars are now commonly accessible. Manufacturers quickly realize that without such networking functions, it is no longer viable to promote or sell automobiles. 2. Personalization of the customer experience Around 74% of managers believe that production levels in Western Europe will be around 5% by 2030, a 60% fall from 2017. The reduction would allow for better transparency and lower costs in the supply chain. The design, manufacturing, and distribution processes will all be accelerated. Furthermore, improved communication options would enable a manufacturer to get immediate feedback. The improvements in efficiency, adaptability, and development would eliminate the impediments to the creation of intelligent plants. 3.Predictive maintenance based on Internet of Things connection tools This method produces good benefits, such as early failure diagnosis

and a 30% boost in maintenance. This system captures car performance data, uploads it to the cloud, and assesses the likelihood of a vehicle's software and/or hardware malfunctioning. Following processing, the driver will be notified and advised on any repairs or services that are necessary to avoid injuries or accidents. Predictive maintenance technology, in essence, eliminates the need for depreciation. 4.High-level data security and protection Because the automobile sector is the world's second most data-driven industry, automakers engage with software development firms. Modern intelligent vehicles collect data on traffic patterns, drivers, and their usual locations, among other things. These statistics may be used to engage and interact with drivers. To safeguard driver information, however, linked systems must be secure. As a result, producers are always on the lookout for innovative defense and safety innovations. 5.Mobility as a service Uber has had tremendous success in its niche since transitioning from private automobiles to service-oriented transportation alternatives. Vehicles have become an essential component of the integrated living environment. Furthermore, businesses like as Uber lower the enormous expense of automobile purchase, registration, and service, as well as providing some financial support. 6.Vehicle manufacturing sector has been digitalized. 2022 will be another year filled with fascinating challenges and developments that will move the globe one step closer to a technologically sophisticated future. Progress in the sector may be assessed and/or utilized far sooner than most people believe. The globe and drivers benefit from digital change in the car industry as well. Manufacturers still face several challenges, but the automobile industry is evolving for the better. 7.The car-buying process is undergoing a digital makeover. Only a few automobiles are on exhibit at London's Audi Virtual Showrooms, but purchase information is displayed on giant video displays. The car-buying process is undergoing a digital makeover.

The car-buying process was aggravating, as the disruptive seller's stereotype proved true. Purchasing a new automobile usually resulted in a lack of knowledge and a high level of tension. Buyers may, however, use modern digital technologies to verify online before visiting a dealer. The Difficulties of Digital Transformation in the Automotive Industry To stay competitive, most digital transformation efforts in the automobile sector concentrate on technology-driven innovations and customer needs. Furthermore, it is highly competitive and linked to a variety of other areas in the automobile industry. Trends such as digital transformation in automobile production, environmental concerns, mobility as a service, and predictive computing provide several benefits while also highlighting numerous industry difficulties. Some of them may be found here: 1.Investment The major areas of concentration in this difficult economic climate are cash protection and risk management. When automakers focus on productivity, they will priorities investments that improve supply chain visibility, sales efficiency, and customer service. They must focus on the most lucrative use cases with the best ROI for enterprises investing in vehicle digitization. The most difficult problems will continue to be predicting the ROI of developing technologies and identifying suitable uses in the automobile industry. For example, the press declared the most major autonomous truck disruptor a few years ago. However, the introduction of completely self-sufficient automobiles has been postponed since then. According to Deloitte's 2020 report, most customers in Germany (67%) and Japan (61%) do not want to spend more than $500 for autonomous vehicle technology choices in their automobiles. The plot is based on innovative engine technology. Customers in Germany (58%) and the United States (54%) said they would not spend more than $500 for alternative-fuel engines. The shaky investment environment and unpredictable consumer technology demand continue to be major roadblocks for the principal sponsors of this technological growth. 2.Change resistance The industry should do more to encourage essential transformation

initiatives. For example, as the range of electric vehicles expands, field anxiety remains a major issue. The car industry's fragmentation makes it harder to promote charging infrastructures globally or domestically. There is also ongoing debate regarding whether charging infrastructure should be the responsibility of the OEM or the state. Although the automotive aftermarket has long benefited from B2C e-commerce, there has been sporadic digital adoption in other sectors of vehicle e-commerce. Manufacturers confront similar challenges. According to one survey, automakers anticipate a 24 percent increase in digital spending in the coming years. However, challenges persist as a result of the industry's low digital expertise and the slow speed at which these changes are implemented. 3.Customer-centricity According to one survey, a lack of client attention is a critical issue for digital transformation in the automobile industry. However, implementing customer-centered reform also entails carrying out corporate initiatives on a national scale, in addition to what is doable at the dealer and service level. For these systems to succeed, there should be no differentiation between an individual dealer's experience and the digital experience on all devices. The growing numbers of digital natives are receptive to these interactions, and companies must consider how they can assist improve the whole ownership experience for their consumers, dealers, suppliers, and sellers. The influence of digital transformation on customer service and Ways to offer customer service on a shoestring budget is, Money is really vital throughout any situation. The digital revolution in the automobile sector is similar to that of other industries. AI technology can automate customer support networks, lowering expenses for the car sector. The transition to automated customer support operations ensures 24x7 client access and reduces reliance on human employees. Several firms were already undertaking digital transformation when the epidemic arrived. However, Covid-19 has shown us that digital customer care and experience is more than just a nice-to-have. It must be both efficient and secure. They may opt to maintain contact with clients via numerous digital means. Mobile applications with chat and push messaging, as well as social media, are the two most

frequent methods to engage customers. Because this illness is very contagious, more drivers choose services that do not need maintenance or repairs. This level of customer service or knowledge is not possible given the present status of the automobile business. Any car that has to be maintained requires a significant amount of physical labor. Neither the contacts nor the activities are technically advanced. To achieve the required level of efficiency, automotive businesses must develop subscription-based virtual services. Another area where customer service may be improved and client loyalty ensured is predictive analysis. BMW strives to impress its top clientele using its IBM SPSS app. Previously, the application detected automobile faults and optimized operations using Big Data Analysis. FACTS (Field-data Analysis for Customer Satisfaction) is a BMW Community core of knowledge that analyses massive amounts of data. The insights from this massive data set are utilized to influence consumer satisfaction. Similar technologies have the potential to change the consumer satisfaction levels of other automotive manufacturers. The customer care business has grown dramatically since the introduction of chatbots. Several firms provide extremely functioning chatbots for mobile applications. The advantages are as follows: 1.Personalization without interfering with the experience. 2.A improved self-service experience. 3.Help in a variety of languages. 4.Help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Chatbots have already shown to be quite valuable, but the automobile sector will need to make several changes and developments in order to fill the hole. According to a study conducted by automakers, approximately 70% of organizations are in some stage of using chatbots, and more than 50% have firm plans for adoption within the next three months. Some of the important themes driving more digitization in the automobile sector are as follows: 1.Digitalization 2.Autonomous Driving 3.Smart Cities

4.Mobility as a Service 5.Sharing Economy 6.Green Powertrain In the automobile industry, there are several instances of good digital transformation, ranging from product innovation to operational change to customer-facing enhancements. Here are some examples of how automobile companies have implemented digital change: 1.Tesla has long been a forerunner in the application of artificial intelligence and big data. They've been collecting data from drivers using onboard sensors since 2014, allowing them to release a wireless upgrade that improved the accuracy of their autopilot software. 2.Polestar, a Volvo brand, has been crowned the best-positioned vehicle brand for online sales. Their Polestar 1 and Polestar 2 models, like Tesla's, are exclusively available online. Volvo does, however, maintain designated "rooms" at physical sites in partner dealerships. 3.BMW successfully implemented an IoT platform at its Regensburg factory. It enabled them to cut the time required to deploy new apps by 80% while also reducing quality control concerns by 5%. 4.Volkswagen collaborated with AR-based software developers to designate vehicle components with the appropriate tools to be utilized. This technology, known as MARTA, improves the efficiency of service technicians. 5.Automotive paints and supplies are a typically offline business. PBE Jobbers Warehouse, an auto body equipment wholesaler, has futureproofed its operations with a unified eCommerce, CRM, and ERP integration. Top 5 Automotive Industry Digital Transformation Trends: The automobile business is among the most open to new technology and trends, making it one of the most dynamic. We looked at the top digital trends that are causing essential change in all parts of the automobile business. Here are a few examples: 1.Environment As the human influence on the environment remains a hot subject,

every sector strives for more environmentally friendly or sustainable technologies. Almost every major automaker already has a completely electric car in its inventory. According to CNN's analysis, Volkswagen expects to sell 1.4 million electric vehicles by 2025, and there's a good chance that electric vehicles will outsell gasoline-powered vehicles by 2040. The rise of internet shopping is fueling demand for electric delivery vehicles. Amazon placed an order for 1,800 Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles at the start of the autumn season. Many companies are now transferring their sales online. As car firms introduce new models, they are shifting their focus online to provide consumers with a pleasant experience without the need to visit a dealership. 2.Connectivity Most of our gadgets are now linked in some way, from phones to TVs to watches, and automotive items are swiftly catching up. For example, the development of infotainment systems is proceeding at a quick speed. Cars can interpret voice instructions, check components for wear based on driving behaviors, and adapt to the driver's personality. As technology advances at dizzying pace, automakers will need to speed up upgrades to in-vehicle systems. Tesla, for example, has long been a pioneer in wireless car software upgrades. Car manufacturers regard remotely upgradeable cars as a big value-add, and sales are estimated to reach 35 million by 2025. 3.Autonomy In the automobile sector, machine learning and predictive driving technologies are already widely used. The general public will warm up to the concept of letting vehicles drive themselves as unique manufacturer-developed technology evolve and autopilot rating systems emerge. The automobile industry is heavily data-driven, and the quantity of data passing through cameras, sensors, and computers is growing by the day. Assisted driving is already becoming commonplace, and similar technologies will soon be available in automobiles of all price ranges. 4.eCommerce on the internet The automobile sector is being disrupted by digital commerce

technology that provide higher efficiency, personalization, and cost reductions. The proliferation of new technologies and the breadth of accessible data may be leveraged to better serve clients. Feedback tabs or polls on eCommerce and social networking sites, for example, may convey information directly to the distributor or manufacturer. With Oro Commerce, automotive suppliers such as PBE Jobbers were able to digitally change their offline companies. They developed a single source of customer truth and obtained comprehensive insight into their supply chains by integrating their ERP and CRM systems in two directions. Aside from enhancing productivity and lowering costs, this reduced human error during inventory and order management significantly. These components are part of PBE's future-proof approach, assisting them to scale, stay robust, and expand into expanding markets such as direct sales (D2C) or B2B2C alongside traditional channels. 5.Virtual and augmented reality In the automobile sector, augmented and virtual reality have several uses. In virtual showrooming, for example, buyers may sit in a chair that simulates a vehicle seat and have a real-time sensation of being in that specific automobile. Virtual prototyping and setup may assist consumers in seeing the final product and comprehending how all pieces are linked. For example, service departments may employ augmented reality software provided by the manufacturer to assist car personnel save time on the job. These technologies have the potential to extend beyond OEMs to service departments in the insurance and used automobile markets. Because the automobile sector is the world's second most data-driven industry, manufacturers collaborate with software development businesses. Modern smart automobiles gather information on traffic patterns, drivers, frequent destinations, and much more. This information is important for engaging and interacting with drivers. Connected systems, on the other hand, must be secure in order to safeguard driver information. As a result, manufacturers are continually on the lookout for new breakthroughs in protection and security. 2020 will be another fascinating year filled with challenges and upheavals that will bring the globe one step closer to a digitally

enhanced future. Many more advances will be evaluated and/or deployed in the industry far sooner than most people believe. Digital change benefits both the environment and drivers. Manufacturers must still face several hurdles; yet, the automobile industry is evolving for the better and for the better. The automobile sector is undergoing transformational change as a result of cloud technology advancements. We should anticipate the speed of change in the automotive market to increase in a world where people demand a smooth purchasing experience, a desire for mobility alternatives, and their car to be as individualized as their smartphone. The long-term themes of sustainability, safety, convenience, and personalization are fairly steady, but technology is pushing these trends and change. One of the key technical factors changing the automobile sector is cloud computing. The key advantages of shifting to the cloud are agility and speed. It improves efficiency, provides significant insights, and allows innovative, flexible business models across the value chain. Furthermore, the cloud allows non-cloud native businesses to reinvent themselves. Cloud technology assists automotive companies in leading transformation by providing expertise in four critical areas: 1. Artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML) and High Performance Computing (HPC) are allowing new automotive applications and services, ranging from basic use cases to convey road conditions to more complicated edge-enabled use cases for Autonomous Driving (ADAS). Cloud computing may be used by automakers to use the most recent advances in AI to help manufacture automobiles that are safer, more accessible, and environmentally friendly. Automakers, for example, are experiencing a quicker time-to-train than they had before, decreasing training time from days to hours by employing a virtual server to install apps. This provides manufacturers with substantial agility in terms of swiftly optimizing and retraining their models and deploying them in their test vehicles or simulation environments for additional testing. Furthermore, the huge performance gain in next-generation technology, combined with a cloud-enabled pay-as-you-go approach, leads to cheaper operational expenses for improved development of software for autonomous driving.

2.Data will be the cornerstone of all future mobility enterprises, altering the sector by increasing the pace of development for autonomous features for safety, giving a better degree of personalization, and leading to optimum energy consumption for sustainability. An automaker that can identify, unlock, and exchange data from many consumer contact points can generate actionable insights and new product features. Rich datasets in automotive nowadays, for example, originate from the car itself, smart cities where the vehicle operates, AV training and simulation models, and the production process. One key barrier to manufacturers' adoption of connected cars is heterogeneous data from a plethora of sensors, which is why, despite the fact that there are over one billion automobiles on the road today, only around 50 million are linked. This is where cloud computing can assist; the cloud can decode data, normalize it, and put it in a single format so that every user may benefit from clean, precise, developerfriendly data all in one place to speed up business. The options are limitless. Using data to provide predictive services in areas such as vehicle health prognostics, driver behavior, demand management services, and fuel consultancy will result in a significant shift in user experience and novel services in the next years. 3. IoT in Industry A totally linked organization is the ultimate aim of a mature digital transformation in the automobile industry. Enterprises can acquire significant insights into what is occurring with automobiles on the road by using data lakes. They may then pass on these insights to the production and design teams in order to increase operational efficiency, improve quality, and accelerate innovation. This technological innovation has the potential to influence smart factories by allowing industrial automation to apply ML at the edge to evaluate pictures and video in order to identify quality concerns on fast-moving assembly lines. Automakers who use the cloud to properly analyses data will be able to optimize their complete operations from supplier to end car, realizing up to 30 percent efficiencies. 4. Culture Many automakers are well on their way to transitioning from old metal works to software-driven technology firms. With data and the cloud in

the picture, the path opens up for sector platforms and partnerships, allowing them to be hyper-focused on where they can distinguish themselves in the market. This need skills and insights into what constitutes an innovative corporate culture. As automakers work to foster a culture of digital innovation, there are numerous lessons to be learned from the cloud firms driving digital transformation in the automobile sector. Automakers should seek out customer-centric organizations that place a premium on acquiring and maintaining outstanding employees. Companies that work backwards to solve business problems are excellent partners, complementing automakers and reinforcing their shared vision of a connected future. The persistent connection of a car to the Internet provides several advantages to the user while also posing a significant hazard. Because our devices generate so much data, security must be a major consideration for both manufacturers and drivers. Cars may be hacked in order to extort money, steal, or even cause an accident in the worst-case scenario. The repercussions of intentionally exploiting security vulnerabilities are a major worry. Car manufacturers and transit corporations are aware of the issue and seem to be taking it seriously. This is shown by the considerable growth in the number of cybersecurity specialists employed to boost security. Massive volumes of constantly changing data have a high value in analytics for providing new and enhanced user experiences. This also leads to increased safety and driving experience in the automobile sector, which implies better and safer car services. The availability of data and the capacity to evaluate it are critical since this is the only way to derive significant conclusions. One of the most difficult procedures is automotive supply chain management. Changes in this field are rapid, and some firms seem to be unprepared for them. Breakthrough developments in the industry's usage of new technology are also influencing the supply chain, from its structure to the delivery procedure. One of the most important criteria is the cost of the upgrade - this is something that almost every firm considers. PLM investments in the automobile industry have expanded in recent years. PLM systems are undoubtedly changing as a result of the extremely complicated product development cycle and the impact of new trends. Companies cannot rely only on off-the-shelf

(OTS) solutions. Given the financial commitment required for PLM software deployment, it becomes necessary to assess whether the tool really provides actual advantages and successfully enhances the most critical areas of the company's operation. ALM software was created to meet significant changes in application lifecycle management and the corresponding constantly changing product requirements. As electronics firms increasingly depend on software to introduce new features, ALM software manages complexity not just in software but also in hardware development, which is subject to the PLM environment. As a result, integrating PLM and ALM environments becomes a significant problem. Connecting PLM, ALM, and IoT apps speeds up decision making, enhances change management, and ensures data integrity. Many firms acquire massive volumes of data, but it has little use when it is unstructured. Turning data into value improves product quality, lowers waste, automates procedures, makes worker deployment simpler, and boosts factory efficiency. Even a seemingly little gain may result in tremendous profits for major corporations. The indisputable benefit of IoT flexibility is that it allows for the development of predictive models and data analysis on particular lines, which can then be expanded to the whole factory after validation. Machines and equipment are outfitted with sensors and interfaces that allow them to read data and transfer it to the IoT platform, which analyses it and makes conclusions in real time. The automation that results from the information gathered is the key to improving production and procedures. The optimal running of a plant results in a significant decrease in maintenance costs and an increase in profit. Every minute a production is shut down due to a malfunction costs an average of $50,000. Predictive Maintenance is the crucial component that introduces IoT and alters the terms of the game in favor of manufacturers. Currently, only 20% of plant downtime is anticipated. The remaining 80% consists of unnecessary expenditures that may be lowered. Predicting outages may also help firms understand the main cause of a problem, enabling them to avoid future outages by determining what caused the prior one. Furthermore, the Internet of Things allows for a more exact location of the failure cause, which has a substantial influence on the time of repair. Downtime and essential equipment maintenance may have an

impact on production line throughput. Advanced predictive approaches, such as machine learning and working with vast volumes of data, allow for the identification of faults in the manufacturing process and flaws in made goods, as well as the effect of actual profits by looking at the larger picture. Another important indication is the quantity of items that have left the production in relation to the maximum number in a factory that is operating ideally. IoT may be used to assess this indication by monitoring individual machine production and work patterns, material processing accuracy (reducing manufacturing mistakes), human availability, and examining other variables that impact factory optimization. The automobile sector is using IoT data analytics to drive strategic transformation across whole organizations in order to generate better, more efficient, cost-effective, and, most critically, more personalized products. The effect of IoT in the automobile sector does not stop when the product is delivered to the customer. The entire experience for the end-user is really crucial. Drivers use the same items in a variety of ways, and telemetry data aids in the improvement of the "user experience." Companies may adjust products to client expectations by gathering information about product use. Such a big volume of material requires careful examination. The IoT's large-scale Big Data storage and analytics technologies allow for more precise identification of potential faults in already-in-use items. This novel method to product lifecycle management helps to improved consumer happiness, which translates into revenues. Augmented reality allows for the construction of a wide range of digital instructions. For instance, to aid manufacturing employees or to provide step-by-step instructions for constructing a component from several components. Instructional films, technical drawings, schematics, and an indication of needed material amounts or specific instruments to accomplish a certain process are examples of such instructions. The usage of this technology allows for the overlay of 3D representations of materials or components with animations demonstrating how they should be integrated in the finished product. These instructions may be delivered through voice-activated, head-mounted devices, allowing employees total freedom of movement and enhancing labor productivity. The automobile industry has made significant investments in digital

transformation, which has dramatically changed its dynamics across the board, from manufacturing to the driving experience, marketing, and customer service. We'll look at how in this piece. Karl Benz submitted the patent for what would become the first vehicle in history in 1886, more than 130 years ago. It was once something that only a select few could afford. However, within a few decades, the vehicle had become nearly a need for everyone, as well as a prestige symbol. It was an innovation that irrevocably altered our culture, cities, and habits, as well as the global economy and manufacturing system. But, in today's world, what is the function of the automobile? In 2018, over 78.6 million automobiles were sold globally (according to the latest available data). In 1990, we had a population of less than 40 million people. These are the figures for a massive sector with a vital supply chain that employs more than 15 million people globally. If this industry were a country with its own GDP, it would be the world's sixth largest (source). In a nutshell, we're talking about a massive industry with significant strategic and symbolic worth (because to its history) that's critical to the economy. We're talking about an industry that is presently undergoing a revolution that is unparalleled in its history, maybe the most crucial and decisive in its whole existence. In recent years, the first seeds of this industry's future have been sowed. So, what is causing these shifts? Digital change, along with a renewed emphasis on environmental sustainability and fossil-fuel alternatives. All of the changes brought about by the emergence of digital technology in every aspect of society may be categorized as "digital transformations": manufacturing and market processes, public administrations, and even social dynamics. To put it simply, digital transformation is the foundation of the world we live in today. All of this has resulted in significant changes in the automobile industry. We could go on and on, but what is key here is to identify the true tipping point, to which all elements of digital transformation are linked in some manner. We're talking about the role of the consumer, customer, or user. It is here that the true revolution has occurred. Individuals, in fact, are no longer just satellites orbiting organizations; they are no longer a hazy target or just one among many. Instead, they are gradually becoming the focal point of commerce. They are no longer simply customers; they are increasingly being seen as "individuals"

with distinct features and wants. All of this is also true in the world of automobiles. Customers are used to living in a completely digital environment, therefore they want optimum connection, even when driving. They anticipate a straightforward and easy conversation with companies. They also demand Customer Service to be up to date, accessible 24/7, with an omnichannel perspective, and handled in a more customized manner. Eventually, they demand a more digital experience, beginning with the search phase and continuing through the purchase stages in stores, the driving experience, and finally, servicing and maintenance. In a nutshell, it's a 360-degree digital experience. At the same time, we are discussing the same individuals (all of us) who use social media to locate a job or book a table in a restaurant, a flight, or a hotel with a few clicks on their smartphone. This is the same smartphone they use to determine the optimal route to their destination, taking into account real-time traffic, expenses, and any unanticipated occurrences. The automotive industry is compelled to cope with all of this, and it is fully aware of the many wonderful possibilities that lie behind these obstacles. On closer investigation, the user's new pivotal role is having a variety of knock-on impacts across the supply chain. Manufacturing processes, brand image, marketing dynamics, and customer service are all evolving. Automobile manufacturers recognize that the true added value is the consumer, and they are attempting to improve customer involvement and loyalty (turning them into real active agents). Big Data (and Smart Data) and the advent of IoT (the Internet of Things) fit right in. The impact of digital on the automobile industry is enormous. Here are a few more digital transformation trends in the automobile industry: 1. The automobile: from good to service (a watershed moment?) This first point catches a potentially game-changing trend: the transformation of the vehicle from a product to a service. This is the so-called MaaS paradigm (Mobility as a Service). Consider the changes that digital has brought to the music industry: we've gone from buying CDs (and even before that, vinyl) to streaming and on-demand listening. The same thing is occurring in the film

business, as well as in software and storage systems. According to researchers, one of the next industries to be affected by this tsunami might be the automotive sector. Consider Uber or car-sharing services, which are growing more popular in many cities. This future is already upon us, and these dynamics are, of course, becoming more digital. Volkswagen, for example, is already developing its own carsharing app, and we're confident it won't be the only major manufacturer to do so. 2. Increasingly linked automobiles One of the most important areas of investment for the Automotive Industry is here: expanding connection systems in automobiles. Here, digital is used for navigation, safety, emergency management, onboard multimedia entertainment, and maintenance (also predictive). It will alter how we "live" and interact with our automobiles. Of course, this may have a very good impact on the companies of car brands: consider the different options for personalization, as well as the purchase of combined and personalized packages. Digital solutions that are personalized to the driver will be implemented. We'll talk about personalization again later in this essay. 3. The focus of digital marketing will gradually move away from customer service. While there are several digital marketing trends influencing the industry, one that is becoming more important is Customer Service. This is where the actual battle between automakers is taking place. Let's look at the data, which includes both brands and dealers, to better comprehend this pattern (source): i)54 percent of buyers said they would purchase a vehicle from a dealer that provides the greatest experience, even if the price is higher. ii)In response, 56 percent of dealers said they would purchase more cars from the automaker if the procedure was faster and simpler. iii)In general, a better, simpler, and smarter shopping experience might boost automobile sales by 25%. iv)Only 10% of clients who are disappointed with their dealer experience will return for their next purchase.

v)In contrast, 87 percent of "very pleased" consumers would purchase the same brand from the same dealer. There are several responses, but they all lead to digital. It is about knowing how to monitor and analyse consumers' Customer Journeys as effectively as feasible. Big Data analysis, in other words. It's all about segmenting the audience, breaking it into targets to be reached with precise, tailored messaging, and eventually personalization. 4. Attempting to personalize If the true goals of the automotive industry are engagement, loyalty, and the transformation of the customer into a prosumer, personalization is the prescription for success. It's all about treating consumers and drivers as individuals via genuine one-on-one conversations. It is one of the oldest trade and "promotion" secrets, but it is now achievable thanks to the most modern tools made accessible by Digital Transformation. Companies that specialize in this industry include Doxee, which places data-driven and customeroriented marketing and customer care at the center of their company. In the automobile industry, a customization strategy must be implemented in all areas, including technology and on-board connection (as discussed above), marketing, Customer Service, and potential up-selling and cross-selling operations. Underlying this is the necessity for utmost caution with regard to security considerations, and it is on this sensitive subject that we will conclude this essay. 5. Cybersecurity In terms of data availability, the automotive sector is the world's second-largest. New "smart" automobiles gather data about drivers, roads, traffic patterns, component use and wear, servicing and maintenance. Self-driving vehicles, which are currently being tested, are on the horizon. For individuals in the automobile business, the safety and appropriate administration of this massive volume of data is both sensitive and critical. Five digital transformation requirements in automotive are: 1.Operations that are resilient Connecting the whole organization to relevant data in order to generate continuous improvement through a digital feedback loop.

Digital technology are changing the way automobiles are made. The transition begins on the manufacturing floor, with linked equipment capable of analyzing and visualizing operational data in real time. This information, which is shown on mobile devices and mixed-reality headsets, provides employees with on-the-job insights and directions. With smart contracts that keep workers satisfied and firms compliant, the bond between manufacturers and labourers has become even stronger. Vehicles are continually monitored after they are constructed using digital twin simulations, with information sent back into the system to enhance the product and make better forecasting judgments. 2.Customer experience that is distinct Capturing information from several channels to provide a unified perspective of the consumer and generate customized experiences. Companies must acquire information from several channels in order to stay up with quickly changing consumer expectations and upgrade the automobile customer experience. Utilize customer data platforms to consolidate data from several sources. Discover insights that promote tailored experiences by gaining a unified perspective of your consumers. Create omnichannel interactions. With predictive suggestions, you can move prospects through the trip more effectively. In a digital-first world, transform the way automobiles are advertised, sold, and maintained. 3.New Mobility Services Making use of location information to provide new goods and services for huge commercial vehicle fleets and urban mobility services. Smarter transportation infrastructure is being powered by location data. Organizations now have geographical knowledge of all their assets at all times, from long-haul haulage to urban micro mobility. Location intelligence, which provides real-time insights on congestion, delays, and possible difficulties, may be used to more effectively deliver people and things, while IoT-connected sensors and infrastructure continuously enhance and optimize the whole travel and transportation experience. 4.Increase vehicle innovation. Modernizing the in-vehicle experience with location intelligence and

virtual assistants; future-proofing automobiles with remote upgrades. With the advent of "software-defined" automobiles, OEMs may add new capabilities to a vehicle during its entire life cycle. Drivers' experiences will be drastically improved as a result of this. Providing a consistent experience from the time consumers enter, utilize, and exit their automobiles. OEMs are not only customizing the driving experience, but also making it simpler for third-party services to be connected into cars, enabling recurring income streams and futureproofing vehicles with remote diagnostics and over-the-air upgrades. 5.Enhanced organizational productivity Creating a more connected and productive company by equipping your whole organization with team communication tools and cloud processing capability. To stay up with industry trends, OEMs, dealers, and others must ensure that their whole organization, from the C-suite to the production floor, is seamlessly linked and equipped with the proper tools. Companies are digitally modernizing the workplace using AI and intelligent automation to simplify processes and offload repetitive chores in order to improve cooperation and increase productivity. They are combining low and no-code solutions that allow anybody to create and deploy sophisticated applications, as well as working on new training platforms to improve staff abilities. By combining devices, data, connections, and processes, enterprise-wide digital solutions and mixed reality interfaces are bringing formerly segregated teams together. We will go deeply into each of these five areas to understand the rationale for addressing them, as well as the effect on your company. Finally, we will look at individual Microsoft customer stories to see where they had success in these areas and what they learned along the way. The whole automotive value chain, including design, manufacturing, distribution, and retail, will be affected by digital transformation, changing the existing automotive business model. The growth of industry-leading platforms, as well as an increase in the breadth and depth of accessible data, accelerates and amplifies the influence of digital technology. Existing players' business models are being disrupted and their value chain is being transformed as a result of these disruptions. Rapid and disruptive change is nothing new in the

automobile business, and digital transformation is the next great disruptor. Increased connection, environmental standards, IoT, wireless solutions, and higher consumer expectations are all driving the car industry's digitalization. Automotive firms, like other organizations, will digitize their operations (for example, in terms of data, connectivity, and cybersecurity) to achieve multiple advantages such as productivity and observability. This digitalization is made possible by a slew of new technologies, including process mining and deep learning. Deep learning algorithms, process mining, task mining, and robotic process automation are examples of these technologies (RPA). Digital revolution is also having a positive impact on society. Today, transportation expenses are real and significant. In Moscow, Istanbul, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro, a motorist spends more than 100 hours a year stuck in traffic. Road traffic accidents cost $518 billion per year and kill 1.25 million people worldwide. Globally, transportation-related air pollution causes more than 200,000 premature deaths each year and accounts for over 30% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that contribute to climate change. Many of these expenses might be reduced if transportation is digitized. Many areas of the automobile value chain, from design to manufacture, distribution, and retail, are already infiltrated by technology. Connectivity, artificial intelligence, and an abundance of consumer data, according to automotive experts, will drive investment long into the future. According to Frost & Sullivan's Future of Mobility research, IT investment would rise from $38 billion in 2015 to more than $168 billion in 2025. Few more Automotive Industry Digital Transformation Trends: 1. Improved Car Purchasing Experience Using Virtual Reality Consumers nowadays do their automobile research online rather than visiting a showroom. TrueCar and Edmunds, for example, give purchasing information with the press of a button. The showrooms are gradually being converted into digital markets with virtual reality capabilities. Audi offers virtual showrooms in London where just a few automobile models are on exhibit, accompanied by massive television displays that provide crucial purchasing information. Consumers may use virtual reality to open doors, take a 360-degree look inside and

out, and even hear actual sound effects of their possible new model. Companies are anticipated to begin selling automobiles and components directly via their separate websites in response to consumer-driven expectations to study and purchase online. [3] 2. Autonomous driving reduces accidents. Elon Musk believes that new technology will enable self-driving vehicles to become a reality. Autonomous Vehicle will manage all scenarios and conditions, from GPS to sensors to cameras to connection and algorithms. The idea is that AV would reduce automobile accidents and fatalities while also allowing individuals who were previously restricted to travel freely. Another aspect of autonomous driving is assisted driving, which is becoming more popular by the day. It is expected that assisted-driving technology will be so effective in reducing accidents and lowering insurance costs that it will save consumers one trillion dollars and more than 90,000 lives over the next ten years. All throughout the globe, self-driving technology is being tested. Various rules and hurdles are limiting its deployment since the danger to cyber security grows dramatically as vehicles become digital and linked to the Internet. 3. Improved Manufacturing and Supply Chain Connectivity Using Advanced Algorithms and AI Trends in digital transformation are being utilized to personalize and tailor a consumer's experience. The automobile sector is no exception. Because of smart factories, communication enabled by social media and the Internet of Things delivers fast feedback. A smart factory employs complex algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to accomplish activities such as establishing schedules and controlling workflow, and it employs robots alongside people on assembly lines. As shown in a small electronics company in Germany, these networked technologies boost production while decreasing error rates. In 1990, the factory was only 25% mechanized, but it is now 75% automated. Further digitalization has reduced fault rates to less than 12 per million, while production has grown 8.5 times. Despite clear cost difficulties in building these smart factories, the massive advantages in output, adaptability, and performance will most certainly overcome this obstacle.

4. Predictive Maintenance in Real Time Using IoT and Sensor Technologies Using Michelin's tyre monitoring systems, drivers are notified in realtime if there is an issue, enabling us to repair our cars proactively, substantially minimizing mechanical failures and recalls. The service delivers over-the-road tyre monitoring via the use of telematics and predictive analysis. Statistics is captured digitally and transmitted into the fleet's asset management system, providing organizations with real-time performance analysis and tyre wear data on individual vehicles. The trucking sector, backed by sensor technologies and IoT, enables businesses to monitor data proactively to assure vehicle safety, fuel management, and even cargo monitoring. SAS analytics solution has previously implemented this sort of solution and experienced remarkable results, including gains of more than 30% in truck uptime and failure prediction 30 days out with a 90% accuracy rate. 5. Development of a Multimodal Integrated Transportation System Using Mobility-as-a-Service With the rise of private and public ride sharing, vehicles have become an integral part of connected life. Uber and Lyft contribute to the trend of moving away from privately owned automobiles and toward serviceoriented modes of transportation. Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) provides significant financial relief to customers by removing the initial expense of acquiring a car, maintenance, and licensing and registration. Volkswagen is leading the way with its own ride-sharing app, while Fiat is in discussions with Google. According to Frost & Sullivan, the automotive industry's digitalization roadmap will shift from digital services to car-as-a-service (CaaS) to Mobility as a Service (MaaS) by 2030, with automobiles becoming an integral part of a connected lifestyle solution. The distinction between public and private transportation is being more blurred in favor of a multi-modal integrated transportation system, which is driving the growth of models such as smart ticketing, multi-solutions, and aggregated booking. 6. Data Security and Protection in Intelligent Vehicles The automobile business, together with utilities, is the most datadriven industry in the world. Intelligent cars gather information on

drivers, destinations, routes, traffic patterns, and so on. Jaguar Land Rover has released a smart vehicle that utilizes data to learn about the preferences and behaviors of its drivers. Data is used by connected software systems to interact with and engage drivers; nevertheless, in order to safeguard customer data, they must be secure. When hackers gained control of many car systems, General Motors was under cyberattack. Manufacturers recognize the critical relevance of data security and protection, which is why they are always on the lookout for forward-thinking advances as part of their digital journey. According to a recent survey conducted by Capgemini Research Institute, 98 out of 100 automakers have already invested in and planned for digital factory initiatives. However, only a few of them have had concrete progress so far. Some of the main reasons for slower adoption are the piecemeal approach and lack of vision. Here are some of the challenges limiting their growth and planned objectives: 1.Higher downtime – minimizing the production downtime gets complex with the lack of detailed data on the production line performance and predictive maintenance for aging equipment. 2.Data-driven insights – lack of automation and analytics tools to collect data from sources, analyze data for anomalies, and generate actionable insights. 3.Lack of holistic approach – different groups working in silos such as body, press, paint, and assembly with their self-defined processes. 4.Paper-based processes – increases chances of human error due to manual interpretation and adds delay in manufacturing and supply chain operations. 5.Workplace safety – with large moving parts and a lack of proper safety mechanisms, workers often experience fatal injuries and fatigue. Let’s briefly discuss a few use cases of key technologies in automotive manufacturing:

Digital Twin

The digital twin is perhaps one of the most disruptive technologies being adopted by automotive manufacturers. Like virtual showrooms, where a user can take a digital tour of a vehicle’s features without a physical visit, Digital Twin enables manufacturers to design and simulate vehicles in a fully virtual environment. It helps in precommissioning of both product and production setup to demonstrate the impact of design changes, process improvements, and production efficiency. Some of the important use cases include: 1.Detect product problems and find improvements well before they are produced. 2.Shorten development and test cycles by virtually testing and optimizing processes. 3.Generate data-driven insights by utilizing IoT, simulation, and predictive analytics.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) Besides the emerging autonomous technology for self-driving cars, AIpowered intelligent self-guided vehicles are becoming popular in automotive manufacturing. AGVs help in automating tasks such as moving inventory or materials on the shop floor and performing continuous operations with zero downtime. AGVs equipped with advanced sensors such as 360° cameras and LIDARs significantly help to avoid collisions and ensure safety for the workforce and products being transported. Some of the important use cases include: 1.Eliminate manual and time-consuming process of material movement. 2.Avoid fatigue and injuries related to repetitive tasks in the production environment. 3.Reduce risk while working with heavy machinery and hazardous materials. Today, all manufacturers are working on the installation of digitalized solutions, but these changes must be implemented across all main business areas: 1.Warranty and technical support: OEMs must better manage their warranty cost and guarantee retail networks can continue to service

and repair cars with the necessary degree of technical assistance. 2.Parts and Service: In this competitive market, optimizing workshop capacity and simplifying the service process may assist enhance performance and parts revenue growth. 3.Channel Management: OEMs must secure the financial viability of their existing dealer networks while enhancing sales and service and offering a platform to alter their workers' performance. 4.OEMs can enhance and streamline fleet billing and boost their remarketing operations by digitizing fleet management in all elements of ownership. 5.Customer Involvement: Manufacturers must connect digital and physical customer journeys in order to facilitate direct engagement as well as prospect identification and lead management. Customer experience and behavior developments in the automobile sector as a result of digital transformation: 1. The physical to digital transformation of the automobile purchasing experience The conventional paradigm of automobile purchasing involves actual visits to car showrooms to learn about the cars and their attributes before choosing to buy one. However, two recent interruptions have altered the overall character of the car-buying process. The first big upheaval was the rise of a mobile-first generation with spending power that prioritizes experience above stuff. The second disruption was created by a pandemic, which irrevocably altered the way a few industries and their consumers operated and behaved. Customers were unable to attend business establishments due to the pandemic, and dealerships were forced to close in order to prevent the illness from spreading. These two upheavals, together with the introduction of technologies such as AR/VR, 360-degree views, and other standardizations, have made digital practicable in the car-buying arena and hastened the digital transition. McKinsey supports the necessity of vehicle dealers having a digital presence for their clients in one of their insights. According to the survey, post-pandemic purchase intent of consumers primarily utilizing digital channels declined by just 2%, while purchase intent of customers primarily

using physical channels dropped by 8%. As digital becomes more significant in the car purchasing experience, businesses that dive in and establish brand affinity via experience on the digital channel profit. 2. Automobile makers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) must create a retail strategy for digitally aware consumers. Leading e-commerce businesses not only permanently revolutionized the retail sector, but they also conditioned consumer brains to demand retail service in every other industry, including the automobile industry. The wealth of information and data availability, along with cutting-edge technology, enabled contemporary customers to do extensive study and compare items themselves, obviating the necessity for in-person interactions. In the post-pandemic age, an increasing number of customers chose a digital-first strategy for numerous touchpoints of their purchasing process. Customers in this method want online platforms that provide accurate product searches and comparisons, allowing them to conclude purchasing choices online. It should be emphasized that thus far, only a few automakers, such as Tesla and Mercedes-Benz, have chosen a direct-to-consumer e-commerce strategy. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for automakers to gain a competitive edge by establishing themselves as digital pioneers. 3. Consistent client experience journey management in the context of digital adoption Customers may now experience the advantages of a connected car, which makes driving safer and less stressful. This additional connection not only enhances the driving experience, but also allows the car to gather and handle a vast quantity of consumer data for a more seamless experience. However, there are still some areas for improvement in how dealerships and OEMs handle such enormous amounts of client data. Because most dealers still depend on physical procedures in the client experience, there is a higher risk of human mistake in data processing. Making the transition from physical to digital will eliminate such small obstacles, resulting in improved management of client journeys. Once you have determined the practicality of digital transformation in your business and implemented it, you will have access to a plethora of new options. Adopting a digital strategy reduces mistakes, makes your team more nimble, and allows

you to react to customer needs better and quicker. As a consequence, it enhances the operating experience of customers. Mercedes-Benz was seeking for a way to better service its customers in Brazil, which has the world's second-largest manufacturing, behind Germany. They invested in a Microsoft Azure cloud solution, together with Power BI and Cortana Intelligence, to map their sales processes and analyze decades of data such as license plate records, macroeconomic indicators, legislation, sales information, and statistics by geographic area. Mercedes-Benz was able to achieve the following results as a result of this shift in data processing and interpretation model: i)Make consistent, actionable information to 180 service locations across Brazil so that each site may provide correct bids to their customers. ii)With the use of predictive analysis, assist sales professionals in engaging with customers proactively before a need is ever acknowledged. iii)Aid staff in better interacting and servicing consumers, as well as boosting overall customer experience and satisfaction. iv)Digitization helps manufacturers to find extra client touchpoints, allowing them to better understand their customers. They may now better understand what causes consumers to switch brands before it occurs and identify solutions to these problems. 4. Possession versus riding experience – shifting preferences According to Accenture's poll of 7000 individuals, 48% of respondents stated they would consider giving up automobile ownership in favor of embracing autonomous mobility solutions. According to another PwC study, by 2030, more than one of every three kilometers travelled would include exchanging ideas. According to these studies, automobile owners' attitudes are shifting from ownership to riding enjoyment. The younger generation is abandoning personal transportation in favor of mobility options such as ride-sharing, subscription models, or even renting services. Manufacturers and dealerships are being forced to develop new methods to keep their consumers delighted and loyal. Porsche, for example, launched its 'Porsche Passport' service in late 2017.

Porsche consumers might pay a set monthly cost in exchange for the use of up to 22 different automobiles depending on their requirements or wants, according to this service. The objective was to provide clients more alternatives for switching, as well as insurance, maintenance, and roadside support. The whole concept emphasized the importance of catering to user experience rather than ownership. 5. A greater emphasis on both the purchasing and service experience As previously said, digitalization provides automakers and OEMs with a greater pool of usable consumer data. To visualize each client journey, businesses may gather and integrate millions of such touchpoints from contact centres, surveys, dealer management systems, and communications. Companies may now utilize this visual map to better monitor and manage the travel experience of each client by assigning "journey owners." Because of technological advancements, dealerships may now provide IoT-based service and automobile care to their consumers. According to a McKinsey & Company poll, over half of consumers feel that a better service experience is more impactful in the customer journey than the actual purchase experience. Several aspects of car purchasing evolved over the twentieth century and have continued to evolve to the present day. While both dealers and buyers use eCommerce to sell new automobiles, the conventional purchase process is more important to both parties. Furthermore, incorporating digital tools such as iPads into showrooms has considerably enhanced customer service. Clients of all types will be more inclined to go online as the globe advances in 2023. If you sell online, you may connect with clients through social media or an app, whether to individuals or enterprises. This pattern has the ability to pick up steam in the future years. Within the next two to five years, automobiles will have a one-of-a-kind digitized and integrated supply chain. Creating an intelligent and digital supply chain is crucial for all company stakeholders. Furthermore, in light of the COVID outbreak's rising concerns, product designers have been forced to reassess their designs. Issues such as a chip scarcity are slowing production. Remote monitoring and control are becoming more common, as is the need for additional reporting capabilities. Automobile manufacturers,

on the other hand, are relieved that the epidemic has passed, resulting in higher revenue as more people drive instead of flying. Furthermore, as they struggle with unprecedented competition and new product demands like as electrification, automakers are anticipated to increase their digital investment by up to 24 percent over the next few years. In today's economy, businesses must continually keep one step ahead of the competition in order to maintain their clients. They must first examine their current and longterm technology needs before engaging with the proper technology vendor to help them achieve those objectives. They must also improve internal procedures, maintain and expand relationships, and reduce expenses. What are the variables influencing business and technological choices that are leading to an Automotive industry transformation? Here are the trends: 1.Customer Expectations are Changing – With an increase in knowledge, aware and developed consumers, particularly in developing nations, are seeking more customized and one-of-a-kind goods and services. There has also been a growing desire for "experience over ownership," which has resulted in structural shifts across enterprises. 2.Rapidly changing competitive environment - The market is no longer dominated by conventional car OEMs. The entry of new generation OEMs concentrating on technology, such as Tesla, Baidu, Neo Motors, and others, as well as the engagement of tech corporations like as Google, who are driving the pace of innovation in autonomous mobility, are transforming the market landscape. 3.Driven by newer cooperation models, we are driving innovation. To drive innovation, newer collaboration models are developing in the sector between car OEMs and partners from other industries. Examples include the BMW-Intel-Mobileye3 partnership, which focuses on autonomous driving, and the Microsoft-Renault-NissanMitsubishi alliance, which focuses on connected vehicle innovation. Other consortiums created by OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, such as MOBI5 (mobility open blockchain initiative) and AVCC6 (autonomous vehicle computing consortium), are also working to solve blockchain,

autonomous driving, and other difficulties. 4.Quick technical developments — Without a doubt, rapid technology breakthroughs are to blame for this transformation in the car sector. The increasing usage of digital technologies such as AI/ML, robots, edge computing, and so on across goods and manufacturing processes, as well as the development of open, interoperable technological standards, are driving this revolution in the industry. 5.Evolving regulatory environment - Newer rules focusing on renewable energy, emissions, electric mobility, autonomous driving, and cybersecurity, among other things, are directing the car industry to adapt the way it works. 6.Shifting global economic and political environment — As a result of the epidemic, supply chain ecosystems all across the globe were disrupted, prompting many nations to look outside China. In addition, there has been an increase in demand for localization, which has impacted the car sector. In addition to these developments and variables impacting the sector, OEMs and suppliers face a slew of issues that must be addressed when developing corporate policies and making strategic choices. OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers confront a number of challenges: 1.Business issues include a slowing of demand, budget cuts for innovative goods and services, and a transition away from a productbased economy and toward a service-based one. 2.Supply chain interruptions, margin constraints, and a lack of realtime information are all operational problems. 3.Technological obstacles include the continued use of monolithic technology design and the difficulty to scale up new initiatives beyond proofs of concept and prototypes. 4.Talent problems include the need for individuals to be reskilled and a general aversion to new digital projects. Furthermore, automobile companies must always handle the newer set of goals that they face in these ever-changing times. Implications for Automotive Businesses are: 1.Business and revenue growth may be achieved through developing new income streams, exploring new markets, implementing new

business models, and establishing new partner ecosystems. 2.Achieving operational excellence via process efficiencies, cost reductions, and the creation of networked corporate ecosystems. 3.Meeting shifting consumer expectations by boosting personalized service delivery via value-added offerings and improved customer interaction. 4.Driving product innovation through expanding the use of IoT, AI/ML, cloud, and other technologies, as well as incorporating constant input into the product development process. 5.Focusing on sustainability through lowering carbon footprint in product development, design, and manufacturing processes. 6.Creating competitive differentiation through differentiating products and services. There is no question that the automobile industry has been experiencing a digital transition in recent years, and this is set to continue at breakneck pace in the near future. Success in the digital era will need new ways of thinking, new business models and collaborations, and new organizational structure and strategic adjustments. Despite the fact that obstacles continue, the Indian automobile ecosystem remains adaptable and ready for change. Continuous advancements in leadership, engineering domain knowledge, access to digital talent, and an entrepreneurial culture are assisting India in becoming a desirable site for many global enterprises, not just now, but in the future. The automobile industry has reached the point of no return for contemporary digital transformation, with high-performance computing and in-car networking, as well as cloud connection and security, driving existing vehicle designs and vehicles into the future. Modern automotive architectures address safety problems while also unleashing the value of rapidly rising vehicle data, enhancing user experiences, and allowing real-time car monitoring through cloud connection and over-the-air upgrades. In-vehicle networked electronic control units (ECUs) and wireless connection enable "connected cars" to detect their surroundings and gather massive amounts of data: approximately 95 petabytes of data were created in 2019. Because of

a surge in demand for enhanced user experiences, the rise of integration between smartphones and vehicles, stringent government regulations concerning telematics, and increased adoption by original equipment manufacturers, these connected vehicles are shifting the economic balance of the entire automotive market (OEMs). Connected cars provide new kinds of value for automakers, their supply chains, and customers by enhancing driver trips, decreasing traffic accidents, and assisting in the reduction of pollutants. According to Statista, the connected vehicle worldwide market would be valued more than $355 billion by 20302, with over 690 million linked automobiles in the globe that year. Soon, the value of a car will be significantly reliant on the services offered by connected vehicle data (CVD), as they provide tempting potential for data-driven markets, unlocking innovations throughout the automotive business and beyond. According to Ptolemus Consulting, practically all automobiles in the EU and the US will be linked over the next decade, and 88 percent of cars sold globally will be pre-connected to networks through embedded devices. Drivers have welcomed the advantages of each minute saved on everyday trips, increased safety with road traffic information, and the possibility to link their cellphones into automobiles. Carmakers are capitalizing on connected vehicle features by using service-oriented gateways (SoGs) to help make automobiles safer, smarter, and greener, allowing new vehicles to be an extension of their owners' linked life. SoGs go beyond standard automotive gateways by processing vehicle applications in addition to secure networking, assisting in the consolidation of ECU functions, transforming raw vehicle data into information, and enabling new services through in-car edge computing. Knowing more about customers' preferences and the real-time status of their vehicle will enable automakers and their partners to deliver greater levels of service, unlocking the value in data and driving the growth of vehicle networks. Fusing CVD and personally identifiable information (PII) will add depth and richness to existing services while also unleashing innovations in products and services such as vehicle health monitoring or prognostics, vehicle-wide over-the-air (OTA) updates, edge data analytics, or car-sharing support—completely transforming the automotive landscape. SoGs capitalize on the digital transition by

opening up new business prospects and income streams for automakers and their suppliers, third-party application developers, and other service providers. According to the World Economic Forum, the automobile industry's digitalization may result in $0.67 trillion in value5 for automotive firms and more than $3.1 trillion in social benefits. Autonomy, electrification, product needs, and globalization all add to the complexity of vehicle products. Many improvements in automobiles are driven by the growth of electronics and software, as new functions continuously link, both inside a car, between vehicles, and in the driving environment. A greater emphasis on systems engineering, traceability, and continuous verification and validation, as well as how mastering these approaches is necessary over a product's whole lifespan, including operational usage, will be key success factors for automakers in the future. According to CIMData, design choices and the sequence in which they are made determine competitive advantage. Siemens Accelerated Product Development solution allows future automakers to swiftly design and deliver products that customers demand by concentrating on speed, virtual prove-out, integrated disciplines, real-time data, and regulatory compliance. Automakers have been producing physical prototypes for decades in order to test ideas and prepare for mass production, but each prototype build cycle takes weeks or months to complete. Virtual mockups and simulations for the same design may be completed in a matter of days, if not hours, drastically decreasing product development processes. Continual simulation with freshly found use cases maintains requirements focused throughout development with continuous product interactions, challenging capital-intensive approaches centered on reviewing real product samples. Furthermore, as simulation technologies grow more reliable, less physical product testing will be required, lowering the demand for prototypes even further. CIMdata anticipates that executable digital twins will link physical product validation to development feedback loops in novel ways, rendering serial, physical prototype product validation cycles uncompetitive and enhancing confidence in virtual models. Today's manufacturers will have to rethink their previous car

development and decision-making processes while concentrating on product needs. Digitalization is the necessary foundation for linking development disciplines. Building a virtual prototype is quicker, and continuous testing allows for needs evaluations throughout development. Furthermore, by reviewing the most recent test findings and their traceability to requirements of any provenance, product developers will always have the proper set of criteria to employ. To remain ahead of the competition, manufacturers must constantly learn, adapt, and change. Successful manufacturers understand this, and many depend on the Siemens Xcelerator range for quicker product development solutions throughout the vehicle lifecycle. 6 Kinds of Teams for Digital Transformation in Automotive are: 1. Incremental innovation team. This team should be charged with making current business models quicker, better, and cheaper. This team will seek for methods to improve your systems without replacing them. For example, they may utilise sophisticated analytics to uncover methods to gently change your manufacturing process to cut energy consumption—without completely reinventing the process. Their initiatives are often fast wins that assist in meeting urgent market needs while other innovative business models or disruptive ideas are created. When assembling the incremental innovation team, seek for people with wide automotive industry experience, a drive for improvement, a comprehension of your current restrictions, a clear grasp on client demands, and an innovative attitude. 2. Transformational innovation team. Wang argues that these special operations personnel investigate innovative business models to test inside your corporation. This group may investigate how data can be used to increase customer value or operational efficiency. They could advise, for example, employing artificial intelligence to power a "smart factory" that links to the Internet of Things (IoT) to automate operations like establishing timetables and controlling workflow. People that are daring thinkers, have a love for innovation, and can cope with abstract topics would be ideal for this position. 3. concept-to-commercialization group.

This team must determine how to take a fresh concept from the transformational innovation team, integrate it into your current systems, and commercialise it. This might take the shape of operational enhancements that help you boost productivity and reduce fault rates. This team is often composed of multidisciplinary expertise in incremental innovation, transformational innovation, and operational sustainability. Look for individuals who have a high level of creativity, innovative thinking, a knowledge of your consumers' demands and motivations, and insight into what the market values—and will support. 4.Culture team This team is in charge of managing your company's general attitude toward digital transformation efforts. While senior executives must lead by example, a team devoted to inspiring and establishing a spirit of collaboration will also be beneficial in attaining harmony throughout the design and implementation phases. For example, the concept-tocommercialization team may recommend collaborating with a new supplier for a certain component. Your supply chain management may be concerned about the supplier's capacity to provide all of the components you need, where and when you require them, which might have a negative influence on your ability to service your customers. The culture team would give an impartial viewpoint and mediate a compromise in which all parties—including the customer— win. This team necessitates a wide range of perspectives from accounting to quality assurance to supply chain. Diplomacy and problem-solving are the most critical qualities for cultural team members. 5. Governance team. To achieve the OEM standards for MMOG/LE, automotive firms must be able to seamlessly interact throughout their supply chain—both as a provider to their customers via EDI and with their suppliers. The governance team is in charge of ensuring the overall performance and alignment of the company. "This team must establish ground rules and a structure to guarantee effective coordination of a wide range of business goals." This team, in certain situations, establishes the partnership environment for co-innovation and co-creation," Wang says. Team members must be familiar with the OEM requirements

and government laws that your automobile firm must follow, as well as having expertise developing rules and managing programmes. 6.Sustaining operations teams You may be striving to bring a new product to market faster than your rivals, but you can't shut down production lines for your old items while you perfect your manufacturing methods for the new ones. You must efficiently manage your supply chain in order to respond promptly to changing consumer and market needs and to be more sensitive to specific client requirements. If you want to keep your present clients satisfied while undergoing a digital transition, you must prioritise their needs and continue producing while keeping your quality standards. Indeed, it is more critical than ever to demonstrate to your consumers that your organisation is devoted to current offers while also exploring new prospects and directions. We'd like to discuss data access via the On-Board-Diagnostic interface (OBD connector), which is currently the most common way to obtain in-vehicle data and has served as the foundation for many new business activities in the automotive aftermarket. It is presently the only means to have independent, direct, real-time, and free access to data created in-vehicle. The requirement to control emissions, as well as OEMs' widespread use of electronic fuel injection in the 1980s, paved the way for this electronic method of accessing and communicating with a vehicle's computer system. The OBD technical standard is derived from the United States of America, where the California Air Resources Board (CARB) required OBD on all new automobiles sold in California in 1991. In 1996, a US standard known as OBD2 was introduced, and prior incarnations of OBD were retrospectively designated as OBD I. Among other things, a standardized OBD connection was established, which was eventually put into UN Regulations and became a global standard. The OBD2 standard from the United States was simplified and turned into EOBD standards, which have been used in the EU since 1998 under Directive 98/69/EG and were eventually included into the Type Approval regulation. 64 While European OEMs have been required to equip cars sold to the United States with OBD-2 since 1996, the implementation of EOBD- occurred gradually in the EU. The majority

of European car parks now have a common OBD connection, which can be accessed by a generic scantool via wires or remotely via a dongle, a retrofit option that has now become a mass market product and hence generally cheap. Dongle adoption in Europe is expected to increase from 0.9 million in 2016 to 4.1 million in 2019. Access for aftermarket actors through the OBD connection has become a well-established concept, with more lucrative business models emerging around it. There are several scan tools on the market that connect to the on-board CAN system, read and interpret OBD codes, read live sensor data, and enable remote actuator checks. OBD devices may send data to a nearby smartphone, alerting the driver to the significance of an error code if one occurs. Remote diagnostics, which use the telematics system as a communication connection, are projected to develop in the future. The service provider must be certified in order to have OBD access for RMI. This certification varies depending on the OEM brand, and there are no defined requirements for this certification. As a result, despite the limitations of this method of accessing vehicle data, it has become very popular and has supported the establishment of a number of start-ups based on data access and commercialization, such as Munic, Octo, Ryd (formerly Tanktaler), PACE from Pace Telematics, Carly, TEXA CARe. Most OEMs(Original Equipment Manufacturer) have begun to build their own platforms (e.g., BMW with IBM, Toyota with NTT, Ford's Commercial Solutions' Transportation Mobility Cloud) and are testing new, faster routes to product innovation (e.g., Mercedes-Benz Vans adopting the Automotive Grade Linux open platform), and telecom and IT services providers are lining up as OEM partners to provide advanced OTA solutions or open 5G-ready connected car platforms featuring blockchain-enabled services. The connected vehicle platforms of automobile manufacturers offer connected car services of the various OEM brands and are often separated into a frontend and a backend. The frontend encompasses all features observed or viewed by the owner or driver, such as the cockpit screen or a mobile app. Furthermore, OEMs have a web page where drivers may register to get access to premium services. All operations and data flows that occur in the background during service processing are included in the

backend. Supporting IT platforms are given by information technology corporations and are based on backend procedures. These IT service companies provide platform-based solutions that assist vehicle manufacturers with backend management. As a result, OEMs have the option of outsourcing the whole backend - or chosen elements of the backend - to a specialist service provider. This removes the need for automakers to invest in the required resources and IT capabilities. This explains why companies like Android (Google), Apple, Linux, IBM, and Microsoft now have a significant presence in automobiles, beginning with infotainment and progressing to telematics/fleet management and, finally, diagnostics. While ACEA has been advocating the off-board Extended Vehicle option, not all manufacturers have enthusiastically adopted this strategy, with just three (BMW, Mercedes, and PSA) now offering any such solution. Furthermore, the majority of them have begun to develop and already provide proprietary on-board telematics systems (GM, Ford), and it is widely accepted within the industry that this is the trend moving ahead. Furthermore, there are still a significant number of OEMs that cannot provide either on-board or off-board solutions. Existing proprietary on-board systems provide promising features such as a native touchscreen interface, speech recognition, real-time access to signals, and a secure and standardized process for app development, testing, and release, demonstrating that technically full access to the driver is already possible today. As a result, the Human Machine Interface (HMI) is becoming more smooth, which is regarded as one of the most important aspects of the driving experience and engagement. OEMs are beginning to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to improve their service offerings. Skoda, for example, invested in the Israeli start-up Anagog, which analyses data from over 100 smartphone applications and uses artificial intelligence to forecast mobility trends. The technology will be used to suggest parking spots, provide customized insurance, and improve the dealership experience. VW Vehicle-Net, Daimler Mercedes Me Connect, BMW Linked Drive, Hyundai ccOS connected car operating system, GM OnStar, Volvo and Google, Linux with Asian OEMs and Ford, Google with Renault, Fiat are other OEM proposals. As software becomes the foundation for more service offerings,

automobile OEMs seek for software-based approaches used in other sectors to charge the usage of their in-vehicle data. The crippleware or feature-limited approach is a prevalent strategy. It used to be a typical practice among picture camera manufacturers to equip cameras with similar processors, with low-end versions activating restricted functions and high-end cameras activating full functionality. The reasoning behind this strategy is to maintain production complexity as minimal as possible while catering to client groups with varying price sensitivities and feature needs. Over the years, software vendors have refined this technique, and it is now usual practice to give free or low-cost basic versions of programmes or apps with the opportunity to upgrade them for a price or a flat rate on a subscription basis. Tesla has used this method with its Model S, with the S60 (basic version) and S75 (luxury version) having the same battery but differing ranges dependent on battery. The S60 battery might be unlocked for a cost to attain the same range as the S75. During Hurricane Irma in Florida, Tesla made this option public by allowing those customers in need to utilize it for free. As a result, users were informed that their lower battery capacity was solely the result of a software-limited feature known as crippleware. Classical OEMs are still not extensively using this method, but some have made huge goals with it, for example, Audi expects to create an extra yearly operational profit of 1 billion Euros by 2025 with digital services through the myAudi customer site. To address the cybersecurity issues that are often expressed in connection with vehicle data access, a 14-member panel of worldwide specialists created the Secure Vehicle Interface (SVI), which is based on international standards from global standards organizations such as ISO, ETSI, and IEEE. It is a "open, secure, and standardized interface architecture that provides fair access to in-vehicle networks for all authorized stakeholders (possibly including vehicle owners, CITS stations, maintenance and repair facilities, and OEMs)." Although the SVI may give secure access to the vehicle, further development/legislative action will be required to allow access to the data required for a broad variety of repair and maintenance/vehicle related services. The SVI supplemented the Extended Vehicle ISO standard as well as other current or prospective vehicle service

interface implementations such as embedded Android and may meet the requirements of open communication, security, and fair data access. Given automobile OEMs' lack of cybersecurity knowledge, the SVI proposes a viable standard for a secure vehicle interface architecture and secure vehicle data access. Another need is that the vehicle platform be interoperable. On the level of services, there should be a plethora of stakeholders from whom the customer may choose. According to the poll, in the event of an accident, the majority of drivers would prefer to utilize their insurance's aid, but alternative assistance providers also have a sizable user base. After giving this user viewpoint some attention, the findings indicate that restricting the user to the OEM solution for services will alienate them (in this case more than half of the customers). Furthermore, the customer would not benefit from diversity, innovation, and competition among suppliers to give the greatest user experience and help. Regardless of the difficulties and hassles, it is expected that dedicated clients will attempt to obtain access to the supplier of their choice through the internet browser platform of the connected car. If it is dependent on the consumer, OEM interface designers would expect in-vehicle connectivity to different service providers. On a lower level of the operating system (between OEM brands or consortia), the following study results (apart from the consumer survey) confirm this finding: interoperability between Apple and Android mobile devices has grown over the years, thanks to Google Play supplying iOS applications. We think that customers desire the ability to choose between operating systems and that switching between them should be simple. Apple's Car Play only permitted non-Apple navigation applications like Google Maps or Waze to be installed and operate on its operating system in 2018. However, many of the built-in functions, such as utilizing Siri's voice control or touch buttons for frequent places, are not accessible while using Google Maps through Car Play. Small elements like this determine customer preferences, and digital behemoths are well aware of this and can therefore influence consumer behavior. The automotive cloud-based solutions market is expected to generate USD 66.95 billion in sales by 2022, at a CAGR of 19.88 percent. The cloud-enabled industry has its own advantages. Cloud computing is

crucial in linked automobiles, self-driving cars, shared mobility, deeper consumer insights, and digital manufacturing. Let's discover how cloud-based automotive solutions transform the industry: 1.Vehicles That Are Connected Vehicles made nowadays are no less than a supercomputer, producing a massive amount of data from the many sensors mounted on the vehicle to get real-time alerts/information on tyre pressure, GPS, temperature, and a variety of other factors. This data may be saved in the cloud in real time and then utilized for Telematics, Infotainment System or Vehicle Health Display, Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), and Mobility Services. 2.Driving autonomously Autonomous driving or self-driving cars may simply be defined as a robot-vehicle capable of driving itself without or with little human interaction. Sensing the real-time operating environment – using super artificial intelligence algorithms, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems generating pooled sensor data, and real-time HD maps – can make driving safer and more enjoyable for both the driver and the passengers in the car. However, this complicated system must be extensively vetted and tested, both on the road and in sophisticated simulation settings, or on OEM lines. The simulators utilized here are cloud-based, since massive computing capabilities are necessary to send massive amounts of data. 3.Mobility sharing Shared mobility often refers to a ride-sharing system in which a means of transportation, such as a vehicle or bike, is shared among users on an as-needed basis, therefore reducing carbon emissions and the ease of clogs on the roads. Cloud-based apps based on shared mobility solutions may integrate a map (Google Maps or Leaflet) that can give real-time navigation with live traffic updates or alternative routes, presenting routes with the least amount of traffic as well as the estimated time to reach the destination. Algorithms may also be designed to transmit notifications to the drivers closest to the customer, reducing both the driver's idle time and the client's wait time.

4.Enhanced customer insights Cloud technology gives any automotive firm with the powerful tools and services specialized in big data and analytics that are necessary to acquire the greatest consumer insights for automotive specific solutions, with a comprehensive variety of services. Data may be ingested, saved, analyzed, and exhibited in the form of interactive dashboards, charts, and graphs with the use of the cloud's Query Engine, which can aid in identifying analytical patterns for manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, predictive QA, and consumer behavior. 5.Manufacturing on the internet Automotive production with a digital attitude has begun to assist firms in establishing themselves as a top contender in the market in terms of quality. Using robotics, artificial intelligence, and other digital technologies in the manufacturing phase may significantly enhance production rate and quality while introducing fewer faults. Creating intelligent algorithms based on machine data in the cloud may assist manufacturers with predictive maintenance, data analytics with reporting, safety, and real-time data monitoring of their goods. As a result, mistakes in the production environment will be reduced, and the execution will be smoother. Organizations in the automotive business gain from effective cloud deployment in terms of operations, economics, and security. 6.Cost savings To meet the numerous production milestones, it is evident that an automobile manufacturing plant would need a large infrastructure with on-premise IT hardware equipment, which may be more expensive in terms of setup, monitoring, maintenance, and personnel costs. Thus, including the cloud into the infrastructure will reduce the strain since cloud providers such as Azure, AWS, GCP, and others will be concerned with all of these criteria. Every cloud provider has a large staff of skilled engineers to handle the setup and maintenance of your IT infrastructure in the cloud at a lower cost than in-house setup. Furthermore, while picking cloud services, one may explicitly specify the needs, ensuring that only what is really required is paid for. The Cloud Service Provider will check the system on a regular basis to

ensure that it is operational. 7.reduced complexity The automobile sector has always required robust infrastructures with high computational capabilities to handle high level engineering jobs, big engineering simulations, and data analytics. As a result, maintaining such strong infrastructure is critical. With the provision of auto scalability for the servers used in such infrastructure, as well as on-demand storage for data and compute capabilities to set up and run in the shortest possible timeframe, cloud is super equipped with the aforementioned capabilities and knows how to do so in an efficient manner, reducing the complexity at the user's end. 8.Backups of data and security High availability and continuous monitoring of any automotive facility's storage and compute entities may be done on the Cloud – which is completely managed by Cloud Service Providers with increased security (data encryption) and less risks of system faults and breakdowns. Whether it's data from smart vehicles on the road, manufacturing, customer sales and services, marketing, or the supply chain – regularly backing up important information ensures that critical information belonging to automotive entities isn't lost in the event of sudden failures or accidental wipeouts. Cloud computing accelerates, secures, and improves the automobile industry's data processing and storage. It also contributes to a better commuting experience and incar entertainment. It decreases the dangers connected with data loss for automotive businesses while also saving money. Cloud analytics, image processing, and wireless networking offer full-proof and secure automotive solutions for connected automobiles, self-driving cars, and sophisticated fleet management systems for businesses. The 5 challenges driving automotive retail innovation via Digital Transformation: 1. Customer discontent with the car-buying process The conventional car-buying procedure is out of date. It takes time and paperwork, and consumers don't always depart with the keys. People are disappointed with vehicle salesmen and the automobilebuying procedure in general. When Gallup asked respondents to rank

several occupations based on perceived honesty, just 8% said auto salesmen were "high" or "very high." Dealer turnover is significant, making it difficult for consumers to build long-term connections. Because sales people are human extensions of their brands, this might reflect negatively on OEMs. The typical in-person automobile purchase also takes much too long. According to J.D. Power, the average customer believes that purchasing a new car should take no more than two hours. Despite this, industry data suggests that the average duration is four hours. This is not to say that individuals should shun dealerships entirely. People desire advice when purchasing a vehicle, which is a large investment. They also want to see features and personalization possibilities in person, particularly as OEMs introduce more digital and autonomous capabilities, as well as electrified vehicles. These advancements aren't as obvious as leather seats or a backup camera. To maximize the income that vehicle manufacturers may receive from investing in novel connection technologies, advocates who can speak to their advantages are required. According to worldwide study done by Autovista Intelligence, one of the top issues dealers confront is having the skills and competence to adequately market a connected automobile. 2. Consumers' digital purchase expectations Consumers are becoming more comfortable purchasing large-ticket products online, such as beds and furniture. The majority of customers start their car-buying process online as well. They may be comparing automobile manufacturers, models, and pricing, or they may be seeking assistance on social media. A rising number of customers undertake at least part of their research on mobile devices. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, 84 percent of UK buyers use their mobile phone to research a vehicle. According to Autovista Intelligence data from 2018, 19 percent of dealers in four countries (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom) cited the need to enhance their online presence as the most crucial problem they will face in the next three to five years. While the majority of auto buyers anticipate to visit a physical dealership, others want the whole purchasing experience to be digital. According to Capgemini's Cars Online 2017 research, 42% of customers stated

they were "likely" or "very likely" to purchase a vehicle wholly online in the future, up from 35% in 2015. Today, that number is significantly greater. According to the 2019 Deloitte Global Auto Consumer Study, the majority of customers are now interested in buying automobiles online. However, most automakers are unwilling to support this. To measure internet preparedness, Arthur D. Little's Future of Automotive Mobility research analyzed the German websites of Toyota, VW, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi. Only Mercedes-Benz provided the option to buy automobiles online. 3. Integrating the online and physical automobile customer experience It is difficult to find new clients in today's fragmented media ecosystem. A brand's target customer may be watching Hulu or Netflix, browsing a social media app, or working from their PC at any given time. Identifying a target audience is difficult enough. Automobile manufacturers must also encourage customers to consider their brands and models. To do so, an omnichannel strategy that reflects the automobile retail customer journey to buy is required. OEMs need tools and methods for mapping a user's identity across devices and digital channels, as well as connecting this data with offline behaviors like visits to the brand's retail outlets or visits to rivals. Retailers in many industries struggle to reconcile real-world behavior with digital activity, but online-offline integration in automobiles is especially difficult. Most OEMs lack the infrastructure required to gather and combine online and offline data. It is one thing to measure habits on owned channels. However, many key digital activity occur behind walled gardens, such as Facebook and Google, making it difficult for OEMs to access the data they want. The good news is that OEM innovators now have the potential to create a holistic picture of their consumers by integrating online and offline activities in a meaningful and privacy-compliant manner. 4. Challenges in operations and the shifting role of dealers In an era when direct-to-consumer models are booming, the automobile purchasing process is dotted with middlemen–the importer, the store, and, in many cases, a credit provider. These layers raise customer expenses and, in certain cases, cause difficulties, while jeopardizing OEM revenues. Relationships between

OEMs and dealers are convoluted and contentious. Dealer margins are being eroded as OEMs press dealers to deliver the most competitive rates possible. Many dealers are concerned that the whole dealership concept is in peril. It's reasonable to be afraid. According to PwC study in Germany, 63% of buyers would purchase directly from OEMs online, while 50% would buy using a third party's online platform. Innovative automakers such as Tesla and Byton already have their own shops and showrooms and sell directly to customers. This enables companies to maintain control over their sales channels, protect the client experience, and own all data linked with the customer relationship. 5. In the car business, brand loyalty is eroding. Consumer buying habits are questioning and redefining the concept of brand loyalty across sectors. With new direct-to-consumer, digital-first businesses entering the market on a daily basis, legacy corporations are finding it more difficult to maintain their market position. Many people are prepared to try new trends and products, and social media and influencer marketing are becoming more important in influencing purchase choices. According to a PwC survey conducted in Germany, 50 percent of dealers regard declining brand loyalty as the most difficult problem they face when considering the future of automotive retail. According to the same report, 46 percent of new car buyers investigate three to four brands before purchasing a vehicle. Car-sharing and subscription services are redefining brand loyalty in the automobile sector. According to the Cox Automotive 2019 "Evolution of Mobility" report, almost four out of ten customers feel that mobility is essential, but owning a car is not. This number is projected to rise as automobile sharing and auto subscription models become more generally accessible, as well as brand recognition rises. Recently, McKinsey emphasizing the six key points of a successful digital transformation for automotive suppliers: 1.Digital Strategy and Targets – Takes into account the myriad new ways value can be created with digital technology. Leading companies must focus on internal and external strategies. The strategy needs to be practical and a clear process with everybody involved.. To track progress and maintain speed, leadership should put in place

quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs). 2.Organizational Structure – Optimizing business structures comes naturally when the industry changes or is forced to adapt. Automotive companies will successfully push the envelope when optimizing the BU. 3.Test-and-Learn Approach – In a perfect world, a digital transformation will happen flawlessly and be perfect after the transition finishes. However, that is not the case most of the time. Therefore, a test-and-learn approach must be granted to ensure funding is proper, the team is effective, and KPI’s are realistic and achievable. 4.Talent and Capabilities – A successful digital transformation will harness multiple things, but the most important is the technical platform being implemented. So, that means a company will need capable talent to help run the digital side of the business. Automotive companies are implementing fun and welcoming work environments. Once again proving, a successful business hinges on employees being happy and driven within their job. 5.Ecosystem Leverage – Once a digital transformation is underway, automotive companies will have the opportunity to collaborate with other technical companies to promote the transformation. The collaborative approach will allow automotive companies to share ideas and exchange entrepreneurial energy together. 6.Culture Change – Automotive companies are typically “traditional” in perspective of the work day and company culture. Cut and dry business mindset, in the office all the time, and focused on the work. However, as times change, the industry must change too. Companies must explain the importance of digital, reinforce the idea of community within the workplace, and empower the digital role models in and outside of work. Technology evolves with time, and with it, we witness an increase in interest in 'electrical' technology. The automobile sector, like many others, is growing and moving toward bringing cars into the age of electrical development. The procedure is not as simple as it seems; rather, it requires patience, inspection, and meticulousness. Technology continues to generate news on a daily basis. Having said that, new technological tools are being brought into the automotive

business that have the potential to be economically successful and profit from the growth of electric cars. It is intended to design and provide new tools for automotive firms using emerging technology and software. Before delving into the intricacies of electrical cars, it is necessary to understand their components. To begin, electrical cars feature a Traction Battery Pack that is utilized for direct current transmission (DC). It also functions as an energy storage mechanism in electric cars. The Power Inverter is the next component. Power inverters are used to reverse the direction of the current and transfer the kinds of current so that the current may flow interchangeably for battery purposes, particularly while recharging the battery. The technique involves altering the direction and alternate current according on the battery's needs, as well as regenerative direct current braking. The third component of electric cars is known as the controller. The controller is used to regulate the electrical energy in a vehicle in order to transfer the energy collected from the batteries used inside to the electric motors placed in the system. The voltage input has relevance in this component of the electrical vehicle, which is regulated by the pedal pushed by the driver. Specifically, this component is responsible for torque, controlling the automobile's speed, defining the frequency of the car, and voltage. So, initially, energy is extracted from the traction battery and delivered to the controller. The Electric Traction Motor is the last major component found in electrical vehicles. The motor's job is to turn the wheels and provide propulsion. Propulsion is the act of pushing anything ahead, and in the automotive sector, it is the acceleration of the automobile and the spinning of the wheels to propel the car forward. Chargers are another significant component of electrical cars, and there are two types: off-board chargers and on-board chargers. Aside from that, electrical cars contain transmission, a DC/DC converter (used to transmit current from a higher voltage to a lower voltage), a thermal system (to maintain an appropriate temperature), and a charging connection. The usage of electrical cars and the technology required for the appropriate development of electrical vehicles will be simpler to understand now that the sections have been explained and expanded on. For electrical cars, the creation and installation of electrical software

must be research-based and already tried-and-tested. The importance of doing so stems from the expectation of assessing the flaws associated with the accomplishment of the imitation or simulation process. According to study based on data, about 10 million electric cars will be on the road by 2020. This means that electric cars are growing and becoming more popular. It is also related to the concept of software and tools that are being installed in electric cars. To get to the meat of the matter, Vehicle Simulation Software is a new technological product on the market that is critical for developing accurate and dependable electric automobiles. Given the importance of software, it is employed in the design and development of electrical cars. Scalability is one of the simulation software's most promising and recognized requirements. The stability of Vehicle Simulation Software makes it desirable and practical for attempting and testing the operation of electrical cars. SimCreator is one of the most dependable software and technological tools on the market. SImCreator Simulator has shown to be very useful, feasible, dependable, and accurate for performing research and evaluating in a variety of electric vehiclerelated areas. SimCreator technology, whether referred to as testdriving or system analysis, is used to determine the functionalities of electrical cars. SimCreator Simulator may aid in the discovery of the vehicle's interconnected systems. SimCreator Simulator, developed by a number of firms for the automobile industry, allows for immersion while testing and studying the development of an electric car. It is a hardware and software combination for electrical vehicle testing that is very immersive and allows users to experience real-life/physical testing and analysis. The SimCreator simulator aids in experiencing the customized or system-built driving system of automobiles, beginning with the vehicle's steering, pedals, and equipment. The requirements of simCreator are stated to be safe, detailed, and research-based. The hardware and software system placed in the SimCreator simulation may also aid in the modelling of the car in terms of modelling the vehicle, operating the vehicle, and testing the vehicle's functionality. As a result, the plug-in may be employed for more complex features that can give insightful and comprehensive help for the correct or dependable construction of electrical cars (EV). SimVehicle and

SimVista are the two components that make up the SimCreator simulator. These modules serve various functions. They are, nonetheless, related. SimVehicle is only useful for vehicle dynamics, such as vehicle body/sprung mass, suspension components (spring and damper), and automobile sizes. SimVista, on the other hand, works with scenarios and surroundings designed for the simulation of electric cars. Other choices include altering the lighting, weather, vehicle conditions, movement of other cars, and movement of people. Aside from these modules, additional modules such as SimObserver and SimDriver may be incorporated. MapleSoft is another widely used programme that takes into account the complexity and subtleties of electrical cars. Maplesoft solutions are powering the manufacturing, development, and functionality of electric cars, allowing for the creation of precise and dependable electric automobiles. Furthermore, the vehicle control algorithms, degree of precision, mechanism, and functionality are all determined by the system placed in the vehicle. Artificial intelligence and other sorts of technology must be powerful enough to allow electric cars to operate successfully without the need for human interaction. The automobile sector recognizes the need of using cutting-edge technologies to achieve the desired outcomes. In the age of technology cars, or EVs, the MapleSoftware is further focused to MapleSim for research objectives. Another need for the development of electrical cars is the optimization of them with a multidimensional system that can integrate and operate effectively for the complex systems of the electrical vehicles being made. Digital Transformation is another change brought about by technology. Every sector and related fields are experiencing a digital transition, which emphasizes the necessity for technology and its use in electrical cars, particularly simulation. Simulation-led design is one of the most recent and widely available tools for the creation and design of complex goods. Many corporations and organizations employ simple-led design to construct the structure digitally for experimentation, analysis, and a comprehensive check for the structure's operation. It is simpler and more sophisticated to execute the study digitally rather than on a product prototype. The use of simulation-led design is also advantageous for vehicle optimization.

Building an electric car is expensive and time-consuming, which is where simulation-led designs come in and help to speed up the process, therefore saving time. Essentially, simple-led design aids in digitalizing a product's structure and critically analyzing its structure and function for future usage. Another advantage of using this technology in vehicle construction is that it allows for better design. Another key use of simulation-led design is design optimization. Even while artificial intelligence is playing a significant role and is projected to take on practical activities, the reality remains that human strength and brain intellect can never be surpassed or replaced. Simulation-led design is equipped with hardware and software that can animate the form and structure in accordance with the mathematical values, but it is only possible to achieve the ideal design with human sense and design expertise, since technology is clueless of trends. Many new technologies have been created, thus there isn't only one tech tool development. One of them is the use of virtual prototypes in the design and development of electrical vehicles. Essentially, electric cars have altered digitally, which is why virtual prototypes are chosen. The virtual prototypes must be integrated into the electro-mechanicalhydraulic-thermal system in order to achieve functionality and manufacturability. Taking into account the technology of vehicle simulation and analysis tools. Electrical vehicles make use of a variety of tools. ADOPT stands for Automotive Deployment Options. One of the analytical and market technology tools used for electronic cars is the Projection Tool. Essentially, this programme is used to analyses emissions, energy requirements for electric cars, energy consumption, and vehicle sales. The ADOPT tool is used for a variety of tasks, most notably estimate and analysis. Going further into the tools for electric cars, another significant tool is FASTSim. FASTSim is an acronym that stands for Future Automotive Systems Technology Simulator. The tool's primary function is to compare and analyses data. Comparing and analyzing are essential for the adoption of technology and technological innovation for better and faster outcomes. FASTSim is used for a wide range of vehicles to determine the work capacity of vehicles with high, medium, or low levels of working capacity. Following the listing of technologies, it is crucial to highlight that all of these technologies are required for the creation of precise and

dependable electric cars. As a result, certain trends and technologies have entered the automobile sector, including electrification, autonomous cars, connectivity, shared mobility, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). All improvements need high-end technology that can function and process as quickly as the system requires. Another important technique is known as 'Automotive Disruption Radar' (ADR). As it is active in the electrification and mobility of electric cars, ADR has achieved significant improvements and advances in the automotive sector. Essentially, ADR is used for trend estimate and approximation, as well as trend analysis. It is crucial in the development of the infrastructure for electric cars. It must be realized that electric cars, as well as the continued quick speed of technology with its disruptive arrival, leads to greater changes and even amplifies the urge for change. For this, the infrastructure of any vehicle must be robust and perceptive, which is only feasible when trends and innovations are tracked and coincide with the firms' preplanning. For this goal, organizations must be well-informed and wellequipped with knowledge about the new technology that has been introduced into the automobile industry. Few More trends in Automotive via Digitization are: 1.Driving If you've been following the world of technology and autos in recent years, you're probably already aware of the impending global mass deployment of self-driving cars. As the name implies, self-driving cars are AI-powered vehicles that do not need a human driver to operate. Although not as prevalent as AI enthusiasts would have liked, these vehicles are presently being tested on public roads with actual passengers. With recent developments like the creation of vectorbased navigation, which provides AI agents the capacity to orient and move in physical space like humans and other animals, we are coming closer to fully self-driving vehicles. A future in which all roads are filled with self-driving cars seems remote, both because of the technical challenges that must be overcome and because there will be individuals who want to drive their own vehicles. Until the day of complete vehicle automation comes, technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and Internet of Things (IoT) are being used to improve the

driving and ownership experience. An growing number of IoT sensors are being included into automotive design to enable drivers to monitor crucial metrics relevant to the vehicle's location and performance. Onboard vehicle telemetry, which has been in use for some time, allows government authorities to not only follow the vehicle but also order it to stop. Such technologies, which permit remote communication and data collection, are becoming more popular in current automobiles. Onboard sensors in vehicles monitor hundreds of performance characteristics, which are communicated to the driver's dashboard display and, in certain circumstances, to the carmakers. The information obtained may also contain driver behavior data that may be utilized to detect trends in drivers' driving behaviors, which can not only aid in modifying car settings in real-time but can also be used to enhance vehicle features in the future. 2.Distribution Perhaps the most significant influence on the way consumers purchase and manufacturers sell vehicles has been made by digital technology. Customers did not have many opportunities to examine and compare their alternatives before acquiring a new car prior to the popularity of the internet and current advances in digital technology. People did not have many options for making an educated selection when purchasing new automobiles, except than brief commercials on television and print media and time-consuming trips to vehicle showrooms. With the advent of the internet and digital marketing, automobile buyers now have access to a wealth of information, including opinions and evaluations on cars, to assist them in making a purchasing choice. Car manufacturers now have additional outlets to promote their cars to buyers, and they can do so more effectively thanks to big data analytics and customized marketing. The automobile industry's digital revolution has broken down barriers between producers and consumers, allowing manufacturers to get a deeper knowledge of the market. The rising usage of virtual reality in vehicle distribution is a new trend. Manufacturers like as Audi have begun to use virtual reality in their dealership facilities to provide prospective consumers with a virtual tour of their wares. Fully realistic VR test drives might become commonplace in the car industry in the future.

3.Development The development of digital technology such as analytics and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has radically altered the automobile sector. Predictive analytics is already a standard practise in manufacturing facilities, where it is utilized to monitor and manage the health of production and assembly equipment. Vehicle manufacturers have been able to reduce breakdown times by eliminating unexpected stoppages thanks to predictive analytics. Continuous study of manufacturing processes utilizing big data analysis is assisting firms in identifying previously unnoticed areas for improvement and bottlenecks in assembly operations. The internet of things has increased the amount of operational data collected from automobile assembly lines, allowing for more process fine-tuning. Analytics is not only improving the technical elements of production, but it is also improving the management of both material and human resources. The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the automobile industry has resulted in significant leaps of progress in the way vehicles are constructed, resulting in shorter lead times, fewer waste, higher quality, and, as a result, more profitability. 4.Design The digital revolution in the automobile industry has transformed the way vehicles are imagined in addition to altering how cars are constructed. Artificial intelligence, which has already made major inroads into procedures that need repeated accuracy, has now started to demonstrate itself in activities that require creativity. Automobile manufacturers have already begun to investigate the application of artificial intelligence in the design of automobiles. Car design, which was previously a completely human process, is gradually being ceded to intelligent systems that use a large base of knowledge and data as a reference to generate completely new car models that meet not only the aesthetic requirements but also the performance requirements of the general public. The usage of IoT and big data is assisting vehicle manufacturers in continually monitoring their vehicles and how they are used by consumers to decide which components of design are working and which need to be changed. With more flexible production methods, the period between the idea of a design modification and its

realization is shrinking dramatically. As a result of enhanced design freedom, car manufacturers gain from the digital transition. Although digital technology remains a key transformative element in the automotive sector, the influence of other advances, such as the investigation of new energy sources, in transforming the industry is evident. Unlike advancements in renewable energy and material science, which result in the infrequent but drastic shift in the transportation sector, digital transformation in the automotive industry is a constant process that will continually alter the way automobiles are driven, distributed, and built. Predictive maintenance technology is based on the use of IoT connection technologies that gather data on performance, send it to the cloud, and analyses any risks of prospective hardware or software problems. Following the processing of the data, the driver is contacted and advised of any essential services to prevent mishaps. This eliminates the need for guessing and emergency stops for automobile maintenance since today's cars notify us when they need repair or replacement. You'll be able to detect an issue before it happens. Vehicle service has also been computerized. Maintaining and updating software now requires not just mechanical care but also the expertise of a tech-savvy specialist. This implies that vehicle performance will be maximized for extended periods of time. Remote service is another option that is becoming available. Over-the-air upgrades are possible thanks to a digital interface. Consider going to an Apple shop every time your iPhone needs to be updated. Isn't it frustrating? It's the same with your car's software now, but remote service will enable you to upgrade it over-the-air, so you can do it whenever and anywhere you choose. This predictive skill is also incredibly useful in the transportation business. Sensor technologies and IoT enable businesses to monitor data, assure vehicle safety, optimize fuel, and even track shipments. Statistics demonstrate that this approach produces excellent results, including increases in truck uptime of more than 30% and the prediction of failures 30 days in advance with a 90% accuracy rate. With so much connection, automobiles will gather so much data about drivers—destinations, routes, traffic patterns, preferred music, favorite restaurants, and petrol stations—that car manufacturers will need to

concentrate more on how to keep that data secure and how to utilize it most efficiently. Different automobile manufacturers will do this well— and others will do it poorly—in the coming years. And I believe that distinction will decide which automobile manufacturers grow to prominence and which fade into oblivion. Obviously, the automobile sector is feeling the pressure to produce more electric cars, and this will remain a focus in the next year. But I wanted to concentrate on the digital transformation trends in automotive that are altering the industry—and if we will even need vehicles in the future at all. As mobility improves, we will ultimately reach a position when automobile sales will be reduced. People will simply not need to travel as much when they can order in, get a ride, or work from home. At some point, automakers will have to reconsider their business strategies and how to remain relevant in the second half of the twenty-first century. In the meanwhile, we'll see some really exciting digital innovations in the next year, many of which will become commonplace. Automakers are encouraged to undertake such IT infrastructure investments to guarantee that the data created is used for a variety of reasons, including: 1.Additional income — By evaluating the massive quantity of data continually created by connected vehicles on the road in real time and at a low cost, they will be able to develop tailored and unique mobility services, rapidly increasing profits and revenues. 2.Traceability - Potential car recall consequences will be reduced by providing improved traceability of components and monitoring of vehicle performance in the field. This will result in shorter repair cycles, a more positive brand image, and a better customer experience. 3.Digitization of the value chain — In order to transition to smart manufacturing, automotive businesses will deploy new digital solutions in supply chains, production, and processes, therefore increasing productivity, safety, and quality. This will empower workers and allow management teams to practice lean production. The daily data collected will be continually monitored, utilized, and benchmarked. 4.Electricity consumption and sustainability - Traditional data centres use a lot of energy. Controlling data center-generated energy costs

will become more crucial in the new "big data" environment. New scalable power and cooling solutions enable substantially improved energy efficiency as well as increased compute density in each rack. Furthermore, next generation data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software solutions aid in data center performance by increasing system uptime. This increases system availability and decreases maintenance costs since faults may be recognized before they cause unplanned downtime. Here are the top 10 companies operating in Automotive Artificial Intelligence Market: 1.Waymo, LLC is one of the top ten businesses participating in the Automotive Artificial Intelligence Market. Waymo is an autonomous car development business that was founded in 1998 and is located in California, United States. It provides self-driving autonomous automobiles with the ability for consumers to request pick-up and drop-off locations. Alphabet is a worldwide leader in internet-based goods and services. The product portfolio of the corporation includes search engines, cloud computing, online advertising technology, and computer hardware and software. In addition to goods and services, Alphabet is focused on artificial intelligence in the automobile business via its many companies. 2.The IBM Corporation IBM operates in five major business segments: Cognitive Solutions, Technology Services & Cloud Platforms, Global Business Services, Systems, and Global Financing. The firm offers a diversified and extensive range of products and services based on technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud computing, security, and others. IBM is the world's enterprise AI leader as well as the world's biggest cybersecurity organization. The company's product and service portfolio is wide and extensive, covering artificial intelligence, IoT, cloud computing, and security, among others. 3.Intel Corporation Intel develops and manufactures cutting-edge goods and technology. Client Computing Group (CCG), Data Center Group (DCG), Internet of Things Group (IOTG), Non-volatile Memory Solution Group (NSG),

Programmable Solution Group (PSG), and All Other are the company's six segments. Intel provides some of the most cutting-edge solutions and technology for enabling AI capabilities in autos. 4.Microsoft Company Microsoft is a significant supplier of technology. The majority of the company's products are software, such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Windows OS, Microsoft Office Suite, and Edge Web browsers. The firm uses intelligent cloud and edge for huge data input and storage, deep learning, AI, training, and validation to expedite autonomous car deployment. The corporation has subsidiaries and a robust distribution network across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. Microsoft has many subsidiaries, including Double Fine Productions, GitHub, Semantic Machines, Mojang, Skype, and LinkedIn Corporation. 5.The Nvidia Corporation Nvidia is a technology business that creates graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming and professional industries, as well as system on chip units (SoCs) for mobile computing and automotive applications. Organizations can provide improved customer experiences by using the company's intelligent video analytics (IVA), AI-powered inventory management, and customer & store analytics. The NVIDIA accelerated data science solution with RAPIDS allows organizations to use GPU-accelerated machine learning (ML) with quicker model iteration, higher prediction accuracy, and the lowest total cost of ownership in data science (TCO). The corporation has subsidiaries and a robust distribution network across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. PGI Compilers & Tools, Icera, Uli Electronics Inc, ModViz, Inc., and others are among the company's primary subsidiaries. 6.Xilinx Inc. Xilinx creates, develops, and sells entire programmable logic solutions. Advanced integrated circuits, software design tools, preconfigured system functionalities given as logic cores, and field engineering assistance are among the company's offerings. It is the world's top supplier of programmable FPGAs, MPSoCs, SoCs, and 3D ICs, enabling the next generation of smarter, more connected, and

differentiated systems and networks. It provides embedded processing systems that are high-performance, low-power, and lowcost. Xilinx provides solutions for AI systems that eliminate systemlevel data bottlenecks, boost parallelism, and reduce overall power needs. 7.Micron Technology, Inc. Micron Technology is a prominent supplier of sophisticated semiconductor solutions, computer memory, and computer data storage, including DRAM, flash memory, and USB flash drives. The Crucial and Ballistix brands are used to sell the company's consumer goods. DRAM and Flash components from Micron are utilized in the most powerful computing, networking, and communications equipment, such as PCs, workstations, servers, mobile phones, wireless devices, digital cameras, and gaming systems. 8.Tesla Motors, Inc. Tesla creates, manufactures, and sells high-performance electric automobiles and powertrain components. The firm operates its own sales and service network and distributes electric powertrain components to other automakers. The firm presently produces three totally electric vehicles: the Model S sedan, the Model X sport utility vehicle, and the Model 3 sedan. Tesla Autopilot is a sophisticated driver-assistance system feature that includes lane-centering, adaptive cruise control, self-parking, and the ability to change lanes autonomously. Furthermore, it can operate independently on limitedaccess motorways and can call the automobile to and from a garage or parking area. 9.Ford Motor Company Inc. Ford Motor Company is a global manufacturer that offers automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand and the majority of luxury vehicles under the Lincoln brand. Based on global vehicle sales, it is the world's fifth-largest manufacturer, developing, producing, marketing, and servicing a comprehensive range of Ford automobiles, trucks, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs), luxury vehicles, and automotive parts and accessories. 10.General Motors Corporation

General Motors Company develops, manufactures, and sells automobiles, trucks, crossovers, and auto components. Vehicle protection, parts, accessories, maintenance, satellite radio, and car finance are all services provided by the firm. The corporation employs machine learning technologies in its product design activities. To identify damaged components, General Motors Company uses a cloud-based picture classification technology on robots. 9.6 Marketing Digital marketing and digital transformation are both aspects of the ongoing digitalization. Indeed, digital marketing is a component of digital transformation. Digital marketing is a focused instrument that focuses on one part of your organization, namely marketing and promotion. Digital transformation, on the other hand, is a broad notion that encompasses all aspects of your organization. It's more like a change that has to be accommodated. Content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and other components are all part of digital marketing. However, even with all of its components and tools, it is still focused on and valuable to a particular element of your organization, as opposed to what digital transformation provides. When attempting to distinguish between digital transformation and digital marketing, maybe we should ask the ultimate question in everyone's mind. Is digital transformation a strategy for digital marketing? Yes, in a manner. But not quite. A digital transformation strategy is a detailed plan for integrating digital technology to enhance the physical parts of your company's engineering, production, and service. However, digital transformation (DX) is a broad corporate strategy in and of itself. Digital transformation has an influence on the customer experience, operational operations, and business models. Digital transformation needs cross-organizational collaboration and entails cultural shifts. Digital strategy, on the other hand, focuses on technology rather than culture. Businesses are digitizing their IT operations, management, and other processes in order to better use the potential of technology. As a consequence, IT transformation and digital transformation are frequently seen as interchangeable terms. So let's have a look at how the two notions are similar and distinct. IT transformation is a critical

component of a comprehensive digital transformation plan. As a result, we should be aware that digital transformation will be impossible without IT change. In other words, IT transformation is a critical component of digital transformation. When we examine these ideas in terms of their methodologies, we can see that people, processes, products, and the culture of a business all play a part in digital transformation. IT transformation, on the other hand, is the automated use of an organization's information technologies, such as ERP and others, to increase productivity and automate activities. The term "customer-driven digital transformation" refers to a strategy that is centered on the customer's preferences and satisfaction. IT transformation mainly focuses on improving IT infrastructure by using the benefits of the most recent technology, and it may or may not have a strong customer-centric emphasis. Another contrast between digital and IT transformation that should be made is their scope. Cloud computing, network needs, hardware, software, and data management are all examples of infrastructure changes that may be addressed via IT transformation. Digital transformation, on the other hand, employs all of these technologies and addresses all of the issues that influence a business, giving it a far larger scope. Business transformation and digital transformation are two more topics that are often misunderstood. Actually, digital transformation is simply one component of a bigger company transformation, but it has distinct features that enterprises should be aware of. While there are some parallels between business and digital transformation, the two ideas are very distinct. Corporate transformation refers to both a cultural shift and the foundation of business operations that are influenced by market developments. Businesses may utilize business transformation to overcome market challenges, leverage on emerging technology, and modify existing company methods. Digital transformation, on the other hand, refers to the tools and technology utilized to effect change in a business. One of the primary areas of overlap is that digital transformation also includes business processes. Market and go-to-market models are fundamental to corporate transformation. The emphasis of digital transformation is on the technology that support the aforementioned business functions. The greatest digital technology in the world will not help a company if it is

not properly integrated into its entire operations. Companies commonly make the error of failing to link business and IT objectives, or of failing to match strategic and tactical goals. As a result, it is important emphasizing once again that business transformation and digital transformation are distinct yet intertwined. As a result, the comparison of digital marketing vs. digital transformation can only have one consequence. Digital transformation is a process, and digital marketing is only one phase in that journey, requiring a wide range of digital marketing abilities. Digital marketing is part of the digital transformation process. When there is a digital transition, digital marketing is sure to follow at some time. This is due to the fact that the former enables firms to succeed and have an effective digital presence, while digital marketing enables the newly converted company to prosper via methods. As a result, digital marketing is an integral aspect of the whole transformation process and cannot be seen in isolation or in contrast to digital transformation. Any marketing that makes use of electronic devices that may be utilized by marketing professionals to send promotional content and track its effect throughout the client journey. Digital marketing, in practice, refers to marketing initiatives that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. It may take a variety of forms, such as online video, display advertisements, search engine marketing, sponsored social ads, and social media postings. Digital marketing is often contrasted with "conventional marketing" methods such as magazine advertisements, billboards, and direct mail. Surprisingly, television is sometimes grouped together with conventional marketing. Did you know that more than three-quarters of all Americans use the internet on a daily basis? Not only that, but 43 percent use it more than once every day, and 26 percent use it "nearly continuously." These percentages are significantly higher among those who utilize mobile internet. 89 percent of Americans use the internet at least once a day, and 31 percent use it practically constantly. As a marketer, it is critical to use the digital world via an online advertising presence, brand development, offering a fantastic customer experience that attracts more prospective consumers, and more, all through a digital strategy. Digital marketing, often known as online marketing, is the promotion of companies via the use of the internet and other types of

digital communication to interact with prospective clients. Not only does this encompass email, social media, and web-based advertising, but it also covers text and multimedia messaging as a marketing channel. Essentially, digital marketing is any marketing effort that utilizes digital communication. For good reason, digital marketing and inbound marketing are often conflated. Many of the same methods are used in digital marketing as inbound marketing, such as email and web content, to mention a few. Both exist to attract prospects' attention and convert them into customers as they go through the buyer's journey. However, the two approaches have opposing viewpoints on the link between the instrument and the aim. Each individual instrument in digital marketing is evaluated in terms of its ability to convert prospects. A brand's digital marketing strategy may include the utilization of numerous channels or the concentration of all efforts on a single platform. Inbound marketing is a multifaceted idea. It assesses the aim first, then examines the various tools to decide which will successfully reach target clients and at when stage of the sales funnel this should occur. The most essential thing to understand about digital marketing and inbound marketing is that you don't have to pick between the two as a marketing expert. In fact, they complement each other well. Inbound marketing gives structure and purpose for efficient digital marketing activities, ensuring that each digital marketing channel works toward a common objective. Digital marketing is effective for both B2B and B2C businesses, but best practices vary dramatically between the two: 1.B2B customers have lengthier decision-making processes, resulting in longer sales funnels. These clients react better to relationshipbuilding techniques, while B2C consumers respond better to shortterm offers and messaging. 2.Business-to-business transactions are often founded on logic and proof, which professional B2B digital marketers convey. B2C content is more likely to be emotionally driven, with the goal of making the consumer feel good about a purchase. 3.B2B decisions often need the participation of more than one

individual. Marketing products that most influence these choices are often shareable and downloadable. B2C clients, on the other hand, prefer personal interactions with brands. Of course, every rule has an exception. A B2C firm that sells a highticket item, such as a vehicle or computer, may provide more educational and serious material. Whether you're B2B or B2C, your approach should always be oriented toward your specific client base. As many specialties exist in digital marketing as there are methods to connect with digital media. Here are a few concrete instances:

1.Search engine optimization SEO, or search engine optimization, is a marketing technique rather than a kind of marketing in and of itself. According to The Balance, it is "the art and science of making online sites appealing to search engines." What matters most in SEO is the "art and science" component. SEO is a science since it requires extensive study and weighing of many contributing criteria in order to reach the greatest potential position. Today, the most significant factors to consider while optimizing a web page are as follows: i)The level of user involvement is determined by the quality of the material. ii)Mobile-friendliness iii)The quantity and quality of inbound connections SEO is a science because of the planned use of these criteria, but it is an art because of the unpredictability involved. There is no definable standard or consistent method for ranking well in SEO. Because Google's algorithm changes practically continuously, it's hard to make precise forecasts. What you can do is keep a careful eye on the performance of your page and make improvements as needed. 2. Content Marketing SEO is an important component of content marketing, which is a strategy built on distributing relevant and useful material to a target audience. The purpose of content marketing, like any other marketing technique, is to generate leads who will eventually convert into customers. However, it does it in a unique way compared to conventional advertising. Rather than luring prospects with the prospective value of a product or service, it provides value for free in the form of textual information. Content marketing is important, and there are several statistics to back it up: i)84 percent of customers want businesses to provide engaging and useful content experiences. ii)Sixty-two percent of firms with at least 5,000 workers create content on a daily basis.

iii)92 percent of marketers agree that content is a vital asset to their firm. Content marketing, no matter how successful it is, may be difficult. Content marketing writers must be able to rank high in search engine results while also captivating individuals who will read, share, and engage with the business further. When the information is relevant, it may help to build solid connections all the way down the pipeline. 3.Social Media Marketing Social media marketing entails increasing traffic and brand exposure by engaging people in online discussions. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the most popular social media marketing platforms, with LinkedIn and YouTube close behind. Because social media marketing involves active audience interaction, it has grown in popularity as a means of attracting attention. It is the most popular content channel for B2C marketers, accounting for 96%, and it is gaining traction in the B2B world as well. This year, 61 percent of B2B content marketers boosted their usage of social media, according to the Content Marketing Institute. Social media marketing has built-in engagement analytics that may help you evaluate how successfully you're reaching your target audience. You get to choose whatever sorts of interactions are most important to you, whether it's the amount of shares, comments, or overall website hits. Your social media marketing approach may not even include direct purchase as a goal. Many firms use social media marketing to initiate conversations with their customers rather than to get people to spend money straight away. This is particularly typical in companies that cater to older audiences or provide items and services that are not suitable for impulsive purchases. It all relies on your company's objectives. Check out our comparison of our free social media management tools with others to discover more about how Mailchimp can assist with your social media strategy. 4.Pay-per-click Marketing Pay-per-click, or PPC, is the practice of placing an ad on a platform and paying for each click. It's a little more difficult as to how and when people will view your ad. When a place on a search engine results page, commonly known as a SERP, becomes available, the engine

fills it with what amounts to an immediate auction. Each accessible ad is prioritized by an algorithm based on a variety of parameters, including: i)Ad relevance Keyword quality ii)Goodness of landing page iii)Amount of the bid Each PPC campaign contains one or more goal actions that viewers are expected to do after clicking an ad. Conversions are these acts, which might be transactional or non-transactional. Making a purchase is a conversion, but so is signing up for a newsletter or calling your home office. Whatever conversions you pick as your target conversions, you may monitor them using your preferred platform to observe how your campaign is doing. 5.Affiliates Marketing Affiliate marketing allows anyone to earn money by advertising the products and services of others. You might be the promoter or a company that works with the promoter, but the method remains the same. It operates on the basis of a revenue sharing approach. If you're the affiliate, you'll earn a commission every time someone buys the product you're promoting. If you are the merchant, you will pay the affiliate for each sale they assist you in making. Some affiliate marketers choose to evaluate just one company's items, possibly on a blog or another third-party site. Others have partnerships with a variety of retailers. The first step, whether you wish to be an affiliate or locate one, is to connect with the other party. You may launch or join a single-retailer programme, or you can utilize a platform built to link affiliates with merchants. If you're a store that wants to deal directly with affiliates, there are a variety of things you can do to make your programme interesting to prospective promoters. You must offer those affiliates with the tools they need to succeed. This includes rewards for excellent achievements, as well as marketing assistance and ready-made materials. 6.Native Advertising Native advertising is essentially marketing in disguise. Its purpose is to blend in with the surrounding information, making it less noticeable as

advertising. Native advertising was developed in response to today's customers' skepticism about advertisements. Knowing that the ad's author is paying to have it aired, many consumers will believe that the ad is prejudiced and will disregard it. A native ad avoids this prejudice by first providing information or amusement before moving on to anything commercial, thereby minimizing the "ad" component. It is critical to carefully mark your native adverts. Use phrases like "sponsored" or "promoted." If such signs are hidden, readers may spend a large amount of time interacting with the material before realizing it's advertising. When your customers know precisely what they're receiving, they'll feel more confident in your content and brand. Native advertisements are intended to be less intrusive than standard ads, but they are not intended to be misleading. 7.Automated marketing Marketing automation is the use of software to fuel digital marketing initiatives, hence increasing the efficiency and relevance of advertising. Statistics show that: i)Personalization appeals to 90% of US customers as "extremely" or "somewhat" attractive. ii)81 percent of customers want companies they interact with to better understand them. iii)Although 77 percent of businesses believe in the benefits of realtime customisation, 60 percent struggle with it. Marketing automation enables businesses to meet the growing need for customization. It enables brands to: i)Collect and evaluate consumer data ii)Create marketing efforts that are targeted. iii)Send and publish marketing messages to the appropriate audiences at the appropriate times. Many marketing automation technologies leverage prospect interaction (or lack thereof) with a specific message to decide when and how to follow up. With this degree of real-time personalization, you can easily design a unique marketing approach for each consumer while investing no more effort.

8.Marketing through email The idea behind email marketing is straightforward: you send a promotional message and hope that your prospect clicks on it. The execution, on the other hand, is much more difficult. First and foremost, you must ensure that your emails are desired. This entails having an opt-in list that performs the following functions: i)Individualizes the material in the body as well as the subject line ii)Indicates clearly what kind of emails the subscriber will get. iii)Provides an easy way to unsubscribe iv)combines transactional and promotional emails You want your prospects to see your campaign as a valuable service, not merely a marketing tool. Email marketing is a tried-and-true approach in and of itself: It was voted the most effective lead generator by 89 percent of experts polled. It may be even better if you include additional approaches, such as marketing automation, which allows you to segment and schedule your emails to better match the demands of your customers. Digital marketing has grown in popularity in part because it reaches such a big number of people, but it also has a number of additional benefits. These are only a handful of the advantages: 1.large geographic reach When you submit an ad online, anyone may view it regardless of where they are (assuming you haven't restricted your ad geographically). This makes expanding your company's market reach simple. 2.Cost effectiveness Digital marketing not only reaches a larger audience than conventional marketing, but it also costs less. Overhead expenditures for newspaper advertisements, television commercials, and other conventional marketing possibilities might be too expensive. They also provide you less control over whether or not your intended viewers receive those communications in the first place. With digital marketing, you may develop only one piece of content that will drive people to your site for as long as it is live. You may set up an email marketing

campaign that sends messages to certain consumer groups on a regular basis, and you can easily adjust the timetable or content if necessary. When everything is said and done, digital marketing provides far more flexibility and client interaction for your ad budget. 3.Quantifiable outcomes To determine if your marketing plan is effective, you must first determine how many consumers it attracts and how much income it finally generates. But how does one go about doing so with a nondigital marketing strategy? There's always the tried-and-true method of asking each client, "How did you discover us?" Unfortunately, this does not apply to all sectors. Many businesses do not have one-onone talks with their clients, and surveys may not always provide accurate answers. Monitoring outcomes in digital marketing is straightforward. Digital marketing tools and platforms automatically measure the amount of intended conversions, whether they be email open rates, home page views, or direct transactions. 4.Personalization is now easier. Digital marketing helps you to collect consumer data in ways that traditional marketing cannot. Data acquired digitally is much more exact and detailed. Assume you provide financial services and want to send out unique offers to customers who have shown interest in your goods. You know that if you tailor the offer to the person's interests, you'll get better results, so you plan two campaigns. The first is for young families who have looked at your life insurance products, and the second is for millennial entrepreneurs who have thought about their retirement plans. How do you collect all of that data in the absence of automatic tracking? How many phone records would you have to review? How many client profiles are there? And how do you know who read or did not read the booklet you distributed? All of this information is currently available to you via digital marketing. 5.Increased customer interaction You can connect with your consumers in real time thanks to digital marketing. It also allows them to communicate with you. Consider your social media approach. It's fantastic when your target audience reads your most recent content, but it's even better when they comment or share it. It implies greater chatter about your product or

service, as well as improved exposure with each new person who enters the discussion. Your clients will gain from interactivity as well. As customers become active players in your brand's narrative, their degree of engagement rises. That feeling of ownership may result in strong brand loyalty. 6.Conversions that are simple and easy Your clients may take action instantly after reading your ad or content when you use digital marketing. The most immediate return you can expect for with conventional marketing is a phone call immediately after someone sees your ad. But how frequently does someone have time to contact a firm while cleaning the dishes, driving down the road, or updating data at work? With digital marketing, they may immediately progress through the sales funnel by clicking a link. They may not make a purchase right away, but they will keep in touch with you and provide you the opportunity to communicate with them further. Digital marketing refers to a broad range of marketing methods and technology that are used to reach customers online. It has transformed the marketing business as a method of internet marketing that enables firms to develop a brand identity. Although digital marketing seems to be a new world, it is founded on many of the same concepts as conventional marketing and involves both basic marketing knowledge and technological know-how. The two disciplines, associate dean of marketing programmes, serve to interact with various categories of customers. "... Traditional media is a terrific method to reach a large customer base, while digital media may reach highly particular audiences," she said. "A vital element to remember is that certain channels are more successful than others depending on the target demographic." In today's digital marketplace, a company's website is one of the most significant platforms for various sorts of digital marketing. When visitors arrive at your website, they begin to form an image of your brand. Your website will also inform them about the items or services you provide and the value you can deliver to them. A variety of things go into website design. The site's layout influences which pages are featured and how users navigate to them. While written content affects

how people see and comprehend your company. The aesthetics on your website, such as logos, colors, photos, and other branding aspects, are also crucial. I'm going to share 27 of his most insightful and informative quotations with you so you can keep them in mind while you plan your own social media and digital marketing plans and here they are: 1- "You should never go to the battlefield until you've already won the war on paper." The good news is that Marketing can be learned in an hour. The bad news is that it takes a lifetime to master." 2- "Marketing is not the skill of inventing novel methods to display what you do." Marketing is the art of presenting actual value to your customers and assisting them in improving. Marketing's buzzwords are "Quality," "Service," and "Value." 3."Every firm is a service business," says number three. You are not a chemical firm. You run a chemical services firm. Do your service presentations make your customers happy? 4- "The sales department does not represent the whole firm; instead, the entire company should represent the sales department." 5- "The greatest advertising is delighted customers." 6- "Companies are too concerned with the expense of anything." They should be concerned with the expense of doing nothing." 7."Successful vendors are concerned with the customer first and the items second." 8- "Good businesses will meet wants; Excellent businesses will develop markets." 9- "The greatest way to keep customers is to always look for ways to provide them more for less." 10- "Doing what is strategically proper is more vital than doing what is instantly lucrative." 11- "There is only one successful strategy: carefully establishing a target market and directing a superior product toward this market." 12- "The most crucial thing is to anticipate where your consumers will go and stop directly in front of them." 13- "Poor businesses ignore their rivals, mediocre businesses mimic

their competitors, and winning businesses lead their competitors." 14- "Over the last 60 years, marketing has concentrated on the product (Marketing 1.0) and marketing has focused on the customer (Marketing 2.0)." (Marketing 2.0). Now we can see how Marketing is being modified once again in response to the changing dynamics of the environment." 15."We see firms shifting their attention from goods to customers, and subsequently to humanity's challenges." Marketing 3.0 is the stage at which businesses transition from concentrating on customers to focusing on humanity, and where profits are balanced with corporate responsibility." "Marketing is a race with no finish line." 16- "You have to run considerably quicker these days to remain in the same location." 17- "Today's smart marketers don't sell things; they offer benefit packages." They sell not just purchase value but also utilization value." 18- "The key to branding (brand-building), particularly for small businesses, is to concentrate on a limited number of sectors and create outstanding competence in those sectors." 19- "The future is not in front of us. It has already occurred." 20- "Every corporation should try hard to make their own product line outdated before their rivals." 21- "Do not invest in market activities." Learn how to get them." 22."The Internet will make the winners bury the losers." 23."Marketing" is defined as "a set of human activity aimed at promoting and consummating exchanges." 24."Marketing is the work we conduct prior to generating a product." If three years are spent building a product, it will not be the right product." 25- "Market analysis is the evolution of attempting to optimize the company's profitability for each transaction, in order to maximize the earnings of each connection over time." 26- "The cost is unimportant in determining the price." It merely assists to determine if you should or should not construct the product."

27- "The future of marketing is in marketing databases, where we can learn enough about each customer to deliver relevant and individualized offers to each of them." The 5Ds of digital marketing are: digital devices, digital platforms, digital media, digital data, and digital technology. The 5Ds allow for more efficient contact between a brand and its target audience, as well as insights into market behavior for better business plan creation and execution and here they are: 1.DIGITAL Gadgets - Electronic devices such as cellphones, tablets, desktop computers, televisions, and game consoles. 2.DIGITAL PLATFORMS - The majority of interactions on these devices occur through a browser or applications from the main platforms or services, which include Facebook (and Instagram), Google (and YouTube), Twitter, and LinkedIn. 3.DIGITAL MEDIA - A variety of paid, owned, and earned communication channels used to reach and engage audiences, such as advertising, email and message, search engines, and social networks. 4.DIGITAL DATA - Information gathered by companies on their target audiences and their interactions with them. 5.DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY — The marketing technology stack used by organizations to generate interactive experiences ranging from websites and mobile applications to in-store kiosks and email campaigns. Understanding the significance of these 5 Ds of Digital Marketing and incorporating them into a Digital Marketing plan is critical to the potential success of using digital media as a method of company growth. Once you've designed your marketing plan, you should utilize the "Seven P Formula of Digital Marketing" to constantly analyses and reevaluate your company actions. These seven factors are as follows: product, pricing, marketing, location, packaging, positioning, and people. Because goods, markets, consumers, and demands change so quickly, you must evaluate these seven Ps on a regular basis to ensure you're on track and obtaining the best outcomes possible in

today's industry. Please find below Seven P Formula of Digital Marketing: 1.Product To begin, cultivate the practice of seeing your product as if you were an outside marketing consultant hired to assist your firm in determining whether or not it is in the proper business at this moment. Inquire, "Is your existing product or service, or combination of goods and services, relevant and suited for the market and consumers of today?" When you're not selling as many of your goods or services as you'd like, you should cultivate the practice of honestly analyzing your company and asking yourself, "Are these the proper items or services for our clients today?" Is there any product or service you're selling now that you wouldn't put out again if you knew what you know now? Is your product or service significantly better than everything else on the market when compared to your competitors? If so, what exactly is it? If not, could you carve up a niche for yourself? Should you provide this product or service at all in today's market? 2.Prices Price is the second P in the formula. Develop the practice of constantly analyzing and reexamining the pricing of the items and services you offer to ensure they are still suited to market realities. You may need to cut your rates from time to time. Other times, it may be necessary to boost your pricing. Many businesses have discovered that the profitability of some goods or services does not justify the work and money used in creating them. They may lose some clients as a result of increasing their pricing, but the remaining proportion produces a profit on every transaction. Could this be a good fit for you? You may need to modify your terms and conditions of sale from time to time. Sometimes, by spreading your pricing out over months or years, you may sell substantially more than you are now, and the interest you can charge will more than compensate for the delay in cash inflows. You may sometimes combine items and services with special discounts and promotions. You may sometimes incorporate complimentary extra goods that cost very little to manufacture but make your costs look significantly more appealing to your clients. In business, like in nature, if you encounter resistance or irritation in any

aspect of your sales or marketing activity, have an open mind about revisiting that area. Allow for the potential that your present price structure is ineffective in the current market. Be prepared to change your rates if required in order to stay competitive, survive, and prosper in a rapidly changing economy. 3.Promotion The third marketing and sales habit is to always think in terms of promotion. Promotion encompasses all of the methods you inform your clients about your goods or services, as well as how you promote and sell to them. Small modifications in how you market and sell your items may have a big impact on your outcomes. Even little modifications in your advertising might result in instant increases in sales. By merely altering the title of an advertisement, experienced copywriters may typically improve the response rate from advertising by 500%. Large and small businesses in every area are always experimenting with new means of advertising, marketing, and selling their goods and services. And now for the rule: Whatever approach of marketing and sales you are now doing will, sooner or later, cease to function. Occasionally it will cease operating for obvious reasons, and sometimes it may stop working for unknown reasons. In any situation, your marketing and sales tactics will ultimately fail, and you will need to establish new sales, marketing, and advertising approaches, services, and strategies. 4.Place The fourth P in the marketing mix is the physical location where your product or service is sold. Make it a habit to go over and reflect on the precise place where the customer meets the salesperson. A shift in location may sometimes result in a significant rise in sales. You may sell your stuff in a variety of locations. Some businesses practice direct selling, sending salespeople out to meet and engage with prospects in person. Some people sell via telemarketing. Some companies sell via catalogues or by mail order. Some sell their wares at trade exhibitions or in retail stores. Some sell in collaboration with other companies that provide comparable items or services. Manufacturers' representatives or distributors are used by certain businesses. Many businesses use a mix of one or more of these

strategies. In each scenario, the entrepreneur must make the best selection about the best location or location for the client to acquire critical purchasing information on the product or service required to make a purchasing decision. What about you? What changes should you make? Where else might you sell your goods or provide your services? 5.Packaging Packaging is the fifth component of the marketing mix. Develop the practice of stepping back and seeing every visual aspect in your product or service's packaging through the eyes of a critical prospect. Remember that consumers create their initial impressions of you or some aspect of your organization within the first 30 seconds of seeing you or some feature of your company. Small changes to your product's packaging or exterior look may frequently result in totally different responses from your consumers. When it comes to your business's, product's, or service's packaging, you should consider everything that the consumer sees from the first point of contact with your company all the way through the purchase process. The appearance of your goods or service from the outside is referred to as packaging. Packaging also relates to your employees' appearance and grooming. It pertains to your offices, waiting rooms, brochures, communications, and any other visual aspect of your business. Everything is important. Everything either helps or hurts. Everything has an impact on your customer's trust in you. When Thomas J. Watson, Sr. founded IBM, he quickly realized that about 99 percent of the visual interaction a client would have with his firm, at least initially, would be represented by IBM salesmen. Because IBM was selling somewhat advanced high-tech equipment, Watson realized clients would need to have a high degree of trust in the salesperson's trustworthiness. As a result, he implemented a clothing and grooming code that became a rigid set of norms and regulations inside IBM. As a consequence, every salesman was expected to seem professional in every way. Every aspect of their attire—black suits, dark ties, white shirts, conservative haircuts, polished shoes, clean fingernails, and everything else—sends an image of professionalism and expertise. "You look like someone from IBM," was one of the finest compliments a person could get.

6.Positioning The following P is placement. You should make it a habit to always consider how you are seen in the hearts and minds of your consumers. When you are not present, what do others think and say about you? How do people perceive and discuss your company? What is your market positioning in terms of the precise phrases people use to describe you and your services to others? The authors of the well-known book Positioning, Al Reis and Jack Trout, argue that how you are seen and perceived by your consumers is a major driver of your success in a competitive economy. According to attribution theory, most clients see you in terms of a single trait, either positive or negative. It's "service" at times. It's not always "excellence." As in the case of Mercedes Benz, it's sometimes referred to as "quality engineering." As with BMW, it is sometimes referred to as "the ultimate driving machine." In every situation, how deeply established that trait is in the minds of your consumers and potential customers influences how easily they'll purchase your product or service and how much they'll spend. Make it a practice to consider how you may enhance your placement. Begin by deciding on the job you want to hold. What would you do if you could leave the perfect impression in the hearts and minds of your customers? What would you have to do in every customer encounter to encourage them to think and speak about it in that way? What adjustments do you need to do in the way you deal with consumers now in order to be recognized as the best option for your customers of the future? 7.People People are the last P in the marketing mix. Develop the practice of thinking about the individuals within and outside your company who are in charge of every aspect of your sales and marketing strategy and activity. It's surprising how many entrepreneurs and businessmen will work incredibly hard to think through every aspect of the marketing strategy and marketing mix, only to ignore the reality that every single choice and policy must be carried out by a certain person, in a specific manner. Your ability to identify, acquire, employ, and retain the right individuals with the necessary skills and talents to execute the job is more essential than everything else put together. Jim Collins observed

in his best-selling book, Good to Great, that the most critical component used by the top organizations was that they first "get the right people on the bus, and the wrong ones off the bus." The second phase was to "get the right people in the appropriate seats on the bus" once these firms had employed the right employees. To be successful in business, you must cultivate the habit of considering who will carry out each duty and obligation. In many circumstances, moving ahead is impossible unless you can attract and place the appropriate individual in the right position. Many of the finest company concepts ever made are still sitting on shelves today because the folks who devised them couldn't locate the crucial people who could carry them out. Inbound marketing is by far the most successful B2B marketing approach because it capitalizes on the strengths of the other nine methods to attract, engage, and delight clients. Inbound marketers, unlike conventional marketing tactics and even the other strategies discussed above, gain the attention of consumers and draw them to a corporate website by developing and giving useful content. Inbound draws people in rather than disturbing them with interruptive conventional advertising since message is relevant and occurs in the right place at the right time. Inbound marketing is successful because it does the following: 1.Works for any size or style of company. 2.This results in more informed candidates. 3.It is simple to connect and manage utilizing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and a content management system (CMS), such as HubSpot. Account Based Marketing (ABM) is a B2B approach that employs highly tailored campaigns to target a specific group of accounts. It delivers a variety of benefits to marketing and sales teams, including a speedier sales process, cost efficiency, and more efficient use of marketing resources. Despite everything else ABM entails, it's crucial to understand that ABM is not the same as targeted outbound marketing. It is far more strategic, using techniques such as internet retargeting to customize marketing efforts. Retargeting makes use of browser cookie-based technology to identify people who came to your site but departed (or "bounced") before completing a purchase or

conversion. The cookie enables targeted adverts to display in those users' future online searches and interactions, even if they are not particularly relevant to your site. Retargeting is an excellent conversion technique because it keeps your brand in front of people that have previously shown interest in your product or service. Retargeting is effective because it does the following: 1.Recapture "window shoppers'" attention and purchasing power 2.Produces strong click-through rates 3.Allows for visitor segmentation and targeted messaging. Retargeted advertisements have a 0.7 percent average click-through rate (compared to 0.07 percent for display ads). Earned media (sometimes known as "free media") is publicity generated via means other than paid advertising. Earned media may take many forms — a social media testimonial, word of mouth, a television or radio mention, a newspaper storey or editorial — but one thing is constant: it is unsolicited and can only be obtained organically. It cannot be purchased or possessed in the same way that conventional advertising can. RELATED: Using earned media for inbound marketing. Earned media and public relations are successful because they: 1.Are "free" advertising outlets in general? 2.Are unsolicited and hence have immediate apparent credibility 3.Increase the visibility of important, instructive, and trustworthy material. 4.Earned media contributes for 25-40% of total traffic and lead generation. A referral programme is an umbrella word for a company's systematic strategy of incentivizing customers to inform others about its goods or services. Implementing unique affiliate programmes, customer referral programmes, and partner programmes into a marketing strategy framework is intended to provide current consumers with immediate credibility in order to build a client base. The terms "referral programmes" and "referral marketing" are often used interchangeably. Referral programmes are successful because they do the following:

1.Profit from the referrals of satisfied clients. 2.Recognize and strengthen clients' brand loyalty in a genuine way. 3.Are always well-liked by consumers. Conversational marketing is exactly what it sounds like: a conversation. Real-time connection with prospects and customers through a chatbot or live chat puts the relevant information in front of them at the right moment, and follow-up queries are answered straight away. Personalized, relevant involvement significantly enhances the user experience, boosting the possibility of recommendations from satisfied consumers. Conversational marketing strategies for firms often reduce the amount of time consumers spend in the sales funnel. Conversions occur more quickly because connections are formed more quickly. Conversational marketing is successful because it does the following: 1.Removes impersonal lead collection layers and offers a real, personalized customer experience 2.Encourages straightforward communication – customers can communicate their demands clearly, and companies can more easily comprehend and help since there is suitable context around the request. 3.Relationships are strengthened because bots may also propose extra information to augment buyer education. Fast Fact: Messaging is the preferred means of client engagement with companies, with 90% of customers preferring a chat option. Taken as a whole, the bulk of the tactics we outlined have low marketing impact. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, brings together the big hitters — SEO, SEM, content marketing, social media, and earned media — to provide a well-rounded, cost-effective marketing strategy that produces quality leads, deepens customer connections, and effectively builds brands. Point-of-Purchase (or POP) marketing sells to a captive audience – customers who are already in-store and ready to buy. Product displays, on-package discounts, shelf talkers touting product advantages, and other eye-catching "sizzle" often impact purchasing

choices at the shelf by providing an offer that is just too good — and too obvious — to pass up. Co-branding is a marketing strategy in which two or more companies collaborate to promote and sell a single product or service. The brands give their collective reputation to raise customers' perceptions of the value of the product or service, making them more inclined to buy and ready to pay more at retail. Second, co-branding may deter private label producers from imitating the product or service. Similarly, affinity marketing is a collaboration between a firm (supply) and an organization that brings together people with similar interests — for example, a coffee shop that sells items from a local bakery. There is no shortage of co-branding collaborations, but some recent instances show exceptionally strong natural brand alignment, including the daring GoPro and Red Bull, the elegant BMW and Louis Vuitton, and the fashion-forward Alexander Wang and H&M. Similarly, cause marketing leverages and improves brand reputation. Cause marketing is a collaborative effort between a for-profit company and a non-profit organization to promote and benefit social and other philanthropic causes. Cause marketing should not be confused with corporate giving, which is related to particular tax-deductible gifts made by a company. Cause marketing interactions are "feel good" because they show your consumers that you share their goal to make the world a better place. Conversational marketing is exactly what it sounds like: a conversation. Real-time engagement through a chatbot or live chat puts the relevant information in front of prospects and customers at the right moment, allowing them to self-serve and get queries addressed straight away. The user experience is substantially improved by personalized, relevant involvement. Conversational marketing is extremely beneficial for B2C organizations since it expands your customer service and often reduces the time purchasers spend in the sales funnel. Conversions occur more quickly because connections are formed more quickly. Earned media (sometimes known as "free media") is publicity generated via means other than paid advertising. Earned media may take many forms — a social media testimonial, word-of-mouth, a

television or radio mention, a newspaper story or editorial — but one thing is constant: it is unsolicited and can only be obtained organically. It cannot be purchased or possessed in the same way that conventional advertising can. Brand storytelling is a well-known communication structure to elicit emotional responses from customers. Rather of just spewing data and numbers, storytelling helps you to construct a memorable narrative about who your organization is, what it does, how it solves issues, what it values, and how it engages and contributes to its community and the wider public. If you're still unsure about how to attract traffic and complete purchases, I've compiled a short list of bite-sized digital marketing methods for your online business that you can execute right now, and they are as follows: 1. Increase the number of email subscribers Email is one of the most effective ways to increase shop visitors and close more transactions. It has been tried and tested. In reality, email generates an average ROI of 4,300% for firms in the United States, and 66% of customers have made an online purchase as a consequence of an email marketing campaign (both stats according to Direct Marketing Association). If your regular email subscription box on your website isn't generating enough sign-ups, it's time to invest in a pop-up email registration form. Data from an consultancy analysis suggests that an overlay or pop up may improve conversions by 400%. However, there is a catch. Popups may be annoying to certain individuals. However, if you're searching for a quick solution to boost signups, this is the tool for you. My advise is to A/B test the time, size, design, and text of your pop ups to discover which ones garner the most attention. 2. Send out an email with a Wishlist reminder. A Wishlist reminder email encourages your consumers to buy products they were planning to buy. Udemy.com does an excellent job doing this. In this email, Udemy not only reminded you that you had courses on your Wishlist that you've been meaning to take, but they also gave you the chance to win $1000 worth of credits to complete your Wishlist courses.

3. Begin a remarketing campaign on Facebook. Remarketing or retargeting advertisements are used to recoup lost traffic by following the visitor throughout the internet. Don't be concerned. It's not as frightening as it sounds. Facebook, for example, provides retargeting ads that increase conversions while decreasing the total cost per client acquisition. It operates as follows: i)You include a Facebook tracking pixel onto your website. ii)Visitors arrive to your website. iii)You develop personalized Facebook advertising and present them to your consumers while they are on Facebook. 4. Make an exit offer Exit offers, when implemented correctly, may increase your conversion rate. A pop up/overlay that creates a feeling of urgency is an escape offer. The system monitors visitor behavior and recognizes abandoning guests, triggering the departure offer. It's a simple yet effective strategy that you should think about, particularly if your shopping cart abandonment rate is high. We utilize the Ninja Popups plugin for our popups, which also includes an escape popup option. Check out these 13 instances of basic yet powerful departure offers. 5. Increase your advertising budget. If you haven't tried Facebook Advertisements yet, check out this success story of an ex-con turned entrepreneur called Robert Naval of National Park Depot, who paid $60 on Facebook ads and made $1000 in sales on his first day. Facebook advertisements, Instagram ads, and Google ads are all worth consideration, particularly during the next Christmas season. Experiment with the many advertising available on these platforms to determine what works best for you. You can now advertise on Instagram using Facebook Ad Manager, so set up a campaign and try it out. Steps to take: i)Select a popup provider / plugin and integrate it into your website. ii)Make a welcome and departure pop up. iii)Create an account on an email marketing platform, and if you already have one, design an email campaign (be organized!). iv)Start a Facebook, Instagram, or AdWords campaign.

v)Increase your advertising budget! Guerrilla marketing is a marketing approach in which a corporation promotes a product or service via surprise and/or unexpected encounters. Guerrilla marketing differs from conventional marketing in that it often depends on human connection, has a lower budget, and focuses on tiny groups of promoters responsible for spreading the word in a specific place rather than via large media campaigns. Important Takeaways: i)Guerrilla marketing is the employment of creative or unusual ways to increase sales or generate interest in a brand or company. ii)These tactics are often low-cost or free, and they include the broad usage of more personal connections or viral social media messages. iii)With the emergence of ubiquitous mobile and linked technology that can magnify communications and concentrate on specific groups of customers, this marketing strategy has grown in popularity. Companies who use guerrilla marketing depend on their in-your-face advertising to spread via viral marketing or word-of-mouth, allowing them to reach a larger audience for free. Guerrilla marketing relies on connecting with a consumer's emotions. This strategy is not intended for all sorts of goods and services; rather, it is often utilized for more "edgy" items and to target younger customers who are more likely to react favorably. Guerrilla marketing occurs in public venues with a large audience, such as streets, concerts, public parks, athletic events, festivals, beaches, and shopping complexes. Choosing the correct time and location to launch a campaign to avoid any legal difficulties is a critical component of guerilla marketing. Guerrilla marketing may take place inside, outdoors, as a "event ambush," or as an immersive campaign designed to persuade people to engage with a company. There are several kinds of guerrilla marketing. Some examples include: 1.Viral or buzz marketing 2.Stealth 3.Ambient 4.Ambush 5.Projection advertising

6.Astroturfing 7.Grassroots 8.Wild posting 9.Street 10.Pop-up retail Marketing digital transformation entails utilizing the digital business. It entails constantly evolving all areas of the company model, including what it sells, how it interacts with consumers, and how it runs. Simply said, digital transformation is a method of future-proofing a firm. In marketing, a digital transformation is the transition from digital complacency to the active pursuit of digital excellence via the right use and optimization of your digital platforms. This entails fine-tuning your digital channels in order to acquire deeper information that will influence your strategy and enhance the client experience. Here's an example of a digital transformation for your marketing department: 1.Optimising Your Digital Channels The first step in a digital transformation is to evaluate the worth of your existing marketing tools and platforms. Examine your website, social media networks, automation tools, analytics systems, and customer database. Could you improve your use of these platforms? Is there a better choice for your requirements? A comprehensive examination of these tools and channels will guarantee that you are well-equipped to drive your company's success. 2.Breaking Down Barriers In addition to maximizing your digital channels, you must ensure that all of these systems communicate with one another and collaborate. When your digital tools operate in silos, you are losing out on the overall picture. Logging in and out of five separate accounts to follow a customer's journey is neither efficient nor sustainable. A customer data platform (CDP) may serve as the connective tissue that connects various systems, giving you a comprehensive picture of your complete client base. 3.Enhancing the Customer Journey Improved channel integrations will provide you with sophisticated

information that will help you pivot your approach for success. With a comprehensive perspective of your marketing funnel, you can readily discover weak points and areas for development. You will also be able to give a more tailored, relevant experience to both prospects and consumers. The funnel, a conventional notion used by marketers to map out the activities prospective buyers take, pursuing a multi-stage journey that eventually culminates in committing to an actual purchase, is one of the first locations where digital transformation effects marketing. Prior to the emergence of digital technology, the marketing funnel was simple and, in some respects, impenetrable. The five phases are as follows: 1.Consumers initially become aware that you have a product or service that they may be seeking for during the awareness stage. 2.Interest - when a consumer does more study to see if your company matches their demands. 3.Consideration - they are now seriously interested. 4.Intent - when people begin to develop towards a choice in favor of a company because they believe they need the product or service. After making a purchase, a consumer is changed into a customer. In almost every state, a firm could only generate marketing materials and hope for the best in a pre-digital marketing environment. An intervention was only conceivable if a knowledgeable salesperson was there to personally connect with a prospective customer. Because of digital transformation, these processes now allow a firm considerably more control over the process, providing marketers with two crucial new tools: multi-stage interaction and analytics. The ability to customize information to specific clients is one of the most effective ways that the digital revolution has transformed the way digital marketing works. Because of the combination of metrics and interaction, it is now feasible to monitor individual customer activities and behavior and then use that data to deliver a tailored marketing response. Keeping note of a customer's purchase and subsequently proposing comparable products—or, in certain cases, 'refills' for consumable items—is just the beginning. With social media platform

analytics like Facebook, it's now able to follow individual consumers' interests, make suggestions, and even send targeted emails based on that consumer behavior before they convert. When consumer interest is tracked on social media, marketing experts no longer need to guess where consumer interest may lie. Prior to digital transformation, the single biggest 'blind spot' in marketing was a lack of high-quality, actionable data on which marketing experts could base their decisions. There was no reliable method to engage the impact of marketing material after a metro station banner or a television ad was generated. How many people noticed the metro advertisement? How many individuals saw the ad on television, let alone purchased the product just because of it? Analytics was a game changer in marketing, and digital transformation continues to underscore how important it will be in all future marketing endeavors. A video on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or another social media platform, for example, can tell a marketing team exactly how many people watched the video. Furthermore, if those individuals click on the "Call To Action" button, which redirects the viewer to a website, it is simple to determine how successful the video is at converting people. There is more precise data accessible, such as which social media platforms individuals viewed the video on, where these people reside, and what time of day the video had the most views and click-throughs. In other words, digital transformation now provides marketing professionals with far more detailed user data and analytics, enabling them to fine-tune and improve marketing strategies. Knowing what doesn't work, what does, and how well it works allows you to be considerably more nimble, responsive, and focused. The influence of digital revolution on interaction has been enormous and unparalleled. Digital media, as opposed to conventional media such as cinema, television, and music, is interactive, providing individuals greater control over what they consume, how they consume it, and with whom they share it. Websites, for example, may now provide consumers choices about what information they want to see and how they want to consume it. People may connect with corporate profiles on social media by asking questions and receiving replies. Customers may also provide feedback for the information they

read or see by using the heart, thumbs-up, and favorite buttons, as well as leaving comments. The interchange that may occur on social media, and even directly on advertisements, alters everything. Live advertising, similar to live streaming, allow customers to be on social media while watching an influencer promote a product. Instead of just watching a social influencer, viewers may now engage with them by leaving comments, providing recommendations, and even receiving answers during the live broadcast. In 2019, there is a degree of engagement and involvement that was just not feasible prior to digital transformation, and this affects the breadth and character of how marketers may approach their audiences. In this digital age, marketers must continually come up with new ideas to help organizations develop and remain relevant. "Change is the only constant," and as marketers, this adage is at the heart of what we do. Evolution, not simply change, is the path ahead. Without a question, social media has evolved into one of the most important marketing mediums for organizations today. It is utilized for more than simply posting advertising; successful marketers use social media to engage the community and generate followership in order to connect with influencers in their area. Smart marketers use social media to drive traffic to their own platform. Spray and pray is a thing of the past. To capture attention and eyes, today's marketers leverage artificial intelligence and content strategy. For example, the phrase "Content is King" has given way to "Content is Objective." Today's content is customized and personalized to be consumed by a certain group of individuals, rather than being general. Today's content is centered on the end user in relation to the organization's products or services. Today's marketing is entirely persona-based, with firms focusing on offering experience-based marketing. Over 3.6 billion individuals use social media globally, with that figure expected to rise to 4.41 billion by 2025. Until a few years ago, most businesses distributed material; now, they provide interactive and actionable information while analyzing customer responses to it. Based on these responses, the material is modified and re-shared in real time. This is an example of how marketers use sentiment analysis and intelligence when marketing. Of course, the ROI is long-term. LinkedIn today has over 722 million members across more than 200

countries and territories. In the third quarter of 2020, Twitter reported 187 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs), a 29 percent increase year over year. Instagram has more than one billion monthly active users, 500 million of whom use Instagram Stories. Facebook announced over 2.7 billion monthly active users in the third quarter of 2020. (MAUs). Companies are responding to this by actively employing social listening to record and understand their consumers' voices. Crawlers are employed to watch social conversation, and this data is integrated with machine-learning algorithms and AI to provide automated actionable insights. As a consequence, brand reputation may be managed in real time. It's noteworthy to note that 96 percent of dissatisfied consumers would not tell you directly, but will tell their friends about their dissatisfaction. In addition, most people will post online but not tag the organization. This is where crawlers may be handy if correctly developed. Similarly, videos have a significant influence on the minds of consumers. Customers would be captivated by its visual effects and stories. Marketers must continually educate themselves on how to persuade their clients to remain loyal to their brand. They must understand where trends are heading since companies depend significantly on them. At the end of the day, it all comes down to how they position the brand distinctively, sell in new ways, and remain relevant to the audience in the new age. With everincreasing digital noise and shorter attention spans, persona-based marketing with selected, tailored, and engaging bite-sized material is the only way to go. A marketer's primary objective now is to combine the capabilities of social analytics, digital listening, and sentiment analysis. It is critical to choose the appropriate platform and medium to distribute this material. When it comes to content distribution platforms, marketers nowadays have a plethora of options. The efficacy of a platform is determined by its location, functionality, and, most crucially, the sort of analytics it delivers. For most B2B IT organizations, LinkedIn is the optimal platform; for CPG and FMCG companies, Twitter and Facebook are the best options; and for media companies, YouTube is the best option. Choosing the proper platform is critical to success – but it is the talent that determines success, not the tools.

If your first thought is, "Technology? That's a task for the IT department," it's time to change your perspective. Remember that digital transformation is not a cosmetic change. It's not as simple as installing some new software and calling it a day. True transformation requires a fundamental shift in how you conduct business, which necessitates C-suite backing. Obtaining director-level buy-in is critical for driving any transformation effort, but what about the guts and bolts of adopting technology into your organization on a practical level? Isn't it the responsibility of your IT support staff? While your IT staff will undoubtedly play a significant role in the ultimate success or failure of your digital transformation plan, they should not be solely responsible for selecting software solutions and reworking procedures. It's crucial to remember that for most firms, the ultimate goal of becoming digital is to enhance customer experiences. Employees who are specialists in digital technology are unlikely to be experts in customer experience. Don't make the mistake of placing them in control of such important company choices. So, who in your organization understands the customer journey? The obvious response for most firms is the marketing department. However, data reveals that CMOs are now less likely than other members of the C-suite to be engaged in digital transformation. If your present digital transformation committee resembles the data above, it may be time to rethink your plan, and here's why: All company leaders recognize and appreciate that merely having a great product or providing good services is insufficient. A complete marketing plan is also required for company success in order to promote awareness of your brand and product, interact with new consumers, and cultivate connections with current customers. Marketers are not unfamiliar with digital disruption. Perhaps more than any other sector, advances in digital technology have altered the world of marketing. Within a single generation, marketing has evolved from direct mail, print commercials, and radio and television advertising to internet content, email marketing, PPC, SEO, and a slew of other cutting-edge technology and strategies that simply did not exist a few decades ago. Most marketers saw the wild new world of digital as a game-changer rather than a danger. When it comes to knowing your consumers and designing marketing messages to engage them, the digital era has

opened up endless avenues and new chances. And this evolutionary transition is far from done. The digital world is continually evolving, and your marketing staff understands that in order to compete, they must adapt swiftly to these changes. Successful marketing teams have discovered the need of taking an integrated strategy and planning their efforts around the consumer, rather than their internal procedures. This implies that there will be no more "website team," "email team," or "social media team," but rather a multi-disciplinary strategy designed to maximize the benefits of multi-channel marketing. This breaking down of silos must be extended across the whole company during digital transformation. Marketing becomes a crucial element of every employee's job, whether they work in sales, HR, or customer service. Technology is not the end answer to accomplishing change; rather, it is a tool to assist you in getting there. You can place your consumers at the core of your company transformation and let marketing lead the way by adopting digital methodology, business models, and possibilities. It's easy to get caught up in issues like efficiency and cost savings while reworking important business procedures, but don't lose sight of the reality that your ultimate aim is to give the best possible customer service. You can only do this by using marketing's rich insights, data, and devotion to innovation. Recognizing the need for a managed transformation process in an organization is an essential early part of the process in order to get the buy-in and investment needed to make transformation a success. Consider some of the common problems if you don't have a structured transformation plan: 1.Online-savvy competitors grab market share through better focus and skills on complex digital marketing techniques 2.Weak improvement process because SMART objectives not defined and lack of suitable digital marketing dashboards and testing platforms to use a data-driven process for improvement 3.Opportunities from research from analyzing new customer buyer behavior, competitor benchmarking and preference for new business models not considered 4.Ad hoc use of inbound digital marketing techniques including

investing in digital media and supporting technology and data, i.e. no defined martech stack 5.Lack of vision and employee understanding for the initiative because of poor internal communications. 6.Insufficient investment in digital skills across the business 7.No long-term roadmap of priorities for improving use of always-on marketing and marketing technology Transformational success necessitates a substantial investment in digital marketing operations. We suggest that transformation programmes include enough investment in all six pillars: 1.Governance or management of digital marketing refers to the resources and infrastructure required to create strategies, action plans, resources, budgets, and KPI dashboards to test, learn, improve, and integrate all marketing and sales communications. Marketing technology, data, insight, and optimization are critical infrastructure investments. 2.Digital objectives and metrics Using digital marketing dashboards, set SMART targets and define goals in analytics for frequent assessment and corrective action. 3.Media in digital form: Increase awareness by combining sponsored, owned, and earned media with enough investment to obtain exposure while people search for your goods and services. 4.Digital content marketing entails creating high-quality, industryleading material to power all of your marketing efforts, from search to social to email marketing. 5.Customer experience via the internet: Optimize your company's website, applications, and social media pages. Integrate your digital marketing with front-line sales and support workers to engage, explain, and convert customers. 6.Personalize digital messaging or 'conversation marketing' to welcome, educate, and nurture prospects and consumers across websites, email marketing, and smartphone alerts. Here is a checklist of ten essential success indicators for digital transformation that you should explain as part of your vision of how a

company should adapt for Digital Marketing: 1. Management and governance: Collaborating with all essential stakeholders to develop a vision for how digital can help the company. Setting objectives and choosing costed digital projects that correspond with your company strategy in a prioritized roadmap. 2. Brand development: Digital media and data should strengthen your brand by planning and establishing a digital value proposition for your target customers that complements your current brand attributes and mitigates digital disruption in your industry. 3. Integrated lifecycle communications activities: Although digital is frequently considered as a silo, customer journey and contact strategy should choose appropriate sponsored, owned, and earned media activities across digital AND traditional communications. These include "always-on" and "campaign" communications. 4. Content: The most important practical factor in increasing reach and persuasion is the quality of digital and physical content and how it is surfaced at various points in the customer journey through relevant website design and content distribution channels such as search, social, and email marketing. 5. User experience: According to research, a bad website experience leads to lost sales and a lack of engagement with internal stakeholders. As a result, evaluating and analyzing both product and related digital experience through voice of the customer (VoC) and surveys is an important component of the transformation process. The website, which is increasingly being visited through smartphone, has historically been the primary digital experience, coupled with email marketing. In various industries, social media platforms are often the primary online experience of a business, especially when social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn attempt to own service transactions between firms and their consumers. 6.People, organizational structures, and agencies are all examples of resourcing. You will have some digital experts and agencies, but it is critical to ensure that digital marketing capabilities are established throughout the business via skills audits and training as part of the transition.

7. Change management: Digital transformation should be an organization-wide project that is undertaken over time. As a result, it is critical that your staff grasp the why, what, and how of change and how it will affect their job. 8. Process of improvement: We believe in a data-driven approach to improvement, which necessitates relevant insights from digital analytics and audience research to fuel structured testing, such as AB testing, to increase the efficacy of your messages. 9. Data and insight: While digital interactions create massive amounts of data, this data is only useful if it is used to enhance the customer experience and your outcomes. As a result, it is necessary to define a method for merging digital analytics with customer and market research. 10. Marketing technology: This is the last component since choosing the correct systems as an enabler to assist your digital transformation plan is critical.

Top 12 Digital Marketing Transformation Strategies: 1.Website Optimization (Incl. Mobile, SSL/HTTPS, Trust, User Experience (UX) 2.Search Engine Optimization (SEO incl. visual, mobile, voice search; meta code, link-building, Local Citations) 3.Content Marketing (Incl. blogs, resources, case studies, registration pages, calls-to-action (CTAs), curation, syndication) 4.Paid Search (Incl. pay-per-click/PPC, Remarketing, Display, Programmatic Advertising) 5.Email Marketing (Incl. lists, campaigns, personalization, lead nurturing, trigger emails, optimization of subject lines, Click-Thrus) 6.Social Media (incl. Social Advertising) 7.Video (a form of content, but important enough to be Top 12) 8.Marketing Automation (software, tools and techniques, data) 9.Analytics (Incl. Google Analytics and Marketing Dashboards) 10.Marketing Diagnostics 11.Influencer Marketing

12.Artificial Intelligence (AI, Incl. Live Chat or ChatBots) There are 5 basic steps to starting a digital marketing transformation project: 1.Current situation analysis – undertake a review and assessment of the current state of digital in your marketing activities focusing on the customer experience across the main digital channels. Review the activities of your competitors, other players in your sector, and other digital marketing leaders across a range of sectors. 2.Create the vision – create a vision for digital and why it is critical to become ‘digital first’. 3.Build the business case – focus on the value of digital to your business and how it will create benefits for both the short and longterm. Identify your key performance indicators, and put measures in place that will help you to keep momentum when the going gets tough. 4.Develop your digital marketing strategy – identify the key strategic strands of your new digital marketing strategy, and drill down to the tactical campaigns. 5.Continuous review and improvement – embed a process of continuous improvement with a ‘test and fail fast’ mentality. Embarking on new digital marketing techniques is critical to stay ‘digital first’ Data, the backbone of digital transformation solutions, is a vital part that most businesses struggle to manage. Inefficiencies in handling exabytes and petabytes of data have raised the likelihood of security breaches and data loss. To provide an exceptional client experience in today's competitive industry, marketing teams demand real-time and secure data. Organizations collect data via many touchpoints and virtually measure it. Such data is utilised for assistance and communication and might comprise a wide range of data kinds. These data kinds include public information, large data, and customerprovided tiny data. As IoT grows more prevalent, enterprises will want more sophisticated security and privacy safeguards to avoid intrusions. The problem of security jeopardises digitization's progress. As the number of IoT-enabled devices grows, so will the amount of security and privacy vulnerabilities, and every endpoint, gateway, sensor, and smartphone will become a possible target for hackers.

With the use of BYOD devices like as smartphones, tablets, phablets, and laptops, corporate data may be quickly accessible on the road. Because the middleware programme makes these devices portable, they are subject to physical control loss and network security breaches. The use of portable devices increases the danger of data loss and the vulnerability of data and devices to network-based assaults to and from any system. Permissions, individual preferences, and up-to-date contact information for goods, services, and communication platforms are examples of this data. As a result, companies must provide high-level data security in order to keep client confidence. Cybercriminals have recently gotten access to widely used techniques for obtaining everything from passwords to secret questions and token-generated passwords. In such cases, marketing and IT teams must collaborate, sharing information on when and how data is collected, processed, and utilised in operations. Such extensive assaults continue to stymie the mainstream adoption of digital transformation in data-intensive industrial sectors. However, this picture is projected to alter gradually over the projection period as the advantages of technology adoption continue to exceed the hazards associated with it, as well as with general advancements in data security. Every company has unique business development issues, such as sales operations, corporate cooperation, and digital client base. Digital transformation solutions efficiently address business-specific as well as industry-specific difficulties. For example, a digital transformation solution that works for a textile business would not work for an auto parts firm. As a result, market vendors are providing highly tailored digital transformation solutions to solve their clients' company development concerns. With corporate data, this degree of personation is achievable. Enterprises contain massive amounts of enterprise data, which is rising at an exponential rate. Most of these are often not simplified, which is where modern technologies such as AI, big data, machine learning, and data analytics can offer meaningful business insights and make a significant impact in revenue growth. As a result, market providers concentrate on developing bespoke digital transformation solutions that fit the specific needs of various sectors and enterprises.

Extracting value from data has become a critical necessity for businesses in order to effectively minimise risks, target important consumers, and analyse company performance. To monetize these data assets, a substantial volume of data must be available. Data consolidation from disparate data sources into relevant information, on the other hand, may provide a slew of new issues for companies, particularly centralised corporate businesses. Data interchange and data ecosystems provide tools for analysing acquired data in a centralised place and assisting in the extraction and cross-checking of business-critical components. The evolution of data exchanges and data ecosystems differs depending on the assumptions made about the value of data for each client group. Various digital transformation service providers provide unified data aggregation and data analytics solutions to assist consumers in effectively combining and analysing data from heterogeneous data sources. Data interchange is a serious worry for companies that deal with individuals' personal data, such as BFSI and healthcare. As the need for data interchange grows, it must be weighed against risk-mitigation capabilities. Data exchange is not projected to be a big concern in the foreseeable future as organisations use digital transformation software that is coupled with data protection features. To address this shortfall and help businesses get to grips with the fundamentals of digital transformation, we’ve put together a guide consisting of five fundamental principles – we call them the 5 As and for Digital marketing. Here they are:

1.Audience: Identifying and engaging the right people A brand that understands its audience is more likely to capture their attention. The challenge for marketers though is to organise their data sources so that they’re able to identify, understand and engage their potential customers. To give yourself the best chance of doing this, follow these three simple steps: i)Compile your online and offline customer data to get a unified view of your audience across all channels. ii)Centralize and evaluate. Unify your available data in a single tool to segment customers and understand their intentions, path to purchase, and long-term value iii)Define a targeting strategy. For each of your brands, set your

targeting strategy to reach your audience segments at all points of the shopping journey (top, middle or bottom of the funnel), and across all relevant media (video, display, search, offline).

2.Assets: Offering experience

the

best

possible

customer

Identifying your audience is one thing, but once you’ve found them, you still have to deliver a compelling customer experience. The challenge for brands is therefore to create equally engaging, effective experiences across all digital touchpoints (websites, apps, social networks, digital advertising) and in real life (at point of sale, during events). i)Produce relevant, context-sensitive ads. Using audience insights and channel knowledge, ensure you pick the right medium and format for your advertising. For example, the kind of message you convey during a 6-second video ad should be different to a longer-form video ad or banner. ii)Emphasize simplicity, speed and intuitiveness on all your channels and messages. In other words, remove the friction points in the customer journey, especially on mobile. iii)Enrich the user experience with relevant data. Combine your firstparty data with audience signals (Search, Display and YouTube for the Google network) so you can understand the intent and behaviour of your audience, and customize your ads accordingly.

3.Access: Maximizing the reach of your messages Think reach and inventory! You want to be able to reach your potential customers wherever they are on the path to purchase. And as long as costs are controlled, you should be accessing as much of the available inventory as possible. New tools are available to give you a comprehensive view of your media investments, allowing you to better manage contact frequency, ensure maximum transparency between all media buys across channels, and meet brand safety standards.

4.Attribution: Measuring the value of each point of contact Multi-screen and multi-channel shopping is increasingly sophisticated and fragmented. Customers are likely to have engaged with your marketing on several devices and channels before they commit to a purchase, rendering last-click models of attribution unfit for purpose.

Attribution models that account for the dynamics between channels and devices make it possible to analyse the full path to purchase and assign the right credit to each lever – making budgeting decisions far more accurate and meaningful.

5.Automation: Simplifying operations and improving performance Digital marketing campaigns create huge amounts of data, which can quickly become overwhelming. But with machine learning technology you can now automate keywords, bids, creative assets, targeting and large-scale attribution. Automation is no longer just a way to reduce costs – it provides consistent, useful and personalised customer experiences at scale, potentially adding significant upside to revenue. Today's digital marketing communication has nothing in common with traditional advertising. For the first time last year, worldwide expenditure on internet advertising surpassed investment on TV advertising, the major channel of traditional communication. Experts expect that online advertising will climb by 13% in 2019, totalling 205 billion dollars. This equates to a 37% share of worldwide media spending. Some predict that the amount spent on social media advertising will surpass the amount spent on print media advertising next year. However, for marketing executives, digitalization entails much more than just using extra communication channels. It is related with two significant phenomena that are poised to affect the marketing department's organisation: on the one hand, the more demanding consumer expectations for conversation with firms, and on the other, the availability of data from digital sources. Customers' increasingly demanding criteria for conversation with businesses are based on the usage of social media. On the one hand, they extend the reach of customers' voices; on the other, firms must react quickly and closely monitor cyberspace communication in order to recognise and fight storms of complaint at the appropriate moment. On the other hand, brand advocates who are active on the internet must be strengthened. That means shifting away from 20-second advertisements and toward a multimodal brand experience in marketing professionals' everyday job! Communication has gotten more complex in the digital age. Marketing managers must develop a significant volume of advertising

for a range of media. Then there's the conversation with the consumer. Their inquiries cover every imaginable subject and disregard the traditional division of labour between sales, marketing, customer service, and public relations. Since a result, these divisions must work closely together when reacting and making quick judgments, as the consumer wants immediate input. Interaction and transaction are now merging: while there were previously just adverts, there is now also the option to shop. QR codes are used on billboards, and it just takes a few clicks to go from the landing page to the purchase button. Similarly, big e-commerce sites such as sears.com provide firms with advertising space. Because advertising and shopping are converging, marketing is becoming closer to sales. Marketing directors are increasingly being evaluated based on how well they help sales. Data is the most valuable asset for marketing managers. Customers' media behaviour on digital platforms informs a much about their needs. On their foundation, value-added services or even new business models might be established. Companies need more than just cutting-edge marketing technologies to capitalise on this data. They must also build the organisational circumstances in their marketing department to fully use the performance capability provided by technology. The most often claimed motivation for digital transformation: to convert the experience into something that consumers anticipate and appreciate — and to prevent the competitors from doing so first. While 41 percent of organisations tell Forrester that marketing is the primary owner of customer experience in their organisations, many CMOs are not necessarily members of the executive committee. And many of them do not actively participate in the digital transformation path. According to Altimeter's state of digital transformation research, just 23% of CMOs (co)own digital transformation, with IT taking the lead more commonly. There is an undeniable need for CMOs to elevate their game. Dear marketing professionals, CIOs cannot and should not attempt to accomplish the job alone — your organisation needs your assistance. Take the initiative and take responsibility of changing the way marketing is done in your firm. Take a seat at the table. To thrive in the digital era, executives must collaborate and get down in the trenches to achieve an organization-wide transition toward

customer centricity. And marketing's involvement in this shift is critical. Business strategy enables firms to navigate their digital transition by prioritising digital innovation possibilities and guiding digital technology adoption. As specialists in, and enthusiasts for, the voice of the consumer, the CMO and brand strategists may play an important part in the strategy creation process. Specifically, by working with other company executives to develop an agile, human-centered corporate strategy. While the future is becoming more uncertain and difficult to anticipate, there is a new opportunity for the inventive, original, and daring marketing leader to shape it. As an example, as a part of the Brand Plan team, one of the writers helped to the formulation of Adidas' 2020 business strategy, 'Creating the new.' This forwardthinking and people-centered strategy plan was founded on the conviction that "through sport, we have the potential to alter lives." The plan, which was based on the Adidas culture of creators, recognised that Adidas's people would bring the strategy to life and needed to be enabled to fulfil Adidas' long-term goals. Adidas built a framework for prioritising customer-centric digital transformation and innovation by making three strategic choices: 'Speed,' 'Cities,' and 'Open Source.' Marketing can bring to the table a toolset of foresight, trends, qualitative insights on growing human wants and desires, creative imagination, and scenario planning. When this is combined with real data, quantitative insights, and competitive market research, marketers have a formidable toolset at their disposal to catalyse the dialogue with a wide collection of cross-functional colleagues. Together, they can create dynamic images that represent a variety of intriguing future possibilities for their organisation to concentrate on and give value to customers and colleagues. Creating a solid foundation for innovative business concepts, products, services, and consumer experiences. Three key areas for a CMO to concentrate on in order to assist drive company strategy in the digital age: 1. Use current (data) science to reinvent your consumer insights development. Marketing is currently in an excellent position to take use of a plethora of approaches and technologies to inform the creation of customer

insights. IKEA, for example, employed applied neuroscience in conjunction with high-resolution EEG headsets and eye-trackers to better analyse how consumers reacted to different business models. Among them is a new solar service, which would enable users to create their own renewable energy. CMO opportunity: Reimagine CMI departments by financing and facilitating other modes of inquiry and insight gathering. 2. Encourage the creation of agile and forward-thinking strategies in order to capitalise on new possibilities. Organizations must approach strategy planning with a more fluid, flexible perspective in light of shifting consumer expectations and fast technological progress. Focusing only on hard facts and long-term planning, particularly in the digital era, may kill many potentially excellent business model breakthroughs before they have a chance to show themselves. CMOs may play an important role in combining long-term vision and strategy creation with innovation, inspiration, and flexibility. They should work to establish a human-centric insights and brand strategy competence to supplement conventional strategy creation. Nespresso, Nestlé's coffee pod pioneer, is an example of how to pursue a bolder strategic approach in a conventional context. When Nespresso began tailoring its goods and services to target homes rather than workplaces, they became a huge success. Because Nestlé was venturing into uncharted territory, there was no quantitative market research data to back up how consumers would react to the proposal. The Nespresso crew, on the other hand, was certain about the concept. They expertly acquired and evaluated a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative information to persuade senior management to accept a higher-than-usual risk. CMO opportunity: Use human-centric insights and brand strategy skills to bring in alternate viewpoints and contributions on business model and value proposition innovation on a regular basis. 3. Follow through on strategy and planning in an agile manner. Having a lofty vision and concepts but failing to agree on who would be accountable for implementation and continuous investment frequently means that the vision will stay just that. Finding a way to operationalize the strategy and (agile) planning to guarantee the

organisation follows through is a typical CMO difficulty. To accomplish so, a systematic and rigorous strategy to aligning strategic objectives vertically and cross-functionally at all organisational levels is required. This guarantees that strategic or tactical operational plans may be updated, refreshed, or amended as soon as possible. This implies that CMOs (together with their colleagues) are driving agile strategy planning, as well as the transition to digitization of solutions and agile organisational processes. Drive a creative and agile strategic attitude and planning, as well as advocate for agile procedures to embrace and execute on the vision. Three marketing emphasis areas to foster product and service innovation: 1. Adopt new approaches for informing and designing humancentered experiences, product and service innovations. The emphasis of current marketing innovation is on what people need, their pain spots, and their passions, in order to produce fulfilled and happy consumers for the company. The goal is to identify the emotional and practical value that will make a genuine difference in people's lives, and then to produce worthwhile goods and experiences that will ideally surprise and exceed expectations. While traditional marketing is typically driven primarily by internal aims such as "how do we expand the business?" digital-era marketing is more outside-in, emphasising the consumer viewpoint. Adopting service design thinking and methods, such as Google design sprints, value proposition design, and the business model canvas, will enable customer-centric innovation of products, services, and experiences through empathy development, co-creation with customers or partners, experimentation, and rapid iteration cycles of potential ideas and concepts. Marketing is the custodian of client information. It may allow real empathy with people's hidden needs by adding qualitative research approaches like as self-reporting, ethnography, in-depth interviews, and in-life usage trials. This is done to keep consumers at the core and forefront of innovation. While this may seem obvious, 41 percent of businesses make expenditures without doing extensive consumer research (Altimeter). Such a rich tapestry of information strengthens the strategic foundation required by teams to develop

game-changing product and service concepts that people want to use and interact with. This is ultimately what will generate exponential corporate growth. Starbucks is a fantastic illustration of the influence this may have. In 2007, the food and beverage industry's sales and margins were declining. Starbucks polled hundreds of coffee users to find out what they wanted in a coffee shop. The essential realisation was that they were searching for a place of rest and belonging rather than coffee. And a pleasant ambiance. The Starbucks shop was intended as an experience based on this. Round tables were carefully designed to safeguard coffee users' self-esteem (no empty seats at a round table). Warm materials, such as wood and stone, are used for the service counters to create a welcoming ambience. The effect is, of course, the ability to establish premium coffee pricing. CMO opportunity: encourage the adoption of service design approaches in the product marketing and innovation process in order to generate more outside-the-box and game-changing concepts. 2. Use lean-start-up methodologies to scale the invention and effectively bring the product or service to market. Marketing is generally excluded from the product development process in many organisations, and is left to promoting awareness, sending out press releases, and organising new product launch events. Pushing for early cooperation is a huge potential for CMOs in digital transformation and hence product, service, and customer experience innovation. Marketing professionals working in integrated, cross-functional teams with employees from other areas in a leanstartup manner, for example, employing business hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, validated learning, and innovation accounting. This will lower market risks for the company as a whole, avoiding costly product launches and failures. Marketing may start small and scale up after the idea, audience, and ROI are proved. Allowing CMOs (and peers) to get the most bang for their buck by directing resources and finances to the areas with the most effect. One of the writers ran a cross-functional team at a big travel loyalty organisation, with Marketing colleagues at the core and as customer reps. The aim was to improve the user experience of one of their primary marketing channels. This involved bringing the organization's experiences to life, generating extremely engaging new experiences,

and reducing current pain points. The team created personas and user-case situations via a series of quick design thinking sprints, which were then categorised. First, those who brought to life the platform's "North Star" vision ("a few years from now"), which was eventually transformed into a very compelling collection of assets utilised for colleague engagement. Second, these scenarios served as the foundation for a set of Quick Wins - changes that could be made to the current platform to demonstrate "the art of the feasible." Last but not least, several of the scenarios served as the foundation for both the brand new platform offered and its 18-month plan. CMO opportunity: Advocate for early marketing involvement in the product and service development cycle, using experimentation, prototyping, and customer feedback to boost success and optimise ROI. 3. Adopt new marketing and data-driven business models. In a separate vein, we see CMOs investigating the potential of data, media, and consumer insights as a standalone business model. Having enhanced customer awareness and mature data insight skills offers enormous market value exchange potential. Similarly, even if the primary product is something entirely different, media monetisation might function as an extra income source. Kroger, a prominent supermarket company located in the United States, is trying this. They create additional income by selling digital advertising space to consumer packaged goods (CPG) firms, allowing them to target adverts to customers as they pass through the shop. The funds raised may be utilised to stimulate digital development and innovation in other sectors. CMO opportunity: Investigate and implement new marketing and media business models to help drive overall company development and innovation. Three marketing emphasis areas to generate change in customers and channels: 1. Shift marketing emphasis from product-centric to human-centric, and from push to pull. Traditionally, businesses would organise their marketing activities and campaigns around product and service pushes. Nowadays, there is a trend toward establishing a pull effect - attempting to get clients to come to you. This trend can be seen in FMCG players increasingly

going direct to consumer - attempting to establish customer connections based on knowing and advocating client wants and values, and coupling this with appropriate experiences. Sanofi is a fantastic example of a pharmaceutical firm that has switched from marketing their goods and services to providing information, platforms, and services to assist clients solve issues and accomplish their objectives. CMO opportunity: Advocate for human-centric and pull marketing tactics that combine consumer demands with appropriate experiences to develop beneficial connections. 2. Broaden marketing emphasis and performance management to include omnichannel channels. The majority of businesses have already switched to more integrated marketing operations. However, budget allocations and KPIs have often remained conventional and channel centric. This indicates that the influence of multichannel marketing, particularly from offline to online, is being disregarded or ignored. The CMO should consider organising marketing efforts from an omnichannel viewpoint throughout digital transformation. Omnichannel performance KPIs and driver trees, as well as attribution models, make this possible. This will increase transparency about channel interdependence and performance. It will also enable the prioritisation of resources and investments in areas where they will have the greatest effect on the customer experience and the delivery of financial benefits. The brand team of a multinational fashion company where one of the writers worked as a consultant put in a lot of effort to enhance the shop experience. This will enhance both brand engagement and footfall. However, the internet search team was not linked to digital media, which may have increased exposure of these new notions. Even after being made aware, they lacked the funding and desire to optimise for brand and retail-related search traffic. This meant that the campaign was difficult to discover online, resulting in a volume loss both online and in-store. CMO opportunity: Orchestrate marketing activities from an omnichannel standpoint to prioritise resources and investment for maximum effect. 3. Make use of immersive encounters in experiential marketing. When it comes to creating engaging and immersive campaigns and

enchanting brand experiences, digital technology has opened up a whole new set of possibilities for companies. Marketing has a big chance to go outside the box by cooperating with IT and third parties to employ new technology. SKII, for example, used augmented reality and powerful analytic skills to analyse the customer's skin type through a "digital mirror," delivering quick skincare advice. Rolex employs an augmented reality software that allows users to see how the watch would appear on their wrist (proportionate size and form dimension). In 2018, LVMH enhanced its online and in-store digital capabilities in order to improve customer experiences. In addition, Burger King recently introduced a promotion in which consumers could 'burn' competition advertisements on billboards in exchange for a coupon for a free Whopper. CMO opportunity: Overcome the marketing function's apprehension about dealing with technology and develop engagement with IT departments and partners. Three marketing emphasis areas to promote agile transformation: 1. Implement agile marketing planning. While traditional marketing is based on huge concepts, big-bang launches, and big-bang budgets, agile marketing is based on micro tactics, large insights, and quick iterations with a learning curve. This entails shifting away from yearly campaign goals, planning, and budgeting in order to more often modify objectives, tasks, and budgets depending on value and effect (e.g. customer segments to acquire, parts of the customer decision journey to improve). CMO opportunity: Revisit yearly planning processes, transitioning to more regular objective updates and agile allocations based on predicted effect and value delivered. 2. Create and empower interdisciplinary marketing teams to work quickly. Small interdisciplinary teams explore and test for success in agile marketing. People are crucial in agile marketing teams. They should be skilled in several roles (both in-house and third-party), committed (not working on top of a full-time job), and collocated. In addition, they must be equipped with the appropriate marketing technology infrastructure, adequate data, and senior leadership sponsorship. This was done to accommodate their 'alternative' methods of working in

comparison to the rest of the organisation, as well as to allow teams to tap into key services from non-agile departments like legal without sacrificing speed. The CMO and marketing leadership must fight to establish these foundations, since the agile strategy will not succeed without them. CMO opportunity: Benefit from agile marketing by forming interdisciplinary teams. Set them up for success by providing critical enablers and skill sets that will reduce time to market and increase activity effectiveness. 3. Incorporate data-driven thinking into day-to-day marketing activities. The use of data to drive and optimise activities is inherent in agile methods of working. However, this is not always automatically ingrained in procedures. Marketing executives can support and assist this transformation in operations and thinking by ensuring that the relevant audiences are established and generated throughout the campaign process, for example. They should also guarantee that a measuring and tagging strategy is devised and executed, with predetermined objectives based on prior learnings. To get the greatest results and outcomes, the campaign, channel, and audience performance should be analysed during and after the campaign, and optimisations should be done in-flight based on these insights. This often has ramifications for the operational model and cross-functional cooperation, as well as competencies and skills within (agile) teams. A big initiative was launched at a multinational FMCG company where one of the writers worked as a consultant to establish the data technology skills needed to generate more personal interactions with customers. However, technology did not address the organization's lack of agility or a data-driven approach, and as a result, value was not generated from the massive and expensive project. Leadership recognised that a more comprehensive reform of the marketing attitude and method of working was required to ensure the success of this programme. A workstream was established to really co-create with teams what approach should look like (cross-departmental) and to specify how to incorporate data and agility in the process meaningfully. Identifying the use cases they might begin with, as well as the support and skill sets required to make this happen. Only when the leadership began to sponsor and facilitate these changes — for

example, by supporting colocation, experimentation, and upskilling efforts — did a transformation in the way marketing was done begin. Defining and delivering use cases that added actual value to the organisation and its customers. CMO opportunity: Drive the adoption of data and insights in day-to-day activities while ensuring the appropriate operating model and skill set is in place. Three areas of emphasis for marketing to drive next-generation operations: 1. Restore control by bringing brains back in-house. The rise of channels over the years has resulted in an increase in the number of teams in charge of administering and coordinating the agencies. This often results in a lot of duplication in (administrative) operations as well as other inefficiencies. Unilever, for example, claims in its annual report that in-house teams create content 30 percent quicker and 30 percent cheaper than external firms. In a study of 149 marketers conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, 35% indicated they had decreased the amount of work they briefed to agencies after beefing up their in-house programmatic competence. At a large FMCG company where one of the writers worked as a consultant, the decision was taken to transition the social listening and engagement capabilities from outsourced to in-house in stages. This took the form of bringing the third-party team in-house, gradually blending them with the FMCG's permanent personnel, with the eventual goal of full-time employment by permanent employees. The advantages include the learning on-ramp received by the organization's workers from the third-party SMEs, as well as the collaboration and communication advantages of having the third party physically co-located. Furthermore, the high level of outsourcing makes process innovation and optimization difficult – and the transition to customer-centric marketing practically impossible. The use of one's own data has become crucial for efficient marketing, yet it is often too sensitive to share with third-party organisations. As a result, many organisations are bringing strategy, planning, and execution skills back in-house. CMO opportunity: Bring back strategy, planning, and crucial execution skills to allow new (agile) methods of working and cross-channel cooperation.

2. Take full use of marketing automation, machine learning, and voice technologies. Marketing automation is the process of streamlining, automating, improving, and measuring marketing activities. This helps us to be more efficient, generate more income, and provide a better client experience. According to Salesforce (registration needed), 67 percent of marketing executives depend on marketing automation, and 21 percent want to install a new marketing automation platform in the next year. And not for no cause. According to Forbes, 82 percent of marketers see a favourable return on investment (ROI) from marketing automation and believe technology helps them be more productive. The applications range from automating activities inside channels such as email/CRM to decrease human burden and time wasted to more intriguing applications in complicated scenarios such as cross channel next best action flows. Even process modification is mainly automated using machine learning and AI, frequently optimising beyond human capacity. Voice technology (such as AI-powered chatbots) is rapidly being utilised to automate and enhance client interactions. CMO opportunity: Automate everything, delivering the human touch only where it really makes a difference in innovation and customer experience – or when it is demonstrably impractical to do so. 3. Decentralize and centralise marketing activities Highly qualified marketing professionals often spend a significant amount of time on operational operations such as contract administration and execution, as well as pursuing internal and thirdparty stakeholders throughout the campaign process. However, these actions may not always need specialised brand, campaign, or local expertise. Efficiency may be obtained by establishing a marketing operations centre, relieving the team of this capacity drain, and investing in workflow management technology that makes this process as simple and efficient as feasible. Previously, each brand reported the success of their marketing communications activities differently at a worldwide FMCG where one of the writers worked as a consultant. This made comparing the return on marketing communications budget expenditure difficult. To solve this problem, they collaborated closely with the CMO and brand managers to create a KPI reporting structure

that would be utilised uniformly across the portfolio and accessible via a series of interactive dashboards. Not only that, but also served as a catalyst for knowledge and expertise sharing across brands, segments, and functions. It served as the foundation for guaranteeing greater synergy between strategic marketing goals and the tactical outcomes achieved by each of the portfolio's brands. It also served as a platform for future enhancements, such as greater connection with shopper marketing KPIs. CMO opportunity: Centralize non-critical and generic activities, removing it from marketing teams so that they can concentrate only on value-based delivery and improvement. Three marketing emphasis areas to accelerate technological transformation: 1. Establish data platforms as a fundamental capacity for marketing success. CRM systems alone are no longer enough for obtaining a complete picture of clients. It often just shows what they did in the past. To develop a more holistic and real-time perspective of the customer, organisations must begin merging data and analytics from numerous sources, including transaction data as well as other internal and external data sources (location data, social media data). Data platforms (e.g., Hadoop, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure) and API integrations (e.g., Mulesoft) are required to do this. A visualisation layer is also needed to derive value from the acquired data (e.g. Tableau, QliqView, Datarama). As a result, it is not surprising that, according to a Nielson research survey conducted in 2018, 79 percent of CMOs anticipate to spend more in marketing analytics and attribution in the following year. In addition, according to an Ascend2 research study, 51 percent of survey participants ranked the use of data analytics for decision-making as a key priority for their marketing and data technology strategy. Of course, a well-defined data strategy is also essential. This requires considering what data the organisation really needs and wants to know (including from an ethical standpoint), as well as safeguarding the privacy of consumers' data via suitable technology and openness. Cambridge Analytica is an example of what not to do. Opportunity for the CMO: Be the primary advocate and champion for data platform foundations as the primary facilitator of

marketing in the digital era. 2. Using a contemporary marketing stack, enable precision marketing and personalization. Precision marketing and personalization have been marketing buzzwords for a long now in order to boost relevance and ROI. Digital technology and data capabilities have made it more feasible to reach a more exact target audience and give highly personalised content and experiences. Marketing should put in place a technological layer to automate and execute the solutions necessary to analyse and provide insights and actions in real workflow scenarios. This, of course, is in addition to the fundamental data platform features. Invest in marketing execution layers that enable precision marketing and highly personalised experiences as a CMO opportunity. 3. Make use of cutting-edge technology and science to select and design compelling consumer experiences. Traditional advertising is losing efficacy, and ad blocking software is becoming more prevalent. To attract and keep consumers, marketing is increasingly relying on technology to produce relevant, new, and value content, video, and online and offline experiences. Companies (for example, Alibaba) are sustaining high consumer engagement by updating the experience via the use of AI, data analytics, and cloud technologies to develop a visual content style, ecommerce layout, and copywriting at scale. Pinterest maintains clients by using deep learning technology to deliver relevant suggestions that pique the interest of its customers. CMO opportunity: Promote the use of technology that curates appropriate information for customers, allowing rich and gratifying experiences at scale.

What are the key technologies and trends enabling digital transformation in marketing? 1.Customer analytics Customer analytics, or customer intelligence, is the process of collecting and analysing customer data to gain insights about customer behaviour. Customer analytics enables businesses to analyse customer interactions to enhance customer journeys.

2.Customer data platforms Given the various technologies collecting customer data like web and app analytics, CRM etc., there is a need to centralize data to ensure ease of analytics and to easily enforce data privacy requirements. CDPs help companies manage customer data in a compliant manner.

3.Data management platforms First party data on customers in customer data platforms can be enriched with data management platforms that pull more data on customers from 2nd and 3rd parties.

4.Marketing automation The wealth of marketing systems in use, ambitious and urgent goals of corporations lead to a significant amount of marketing work. There are a wealth of technologies that help automate this work.

5.Content intelligence Content intelligence enables companies to increase the effectiveness of their content by analysing texts, images, and videos and providing insights with the help of artificial intelligence.

6.Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Conversion rate optimization (CRO) refers to the process of increasing the rate of customers who perform specific actions that are desirable for the business. Companies can leverage machine learning to increase the efficiency of CRO methods such as A/B testing.

7.Data-driven Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing website traffic through search results. AI applications in SEO can improve the accuracy and performance of SEO strategies for marketing.

8.Voice Search Optimization According to forecasts, half of the UK households are going to own a voice-enabled device and voice transactions are expected to worth £3.5 billion by 2022. Optimizing for voice search is also going to be an

indispensable part of digital marketing strategies.

9.Dynamic pricing Dynamic pricing enables companies to set personalized prices according to customer behavior. AI-based dynamic pricing allows businesses to rapidly respond to demand fluctuations and set more precise price levels.

10.Augmented reality Using AR, businesses can let their customers try products before purchasing.

11.Chatbots Chatbots can be used as digital marketers and 24/7 customer support agents that interact with customers without human intervention, provide answers, guide them during their purchasing process, and collect information about their experience. Chris Parkin, Senior Director at Adobe, guided us through "Redefining the Future with Digital Transformation" at the Adobe Experience Maker's Live virtual event. In his talk, he demonstrated how Adobe is adjusting to new digital technologies and techniques, as well as how other Adobe customers are. In his first point, he discussed how digital transformation enables a "deeper awareness of the consumer," claiming that we can identify "particular customers and audience groups, analyse behaviour, and predict actions" as a result. As a result, we may "leverage data to develop actionable insights and enhance consumer outcomes." So, what does this imply for marketing and sales alignment? For starters, we can trace client journeys from (MQLs) through SQLs to SALs more effectively. This helps us to discover trends and subsequently make predictions, which may help us execute more aligned activities such as building website/digital sales funnels and email marketing campaigns, as well as more precisely identifying the actions that lead to conversions at all phases of the trip. This facilitates the transfer of a prospect from marketing to sales. When we have the tools to monitor what our prospects and customers are doing, what they may require, and what their goals are, we can better support them and allocate resources and time from the proper department in ways that don't place our teams at a competitive disadvantage. Instead, real-time digital touchpoints and consumer data may help us build a stronger collaboration as we work toward mutual conversion objectives. Another recurring element at the Experience Maker's Live event was content. Content is at the heart of how you serve prospects and

customers, exhibit your company's expertise and ideas, and encourage better customer connections and trust today more than ever. But just creating content isn't enough. You may have an idea about what your consumers want and need, but digital transformation enables you to not only know for sure what they want and need, but it also allows you to offer that content precisely when they need it. In his second point, Chris emphasised "Agile Communications" for contemporary organisations, emphasising the need of "more proactive, tailored, and timely communications linked to customer and employee context," which is based on segment, need, and geography, to mention a few. What were the outcomes? "Increase customer retention and staff engagement." Especially in today's economy and with the constraints we face, digital distribution of highly relevant and tailored material may make or break your success with a prospect or customer, and this applies to all phases of the customer journey. It is not just marketing's responsibility to generate digital assets for lead generation and nurturing for sales, especially when sales must increasingly supply correct material to support customers all the way through the decision-making process. Marketo Engage, for example, assists marketing and sales teams in tracking the material that has been shared with prospects and customers. They also assist in establishing clear next steps, responding to inquiries in a timely manner, and providing outstanding service even before the transaction is completed. This, once again, enables for internal alignment, with all workers in customer-centric jobs supporting one another in empowering the customer via helpful, relevant, and timely material. You've probably heard the phrase "unprecedented times" so many times lately that you're sick of hearing it. However, it is one of the greatest ways to convey what we are all going through: There has been a broad fundamental change in not just how we conduct business, but also how we operate. Most of us are learning as we go, changing on the fly and discovering what works and what doesn't via quick trial and error. And, while we're busy figuring out the new normal in our own workplaces, our customers are going through the same thing. Companies that embrace digital transformation are the ones that are succeeding. Chris also mentioned "new modes of working" in

which we must "use remote collaboration, processes, and meeting platforms." He also said that we must "use common technologies to democratise data, content creation, and scale AI." This is especially noticeable when it comes to marketing and sales alignment. Collaboration is essential for success, and gatekeeping, although it may have occurred before, cannot be tolerated. When the traditional in-person, informal channels are absent, organisations that are able to quickly migrate all activities online may notice an increase in communication channels. But this may be a positive thing. We can see how digital transformation of marketing and sales alignment allows for a more closely managed ship: less information falls through the gaps, accountability is more difficult to avoid, and unified systems and tools guarantee everyone is on the same page. While digital transformation is nothing new, our present era has compelled many of us to accelerate adoption in ways we could never have predicted. However, rather of fearing change or struggling to adapt to it, we should consider how it helps us to reach crucial internal milestones, particularly when it comes to marketing and sales alignment. The following are the five keys to a successful digital marketing transformation: 1. Leadership is dedicated to prioritising and safeguarding digital change. We know that individual efforts in digitally leading firms are driven by a C-suite member, but these organisations are also distinguished by their ability to engage a wider range of leadership support. 77 percent of respondents from digitally leading organisations said the chief strategy officer's support was crucial, 74 percent said the CFO's support was critical, and 70 percent said the Board's support was critical to the success of a transformation programme. These figures drop to roughly half in digitally developing enterprises. According to the comments, leadership alignment, rather than individual achievement, is an unparalleled advantage in any large-scale endeavour. This also emphasises the significance of unifying the Csuite behind shared corporate goals in order to overcome the challenges posed by divergent incentives. The new leadership style necessary for tomorrow's organisations is considerably more about

the leadership A-Team than it is about the type-A leader. Overcoming personality disputes and seeing beyond the individual level may enable a collaborative effort to accomplish digital transformation. It is not sufficient to choose a single CXO to serve as the ceremonial head of digital transformation. All C-suite and board members must collaborate to identify which activities are crucial to meeting company objectives, and then pick a leader who is best aligned with those efforts to lead the stages toward change. While functional competencies are vital, it is also critical that these leaders make the decision to lean in. They must enthusiastically embrace the CEO's vision and mobilise their own teams behind the company's goals. 2. Marketing and finance must communicate in the same language. According to our study, addressing today's customer needs requires increased coordination across functional leaders, but there are two teams whose alignment is critical. It is vital for the CMO and CFO to have a collaborative, rather than transactional, relationship. Indeed, 71 percent of respondents who stated that their most senior marketing person establishes clear financial KPIs for the marketing team cited having a collaborative relationship with their CFO, whereas only 61 percent who had a more transactional relationship with their CFO were able to create distinct business KPIs. This creates a fresh and distinct difficulty, since traditionally, the languages of marketing and finance have been at variance. Marketers must learn to communicate the financial effect of marketing operations on company results in order to be recognised as a credible growth lever. This includes converting marketing analytics into ROI. This is a distinguishing feature of digitally leading firms. Only 53% of respondents from digitally leading organisations thought that their method to evaluate marketing performance was approved by finance, compared to 81% of respondents from companies whose digital activities are just getting started. If finance does not understand the business effect of marketing, marketing will continue to struggle to secure the resources required to go from reporting contradictory marketing results to producing outputs that demonstrate how marketing drives business objectives. Creating an open line of communication between the two teams and prioritising active learning

allows both sides to share their knowledge and better understand each other's duties. Facilitating this relationship will assist the organisation in valuing marketing not just as a marcomms specialist, but also as a demand creator that leads directly to greater business results. 3. Planning for change necessitates budgeting for change. Organizations often desire to embrace agile methods of working but fail to do so due to a lack of adequate resources. Changing direction at the drop of a hat requires self-assured leaders who understand when to pivot and have the financial means to experiment. The typical budget planning season allots expenditure amounts to projects in advance, leaving minimal flexibility for modifications throughout the fiscal year. It requires great work to establish arguments for more money in these stringent contexts, which is exacerbated by the divergent vocabulary of marketing and finance departments. According to our findings, digitally successful organisations are distinguished by their proactive approach to reallocating cash for initiatives throughout the year. Marketers from digitally leading organisations are more likely than those from non-digitally leading companies to indicate their budgets are examined (and, if necessary, adjusted) every month or quarter based on what is required to fulfil their goals. By including this flexibility into the company plan, teams may modify course depending on crucial learnings along the road. 4. Broaden cooperation to include the appropriate external partners. Digitally leading organisations are more likely to work with external partners to address gaps in digital marketing skills, while digitally developing companies are more inclined to do it themselves. Although many businesses see the expense of external partners as a financial burden, digitally advanced businesses see it as an investment in their own operational efficiency. Sixty-four percent of respondents from digitally leading organisations stated they either outsource totally or have equal internal and external duties for managing marketing campaigns, generating digital creative, and calculating campaign ROI. Only 46% of respondents from digitally developing organisations outsourced any digital marketing activity. Outsourcing more complicated skills allows digitally advanced organisations to

concentrate on achieving goals without the strain of working alone. This reallocation of time and energy might provide respite to team members who are under strain. In response to digital marketing activities, 89 percent of respondents from digitally leading firms were happy that providing digital tools a bigger role would free up time to concentrate on other objectives, while 75 percent of respondents from digitally emerging organisations concurred. The strong support from both sides underlines the understanding that the advantages of digital transformation initiatives – and sharing the burden of those efforts with other partners – may significantly improve employee experience and efficiency, as well as business results. 5. Culture consumes digital change like it's a meal. To broaden Peter Drucker's insightful argument beyond strategy, we discovered that organisational culture is equally critical to digital transformation. Organizations may invest in cutting-edge technology, develop creative initiatives, and recruit for extraordinary qualities, yet their corporate culture can still hold them back. New degrees of crosscollaboration and experimentation must be supported by team culture. One of the most often mentioned characteristics in our C-suite interviews was the necessity to embrace the capacity to function in a changing environment. Organizations that are willing to embrace new strategies, try new procedures, and adapt team structures will flourish, even in the face of uncertainty. This important cultural shift must begin at the top, with leaders who demonstrate an open-minded attitude to their jobs and responsibilities. Eighty percent of respondents from digitally leading firms said their marketing leader encourages change, and seventy percent said their organisation had an open attitude to experimentation. This compared to 64% and 47% for responders from digitally developing organisations, respectively. The worldwide digital transformation market was valued at USD 608.72 billion in 2021, and it is predicted to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.1 percent between 2022 and 2030. The COVID-19 pandemic put the whole globe to the test of maintaining business continuity in the midst of social isolation, lockdown, work from home, and other problems. While some firms were prepared to handle the difficulties, others were not owing to a

lack of digital strategy, other critical tools, or infrastructure essential for successful operation. Despite all of the drawbacks COVID-19 has brought to personal, professional, and communal life, it has also provided new chances for enterprises. When used correctly, innovation improves competency and usefulness; the COVID-19 scenario provides the ideal chance for enterprises to manage their digital channels. Digital transformation assists firms in dealing with numerous risks connected with disruption, such as rebuilding corporate, market volatility, and geopolitical events that are unpredictable and may result in erratic consequences. Furthermore, shifting from a traditional to a new digitalized setup facilitates the launch of numerous new technically sophisticated goods and services. By boosting performance, digital transformation may alter, integrate, and simplify everyday corporate activities. It assists organisations in arranging their activities in order to save time and effort while making optimal use of resources. Because digital transformation automates conventional corporate operations, it decreases the likelihood of human mistakes. Through the use of software, firms may concentrate on further strengthening their brand reputation by improving customer experience and achieving improved customer retention rates. Digital transformation assists firms in adapting to the evolving technology landscape and dealing with rapid changes in the company. Furthermore, enterprises investing in analytics, mobility, cloud services, and big data technologies as part of the development of Digital Experience Platforms will account for a significant portion of market growth (DXP). In recent years, the world has experienced several technological advances, such as predictive analysis, blockchain, quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML), among others. Organizations generate massive amounts of data, which need technical assistance in the form of machine learning algorithms and strong analytical tools in order to discover insights. This is one of the most important aspects boosting technology adoption, and it also makes the process more methodical for day-to-day operations. The lack of systematic planning and budget allocation is one of the most significant challenges that businesses encounter while implementing digital transformation. To embark on the

digital transformation path, a firm will need a large financial investment to acquire such technology breakthroughs as well as an appropriately qualified workforce to ensure a smooth execution process. As a result, the whole process necessitates a large capital expenditure, which may result in reduced rewards at initially, but in the long term, this large investment may be one of the primary reasons for a successful firm. The lack of effective budget allocation limits organisational decisionmaking authority and creates uncertainty about the transformation endeavour. To overcome this, companies must have a long-term plan and have a solid financial structure. The analytics sector had the greatest market share of more than 30% in 2021, owing to the strong need to integrate massive amounts of company data to provide powerful insights. The analytics section assists industries in reducing equipment downtime, increasing operational efficiency, and increasing production. Businesses rely on analytics because of its ability to forecast the future, which leads to increased corporate performance. Organizations may better understand customer purchase habits with the use of analytics, allowing for more precise forecasting. Over the projection period, the cloud computing industry is predicted to increase significantly. The cloud category encompasses public, private, and hybrid cloud technologies that provide on-demand deployment and scalability. Because of the reduced installation costs, this category is expected to develop rapidly, allowing not just major organizations but also startups and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to benefit from these platforms. Furthermore, it is often utilized to design and adapt corporate processes and consumer experiences in response to changing market circumstances. In 2021, the professional services category accounted for more than 70% of total revenue. Professional services are a combination of consulting and managed services that help organizations of all sizes and in a variety of sectors. Professional services are required by businesses undertaking digitization to address concerns such as vendor selection and cultural change. This market is predicted to expand as professional service providers assist in leveraging and deploying the appropriate resources at the appropriate time. On the other hand, the implementation and integration service market is likely to rise at a

rapid pace as firms seek out implementation service providers to help them integrate digital technologies smoothly. Because integrating and implementing digital transformation is a time-consuming process, it is projected that businesses will need competent help when adopting digital transformation within their current framework, which will fuel the expansion of this industry. In 2021, the on-premises category accounted for more than half of all revenue. Many firms have chosen on-premise deployment because it provides viable options for severe product customization. On-premise implementation provides greater information security and helps firms comply with various legislation and requirements. Large enterprises have heavily invested in onpremise deployment since it is a more secure way to keep secret information private. On-premise deployment aids in the establishment of a bespoke network of digital transformation that best serves the organization's needs. Because of the rising usage of mobile devices and developments in information sharing technologies, the hosted category is predicted to grow at the fastest CAGR of 26.6 percent. This kind of distribution provides more flexibility and allows enterprises to vastly tailor their goods and services. Cloud-based approaches aid in the development of cost structures and the establishment of a control community for coordinating and directing various supply chain modules. In 2021, the major enterprise category will have a market share of more than 55%. These businesses are embracing the digital transformation path because it delivers cost-effectiveness and easy execution of business processes. Large organizations need a good solution since they require the ease of framework collaboration, improved flexibility, and data security. Large firms may deploy innovative practices across organizations and accelerate change in a variety of areas because they have more financial capabilities. Furthermore, huge firms play an important role in fostering innovative ideas and promoting digital awareness. Over the projected period, the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) category is predicted to grow at the fastest rate, with a CAGR of 24.6 percent. This segment's growth may be attributed to factors such as lower device ownership costs and a greater emphasis on cloud computing, which makes it simpler for SMEs to streamline their company operations. The increasing level of

knowledge among businesses about the benefits of digitalization has prompted firms to spend extensively in order to develop and maintain their present positions in an exceedingly competitive market. Furthermore, rapid advancements in cloud innovation and the development of new technologies like as machine learning, predictive analysis, AI, the Internet of Things, and others have made it possible for SMEs to use them. North America retained the greatest revenue share of more than 30% in 2021, due to growing internet use and widespread adoption of various sorts of online payment options. Furthermore, different measures are being tried by government agencies to accelerate the digital transformation process in North America, such as tight adherence to regulatory rules to safeguard data. Many businesses are counting on digital transformation to reach the people and drive development. Digital transformation need highly dynamic and adaptive IT assistance, which is present in the majority of firms in this area. North America has a significant dominance in sophisticated programming and software solutions, owing to large retail, industrial, and automotive activities in Canada and the United States. Due to the rapid expansion in the number of SMEs and the rising service sector, the Asia Pacific area is expected to emerge as the fastest emerging region during the next eight years. The growing knowledge of the benefits of moving to the cloud, as well as the rapid adoption of novel technologies, are some of the causes persuading organizations to upgrade their IT infrastructure in order to ensure future growth. Organizations are embracing digital transformation solutions to enhance customer experience and streamline company operations by empowering employees to make educated choices. The growing number of mobile phone users, the development of web-based commerce, and the increased usage of data analytics are all aspects that are expected to drive the region's market growth. The term "MarTech stack" refers to a collection of sophisticated and linked marketing technology and solutions that assist simplify the whole marketing process by providing a logical and effective framework. The MarTech stack is the foundation of your company's marketing technology infrastructure and strategy. Implementing MarTech aims to improve outcomes by incorporating cutting-edge

technology into your digital marketing plan. A MarTech platform is utilized in a variety of digital channels, including CMS, CRM, web analytics, and advertising platforms. These are then used at various phases of a company's customer journey to create an effective digital marketing strategy. The MarTech stack provides complete visibility and control over marketing data management, analytics, automation, and CRM activities. The MarTech stack also focuses on the difficulties that a buyer may encounter and rationalizes the issue areas. This is accomplished by assisting your firm in retaining, nurturing, and expanding their consumer base. Furthermore, the MarTech stack gives actionable insights from the data gathered, allowing you to make educated choices with the correct technology and skill set. As technological options for every marketing function have proliferated, it has become difficult for marketers to choose the proper tool from a list of thousands. Customer relationship management, project management, artificial intelligence inclusion, producing tailored content, social media monitoring, and evaluating marketing analytics are all part of the digital form of marketing strategy. While MarTech solutions may bring competitive benefits, making the incorrect option when picking new marketing technology can result in a significant loss for the firm as a whole. As a result, marketers must determine which technologies are likely to fail and which will provide opportunities for increased ROI. Marketers cannot afford to make any errors in determining the objective of the new technology, choosing the proper provider, or integrating the right tools. Marketers often fail to make strategy-driven decisions because they are unable to keep up with the burgeoning MarTech advancements. As a result, before investing in a costly MarTech, your team should do a continuous review of the new marketing technology you want to implement. Here is a set of suggestions for developing your organization's MarTech stack to help you get the most out of your marketing investment and establish a competitive edge in the industry: 1.Ascertain that the new marketing technology is compatible with your current marketing stack. Upgrading to new technology does not need you to abandon all your marketing team has established over time. Rather, all of your previous

client data and accomplishments play a significant part in the development of your new MarTech. As a result, you must examine the areas, if any, that may cause a bottleneck in integrating your old marketing technology with the new one. The new marketing technology supplier should also understand your company's goals and create digital marketing services to meet those goals. It should effectively serve your unique use cases, and to do so, you must be completely clear about your business requirements. To prevent problems in the future, you must guarantee that the new marketing technology connects seamlessly with your old system. The new MarTech should be able to interface with current core technologies such as marketing automation platforms, CRM systems, and content management systems. Is your current technology also capable of addressing the promises of new marketing technologies? 2.Determine if you want MarTech for the long run or for the short term. Predicting your marketing aim term and your specific demands will assist you in selecting the appropriate technology supplier. If you have a long-term goal in mind, is the new marketing technology you want to use suitable with your strategy? A long-term marketing goal will need post-service client care, which not all MarTech organisations may provide. It is ideal to determine if the new marketing technology will support several projects or whether it is designed for short-term marketing tactics. 3.Make sure you have a team in place to appropriately use marketing technologies. If you outsource a marketing technology service provider, you are almost certainly thinking that they would also deploy the tools for you. However, this is not always the case. Some marketing technology firms just give the tools; the rest is up to you. You don't need to be concerned if your team is up to date on the newest technical innovations in the marketing sector and is confident in adopting them. However, if you are a software firm with no expertise of digital marketing, you may get confused in the complexities of the new marketing technology solutions. 4.Look for privacy safeguards. The growth of technology has also increased the risk of cybercrime,

and when adopting any digital service, it is critical to maintain a close eye on the security side. Not all marketing technology service companies provide privacy protection, and some do so at a fee. Because the whole marketing process is based on consumer data and financial transactions, any flaw in the system might result in a poor reputation for your organization among your pool of prospective clients. All personally identifiable and transaction-level data in your new marketing technology should be completely secure. 5.Keep track of marketing metrics. The most crucial advantage of digital marketing technology is its capacity to develop and deliver success indicators for your marketing campaign. Marketing metrics like as open rate, conversion rate, and others are used to measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing initiatives. Based on the findings, you may fine-tune your marketing plan by addressing the weaknesses. However, understanding the metrics might be tough, and resolving it can be much more complex. As a consequence, ensure that your new marketing technology handles the metrics analysis process automatically and provides you with recommendations on how to improve a certain approach. 6.Make your marketing system more automated. With rising workloads and fast technological progress, it is time to share some of our tasks with machines. Automating the potential areas of the marketing system allows you to generate more leads in less time and establish stronger client connections. A well-designed marketing automation platform prioritizes not just enterprise-grade capabilities but also consumer-grade usability. By building your MarTech stack on automation systems, you can simply evaluate saved customer data, allowing you to create a customer-centric marketing strategy. Furthermore, providing excellent customer service puts you ahead of your competition in the business. 7.Never change your marketing approach. With so many marketing tools available and the pressure of success, it is easy to get carried away to the point of changing the whole marketing approach. This might cause confusion in the system and lead to a big digital marketing disaster. As a result, always remember to adhere to your plan first and use technology that complements your

marketing approach. To reach your company goal, you must design your MarTech stack around your sales and revenue-generating approach. Remember that conceptualizing the whole process has taken a significant lot of work since it was constructed, with every angle taken into account. 8.All acquired data should be segmented and documented. If your company is on the correct course, your data center must be brimming with unregulated and oversaturated data. Because that is what a contemporary, thriving company seems to be, but only until all of the abandoned data becomes misunderstood owing to a lack of recording of the ever-evolving data. To ensure long-term success and prevent data integrity difficulties, label all of your clients as well as your company history. This allows for convenient access to data anytime it is required, and it is also simple to grasp for new staff. 9.Give your plan top importance. Create your MarTech stack in such a manner that it readily collaborates with the rest of your team and will continue to do so in the future. Even though you will have to continually updating your system to stay up with technological advances, you cannot design your MarTech stack primarily on your short-term objectives since switching systems may be costly. You must first assess how each of your actions will impact the business's future and then create the MarTech stack appropriately. Furthermore, there is no use in spending time hunting for forever-technology since we all know that the idea of forever-technology is a hoax. So, ideally, you should choose technology that will keep your organization running until the next interruption. 10.Conduct an Audit : Technology can do amazing things, yet even a little oversight may devastate your whole strategy. As a result, before stacking marketing tools and technologies, it's critical to do a thorough assessment of everything, including marketing automation, web analytics, conversion rate, sales enablement, social media platforms, and paid media. This allows you to assess how accurate your final MarTech stack will be, as well as provide a framework for resolving any issues that are discovered. What Technology Should Companies Prioritize For 2022 Investment

Priorities, And Why? Here's a high-level overview of what to anticipate in terms of digital transformation in 2022. The purpose of this blog is to look at the most important components of digital transformation and how businesses may use them to their advantage in the leaders vs. laggards fight. Here are the technologies for digital marketing: 1.The 5G and IoT Trends In 2014, 5G, or fifth-generation, mobile networks were announced. 5G's new features include multi-peak data rates with low latency and a better user experience, as well as increased network capacity. Exciting new advancements are on the horizon as 5G and edge computing collaborate. In support of 5G network operations, IBM, for example, will supply cloud services to Verizon and Telefonica. Typical jobs will be automated using AI, drone-initiated inspections, and video inspections, while network issues will be avoided. This is a kind of lowcode development that is becoming more popular. 2.The following are some examples of 5G IoT applications: Automobiles connected: Using 5G's low latency and high bandwidth, cars will be able to store and initiate bidirectional communication. Shipments can now be tracked with simplicity and accuracy thanks to developments in shipping and logistics. Improving the client experience will enable more exact delivery schedules to be updated. Patients will be able to be monitored remotely from any place thanks to a 5G connection. Medical practitioners may also help at any time and from any location, regardless of their physical location. 3.The Zero-Trust Security Model The Zero Trust security concept is built on rigorous access rules and the assumption that no one, even those already within the network's perimeter, can be trusted. It is one of the most often used security models. Many businesses are already planning for and moving toward a cloudbased, zero-trust security paradigm. This is the kind of low-code development that is becoming more popular. The new security solution, as well as the start of safe business interactions, will build trust, authority, and brand reputation. To assure the security of all of

the aforementioned, a zero-trust technique is applied (applications, data, and even infrastructure). 4.The Most Popular Software 2.0 Is On Its Way A requirements document is used in Software 2.0 to generate source code that does not need the intervention of a human programmer. Deep Learning (DL) may be used to assist in the construction of neural networks, which are required to automate code authoring. MLOps (Machine Learning Operations) and DataOps (Data Operations) are still in their infancy. As a result, firms will need to acquire these abilities in order to deploy Software 2.0. Organizations may increase the quality of their data as well as the efficiency and accuracy of their analytics operations with the aid of DataOps. MLOps, or machine learning operations, is a subset of DataOps that focuses on enhancing machine learning operations as well as automating and grasping business objectives. 5.The Uses of Data Fabrics and Their Popularity MarketsandMarkets predicts that the worldwide data fabric market will reach USD 4.2 billion by 2026. What exactly is the Data Fabric, and how does it function? Gartner defines data fabric using a novel paradigm. Consider the following possibilities if you own a self-driving car: i)When the self-driving functions are deactivated, the driver must assume control of the car to complete the journey. When the driver loses attention, the self-driving features take over and perform necessary course changes. ii)This is how it works, just like the data fabric. The textile may be used to provide ideas that increase the efficiency of data teams (whenever required). When the data specialists are pleased with the automatic course changes, the lever may be moved to the data fabrics. To make their work simpler, data teams may subcontract onerous activities that they would otherwise have to do to data fabrics. 6.Models of Hyper-automation Many business and IT processes may be automated to a significant extent as a consequence of Hyper Automation. Business executives are thinking about robotic automation, low-code/no-code

implementation, and the usage of artificial intelligence and machine learning. According to Deloitte, more than 93 percent of firms want to deploy RPA by 2023. Robotic Process Automation refers to the use of software robots to do repetitive activities at work (RPA). RPA aids in decreasing costs and boosting the scalability of organizational processes by shortening time to market. 7.Platforms for Low-Level Coding A low-code platform allows for the creation of software by just dragging and dropping objects. Because no previous coding experience is necessary, this cutting-edge technology is accessible to non-technical users as well. The required assistance is provided with the AI Development Services. 8.Platforms for Basic Coding Using low-code technologies may also aid with API integrations, which enable simple connections without the need for engineers. An example of a low-code platform: Airtable is a low-code platform that allows you to develop apps with drag-and-drop ease. With a current market valuation of $11 billion, low-code platforms are clearly growing more popular and extensively employed in the workplace. 9.Properly Expressed Total Experience The term "Total Experience" refers to the combination of user and customer experience (UX), as well as customer and staff experience (CX). Nowadays, customer relationship management and customer experience management software may be found in a broad range of forms and configurations. As Texas grows, disruptive apps that meet the demands of both customers and workers are certain to emerge. 10.Everything Is Provided As A Service (Xaas) Clients may acquire almost anything they want with this new digital transformation concept, often known as "Anything as a Service." It supports the concept of "as-a-service." SaaS, PaaS, and IAS are only a handful of the basic cloud service models featured, but there are countless more that aren't. "Servitization," which is the provision of a mix of commodities and services in a single bundle, is also an option with XaaS. A simple example of servitization is Amazon's Alexa, which delivers artificial intelligence-driven services in addition to moveable

physical objects. 11.Models of Generative AI It is a kind of artificial intelligence known as "generative AI," which leverages current information to create new works that are similar to yet distinct from the originals. According to studies, generative AI will produce 10% of all data by 2025, up from less than 1% now. 12.AR Cloud Augmented Reality Cloud (AR Cloud) is a three-dimensional (3D) digital representation of the real world created by leveraging the spatial features of the environment. A "digital twin" of a physical location allows users to engage in real time and share their experiences with others. AR Cloud is predicted to reach a $102 billion market value in the United States by 2024, upending the whole AR value chain. Companies like as Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Visualix, and Scape Technologies are increasing their investments in AR Cloud, despite the fact that the maturity of 5G networks will determine the technology's success. Key areas that marketers and businesses need to focus on include on Digital Marketing are: 1.Improve the end to end customer experience: Companies need to understand the customer experience, from awareness about their product or service to sales and post- sales support. Most organizations have a fragmented approach based on channels, products, segments that drive dissatisfaction and customer churn. It is crucial to develop and understand the customer journey and map the organizational processes to mimic the customer journey. Develop use cases and journey maps so that you can see and feel the pain points/friction in the journey and make the required changes. This gives the team the opportunity to design the experience after having lived it. 2.Leverage marketing technologies and build integrated marketing platforms: Today, marketing technology allows us to execute and measure the effectiveness of different customer touch points and campaigns. Organization need to be able to leverage marketing technologies and build an integrated platform that will help

them test different experiences, measure the effectiveness and get a full view of customer behavior data. To be effective, teams have to be able to centralize their marketing technologies, platforms and channels and sync these resources to execute their marketing tactics. This strategy helps business to get a full view of the customer and allows for better business decisions. 3.Use data to drive marketing decisions: Lot of organizations are using data for decision making and also debating whether marketing focus should be “left brain or right brain.” Data is unbiased and should be used across the marketing functions to drive business goals. Teams should focus on using data to drive marketing, be it direct mail, e-mail, web, mobile or social media. One cannot ignore the power of data and the positive impact it has both in terms of ROI and the customer experience. Using data enables us to create the experience based on customer wants and needs and allows us to deliver on ROI since we don’t have to market to every single consumer that interacts with us. 4.Create “marketing as a service”:The concept of “Software as a Service” (SaaS) is proving to be a popular delivery model for software. With marketing being data driven with a heavy technology component, I fully expect that in the next few years that marketing will also follow the same trajectory. It will be more of a service that businesses will use to engage with the customers – whether it is selling a product, providing customer support, getting feedback or simply offering an opportunity to interact with the brand. It will or should be the corner stone of customer engagement with your brand. Marketing Trends for Digital Transformation in Marketing & Business: 1.Opportunity and Leadership Today's marketing professionals confront new challenges, ranging from increased consumer expectations to increased emphasis on delivering growth and lifetime value. However, with consumers and ROI at the forefront of all choices, contemporary marketers have a unique opportunity - to lead. The typical marketing business now employs 14 distinct data sources to provide insights. This number is expected to grow to over 45 sources by 2025! 1 Yes, the Digital Revolution has given marketers a plethora of options, including the

capacity to gather data from social media, loyalty programmes, payment systems, mobile devices, and more. However, with our consumers increasingly interacting from many devices and platforms, marketers confront the challenge of offering a seamless, tailored customer experience with little interruption to business flow – all while safeguarding customer data from breaches and creating brand trust. 2.Challenges in the Industry During my travels as the CMO of Microsoft's US subsidiary, I've identified three major concerns that have resonated with my colleagues. The first relates to consumer expectations. Customer expectations are determined by their previous purchasing experiences. Customers, as previously said, now want the same experience across all channels. They anticipate no disruptions in the marketing flow, and they always expect their data to remain completely protected. Meeting these expectations on a continuous basis is critical because it fosters trust, which we feel is the most important currency for the contemporary marketer. Good data is one of the most important ways intelligent marketers learn about their consumers, allowing them to create a consistent experience that will continue to build a trusting connection with customers. Good data, on the other hand, is about more than just data flow. The idea of 'excellent data' refers to how data is organised and how it is transformed into predictive and prescriptive analysis. This necessitates a strategic approach to marketing data models, which brings me to my second main challenge: growing pressure on boards to drive growth and generate the correct data set in order to make the right choices and obtain the right insights. The third difficulty concerns marketing teams, especially how to ensure that our employees are really adopting digital marketing. Today's marketing teams must be able to use both the left and right sides of their brains, or strike a balance between art, creativity, science, and technology-driven attitudes. In order to react to these industry difficulties, Across all subsidiaries and divisions, Microsoft has implemented three fundamental pillars: Technology, Capabilities, and Culture 3.Culture Microsoft's culture is created from the top down and from the bottom

up. Satya has moved Microsoft away from a "know it all" culture and toward a "learn it all" one. This strategy allows us to genuinely put the consumer first. We emphasised workshops with customers and partners so that we can better listen to top-of-mind concerns, understand business demands, and connect with our customers in their language. This helps to minimise any disruptions to the ordinary flow of business caused by our touchpoints. Furthermore, a top down and bottom up strategy to embedding culture assures that the brand that I offer will be delivered not just via contacts with me, but also through any other level of person with whom the consumer may engage inside the firm. This is referred to as One Microsoft One Voice. This contributes to establishing a degree of trust with the consumer. We think that trust, rather than brand loyalty, is the new cornerstone of success in every consumer connection. 4.People – Capability A critical question that every CMO must consider is, "Do I have the proper personnel to carry out this plan and bring it to life?" As I grew in my role as CMO, I began to search for potential within my team in a new way. In the past, I've concentrated my recruitment efforts on hightech marketers. After all, don't we work in the high-tech industry? However, when we shifted our focus to customer obsession, I began to move my recruiting to employees from specialised sectors. So today I have folks from the financial business, the healthcare industry, and so on. As a result, my staff understands how to communicate with the consumer without disrupting their usual business flow, ensuring that my marketers and the customers they are marketing to are constantly speaking the same language. Today, I also have Developers and Data Scientists on my team who are providing the wiring for all of my MarTech products as well as all of the information I need to effectively go to market. My team is made up of individuals from the sectors we target, people who can lead with customer focus, and people who have a strong grasp of data. Another consideration while transitioning from 'know it all' to 'learn it all' is the need to prioritise learning! On my team, I have someone who is solely responsible for the marketing curriculum and ensuring that we provide time for our staff to study as part of their job and that they are up to speed on the newest and best technologies. Last but not least, in

order to fully use the potential of One Microsoft, we must guarantee that the conditions for successful cooperation are in place. We are doing this using our own technologies, notably Microsoft Teams. We've been able to leverage on the variety of our team members, who reside all throughout the United States, by using Teams. 5.Organizational Capability We wanted one brand and one voice at Microsoft, not the clutter of several brands. What we've done to answer this requirement, and what I believe is one of the most important pillars of our digital transformation, is to establish a single Global Demand Centre. The Global Demand Centre is a global infrastructure that can track all of our clients' marketing actions, whether they are online or offline. Capturing these data points on customer activity and putting them into machine learning and artificial intelligence helps us to understand the client's behaviour and what their journey should be based on their individual circumstances and goals. Our learnings from Global Advertising and the Global Demand Centre enable us to shift more focused profiles into our local US subsidiary, allowing us to connect with our clients on a more customised level alongside our sales account teams. Anchoring all of this is the fact that I have local marketing and analytics teams looking at the data on a daily basis, utilising the insight gleaned from global habits. To ensure that our message is successful, we correlate such behaviours to data points in our local marketing and customer sales positions. 6.Technology To provide a customised experience in the B2B arena, you must first build a thorough understanding of your consumer. You must comprehend your client's journey in addition to your customer. The worldwide platform that I mentioned previously is built on the Adobe Experience Platform's profile tag ID scheme. This is how we can determine where a consumer is in their journey in real time. As we all know, the customer journey is anything but linear. As a result, understanding the one-by-one journey of each of our customers and connections within our customers is crucial to ensuring that we are effectively preparing for the next action. In terms of what it enables us to achieve, the remainder of our technological stack is more

conventional. This includes ensuring that we have all of the data we need to increase our digital and social engagement. Understanding our share of voice and how we compare to the competition, as well as which tales are resonating the most, enables us to position our investments in the right location at the right time. We are seeking for accuracy in our ROI as a result of all of this. We are shifting our focus away from how many people attended an event or downloaded a whitepaper and toward a more holistic view of all the touchpoints necessary to convert the customer and utilising that knowledge to drive the design of our marketing strategy. Here is a list of the advantages of using digital marketing to grow a company: 1. Marketing on a Budget To reach clients, digital marketing is inexpensive and needs a tiny ticket size or price point. As a result, it's one of the greatest choices for micro and small enterprises. More information may be found at – How to Implement Low-Cost Marketing Strategies for Business Growth. 2. Boost Conversions You will experience increased conversions with digital marketing since you will be able to monitor data on a regular basis, and real-time insights will assist you with conversion improvements. Visitors are converted into subscribers, leads, and repeat customers. Furthermore, they may be easily monitored and studied using website analytics. 3. Boosts Business Profits As conversions improve, company revenues increase and client acquisition expenses decrease, increasing the ROI. Do you know that businesses that use social media marketing create more than 78 percent more business conversions than other influencers? As a result, ensure that you employ digital marketing effectively in order to reach a large number of clients and increase company earnings. 4. Identify Ideal Customers Offline marketing requires careful consideration of consumer segmentation. However, when it comes to digital marketing, you have a framework to choose your consumer segment when uploading your campaign, and this steers you towards the perfect people, making it

one of the greatest characteristics that dominate conventional marketing. Targeting the proper client category yields immediate and effective results. As a result, tiny firms may benefit quickly. 5. Improve Brand Reputation The basic goal of every marketing campaign is to boost revenue and attract new consumers. The same is true for digital marketing: as more people identify your business, its reputation grows. In a word, digital marketing is the finest option for long-term company development and demonstrable outcomes. The results-driven solutions and potent tactics propel your company to the next level. Here are a few reasons why small firms should employ digital marketing: 1. Promotes Trust When companies communicate, engage, and connect with their customers, they gain their trust. As a result, having an internet presence makes a business more trustworthy, responsive, and customer-friendly. Through online presence and digital marketing, every small firm may establish trust. 2. Reach Out to Your Customers Without an online presence, digital marketing methods and sure-fire procedures help your organisation stand out from the crowd. In general, this includes advertisements, company promotions, and campaigns. All of these actions help the firm contact more individuals in a shorter period of time, making client interaction and reach simpler. 3. Get to Know Your Customers One of the finest aspects of digital marketing is how easy it is to comprehend the customer's interests, preferences, and other behaviours. Analytics and detailed consumer data make it simpler for small companies to reach out to customers. Accurate analytics also make it easier to follow your customers' activity in real time. In a word, this is a one-way platform for consumer interaction, company expansion, and brand exposure. Significantly, small businesses aiming for client attention at a low cost may benefit from digital marketing. 4. High Return on Investment

Digital marketing, as opposed to traditional marketing, provides a high return on investment. Surprisingly, it's the only marketing plan that works within your budget, is readily scalable, and gets you more clients in a shorter amount of time. It's a better alternative than conventional marketing techniques because of the huge returns. These are just a handful of the benefits of using internet marketing. Yet. There are several reasons and advantages to explore internet marketing as a means of taking a company to the next level. Do you want to find out more? Here are a few of the many advantages of incorporating digital marketing into small companies. The third edition of the DBS Digital Readiness Survey indicated that digitalization initiatives by firms throughout the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region have maintained pace; nevertheless, there is still opportunity for further progress. The worldwide epidemic and ensuing lockdown has expedited the digital journey for corporates and SME's in India. The study, formerly known as the DBS Digital Treasurer Survey, was conducted in June 2021 and involved approximately 2,600 corporate treasurers, CEOs, CFOs, and business owners from 13 APAC markets – India, Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam – as well as the US and UK. According to the poll, over half (48 percent) of major corporates (businesses with annual revenues more than USD 1 billion equivalent) and middle-market enterprises (annual revenues between USD 200 million and USD 1 billion equivalent) in India have a digital transformation plan in place. Seven in ten (70%) big corporates and middle-market enterprises in the APAC region have a digital transformation plan in place, with Taiwan leading the way at 95 percent. This is a significant rise from last year, when just 57% of APAC organisations had a digital strategy. There was also a considerable increase in the number of enterprises having clearly defined digital strategy, which increased to more than three in ten (35 percent) from 26 percent the previous year. According to the poll, 62 percent of major corporates and middlemarket enterprises in India are in the early phases of digitalization. They have created digital roadmaps so far and are quickly scaling up their efforts. "If there was any question regarding the primary advantages of digitalization, the epidemic has simply erased it," stated

Divyesh Dalal, Head Of Global Transaction Services, DBS Bank India. Adopting digital transformation is no longer a "nice to have," but rather a "must have" for corporate organisations seeking to preserve a competitive advantage and enhance business drivers. We are seeing a tremendous rate of technological innovation, which will provide its own set of obstacles in terms of acceptance and implementation. DBS offers enabling solutions to its customers by utilising its digital-first capabilities across flow products." Small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) account for more than 96 percent of all Asian businesses and are critical to the region's economic development. To further understand their requirements, the DBS Digital Readiness Survey was extended this year to collect information from over 1,000 small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) across six APAC regions (including India) on where they were in terms of digitalization. Singapore's SMEs lead the pace in terms of digital development, with 72 percent having a digital transformation plan in place, followed by Hong Kong (47 percent), China (44 percent), Taiwan (38 percent), India (25 percent), and Indonesia (20 percent ). Indian SMEs, on the other hand, have digitised 23% of their payment collection volumes, up from 18% a year earlier. The results show that digital channels are growing, indicating that SMEs are making progress in their digital journey in the face of the epidemic. "A increase in the use of digitised payment collection amongst SMEs in India is a promising sign of the value these firms perceive in digitization," said Sudarshan Chari, Head Of Business Banking, DBS Bank India. More than half of these SMEs said they would prioritise banking relationships and applications throughout their digital transformation journey. This dependence on the banking provider for assistance and advice reveals a huge potential for market education and resource gap closure. DBS will continue to develop and deliver seamless, digital banking products to meet this segment's banking demands." As the epidemic increases demand for contact-free services and raises concerns about supply chain resilience, almost all big corporates, middle-market enterprises, and SMEs in India have reported that they are under external pressure to adapt digitally. Growing supply chain difficulties (32 percent) and consumers and major market demand are the primary external pressures driving the

need for change for big corporates and middle-market enterprises (28 percent ). Growing supply chain difficulties were highlighted as a source of digitization pressure by 34% of Indian SMEs. However, the barriers to digital adoption differ between major corporations, middlemarket organisations, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in India. The biggest impediments to the adoption of new technology in the organisation, according to the former section, are cybersecurity problems (54%), a lack of digital expertise (53%), and cost (51%). The high cost of implementing new technology (80%) was the most significant hurdle for SMEs. DDoS assaults (77 percent), cloud infrastructure security (76 percent), and customer data theft (72 percent) were the most worrying problems reported by more than half of the major corporates and middle-market organisations surveyed. The pandemic-induced disruptions in supply chains and financial flow have underlined the significance of digitising these essential banking and finance activities. In terms of digital expenditure, about half of India's major corporates and middle-market firms identified trade and supply chain finance (82 percent), continuing cash management (58 percent), and back-office operations (55 percent) as the three most important digital investment sectors. 63 percent of Indian SMEs are investing in new cash management systems. Surprisingly, India is one of the larger APAC countries where SMEs spend more in new digital solutions to improve cross-border payments and FX capabilities. How can marketers make the most of this "growth spurt"? Virtual event technology has emerged as the obvious option over the last several months. Virtual event technology drives engagement and subsequently allows marketers to gather key activity and interest data in ways that were just not conceivable (or, at least, not fully appreciated) before the start of 2020. By combining this digital event data mine with what you already know about prospects and customers, you can strategically open up this wealth of opportunity, allowing marketers to route hot prospects to sales and marketing nurtures based on readiness and interest based on better data than ever before. When in-person events return, these same techniques will scale across the whole event channel (virtual, hybrid, and inperson), enabling you to use and optimise all event kinds. The silos that divide marketing and planning should be demolished

permanently; in fact, they should never have formed in the first place. Your event planning staff may have been a well-oiled machine when it came to in-person events, but as previously said, virtual events need some rethinking of old processes, hand-offs, and many of the new skills necessary to flourish in the digital realm. Because of the emphasis on digital, planners must assume the job of video producer, focusing on camera angles, recording sessions, and so on. The typical run-of-show is now far more thorough and intricate, according to show planners. This change in thinking necessitates a more tech-first mindset for planners, with digital marketing and marketing operations skills becoming more important for onboarding new technologies and managing crucial connectors that enable data to flow. Cvent has provided virtual and hybrid training certification to aid event professionals with the shift. Eliminating silos and bringing these new teams together to redesign checklists and processes allows for a more rapid path to adaptation and success. As event planners, marketers, digital teams, and IT collaborate more closely, there will undoubtedly be advantages for the remainder of your event programme. Breaking down conventional event execution silos will not only enable you to provide a better experience for attendees, but will also allow you to programmatically gather data that will eventually lead to improved sales conversations, conversions, and revenue. More innovative thinking, with a dash of conventional thinking thrown in for good measure. As you go ahead with your events, success will need you to start thinking about virtual, hybrid, and in-person events as real programme types, similar to how your teams presently think of webinars. Webinars, like the majority of your digital channels, are scalable programmes that you are familiar with, fuelled and constructed by templates, consistent data gathering, and technology. Virtual, hybrid, and in-person events are powered by event activity data, which includes information such as session registration, attendance, feedback, appointments, and booth visits. As you broaden your marketing mix to include virtual and hybrid events as a new programme type, consider the data points you want to collect for all hosted and attended events. For years, marketers have relied on marketing automation platforms and CRMs to automatically update prospect behaviour and either move them along the funnel or push

them sales. Because event technology has advanced significantly, marketers can now connect it with current automation and CRM solutions to establish that elusive single source of truth. This enables marketers to programmatically record activity and interest from events, such as attendance and web analytics, in order to better understand engagement scores, and then combine it with current behaviour to recommend the next course of action. Virtual, hybrid, and in-person events are all significant touchpoints in the prospect and customer experience. As a result, they should be used in combination with the rest of your marketing mix to help you better understand your guests and take the next best move. This mentality is crucial because it guides the systems and technologies that will be used by your virtual event to collect data and link it with your marketing tech stack and CRM systems. In these uncertain times, most B2B enterprises' best client is the one they currently have. Present customers are much more likely to purchase than new prospects, have a lower cost of service, and are more ready to put up with the delays and disruptions that their current providers face. Using collaboration and virtual meeting technologies to link sales teams and intermediaries with buyers who work from home is only the beginning. Customers want to be able to see the overall picture of what's going on in the market, the supply chain, and even various portions of their own firm. They may want regular updates on even minor concerns that would not have previously piqued their interest but are critical to keeping their firm viable. Customers also want assistance in determining new routes ahead and quickly finding alternatives when company circumstances change. There are various use cases for increasing digital usage to concentrate on current buyers: 1.ABM (Account Based Marketing) has never been more significant. It is a better method of coordinating sales, digital marketing, and service operations in order to address the information and relationship demands of the whole group of stakeholders, influencers, and decision makers in current accounts. ABM may be established in its simplest form in a couple of weeks and then expanded and grown. When the economy recovers, it may be able to take on the additional responsibility of increasing prospecting and new client acquisition.

2.When the traditional methods of monitoring a category via face-toface contacts among industrial ecosystem players fail, digital consumer insights and analytics become critical. Consider hosting an industry "war room" for buyers who may participate remotely or get information through email or an internet stream. Allow the war room to function by using social listening, digital surveys, searching the internet for news, and monitoring critical data sources. Once the present crisis has passed, the war room may be transformed into a source of insights for innovation or a value-added service that can help establish competitive advantage. 3.Direct Ecommerce may be the only way to keep the parts, accessories, and supplies that keep consumers coming back in company flowing. It may take the form of transferring in-person services to digital platforms for service providers. Intermediaries like as agents, distributors, and systems integrators may erect barriers that hinder suppliers from doing direct business with their consumers. During a crisis, these barriers will fall, allowing both the supplier and the customer to maintain a revenue stream while building a direct relationship that will be very beneficial and difficult to cut off when circumstances recover. 7 Digital Marketing Transformation Challenges: 1. Individuals with the Appropriate Skill Set The need for competent workers to drive the company is growing in tandem with the competition. But where are all these people going to hide? Finding the perfect set of abilities in one individual has gotten more difficult. And, although businesses may establish teams with a diverse set of abilities, it is tough to manage and inspire that workforce to keep up with shifting market needs. The goal is to discover and work with recruiting firms that can choose the top candidates for your company. If you do not want to use third-party contracts, you may contact individuals via social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, where you can also learn about their job. Once you've completed the recruiting process, concentrate on how to keep them informed and motivated to stay up with market realities. Companies must also work on creating an atmosphere conducive to development and learning inside the firm. To get the most out of

everyone, strive for a synchronised workflow and integrated cooperation. 2. The Customer Is Always Right The above query could have been submitted into Google Chrome, and those billions of pages would have been scoured for information, including YouTube videos. This will be followed by an onslaught of product reviews on e-commerce sites and social media. Even then, when businesses attempt to flash and follow consumers with adverts, there is no assurance that the client would click on the BUY NOW button. In such cases, businesses should make the greatest use of consumer behaviour research data to develop a highly targeted audience group for the launch of marketing campaigns. The martech tools employed must be optimally leveraged in order to collect information from numerous channels in order to create personalised campaigns. 3. A Visible Brand Identity On the one hand, there are businesses that are gaining hearts with their customer-centric approach, and on the other, there are brands who were previously adored but broke that trust. Decisions in business are no longer restricted to "inside four walls." People are better informed even if they do not read the newspaper on a regular basis due of Twitter! Organizations may interact openly with their consumers in order to build trust and attract loyal customers to participate in the market in the long term. This includes not just disseminating accurate information to the community, but also keeping them informed about what is best for them. No one likes to be duped, and by being truthful with your consumers, you are already paving the road for word-of-mouth marketing via goodwill. This is a fairly prevalent issue in the evolution of digital marketing. 4. Making Sense of Big Data Many firms have been kept in the dark as more and more information about their consumers and their activities on multiple platforms has been available. Although there is a plethora of technologies available to assist in making sense of this real-time data, converting these

analytics into insights that can then be translated into marketing plans seems to be a daunting undertaking. The key to targeting the proper audience and ensuring improved conversion rates is to gather realtime feedback from the market on how your clients are reacting to your goods and services. Once you have those figures, you'll need resources to draw inferences from the data and create campaigns to deploy while keeping user segmentation in mind. 5. Team Integration Unless there is an escalation, most firms do not have regular contact within teams. This is one of the reasons why businesses suffer, since the bridge between teams that should contact more often is rather smouldering. For example, in order to build out tactics that sell out, the Marketing Team and Data Analytics Team must collaborate. The same is true for the Marketing and Sales teams, who must all be on the same page when it comes to consumers. This may be accomplished by limiting information flow inside businesses and establishing a centralised data management system that is available to all teams. Aside from that, customer-facing employees must be in sync with the proper information in order to give a smooth experience to consumers. 6. hyper-personalization You could believe that customization is overrated. It is, however, overrated for the correct reasons. People are used to receiving attention as a result of social media, and hence one message for everyone will no longer enough. Individual behaviour should be considered in your marketing strategies and customer reactions. You must provide your marketing staff with predictive measurements that will allow you to forecast what will perform best. With strong data analysis tools that provide real-time data, you may create user segments and select messages to put forth on the appropriate channel to communicate with your customer base. Personalization accomplished in this manner will go a long way toward ensuring that your brand remains a favourite among your target demographic. 7. Creating a Multi-Channel Experience People are on their phones, reading around Instagram for a time before moving on to an e-commerce site to complete a purchase on

their shopping list. These cycles are unending, and the bulk of them follow the same pattern. In this case, if your organisation has sponsored advertisements on one platform and carousels on another, and you also send customers timely updates through SMS or pop-ups, it is critical that you provide consistent information rather than misleading it. Most of the time, businesses fail to deliver a seamless transition across platforms. This is not good for business. What you can do to combat this is to provide your clients with an omnichannel experience. There is a lot of martech software available to assist businesses in creating consistent experiences across all communication channels in order to reach their target audience. Use that software to obtain the greatest outcomes in terms of offering a flawless user experience and watch your conversion rates skyrocket. As we spend more time on our phones, tablets, and computers, marketing is undergoing a metamorphosis. The challenge for businesses is to interact with consumers in real time across all of these platforms and develop campaigns that work across social media, display advertising, and e-commerce. The real-time interactions that firms have with their customers when they connect with websites and mobile applications have altered the nature of marketing. The creative aspect of marketing – employing great tales to tap into people's desires and goals – must be combined with the technical side of data, digital engineering, and analytics in today's marketing department. The two regions do not always coexist well. Getting creative marketers to collaborate with technical personnel may be difficult. To investigate these challenges, the Guardian, in collaboration with software maker Adobe, convened a panel of five prominent marketers and digital leaders to speak in front of a group of roughly 50 marketing and digital experts. They addressed the topic, "What does the convergence of technology and marketing entail for marketers?" The panel discussed the difficulties of bringing these two disparate worlds together. Understanding people's motives and leveraging these insights to build campaigns that promote businesses and urge people to purchase their goods is what marketing is all about. It is a creative and often intuitive process. However, the technology needed to do this requires knowledge in mathematics, statistics, and computers. How can these two disparate

regions successfully collaborate? Tanya Cordrey, chief digital officer at Guardian News and Media, told the panel: "Where marketing hasn't changed is the creativity and passion from companies that have really helped develop loyalty and emotion." "Those things you still need," she adds, "but practically every part of marketing has altered drastically." The speed, relevancy, and reach of campaigns are three elements of marketing that have been changed by digital. Paddy Power's director of sportsbook marketing, Mark Singleton, remembered an incident in the Premiership in March in which Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew headbutted Hull City player David Meyler on the touchline. Paddy Power had responded to the situation with wit and quickness, scheduling print adverts relating to the incident for the following morning's newspapers within half an hour. The bookmaker gave a money-back guarantee on bets for Newcastle's next game if one of its players scored a header. "It's amazing to be able to turn around a press ad at half past four in the afternoon and have that in the papers the following morning; it wouldn't have occurred four or five years ago," Singleton added. "With the development of digital, you can be really rapid," he remarked. Digital marketing has also improved relevance significantly. Messages may be laser-focused on extremely particular groups, delivering them relevant material. Meanwhile, the reach of campaigns has grown significantly. With so many various methods for people to access media, whether through Facebook, YouTube, news websites, or smartphone or tablet applications, a solid concept may rapidly garner massive traction. "If you come up with that nugget of an idea, you now have such reach that you can develop it and receive massive attention simply from a small niche notion,". Marketers must improve their abilities in order to take advantage of these fast-paced, highly relevant digital campaigns. They must collaborate closely with data analysts, web engineers, and social media experts. According to Charles Wells, chief marketing officer of charity fundraising site JustGiving, the marketer of the future must combine marketing and creative talents with an awareness of real-time technology. He said that his marketing team consists of data scientists, engineers, developers, and user experience professionals that collaborate in small project teams to attempt to generate growth. According to him, this is a significant

departure from the way typical marketing teams operate. He believed that the most difficult challenge for marketers would be to discover their own niche: "The greatest problem for the future marketer isn't how to become skilled up, but how to fit into this machine and which cog am I going to attempt to be?" Just as marketers must become more knowledgeable about technology, data, and analytics, technical employees on the digital side must become more creative. They are rising to the occasion, according to Wells. JustGiving employs onefifth data strategists whose primary responsibility is to uncover trends in the data collected from millions of charity fundraisers. "They are arguably some of the most creative individuals in the office, searching for intriguing stuff and developing wonderful engines," Wells said. "Some of the algorithm stuff I've seen in the last few months has been some of the sexiest marketing I've seen in a long time," he continues. Curiosity, rather than specialised technical expertise, is a critical trait for marketers in today's fast-changing digital world, according to Adobe digital marketing director John Watton. "It's not about a certain tool or system; it's about being interested about various options because the tools we'll use in two or three years will be completely different from the ones we used two years ago," he said during the debate. Steve Mullins, content director at brand-e, had a question concerning the efficacy of digital marketing. He believed that targeted advertising had not improved much over the years and that corporations were spending a lot of money on technology without necessarily reaping the benefits. "Should the marriage of purchasing and technology imply buyer beware?" he wondered. According to Lisa Bridgett, sales and marketing director at luxury online apparel store Net-a-Porter, marketers must eventually depend on their innate instincts rather than technology. She mentioned programmatic ad purchasing, in which computers purchase and position web adverts in an automatic manner, and said that few people really grasp how such technology works. "You can't simply declare that technology is flawless because it isn't. In reality, I'm sitting with my agency and deconstructing programmatic, and the truth is that they have no idea what it is. When you go into the domain of big data, I don't believe there is anybody who understands a lot of these things." "What I do is build up an arsenal of facts, and then I utilise my

instincts," she said. It has been shown again and again to be correct. As a result, you must be dextrous in these two realms." Chief marketing officers and chief information officers must collaborate in order for businesses to function successfully together in the digital environment. However, this is difficult for many organisations, and the two sides may end up in conflict. Pure digital players that have always been digital, like as Net-a-Porter, are organised for the digital era. However, "legacy" organisations that need to undergo a digital transition must select who will be in charge of that shift. Is it the chief information officer, the chief marketing officer, or someone from another department? "There is a war going on," said Adobe's Watton. I'm not sure who will win that struggle." Meanwhile, Hema Chauhan, marketing executive at TMW, wondered whether brand teams, engineers, or agencies were best suited to adopt new technological systems. The panel agreed that agencies are normally in charge of this. However, JustGiving's Charles Well believes that agencies should cease pitching technology and instead give innovative ideas to better the organisation. "My challenge to agencies is to do what you're really excellent at, which is coming up with incredible ideas," he added. Omaid Hiwaizi, chief strategy officer at agency Geometry Global, posed the subject of how firms can identify the marketers and technologists of the future. "Do you screen them out, cultivate them, or employ and put up with millennials?" he wondered. The panel felt that it was critical to have a mix of millennials and more experienced employees. According to David Singleton of Paddy Power, it is difficult to retain talented employees who may leave. "You need a balance, you need experienced individuals who have learnt some of the hazards," Adobe's John Watton remarked. We reskill individuals on the job, transitioning them from conventional content positions to online content responsibilities, and identifying chances for employees to go into more data roles." Another audience member, Gregory Gillette, insight analyst at agency 1000 Heads, inquired about the talents required of individuals seeking a career in marketing. Steps to Digital Marketing Transformation in 12 Steps: 1. Customer centricity. The first shift shifts the firm from a productfocused to a customer-focused mindset. Companies that are most prepared for and achieve the greatest outcomes from digital

transformations understand their consumers and have a good awareness of their desires and requirements. Recognizing what is best for the consumer puts things into perspective and aids in the prioritisation of future activities. 2. Structure of the organisation A transparent culture that accepts change is required for digital transformation. Break through corporate silos and rally CEOs and leaders behind the new digital vision. 3. Managing Change Many digital transitions fail due to a lack of employee support. People are hardwired to keep the same and generally resist change, even when they perceive the potential advantages. The most successful change management initiatives are those that are in sync with today's fast-paced corporate environment. 4.Leadership that is transformational. During times of transition, a strong leader may help workers feel safe. Transformational leadership must inspire people to act and make them feel like they are a part of something larger than themselves. As a result, every CEO and leader has a key role to play in driving digital transformation. 5. Technology choices. Decisions on digital transformation cannot be taken in a vacuum. Most purchasing decisions include an average of 15 employees, half of whom are in IT. Leaders must collaborate to represent their respective divisions as well as the company's broader aims. 6. Focusing on data aids in the integration of digital solutions throughout the organisation. The more complex the approach to data, the larger the firm. For a successful digital transformation, a simplified data strategy is necessary. 7. Internal consumer satisfaction. The internal customer experience— the staff experience—is heavily influenced by digital transformation. Obtaining employee input and delivering consumer-grade technology solutions substantially empowers staff to provide an exceptional experience. 8. Logistics and supply chain management. A digital transformation is ineffective unless it improves the speed and dependability with which consumers get their goods or services. A digital approach to logistics and supply chain management increases efficiency.

9.Data security, privacy, and ethics are all important considerations. The vast majority of customers feel their personal information is susceptible to a data breach. Data security should be prioritised while changing processes and systems as part of a digital transformation. 10. Product, service, and process evolution Digital transformation necessitates a shift in how goods and services are delivered, as well as the products and services themselves. Modern goods are smarter and more imaginative in their delivery. 11.Digitization is number eleven. The process of digitising a firm entails building smooth interfaces between digital and physical locations. With considerable success, retailers such as Target and Best Buy blur the boundaries between internet and retail. 12. Individualization. Customers expect individualised service. Leverage digital solutions to understand customer and provide recommendations and experiences that are unique to them. Some of the crucial areas where company leaders must re-define their digital roadmap to place themselves in a better position for the long term in Digital Marketing, according to the report, are: 1.Increasing Productivity and Developing Work from Home Infrastructure: As individuals are confined to their houses as a result of abrupt lockdowns, working from home has become a requirement and an unavoidable business reality. Although solutions for connection, security, risk management, and collaboration have existed, recent lockdowns have encouraged everyone to use technology as soon as possible. For the next several months, businesses must focus on developing a solid work-from-home system, with social distancing still required in areas such as workplaces, temples, and hospitals. 2.Human-Centered Supply Chains: Manufacturing and supply networks have been severely harmed as a result of the worldwide shutdown. Blocked inventory is as damaging to our economy as thrombosis is to one's health. Businesses must use technology like artificial intelligence and blockchain to allow their supply chains to take flight and react in seconds. 3.Changes in Working Methods: Working methods will transcend hierarchies and borders. An agile attitude will continue to be most

successful and vital, and taking use of autonomy and alignment in business areas other than product development and software engineering will be beneficial. Small teams, virtual stand-ups, fast issue resolution, intelligent automation, and metrics-based decision making, for example, will become more important in sales, marketing, distribution, customer support, finance, and human resources. 4.Enhancing Customer Relationships: Through Digital Experiences: With many individuals cooped up at home, digital experiences are more important than ever. Leading organisations will identify the ones that are most important and improve on them in order to develop new and better consumer connections. In industries such as insurance, banking, and healthcare, there will be major transitions to internet marketing, sales, and communication platforms. Business leaders will make quick adjustments in order to obtain payments through digital channels. 5.Invest in Technology to Prepare for the Future: Businesses' longterm existence increasingly necessitates fundamental changes in company policies and processes. As digital transformation reshapes enterprises, the millennial generation and digital consumers are driving these developments. Organizations must reinvent themselves to satisfy the mobile digital client, or risk being forgotten. To accomplish this change, businesses will need to harness creativity and create a collaborative work atmosphere, as well as implement a test-and-learn strategy and have mechanisms in place to question ideas. Strong leadership, alignment between IT and business divisions, and a culture that encourages risk-taking and swift action are all required for successful digital transitions. 6.Support the Agile and Dispersed Workforce: Companies are developing new methods of working for their distributed teams that decrease expenses and allow them to move more quickly. This covers the use of digital technologies that go beyond video conferencing to improve organisational operations, such as planning, collaborating, inventing, and executing. As a consequence, many organisations are already feeling more, not less, efficient as a result of these new methods of working. Hire the finest SEO company in Delhi. 7.Accelerate Your Automation Processes: It is best to automate your

work procedures as soon as possible since they simplify overall processes and allow the usage of data to establish crucial areas of investment. It is critical to concentrate on the operations with the greatest value and urgency, where automation is needed immediately and can be introduced fast. 9.7 Transportation & Logistics The advancement of technology is pushing the boundaries and altering the way the world conducts business. Today, we're accustomed to having everything online and at our fingertips for instant access. Depending on where you live, you can receive a package less than an hour after ordering through Amazon, the pioneer of fast-paced delivery service. Improved technology has also increased supply chain productivity while reducing costs and errors. These advancements benefit the entire logistics industry, including trucking transportation, international transportation (ocean and air), supply chain management, and shipment tracking. Here are five major technological advances that are reshaping the logistics industry's future. Customers used to book shipments, receive an estimated delivery date, and then be left in the dark unless they decided to call. Customers can now access shipping and tracking systems 24 hours a day, seven days a week, thanks to advancements in the internet and software. This not only improves the user experience, but it also saves the company time and money. Shapiro 360° is a shipment tracking system designed specifically for our customers, allowing them to monitor and manage their shipments. It includes shipment notifications and messages, customizable reporting, and customer accounts with cargo-specific information. You can't begrudge technology for allowing us to do everything from the comfort of our couches. Did you ever imagine that you'd be able to turn on your ceiling fan from your smartphone a few years ago? From cell phones to ceiling fans to automobiles, many devices now include built-in Wi-Fi and sensor capabilities. Everyone has easy access to Wi-Fi and the internet, which is why it's called the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things (IoT) is creating numerous opportunities for the supply chain, such as reducing costs and delays by avoiding risks. Sensors are built into cabs, cargo ships, trains, and other vehicles and connect to an

alarm system or dispatcher that monitors and tracks their location. These sensors process and transmit data to the crew, who then gains insight into hidden dangers and knowledge. Although IoT is not a new technology, it is having a significant impact on the future of logistics by allowing for more accurate in-transit visibility and delivery of goods. RFID technology, which has been in use for a few years, is a popular labor-saving method for businesses to track their inventory. A tag or sensor is attached to the product, and radio waves are broadcast. The company then receives and processes the data. Barcodes are similar to RFID tags, but the superior speed of information delivery and data processing of RFIDs makes them more appealing to businesses and the way technology is evolving. Many businesses now use RFID tags to monitor containers in their distribution warehouses. RFID tags are already used in other industries, such as the apparel industry and major theme parks. A world in which a computer drives you from point A to point B or where you receive a package from a flying unmanned aerial vehicle sounds like something out of a movie, but that is exactly where we are heading. Autonomous vehicles are already a reality, and trucks are not far behind. Embark and Uber have already made long hauls using self-driving trucks, and Tesla will release a truck this year. While it wasn't completely driverless, with a driver in the passenger seat to monitor the computer, it was a significant step forward in this groundbreaking technology and has the potential to increase delivery efficiency. Amazon Prime Air, a future in which packages are delivered directly to customers' doorsteps by drones, has been announced. Drone deliveries are still a few years away due to regulatory requirements and associated costs, but the idea of not having to sit around for four hours waiting for a package is appealing. The days of printing out directions from the computer before leaving the house are long gone. GPS is now used by almost everyone, whether it is built into their vehicles or on their cellphones. The accuracy of these devices has increased dramatically over the years, not only assisting frustrated and lost drivers but also improving the supply chain. By tracking trucks' locations and improving hauls with access to updated traffic data, GPS's advanced accuracy allows for increased productivity and satisfied customers.

Digitization refers to any innovative change that a business undergoes as a result of the adoption of digital technology. To respond to everchanging business scenarios and market demands, businesses use digitization to change existing operations, integrate new initiatives, adapt to an efficiency-driven culture, or manipulate customer experiences for the better. Digitization in Transport and Logistics can help the industry benefit from cutting-edge technologies in order to capture a dynamic market, raise customer expectations, and achieve a competitive advantage. Transportation and logistics are industries that are inextricably linked to other sectors of a country's economy. Any improvement in the efficiency of transportation or logistics services benefits both individual countries and the global economy. In recent years, digital transformation in the transportation sector has been implemented at a glacial pace. However, since the introduction of COVID, the need to digitize industries has grown rapidly. Because of the arrival of new market players who collaborate more closely with technology companies, digital solutions have begun to be implemented. The transportation market is worth billions of dollars. Existing market players are implementing digital strategies to significantly increase their market presence, while newer start-ups are looking for ways to establish and digitize their businesses online. Efficiency, optimization, speed, and timing have always been critical factors in logistics and transportation. In this day and age of rapid evolution, a strong digital environment and digital transformations will lay the groundwork for the next technological revolution in the transportation industry. Transport and logistics service providers can successfully address four major industry challenges by embracing digital transformation: efficiency, flexibility, sustainability, and transparency. The Benefits of Digitization in the Transportation and Logistics Industry: The transportation and logistics industry is plagued by a slew of serious issues related to device and system connectivity, asset underutilization, and supply chain efficiency. Digitization initiatives have the potential to create a strong platform to address these issues. Let us now examine the advantages of digital transformation in the transportation and logistics sectors:

1. Effortless Operations The digitization of the road transport and logistics industry would aid in the smooth operation of the sector's businesses. For example, digitization can assist factories in staying more informed about the arrival of shipments, which will improve their management and productivity. It would also assist haulers in being prepared on the road and dealing with unexpected events quickly, resulting in smooth and seamless operations. 2. A narrower margin of error Automation assists organizations in reducing the margin of error in the logistics industry. A machine or system is less likely to make the same errors that humans do. 3. Increased Speed in Less Time Speed and time are the two most important factors in any industry. These two factors are the most important in transportation and logistics. Businesses can gain a competitive advantage in the transport and logistics industry by using transportation that is fast and takes little time. Digital transformation can help businesses keep up with speed and time by automating time-consuming operations. 4. Increased Operational Safety for Everyone Through digitization, all interested parties, including public authorities, shippers, businesses, and customers, can obtain more accurate and reliable information. This information can be related to the use of infrastructure and cargo on the road, which can contribute to improved industry communication, increased productivity within businesses, and safer road usage. 5. Improved Connectivity Every industry is becoming more digitized, and the transportation industry must adapt to the latest digital solutions in order to remain relevant. Digitization will aid in further integration in the future, as well as improved communication between various parties in order to maintain the industry and continue to improve operational safety, allowing it to grow. Digitization can also aid in ensuring hyperconnectivity across devices through the use of sensors and alarms. It can help businesses connect devices densely using sensors that

share critical and decisive data over a common network. This cuttingedge digitization empowers physical objects to interact and communicate with other devices as well as business users involved in decision-making. 6. Using Intelligence in Business With the digitization of various transportation and logistics operations, data is rapidly growing large, necessitating the use of cutting-edge technologies such as advanced data analytics and business intelligence. Decision-making using strong data and AI will assist companies in the transportation industry in making intelligent decisions that will undoubtedly benefit them in the future. Digitization, aided by advanced technology, can assist the transportation and logistics industry in overcoming a variety of business challenges, such as cost control, operation optimization, customer experience improvement, supply chain management, and end-to-end communication. Businesses can use cutting-edge technology to integrate features that add value to their offerings and set them apart from the competition. 7. Better customer service In any business, the customer experience is critical. A customer will prefer a good experience over a mediocre one when making a purchasing decision. Businesses that are technologically savvy understand this and are eager to capitalize on it. Traditional ones, on the other hand, will need to gear up and improve their customer experience in order to compete at the same level. Challenges within the logistics process: 1.Transport orders are being received. Digitization in businesses is advancing at a rapid pace. Despite the fact that processes are increasingly being carried out electronically, logistics service providers frequently receive orders outside of transportation systems – often via analogue channels. This increases the amount of effort required of logistics service providers to record shipment data. 2.Scheduling time slots An increasing number of clients are requesting that their logistics

providers book dedicated time windows to pick-up and deliver goods in order to optimize yard planning, staff utilization, and operational processes. Typically, time windows must be reserved 24 hours in advance of pick-up/delivery. The booking itself adds to the logistics providers' workload and reduces efficiency. Furthermore, the flexibility with which the pick-up/delivery tour can be planned is reduced, which can have a negative impact on the utilization of the available loading capacity. 3.Product scanning Customers are increasingly demanding dependable transparency from their service providers regarding the status of their shipments. This requirement poses a significant challenge to logistics companies. On the one hand, traditional barcode recording by warehouse personnel is time-consuming and thus inefficient. Additional information, such as temperature or vibrations, must, on the other hand, be transmitted to the customer more frequently. Current transportation systems are frequently unsuitable for providing this type of information. 4.Data collection for loaded shipments If companies do not transmit their shipment data electronically, the service provider must record the data. This increases the possibility of incorrect information being recorded, which is exacerbated by the current shortage of skilled workers and outsourcing. Furthermore, shipments cannot be reloaded if the shipment data has not been recorded. In practice, this frequently causes delays in operational processes. The Internet of Things (IoT) provides data that describes objects ("physical assets," such as a good to be transported) that are distributed globally. In a centralized location, asset data can be accessed in real time and at a low cost, enabling completely new use cases and business models. The objects can either collect or transmit data via sensors ("active assets," such as a truck's navigation system) or they are not equipped with the necessary electronics ("passive assets," such as a transport container). In the latter case, another device ("IoT Edge Device") is required to determine the current values of the asset via sensors, preprocess the data, and transmit it. The Internet of Things was only made possible by the widespread and low-

cost availability of three enablers: 1.Universal and simple-to-use communication networks, some of which are even contract-free (examples: NBIoT, LoRaWAN) 2.Sensors and actuators inspired by the maker movement that are powerful and simple to integrate. 3.Scalable cloud services for large-scale data processing IoT aids in the tracking of objects as well as the transfer of current data about the transported assets during the logistics process of people and goods. An IoT channel can also be used to control elements of the transportation process remotely. This can, for example, save energy or eliminate waiting times. Data from IoT channels is received by digital platforms, which recognize patterns during processing and generate statements about the current state of the business process. They make this aggregated information available to other software systems involved in the logistics process via interfaces based on established Web standards like Representational State Transfer (REST) and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). If these interfaces are designed with secure options for platform participant authentication and their use is openly documented, media breaks - the end of paper, fax, and e-mail - can be easily avoided. Equally important, the platform has the potential to evolve into an ecosystem that deviates from traditional supply chain patterns. Supply and demand can now be quickly brought together, for example, through auctions. Process improvements, such as real-time tracking of goods or connection to customer and government information systems, become simple and widely available. Innovative start-ups provide the necessary software solutions on the logistics platform, resulting in a win-win situation: innovative digital services are available to everyone, and innovators receive a fair marketplace for their offerings. Transport goods are typically passive physical assets that are not IoTcapable in and of themselves. They can, however, be easily identified using RFID markers. QR codes and Data Matrix codes are also appropriate for this purpose, but unlike RFID, optical codes necessitate a separate scan for each asset. A prerequisite for tracking the transported goods, regardless of the hardware, is their digital

identity. When the transport order is generated, it is best to establish it. The service of the digital platform creates the identity, which also manages the digital twins of the transport goods - no identity, no twin, no tracking! Digital twins can be linked together; for example, the twin of a transport good can be linked to the twin of the vehicle transporting the good. When a vehicle's location is recorded on a regular basis and the value is sent to its digital twin, the platform updates the positions of all goods in the vehicle. Updates can be implemented to automatically notify the partners involved in the process. As a result, the transportation process becomes transparent to all parties involved. The automation and digitization of processes related to the movement of goods is referred to as digital logistics. Whenever a routine logistics process relies on pen and paper and repetitive manual labor, there is an opportunity to digitize and automate it. This is where digital logistics comes into play. Cloud-based, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, machine learning, and even blockchain technologies are frequently used by businesses to harness the full power of digital logistics for supply chain management. Digital logistics can have an impact on any aspect of a company's supply chain, including: 1.Inventory control 2.Transportation administration 3.Warehouse management and warehousing systems (WMS) 4.Forecasting and analytics in the supply chain 5.Notifications to customers and real-time shipment tracking Here are some of the factors that make digital logistics more efficient than traditional logistics: 1.Inventory management has been simplified. Businesses can improve their inventory management by utilizing digital logistics. Traditional logistics prevented businesses from making informed inventory decisions. Because logistics teams lacked visibility into how their warehouses functioned, they were unable to improve warehouse receiving processes, order fulfilment workflows, or storage and stocking practices. A company can achieve all of these goals by utilizing digital logistics. 2.Real-time adaptability

Traditional logistics cannot adapt to real-time situations as well as digital logistics. For example, if you have a product that has been losing sales month after month, you can choose to defer placing a purchase order for it if you have enough stock. While this appears to be a simple enough concept, it is unique to digital logistics because traditional logistics lacks the flexibility to halt purchase orders or quickly identify stock levels. 3.Automation of tasks Businesses can use digital logistics operations to automate critical tasks such as placing inventory orders to avoid stockouts. They can also automate repetitive tasks such as data entry because they do not have to enter the same information in multiple systems, as in traditional logistics. 4.Continuous enhancement With visibility into every stage of the logistics process, teams with digital logistics operations can identify root causes and bottlenecks and devise solutions to remove them. Because traditional logistics is siloed, identifying bottlenecks and developing solutions to remove them is much more difficult. Top 8 IoT Logistics Applications: Logistics and transportation are two major industries that are embracing IoT on a large scale. As the bar for speed and accuracy in logistics operations rises, technology enables businesses to provide excellent service while reducing costs. Most importantly, IoT applications for logistics address a wide range of use cases along a typical supply chain, from warehousing to fleet management and cargo tracking, making them a true driving force behind the industry's digital transformation. The top seven applications shown below show how to strategically implement IoT technology for end-to-end logistics and transportation: 1.Inventory management and analytics Companies can use a variety of methods to track inventory in a transparent manner. While traditional barcodes are useful for basic inventory, smart labels and RFID tags offer far more automation and analytics capabilities. These IoT-powered methods employ microchips

that can store all of the necessary product information and be updated in real time to provide complete visibility into inventory movements. They also improve accuracy and reduce error-prone manual operations by scanning inbound and outbound items automatically. 2.Warehouse optimization Remote storage condition monitoring is extremely beneficial to warehouse management. Companies can easily set up rules for maintaining stable temperature and humidity levels within a facility, as well as ensure perimeter security, detect fire, and so on, by using IoTpowered sensors. You can also use fleet management software to monitor the activity levels of your warehouse machinery and optimise their workloads. IoT-powered warehousing operations can be easily observed and coordinated, down to the level of individual physical assets and stored items, when combined with the previous application (inventory tracking). 3.Fleet management in real time Fleet management is most likely the most widely used IoT solution in logistics. Companies can improve driver compliance, increase the accuracy of delivery schedules, and ensure the safety of both drivers and cargo by collecting vehicle telematics using GPS or satellite trackers. Fuel consumption and driver behavior monitoring may also be included in fleet management solutions. This information can be used to gain a better understanding of each driver's profile and to develop personalized training programmes that address a driver's professional development as well as job satisfaction. 4.Maintenance that is predicable Companies with large fleets of vehicles, marine equipment, or warehouse equipment frequently struggle to reduce maintenance costs. Companies may lose millions of dollars in profit as a result of malfunctions and unplanned downtime. And this is where predictive maintenance - another popular IoT-enabled solution - comes in handy. Engineers can detect early signs of malfunction and prevent serious damage by retrofitting various machinery with sensors that monitor the levels of heating, vibration, noise, and other parameters. It also aids in reducing the number of physical inspections by utilizing remotely collected data to perform vehicle health checks.

5.Vehicle tracking for cargo integrity Cargo integrity makes it even more important for logistics companies to adopt IoT because it directly affects not only operational efficiency but also customer satisfaction. Smart labels can be used to track the transportation conditions of individual items or smart containers, which is especially useful for perishables. These labels also aid in the detection of theft or mishandling. Finally, cargo monitoring tags and applications are now commonly used as part of end-to-end delivery tracking solutions. 6.End-to-end delivery monitoring With IoT solutions collecting a large amount of diverse data, it is equally important to create user-friendly web dashboards that display that data. One of the most difficult challenges in logistics is integrating separate stages of supply chain management into a single application. As a result, modern IoT platforms include a plethora of features for creating flexible, configurable data dashboards. They enable managers to have access to all operational data collected by IoTpowered sensors and devices, as well as cater to customers' needs by displaying how soon their goods will arrive. 7.Innovations in last-mile delivery Some of the most promising IoT logistics innovations will occur for last-mile delivery services. For example, enabling same-day delivery remains a premium for many businesses, despite the fact that customers are willing to pay a premium for it. The only dependable way to provide this service is to use technology to accelerate and automate end-to-end supply chain workflows. When the backbone logistical operations are digitized, there will be even more opportunities for faster last-mile delivery through the use of mobile applications, predictive replenishment, smart buttons, and drones. 8.Integration of IoT-to-business systems Last but not least, many businesses struggle to effectively integrate IoT solutions with their existing stack of business applications such as ERP, accounting, workforce management, and others. Such integration necessitates additional engineering efforts, which even IoT solution providers may be unable or unwilling to provide. Companies

must understand and begin to use modern cloud-based architectures and centralized data integration to streamline this process. Because your IoT application ecosystem is likely to grow rapidly over time, it would be advantageous if your applications were linked to one another via a single enterprise-grade IoT platform. Using an IoT platform significantly simplifies data sync between separate applications and provides you with the tools you need to scale your IoT solutions, manage different applications through a single interface, and integrate them with external systems. It is time for logistics companies to develop comprehensive strategies for their IoT initiatives. Modern technology unlocks truly groundbreaking capabilities and elevates supply chain management to new heights, but it should not be used carelessly. While enabling these new IoT capabilities, cohesive integration between each link of your supply chain will help your company strike the perfect balance between the speed, agility, and reliability of your innovations. The Advantages of IoT in Transportation: Some of the broader benefits of using IoT technology in the transportation sector include: 1. Improve the Customer Experience IoT technologies aid in the provision of more accurate, up-to-date, real-time data to customers in order to better plan journeys and improve communication. 2. Increased Security Tracking train speeds, aircraft part conditions, roadway temperatures, and the number of vehicles at an intersection using IoT enabled technology can all help to improve the safety of our transit systems around the world. 3. Operational Efficiency Transportation agencies that use IoT technologies are already seeing benefits in terms of operational performance. Cities can improve critical infrastructure monitoring and develop efficient processes to reduce operating costs and increase system capacity. 4. Environmental Enhancements By better monitoring congestion, IoT-enabled systems can respond

quickly to changing traffic patterns and provide real-time data to assist people in better planning their journeys. Reducing congestion and energy consumption benefits the environment. Five examples of Internet of Things (IoT) applications in transportation: These advantages of IoT technology in transportation can be realized through a variety of applications within the industry. Here are five of the most common uses: 1.Traffic Control When it comes to the adoption of IoT technologies in transportation, roading is by far the largest segment, and this is expected to grow as we approach 2023. Data can be collected within cities from CCTV feeds that transmit vehicle-related data to traffic management centers. Among the applications that make use of IoT technology are: i)Parking is smart. ii)Lights at intersections iii)Intelligent accident assistance 2.Toll Collection and Ticketing Traditional toll systems are rapidly becoming obsolete. Queues at toll booths have become commonplace as the number of vehicles on the road has increased, not to mention the manpower required to operate toll booths on busy highways. While automated tolls using an RFID tag have improved traffic flow, the use of IoT technology has enabled further improvements. Many modern vehicles are outfitted with IoT connectivity. A vehicle can be detected up to a kilometer away from a toll station, correctly identified, and the barrier lifted to allow the vehicle to pass. Alternatively, for older vehicles, a registered smartphone could serve the same purpose, accepting automatic payment from the phone's digital wallet. 3.Cars That Are Connected As previously stated, cars today rely on connectivity, and a key component of that is that many new cars are now equipped with internet connectivity, sensors, and actuators, all of which monitor a wide range of applications ranging from brakes and engines to tyre

pressure control and exhaust gas composition. In the future, connected vehicles will use in-vehicle networks, radar, and cameras to detect and communicate with one another, preventing collisions and promoting smooth traffic flow. 4.Vehicle Tracking Devices Vehicle tracking systems are commonly used in the freight industry to assist companies in effectively managing their fleets. They also aid in the monitoring of driver behavior and the collection of data that provides information on idling time and driving style. The following are some examples of IoT-powered functionality: i)Trip planning ii)Monitoring of a fleet iii)Driver rest breaks and driving times are scheduled. iv)Speeding, harsh cornering, acceleration, or braking warnings v)Vehicle load, distance travelled, and fuel consumption are all monitored. 5.Management of Public Transportation NEC has been active in several key areas, including smart transportation, with a focus on public transportation. IoT technologies are already widely used in this segment, and our solutions, which include integrated ticketing and automated fare collection, passenger information systems, passenger information display systems, and advanced vehicle Logistics solutions, all make use of IoT technology to help solve social and economic issues like traffic congestion in public transportation. The following advantages are provided by IoT technology for connected public transportation systems: 1.Real-time vehicle tracking enables public transportation agencies to communicate with customers more effectively and provide accurate arrival times via mobile devices and passenger information displays at transit stops and stations. 2.Data analysis and real-time management – the technology enables transit agencies to monitor progress in real-time and adjust for unanticipated incidents such as accidents, roadworks, emergencies,

and so on, allowing them to re-route and make journeys more efficient. 3.Personalised travel information – transit agencies can track and monitor commuter behavior and travel patterns and deliver personalized information on key changes such as delays, station closures, or re-routing directly to their smart phone. Digital Transformation Trends in Transportation and Logistics: The advancement and reshaping of items, administrations, and entire plans of action by computerized innovations is known as digital transformation. It is the process of utilizing technologies to create new or modify an existing system, business processes, culture, and user experience to meet changing business and market requirements. There are four types of digital transformation: 1.Domain of Business 2.Process Models 3.Social 4.organizational. Machine learning and artificial intelligence have had a significant impact on logistics digitization. AI and machine learning are now taking over to digitize almost every industry and logistics company, as well as their future systems. Here are the trends: 1.Machine Learning (ML): Machine learning plays a role in transforming management systems into more digitalized systems. It can be difficult and difficult at times to decide and predict future demands. Machine learning has now solved this problem. Machine learning assists businesses in making decisions by anticipating future needs and demands for new products. These two have simplified supply chain management and maximized resources by reducing the amount of money and time spent on tracking. 2.Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI has enabled businesses to gain access to the information they require, such as billing information, dates, parties involved, addresses, and so on. Furthermore, it has enabled businesses to gain access to

critical information such as billing information, dates, parties involved, addresses, and so on. AI can help with: i)Keeping the traffic flowing ii)Examining hazardous travel areas iii)arranging construction jobs and planning or evaluating the structure iv)Maintenance planning v)Self-Driving Vehicles 3.Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI has proven to be a source of increased business. For example, NLP, or Natural Language Processing, assists logistic companies in controlling financial processing. It uses invoice information to detect financial errors or irregularities. Additionally, it assists businesses in efficiently planning freight. 4.Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) Autonomous vehicles have taken over a significant portion of logistics, and the day is not far away when the entire transportation process will be fully autonomous. Although autonomous trucks have not yet been introduced into the supply chain to transport goods, forklifts are widely used in warehouses, air terminals, and ports, among other places, as are robot arms in warehouses. 5.Autonomous Trucks The innovation for self-driving trucks is still in its early stages. For example, it must overcome certain obstacles, such as improving driverless programming, in order to work efficiently on congested urban streets. It is undeniably one of the most important transportation trends. i)To cut costs, the autonomous trucks drive packed in. Because of the reduced drag and concertina caused by slowing down and quickening, less fuel is used, which accounts for 30% of a truck's total operating costs. ii)One thing to keep in mind is that the use of autonomous vehicles in the logistics process will necessitate approval and legislative changes. Many experts believe that self-driving cars will be widely available within the next decade, putting logistics at risk.

6.Drones that drive themselves and automated freight ships i)Trucks powered by electricity ii)Vehicles without drivers iii)Vehicle materials that are lightweight iv)GPS devices v)3-D printing with blockchain 7.Capabilities delivered via the cloud Hyperloop transportation frameworks are expected to take over in the near future, bringing efficiency to the logistics industry. Furthermore, satellite-based air transport guideline systems are already in use, making air freight forwarding more efficient and convenient. 8.Blockchain Blockchains are another digitalization trend. Blockchains enable businesses to improve the customer experience by providing transparency. This allows them to communicate and see the entire product's journey. It also allows for the viewing of reviews, which improves security by making fraud detection easier. Companies and individuals benefit in this manner. Blockchain aids in the verification of the history of carriers and various suppliers. With the help of smart contracts, blockchain's decentralized technology can ensure the secure exchange of information and finances. i)lowering the likelihood of fraud or cheating ii)avoiding bottlenecks and blunders iii)confirmation from 3PL iv)Furthermore, smart contracts can save both time and money. One of the most amazing trends in the transportation industry is blockchain. The use of blockchain in the shipping industry can aid in the precision of various tasks. 9.Cloud Computing Systems Cloud technology is one of the most significant trends in the transportation industry. Organizations can improve operational efficiency by incorporating cloud-based technology into transportation and logistics management. Cloud computing assists businesses in a

variety of ways. i)Vehicle tracking in real time ii)Space planning for logistics iii)Online ticketing administration 10.The Internet of Things (IoT) The Internet of Things has altered the travel experience. Communication can be taken to a whole new level with IoT. Furthermore, establishing a superior connection with transportation mediums such as trains, trucks, ships, and planes is difficult. IoT provides long-term frameworks. The web-powered gadgets enable smart data collection, and IoT sensors can warn vehicles and trucks of potential obstacles ahead during transit. 11.Intelligent Vehicles: Intelligent vehicles are capable of i)Predicting perplexing turns ii)Distinguish between people on foot, cyclists, bikers, and so on. iii)Avoid potential road hazards. It has the potential to change the entire transportation industry's outlook and is expected to reduce vehicle crashes by up to 80%. LoTenabled drivers can monitor: i)fuel consumption ii)Speed of braking efficiency iii)Freight Limit Scanning The use of Internet-of-things (IoT) sensors can aid in the observation of the space occupied by a specific package. This information can be used to calculate the cost of shipping. Putting this information into a blockchain-based system set apart with the understanding would allow self-executing billing based on the proportion of space occupied by the freight. The success of current transportation and logistics management is based on the concept of visibility. One of the most important trends in the transportation and logistics industry is visibility. One of the most recent developments in this field is the introduction of anti-theft GPS, which allows for real-time tracking of the truck fleet.

This technology is saving businesses from massive losses. Sustainable transportation management measures can make a significant difference. The pressure on businesses to pursue sustainable solutions is growing. Ecological goals could include lowering carbon emissions, improving air quality control, and improving eco-management tracking. The long-term measures may include: i)Vehicles with no drivers are cleaner. ii)Eco-friendly technologies are being incorporated. iii)E-cargo bicycles The transportation and logistics industry faces significant challenges related to asset underutilization, supply chain efficiency, and connectivity and visibility across devices and systems on a regular basis. Digital transformation initiatives can build a strong platform to address these issues. However, insufficient use of technology can have an impact on efficiency, productivity, and market growth. Companies must rely on external resources because more than half of professionals working in logistics and transportation have expressed a lack of necessary skills and expertise throughout the supply chain. Efficiency, optimization, speed, and timing must be prioritized in transportation and logistics. In today's world, where almost every industry is experiencing a technological explosion, digital transformation is becoming a requirement for the transportation and logistics industry. What sectors of transportation and logistics stand to benefit from digital transformation? 1.Time and Speed Speed and time are two of the most important factors in any industry, but they are especially disruptive in transportation and logistics. In the transportation and logistics industry, high speed and minimal time are synonyms for competitive advantage. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as a component of digital transformation initiatives to automate time-consuming processes can assist businesses in keeping up with the speed and time. 2.Devices are extremely connected.

Through the use of sensors and alarms, digital transformation can be initiated to ensure hyper-connectivity among devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) enables this type of digital transformation by allowing businesses to densely connect devices with sensors that send critical and decisive information over a common network. This technological transformation enables physical objects to interact and communicate with other objects as well as business users involved in decisionmaking. Furthermore, closely linked devices speed up processes. 3.Business Intelligence With the digitization of various transportation and logistics processes, data is becoming increasingly large, necessitating the use of cuttingedge technologies such as advanced data analytics and business intelligence. Decision-making is now commonplace in a typical business scenario. The intelligent decision, on the other hand, necessitates the assistance of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computing-based solutions. AI and Cognitive Computing-enabled digital transformations enable the transportation and logistics industry to overcome a variety of business challenges, including process optimization, supply chain management, end-to-end communication, cost control, and customer experience improvement. 4.Visibility Across Critical Factors Big data brings with it a slew of new challenges and complexities. Unleashing the power of data necessitates the use of effective tools and technology. For maximum visibility across factors that can influence decision-making, logistics, transportation, and supply chain require a powerful digital transformation strategy. Data visualization and modern dashboards with self-service capabilities enable userlevel digital transformation by presenting a massive amount of data in a concise, meaningful, and enjoyable format. 5.Machine and equipment health Because transportation and logistics aim to ensure that items arrive at the right location at the right time and in the best possible condition, it is critical that all machines and equipment remain in service and do not wear out unexpectedly. Existing players are being disrupted by digital transformation, which is being triggered by the implementation of innovative technologies such as data analytics, the cloud, and the

Internet of Things (IoT) in conjunction with Machine Learning algorithms. It is not difficult to estimate that a number of digital technologies are making their way into transportation and logistics, assisting the industry in meeting critical needs such as optimization, automation, efficiency, connectivity, and visibility. Artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotic process automation, and big data analytics are enabling digital transformation in transportation and logistics. In addition to the transformation caused by the penetration of such technologies, platforms that capture, store, or process information, such as the cloud, can also enable digital transformation. Because of technological advancements, the transportation, travel, and logistics industries have undergone a digital transformation. The market's new-age technologies are being bitten by the expansion and skyline of the transportation business. With these advancements, businesses can improve their business precision, customise their services, and comprehend and anticipate their customers' behaviour and preferences. Digital Transformation improves coordinated effort and sharing while decreasing effort and increasing the adaptability of activities. Digital sources can also help organisations get the most upto-date information on global trends and direct a key and targeted examination of the business process. Businesses in transportation, logistics, travel, and fleet management are broadening their perspective to include mobility services, big data, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to automate their services alongside process management and cloud-based applications. The tr segment is undergoing radical transformations as a result of digitization. Using new technology will change your strategic, business, and operational procedures. It's not a question of whether, but of how, where, and when. Retail, pharmaceutical, automotive, and cutting-edge clients are all dealing with transformational changes. Is it safe to say that you are in a position to continue encouraging them as a provider of transportation and logistics services, both now and in the future?

Technology is finally unravelling wasteful aspects of logistics, a part

that is directly related to financial development. Until recently, the transportation and logistics industry was notorious for delays and oddities. An organisation or individual could never be certain that shipments would arrive on time. With the majority of businesses embracing technology-driven frameworks that make it simple to predict when a parcel is normal, the division is becoming increasingly smoothed out. The logistics industry is a massive market worth more than $4 trillion worldwide, influencing a wide range of business divisions from internet business and design to manufacturing and cutting edge. Here the ways Digital Transformation is changing Transportation and Logistics: 1. Robotics and automation Automation, which uses information-driven programming to improve machine operational productivity, provides a variety of solutions for the logistics industry, ranging from promoting package naming to smoothing out warehouse sorting systems. According to research, "Artificial Intelligence is expected to increase the market value of the logistics sector to $6.5 billion by 2023." Logistics is increasingly incorporating AI and automation into various day-to-day tasks. Warehouse robots are patrolling the warehouse, beginning with one division and progressing to the next to keep an eye on the stock being presented. In addition, barcode scanners and drone deliveries are being used. Artificial intelligence is extremely important in improving supply chains. It aids in objectively arranging the best transportation routes using various AI algorithms. Day-to-day tasks are also made easier because operators can easily connect loaded goods with vehicles to transportation hubs. Robots, as opposed to automated machinery, are designed to perform multiple tasks at once, making their applications in the logistics industry virtually limitless. This is especially true for internet business activities, which necessitate a high level of speed and productivity to keep up with the rapid development of online transactions. 2. IoT and Data Analytics

Data Analytics is powered by Big Data, which enables partners to make more informed decisions. These analytics assist the logistics workforce in anticipating occupied cycles, a lack of supply, and a variety of other insights. According to one study, "90 percent of thirdparty logistics firms agree that data-driven decisions are extremely beneficial to supply chain operations." Aside from improving performance quality, it aids in determining demand and supply, as well as managing stock and workforce. IoT is altering logistics patterns by empowering managers to overcome numerous obstacles. Currently, issues such as delayed transportation, worker errors, inefficient freight checking, and theft are being addressed. People will enter supply chain management in the future. This will enable logistics decisionmakers to use edge computing to generate real-time insights. 3. Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) Drones have numerous promising applications in the logistics industry, the most notable of which is their anticipated ability to facilitate new types of express consumer delivery. Drones may have an immediate impact on our ability to deliver products, both in densely populated urban areas that would benefit from fewer vehicles on the road and in rural areas. 4. Vehicle Tracking in Real Time In this digital age, devices chip away at 5G and IoT, allowing operators to consistently track their vehicles. The Internet of Things is commonly referred to as the study of Telematics in the transportation industry. According to one study, "the next five years could see a $9 trillion direct economic impact from IoT." IoT enables the establishment of a connection between hardware, software, and framework. The use of data exchange enables the tracking of any item, such as a vehicle, truck, or stock. GPS trackers for on-boarding, lethargy finders, fuel sensors, smart stockrooms, wearable unmanned conveyance gadgets like automatons, and self-propelled trucks are expected to improve stock exactness.

5. Supply Chain Digitization The digital sensors embedded in each business procedure and hardware assist operators in upgrading tasks. Currently, any inconclusive accident in the primary framework can result in the loss of critical information. It would also be a good time to take a vacation. This problem is addressed in the cloud by digital transformation. According to research, "the benefits of digitalization for logistics companies will increase their value by an estimated $2.4 trillion." Managers can now have a digital reinforcement of information in the warehouse by matching and synchronising their benefits with digital codes. Ordinary reinforcements can aid in the advanced digitization of all logistics forms. This would assist managers in saving information and preventing interruptions to the work process. Furthermore, it would reduce the likelihood of a sudden network failure. Furthermore, the sensors track each procedure and relay that data to the managers. They can use this information to improve their chances and correct the procedures later on.

Here are the seven R's of Logistics to assist you in managing your supply chain and logistics. These are the following: 1. Choosing the Correct Product An organisation that provides this type of service should first understand the products that they will deal with and transport. Having the right information will put you in a better position to manage your time and assets effectively and efficiently. 2. Proper Location The correct item should be delivered to the correct location. A logistics management services organization's courier services must include educated drivers as well as an efficient delivery framework and tracking. To ensure that the items are delivered to the correct location, both the client and the supplier must have a synchronised area

following. 3. Correct Price For all goods and services, pricing is extremely basic. As an incentive, they should have a suitable value that corresponds to the organization's revenue and costs. A good framework for storing and refreshing the right price ensures success in logistics management service. 4. Appropriate Consumer To distinguish the right consumers, each organisation that provides logistics experience must understand its target market. If they offer their services to the right market, they will have a better chance of gaining leads and clients who will benefit them in the long run. Some use traditional marketing, while others use digital marketing to reach out to more customers all over the world. 5. Suitable Situation Each product that clients are to endow to logistics management suppliers must be stored and delivered in the proper condition. This is where the details must be mentioned in order to put it on expected facilities and maintain its quality. 6. Appropriate Time Customers are increasingly concerned about the hour of delivery when it comes to logistics. As a result, each service provider must recognise the optimal opportunity to deliver the goods in a professional manner. Each framework is useful for screening all deliveries and ensuring that they arrive on time. 7. Appropriate Quantity Knowing and determining the proper quantity is also an important

aspect of a successful logistics management service. Because a large portion of suppliers are outsiders, organisations that rely on their services must exercise caution in sending the correct quantity or amount of products to be delivered. Because of our cutting-edge technological advancements, the transportation and logistics industry can now handle any number of products to dispatch/deliver. What is the Importance of Digital Transformation in Transportation and Logistics? Many industries are being transformed by digital technology, and the transportation and logistics industry is no exception. Whether you are a traffic organiser at a carrier, a transportation agent for a producer, or a receipt preparing examiner at a third-party logistics, you have experienced the benefits of digital transformation in your personal lives and anticipate a similar level of value-based involvement in your professional jobs. Regardless of new market entrants, smart trucking applications work to level the playing field by utilising driver coordinating, driverless self-governing or semi-autonomous cargo shipping, ongoing resource support following, limit load sharing, and moment instalment. Development is advancing at a rapid pace. Here are the reasons: 1. Make the Customer Experience Better Today's exchange rates are moderately low, and dissatisfied customers will essentially go elsewhere if they are dissatisfied with your level of commitment. Improving and engaging the client experience is now your main weapon, and it can be accomplished by speeding up exchanges with self-service tools and providing improved process visibility. Client engagement applications are currently important tools for improving experiences. Client onboarding, tracking, omnichannel receipt approval, and planning are all tools that can please your clients, but they must be tightly integrated into backend frameworks of record to be effective. 2. Increase your IT spending.

Your current business processes serve as the foundation of your organisation. You've attempted to help a high volume of digital transactions and are most likely capable of supporting a wide range of documentation sources through self-service gateways that can deal with fax, email, and other formats, for example, Web Services, spreadsheets, and CSV. The goals of your IT ventures were to achieve speed of execution and agility in order to reduce existing business latencies and wasteful aspects. Regardless, there are still vestiges of the old world that don't quite fit with your new digital procedure. Regardless, reports drive and strengthen the majority of third-party logistics business processes. Bills of replenishment, customs assertions, claims reports, delivery confirmation, driver logs, fuel receipts, transporter solicitations, and costs must all be captured in order to initiate a procedure. Regardless of whether a small portion of your strategic information inputs are still paper, it slows down the process, increases errors, and requires individuals to perform the mundane and monotonous tasks of manual information section, output, track, and follow, observing shipment plans, invoicing approval, and credit collections. 3. Streamlining the Workflow Your work processes may frequently begin with a physical document that must be converted into a digital document before it can be prepared, approved, and embedded into your business procedure. A portable catch is a distinct channel for initiating a procedure. The majority of customers have a definitive catch gadget in the palm of their hands in the form of their cell phones. Clients can be asked to capture and submit logistics documents via their preferred channel, which could be their cell phone, a self-service online interface, email, fax, scanner to an FTP website, or the cloud. A digitised and productive work process will also provide clients with transparency into the logistics process, allowing them to have input into how their transactions are progressing and what, if any, additional documentation is required to move the process forward. Clients must

have the impression that they are in control of the procedure. Joining intelligent capture that digitalizes the way toward grouping report types is fundamental to a unique work process. It is a significant advancement to be able to naturally perceive, isolate, and recognise various report types (solicitations, contracts, orders, delivery notices, split POs, and so on). Your business procedure will have the option to organise where the report should be directed if it is consequently ordered. The auto-ordering of record types into classes and subclasses provides enormous business value. It reduces the subjective tasks and weight on labourers, thereby lowering operational work costs, reducing errors, improving specialist fulfilment, and speeding up the transaction. Clients, on the other hand, would prefer not to programme complex rule-based solutions to figure out how to group archives. Rather, your capture engine should be keen enough to break down a corpus of reports with minimal tuning and thus see precisely which record classes and information takes care of should be removed for your custom business process. 4. Taking Action on Information Digital Transformation is associated with advancing procedures, connecting the flexible chain, propelling new and inventive digital items and advantages, and developing your organisation with the goal of changing the client commitment experience to drive more business esteem. Digital transformation in the transportation industry is a powerful tool for increasing ROI. For third-party logistics professionals, real-time data can be a significant differentiator. Your customers will benefit from using information from your business processes to make better decisions about their supply chain in order to speed up shipments and reduce costs. Real-time data assists logistics management in making decisions on carrier selection, load improvement, integrated track and follow, and claims management. Cost management and visibility are also important to your clients. Your clients have granular visibility into shipment and on-time delivery approvals, copy billings, GL coding for multi-shipment buy orders, granular detail on overcharges for fuel, private conveyance, "Client/Address Not Found" overcharges, class of service

confirmation, and exemption investigation with metadata. Here are certain ways which will help you to know about how digital transformation helps in logistics and transportation. These are as follows:

1. Build New Business Models i)Building robust new platforms will assist evacuate with providing supply chain inefficiencies, take care of issues related with resource underutilization, improve demand-supply matching, and increment visibility and network across frameworks. ii)Giving powerful information-driven solutions something to do can make new analytics tools that, thus, can be offered to customers to assist them with streamlining their own tasks and efficiencies. iii)Giving solutions that support operational visibility and availability between beforehand siloed frameworks permits partners to all more consistently interface with each other all through the supply chain.

2. Digitalize Core Operations i)Like the advantages gained from the contribution of new analytics tools, logistics associations themselves can utilize advanced analytics to improve activities in pricing, directing, and partial load shipment combinations. ii)Setting up a digital front end not just gives clients a helpful one-stopshop understanding, yet it additionally improves inward operational visibility and automates manual procedures. iii)Expanding the automation of center interior business procedures can help ease labor-intensive logistics operations, such as digitizing obtainment with e-auctions. iv)Digitally observing equipment health facilitates encourages progressively powerful prescient upkeep.

3. Develop an Internal Digital Foundation i)Logistics enterprises should effectively target and draw in savvy digital ability so as to contend, look after efficiencies, develop into new territories, and deliver on the guarantee of significant worth for clients. ii)Proffering the principles and advantages of digital all through the

logistics association justifies interests in increasingly adaptable technology systems all through the supply chain. iii)Logistics concerns should be agile in solutions improvement so as to keep up the pace of digital and amplify its advantages. Here are a few examples of how digitalization is helping fleet managers in transportation and logistics run their businesses: 1. Enhanced DOT Compliance DOT compliance is critical to a company's success and ability to continue operating for any growing business in this space. Failure to comply with DOT standards can result in severe financial penalties, the loss of your operating license, or injury to your logistics team. Rick S., a Capterra Reviewer and Transportation/Logistics Business Owner, recently experienced DOT compliance benefits after going digital with Whip Around, a solution that eliminates paper-based inspection processes. [The Whip Around solution] is both simple and effective. I'm a small owner/operator, and this is a great tool for keeping track of mileage and other details that the DOT may require. "I implemented this for a previous employer and have continued to use and enjoy it as a business owner." Whip Around's inspection platform, for example, was designed to help owners like Rick achieve DOT compliance by enabling drivers to report their inspections more quickly and accurately. 2. Inspection Processes That Are Simplified Drivers no longer have to scramble for a scrap of paper to jot down their mileage on DVIRs (Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports), thanks to companies that have made the transition from paper (or legacy systems) to a modern digital solution. Whip Around, an industryleading digital DVIR solution, can help to streamline the inspection process and ensure that inspections are completed consistently and on time. Errors are minimized and record-keeping is seamless. Furthermore, your administrative staff will appreciate not having to interpret illegible handwriting when filing paperwork. 3. Responsibility Chain Meeting NHVR's enhanced compliance regulations requires that all members of your organization play an active and responsible role in

supply chain activities. These types of regulations are already in place in countries such as Australia, but they are also likely to influence federal legislation in the United States by the FMCSA. Recent changes enacted at the end of 2018 require heavy vehicle transport companies to focus more on activities such as reporting, risk control, and meeting vehicle standard requirements. The good news is that by establishing a chain of responsibility, transportation companies that use the right digital solution for inspections and maintenance can improve in all of these areas. Because data can be collected from drivers using digital DVIR tools (as previously mentioned), this data can be made available to your administrative team, finance, mechanics, or anyone else who requires access. When it comes to driver liability and leaving a digital paper trail in the event of an investigation, digital tools like Whip Around play an important role. 4. Support for a Variety of Vehicle Types Few industries have a more diverse collection of vehicles than logistics. In addition to the various trucks and trailers used to retrieve and deliver orders, forklifts, pallet jacks, hand trucks, and reach trucks are available. When a new asset is added with different inspection and maintenance requirements, relying on paper forms or forms that aren't customizable won't cut it. These days, logistics managers can use a single app to keep all of their vehicles in good working order, customizing the inspection process for each vehicle. This eliminates the need to constantly print out forms or order inspection forms that aren't as customized as they should be. "We've been using Whip Around for over a year and it's the ideal solution to our inspection needs." The initial setup/follow up was excellent, and the ease of use allowed my entire team to implement it right away. We use it on all of our vehicles, from large trucks to pallet jacks, on a daily basis. "Having no paperwork to deal with as the administrator is probably my favorite part." 5. Vehicles that are better organized and maintained Maintaining a transportation fleet entails more than just tracking mileage and service requirements. As a manager in logistics or transportation, you must manage trailers or trucks that require basic maintenance in an organized manner. The ability to create

maintenance schedules and view trends over time is an added benefit of the digital transformation occurring in this space. Simple tasks like scheduling routine oil changes based on vehicle mileage can completely transform a company from reactive to proactive when vehicles can be kept in top physical condition thanks to automation made possible by technology. Companies will always be stuck guessing when things need to be done or forgetting to fix important vehicle faults unless they use data to make these maintenance-based tasks easier. The electronic Air Waybill (e-AWB) is the industry's digitalization initiative. It's a digitalized version of the traditional paper Air Waybill that tracks cargo from shipper to delivery. The e-AWB significantly improves efficiencies in tracking and processing cargo data, as well as increasing transparency, security, and lowering costs and delays. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) declared the e-AWB its default contract of carriage earlier this year, and it has thus far received an honest uptake. Large airlines such as Lufthansa and Emirates have already implemented it, and others such as Delta Airlines and United Airlines are expected to follow soon, implying an industry adoption rate of 80% by 2020. Digitization of processes, as well as the implementation of new technologies, should not be done in a rush or on a "all or nothing" basis. Modularity is a feature of gradual, assimilated, and assimilable implementation for intelligent digital transformation. This allows the right systems to flow in the direction of long-term progress and, above all, scalability. The digital transformation processes of these companies will become the norm, with a tangible need due to the times we live in, not only for business development but also for the long-term sustainability of company processes. The modular digital transformation of logistics can be broken down into three basic areas: warehouse management, plant logistics, shipping, and distribution logistics. Excess stocks, large volumes of various types of merchandise, and difficult access to relevant and up-to-date information are the most common reasons for seeking warehouse management modernization and automation. It is necessary to ensure that materials and goods

are correctly identified, as well as that in-and-out warehouse movements are completed. Real-time data generation, which is easy to consult, can almost by definition begin to solve problems that plague modern logistics. Aside from data collection and analysis, optimal storage automation and warehouse material picking can help you priorities operations within the warehouse based on the management system you want to implement. The goal is to transform the warehouse from uncontrolled to controlled by utilizing mobile technologies for holistic communication, IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), digital twins, and artificial intelligence (AI), among other things. These are technologies that enable the dynamic management of warehouse processes, with the ability to intelligently adapt to current demand based on a variety of criteria such as storage position occupancy, goods or material turnover rate, seasonality, and so on. Getting rid of warehouse management The final stage of warehouse management digitization could be human intervention. A self-driving warehouse with a custom-built infrastructure; robots and automated stackers, self-driving vehicles, intelligent picking... All of the technologies are combined in a personalized "dance" to meet the warehouse's specific and unique needs. Vehicles that do not work, production lines that are late or have insufficient services, lost components, and a variety of other factors all force businesses to seek to optimise their intralogistics processes. To optimise intralogistics (plant or manufacturing logistics), in-depth knowledge of all processes and systems is required. The analysis and collection of data that allows for the generation of knowledge to automate logistics flows, as well as process standardisation focused on a supply plan, are the first steps toward intelligent optimization that generates real-time solutions. One of the intralogistics optimization priorities is human capital management. Using data, it is possible to create systems for operators to work on a set schedule, with the same system automatically creating and assigning tasks to personnel based on their actual workload and expected workflow. The goal is to eliminate downtime and activities that add no value, as well as to monitor task completion. A complete intralogistics digitization would be centred on Big Data and predictive model results, with fully automated systems, M2M (machine-to-machine) communication, and more

interaction and real-time data exchanges. Low picking and dispatch process effectiveness, poor or insufficient control of order/delivery integrity, or a lack of flexibility in the delivery process are all common reasons for shipping and distribution logistics digitization. The goal of shipping and distribution logistics, like the previous phases, is automation. During this phase, the elements for modular digitization are order and delivery distribution dynamic management, forging evaluation and selection systems coordinated with inventories, and prioritising deliveries based on certain characteristics. Big Data analysis allows for the creation of customer predictive patterns, as well as the configuration of product inventory, machinery, and human resources. Artificial intelligence can fully automate the dynamic and operational management of delivery processes. AIcreated neural networks will enable predictive management, where relevant patterns can be distinguished with anticipation of delivery preparation. An appealing alternative for addressing and accelerating solutions to Last-Mile Delivery challenges. The goal of Logistics 4.0 is to create a transparent ecosystem in which all systems involved can expose relevant data. People, machines, sensors, and devices will be able to share the data required for the supply chain to run smoothly, allowing for end-to-end visibility and control. This will also help top management make decisions by providing early warnings and predictions about delays, breakdowns, and interruptions to supply chain stakeholders. (Image courtesy of medium.com.) With industry 4.0 solutions, logistics 4.0 is not possible. As a result, it is safe to assume that digital transformation in the logistics industry is gaining traction. Experts in the industry are focusing on increasing staff productivity and service levels through the use of robotic process automation (RPA) to eliminate repetitive, manual data entry tasks. This frees up employees' time to focus on customers and critical tasks. RPA also aids in the identification of trends and patterns that can aid in the

optimization of operations and logistics management. Some of the advantages of RPA in logistics and transportation companies are as follows: 1.Robotic process automation automates shipment scheduling and tracking. 2.Removes the need for manual load capture and rate look-ups. 3.Increases the speed of invoicing by integrating systems with customer portals. 4.Automated order/inventory tracking improves customer responsiveness. 5.It assists in gaining insights to improve forecasting and logistics planning. The following are the top ten reasons for digitization in transportation and logistics: 1.The digitalization of the future The world has gone digital, which is true not only for logistics but for all aspects of life. Many trends began before the pandemic and reached a climax in recent months as a result of global lockdowns. Daily life shifted to virtual working and learning, propelling ecommerce to new heights. A digital life necessitates digital solutions for the industry to meet rising global trade demands and customer expectations. Because of the numerous stakeholders in various countries throughout the supply chain, digital transformation of businesses and operations is critical. Shipping processes and backoffice operations must become digital in order to improve end-to-end visibility and efficiency. Real-time freight rates, paperless bills of lading, and automation all significantly improve operational efficiency. Even if digitalization is not the business's primary goal, it is required to enable more transparent and efficient solutions. For a long time, industry technology such as AS400 green screens had not advanced significantly. This has now drastically changed. The majority of the major players in the logistics industry have migrated to more efficient and automated systems. Digitalization enables them to process tasks

such as generating inquiries or receiving quotes much more quickly. According to a Forbes Insights survey, 65 percent of logistics companies recognise the importance of transitioning to a digital business model in order to thrive in the digital age. 2.Automation reduces costs and saves time. In the logistics industry, time is one of the most valuable commodities. Every step and process must be perfectly timed to ensure on-time delivery with no disruptions in the supply chain. Shippers struggle to meet their delivery targets due to extremely short shipping times. Delays frequently result in additional costs such as detention and demurrage charges. Automation through digitalization can improve the overall complexity of operations in the maritime supply chain. The use of limited human resources can be optimised by automating backoffice operations such as sending emails or faxes or making phone calls to track freight, obtain rates, or complete paperwork. With Freight, you can easily transform your digital platform into an efficient rate management system, reducing the time it takes to generate an inquiry from 15 minutes to 15 seconds, resulting in greater transparency and speed for both your team and your customers. Not only does digitalization improve time efficiency, but it also reduces error ratios significantly. 3.End-to-end visibility and tracking in real time Track and trace vessels to determine their most recent milestone location. Track and Trace Vessels by Obtaining the Most Up-To-Date Milestone Location - Use Freight. Digitalization not only makes backoffice operations more efficient, but it also allows for a more flexible response to disruptions in the supply chain. In this context, real-time tracking aids in understanding potential delays and, as a result, in planning accurate ETAs that can be provided to customers. This results in satisfied customers and fewer customer service calls from dissatisfied customers due to delays.Dynamic routing is another significant benefit of end-to-end visibility. It is possible to avoid upcoming delays through route optimization through continuous data

sharing. This saves time in the event of a disruption, such as a maritime bottleneck caused by port congestion or blank sailing. Shippers and forwarders can re-route shipments to ensure on-time delivery and customer satisfaction by receiving constant updates on the route and the ETA. 4.The promising prospects for interoperability as a result of digitalization Digitalization enables businesses to not only streamline the flow of data through their operations, but also to gain data-driven insights that can aid in the improvement of efficiencies. However, going digital as a business can accomplish much more. Digitalization and data usage are prerequisites for a global interoperability system among various stakeholders. Interoperability refers to the active exchange of data between various parties. This interaction would catapult the logistics industry and operations to a higher, more transparent, efficient, and long-term level. It would enable true end-to-end visibility and capture efficiencies that had previously been untapped due to the lack of interoperable systems. Interoperability remains a pipe dream because it is only possible if stakeholders adhere to data standards to ensure cross-company data interaction. However, converting a business to a digital system is the first step toward a brighter future with new opportunities. 5.The Internet of Things (IoT) The presence of IoT devices at nodes throughout the value chain is an important requirement for end-to-end visibility within the supply chain. These devices enable the company to track containers in real time, measure temperature and humidity to ensure the quality of sensitive goods, and comprehend any problem or disruption in the shipping process. IoT devices collect and send data to the cloud to help optimise processes, improve efficiency, and reduce costs. Data transmission is faster, data latency is lower, and insights are more ‘real-time' with 4G LTE-based sensors. The progression demonstrates how quickly technologies evolve. For example, because 3G will be

phased out by 2022, 4G will become the new standard. This emphasises the importance of future digital system adaptation. 6.Digitalization is a fundamental requirement for Blockchain. Blockchain is one of the most significant technological advancements in the digital age. It provides businesses with an end-to-end solution for more efficient operations. It is a decentralised public ledger system that allows for community ownership of data, with records that cannot be changed without explicit approval from all network stakeholders. This would mean increased visibility into the network and the elimination of unnecessary intermediaries within the supply chain for the maritime industry. It has the potential to reduce bottlenecks and improve clerical order, while smart contracts would increase transparency. Digitalization is essential for leveraging blockchain technology. When combined with big data and artificial intelligence, blockchain has the potential to deliver extraordinary benefits in the context of supply chain interoperability. 7.Data analytics for business optimization The benefits of storing data generated by operations are widely acknowledged by logistics stakeholders. However, data is frequently siloed without purpose or use. Data is only useful if it is put to use. It is critical to ensure that the collected data is streamlined - for example, data should be digitised to be accessible - in order to make data useful. This access is available not only to all team members, but also to various software that analyses data and aids in the optimization of internal and external processes. The proper data usage would have an impact on the company's workflows, improve operations, and lay the groundwork for the implementation of blockchain and interoperability. 8.Internal Operations Optimization The logistics industry, particularly the maritime industry, is based on complex operations involving numerous stakeholders. The need for

quick and on-time delivery forces businesses to modernise their often outmoded business operations. Companies frequently suffer from inefficient back-office operations and a lack of visibility within the organisation. Teams lack the transparency required to operate quickly and efficiently. The fierce competition among logistics providers is increasing the pressure on all companies involved to optimise time, costs, and operations. The pandemic's maritime bottlenecks are especially difficult to deal with for companies that lack operational cohesion.

9.Data comparison - quoting saves time and money One of the most significant achievements of digitalization is the company's ability to save time and money by utilising new technology. Back-office operations can be automated and monitored using the same software, and all team members can access them from anywhere in the world. One advantage for the company's internal operations is that data is available to all members of all departments within the organisation. Aside from making data available throughout the organisation, redundant processes such as sending and receiving documents such as invoices and bills of lading can be automated. Human resources can be used much more efficiently while administrative tasks are handled automatically in the background. White-labelled solutions, such as Freightify's, guarantee you the best rates in real-time and increase your time efficiency by nearly 450 times, reducing your quoting time to less than 30 seconds rather than 4 hours! 10.Customer gratification Customer expectations have risen dramatically since the introduction of Amazon into e-commerce. Customers can participate in a new consumer experience by having end-to-end visibility via real-time tracking. The new standard is to track the product and know where the order is at all times while it is in transit. Furthermore, Amazon transformed the industry with its unparalleled flexible delivery options

and efficiency in ramping up fulfilment to meet customer demands. These rapidly changing customer expectations have set the standard for a new, digitised industry in which transparency and efficiency are critical in order to compete. The retail industry is a customer-facing industry, and its success is based on customer satisfaction. It is critical to align operations with customer needs and goals in order to build a long-lasting and successful business.

Transportation is undergoing rapid transformation as a result of trends such as the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, Big Data, AI, and new energy. Many people in the transportation industry share a common goal: to provide safe, environmentally friendly, and efficient services that satisfy customers. To accomplish this, businesses and organisations must apply digital technologies in a variety of scenarios while also addressing the industry's challenges. This is required to construct a comprehensive transportation system that spans all business architectures, business processes, and transformation lifecycles. However, existing transportation enterprise structures and strategies are insufficient to support this transformation: structures are complex, data sharing is difficult, and inter-departmental collaboration can be difficult at times. Digital transformation will accelerate overall development, but it will require planning and an overarching vision, even if it will sometimes face internal resistance to significant changes due to the impact on existing employment. In addition, a number of major, and sometimes competing, factors are at work, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, market conditions, policymakers, and technology, all of which drive the digital transformation of transportation enterprises and institutions. In terms of modes (maritime, land, and air), services (passenger and logistics), and sub-industries, the industry is also diverse (road, rail, aviation, shipping and logistics). Because of this diversity, a full transition to comprehensive transportation is complicated. Forrester Consulting conducted a comprehensive survey of the current state of digital transformation in the global transportation industry. As a result, Digital Transformation Enables Comprehensive

Transportation, a white paper that examines how we can get from here to there, was created. According to the responses of the transportation leaders surveyed, the three most important internal forces driving transformation are: improving customer and passenger experience (65%), increasing business and IT agility (49%), and improving operational efficiency (46 percent ). Forrester Consulting's China and South-east Asia research teams are led by Frederic Giron, VP, research director, who focuses on the fundamental changes required to reap the benefits of digital transformation. "The majority of respondents agree that the future of transportation means removing barriers between modes of transportation," he says. "Enabling end-toend flows of people, freight, and data is the vision or 'North Star' for digital transformation." In B2C scenarios, this means improving the door-to-door travel experience for passengers. In business-tobusiness scenarios, this means providing cargo with more efficient, trusted, and predictable end-to-end transportation." "The good news is that most enterprises and organisations have begun their transformation across multiple functions," Giron says. According to the survey, 40% of respondents are already transforming multiple functions and business processes, while 30% are continuing their transformation through iterations and operations optimization. Transportation companies have accelerated their digitalization processes as a result of the Covid pandemic. Their current priorities are as follows: building digital cloud platform infrastructures (71 percent); using digitalisation to improve the operation and service of transportation infrastructures (66 percent); improving the insight and analysis capabilities of business and operations data (61 percent); and improving the connectivity and sensing capabilities of transportation equipment (61 percent) (55 percent ). The key to enabling infrastructure transformation is 4G network, cloud, and Software as a Service (SaaS) technology, which the majority of those polled are deploying and expanding: 4G (95 percent), public cloud (87 percent), SaaS (72 percent), and private cloud (72 percent) (64 percent ). Furthermore, more than half of the enterprises polled have deployed and are expanding IoT, hybrid cloud, optical network, and other key technologies.

Most businesses and organisations have begun to use the Cloud to transform multiple functions. "The even better news is how firms understand what this transformation truly means for their organisation," Giron says from ITS International.com. "Within the next one to three years, nearly half of respondents expect to achieve some results across functional units and will also focus on an ongoing, iterative cycle to continue optimising the outcomes generated by this transformation." This is a critical distinction that more and more discerning business and technology leaders in the transportation industry are making. "This is not your typical technology implementation project,". "It will have an effect on your entire operating model, including strategy, processes, people, metrics, organisational structure, and, of course, technology." And this transformation has no end date." Transportation will become more intelligent and comprehensive as a result of digital transformation. According to the survey, more than 80% of transportation leaders believe that smart transportation will improve logistics transportation efficiency, such as smart tracking and status sensing; it will also provide passengers with a more personalised and convenient transportation experience, enabling new digital transportation infrastructure that includes connectivity and awareness throughout the transportation lifecycle. "Different sub-industries have different priorities for digital transformation," Giron observes. "According to the survey, the aviation industry is attempting to improve operational efficiency and passenger experience through data convergence." Railways strive to improve safety by upgrading equipment and expanding data collection capabilities. Increased profits are sought by the urban rail industry through integration with municipal transportation resources. Data integration is being worked on by urban and intercity roadways to improve operational efficiency. To increase customer loyalty, the logistics industry expands supply chain capabilities. And ports are looking to improve connectivity between their information systems in order to improve the operator experience." Of course, such a massive transformation will present significant

challenges, and a number of roadblocks will need to be removed. "Digital transformation is a multi-year journey that requires the vision, leadership, and support of the entire organisation," Giron says, "from the CEO and executive leadership to middle management and rankand-file employees." "It begins with a clear vision (the North Star) that also expresses why this transformation is critical." According to survey respondents, the primary issues during transformation are organisational culture structure (51 percent) and business-related issues (46 percent), with headaches related to data insight (46 percent), resources (37 percent), and technical capabilities (28 percent) still present. As a result, structure and culture are the first things to consider. "To execute on this vision, digital transformation necessitates a unified digital vision as well as an effective organisational structure and culture," he continues. "The issue is that 73 percent of organisations believe their current organisational structure can hardly support a comprehensive transformation (due to silos, lack of KPI alignment creating conflicts...), and 65 percent believe they lack a compelling vision for digital transformation." The second issue revolves around unrealistic business expectations: bosses expect results yesterday – or, at the very least, tomorrow or, failing that, the day after. But this is highly unlikely to happen: there is no blueprint, and change takes time. And how will you know what constitutes success? "In most cases, businesses will have to experiment their way to success in digital transformation," Giron says. "The issue here is that, if any, best practises or benchmarks exist. And transportation companies continue to lack adequate data and knowledge of the potential outcomes of a digital transformation to support their business case and demonstrate ROI." Indeed, 81% of respondents believe that proving the ROI of digital transformation measures in the short term is a significant challenge for them. Many respondents (75 percent) believe it is difficult to select a suitable technology capable of solving their business problems, and 70 percent believe making decisions about digital transformation priorities is difficult. Giron suggests that rapid experimentation, in conjunction with storytelling and training, will aid in addressing this. The third major challenge is, perhaps unsurprisingly, data. "There is still a massive amount of investment and change management around data and

insights to be done," he continues. "Most businesses are still unable to use data insights to improve operational efficiency, safety, and customer experience, as well as learn from their actions." Again, the survey revealed significant concerns; 80 percent believe that significant data collection challenges exist. Even if data collection is feasible, 76 percent believe it will be difficult to standardise and capitalise on it – and 86 percent believe it will be even more difficult to apply data insight to improve operational efficiency, safety, and customer experience across various scenarios. The issue is that unless they have this insight-driven capability to test and learn from new insights – and can learn the business and customer value of their digital activities – they will remain stuck in their transformation.

"A digital transformation initiative has no end date," Giron adds. "However, being able to measure success in terms of culture, organisational alignment, and insights-driven capabilities can help the organisation understand whether they are making progress toward their North Star." Giron insists that it is possible to accelerate the process, but that organisations must work hard to do so. "Collaboration is essential," he says. To be successful, stakeholders must share a common vision of where they want to go, as well as a common language that allows them to communicate seamlessly across industries in ways that everyone understands. "Interoperability standards will help systems and technologies exchange data and ensure that the right insights can be delivered at the right time across the transportation network ecosystem," Giron adds. There are some promising signs. The surveyed enterprises expect to accelerate the deployment of Big Data (52 percent), edge computing (47 percent), AI and machine learning (46 percent), AR/VR (44 percent), video analysis (44 percent), and 5G in the next 12-18 months (44 percent ). Most expect a gradual shift from focusing on single business areas to comprehensive capacity building over the next one to three years, resulting in increased investment in emerging technologies. "Every industry and country is racing to digitalize their transportation infrastructure," Giron says. "Success is dependent on all participants achieving the same level of digitisation." We still have a lot of work to

do!"

Respondents noted that the global coronavirus pandemic has prompted transportation companies to develop more agile digital solutions. Following the pandemic, businesses will need to create transportation services that balance user safety with convenience and experience. At the same time, most governments intend to upgrade their digital infrastructure technologies, such as 5G, IoT, and cloud, making more room for the transportation industry to be digitalized. "The effects of the pandemic and the resulting economic recession will create market uncertainty," Giron says. "As a result, the transportation industry must become more adaptable, innovative, and cost-effective." The Covid-19 pandemic has severely impacted the transportation industry by significantly reducing demand for passenger transportation. Uncertainty will persist for a long time, necessitating innovation. 87 percent of respondents believe that this uncertainty requires organisations to become more agile in order to thrive ""solutions." "This encourages digital transformation. Similarly, the economic downturn and the decreased volume of global travel as a result of the pandemic are driving businesses to innovate. To that end, 77 percent of respondents believe that the demand for innovation is critical in promoting their organisations' digital transformation." According to survey results, there is an increase in demand for public health and traffic safety, with 84 percent of respondents believing that this demand will facilitate successful digital transformation. Given the investment required in AI, 5G, IoT, and cloud capabilities for transportation digitalization to progress, Giron believes that participation from both private sector organisations and government institutions will be required. "Success will necessitate deliberate and meaningful collaboration among all actors and stakeholders in the transportation ecosystem." Making predictions is always difficult, especially in the field of technology, but he concludes that "we will continue to experience significant amounts of uncertainty and change." The Covid-19 crisis demonstrated that companies that had made more progress in their digital transformation were better

prepared to deal with the crisis. I hope that more businesses will advance their digital maturity over the next five years, allowing them to be better prepared for the new, unstable normal."

New digital approaches can also improve the performance of core operations. The right digital tools increase efficiency by revealing the root causes of transportation-asset failures, reducing the need for costly overhauls, and automating routine tasks like report generation. They improve quality by eliminating errors that can occur when managers and front-line employees rely on email, spreadsheets, or paper documents. They also improve effectiveness by allowing for faster decision-making based on more relevant, timely, and accurate data. For years, the reliability of a large rail company's thousands of locomotives had declined sharply. Managers believed that a more robust, time-based maintenance programme, as well as additional overhauls, would be an effective solution. However, when the company analysed seven years of locomotive failure data, a different picture emerged. The root cause was discovered to be poor scoping and targeting rather than a lack of maintenance. Managers refined more than 80% of the required maintenance tasks, saving more than 30,000 hours of maintenance per year as a result of more precise, time-based maintenance rationalisation. Overhaul costs were reduced by a quarter, resulting in savings that were reinvested in new condition-monitoring technology, allowing the company to improve maintenance and asset-replacement decisions even further. Because of more accurate, time-based maintenance rationalisation, one large rail company saved more than 30,000 hours of maintenance per year. A large backlog of maintenance tasks was the issue for a different logistics provider. The pressure on technicians to increase their work rate only exacerbated the problem by lowering the quality of the completed repair work. The company discovered that the main root cause was its time-consuming planning process. Technicians' task lists were only updated once a week, and they were instructed to complete tasks in the order presented to them. Because that order did not take into account the criticality of the issue or the location of the asset, technicians were frequently required to travel long distances to

work on relatively minor jobs while more important ones awaited nearby. The solution was to create a new digital tool that allowed planners to group jobs by location and prioritise tasks based on their likely impact on commercially important service-level agreements. The new method saved maintenance managers an hour of planning time per day while increasing maintenance efficiency by more than 15% and reducing service-level misses by more than a quarter. Technology's opportunities extend beyond the optimization of individual processes. Some of the world's largest transportation and logistics companies are now using digital approaches to connect their operations from start to finish, resulting in significant improvements in visibility, performance, and responsiveness. Logistics and transportation companies have become much smarter about what they buy—and how they buy it—in recent years. Most have sophisticated procurement capabilities, such as comprehensive category management strategies, improved negotiation tactics, and meticulous spend monitoring. Using digital tools to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their purchasing activities, leading players are building on those fundamental best practises. They're using advanced analytics to better understand the dynamics of their demand and market characteristics, automating routine transactional activities across the source-to-pay process, and developing integrated procurement platforms to improve spend transparency. One global logistics company recently completed two large tenders using eprocurement tools. One covered 50 rail providers and approximately 5,000 origin and destination pairs for various container types and directions. The second covered 750 vendors and 12,000 lanes for truck services. Using a digital approach, the company was able to address over a million data points across the two tenders, ultimately unlocking additional price reductions of 5% for rail and roughly 10% for trucking. Another large transportation company used a variety of digital spend-management tools to save 20 to 30 percent on one of its most important spend categories: tyres. For more than a decade, the company sourced new and retreat tyres from a single supplier, leaving tyre repair and installation to the discretion of individual field locations. This strategy resulted in no price competition for tyre purchases, as

well as no scale or consistency in tyre services. Starting from scratch, the company defined a standard set of tyre specifications based on asset type, operating conditions, and tier positions. It then used sophisticated e-sourcing tools to generate request-for-proposals from a wide range of manufacturers. On the services front, the company used digital mapping tools to analyse the networks of potential dealers in order to identify opportunities to consolidate purchasing from fewer providers.

It is fundamentally difficult to optimise a network. T&L companies face a slew of complex, interdependent decisions as they build their networks, all of which must be made with incomplete data and in the face of uncertain future demand. Today, the development of powerful modelling, simulation, and analytics approaches is altering how businesses approach complex network-optimization problems. The most recent tools provide deeper insights into a network's current and future performance, allowing organisations to identify bottlenecks, evaluate multiple alternative configurations, and rapidly stress-test their designs against a wide range of scenarios. A shipping line considered three potential network changes: adjusting feeder connections, reviewing port calls with low yield, and replacing expensive transhipment cargo with more appealing alternative cargo. It simulated the expected revenue loss, cost savings, and potential revenue-recovery probabilities for each possible intervention across all ship systems and cargo flows using advanced analytics. The project uncovered opportunities to simplify the shipping line's network and save several million dollars per year. The line used an algorithm that examined patterns in millions of container movements to identify inefficient repositioning of empty containers. This project improved the steering of tens of thousands of containers from all over the world. Motivated by the results, managers across the organisation are now using the tools developed for these analyses in regular reviews, resulting in continuous savings and performance improvements. Another company, this time in the rail industry, used a simulationbased approach to optimise long-term maintenance network planning. To forecast future demand for critical maintenance resources, the

company modelled the changing characteristics of its fleet over a tenyear period. In just two months, the company was able to cut its planned capital expenditure on maintenance facilities by about $100 million. The sharing economy is infiltrating supply chain management, road transportation, and freight forwarding. From car-sharing to underutilised parking/warehouse space to industrial equipment, digital logistics platforms can share it all. It is one of the most effective ways to reduce the carbon footprint of logistics. With real-time data flow and communication via digital logistics platforms, the sharing economy will pave the way between shippers and carriers. Particularly in road freight management, the sharing economy aids in reducing traffic delays, loading operations, and communication lags. It is also expected that the sharing economy will focus on reducing process inefficiencies in quoting, pricing agreements, shipment tracking, and payment collection. For example, ASAP – a mobile and web app that enables anyone to conveniently transport their goods or products. ASAP is involved in the transportation of goods for people in Nordic regions and was quickly dubbed the "Uber of Transportation." ASAP received favourable media coverage, grew to become the industry leader in on-demand transportation, and expanded its market reach to the United States. Sharing economy solutions are not only gaining traction in the transportation industry, but they are also helping to reduce carbon emissions. There are several use cases of AI in logistics, Transportation and supply chains. Let’s have a look at some: 1.Automated appointment scheduling: AI systems can help in automated scheduling appointments for trucks, managing cargoes, and scheduling employee appointments at various stations. 2.Automated inventory management: Automated sensors across the warehouse and retail stores can help track inventory movement. It can prevent stock-outs by scheduling timely inventory refills and managing inventory pipelines. Moreover, Machine Learning can help in predictive analysis for inventory requirements and to avoid overstocking.

3.Demand forecasting: AI-based demand forecasting is sharper and more accurate than traditional demand forecasting methods such as exponential smoothing methods and Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA). This helps organizations plan their workforce and optimize vehicle dispatch to different locations. 4.Delivery time and route optimization: AI tracks and analyzes routes for safety and distance. This can help in freight management by selecting the shortest and safest routes. 5.Damage detection of items: Damaged goods and deliveries are supply chain nightmares. But AI-based Computer Vision technology can help in identifying damaged goods and preventing further damage to goods. 6.Automated customer service with chatbots: Customers experience delivery delays and botched deliveries for which they contact the logistics company. Automated service chatbots can tackle low-to-medium level queries of customers directly without human help. They can also transfer more complicated tasks to human counterparts.  Market globalization, dynamic customer behavior, increasing product diversity, and a progressive division of labor are all contributing to increasingly complex purchasing and sales networks. Sub-processes shaped by function are especially prevalent in supply chains that have grown over time. This lack of process continuity contributes to high transportation and processing costs, as well as a lack of transparency regarding shipment status. Future-oriented businesses are embracing digital supply chains and digital transportation management to achieve greater transparency and lower costs. 4flow employs an innovative approach to transportation planning and optimization, combining strategic, tactical, and operational transportation planning and optimization with transportation order processing, event management, freight invoicing, and reporting. The most significant innovations are process continuity, consideration of future data, and network capability. With digital transportation management, you can save money in the long run. 4flow provides the integrated transportation management system (iTMS) in conjunction with the implementation of digital processes in the organization for digital transportation

management. Both reduce transportation costs in a sustainable manner and allow for active logistics management. 4flow typically achieves the following results when introducing new processes and systems: i)Transportation costs have been reduced by a double-digit percentage. ii)Increased delivery date dependability End-to-end transparency Increased process conformity Inventory range reduction Ramp contact reduction iii)CO2 emissions reduction iv)Supplier and logistics service provider integration v)Formation of a digitally linked community The rise in demand for digitalization of business processes, as well as increased cost pressure on service providers, are expected to drive global digital transformation spending in the logistics market. The logistics industry has been slower to adopt digital advances than other industries, which could be disastrous even for the industry's major players. As a result, the digitalization of business processes propels digital transformation spending in the logistics market. Furthermore, digitalization is occurring across industries, and the benefits for businesses are revolutionary, with increased consumer awareness and reach, higher productivity, and innovative business models. End users, on the other hand, must make significant initial investments and incur high maintenance costs. These act as market restraints. The global digital transformation spending in logistics is expected to reach US$ 94,972.3 Million by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 10.7 percent over the forecast period. Logistics companies invest in digital transformation to improve efficiency, optimization, speed, and timing of logistic services, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and revenue. Among a variety of rapid technological evolutions and in an increasingly digital environment where digital transformations are affecting the industry, most CEOs of transportation and logistics companies view digital solutions (to engage customers and optimize production and operations) as major areas of investment.E-commerce growth, combined with the need for quick delivery of goods to gain a competitive advantage, has resulted in a high demand for

transportation management systems and warehouse management systems. Furthermore, the rise in the number of Internet users, as well as the popularity of social media platforms, has contributed to an increase in awareness of digital solutions. Innovative digital solutions and collaboration platforms are being integrated into enterprise infrastructure. Vinculum Solutions, based in India, specializes in providing retail-specific solutions (Vin eRetail WMS) and products. The solution allows for easy order delivery, last mile delivery, and the integration of manufacturers, logistics companies, and web stores. The online sales channel has become more complex, prompting manufacturing companies to embrace digital transformation. Furthermore, as an alternative to in-house fulfilment, many retailers have outsourced Internet order processing to 3PLs, which are equipped and experienced in warehouse management systems to handle these online needs. This is anticipated to drive the Warehouse Management System (WMS) market in the coming years. Several strategies and approaches have been developed over the years to improve logistics efficiency. Collaboration is regarded as one of the most promising aspects of these strategies. These startups, as well as the industry's leaders, are eager to collaborate and complement one another's offerings. Sharing these platforms fosters collaborative working, allowing the key players to maintain their dominance. The deal benefits both companies because the new player gains easy access to a potentially hostile market and the market leaders increase their efficiency and develop new business models, such as shared networks. The digitization of business processes is a key trend that is driving market growth. Obsolete systems and labor-intensive processes add more challenges and complexities, slow down operations, and limit industries' ability to grow revenue. Businesses can suffer significant inefficiencies and productivity losses as a result of these manual tasks. As a result, the logistics industry is working to create a fully digital, flexible, and connected supply chain that is optimized for e-commerce and last-mile, last-minute delivery. Technological advancements have resulted in a greater adoption of digital transformation throughout the transportation and logistics industries. The global digital transformation spending in logistics has been divided into solutions, deployment, services, industry, and

region. The market has been divided into three categories: hardware solutions, software solutions, and services. The hardware solutions market is divided into three categories: systems, devices, and IT equipment. IoT platform, warehouse management & control system, transport management system, and enterprise solutions comprise the software solutions segment. Consulting, integration, and operation and maintenance are the three service segments. The global digital transformation spending in the logistics market has been segmented by industry into third-party logistics (3PL) and warehouses. During the forecast period, North America is expected to lead the global digital transformation spending in the logistics market. Digital transformation necessitates active and flexible IT support, which is available in the vast majority of the region's businesses. Because of the increased adoption of logistics solutions, North America dominates the global digital transformation spending in the logistics market. Due to increased digitization and increased Internet use, digital transformation spending in the Asia Pacific logistics market is expected to grow at a rapid pace. Furthermore, the market in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as South America, is expected to grow rapidly during the forecast period. Mergers and acquisitions and partnerships drive the majority of global digital transformation spending in the logistics market. For example, in October 2017, IBM acquired Vivant Digital, a small boutique digital consultancy based in Sydney. This acquisition met the growing demands of clients looking for transformation through innovative digital business models and enhanced customer experiences. Hexaware Technologies, IBM Corporation, JDA Software WMS, Logitech Corporation, XPO Logistics, Mindtree Ltd., Oracle Corporation, Samsung Electronics, SAP SE, Sanco Software LLC, Syntel, Inc., and Tech Mahindra Limited are among the key players profiled in the report. Here are six examples of how digital transformation is transforming traditional transportation and logistics: 1. The Networked Supply Chain "Smart logistics," such as automated warehousing, cargo tracking, and remote fleet management, have the potential to be game changers. Recent advancements in supply chain technology provide businesses

with real-time visibility into asset status and location. Cloud-based GPS and low-cost Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) asset tracking can provide real-time geographic updates, including when cargo is in transit. Real-time tracking can be used to assess transportation performance and inefficiencies in delivery routes. Automation and business intelligence technologies have been critical in increasing adaptability and optimizing the supply chain in response to variable customer demand. Internet-connected sensors can detect supply chain disruptions or quality issues in real-time and address or adapt production flows with minimal human intervention. When done correctly, the end result is increased visibility, responsiveness, and resiliency throughout the entire supply chain ecosystem. 2. Supply Chain Management Based on Demand Demand-driven supply chain management is not a new concept. What is novel is the sheer volume of data available, as well as our ability to derive insights from it. Traditional demand forecasting methods rely on historical demand levels, which may not be representative of the current demand environment. Embedded sensor technologies can monitor, collect, and report data from their surroundings, as well as respond to remote commands. Smart data analysis can greatly improve the accuracy of demand forecasting and replenishment. While not a perfect science, predictive analytics and machine learning can account for these additional variables to predict demand, identify patterns, and anticipate changes. 3. Establishment of the Digital Thread The digital thread is a communication framework that allows information to be shared with all data consumers upstream and downstream, resulting in a continuous feedback loop. The digital thread necessitates the integration of workflows and people in addition to connecting data and systems. Improved data communication will allow the entire product chain to become more responsive to changes in design, manufacturing, volume, reworking, and life-cycle service provisions. Finally, establishing this digital thread between suppliers, your organization, and customers is the foundation of the transition from supply network to integrated value chain, in which suppliers and customers collaborate to achieve efficiencies and lower costs. The

true value of the digital thread stems from improved business intelligence and a greater understanding of supplier performance and customer behavior. 4. Co-Creation of Values The integrated value chain is built on a new level of transparency and information sharing, including bidirectional communication and intercompany visibility into everything from inventory conditions, supply statuses, and shipping delays to future-focused factors predicting demand shifts. To increase efficiencies and improve interoperability, best practices are shared with internal and external stakeholders. End-to-end visibility is largely determined by the ability to access data across business networks, also referred to as a "network of networks." The idea is that combining data from all supply chain entities is more valuable than combining data from a single network. This lays the groundwork for synergistic value cocreation, in which savings and opportunities are generated and shared among business partner organizations, resulting in "win/win/win" relationships. 5.Customer Expectations Are Changing As consumer shopping habits change, many businesses are rethinking their distribution models. Customers today have little tolerance for late or incorrect orders, so logistics and distribution— from warehousing to order fulfilment to shipping—must occur at breakneck speed. As a result, some organizations are shifting away from direct store distribution and toward centralized distribution and real-time inventory management, allowing order points to be less dependent on warehouse inventory levels and more responsive to demand. Because the majority of customer transactions shifted online during the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are following in the footsteps of retailers and developing their own e-commerce capabilities. Some B2B organizations may even decide to sell directto-consumer (DTC) and leverage retailers' strategies for improving their digital customer service capabilities. This includes developing digital order forms and online storefronts that enable remote communication with customers. Businesses can even offer simulations of facility tours and showcase new product or service offerings by leveraging virtual or augmented reality tools.

6.Cybersecurity Dangers Digital transformation is breaking down traditional barriers to innovation and collaboration, but it also creates more opportunities for bad actors to break in, exponentially increasing supply chain cyber risks. To gain access to their ultimate target, sophisticated attackers frequently exploit third-party vulnerabilities. Any security flaws in an organization's supplier network can serve as an entry point for hackers. Companies, on the other hand, can serve as an entry point for hackers to reach their supply chain partners and end customers, resulting in reputational damage and lost business, particularly if the victim organization is deemed cyber-negligent. All suppliers should be subjected to a cyber risk assessment process. Contractual provisions and clear minimum standards should then be used to address the identified risks. The measures implemented should be proportionate to the risk and value of the relationship. The constant use of smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, and data glasses is part of everyday life for many people, particularly digital natives. Some of them are always online, sometimes on multiple channels at the same time. They regard the associated possibility of continuous localization as obvious as the short-term generation and redirection of requirements. As a result, there is a greater need for improved product and service individualization, while ownership of certain items is becoming less important. Numerous consumer goods or services are being replaced by new sharing economy models. Customers are increasingly using and paying for a car only when they need it, booking private accommodations instead of hotel rooms, or opting for carpooling instead of taxis. Some of these sharing economy concepts are already in use in logistics. In Sweden, for example, the DHL app "My Ways" allows working people to pick up a parcel for a neighbor on their way home from the city Centre in the evening. UberRush is currently launching a service in the United States with the goal of organizing transportations faster than usual and at a lower cost than standard parcel costs. These online trading effects on logistics are transforming the market. DHL, a former state-owned company, became a technology leader through a clever digital transformation strategy, whereas Amazon put

its customers at the Centre of its business processes and established a new logistics standard. Zalando excels not only as a savvy online shoe retailer, but also as a reverse logistics expert. Old business models, such as several traditional mail-order companies that resisted digitization for far too long, have lost market share and, in some cases, have completely vanished. Digital Twins is the process of creating a digital replica of a physical object or process. It has a wide range of applications in logistics. This technology allows warehouses to create accurate 3D models of their storage facilities and experiment with layout changes without having to move a single item. Logistics hubs can create digital twins and use them to test routes and schedules, as well as to increase efficiency. Furthermore, delivery networks could use the technology to provide real-time information, which would improve delivery times and help autonomous vehicles navigate their routes. Logistics companies collect a lot of data. The vast majority of it, however, can be siloed or not shared between different units. However, it will no longer be an option in 2021. Companies that want to succeed must change their approach to data. DCSA's introduction of new data standards for container shipping, as well as its Industry Blueprint, has laid the groundwork for industry-wide change. Companies are increasingly opting to cleanse their data and transform it into advanced analytics. It will assist them in improving supply chain visibility, forecasting demand, perfecting last-mile delivery, and much more. According to Accenture, Augmented Reality will revolutionize picking, packing, and commissioning processes in warehouses and crossdocking areas, giving logistics companies a competitive advantage. By superimposing important information directly onto drivers' windshields, virtual reality can significantly improve the delivery process, making it safer and more efficient. Drivers would no longer need to look at their handheld device to see alternate routes, traffic jams, and blocked roads. When drivers are at the point of delivery, VR could even improve service quality. Drivers, for example, could use VR-powered glasses to view information such as package weight, content, and handling instructions to ensure that packages are delivered safely.

Cloud logistics is rapidly gaining traction, with 50% of logistics providers already using cloud services and another 20% planning to do so. As data moves to the cloud, logistics IT services are becoming more flexible, on-demand, and pay-per-use. This means that smaller businesses no longer need to invest in monolithic IT structures, instead paying only for what they require when they require it. Shipwire and Freightly, for example, already offer real-time cloudbased transport management systems that cover all logistics processes from procurement to billing, making the entire process easier and less expensive for SMEs. Eventually, all supply chain data will be stored in the cloud, resulting in a single integrated global view. These services will become more accessible as edge computing develops, bringing data processing closer to the cloud. Many industries are changing as a result of digital technology, and the transportation and logistics industry is no exception. You have experienced the benefits of digital transformation in your personal lives and expect the same type of transactional experience in your professional roles, whether you are a traffic coordinator at a carrier, a shipping clerk for a manufacturer, or an invoice processing analyst at a 3PL. 3PL vendors, on the other hand, continue to face challenges such as manual data entry, driver shortages, the proliferation of data from Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, warehouse and on-truck capture devices interfacing into legacy systems, and the rise of emerging geographic markets with antiquated paper-based systems. Simultaneously, as competition heats up, relationships become more transient and volatile. Disruptions include Google's same-day delivery, Amazon's drone package delivery testing, self-driving trucks, and the inevitable Uber for Trucking with supply chain load sharing. The influx of new market entrants is armed with cutting-edge technology and free of legacy systems. In addition to new market entrants, smart trucking applications such as driver matching, driverless autonomous or semiautonomous freight trucking, real-time asset maintenance tracking, capacity load sharing, and instant payment threaten to level the playing field. Innovation is moving at a breakneck pace. Here are some trends:

1.Your secret weapon is customer experience.

Switching costs are low nowadays, and dissatisfied customers will simply go elsewhere if they are dissatisfied with your level of engagement. Improving and empowering the customer experience is now your competitive weapon, and it can be accomplished by speeding up transactions through self-service tools and providing enhanced process visibility. Customer engagement apps are now strategic tools for improving customer experiences. Customer onboarding, trace and tracking, and omnichannel invoice validation and processing are all tools that can delight your customers, but they must be tightly integrated into backend systems of record to be effective. 2.Make the most of your IT investments. Your existing business processes are the foundation of your company. You've worked hard to support a high volume of digital transactions, and you're probably capable of supporting a diverse set of documentation sources via self-service portals that can handle fax, email, and various formats such as EDI, ANSI X12, EDIFact, Web Services, spreadsheets, and CSV. Your IT investments were intended to achieve speed of execution and agility in order to reduce existing business latencies and inefficiencies. However, there are some analogue remnants that don't quite fit with your new digital strategy. Documents continue to drive and support the majority of 3PL business processes. Bills of lading, customs declarations, claims documents, proof of delivery, driver logs, catering and fuel receipts, carrier invoices, and expenses must all be recorded before the process can begin. Even if a small percentage of your logistic data inputs are still paper, it slows the process, increases errors, and requires people to perform mundane and repetitive tasks such as manual data entry, scanning, tracking, and tracing, monitoring shipment schedules, invoicing validation, and credit collections. 3.Increasing Workflow

Your workflows may frequently begin with a physical document that must be converted into a digital file before being processed, validated, and inserted into your business process. Mobile capture is a natural way to start a process. The majority of customers have the ultimate capture device in the palm of their hands in the form of smartphones. Customers can be given the ability to capture and submit logistics documents through their preferred channel, whether that is their smartphone, a self-service web portal, email, fax, scanner to an FTP site, or the cloud. A digitised and efficient workflow will also provide customers with transparency into the logistics process, allowing them to see how their transactions are progressing and what, if any, additional documentation is needed to move the process forward. Users want to believe they have control over the process. Intelligent capture, which automates the process of classifying document types, is critical to a dynamic workflow. It is critical to be able to automatically recognise, separate, and distinguish between various document types (invoices, contracts, orders, delivery notices, split POs, and so on). Your business process will be able to orchestrate where the document should be routed once it has been automatically classified. The automatic classification of document types into classes and subclasses provides enormous business value. It reduces the cognitive tasks and burden on workers, lowering operational labour costs, reducing errors, increasing worker satisfaction, and speeding up the transaction. Customers, on the other hand, do not want to programme complex sets of rules to learn how to classify documents. Instead, your capture engine should be intelligent enough to analyse a corpus of documents with minimal tuning and automatically understand which document classes and data feeds are required for your custom business process. 4.Taking Action Based on Information For 3PL practitioners, real-time data can be a game changer. Your customers will benefit from using data from your business processes to provide context for them to make better decisions about their supply chain in order to expedite shipments and reduce costs. Real-time data

assists logistics management in making decisions regarding carrier selection, load optimization, centralised track and trace, and claims management. Cost management and visibility are also important to your customers. Your customers now have granular visibility into shipment and on-time delivery validations, duplicate billings, GL coding for multi-shipment purchase orders, granular detail on fuel, residential delivery, "Customer/Address Not Found" surcharges, class of service confirmation, and exception handling analysis thanks to metadata. 3PL practitioners can offer new revenue streams from digital products and services by leveraging the data that carriers and freight forwarders own. Customized real-time business intelligence dashboards of your customers' logistics supply chains, as well as load optimization algorithms based on real-time data, may help reduce supply chain costs and provide tremendous business value in carrier negotiations. Digital Transformation is about innovating processes, connecting the supply chain, launching new and innovative digital products and services, and evolving your organisation in order to transform the customer engagement experience and drive more business value. In the transportation industry, digital transformation is a competitive weapon for increasing ROI. 9.8 Retail Digital transformation is permeating every field and industry we know today, beginning with mass media and progressing to education, healthcare, finance, and banking. Organizations go digital to improve their services and facilities in order to increase customer satisfaction. The concept of digital transformation in retail is based on customer needs and requirements. Retailers consider how they can use emerging technologies to find new ways to drive revenue and create innovative business models when deciding whether to go digital. As new digital tools and technologies emerge, they will have a significant impact not only on the company's services but also on its workflow organisation. For retailers, digital transformation entails thinking beyond incremental improvements. It is about facilitating a connected engagement through the use of technology. It's not just about data intelligence, agility, customer centricity, new value propositions, and

innovation; it's also about cutting costs, improving efficiencies, and streamlining processes. When it comes to digital transformation in retail, retailers must rethink every aspect of their operations, from sourcing to inventory management, employee management and training, and customer experience management. By providing customers with the services and products they require, digital transformation in retail can help with customer retention and satisfaction. Big data analytics, location-based services, and mobile apps have significantly altered the way retailers do business. However, the path to digital transformation may encounter a number of difficulties. What are the challenges in the retail industry's digital transformation? 1.Change Management Many departments act independently, describing and managing their touch-points in different ways and adhering to different standards and metrics. Transformation poses a threat to traditional ways of doing things, eliciting a self-defence mechanism that prevents change. Furthermore, changes in roles make it difficult to demonstrate ROI and take ownership. As a result, retailers frequently express scepticism and reluctance to adopt new methods of operation. 2.Commitment Even when initiatives are underway, they are frequently insufficiently transformational. Those initiatives usually result in a mobile app or a new website that only slightly improves the customer experience. Furthermore, the commitment to implementing digital transformation in an enterprise extends beyond ideation. It requires emphasis at the leadership level, assurance of resources and budget, and the ability to follow the initiative with certainty. 3.Complexity Retailers can't handle digital transformation on their own because it's

too complicated. While outsourcing can alleviate some of the burden, retailers must exercise caution when selecting partners. To co-create digital journeys for all customers, stakeholders, and enterprise entities, a different kind of partnership is required. It is necessary to identify those digital moments in a retailer's operational journey and customer experience that can have a transformative impact. 4.Technology A strong foundation is required for a complete digital transformation to be successful, whether it is a single view of orders, products, inventory, or customers, or a scalable architecture to support dynamic changes in the business. Furthermore, one of the significant challenges is identifying the right technologies that can add value. Simultaneously, it is critical to take calculated risks in order to determine which new infrastructure and technologies are appropriate for an organisation. Regardless of the aforementioned challenges, retailers must embark on their journey after gaining a thorough understanding of how various technologies can aid in digitising retail businesses and driving growth. Performing a self-assessment can also assist in identifying areas where retailers must focus in order to become digital masters of the future. Because transformation entails significant changes, retailers should implement a change management strategy. They must form alliances in order to leverage the strength of their partners in order to facilitate transformation and build through leadership. The current digital trends in the retail industry are: 1.Increased use of social media and the internet Given the strong correlation between economic affluence and internet access, connecting billions and trillions of users to the internet is one of the most significant and visible opportunities for the retail industry. The growing trend of accessing the internet via wireless devices equipped with technologies such as 3G, 4G, and public Wi-Fi has put mobility at the centre of the next big revolution for retail businesses.

2.The growing use of m-commerce and the growing number of smartphone users According to smartphone usage statistics, the average person spends more than 2 hours and 51 minutes per day on their phones. 51% of users check their mobile devices a few times per hour, while 22% check their phones every few minutes. More than 2.71 billion people worldwide own smartphones, and the number of mobile phone owners is expected to rise to 7.33 billion by 2023. With the increased use of smartphones, it is expected that mobile commerce in the retail industry will grow. 3.Infrastructure for Digitalization Emerging technologies that blur the lines between the digital and physical worlds define the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. Access to data, when combined with powerful analytics tools such as scenario analysis, predictive learning algorithms, and visualisation, is transforming how businesses perform. Companies can now collect massive amounts of data from physical facilities and assets in real time, use advanced analytics to generate new insights, and make better decisions. The digital revolution is changing the way products are designed, created, and delivered to customers. It has farreaching implications for the retail value chain.

Technologies that help in digital transformation of retail industry are: 1. Data Analytics As the retail market is becoming more and more competitive with each passing day, nothing has been more crucial than the ability to optimize business processes when satisfying customer expectations. Data analytics is nowadays implemented at all stages of the retail process, keeping track of all emerging products, forecasting sales and predicting future demand. Data analytics can also be used to optimize placements of offers and products via the heat-mapping of customers. Using analytics, customers who are interested in specific products

based on their past purchases can be identified quickly and effectively. It helps in finding the appropriate way to handle such customers via targeted marketing campaigns. This is what data analytics deals with. Following are some of the strategic areas where retail players identify how data analytics can help them drive more revenue and growth to their business i)Predict future performance It is also one of the significant areas when looking into data analytics in retail businesses, as every customer interaction has a significant impact on both existing and potential relationships. Executing the idea without knowing about it entirely can be risky because a wrong decision could lead to a prolonged or quick loss. Retail players can predict the future performance of different products based on the customers’ existing interests and likes. ii)Price Optimization Data analytics plays a crucial role in the optimization of prices. Using different analytics algorithms, you can perform several functions, including monitoring inventory levels, tracking demands, responding to market challenges in real-time automatically and monitoring activities of competitors. With price optimization, it becomes possible for retailers to determine when to drop or raise prices. Before analytics was introduced, retailers would drop prices after a buying season ends for a specific product.At the same time, analytics represents that a gradual price drop from when demand starts vanishing would result in increased revenue. The US Retail Stage Stores used a predictive approach and performed some experiments to determine the fall and rise of demand for a specific product.Walmarts, one of the biggest retail giants, spend millions on investing in real-time systems to develop the world’s largest private cloud to track and monitor millions of transactions and optimize pricing for all products. iii)Demand Prediction

When retailers get an understanding of customers buying trends, they focus on areas that would have high demand. It involves collecting demographics, occasion-based and economic parameters to create a good image of buying behavior across the target market. It helps in effectively managing inventory. iv)Trends Forecasting With data analytics tools, retailers can have a better understanding of the current trends of their businesses. Data analytics algorithms can be used to forecast future trends based on buying data. Forecasted trends tell us what needs to be promoted to increase the revenue and what does not need to be promoted. v)Picking out the highest return on investment opportunities Using data-driven intelligence and predictive risk filters, retailers can gain an understanding of their existing and potential customer base. It can help them model expected responses for marketing activities based on how they are evaluated by a tendency to likely buy or buy. vi)Customer Identification Identifying customers is also essential in data analytics because it helps in selecting which customers would tend to like a specific product. Due to this, most of the retailers depend on recommendation engine technology, data fetched via transactional records and online and offline loyalty programs. Data analytics is a proactive approach whereby retail players can use past data to forecast expected sales growth by looking at customer behaviour trends. It helps retailers stay on the competitive edge and gain significant market share.

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial Intelligence is being implemented in retail in new ways across the entire service and product cycle – from construction to post-sale customer service interactions. But as a retail player, you will require answers to the following essential questions: i)How are retail companies using AI technologies to stay ahead of competitors?

ii)Which AI applications can automate and augment the retail process? iii)What innovations are considered as potential game-changers over the next ten years? IBM surveyed 1900 retail and consumer product companies across 23 countries, out of which 85% of retail firms are planning to implement intelligent automation in the supply chain by 2021. Retailers believe that implementing AI can lead to a 10% annual growth. Let’s understand how AI contributed to digital transformation in retail industry. i)Better Customer Service AI can revolutionize the retail industry by enabling web shops that help retail companies in promoting their products or services based on the customer’s behavior and buying history. It is essential to realize that seamless customer service can help run a business successfully.AI can help make customer service effective and better by analyzing customers’ data and behavior. Offline stores can also leverage the potential of AI in a number of ways. What if you visit a store and you come across a friendly robot instead of a salesman. Customers can ask as many questions as they want from the robot, instead of talking to a salesman. It ensures the least contact with a human being, ensuring no risk of spread of the infection post-COVID-19 outbreak. Also, AI-enabled robots will feed the data and analyze it to identify customer likes or dislikes and predict future sales. For example, if a customer is looking for a moisturizer, they can ask your robot for product recommendations based on the skin type. Therefore, the overall experience gets interactive for customers. ii)Better Data Accumulation AI can help retail firms accumulate a massive amount of customer data. With collected data, AI can help create a personalized shopping experience for the customers by drawing conclusions. If you have the customer data, you can understand what do they like the most. It helps create an engaging experience for users based on their likes and interests. Moreover, retailers can forecast how well a product is

likely to perform in the market by learning from past experiences. iii)Virtual Trial Rooms When shopping to buy an outfit, trying out different apparels can be time-consuming and quite frustrating. Using virtual rooms equipped with digital mirrors, consumers can try dresses without requiring to change again and again. With a touch-based and gesture interface, a customer can mix and match different outfits, shoes and accessories to select the final look and decide what to buy. It reduces the time that people spend on making buying decisions are: i)Behavioral Analytics using AI-enabled Surveillance With modern surveillance equipment powered by CV and AI technologies, retailers can capture and examine customer behavior inside stores. It will help them gain an understanding of customer engagement levels with store layout and optimize operations for higher revenues. Video analytics can also enhance in-store security and lessen the chances of theft. Using AI, surveillance data can be controlled in real-time and notification can be sent to store owners and administrators for quick action. ii)Chatbots for Customer Support AI-enabled chatbots enable retail players to engage consumers. Using chatbots, retail companies can manage thousands of queries simultaneously without needing a large workforce. Chatbots are designed to answer queries, offer instant support and provide shopping recommendations. With a combination of AI chatbots and human beings, retail brands can handle customers effectively and provide customers with a proper resolution of their problem. When customers get quick and personalized attention, they get engaged with the brand deeply, enabling improved customer loyalty. The above use cases are not fantasy, but many retailers have started experimenting with these technologies. AI will be ruling the retail sector by helping brands become more customer-centric in retail operations.

3. IoT The retail industry is witnessing a rapid transformation with the implementation of the Internet of Things. It is poised to boost sales, increase customer loyalty, provide a personalized experience and enhance inventory management. For the last 20 years, the traditional retail has dramatically transformed, providing companies with opportunities to gather and analyze data and target various channels. Here’s how IoT can help in digital transformation in retail industry i)Robots Robots can significantly transform the retail sector by delivering items without the need for the workforce. Recently, many countries, including China and the USA, deployed robots to provide unmanned goods delivery amid COVID-19. People appreciated their efforts to reduce the risk of infection.Though it can be quite terrifying to trust a robot to be your customer service representative, it’s a great opportunity to cut down on forcing your workforce.OSHbot, Lowe’s newest robot employee, helps customers detect certain products and provides information on inventory and promotions. Also, OSHbot answers in two languages, including English and Spanish. By handling simple inventory tasks, robots free up the human workforce to emphasize on offering top-notch customer support. ii)Smart Shelves Retail employees’ energy and time are usually focused on tracking items to make sure that items are not out of stock and checking items if they are at their right place. Using IoT, the concept of smart shelves can be introduced to automate both of these tasks while identifying thefts simultaneously. Smart shelves are equipped with RFID tags, weight sensors and readers to scan products on both stock and display shelves. Using smart shelves, you can get to know when you have fewer items on the shelves or when items are not placed correctly on a shelf. Since each RFID tag is connected to the reader, smart shelves can monitor in-store thefts, saving you money on cameras and security personnel. ii)Automated Checkouts You must have noticed many times how long queues prevent your

customer from buying products. Using IoT, it is possible to set up a system that can read tags on each item when a customer leaves the store. An IoT-enabled checkout system would tally the items up and deduct money from the customer’s digital payment app automatically. Developing an automated checkout system with IoT devices would make your consumers happier and they will be willing again and again to enter your store. According to McKinsey, automated checkout systems can reduce the need for cashier staff by up to 75%. iii)In-store layout optimization You can be surprised to know that your retail store is not optimized for your customer’s behavior. Your store might have the least popular products in the front or your customers may need more space around couches in the back. By implementing analytics software with infrared sensors, you can utilize IoT technology to enhance your retail layout. Therefore, IoT can help you optimize the in-store layout effectively. We believe it is technology that allows consumers to start and stop parts of the transaction online – starting and stopping where and when they want – and then seamlessly pick up where they left off online instore. Car shopping is a two-way, multi-channel experience that includes in-store and online actions, which are increasingly being performed on mobile devices. A digital retailing solution, at its core, is technology that enables this type of experience. You must determine which technologies and workflows are best for your specific business needs, customers, and brand – but regardless of definition, successful digital retailing must connect online and in-store experiences to create a single, unified experience. The problem is that when so many technology vendors label what they do as "digital retailing," and yet no obvious end-to-end (and painless to implement) solution has emerged, confusion reigns – and implementation stagnates. In fact, while 84% of dealers are eager to implement this type of technology, 74% are taking a slow and incremental approach motivated by caution over effort and expense. That's a wise move, and it highlights an important industry issue: Technology vendors must collaborate to deliver integrated solutions that allow dealers to create a more seamless, end-to-end buying experience. This is the approach to digital retailing that we believe dealers will embrace. It's a strategy that

focuses on how customers want to go through the process and leverages best-in-class products and process improvements to create a 'customer first' experience that sells more cars faster and, most importantly, improves profitability. It is never easy to make the transition to digital. As at ease as we are with the digital world around us, changing systems always necessitates a period of adjustment as employees, management, and customers adjust to a new way of doing things. Despite the challenges that come with switching to a new system, supermarkets that want to stay competitive must embrace the digital transition. Online supermarkets have expanded in response to the pandemic of the previous year. Consumers who used to feel compelled to walk through supermarket aisles for their weekly shopping have grown accustomed to a new digital experience. Online grocery shopping means that prices are clearly labelled, items are placed in shopping carts but remain untouched until they arrive at the house, and there are no checkout lines. If supermarkets want to remain competitive, they must adapt to changing customer expectations. The digital transformation that they never saw as necessary is on their doorstep, and the faster they move, the more likely it is that they will be able to protect themselves from mass customer churn. Here are some Trends: 1.Identifying Customer Irritations Let's start with some of the most common complaints that shoppers have about the grocery store. They are, in no particular order: i)Errors in the checkout process/pricing ii)There aren't enough checkout lanes, and there are too many open/long lines. iii)Store layouts that are perplexing. iv)Items that are no longer available. v)Cashiers who are rude or unfriendly. A complete digital transformation can eliminate all of these complaints, resulting in satisfied customers. 2.Begin with the lowest-hanging fruit. Checkout errors and pricing errors are two of the most common

sources of consumer annoyance at the grocery store. Mistakes aren't always the fault of the store; price tags do fall off. Simultaneously, there are times when the price in the POS differs from the price on the product. As a result, the first place to start is with pricing. Investing in electronic shelf labels (ESL) eliminates the dissonance that occurs when one employee enters a price into the POS system and another employee stamps a price tag on an item with a pricing gun. Prices will be accurate at the time of purchase because a single backend system manages both the POS and the pricing labels. ESLs provide an additional benefit to store managers by enabling optimized pricing changes on any item in the store. Physical grocery stores can compete on price with optimized pricing, as well as easily change pricing on items that are nearing their sell-by date. Grocery stores can lower their prices to entice customers to buy products that are nearing the end of their shelf life. Digital price tags can be quickly implemented. Pricer reported that they converted an entire supermarket to ESLs in just one night. 3.Utilize computer vision The items on your shelves are recognized by computer vision and tracked throughout the store. When a customer selects a box of cereal and places it in the cart, the computer vision system detects that the available inventory has changed. When inventory falls below a predetermined level, it can send an alert to employees, informing them of the shortage and reminding them to stock up. The system can also be linked to the store's inventory system to automatically trigger reorders as supplies run low. For customers, this means avoiding the annoyance of empty shelves. However, the advantages of computer vision do not end with inventory. Let's start by putting some puzzle pieces together. We have digital pricing throughout the store, as well as a computer system that recognizes and tracks the location of items. When taken to the next logical step, computer vision can be used at the end of a shopping trip to total up the groceries in the cart and present the customer with a bill. The customer can leave the store without having to wait in line if he or she swipes a credit card at the register. In traditional grocery stores, customers must touch every item multiple times as it moves

from the shelf to the cashier to a bag before it reaches their pantry or refrigerator. Consumers can use computer vision to take an item off the shelf, place it in a bag in their cart, and not touch it again until they get home. They reduce the likelihood of long lines and, as a bonus, the likelihood of an employee being rude to a customer. When compared to other artificial intelligence tools, computer vision training models can be up and running in a relatively short period of time. Once operational, they can also provide heat maps and other analytics to assist store managers in simplifying their layout. 4.The obvious benefit of a physical store When grocery stores implement digital transformation, they provide their customers with a shopping experience that is similar to that of online shopping. Consumers can't walk through the aisles in their pjs like they can when shopping online, but they can avoid many of the pitfalls that make in-store shopping unpleasant. Physical supermarkets have some inherent advantages over their online counterparts. Customers can select the fruits and vegetables they want or take the carton of milk that is three weeks from expiration. They aren't at the mercy of an online picker who is more concerned with making a sale and moving on to the next order than with carefully selecting the right red apple. If an item isn't available, shoppers can make their own substitutions, and when they're finished, they can take their groceries home and use them right away. That is not something that an online store can provide. Supermarkets can compete by combining the benefits of the digital world with the tactile grocery shopping experience. Cloud computing refers to a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet that are used to manage, store, and process data for both businesses and individuals. Companies can eliminate the need to operate and maintain their own computing infrastructure by utilizing cloud-based services provided by reputable and trustworthy third parties. This significantly reduces costs and provides them with greater flexibility. Cloud computing is especially useful in the retail sector for collecting and analyzing massive amounts of sales data, as well as for real-time inventory management. Retailers benefit from cloud computing by having enterprise-wide supply chain visibility and

real-time access to all operational and transactional data across their businesses. Cloud computing also allows businesses to improve channel operations by tracking customer preferences. This results in more precise trend forecasting and better merchandising decisions. It also enables retailers to tailor their offers and services to their customers' preferences. It's no surprise, then, that many retailers are speeding up their adoption of cloud-based technologies. For example, Moleskine, an Italian manufacturer, papermaker, and product designer, collaborated with Oracle Commerce Cloud, a component of the Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud Suite, in 35 countries to run integrated online campaigns in the hope of providing consistent customer experiences. U.S. pharmacies Walgreens is utilizing IBM's Cloud and retail analytic tools across all of its locations to identify where and when service calls are most frequent, allowing it to consolidate these while also better handling individual customer needs. This frees up resources for other applications. In the future, more retail businesses will use cloud-based technologies to transform their operations. According to Marketsand Markets, an Indian market research and consulting firm, the retail cloud market will grow at a CAGR of 20.9 percent to US$28.53 billion by 20214. Cloud computing will continue to enable new service solutions, assist in the delivery of analytics and insights, and birth new functionalities. A successful brick-and-mortar store is more than just a place to shop; it is also a place of entertainment and technology-enabled elements that facilitate online-to-offline (O2O) integration. As a result, the recent global phenomenon of smart stores is expected to continue in the coming year. A growing number of companies in a variety of retail segments are converting their physical stores into smart stores. Amazon's Amazon Go and Alibaba's Hema Xiansheng are two prominent examples in the grocery sector. In different ways, both companies are pioneering cashier less stores by utilizing cutting-edge technological innovations. Smart stores are also appearing in other retail segments. Nike launched "Nike Live" in Los Angeles in July 2018. It is a concept store that uses digital data from its user community to tailor in-store omnichannel experiences, such as try-ons and order pick-ups, as well as to decide which products to display. In July, Alibaba debuted a

"FashionAI" pop-up store in China with apparel retailer Guess, utilizing smart mirror technology, RFID, machine learning, and computer vision to provide customers with in-store mix-and-match styling. Innisfree, a South Korean cosmetics brand, also opened a smart store in Hangzhou, incorporating technology such as a smart mirror for virtual makeup experimentation; a skin analyzer that can generate a report on a customer's skin condition, along with recommended products; and a "cloud shelf" that allows customers to see all products available from Innisfree's Tmall flagship store, among other things. The use of such technologies in-store, as well as the ongoing rise of smart stores, is a trend to keep an eye on in 2019. We anticipate that more brands and retailers will introduce technology-enabled experiential elements in-store, while seamlessly blending offline and online experiences, in order to attract more customers and provide a better shopping experience. Immersive technologies, particularly augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), are on their way to becoming the standard for omnichannel retailing and brand experiences. Immersive technologies blur the line between physical and digital spaces, creating a virtual environment in which customers can immerse themselves and experience "real world" emotions. Because of the rapid adoption of AR and VR technologies in retail and other industries, the global market for AR and VR is expected to grow from US$6.1 billion in 2016 to US$14.1 billion in 2017, and to US$209.2 billion in 20225. AR and VR technologies are increasingly being used by brands and retailers to enhance customers' online and offline experiences; to provide interactive product demonstrations and product customization; and to assist customers in visualizing how different products might appear in different settings. Ikea is one of the early adopters. Even before Pokémon Go sparked widespread global interest in augmented reality, IKEA released an AR catalogue app in 2013 that allowed customers to see how various furniture items would look in their own homes. Similarly, Ikea created an augmented reality app called "Ikea's Place" in 2017 that allows shoppers to access 3,200 items from Ikea's inventory via a live view function on their smartphone, as well as see how specific items would look in their home. Macy's, the largest department store chain in the United States, has launched virtual

reality furniture shopping experiences in approximately 70 of its stores nationwide, with plans to expand these capabilities to 20 more stores by January 2019. Customers can use 3D furniture images to design a living space and use VR headsets to "move" through the space to see if they like an item. According to reports, Macy's furniture sales involving VR have increased by more than 60%. In addition, Macy's has added an AR-enabled tool called "Visualize Your Space" to its app. It allows users to virtually place Macy's furniture in photos of their homes, testing how the furniture might fit there. Beauty retailers such as Sephora, L'Oréal, and Charlotte Tilbury have introduced augmented reality mirrors that allow customers to virtually try on cosmetics products. Zara launched an AR app in the United States for two weeks in April 2018, allowing customers to point smart phones at store windows or in-store sensors and see models come to life on their screens – walking and even talking – wearing selected Zara items, which they can then click on and buy. Starbucks opened the world's largest Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Shanghai in December 2017 in the catering sector. It is billed as the "first fully immersive coffee wonderland in China" by the company. Customers can use the Starbucks AR-enabled app to point at various features throughout the Roastery to read the Starbucks bean-to-cup story, which is rendered in fun visuals and animations. Other practical applications of immersive technologies include behind-the-scenes applications to improve business efficiency, such as using AR for warehousing and inventory management. Automobile manufacturers, for example, use augmented reality to inspect car designs, while Boeing and Caterpillar use it in their repair processes. As immersive technologies become more widely adopted in the retail sector, it is entirely possible that VR and AR implementations will become commonplace in the coming year. In retail's never-ending quest to attract and retain customers, robots – particularly customer service chatbots – are increasingly serving as the first point of contact for many physical retail outlets. They are frequently used as "personal greeters" to increase customer engagement. According to Tractica, a market intelligence firm based in the United States, the global customer service robots market is expected to grow from an estimated US$53.8 million in 2016 to an

estimated US$88 million by the end of 20226. Pepper, a humanoid robot created by Japanese conglomerate Softbank and currently available in Japan and a few other countries, is already reshaping the shopping experience. For example, Q Square Shopping Mall in Taipei Pepper interacts with customers by providing directions and information, greeting them, and informing them about mall promotions and events. Pepper also plays music, dances, illuminates itself, and takes selfies with customers to enhance the in-store experience. KFC China launched a voice-controlled robot in one of its Shanghai stores in 2016 to take orders and recommend dishes based on previous orders. Aside from customer engagement, robotics is being used to automate business processes and improve efficiency. Flippy, a burger-flipping robot, is an example. Flippy, unlike humanoid robots, is a robotic arm with multiple sensors and cameras that allow it to collect data. Flippy secured a contract with Levy Restaurants, which caters the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, after its debut in March 2018 at a burger restaurant in California, to help prepare food for the fans. In 2019, and beyond, the impact of robotics is expected to be multifaceted, with the incorporation of other digital elements such as AI, cloud, IoT, and analytics. We expect robotics adoption to accelerate as technologies mature and businesses gain a better understanding of how to integrate new forms of automation into their operations. Businesses will provide more engaging and interesting customer experiences, increasing customer loyalty – and doing so at a lower cost. However, the rise of robotics and automation raises concerns that some jobs, particularly those that are labor intensive, repetitive, and routine, will be lost as robots or automated systems perform the same tasks more cheaply. The introduction of voice assistants is altering how people research products, compare prices, and make purchases. Consumers can now "talk" to smart home assistants and ask them to search for products online, add them to shopping lists, or even complete the purchasing process. In October 2011, Apple's Siri became the first digital voice assistant to be integrated into a smartphone (iPhone 4s). The technology was later used in the HomePod smart speaker, which was released in February 2018. Google Now (later renamed Google Assistant) on the Android platform followed, and it was used in smart

speakers such as the Alexa Echo and Google Home. In Western markets, these have become the most popular voice assistants. In China, competition in the voice assistant market has been heating up as well. Leading Internet companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, JD.com, and Tencent have recently entered the fray with the AI-powered smart home robot Xiaoyu Zaija, voice assistant speaker Tmall Genie, smart speaker Ding Dong, and smart voice assistant Xiaowei. Smart speakers are used by these Internet behemoths to collect data on users' preferences and speech patterns, but more importantly, to keep users within their ecosystem of services. This is particularly beneficial for e-commerce platforms like Alibaba and JD.com. Xiaomi, a Chinese mobile and technology company, also joined the race in July 2017 with the release of its Xiaomi Mi Smart Network Speaker. The growing popularity of voice assistants is also driving the development of conversational-based voice commerce. According to international consulting firm OC&C Strategy Consultants, the value of voice commerce in the United States and the United Kingdom is expected to exceed US$40 billion by 2022, up from US$2 billion in 2017.7 The majority of users prefer voice commerce when purchasing groceries, entertainment products and services, electronics, and clothing. Voice commerce has yet to reach mass consumer adoption, and the technology itself may be in its infancy. However, as consumers become more accustomed to voice interactions and technological innovations continue, particularly in the areas of AI, AR/VR, and 5G technology, we anticipate that voice will quickly become a viable channel for retailers. With the proliferation of smartphones and wearables equipped with payment tools, as well as the availability of high-speed mobile networks, digital payment is becoming more important in the retail sector. According to the United Nations' Information Economy Report 2017: Digitalization, Trade, and Development, mobile and digital currency payment systems are expected to overtake credit and debit cards as the most popular ways to pay for e-commerce purchases by 2019. Various parties, including e-commerce platforms, online payment companies, and retailers, have launched their own mobile payment services to meet consumer demand for seamless, frictionless payment. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Alipay, WeChat Pay, Paytm Wallet,

Walmart Pay, and Venmo by PayPal are some well-known examples. According to Juniper Research, PayPal has "the greatest opportunities to develop a converged wallet on a global basis" over the next five years, followed by China's Alipay and WeChat Pay. According to Transparency Market Research in the United States, the global mobile payment market will reach $50.5 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 37.8 percent from 2018 to 20269. Due to the penetration of smart devices such as smartphones, the Asia-Pacific region held a significant share of the mobile payment technologies market in 2017. Digital payment is expected to reach new heights in 2019 as consumer demand for cashless transactions grows globally and more retailers accept digital payments. Mobile and online payments will become more secure, easier to track, and less expensive as a result of technological advancements such as the Internet of Things and the use of blockchain for digital payments. The ability to provide quick and efficient logistics services is a key differentiator for retailers and e-commerce operators in this rapidly changing retail environment. Logistics companies are implementing advanced technologies such as RFID, GPS, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, drones, and robots to improve fulfilment capability and efficiency, streamline operations, and accelerate delivery. This has resulted in an increase in the number of automated warehouses and other innovations to speed up last-mile delivery. Robotics will be the norm in the logistics industry by 202210, according to DHL Express. Retailers and e-commerce companies are increasing their efforts to build highly automated warehouses in order to increase productivity and reduce labor costs. According to reports, Amazon has more than 100,000 robots in its warehouses around the world. The robots transport stock around the warehouse floors and group together individual items required for a specific order. Alibaba also employs intelligent robots inside its warehouses to move goods and send them to human workers, who then arrange for the products to be packed and shipped to customers all over the world. According to reports, the robots handle 70% of the work in Alibaba's warehouses. Meanwhile, rapid technological advancements are transforming last-mile delivery. Amazon and Walmart are experimenting with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and crowd-

sourced local delivery networks similar to Uber. Amazon is also testing drone delivery via Prime Air in the United Kingdom. Drones are also being used to deliver packages in rural China by JD.com and Cainiao, Alibaba's logistics arm. Alibaba recently announced the G Plus, a lastmile delivery robot. The robot is used to deliver parcels, groceries, and food on university campuses and in residential neighborhoods. The entire journey of the robots can be tracked using a smartphone. Some retailers have recently introduced pick-up towers to help with last-mile delivery and smart logistics development. Walmart and Asda, for example, have pick-up/parcel towers in some of their stores in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively. Customers can pick up their online purchases from self-service kiosks. In the future, as technology advances, retail logistics will become faster, smarter, and more efficient. To remain competitive, forward-thinking retailers and e-commerce companies will continue to use technology to streamline logistics and increase delivery speed. Blockchain technology is being heralded as the next game changer in all aspects of business because it establishes a permanent, transparent, and searchable link to trace and track the journey of products. This digital, decentralized, distributed ledger allows a community to record, share, and maintain information. The technology can track, trace, and authenticate products, record contracts and transactions, and ensure the movement of information, all while ensuring that all information is exchanged securely and that a transaction cannot be reversed once it is recorded in the database. The blockchain retail market is expected to grow from US$80 million in 2018 to US$2.34 billion in 2023, at a CAGR of 96.4 percent during the forecast period, according to Report linker, a professional search engine based in France. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow the most during the period, while North America will have the largest market size. Blockchain is being used by an increasing number of retailers, particularly those in the luxury and fresh produce sectors, to improve supply chain transparency and protect product quality. Blockchain is being used more and more in the luxury sector to ensure product authenticity and increase consumer security. The diamond industry is one example. To reduce the risk of fraud and counterfeiting, blockchain replaces the paper certification process for

ensuring the provenance of any diamond. Aside from that, with its tamper-proof ledger, the blockchain will record all transactions relating to a product. Customers can track every piece of information about the product as it moves through the supply chain. Richemont, Cartier's parent company, is collaborating with blockchain start-up Arianee on a blockchain tracing project that will allow customers to authenticate potential purchases. Retailers are eager to set up food-tracking systems using blockchain technology in the fresh produce sector, where speed to market and traceability are critical. For example, Alibaba's supermarket chain Hema Xiansheng and leading Chinese supermarket operator YH Superstores have both launched foodtracking systems that use technology to trace the origin of products. Globally, 12 of the world's largest corporations, including Walmart and Nestlé, have joined forces with IBM to establish a "IBM Food Trust" platform with the primary goal of improving traceability. The companies are developing a blockchain to revolutionize how the food industry tracks food around the world. As brands and retailers strive to stay ahead of the competition, there has never been a greater need for a digital platform that ensures trust, security, and visibility. While blockchain is still a new technology that has yet to gain widespread adoption, it is expected to have a significant impact on retail and related businesses, particularly in addressing current supply chain pain points such as traceability, compliance, and authenticity. Technology has added a new dimension to the retail industry. The introduction of point-of-sale equipment, bar codes, and massive storage capacity for billing and payment databases has made it easier to manage large setups. Operations can be recorded in a structured and systematic manner, allowing for detailed analysis of sales and transaction volume. Electronic transactions have increased the country's sales volume. Payment flexibility and cashless transactions have aided in driving sales. Communication aids in maintaining a competitive advantage in customer retention and attraction. The implementation of new technology may be complicated for retailers, but the convenience and cost effectiveness necessitate new advancements. Large stores must keep track of their inventories and expenses. With automated machines and high-end computers making the task easier, retailers can concentrate on retaining customers

through new strategies. Security systems also contribute to safer shopping for both retailers and customers, providing significant mental relief. Such technological advancements are only now making their way into India, and the need for them has been recognized. Point-ofsale (POS) applications will allow for faster consumer checkout and multiple payment options, such as credit cards. In India, large, midsized, and manufacturer-retailers have primarily implemented solutions ranging from simple Point of Sale (PoS) systems to complex retail ERPs. Backend operations are facilitated by using ERP packages and solutions such as Retail Pro, as well as higher-end solutions such as JDA, SAP IS Retail, or Retek. Along with business optimization software, mobile computing and the B2C concept help retailers reduce costs and increase efficiency, but these solutions are primarily aimed at large retail chains in India. Despite the fact that these solutions have been implemented, the returns on these investments take a longer time. To remain competitive, retailers are increasingly relying on IT solutions such as CRM, OLAP, and CPFR tools to conduct behavioral analysis. Large retailers have implemented retail ERP packages, but they are now having difficulty fully utilizing them; one of the primary reasons could be a lack of adequate training. However, it is expected that demand for and utilization of these packages will increase in the near future. It is estimated that between point-of-sale counters and corporate headquarters of retail chains in developed countries, 400 to 500 megabytes of data are transmitted daily. The transmission of transaction data in such volumes aids in the maintenance of a close working relationship between retailers and vendors in order to predict consumer demand, shorten lead times, reduce inventory holding, and thus save money. A retail database can also be used to track purchase behavior by providing demographic and psychographic information. This clearly indicates that technology is being used to build the retail business rather than just supporting and improving operational efficiency. The use of electronic communication, such as e-marketing, could be a low-cost method of attracting and retaining customers. With internet penetration and awareness increasing in the country, e-marketing is proving to be an effective communication tool. The use of technology could be expanded to include home shopping,

direct mail, and telemarketing. It can also aid growth in newer applications such as kiosks, intelligent vending machines, PC net shops, and so on. Beacons are small Bluetooth devices that broadcast radio signals to communicate with Bluetooth-enabled applications. Retailers can attach Beacons to shelves in their stores and use them to communicate links to product specifications, pictures, pricing, specials, one-time offers, or other information. When a customer comes close to the Beacon, the store's shopping app on their smartphone will capture the links. Before making a purchase in a store, nearly three-quarters of U.S. shoppers conduct online product research on their smartphones. As a result, Beacons provide an excellent opportunity for retailers to reach these customers while they are shopping. When linked to relevant external applications, they can add value by delivering the appropriate, timely message about a specific product that the customer has previously researched. When consumers choose cashless payments, mobile points of sale (mPOS) enable them to pay for their goods quickly. With mPOS, store associates can service and check out customers from anywhere in the store, eliminating long checkout lines and reducing customer walkout losses. This solution, first implemented by Apple years ago, is still gaining traction among retailers, particularly during peak hours. In contrast, grab-and-go systems operate automatically. They enable customers to shop without having to check out. Customers enter a store and their purchases are recorded by cameras and scales. As customers leave, the payment is automatically deducted via a store or payment application. Such solutions assist store managers in reducing queues and increasing revenue. From the consumer's point of view, the frictionless experience saves time. Amazon Go is the dominant player in grab-and-go systems right now. Online retail platforms appear to be the clear winners in the retailing environment. However, they, too, face challenges that open up new avenues for research. These platforms, such as Amazon or Alibaba, frequently operate in the manner of a department store. However, the platforms may suffer if retailers and brands respond to this trend with

more focused customer relationships. Retailers and brands can provide product solutions, expertise, and tailored customer experiences, and thus act as gatekeepers for many decisions made on online retail platforms. The attractiveness of general platforms may suffer as well. How can retail platforms improve their value propositions as manufacturers and retailers challenge their current "department store" business model with branded product platforms and specialization/solution selling? Another issue that platforms face is ambivalence about their relationships with suppliers and brands. Brands feel disconnected from their customers, transaction commissions are typically high, and some platforms choose to sell their own versions of specific products once they realize the revenue potential of those products. As a result, some brands will not consider selling on those platforms, while others will withdraw following a negative experience with the platform. Brands frequently seek ways to be independent of those platforms, particularly large brands with sufficient clout on their own. The use of wearable technology is another factor that plays a significant role in scaling up the business in the field of retail. A lot of people these days use a different wearable to buy things and frequently invest in it. So understanding this factor is very important for retailers because they have even more access to notifications and information that they can use to help make purchasing decisions. Retailers are focusing their efforts on digital transformation as a result of the introduction of cutting-edge technologies that enable them to implement market strategies. Brick and mortar stores compete not only with one another, but also with Internet retailers. As a result, a brick and mortar retailer must specialize in the adoption of various technologies and methods in order to avoid market competition. Smart beacons provide a unique and effective way for retailers to acquire new customers by alerting them whenever customers approach their location. It enables retailers to send marketing materials, promotions, and other promotional materials more effectively. Here are seven key trends identified by Gartner to inform retail technology investments and other strategic decisions moving forward in order to provide excellent customer experiences and, as a result, solidify customer trust:

1. Non-touch interactions "Touchless" interactions are "safe," physical-contact-free interactions that occur throughout the customer's entire shopping experience. Consumers now expect retailers to include sanitization processes in their operations, as well as convenient and sanitary ways to research, purchase, and consume goods. Touchless interactions go beyond contactless payments and include touchless capabilities in all major customer processes such as scan and go, virtual experiences, and more. Touchless experiences must provide a level of personalization that gives customers the impression that retailers are truly loyal to them by taking the time to understand their needs and desires in order to provide satisfying customer experiences. 2. Execution of fulfilment Fulfillment execution enables excellence in fulfilment operations across the retailer's physical and digital assets through real-time inventory, labor, and process analysis and reconfiguration. As a result, optimized inventory, unified commerce experiences, and increased customer satisfaction are all made possible, all of which contribute to the business's profitability. This trend has risen to the top of the retailer's priority list, owing to the significant increase in e-commerce and rising consumer demand for unified commerce experiences. Retailers are already remodeling physical locations to reduce selling footprints while increasing on-site fulfilment and curbside capabilities. This is to prepare for the post-pandemic demands of increased online purchasing and timely goods acquisition. 3. Merchandising Optimization Using Algorithms Inventory is typically the largest single expense for a retailer. As a result of rising operational costs and shifting customer expectations, there is a renewed emphasis on merchandise assortment and pricing accuracy. Retailers can no longer afford to distribute inventory evenly across all store locations. Retailers must use algorithmic approaches to increase precision when planning assortments, pricing, and promotions, as well as the inventory investments that result across all touchpoints. Algorithmic merchandising optimization enables retailers to more precisely determine which items should be displayed and

stocked, as well as how they should be priced and promoted, in order to maximize sales, margin, inventory, and customer satisfaction across touchpoints. The use of sophisticated data and analytics tools is a critical component of improved merchandising performance and intelligent decision-making. According to the Gartner CIO Survey for 2021, 63 percent of retailers expect to increase their spending on business intelligence/data analytics, and 35 percent on artificial intelligence. 4. Related capability and effectiveness A great customer experience is dependent on a great associate experience, making retail store associates critical competitive differentiators. To that end, frontline workers must become one of the most significant investments for a retailer. Following years of underinvestment, many retailers are now playing catch-up by prioritizing associate efficiency and enablement at the top of their retail strategies for 2021. According to Gartner's 2021 CIO Survey, one-third of retail respondents intend to increase spending on digital workplaces. The ability to perform work duties flexibly, optimize costs, and provide an excellent customer experience is now more important than ever. Investments in retail digital workplaces, particularly in physical store environments, have been shown to increase sales and profits, resulting in a significant competitive advantage over time. 5. Ecosystems that work together The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in significant changes in customer behavior and purchase patterns, exposing flaws in traditional retail business models. Participating in a collaborative ecosystem through partnerships with other retailers, technology platforms, marketplaces, or other innovative partners will allow retailers to extend existing business capabilities, support new business models, offer new products and services, and, ultimately, meet evolving customer needs. 6. Cost-cutting measures Cost optimization is a business-focused, ongoing discipline that works to reduce spending and costs while increasing business value. It is now a major pillar in many retailers' "reopening playbooks" and operating models, as it has become an increasingly important imperative in managing the extreme economic uncertainty brought on

by the pandemic. Gartner recommends that when developing costcutting strategies, the following four critical elements be considered: fulfilment execution, merchandising optimization, labor efficiency, and organizational transparency. In the long run, short and medium-term fixed cost measures will be unsustainable. 7. Consumption based on values Customers expect retailers to act with honesty, integrity, and transparency, providing products, services, and experiences that reflect the values of their customers. Today, the coronavirus pandemic has compelled a worried society – including businesses – to rethink and reprioritize their values. Meeting value-based demands will necessitate tight alignment among internal players in various functions and channels, as well as the development and maintenance of strong relationships with external stakeholders. Retailers must maintain constant vigilance in order to understand their customers' changing expectations and adjust their sourcing and governance policies accordingly. Best practices for digital transformation in the retail industry have been identified: 1.Digital experiences that are faster: Customers are dissatisfied when pages take too long to load. Web pages, content, and images should be managed in order to improve both performance and user experience. To transform their businesses, retailers must experiment quickly with new technologies and rapidly migrate their systems to established technologies: 2.Shift to the cloud: To increase their focus on retail, most modern retailers move their servers to the cloud. Amazon goes above and beyond in this regard. Amazon, as a leader in cloud computing, powers the cloud efforts of other companies. The cloud enables retailers to scale flexibly while lowering total cost of ownership. 3.Artificial intelligence (AI) transformation: Digital transformation has been around since the 1990s. When retailers focus on digital transformation, they should implement the most recent advances, including AI advancements. We've published a lot about advanced analytics use cases in retail and AI transformation. Retailers' most valuable assets are their enterprise and customer data. Customers

lose trust in an organization if hackers exploit any security flaw. Cybersecurity solutions must be invested in by retailers. Digital allows retailers to acquire new customers, engage with existing customers more effectively, reduce operational costs, and improve employee motivation, among other benefits that have a positive impact on revenue and margins. For the purposes of this report, digital is defined as a technology-enabled combination of resources (which can include instruments, devices, bots, tools, teams, protocols, processes, networks, methodologies) that enables the availability of content (which can be data, information, expert/social reviews, reports, analysis, games) for the user (employee or customer) to make more productive (can impact cost, time, or service level) decisions and satisfying choices. The ability to collect, process, and share large amounts of data has resulted in some fundamental disruptions in business model design. The following are the major factors influencing this shift: 1.Convergence: Traditional sectoral boundaries are collapsing. Payment systems (Financial Services & Telecom), e-commerce (Retail & Telecom), Industry 4.0 (ICT and Manufacturing), and other sectors are experiencing fundamental disruption. Any disruptive approach to digital transformation in retail must therefore take a multidisciplinary approach to implementation, with a mix of analytical and creative capabilities. 2.Customer centricity: Organizational functional boundaries are also being dismantled in order to align structures with customer needs. The process has been accelerated further by digital, as big data now allows for in-depth analysis of shopper behaviour and personalization of delivery formats to individual consumer requirements. 3.Co-opetition: This is a novel mindset that combines competition and collaboration. Suppliers and retailers are no longer competing for limited resources, but rather collaborating to profit from increased customer value. Even in the context of India, there have been several instances of retailer collaboration (e.g.: Future Group and Flipkart). 4.Co-ownership: In the retail context, digital has assisted in monitoring and controlling quality in franchising agreements in order to achieve greater alignment of the business model to shopper requirements,

presenting an enhanced opportunity for retailers to drive scale at a rapid pace without compromising the brand promise and sharing the investment burden with their partners. 5.Co-creation: The new digital shopper is highly connected with his social peers and is more willing than ever to share experiences and allow others to benefit from his/her interactions with products/services. Consumers contribute to the co-creation of the value proposition through their willingness to provide feedback, which aids in the ongoing real-time refinement of delivery models. 6.Continuous learning: Self-learning systems enabled by AI and cognitive modelling have enabled feedback from previous experiences to optimize the shopping experience for consumers, thereby increasing satisfaction and loyalty. Retail Digital Transformation Technologies as an Example: 1.Shopping for fun. Instagram and YouTube are among the most popular selling platforms, and with reason. Users can go to their favorite content creator or influencer's profile and, more often than not, order what they are wearing. Both platforms make it simple for customers to compare prices and buy the items they want. These omnichannel social interactions are an excellent application of transformative technology. 2.Robots in warehouses Amazon is a pioneer in robotics technology, and they have been digitally transforming their warehouse. They are also unique in driving industry innovation because they do not have tens of thousands of robots in their distribution centers. 3.Assistants in retail Retailers such as Home Depot, Lowe's, and Walmart have implemented store assistants and are expanding the programme to more physical locations. Walmart, for example, will deploy 350 mobile robots to monitor pricing, out-of-stocks, and assist customers. 4.Chatbots for customer service. In an effort to assist customers in achieving their goals more quickly and effectively, all without the need for human intervention. As chatbot technology advances, they will be able to provide advanced personalization levels and bridge the gap between online and offline experiences.

5.Checkouts that are automated. The vast majority of shoppers dislike waiting in line at the checkout. Automated checkouts, like self-service checkouts, are quickly taking over the retail landscape. Amazon can scan items as customers leave the store using big data and IoT. 6.In-store layouts that are accurate. Retailers can better analyses and predict shopping behavior by centralizing data collection such as RFID, QR codes, and customer data. All of this enables retailers to better map their in-store experiences and optimize layouts for higher sales. 7.Promotions made to order. Many brands now have access to demographic, location-based, condition-based, and even predictive customer data. Coca-Cola, for example, has over 1.2 million variations of its homepage that it shows to different customers – a great example of personalization. 8.Smart storage. Sensor and scanner prices are rapidly falling, and elements such as RFID tags, QR codes, digital displays, and updated pricing are quickly taking over the shelves in some stores. Stores can increase customer satisfaction by assisting customers in finding the right product and reducing pricing confusion. 9.Virtual reality zones Trying on an outfit or imagining how a piece of furniture will look in your home can be time consuming. The goal of VR zones in physical locations is to change that. During the pandemic, some brands have taken the initiative to set up virtual reality (VR) showrooms. 10.Applications for mobile devices. Augmented reality (AR) applications are a great alternative to VR showrooms. Sephora, a cosmetics retailer, has launched an augmented reality application that allows customers to browse their products by uploading a photo. 11.Customer care. Customer service has long been a differentiator in the customer experience, rather than brand or price. Machine learning and big data are getting better at generating leads and assisting customers based on their previous behavior – and customers prefer to spend more money with brands that listen to them. 12.Determine which stores are underperforming. Machine learning was used by retailers such as H&M to identify trends that could benefit

underperforming stores. H&M closely aligned its product offering with local demand in one of its projects in Sweden, and sales skyrocketed as a result. 13.Pivot based on trends. Many brands were able to survive COVID19 thanks to digital tools that enabled them to capitalize on new trends. A brick-and-mortar fashion store, Editorial Boutique, quickly transitioned to eCommerce and retrained its staff for online, Facetime appointments. 14.Forecast future sales. You can adjust inventory in response to changing demand with the help of CRM, eCommerce, and centralized ERP data, resulting in fewer losses and more sales. With customer preference and purchase pattern data, brands can further optimize sales. 15.Price the items. Aside from optimizing product pricing, brands can better balance supply and demand while increasing profits. For example, OroCommerce's pricing engine supports dynamic pricing optimization, allowing merchants to raise or lower prices. 16.Meet the needs of the customer. In times of crisis, it is critical to respond to customer needs quickly and precisely. SaltWorks is a salt manufacturer that sells gourmet salts to restaurants, gourmet retailers, and end users. Their Magento-based website appeared to be great on the surface, but their back-end was complicated and couldn't meet the needs of their B2B customers. When SaltWorks switched to OroCommerce's platform, they received B2C, B2B, and product, pricing, and ordering workflow features right away. The Advantages of Digital Transformation in Retail are: 1.Customer interaction is simplified Retailers can easily communicate with their customers thanks to digital transformation solutions, which include a variety of contact channels ranging from websites and social media accounts to mobile apps and chatbots. Such new channels provide new opportunities for engagement, such as increasing customer loyalty, sharing promotions, and inspiring customers as they progress through the sales funnel. 2.Operations are running smoothly

Retailers can improve their internal and external operations by implementing modern tools based on cloud technologies. It's simple: by automating processes, cloud-based tools allow employees to spend less time on manual tasks. Furthermore, businesses can benefit from tools that make customer knowledge more transparent and use them to improve customer support. 3.Convenience Customers can shop in novel ways thanks to artificial intelligence (AI)powered tools, such as following the product recommendations of an AI chatbot. Internal process automation can benefit both employees (more time for mission-critical tasks) and customers (delivering services faster). Furthermore, retailers can use digital transformation tools to sell their products not only in physical stores but also through a variety of other channels, beginning with websites and mobile apps and ending with social media. 4.Increased revenue In retail, digital transformation is a critical tool for generating multiple revenue streams and allowing businesses to reach a larger target audience. Retailers can quickly engage new customer segments by utilizing various channels and going global. 5.improved customer service Almost all of the changes stem from the core goal of digital transformation – to improve customer experience. Digital tools enable employees to be more productive, resulting in faster and more efficient service. Customers will receive higher-quality service as a result, and their journey to making a purchase will be far more pleasant. Customer-centricity is central to the entire concept of digital transformation. The goal is to assist businesses in becoming better at understanding customers and assisting them in finding exactly what they require at the right time. The retail industry's digital transformation drivers are: Here are the key drivers of digital transformation among retailers that are driving the changes we are seeing in the retail sector today: 1.New customer expectations are changing. The so-called digital or omnichannel shoppers are unconcerned about switching channels to

make a purchase. They want to be able to access offers wherever they can, from social media to mobile apps. This is also known as a channel-agnostic purchasing journey. Many shopping-related tasks, such as finding products and comparing prices, can be influenced by digital tools, as can post-shopping activities such as reviews, customer service, future purchases, or even word-of-mouth marketing. 2.The lines between in-store and online shopping are becoming increasingly blurred. The trend of blurring the lines between digital and physical is already in the consumer's mind. Innovations like the Internet of Things (IoT) and the immersive experiences provided by Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) only serve to amplify this driver. 3.Organizations all over the world face supply chain challenges. Retailers who did not digitize their supply chains are already experiencing visibility and tracking issues. The key factors influencing the implementation of digital tools in this sector are transparency, speed, and time to delivery. 4.High competition from digital-native customer experience champions and retail behemoths. Retailers can lower their operational costs, digitize their supply chains, and enjoy greater customer access thanks to new digital tools—all while having fewer resources than industry leaders. 5.Data-driven management, optimization, sales, and marketing are examples of areas that are evolving and providing new opportunities. There is no denying that digital tools lead to employee empowerment. Employees become more productive and knowledgeable as a result of new technologies, and retailers are well aware of this. 6.Personalization is on the rise. Today's shoppers want a more personalized shopping experience. They are well aware that brands collect information about them and expect to be approached in a highly personalized manner in exchange. This is nearly impossible to achieve without digital tools that collect and store data in order to analyze it and provide retailers with the insights required to create an immersive shopping experience. 7.Another important factor driving digital transformation in retail is mobility. Customers use digital tools at every stage of their purchasing

journey, and Millennials are the largest consumer segment today, so omnichannel shopping tools are critical for reaching them. These customers prefer to be able to make a purchase while on the go, using their mobile devices. Furthermore, while in stores, such customers expect to be engaged through their mobile devices, which, thanks to mobility technologies such as IoT, blur the line between the digital and physical. With the advancement of technology in the twenty-first century, the retail sector is undergoing a global revolution, and digitalization is solely to blame. Businesses are undergoing numerous transformations as a result of Digital Platforms. Consumers can now communicate with businesses thanks to the internet and mobile devices. According to Statista, total retail sales in the United States are expected to reach $ 5.94 trillion by 2024. Customers' shopping journeys are being shaped by digital devices. It enables retailers to assist customers and obtain relevant information for making purchasing decisions in a timely and efficient manner. In recent years, the retail industry has undergone significant changes in order to improve business operations and become more customer-oriented. Both online and offline retail markets are attempting to eliminate limitations in their services through the use of various advanced technologies and the creation of personalized customer experiences. According to Statista, India's retail market is expected to be worth $1.7 trillion. Several factors, including changing customer dynamics, trends, and demands, have made it necessary for the retail industry to adopt innovative approaches and adapt to technologically advanced requirements as quickly as possible. The retail industry is transitioning to a more advanced digital scenario and environment in order to carry out operations in a more personalized manner. Digital transformation entails a broader and more effective set of business opportunities. The retail industry is rapidly embracing digital transformation methodologies in order to revolutionize the entire process by integrating various assets such as divisions, business, staff, and advanced technologies. It develops new and innovative business models that enable the industry to concentrate on discrete strategy rather than just one technique or approach. Recent technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing,

business intelligence, analytics, and so on, have had a significant impact on the retail industry. Processes have become more streamlined and efficient, allowing the industry to provide better results to customers. With technological advancement and the use of digital marketing methodologies, retailers can engage with customers more precisely and effectively to learn about their various queries, prospects, concerns, and requirements, which will help them deliver products and services. The limitations of traditional technologies have been removed by digital transformation, allowing the retail industry to be more responsive to current market trends and demands. It has aided the industry in analyzing existing workflows and reviewing various operating models based on their agility, speed, functions, customer involvement, and so on. However, thanks to technological advancement, the customer experience has changed dramatically, but its importance remains unchanged. An attentive and engaging customer experience is always one of the most important aspects of the retail industry. Through an open line of communication, advanced tools and applications have enabled the collaboration of various operating models that assist the industry in making strategic business decisions. The operations have become more customer-centric, with the primary goal of significantly improving the customer experience. By thoroughly analyzing recent trends and preferences and utilizing robust technologies, new products and services can be developed quickly. Analytics is one of the most important aspects of improving the retail industry's operations, and digital transformation has enabled the industry to analyze demographics and customer traffic, allowing the business to make smarter decisions based on these details. The retail industry has been completely transformed as a result of digital transformation, as the way people shop has changed for both inperson and online platforms. With the use of a multi-channel approach and advanced methodologies, the shopping process has become more convenient, seamless, and simple for customers. Currently, the retail industry is expanding beyond mobile and connecting more devices. As faster technology and smartphones have made internet shopping available at people's fingertips, technological advancement has completely changed the mode of shopping. With digital

transformation, the in-store shopping experience has also changed, with several stores providing screens or iPads to view product specifications and provide information for marketing lists and customer relationship management. Retailers now know what it's like to be punched in the face. The safety of the online world for essential and luxury needs, entertainment, communication, and telecommuting has transformed a digital transformation plan from a good-to-have to a must-have in the chaos of COVID-19, with consumers avoiding going out to stores. Even now, I believe retailers with ongoing digital transformation programmes have already achieved a medium level of agility, flexibility, and responsiveness to steer a new course while evolving. Retailers will be at various stages of their digital transformation journey, but they will be well-positioned for: 1.enabling operational data to generate effective insights about supply chain, IT, and customer demands; deploying tools and processes to effectively serve customers; full automation and digitization of their existing systems; migrating their workloads to the cloud and using everything as a service (XaaS); and adopting DevOps for better application delivery, modernization, and sustenance. 2.To transform these measured efforts into long-term change, retailers must have a bold vision, a risk-taking approach, and ruthless actions to reinvent themselves during this monumental crisis. This will assist digital retail leaders in instilling a winning mindset throughout the organization. A large part of the retail sector's digitization involves "e-commerce," or electronic commerce, which is the process of buying and selling products and services over the internet. Ordering items, paying for a service, subscribing to a publication, or even setting up an online billpaying schedule are all examples of e-commerce. Most of us find it difficult to imagine our lives without e-commerce. Most of us order things online on a regular basis because it saves us a lot of time and effort. Despite how pervasive e-commerce has become in our lives, there was a time when it did not exist. E-commerce can be traced back roughly 40 years, when "teleshopping" first emerged as a forerunner to its current form. In the late 1970s, English inventor

Michael Aldrich invented and pioneered e-commerce by connecting television and telephone lines. Soon after, he developed a system that allowed viewers to call a processing center and place orders for goods and services advertised on television. The term "teleshopping" was coined by Aldrich, and e-commerce was born. Boston Computer Exchange, founded in 1982, is regarded as the first e-commerce company. It primarily served as a web-based marketplace for people who wanted to sell their old computers. With the advent of the internet, a new, more familiar type of store arose. Book Stacks Unlimited, which debuted in 1992, was an online bookstore that debuted two years before the company we all know and love: Amazon. The following are the current trends that will shape retail in the near future as a result of digital transformation: 1.Product personalization. It entails shifting away from the same product for everyone and toward products that are uniquely designed for each individual. 2.Marketing personalization. It generates offers based on a multilateral analysis of individual preferences. 3.Big Data is used in retail for more than just recommendation services. This innovation also allows for more efficient product assortment, shelf placement, and product availability monitoring. Furthermore, retailers can use Big Data to better determine product prices. 4.Consumption with others. It allows users to access any product as a service. 5.Shopping in real time. This feature enables customers to place orders and retailers to deliver products quickly. 6.In retail, virtual and augmented reality can improve user experience and elevate customer interaction to a whole new level. These technologies alter consumer interaction principles and enable the collection of even more customer data. 7.A higher level of automation for complex processes and multichannel customer interaction. 8.Automation in retail stores and the gradual elimination of human factors transform the retail industry of the future into a technological

industry. 9.People prefer a consistent brand experience. This trend is becoming more pronounced in the age of digital transformation. Visual product search and social shopping are two of the most popular digital trends. Every retailer, like any other business owner, strives to meet two primary objectives: increase profits and reduce costs. As a result, most retailers focus their efforts primarily on consumer interaction, as this direction has a direct impact on profit growth. Today's shoppers are dynamic and mobile. They want not only quick delivery and simple payment for their purchases, but they also want personalized offers. Customers appreciate it when you provide them with the right product at the right time through an easy-to-use communication channel. However, digital transformation is more than just a technological shift. While the right tools are essential, so are appropriate expertise and competent partners. Businesses must learn how to efficiently balance four key elements in their activity in order to be successful: people, action, collaboration, and technology. According to Brian Burke, Vice-President of Research at Gartner, “Total Experience is a strategy that connects multi-experience with customer, employee, and user experience disciplines”. We could, on the other hand, show it in the following mathematical formula: Total Experience (TX) = Customer Experience (CX) + Employee Experience (EX) + User Experience (UX). To delve into the concept then, it will be necessary to explore each of its component parts: 1.Customer Experience (CX): is defined as consumer’s conscious and subconscious perceptions of their relationship with a brand as a result of all interactions during the brand’s lifecycle. 2.Employee Experience (EX): refers to the set of situations that an employee experiences throughout their relationship with the company, from first contact to disengagement. 3.User Experience (UX): is defined as the set of factors and elements related to the interaction process of a user with respect to a product or service. In other words, we must use technology focused on people, whether

they are consumers or workers, in order to achieve this total experience. Among the technologies that can help us adopt this new trend are the Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, among others. According to Gartner, companies that manage to develop a Total Experience will achieve a very important competitive advantage and will surpass their competitors in key satisfaction indicators over the next three years. The retail industry's slow pace of digitization should be cause for concern. It suggests that retailers are not fully prepared to meet the demands of the modern, connected consumer, who expects increasing levels of service due to the rise of easily accessible new technologies and the 'always-on' nature of the modern world. Consumer preferences are rapidly changing, and they expect retailers to provide them with what they want, when they want it. Any delay in satisfying consumer preferences will result in lost sales opportunities and erode customer loyalty, putting pressure on retailers to compress their lead times and business cycles in order to get the products that consumers want into the right locations as soon as possible. Attempting to do so without a solid digital infrastructure in place is nearly impossible. Recently, a major U.S. retailer faced an uptick in complaints from customers who couldn't find the items they wanted because they were frequently out of stock; this was due to the retailer's supply chain failing to keep up with what customers wanted. As a result, the management team decided to invest in the digital transformation of their supply chain in order to reduce replenishment times, optimise deliveries, and eventually match supply with demand. Shortly after, they were able to cut retail cycle times by 20%, resulting in increased sales. They anticipate even better results in the future, as well as the ability to achieve a 60 percent total reduction in retail cycle time. However, this is only one example of how digital transformation, particularly in the supply chain, can assist retailers in meeting the demanding demands of today's consumer, resulting in business growth and success. This is supported by the findings of major research institutes. According to Bain & Company, retailers who integrate digital technologies into their supply chain improve service levels while cutting costs by up to 30%. According to McKinsey, companies that strongly digitise their supply chain can expect to

increase their annual earnings before interest and taxes by 3.2 percent - the most significant increase from digitising any business area - and annual revenue growth by 2.3 percent. The business case for retailers to digitally transform their supply chain is beyond any doubt. The reason a digital supply chain can generate such impressive business results is that it provides retailers with the following game-changing capabilities: 1.Real time visibility across the supply network, allowing retailers to view the live status of products no matter where they are along the critical path, e.g., in production, in transit, or in inventory; allowing data-driven decision making with certainty, to ensure the timely delivery of products. 2.Automation of time-consuming manual data entry, such as keying in data on bookings, purchase orders or sailing schedules. Automated operations, streamline the workflow of supply chain managers, saving them hours of time, allowing them to focus on more value-added tasks, such as negotiating better vendor prices or implementing growth strategies. 3.Enhanced collaboration with all relevant stakeholders, from logistics providers, to factories, to global teams and departments, all on one platform, from which information can be shared quickly and easily, rather than being spread out across multiple sources, such as spreadsheets or emails; enabling better business planning and reducing confusion and fragmentation of business processes. Many local businesses were forced to close or reinvent themselves as dark stores: stores with no front that serve as warehouses or distribution centres. Local stores implemented online point-of-sale systems to promote touchless operation, all of which increased the importance of omnichannel. Three major opportunities to embrace digital transformation exist in the post-Covid landscape. Here they are: 1. The Awakening of the Endless Aisle Retail stores were transformed by the pandemic, taking on a new role with the "ship from store" and "ship to store" trends. Best Buy, for example, began testing a ship-from-store model with 250 stores remodelled as hubs. "Ship from store" and "ship to store" are here to

stay, according to UPS. "This fulfilment model reflects the growing convergence of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores," said UPS. Retailers are embracing this trend, promoting what's known as the "endless aisle"—a seamless shopping experience that allows you to start your journey online and finish it in-store, or vice versa, and continue the shopping loop indefinitely. Endless aisle also addresses the issue of "empty shelves" by allowing customers to order directly from the aisle using kiosks, tablets, and mobile devices. The pandemic was the tipping point for many retailers to adopt digital transformation focused on data-driven strategies to efficiently implement the endless aisle concept. 2. A.I. Enters the Mainstream Micro targeting has been used by online retailers by tracking browsing behaviour and purchase history. The omnichannel shift, aided by disruptive technologies, brings micro-targeting to traditional retail at a higher level of detail. Car salesmen, for example, begin following you even before you enter the showroom. They already know what car you drove, who you arrived with, and what you're wearing. The prediction models kick into high gear for the car salesman the moment you pull into their parking lot. Data privacy is still a major concern. Brands, particularly those with a global footprint, are embracing "privacy first" and "privacy by default" strategies, which promote transparency and enhanced privacy for consumer data. Data-driven insights derived from in-store IT systems and e-commerce provide a leading indicator of purchase trends. Predictive analytics based on captured insights improve inventory and business efficiencies more than ever before. In retail, artificial intelligence has progressed from buzzword to mainstream. As demonstrated at Covid-19, digital transformation, aided by artificial intelligence, is assisting retailers in remaining competitive. 3.Frenemies Unite is a co-opetition. Even with obvious financial advantages, co-opetition was difficult to implement due to mistrust and integration issues when sharing data between disparate systems. Loyalty programmes are on the cutting edge of co-opetition strategies. Blockchain, in conjunction with big data strategies, can now be used to create a loyalty programme that retailers can easily share while

analysing the trade-offs. Loyalty sharing is now possible in the retail space thanks to blockchain and simple sign-on programmes. Directto-consumer brands filled a void left by the closure of many local businesses. With consumers abandoning computer screens in favour of in-person purchases, direct-to-consumer brands are forming alliances with local retailers in order to continue their success storey. The post-Covid-19 world is preparing for a surge in digital transformation in retail. Following the dot-com bubble and Amazon era, it took a pandemic to pave the way for a customer-centric paradigm shift that addresses the shortcomings of online retail. Companies that used the pandemic crisis as a catalyst to embrace digital transformation are accelerating this change. Retail organisations must commit from the top down to embrace this paradigm shift in order to be successful adopters and standard bearers. Digital transformation in retail refers to a variety of business opportunities for leveraging technology to shift from a product-centric model of buy low/sell high mentality to a consumer-centric insightdriven model. Building strong relationships with customers allows you to better understand their needs, tastes, and value perceptions, and then offer them products that will satisfy them in a convenient and cost-effective manner. Target, the eighth-largest retailer in the United States, decided to pursue digital transformation by catering to the needs of customers who don't necessarily enjoy the in-store experience but require their products immediately after placing an order. This resulted in the development of omnichannel capabilities, which allow consumers to buy online and receive their purchases the same day, either by picking them up from a store (Drive-Up) or by having them delivered to their door (Shipt). Years of investment in redefining and redeveloping stores to serve as fulfilment hubs paid off handsomely during a pandemic outbreak. On an average day in April, our operations fulfilled far more items and orders than we did on Cyber Monday last year, a day we had planned for months in advance. - Target CEO Brian Cornell. Target's digital sales increased by 141 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2020, while Drive-Up sales increased by nearly 1,000 percent year on year in April alone. Shipt's membership increased by 60%, and its

order volume increased by threefold. Overall, more than 5 million guests shopped on target.com for the first time in the first four months of 2020, resulting in a $1.1 billion increase in digital sales over the same period last year. Target was able to effectively respond to this surge in demand because the company had begun its digital transformation years before, which included reimagining the role of a retail store, expanding fulfilment options to meet consumer expectations, investing in inventory management automation, and building a strong e-commerce platform. Target's example demonstrates that the simplistic view of retail digital transformation as simply selling goods online and employing the latest technological gimmicks is far from accurate. A digital transformation strategy must involve the entire organisation, redefine the operational model or even the business model, and develop new digital capabilities that will permanently alter how each department of a company operates. E-commerce adoption increased faster in April 2020 than it had in the previous five years combined. It translates to $100 billion in goods shifting from offline to online channels in the United States alone! This change has far-reaching consequences beyond simply purchasing through a website. It has an impact on how consumers think about and use payments, fulfilment options, loyalty programmes, discover new products, compare prices, and decide which retailer is most appealing to them. According to a Forrester survey of 1,122 online adults conducted in April, 41% are purchasing more items online than in the past. The number of first-time purchases made on traditional retailers' e-commerce sites increased by 119%. It's not just a passing fad caused by the epidemic. Consumers learn about the benefits of online channels, overcome their fears and doubts, and learn how to benefit from this experience. A few weeks of online shopping is enough to induce a behavioural shift, resulting in new habits and preferences that will be with you for the rest of your life. "We've already seen it with the expansion of order-ahead and BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store), but it will quickly shift from a nice-to-have service to an expectation,". Early indications indicate that brick-andmortar stores and restaurants will recover to some extent once epidemic restrictions are lifted, but sales growth will continue to be dominated by online channels. E-commerce entails much more than

simply having a digital storefront where customers can place orders online. This trend's digital transformation goes much deeper than that and must consider many different aspects of business strategy. When shopping online, customers will compare the company's positioning, assortment, experience, and services to a much broader range of competitors than when shopping in-store. This could have an impact on marketing and sales budget allocation, the need for investments in order processing and fulfilment automation, and the exploration of new business models to accommodate new variables in the value equation. In China, 28% of consumers changed their primary retailer, and half do not intend to return to their original retailer once the pandemic is over. The most common reasons are availability and dependability of delivery services, inventory (broad selection, lack of out-of-stocks), and competitive prices. Not every retailer has the resources to compete in so many new markets. As a result, considering partnerships to drive necessary changes quickly while leveraging technology and know-how will be critical. According to studies, 88 percent of customers are willing to pay for same-day (or faster) shipping. This leads to an increase in the number of delivery and fulfilment services available to retailers. DoorDash and Instacart raised new capital to meet rising demand, with record valuations of $16 billion and $13.7 billion, respectively. Even the biggest players require reliable partners to keep up with consumer expectations. Walmart has announced a partnership with Shopify in order to expand its inventory and compete with Amazon for the title of "everything store." This move not only provides Walmart with a broader assortment to attract customers, but it also significantly increases the revenue stream from Walmart Marketplace, as Shopify sellers will be required to pay a fee to be listed and use inventory and order management services (a completely different business model). In a digitally enabled world, developing strong relationships with customers is critical. Because it is so easy to find the best deal and order a product from anywhere, retailers must redefine consumer loyalty and rewrite the value equation. The old playbook of competitive pricing, discount coupons, and giving loyalty points for transactions isn't enticing enough to entice customers to make another purchase. The new rules require retailers to provide unique benefits of such

perceived value that customers are willing to pay for them in advance and continue to do so on a regular basis. Amazon Prime, arguably the most successful membership programme to date, is the most visible example of this approach. Amazon bundled a number of services that its customers may find useful after paying $119 per year. The offer revolves around free shipping on purchases, but it also includes free video and music streaming, unlimited access to ebooks and audiobooks, unlimited photo storage, and exclusive access to live events and product offers. The results are astounding: over 100 million consumers are Prime members, accounting for 64% of all American households, and each of them spends twice as much as a non-Prime Amazon customer. Even though this programme initially lost $11 per member, its importance as a loyalty builder cannot be overstated. Other retailers are employing the same strategy with excellent results. In order to reduce its reliance on discounts, Restoration Hardware (RH) launched a paid membership programme in 2016. Since then, the company's stock price has more than doubled, and its value-to-sales ratio has risen to x2.2 (almost twice as much as its closest competition). RH customers receive a variety of benefits for $100 per year, including exclusive early access to sales, interior design advice, and an order concierge service. Almost 95 percent of RH's revenue is now generated by paid members who make purchases more comfortably and are no longer looking for seasonal promotions. Digital transformation enables the creation of scalable and sustainable services that can be bundled to present an offering that makes the recurring payment a no-brainer for the consumer. Analysis of data collected offline and online can provide insight into what consumers already own and what they still require, which is required to create a collection of benefits that they will be unable to refuse. Access to limited product offers or special events, professional services (stylist, designer, dietician, etc.), additional delivery and packaging options, status symbols such as customised products, or concierge services are all examples of this. This is the only way to avoid price wars and build genuine brand loyalty. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition to a mobile-first world, forcing many businesses to significantly accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. This new reality has influenced how we shop

and interact with one another. Retailers work hard to build emotional connections with their customers, and this must extend to the online shopping experience. Everything from the purchase transaction to the ability to respond to customer issues in near real-time falls under this category. To get it right every time, the real-time reaction necessitates a massive amount of data as well as an understanding of how the company's platforms and services interact. This ultimately means that digital customer experience has cemented its position as one of the most critical aspects of retail business. Digital transformation is not an option for retailers because it is critical to not only modernise but also identify and address customer-impacting issues as soon as possible. Mobile applications and eCommerce stores are the primary means of reaching out to customers. In the long run, physical retailers are adding contactless payment solutions, which means more digital touchpoints for customers. However, if your eCommerce or mobile application is slow, it will have an impact on the customer experience, and customers will go elsewhere to shop. Having said that, flawless performance is critical to the success of any retail business. To deliver great digital experiences, retailers must have broader visibility across their ever-expanding application landscapes, allowing them to monitor not only their own front and back-end performance but also identify root causes outside of the traditional tech stack. AppDynamics provides Full Stack Observability across the entire business application ecosystem, from business analytics to the customer experience, all the way down to the application and code, and all the way down to the lowest level network and infrastructure health. With the business lens at their disposal, technologists can pinpoint the most critical data and contextualise IT performance with real-time business data, allowing them to prioritise tasks with data-driven insight that improves your customer experience and delivers bottom-line results. This enables retailers to be more strategic, prioritising what to respond to and how resources are deployed, while never losing sight of what is most important—the business, customers, employees, and users. As they embark on their digital transformation journey, AutoNation is transforming the automotive retail industry through leadership and innovation. They have turned to AppDynamics to monitor every component of their application delivery chain and ensure that issues

are resolved before they affect the buyer. They not only gained unprecedented visibility into their IT systems, but they are also now able to correlate data to address underlying issues proactively. The term Retail 4.0 was coined to describe the retail industry's massive digital transformation. It includes all of the modern tools and methods that today's retailers use to enhance the shopping experience at all touchpoints. Businesses have had to rethink the concept of retail in order to stay afloat in this volatile environment. What are the top retail technology trends for 2022? To make our predictions, we thoroughly researched company trends in 2019 and 2020. Here's our list of the top retail technology trends to look out for in 2022. Accept the technological solutions that will define the eCommerce and Retail landscape in 2022, and you will be able to keep up with this rapidly growing industry. We are confident that you will be pleased with the results. Here they are: 1. Analytical Prediction With so much data available, it is only natural for the retail industry to become more data-driven. Here are some examples of how retailers can use predictive analytics to make better business decisions. They look at a variety of factors, including: i)Inventory reporting and purchase dynamics This allows retailers to identify trends and improve their replenishment strategy. ii)Analytics on consumer behaviour and the customer journey It aids in personalising the customer experience throughout the decisionmaking process. iii)Customer behaviour patterns These may spark ideas for increasing sales, decreasing cart abandonment, and improving conversion rates. iv)Customer tastes and interests Individual customer loyalty programmes and special offers are developed in this manner by retailers. v)Supplier concessions. The use of predictive analytics software will aid in the selection of the best offer. 2. Shopping for Friends Buyers are increasingly relying on the reviews and opinions of other shoppers as the number of blind online purchases increases. Social

shopping entails involving other people in your purchases, which makes shopping less personal. Pinterest and Instagram, as well as modern influencers and bloggers, have become a source of shopping inspiration and a place where trends grow and thrive. Shopping communities and channels bring people with similar interests together. Group buying sites like Groupon encourage people to buy goods in bulk at wholesale prices. And it's not just on the internet. Social shopping has infiltrated the offline retail experience as well. Robo (Research Online, Buy Offline) and ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline) trends have grown in popularity in recent years. Furthermore, there is an increasing number of applications, such as Preenster, which is used by brands such as Adidas and Mexx. Various apps allow you to share your shopping lists or even photos from the fitting rooms in order to get feedback from friends, family, and even strangers. 3. Environmental and social consciousness Consumers are also becoming increasingly concerned about sustainability, environmental consciousness, and social awareness. Retailers are under a lot of pressure to change their ways when it comes to the environment. They are frequently accused of encouraging consumerism. Fur and leather have been phased out by some manufacturers. They reduced the amount of plastic produced. Many companies opt for biodegradable packaging. Purchasing materials from local vendors reduces logistics emissions. At the same time, technology and digitalization have the potential to significantly reduce the footprint. As an example: i)Instead of paper receipts, use digital receipts. ii)Smart energy and water consumption solutions based on sensors. iii)Electric vehicles in logistics. iv)Vending machines that work backwards. v)Technology for conscious consumption (like in the case with Carrefour, which applied Blockchain for milk traceability). 4. User Data Protection through Privacy and Cybersecurity Most consumers are unaware of the amount of data they leave on the internet:

i)ID and payment information, as well as purchase history and geolocation data ii)prescriptions and medical records iii)education history demographic identifiers family information iv)Political and religious markers, for example. Data privacy has become a major concern, and businesses are scrambling to meet new GDPR and CCPA regulations. According to this Deloitte report, 73% of retailers have already developed at least some kind of consumer privacy protection strategy, but 27% are still lagging behind. Privacy-conscious retailers inform customers about the type of data they are collecting. They provide the opportunity to manage (delete or modify) this data and receive it in machinereadable format. Cybersecurity specialists and services are in high demand right now, as they assist organisations in protecting their data from hackers and malicious attacks. 5. Self-Learning Recommendation Engines Recommendations based on self-education Engines perform critical tasks while remaining unnoticed. They are steadily progressing from the list of new retail technologies to the common and vital retail trends. Amazon, for example, introduced personalised recommendations technology. As a result, revenue increased by 29 percent. Customization is the most popular trend in today's customer experience technology. AI and machine learning algorithms are frequently used in recommendation engines. There are two kinds of people. Some systems handle a wide range of customer purchases, wishlist items, and searches (content-based recommendations). Others make smart offers based on the preferences of other customers of the same age, geographic location, and cultural background (collaborative filtering). 6. Internet of Things (IoT) Devices and Wearables IoT devices have enormous potential in the Retail industry for streamlining operations and reducing manual labour: Automated checkouts, robot employees, smart shelves, warehouse automation, and supply chain automation, among other things According to this study, the number of IoT devices will have surpassed

30 billion by 2020. IoT technology improves in-store management, improves customer experience, provides faster service, optimises product placement, predicts equipment maintenance, and much more. IoT devices in Retail help leverage both spheres to achieve better results because they are at the intersection of Digital and Physical. 7. eWallets and Electronic Payments The digital wallet technology provides retailers with a simple, flexible, and secure way to meet the payment needs of their customers. Previously, online payments required credit card information, multistep verification, and lengthy transaction processing. They have now crossed the bridge to one-click purchases, which are frequently activated with Touch ID or face recognition. They didn't stop there, either. Online payments evolved into integrated, often Blockchainbased, systems for managing benefits, customer loyalty points, and much more – also known as Digital Wallets. As a result, they provide customers with greater convenience and faster service. At the same time, retailers benefit from lower transaction fees and the highest level of data security. 8.Voice Assistants Voicebot discovered that one in every five US adults uses voice assistants during their shopping experience. Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple's Siri have all become popular in-car companions and household helpers for many families worldwide. Retailers have no choice but to adapt, optimising their products and services for voice search. Voice search is a more convenient, hands-free way to search. It also has drawbacks, such as natural language processing flaws and difficult informational browsing due to the sheer volume of search results. Voice search, on the other hand, adds a new dimension to your omnichannel retail strategy. 9. Image Search Visual search has become an important part of the business of Target, Forever 21, and Aliexpress. This technology, which was introduced quite some time ago, has only recently become a Retail tool. Users can easily find products that they have already visualised using visual search. It means that users are one step closer to making a purchase and are twice as likely to do so. The rise of visual search in shopping

has an effect on sales via visual platforms. Instagram and Pinterest, for example, have elevated digital fashion influencers and celebrities to the status of major shopping authorities. 10. 5G 5G service, which will be available in 2020, will be 20 times faster than 4G. This will undoubtedly have an impact on the future of retail and eCommerce. Numerous new features, such as Cloud and AR, necessitate increased connectivity from our phones, which 5G can provide. 5G will enable physical stores to adopt a variety of modern retail technologies, including: i)Improved IoT devices and even robots with longer battery life thanks to 5G's low energy consumption. ii)Even more customization, including dynamic pricing and automatic checkouts, is possible thanks to new high-speed real-time data transmission. iii)Gamification, augmented reality, and virtual reality are all simple to implement. 11. Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence According to Juniper Research, annual spending on AI in retail will reach $7.3 billion by 2022. At the same time, the majority of AI and machine learning solutions in retail, 74 percent of them, are focused on the customer experience. Intelligent chatbots and robots have the potential to replace cashiers. Machine learning and AI systems: i)Allow for personalised makeup recommendations (Sephora and Olay). ii)Assist customers in determining the proper clothing sizes (ASOS). ii)Make store navigation easier (Macy's). iv)Customer preferences should be measured (Uniqlo). Aside from improving the customer experience, Artificial Intelligence in Retail can: i)Improve logistics and inventory management. ii)Simplify the food preparation and manufacturing processes. iii)Analyze marketing data.

iv)Make better business decisions. AI is permeating various aspects of retail and is constantly discovering new creative applications. At this point, it's clear that artificial intelligence will be a part of the retail landscape for decades to come. 12.Tools for Inventory Tracking and Management Retailers are always looking for ways to improve efficiency and streamline operations. That is exactly what the most recent trends in inventory management technology provide. i)Management of the supply chain automatically. ii)Detection of stock objects. iii)Artificial intelligence order management systems iv)Tasking via voice. v)Forecasting sales. vi)Stock analytics in real time. vii)Systems for pick-to-light and put-to-light. All of these were created to alleviate the burden on large retail businesses. 13.Autonomous Delivery Driverless technology is paving the way for self-driving logistics. DHL is experimenting with self-driving trucks inside warehouses and ports. Google launches self-driving cars to compete with Amazon Prime in same-day delivery. Many retailers are following in the footsteps of Amazon, UPS, Uber, and Google's Wing. For last-mile delivery, they are investing in aerial delivery drones. Driverless solutions have the advantage of not being constrained by business hours. They can also compensate for a shortage of skilled drivers. 14. Augmented and Virtual Reality How will the selected items appear and feel in real life? This concern for online shoppers is addressed by the use of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in retail. For example, Specsavers, an eyewear retailer, has introduced Frame Styler. This is an augmented reality tool that allows customers to try on and choose the best glass frames. L'Oreal also decided to use Pinterest's AR technology to provide their clients

with the ultimate make-up try-on functionality. The use of augmented reality and virtual reality technology significantly increases customer engagement. Virtual try-ons and virtual showrooms are becoming increasingly popular. They offer a more immersive digital customer experience by allowing customers to view 3D images of products rather than the standard 2D banners. 15.Automation of Customer Relationships Traditional CRMs are becoming obsolete in today's fast-paced world. In many businesses, business development reps still waste time manually uploading and searching data on leads. The majority of these tasks are automatable: i)Data is automatically submitted from the email (or purchase) history. ii)The processing of natural language. iii)Big data analytics software. iv)Send follow-up and reactivation emails automatically. v)Customer communications are handled by robots and chatbots. 16.Progressive Web Apps (PWA) Progressive Web Apps are applications that run in a browser. They are accessible from any device without the need to download an app from the app store. Some retailers are still debating whether to create native apps for Android and iOS or a cross-platform app based on Xamarin or Flutter. PWAs provide a third, lower-cost option as well as a plethora of possibilities for them: i)They are simple to update (even when the app is closed on the phone). ii)They share the same code base and are supported. iii)Extremely responsive. iv)Framework-friendly. v)They do not rely on a high-speed internet connection. vi)PWAs are easily found by search engines and can receive push notifications. 17.Microservices The microservices architecture has spread across many domains.

When compared to the old-school monolithic system design, it is a lifesaver. In a nutshell, it enables the division of large software systems into smaller services. Each service can be developed and supported independently while remaining connected to the others via an API. Even if you're using a different programming language or a different platform. For retailers, this means that burdensome old legacy systems can now be replaced with an alternative that allows them to: i)improved speed and ease of modification ii)simple cloud integration flexibility for omnichannel sales 18. Geographical location The introduction of iBeacon and geolocation technology has altered the way retailers communicate and engage with their customers. According to Google, 82 percent of smartphone users consult their phones when they are unsure about a purchase. Google even coined the term "micro-moments" (along with "micro-moment marketing") to describe impulse purchases. In practise, this translates to: i)Location-based advertising that analyses in-store behaviour and sends push notifications with coupons and personalised offers ii)Taco Bell goes a step further. They allow users to order food while on the go. When the users (and, of course, their smartphones) arrive at the restaurant, the food is hot and steaming. Furthermore, in collaboration with Lyft, they can now direct users to Taco Bell drivethroughs. This contributed significantly to an increase in sales. 19.Omnichannel Experience There is no longer a battle between online and in-store shopping experiences. Customers receive value from modern retail businesses at all touchpoints. There are both online and offline (in-store) channels involved. As a result, many forward-thinking businesses have invested in a multi-channel strategy. However, the omnichannel marketing communication strategy outperforms all others. It provides a much more seamless and integrated customer experience. Furthermore, each channel provides its own set of sales opportunities, which complements the overall strategy. Brands are incorporating desktop and mobile apps in addition to traditional websites. They also

communicate through social media, popular messengers, and a variety of platforms. All of this helps them ensure that their customers can find them in any way that is convenient for them. 20.Personalization and Humanity It is not an exaggeration to say that humans and their needs are central to modern retail. Businesses provide numerous options for customising their goods and services. It promotes the concept of human focus and creates a sense of exclusivity and uniqueness. Personalization is no longer thought to be a luxury. Chanel, a beauty company that has expanded into fashion and fine jewellery, sends hand-written notes to its customers. Levi's allows you to personalise your clothing with prints and embroidery. Nike allows customers to create their own custom sneakers. The rise of 3D printing is just one more example. Consumers today are more involved in the creation of products than ever before. Challenges in the Retail Industry's Transformation from customer centric are: 1.Management of Change Many organisations operate in a specific manner and interact with customers in a specific manner. For them, transformation may imply disrupting traditional ways of working in order to resist change. However, in such cases, ROI may suffer. 2.Commitment Many projects are not ready for the new era while they are still in the works. However, the apps and websites that are created do not completely meet the needs of the customers. However, for a company to thrive, digital transformation is more than just an idea. It necessitates resources, leadership guidance, and a budget. 3.Technology A solution that enables you to do more is the foundation of a successful digital transformation. For example, it could imply a unified view of your products, orders, and inventory that allows you to scale. This necessitates the use of several technologies that alleviate common problems while also adding value to your business. The rise in fraud is viewed as a major impediment to e-explosive

commerce's growth. The online retail environment has always been a target of cyberattacks due to the proliferation of digital transactions, the emergence of new payment and delivery methods, and the fact that customers frequently reasonably bypass new account protections. Top 10 common Retail Digital Transformation Challenges are: 1. Effective supply chain management As online purchasing grows and retailers embrace digital transformation, capacity management becomes a challenge. Supply chains should be designed in such a way that they can handle both temporary influxes and long-term growth. Increasing customer expectations necessitates a reduction in delivery time. If the supply chain setup fails to meet these demands on a consistent basis, the company risks falling behind the competition. Few countries are dealing with the long-term effects of pandemic supply chain disruptions, such as delays, product shortages, and warehouse maintenance challenges. When retailers offer an omnichannel experience in their services, they must integrate e-commerce fulfilment with traditional distribution, which is where things get complicated. As a result, when managing supply chains, unifying multiple inputs should be a top priority. 2. An excellent start in e-commerce To keep up with the fast-paced market, many people are turning to digitalization. The first step in most cases is to move the commerce online, creating online platforms and apps. The pandemic's strike has heightened the need for this even more. Retailers must get it right when it comes to creating positive interactions with customers when it comes to e-commerce. Obtaining a fast and secure interactive platform with functional features, search options, and optimization for multiple devices, including mobile phones. There are several ecommerce platforms on the market that can help reduce technical efforts, and there are no excuses for a bad website or platform. Smaller retailers who are not yet ready to invest in platform development could use social selling or local e-commerce platforms. 3. Amassing useful customer data Customers across all channels expect a great personalised shopping

experience, and it's critical for businesses to manage the database correctly in order to extract valuable insights from their customers and provide them with the best experiences. Capturing a large amount of information is important, but the more difficult part comes when it comes time to define how to monitor, analyse, and structure the data gathered from each and every interaction. In this manner, retailers would end up with a useful database that would allow them to effectively track trends and gain deeper insights. It also makes it easier for both sellers and customers to manage their information. Incorrect data, on the other hand, will mislead customers and negatively impact their experiences. 4. Exceeding customers' expectations Customers' expectations are rising as e-commerce grows and retailers focus on the omnichannel shopping experience. According to Gravy Analytics, 90% of today's consumers expect seamless interactions across all shopping channels, from in-store to websites to apps. This is when the omnichannel strategy must thrive, as consistency in the shopping experiences of customers is critical in the age of digitalization. As a result, retailers must engage in positive interactions with customers in order to better understand their needs and experiences, and then effectively optimise platforms to meet customers' expectations. 5. Management of Change People and departments who are accustomed to handling their touchpoints in certain ways may be resistant to change as a result of digital transformation. Concerns about changing roles and KPIs, as well as doubts about transformation programmes, may cause problems as digital transformation disrupts traditional approaches. Defining ownership and determining ways to measure ROIs are new tasks. Leaders must address these issues and challenge the status quo. In the context of effective digital transformation, the mindset of not changing or questioning change unless there is a crisis can be dangerous. People usually become aware of the rapidly changing market environment when it is too late. So, once again, it all boils down to how leaders communicate with logic and paint the transformation as the future vision.

6. Financial Constraints Retailers' budgets are being squeezed as they strive to modernise through digital transformation. Furthermore, this will be an ongoing process with recurring costs. To effectively implement the plans, management initiatives must be transformational enough. Not only in terms of ideas, but also in terms of budgets. For many retailers, digital transformation will end with the creation of a mobile app or website. Retailers should look for a comprehensive implementation that includes AI-powered bots, AR/VR options, headless commerce, mobile POS, interactive kiosks, and other features to create uncompromised customer experiences and reap the benefits of digital transformation. As a result, proper budget planning and allocation become critical. 7. Technology and expertise are important Technologies are critical to a successful transformation, and the foundation must be strong. The most difficult challenge is combining the right set of technologies with proper understanding and risk assessment. The key will continue to be analysing available options and selecting the right infrastructure and technologies that add value. However, in today's market, where numerous development teams and companies are vying for attention. However, retailers may struggle to find the right partner who can help them co-create good digital experiences for their customers while also ensuring smooth business operations. As a result, it is critical that retailers collaborate with compatible, expert developers to implement the chosen technologies in order to reap long-term benefits. 8. Complicated The majority of people are familiar with basic technology and digital platforms such as social media and mobile shopping apps, but that does not mean they can easily digitise all aspects of their businesses. Digital transformation necessitates a diverse skill set that those with little to no experience are unable to master. The complexity lies in the overwhelming number of details, steps, and processes that must be followed when going fully digital, as well as keeping things unified across multiple channels while constantly updating resources as technology evolves. Retailers frequently rely on outsourcing to

develop efficient digital systems in a short period of time while remaining professional. 9. Security Administration The urgent need to upgrade and expand digital infrastructures raises serious concerns about cybersecurity. Especially for the retail industry, which essentially involves selling and buying, every single transaction exposes the platform to the risk of information theft. This would be a huge setback for retailers who are working hard to provide a safe and secure service for customers in order to make business management easier. According to a Fortinet study, 30 percent of retailers lost critical data due to cyberattacks. When it comes to large-scale digital transformation, cybercriminals and security gaps should be effectively prevented and addressed by excelling at risk management and instant response. 10 Uncertain Strategy A well-defined strategy with clear objectives, goals, and vision is required for successful digital transformation. It has a lot to do with proper organisational management planning. For a unified understanding from multiple touchpoints, input from everyone is required. Business leaders must understand that digital transformation is about more than just technology. Business processes, selfawareness, competitor threats, new roles, organisational changes, and business models are all components of it. As a result, when embarking on a digital transformation journey, an unclear digital strategy can be a fast-approaching pitfall. The impact of digital transformation on the future of ecommerce and retail are: 1. The growth of direct-to-consumer (DTC) and private-label selling. We briefly discussed direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing earlier; now, we'll delve deeper. Until recently, most brands (particularly new brands) formed alliances with major brick-and-mortar retail outlets. Brand manufacturers lost out on significant profits because they made wholesale deals. Meanwhile, their retail partners developed privatelabel versions of branded products at a rapid pace. DTC business strategy is motivated by a desire to make more money as well as a

reaction to the rise of private label products. When brands go directto-consumer, they gain more than just extra cash; they also get to know their customers better. Manufacturers offset sluggish in-store sales by bypassing their retail partners and opting for DTC ecommerce instead. Let's take a closer look at some of the additional advantages of a DTC strategy. Brands gain a better understanding of their target audiences. When brand manufacturers enter into wholesale agreements with retailers, they forego direct contact with customers. Since then, they've relied on post-sale surveys, voluntary consumer feedback, and reviews to better understand their product's end users. Businesses recoup that consumer connection when they switch to a DTC approach. Customers communicate directly with brand manufacturers, who respond quickly and provide effective support. Companies that use DTC regain the ability to harvest consumer data in order to learn more about their followers. DTC offers a one-of-a-kind customer experience. According to an iXtenso magazine poll, more than 55% of shoppers prefer to buy directly from brand manufacturers. They want a personalised experience, which includes custom packaging, mix-and-match product assortments, and seasonal exclusives. Brand manufacturers who use omnichannel marketing to provide a consistent experience across devices outperform those who do not. Companies that use DTC have complete control over their customers' experiences, giving them enormous power to improve consumer satisfaction. Develop customer relationships with your brand. When companies sell directly to consumers, they create a generation of brand evangelists who spread the word about their favourite products. Customers who are loyal to a brand tend to stay with that brand for years — they become valuable assets, increasing your customer retention rate. Brands that cultivate deep customer relationships will invariably fare better in the long run. You also don't have to wait to establish a brand relationship. Larq, a water bottle manufacturer, began its DTC strategy long before its launch, resulting in a massively successful start-up crowdfunding campaign and a loyal consumer base from the start. Larq was able to launch a strong DTC brand thanks to digital transformation via crowdfunding. 2.Augmented reality removes the constraints of online shopping.

Let's return to our artist pal, Joe, for a moment. Joe must persuade collectors who have never seen his work in person that it is of high quality and worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. He needs to make his paintings as realistic as possible so that people can imagine them hanging in their homes. He can accomplish this by incorporating augmented reality (AR) software apps into his website. Because it allows shoppers to visualise the products that interest them, augmented reality software is a game changer in the ecommerce industry. Prior to augmented reality, consumers had to rely on their imaginations, tape measures, and luck. They were unable to confidently envision products. AR integrations transformed ecommerce by removing a significant psychological barrier to purchase. Burrow, a furniture retailer, is a great place to see AR in action. Burrow has an app called Burrow at Home that allows customers to virtually try out furniture items in their living spaces. They scan the floor of a room with the app, customise their Burrow sofa, and place it in view. SaaS ecommerce platforms, such as BigCommerce, support a variety of AR integrations. LIVEb4buy, for example, allows ecommerce retailers to create 360-degree panoramic spaces (the inside of physical stores, demo spaces with furniture in them, and so on). Customers "walk" through these areas, selecting products to learn more about them. 3. More physical retail businesses are turning to ecommerce as a primary source of revenue. When the coronavirus arrived, Joe's world changed — and most other retailers experienced a similar seismic shift. When the pandemic hit full force, panicked consumers turned to the internet for almost everything. When stores ran out of toilet paper, they stocked up on Charmin and sold it on Amazon. When grocery stores became too intimidating, they ordered necessities online. Some online retailers were out of stock. Others imposed purchase restrictions. By mid-April, online retailers in the United States had experienced a 68 percent increase in revenue year on year. The initial rush had subsided by the end of June, but sales were still up more than 41% from the previous year. By August, industry insiders were speculating that consumer spending habits had permanently shifted. Ecommerce websites appeared to have usurped brick-and-mortar stores. When brick-and-

mortar retailers and wholesalers were forced to close their doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, they suffered greatly. Ecommerce retailers found themselves in Boomtown, but behind the scenes, longestablished packing and shipping processes crumbled due to social distancing, which resulted in a reduction in warehouse staff. Couriers were swamped with packages, and shipping times increased significantly. Panic buying eventually subsided, leaving retailers to sift through the wreckage. Businesses that did not have websites quickly set up online stores, while those that already had ecommerce outlets improved workflows and warehousing solutions to prepare for future chaos. Newly abandoned stores in towns across the country sounded the death knell for High Street dominance. Ecommerce had been predicted to triumph long before the pandemic. Economists now predict that retail ecommerce sales will exceed 476.5 billion dollars by 2024, up from 279.7 billion dollars in 2017. Far from being a passing fad, digital transformation is a necessary process for brick-and-mortar businesses in the modern era. Growth in the retail ecommerce space is being driven by digital transformation. Big data will play an important role in improving personalization. 4.Big data is big business, and it plays an important role in digital business transformation. Big data is used by large ecommerce retailers such as Amazon to provide highly personalised shopping experiences to their customers. How do they conjure up this enchantment? By modifying site algorithms based on previous consumer activity using machine learning. Online giants, like friendly neighbourhood barbers, understand that familiarity boosts the bottom line. When is too much big data too much big data? Some customers prefer to be "known," whereas others prefer to remain anonymous. Companies learn more about their customers when they track them using internal data. On the one hand, that's astute sleuthing. Some industry pundits and privacy experts, on the other hand, are concerned about consumer privacy. People may be able to opt out of personalization more easily in the future. For the time being, companies are pushing personalization in Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as thermostats, doorbells, and artificial intelligence (AI) technology (think Amazon Alexa or Siri). Install product recommendation integrations on your site if you want to incorporate

big data and personalization into your new business model. 5. API-driven and headless ecommerce enable ongoing innovation. The majority of people have no idea how their favourite websites work. They go online at lunchtime, visit Larq, and order a Midnight Rendezvous gift set before returning to work. Their order preferences are routed through Larq's headless commerce system and neatly filed into its database behind the scenes, at a rate faster than the speed of sound. Headless ecommerce is the only way to go for companies like Larq. Headless ecommerce, in a nutshell, decouples an organization's ecommerce platform from its frontend. When the two are decoupled, any data entered into Larq's backend flows seamlessly to a variety of frontends via application programming interfaces (APIs), such as progressive web apps (PWAs) and content management systems (CMSs). To use headless commerce, businesses add content to a compatible backend and couple on APIs — for example, a custom frontend (Larq used React) and a smartphone app. Don't worry if that sounds complicated. Many ecommerce platforms, including SaaS options like BigCommerce, make it simple to conduct headless commerce. Here are a few more reasons why headless commerce makes sense: i)Flexibility: Headless commerce is SEO-friendly, as well as adaptable and agile across a variety of devices. It also simplifies multi-region platforming by allowing companies to create a single domain for international transactions. ii)Personalization and customization: Customers expect to be able to pause their shopping on one device and resume it on another — sometimes at a much later time. Businesses can control the consumer experience from beginning to end by utilising a headless commerce tech stack, which streams data from a single central database to a collection of APIs. 6. Extensive use of alternative payment methods Credit cards, which were invented in the 1920s (surprising, isn't it? ), have had a century-long monopoly on consumer spending. Alternative payment methods, such as blockchain platforms such as Bitcoin, are the new kids on the block. They are, however, very popular, particularly buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services, which have a large

following among the millennial demographic. To stay competitive, modern ecommerce businesses must provide their customers with a variety of payment options, including BNPL options. This aspect of digital transformation is especially important for retailers of luxury goods and apparel, whose products frequently fall into the want-butnot-need category. Is there no room in the average consumer's monthly budget for a designer gown? If you include an interest-free monthly payment option, you may gain a new fan. 7. Mobile shopping is becoming more popular People use their smartphones to purchase a wide range of goods. Burrow's handy Burrow at Home app, which makes visualising and purchasing a sofa much easier, was previously mentioned. Nobody likes digital disruption: modern websites must look good — and function properly — on tablets, phones, and desktop computers. You may not need an app if you have a great responsive website. On a small screen, Bon Bon Bon's responsive website looks fantastic. Consumers browse candy on their laptops while eating breakfast, visit Bon Bon Bon's website while riding the train to work, and order boxes of chocolate via smartphone before arriving at work. According to Statista, nearly 73 percent of ecommerce transactions will take place on mobile devices by 2021. Consumers almost always have a choice of retailer or wholesaler; if you don't provide them with a fluid experience, they'll go elsewhere. Don't let this aspect of digital transformation slip through your fingers.From 2016 to 2021, mobile retail commerce sales demonstrate the digital transformation 8. Businesses will place a greater emphasis on optimization. Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is just as important as good SEO — in fact, many experts regard it as a necessary follow-up. CRO strategies convert visitors into customers while SEO techniques drive traffic to your site. Businesses that implement effective CRO frameworks increase the value of their existing Google and Bing leads. CRO approaches optimization in an iterative fashion. Admins make changes to the website and then measure the results to see if they have a positive impact. Every change has a purpose, and every change is intended to improve the user experience. Subtle page design changes, more compelling product descriptions, better

navigation options, and simpler checkout processes all reduce friction and increase the likelihood of a purchase. Ecommerce retailers almost always see an increase in profits when they use CRO to fine-tune their sites. Many decision-making CIOs (chief information officers) reinvest those profits directly into SEO, resulting in increased traffic and conversions. 9. Business-to-business transactions will become more common. B2B ecommerce is a growing market that will most likely continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Between 2006 and 2018, combined manufacturing and merchant wholesale business-to-business ecommerce transactions increased by nearly $4 trillion per year. Retail B2B is equally active: according to Statista, business-to-business retail sales will likely exceed $1.1 trillion by 2021. Many B2B websites in the past were, at best, clumsy. Wrapped in templates that were cutting-edge in 1998, some of the worst offenders went from relevant to irrelevant. Customers faxed or phoned supply chain orders, and online product catalogues were frequently out of date. Most modern B2B ecommerce sites provide visitors with an intuitive, self-service user experience as a result of digitization initiatives. Clients place orders online, and B2B businesses, like retail ecommerce stores, build brand loyalty. I identified five opportunities to assist retailers in connecting their digital and physical customer and employee experiences, which are as follows: #1: Connecting digital to what is important Organizations have shifted their marketing efforts to social media in order to increase the return on investment. There is, however, a significant gap in how external marketing drives engagement and traffic to physical experiences. Platforms like Optifi.io, for example, hold all forms of media and campaigns accountable through unbiased, passive-anonymous data analytics that measure both external and internal marketing, unlocking the ability to decipher what drives consumer engagement at or to physical locations. A recent Forbes Magazine emphasises the importance of a positive customer experience. Companies with a customer experience mindset generate four to eight percent more revenue than their competitors, and brands

with superior customer experience generate six times more revenue than competitors. Retailers and bank executives understand the critical link between customer experience satisfaction and profitability and brand loyalty. Ensuring these metrics throughout the customer and employee shopping journey is critical to providing an exceptional overall experience. #2: Using Digital to Increase Employee Engagement The emphasis on technology has come at the expense of connecting technological advancement to empowering employees to provide exceptional experiences. One of the three most significant challenges to the success of a company's transformational programme, according to our physi-digital study, is that employee skillset, capabilities, and technological advancement are underserving customers. Employee engagement, according to E.J. Kritz, a leading employee engagement trainer at APC, is no longer just about training; it's about finding the right psychological fit for the given task, ensuring staff are both trained and motivated to deliver the brand promise, and providing the proper engagement digital tools in the right physical setting. Engageware, a leader in appointment setting platforms, has assisted in resolving this issue by optimising a bank's or retailer's digital and employee-assisted channels, identifying the most common queries, and providing support to front-line staff, whether in an online chat, assisted channel, or physical store. The pandemic has ushered in the Great "Resignation," with more than 4 million people in the United States quitting their jobs by 2021. Currently, there are over 9 million open jobs that need to be filled. As a result, banks and retailers are having difficulty filling the void with qualified individuals who can help drive better customer experiences. The difficulty is exacerbated by the increasing complexity of sold products and services, which necessitates a completely new level of employee knowledge. The large recent defection of employees in Silicon Valley, despite their track record of providing toptier employee compensation, clearly shows that money alone will not prevent the attrition of talented employees. Many companies have had to rethink their compensation and career development programmes as a result of a key factor of equality among female workers. Companies will be able to provide an exceptional customer experience if their employee engagement programmes are coordinated and integrated.

Both are necessary, and one without the other will result in a loss of revenue and customer loyalty. #3: Establishing a Virtual and Physical Company Culture Beacon "Culture will eat strategy any day," as the old adage goes, is now the defining factor in driving growth during a period of uncertainty and transformation. A strong and healthy culture will alleviate the anxiety of transformational change and, in many cases, will overcome corporate silo barriers to delivering exceptional customer experiences. It defines a competitive advantage that competitors find difficult to replicate. However, it is not only about recognising employees; it is also about the company's culture, commitments to sustainability and social responsibility, the work environment, and supporting digital and physical empowerment tools. However, the pandemic has weakened company culture, leaving each employee isolated, with video conferences serving as the only means of emotional connection. Although working from home had no effect on company productivity, it was a factor in the large resignation. When people are unable to engage in impromptu discussions about life or work, it creates an emotional divide that erodes solid company culture. Leading organisations that value their company culture look for new ways to support it by combining virtual and physical moments. In times of high anxiety and uncertainty, leaders and their visibility play a critical role in fostering a strong culture. Employees look to their leaders for assurance and security, and leaders should maintain a high level of visibility on social media platforms and during company-wide video conferences. Employee value proposition programmes are another tool that many companies use to maintain a strong connection, with the theme of the campaign serving as a virtual backdrop for group meetings. Considerations: i)Take a stand for diversity, social responsibility, and sustainability as important factors in company culture. ii)Create virtual backgrounds for employee value proposition campaigns to be used in group video meetings. iii)Allow for the seamless and balanced integration of work from home and office workers to avoid "us versus them" situations. iv)Create opportunities for shared personal moments to celebrate staff

birthdays and other key milestones both digitally and in-person. This may necessitate doing things differently and with more creativity than before. v)Consider delegating social events to key employee brand ambassadors to ensure that these occasions are not perceived as company-driven. #4: Making digital transformation more human In some ways, technology has made us more connected, but it has also made us more isolated. During the pandemic, customers were able to overcome many safe distancing challenges thanks to the shift to online banking and shopping. Nonetheless, it has distanced people from meaningful human interactions. Furthermore, businesses have focused on remaining competitive with both direct and online competitors, driving more interactions to digital channels. Many customers have grown accustomed to the convenience of banking or shopping while still in their pyjamas. The future of digital transformation will shift from speed and convenience to people empowerment. According to Anita Ghosh, president of Bridjr, digital transformation will need to evolve from the current user experience to an immersive experience, putting the human at the centre of digital transformation. Furthermore, the advancement of IoT-enabled technologies and edge computing, spearheaded by industry leaders such as Intel, will connect us to every aspect of our lives. Banks and retailers will need to take the next giant leap of faith from digital transformation to digital ecosystems where knowledge, expertise, and a personalised and customised approach to a customer's needs are all available with the press of a voice prompt. #5: A truly seamless physical-digital interaction The manner in which businesses acquire services and technologies determines their ability to provide a seamless experience to their customers. Marketing is frequently in charge of in-branch/store digital signage, while HR and training are in charge of the use of learning technologies, and IT is in charge of the back-of-house technologies that power operations. Customers and employees, on the other hand, do not see the world in silos. To them, the brand is the brand regardless of how they engage with it. Diversified understands that

technology must be seamlessly integrated into the customer and employee journeys. Digital signing, for example, can easily double as staff training after hours. Furthermore, digital wayfinding can be linked to online appointment scheduling platforms, removing many steps that can result in a poor customer experience. Geolocation and the use of mobile devices can help banks and retailers provide more personalised experiences from the moment a customer enters a location until they leave. Finally, a truly seamless experience must recognise, anticipate, curate, communicate, engage, and facilitate the needs of customers and employees with the fewest steps and the fewest friction points. Companies of all sizes achieved success in the past year by implementing digital transformation strategies, and they took actions that can help drive success regardless of a brand's stage in the digital transformation journey. From always-on insights to embracing omnichannel, responding faster with automation, and making datadriven, privacy-protected decisions, the following steps are critical to the digital-first journey in retail: 1.Lead with always-on insights. Adapting strategies to consumers is the key to driving successful marketing strategies. While businesses have been navigating rapid shifts throughout the pandemic, shopper behaviour will remain dynamic, and businesses must use the tools at their disposal to adapt. Using tools like Rising Retail Categories and Google Trends to identify trends as they emerge can be beneficial. These can also be a valuable source of inspiration for a brand as it considers product expansions or launches to align with when consumers will be thinking about a particular category. 2.Leverage omnichannel to provide the flexibility that customers crave. While e-commerce growth has been strong, the role of the brick-andmortar store remains crucial in the journey. In some categories, the ability to experience or see a product in person, which is an experience tied to a store visit, is important. According to Google/March–December BCG's 2020 survey of over 700 home furniture in-store shoppers, 35% went specifically for the in-person experience, and 51% went to physically see or try products. With this in mind, marketers can use omnichannel bidding to maximise store

sales in categories that are more likely to drive foot traffic, as well as to maximise the value of a digital and physical footprint. 3.With automation, you can respond to consumer demand and deliver results. Automation enables more meaningful reactions and responses to customer signals. Tools like Google Data-Driven Attribution, which credits ad interactions, and Google Auto bidding, which also works with DDA, have allowed brands to achieve real-time optimization when engaging in-market consumers. This is especially useful for convenience shoppers, who may be quick to move from the research phase to the purchase phase. 4.Create data-driven, privacy-protected solutions. Marketers are working in a rapidly changing environment, so relying on privacyprotecting solutions is critical. Keeping that approach data-driven allows for a more complete picture of the entire consumer journey across channels and platforms. With a quarter of more than 6,700 surveyed online shoppers shopping on their mobile devices, according to a March–December 2020 Google/BCG study published in January 2021, having the ability to see the big picture is critical to ensuring a connected, personalised shopping experience. Privacy Sandbox's Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) enables this by clustering large crowds of people with similar interests, allowing for tailored ads without compromising privacy. DevOps is a practise that brings together development and operations teams to improve an organization's ability to deliver services and applications more quickly. It incorporates feedback from both customers and internal teams, assisting in the improvement of your product in all possible dimensions. DevOps enables businesses to scale up their operations through effective code-building mechanisms, automated test cycles, and timely deployments across the product lifecycle, all while maintaining quality and security! The following are significant business benefits of DevOps: 1.Quicker Solutions 2.Performance Enhancement 3.Enhanced Efficiency 4.Continuous Improvements

5.Improved Customer Service 6.Failures and rollbacks have been reduced. 7.Increased Return on Investment (ROI) DevOps in retail instils a new culture that extends beyond the software setting. This practise enables organisations to make more efficient decisions and achieve their business objectives more quickly. In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the adoption of DevOps. After the technology and financial sectors, retail is the third most advanced industry in terms of DevOps adoption. DevOps is a common practise in digital transformation for major retailers such as Walmart, Target, Nordstrom, and a variety of other large corporations. Walmart spent $11.7 billion on technology investments in 2018, making it the world's third-largest IT spender after Amazon and Alphabet. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on mobile apps, cashier-less systems in stores, and driverless last-mile distribution solutions. The Nordstrom company reduced its deployment time from three months to 30 minutes after transforming DevOps and launching a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) project four years ago. Major retailers have successfully implemented transformation strategies in all aspects of their business operations, including shelf inventory, supply chain management, delivery, online space, and overall customer experience optimization. By incorporating DevOps into their digital transformation journey, SME's can open the door to a plethora of new opportunities. Adopting DevOps makes sense for businesses only if it directly contributes to increased efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can only do this if their IT and DevOps teams work together to streamline the delivery of technological solutions that meet business needs. Only successful and timely DevOps adoption within your organisation will help your company beat competitors and stay afloat as the industry's development accelerates. Maintaining the pace of technological change is critical for organisations in these competitive environments, which must keep demanding customers happy and satisfied while delivering consistent revenues to keep stakeholders happy. The four main components of retail's digital transformation are:

Retailers can only achieve digital transformation if they understand the four elements: customers, employees, operations, and products. 1.Customers Customers are at the heart of all products and services in every industry, not just retail. Customer satisfaction is the foundation of your company's growth. Digital devices and data analytics are tools that can help you easily understand and communicate with customers – the key to success in retail digital transformation. A customer relationship management (CRM) system can help you take your company's relationship with its customers to the next level. It will assist you in collecting and analysing customer behaviour, providing deep insight into customer demographics, and assisting you in developing an appropriate marketing strategy. 2.Employees Employees are critical to the success of any business. They are the people who interact with your customers, products, and data to generate value for your company. Treat them well and provide them with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to do their jobs well. Only if your employees are skilled with digital tools will your company be able to keep up with the pace of digital transformation in retail. They will provide the best ideas and develop an excellent plan to help your business grow. For example, if employees have access to detailed customer information, they can observe customer behaviour and implement an upselling strategy or make informed customer recommendations. 3. Business Operations The third component of the retail industry's digital transformation is operations, which includes data-driven decisions, streamlined workflows, and operational visibility. We live in the eCommerce era, and businesses no longer operate solely through one channel. They believe that omnichannel is the best way to maximise benefits. The ERP system can be used to solve the problem. It is a comprehensive solution for controlling all of your cross channels. They help you manage inventory, customer transactions, purchases and returns, customer service, and other things. Furthermore, some ERP software offers comprehensive solutions for managing your business, including

human resources, accounting, and finance, as well as warehousing, inventory, sales, and marketing. You can successfully implement digital transformation in retail if you have powerful ERP software. 4. The Products Products are changing at breakneck speed. As a result, you must constantly keep an eye on the most recent advancements in your specific industry. You can be an unbeatable brand by updating, adapting, and planning for future industry changes. However, these activities only necessitate the use of the appropriate software and tools. You should combine ERP, CRM, and BI with machine learning to detect failure causes and predict future problems before they occur. Additionally, you can use digital intelligence to identify new potential opportunities. Ultimately, capturing omnichannel growth means improving online experiences. Google Cloud provides a number of tools for retailers looking to provide more intuitive product discovery to their customers. One of these new tools, Google Cloud Search for Retail, is currently being tested and will be available to the general retail market in 2020. Google Cloud Search for Retail, powered by Google Search infrastructure and leveraging cutting-edge cloud AI technologies, provides retailers with high-quality product search results for their websites and mobile applications, allowing them to surface the right products to the right customers at the right time. Retailers are increasingly centralising their user data in Google's BigQuery data analytics platform and then building personalization and recommendation models on top of it. Today, we're introducing Google Cloud 1:1 Engagement for Retail, a blueprint and best-practice guide for building these types of data-driven solutions efficiently and affordably. 1:1 Engagement for Retail, which is provided by Google Cloud and our partner ecosystem, enables retailers to create hyperpersonalization at scale. Google is the first place shoppers go to learn about new brands and products. Every day, hundreds of millions of people shop on Google properties such as Search, YouTube, Shopping, Google Assistant, and Maps. We assist retailers in expanding their reach through Google Ads, as well as empowering them to better understand their customers through advanced

analytics, allowing them to optimise their spend across channels. As the digital influence on sales grows and newer fulfilment options such as "buy online, pick up in store" or "ship from store" become more popular, retailers' supply chains face even more strain. Accurate inventory planning and a more efficient supply chain can mean the difference between success and failure. The new Buy Optimization and Demand Forecasting service offering from Google Cloud enables retailers to plan inventory and manage supply chains to deliver the right products to the right channels. Carrefour, one of France's largest grocery retailers, is one of those using these solutions. Carrefour needed to make certain that the right products were in front of the right customers at the right store location. Carrefour created an assortment recommendation tool with Google Cloud to help the chain support a more personalised selection at the store level, giving store directors the authority to influence inventory needs. The tool also provides Carrefour headquarters with visibility into each of their franchise stores' merchandising decisions. Retail customers' shopping habits are becoming increasingly "channel-less." It is therefore critical to provide customers with a consistent experience as they move between channels in their shopping journeys. Our Apigee-powered Google Cloud API Management for Retail solution enables retailers to easily integrate the systems that power various sales channels, resulting in a more unified shopping experience for customers. Retailers struggle with the space that bulky computer servers take up in their stock rooms, and they also struggle with centrally managing all of their server applications. We are currently testing Google Cloud Anthos for Retail, which will assist retailers in streamlining and modernising their store operations. Anthos for Retail, which will be available more broadly in 2020, enables retailers to consistently deploy, configure, and manage applications across their fleet of stores at scale—without sacrificing performance or reliability. When it comes to stores, nothing is more important than ensuring that their frontline workforce can collaborate efficiently and effectively. The demographics of front-line retail workers are rapidly changing. Even as a more tech-savvy workforce emerges, many retailers continue to lag in providing cutting-edge tools to their employees, resulting in poor customer experiences. In fact, according to one Google study, more

than half of frontline workers say their workplace's technology hasn't changed in the last five years. We can help drive this transformation with G Suite, Chrome Enterprise, and Android. G Suite enables retailers to increase productivity by providing simple tools that promote cross-organizational collaboration. Chrome Enterprise enables retailers to deploy shared, cloud-native devices that are secure, mobile, and enable any employee to sign in and resume where they left off. And Android devices can power dynamic store associate apps that digitise processes such as stock checking and reordering in order to collect signals from your store and make information available in real time to your store associates, allowing them to better serve your customers. Lowe's is one such example. The home improvement store is giving its store associates the ability to view and update pricing and inventory on-the-fly by using Android-based mobile devices and Google Cloud technology. Indeed, the company recently deployed 88,000 SMART Mobile devices to enable its associates to efficiently access real-time data without leaving the sales floor or losing customer engagement. To stay competitive in today's retail market, you must use technology to solve big problems. Google continues to innovate and provide industry-specific tools that assist retailers in not only keeping up with, but also winning the everchanging race. Customers nowadays expect a consistent brand experience instore and online: that is, from the physical store to the online store, as well as the customer service levels available from the call centre to the head office. But where should retail businesses begin their digital transformation? Here are our five strategic success steps... 1. Create a digital connection with your customers. For many retailers, the first step is to establish a consistent digital connection with customers, regardless of the sales and marketing media channel or method they use to engage with a brand. Shoppable social media presences, email marketing and promotions, and online enquiry forms or click-to-talk features are just a few examples of digital channels that allow brands and their customers to communicate twoway. However, simply putting these digital interaction methods in place is insufficient. In fact, if they are not properly monitored, they

can cause more harm than good. The key is to ensure that each channel delivers a consistent response in terms of information, delivery speed, tone of voice, and outcome. Customers frequently switch between channels when performing even the most basic shopping tasks. As a result, it is critical that the end-to-end experience be as seamless as possible. 2. Develop a strategy that is both online and offline. The most successful retailers understand that increasing store footfall is still critical to increasing revenue. The key is to develop a strong online-to-offline (O2O) strategy that encourages digital shoppers to visit your physical locations. This can be accomplished by providing free in-store pickup for online purchases or by including a store locator on your website to assist customers in finding you in the digital world. Digital transformation necessitates the implementation of digital touch points in a store. Click-and-collect points, multichannel returns services, and free Wi-Fi and mobile payment schemes can all be bundled into a loyalty app, as we did for Greggs. According to Google, omnichannel shoppers, or those who make purchases both online and in-store, have a 30% higher lifetime customer value than those who only shop in one or the other channel, implying that developing a complementary digital offline strategy is a sure-fire way to generate transformative business results. 3. Acquire digitally enabled customer insights Every digital customer interaction, from a reservation or purchase to a share or like, generates data that can be used to gain valuable insights into who your customers are, where they come from, and which marketing and promotional activities are producing the best results. This will enable you to make better decisions in the future and improve the customer experience. Check that you are tracking key digitally enabled data insights such as: • Where your customers are located • What products they purchase • How much they typically spend • What pages they visit

• When they may abandon their basket • Whether they open your marketing emails How they discovered your company on the internet By gaining a more complete understanding of your customers and their journey, you will be able to improve customer interactions and increase future sales, both offline and online. 4. Use performance-driven marketing to put those insights into action. Using data to inform your marketing campaigns can make or break their success. According to a recent Consultancy survey, one in every six brand marketers believes that performance-driven marketing based on data stored on an individual shopper's preferences is the most exciting opportunity to personalise their business offering. Datadriven and performance-driven digital marketing examples include: • Creating more targeted email campaigns based on location and/or website behaviour; • Creating personalised content based on the contents of a customer's abandoned basket; • Sending personalised offers to customers for products they have previously expressed interest in. 5. Experiment, learn, and repeat No company can afford to rest on its laurels if it wants to give customers more of what they want in the most profitable way possible. Continuous improvement is achieved by learning from and adapting to customer preferences. Using the DIAL methodology (Data – Insight – Action – Loyalty), you can transform data into game-changing customer-centric insights that will keep you ahead of the competition. 9.9 Trading The digital transformation has reduced the costs of international trade, facilitated the coordination of global value chains (GVCs), aided in the dissemination of ideas and technologies, and connected a greater number of businesses and consumers globally. Despite the fact that international trade has never been easier, the adoption of new business models has resulted in more complex international trade transactions and policy issues. Governments face new regulatory

challenges in today's fast-paced and interconnected world, not only in managing issues arising from digital disruption, but also in ensuring that the opportunities and benefits of digital trade can be realised and shared inclusively. Trade expands in size, scope, and speed as a result of digitalization. It enables businesses to introduce new products and services to a larger number of digitally connected customers around the world. It also enables firms, particularly smaller ones, to use new and innovative digital tools to overcome growth barriers, such as facilitating payments, facilitating collaboration, avoiding investment in fixed assets through the use of cloud-based services, and utilising alternative funding mechanisms such as crowdfunding. The way we trade goods is also changing as a result of digitalization. For example, the rise of online platforms has resulted in an increase in the number of small packages sold across international borders. This raises a number of policy issues for policymakers, ranging from the physical management of parcel trade to the implications for risk management (such as counterfeit goods or biosecurity standards) and revenue implications in terms of tax and tariff collection. Simultaneously, new technologies and business models are altering how services are produced and delivered, blurring already hazy distinctions between goods and services and modes of delivery and ushering in new combinations of goods and services. A smart fridge necessitates market access for both the product and the embedded service. And, for example, a 3D-printed may cross a border as a design service but becomes a good at the point of consumption. These issues, taken together, pose new challenges to the way international trade and investment policy is developed. Rapid technological advancements have also aided the growth of services in international cross-border trade. The backbone of digital trade is information and communication technology services, which provide the necessary network infrastructure and underpin the digitisation of other types of services. New technologies have also aided the rise of digitally enabled services, which are backed up by a variety of new services based on data-driven innovative solutions such as cloud computing. In the world of digitalisation, old trade issues may have new consequences, such as the effects of cumbersome border procedures on parcel trade or restrictions on newly tradable services,

and new trade policy issues, such as differing regulations among nations in relation to data flows, are emerging. More knowledge of the nature and scope of these changes is required to assist policymakers in creating an environment that fosters innovation and promotes digital trade in goods and services. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) works to identify and reduce obstacles for U.S. companies. In this year’s National Trade Estimate (NTE), USTR maintains and deepens its focus on barriers to digital trade. Digital trade is a broad concept, capturing not just the sale of consumer products on the Internet and the supply of online services, but also data flows that enable global value chains, services that enable smart manufacturing, and myriad other platforms and applications. Some portion of nearly every business is digitally enabled, and every industry leverages digital technology to compete internationally. For example: 1.The Internet of Things already ties together over 5 billion objects: cars, refrigerators, locomotives, airplanes—even entire buildings. By 2024, an estimated 27 billion devices will be constantly generating data and sending it across the room or across borders. 2.The manufacturing sector creates more data than any other sector of the economy. This data is generated at every link in the value chain—from R&D, to factory operations, to service—and firms use this data to increase productivity and drive down costs. 3.Metals companies are gathering data from every step of their production processes. Analysing production costs and plant constraints alongside the physical properties of their materials allows them to reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency. Most digital trade already occurs outside the United States—half of all people on earth are now online and the billions of objects newly connected to the Internet each year are located around the world. But in recent years, many governments have sought to control digital trade in blunt and disruptive ways. Some of these government actions are explicitly protectionist; others have imposed unnecessary burdens on digital trade while seeking to address legitimate public policy goals. The NTE organizes its discussion of digital trade barriers for each country into four categories:

1.Data Localization Barriers: Including unnecessary requirements to store data within a particular jurisdiction or locate computing facilities locally, as well as outright bans on cross-border data flows. 2.Technology Barriers: Including requirements to meet onerous and unnecessary security standards and requirements to disclose encryption algorithms or other proprietary source code. 3.Barriers to Internet Services: Including inappropriate application of old regulatory regimes to new business models and unreasonable burdens on Internet platforms for non-IP-related liability for usergenerated content and activity. 4.Other Barriers: Including issues surrounding electronic authentication and signatures, internet domain names, digital products, electronic payment platforms, and other discriminatory practices. USTR works to monitor all measures restricting digital trade and remove barriers where appropriate, so that U.S. companies can continue to compete and win in a 21st century global economy. The NTE highlights trade barriers faced by U.S. suppliers of digital goods and services, and identifies specific issues on which USTR will focus efforts over the coming year. Some of the key barriers to digital trade identified in the 2017 NTE include: 1.Web Filtering and Blocking in China: For over a decade, China’s filtering of cross-border Internet traffic has posed a significant burden to foreign suppliers, hurting both Internet services suppliers and users who often depend on these services for their businesses. Eleven of the 25 most popular websites globally are currently blocked in China, imposing significant costs on both suppliers and users of web-based services and products. In addition, China’s requirement that all Internet traffic must be routed through a national firewall adds delays to transmission that can significantly degrade the quality of the service, in some cases to a commercially unacceptable level, thereby inhibiting or precluding the cross-border supply of certain services.

2.Restrictions on Cloud Computing and Data Flows in China: China does not allow foreign-invested enterprises to directly offer cloud computing services within China, which is of enormous concern to U.S. companies—both those that supply cloud computing services and those that need to source such services. In addition, China is proposing to introduce new restrictions on services currently offered in China on a cross-border basis by prohibiting Chinese telecommunications operators from offering consumers leased lines or virtual private network (VPN) connections to reach overseas data centers. Use of leased lines and VPNs to transfer data across borders is critical to U.S. companies’ effective operation. Elements of China’s new Cybersecurity Law, issued in November 2016, authorize Chinese agencies to further restrict market access for cloud computing and other internet-enabled services through data and facilities localization requirements that apply to services that the government deems critical. 3.Restrictions On Location-Based Data in Korea: In 2016, the Korean government again rejected an application for a license to export from Korea location-based data necessary for the cross-border supply of services, such as traffic updates and turn-by-turn directions. Korea has never approved such a license, and has rejected 10 applications to date. This effective restriction on the transfer of location-based data, which is almost unique to Korea, disadvantages foreign suppliers that utilize globally distributed data centers, compared to local competitors that rely on local data processing centers. 4.Data Localization Requirements in Russia: Russian law requires that certain data on Russian citizens collected electronically by companies be processed and stored in Russia. Because ensuring local storage and processing is either technically or economically infeasible, many U.S. companies face a choice between withdrawing from the Russian market and operating under significant legal uncertainty. In November 2016, Russia blocked access to the website of a U.S.-based business networking service based on a finding of non-compliance with this law. 5.News Aggregation Fees in Several European Union Member

States: Online aggregation services, such as search engines and portals, provide users with information about links to websites and services, often including snippets of text and thumbnail images from those other websites and services. Certain EU Member States have instituted measures that require news aggregation services to remunerate the original sources for the use of such snippets. One Member State has proposed a similar measure for the use of thumbnail images. These measures effectively impose a tax on firms that provide a valuable service, helping to drive traffic to publishing sites, thereby increasing viewership and revenue. Elements of the EU publishing industry are advocating the adoption of similar measures EU-wide. 6.Restrictions on Online Advertising in Vietnam: Vietnam requires Vietnamese advertisers to contract with a Vietnam-based advertising services provider as a condition of placing advertisements on foreign websites targeting Vietnam, preventing cross-border suppliers from interacting directly with customers. Foreign websites are also required to notify the Vietnamese government of the name and main business lines of the Vietnamese agent that has facilitated the advertising service in Vietnam at least 15 days before publishing an advertisement. This is a highly impractical requirement given the dynamics of this marketplace, which typically functions through automated real-time auctions for ad space. 7.Barriers to Internet Services in Indonesia: In 2016, Indonesia proposed two new packages of regulations with the potential to hinder foreign providers of Internet services from participating in the Indonesian market: (1) a circular entitled “Concerning the Provision of Application Services and/or Content over the Internet (OTT)”; and (2) an e-commerce roadmap issued as part of the government’s 14th Economic Reform Package. The packages include proposed requirements to establish a local business entity to do business with Indonesian citizens, to use a national payment gateway, to use local IP numbers, and to store data within Indonesia. Both of these packages threaten to inhibit foreign firms’ participation in Indonesian e-commerce, create trade barriers, and harm Indonesian consumers. 8.Data Localization Barriers in Indonesia: Indonesian regulations

require providers of a “public service” to establish local data centers and disaster recovery centers in Indonesia. Indonesian officials have indicated that “public service” is defined very broadly, creating uncertainty for service suppliers across sectors. In the last six months, Indonesia has issued regulations that require certain private data to be processed in Indonesia, and that require certain financial services to locate data centers and disaster recovery centers in Indonesia. Such requirements prevent service suppliers from leveraging economies of scale in data processing. While some larger companies may be able to absorb these costs, these data localization requirements may be prohibitive for small- and medium-sized businesses. 9.Data Localization Barriers in Turkey: In 2016, the Turkish Parliament passed the “Law on the Protection of Personal Data,” which limits transfers of personal data out of Turkey and in many cases requires firms to store data on Turkish citizens within Turkey. A separate law requires suppliers of Internet-based payment services to maintain key information systems within Turkey. This requirement has caused at least one foreign supplier to leave the market, since the economies of scale involved in operating global payment platforms often preclude investing in facilities in every market, even one as large as Turkey. Trade in ICT products, international e-commerce, and cross-border data transfer are the three components of digital trade. Digital trade lowers transaction costs, makes it easier to participate in global value chains, and expands market access and reach. As a result, digital trade provides significant efficiency gains and competitive advantages for businesses. Cross-border business-to-consumer e-commerce is expected to reach one trillion US dollars by 2020, according to Accenture estimates – cross-border trade-commerce between companies is even more significant. Cross-border data transfer is a requirement for international digital trade, as well as for the effective management of global value chains. According to McKinsey, international data transfer (2.8 trillion US dollars) already contributed more to global GDP in 2014 than foreign trade in goods (2.7 trillion US dollars). Many industrial goods rely on information and communication technology (ICT) as a necessary production input. Trade in ICT

accelerates the global digital transformation of the economy and society while also making participation in technological and economic development more accessible. There are few rules for this new type of trade, aside from the WTO's (World Trade Organization) Information Technology Agreement II (ITA II) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership (CPTPP). This creates uncertainty in planning and opens the door to digital protectionism. A large group of WTO members has been negotiating a comprehensive e-commerce agreement since the eleventh WTO Ministerial Conference in late 2017. Many of them believe that such an agreement should cover cross-border data transfer as well as data protection. The first interim results should be available at the next Ministerial Conference in summer 2020, if all goes well. Furthermore, countries all over the world are attempting to establish standards for data flows through bilateral and regional trade agreements. There are provisions in the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, for example (USMCA). The EU is seeking data flow regulations in future bilateral trade agreements, such as those with Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia. The trade agreement with Japan also includes a review clause. However, European business is calling for a more ambitious approach than the EU is currently proposing. Until recently, it was and still is common practice not to impose tariffs on cross-border electronic transmissions. WTO members agreed to continue this practice for the next two years at the second WTO Ministerial Conference in 1998. The moratorium has been repeatedly extended since then. However, there is a significant chance that it will expire in December 2019. If the WTO General Council does not renew the agreement, new burdens and conflicts in global trade may arise; for example, customs clearance may become complex and contentious. Tariffs, according to a 2019 study by the European Centre for International Political Economy, would have a negative impact on WTO members. As a result, the costs of a decline in economic performance would be far greater than the benefits of increased customs revenues. As a result, the BDI and other

international business organizations, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, are urging WTO members to make the moratorium permanent. This would provide certainty to businesses and consumers while putting an end to protectionism. Such a longterm solution should be possible at the very least within the framework of the plurilateral e-commerce initiative. The use of modern information and communication technologies to simplify and automate international trade procedures is referred to as digital trade facilitation. It is becoming increasingly important for maintaining trade competitiveness and enabling effective cross-border e-commerce participation. We investigate the extent to which measures aimed at dematerializing trade data and documents and enabling their electronic exchange, also known as paperless trade measures, are included in regional trade agreements (RTAs), such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the ASEAN agreements. Such provisions are most commonly found in RTA chapters dealing with ecommerce or customs and trade facilitation. Globally, the number of RTAs more than doubled between 2005–2008 and 2013–2016. Most recent RTAs also include more and more comprehensive paperless trade provisions than the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. A more detailed examination of the paperless trade measures included in selected Asia-Pacific RTAs confirms that the coverage of paperless trade issues in RTAs has grown in scope, with RTAs now covering increasingly specific areas such as electronic certificates of origin and sanitary and phytosanitary certificates. In this context, the new Framework Agreement on Facilitating Cross-Border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific will be a useful tool for ensuring that many of these provisions are implemented consistently. Using a statement like 'the price of Stock A will be less than $500 at time expiry,' traders can predict whether the future price of an asset will be above or below a specified strike price. Because the outcome can only be true or false, the trader will receive either a predetermined profit or loss. Traders can use these options as a derivative to predict future prices without ever owning the underlying asset. As a result, they are popular among newcomers to the financial markets.

Types Of Digital Options in Trading:

1.Ladder – these options provide traders with the opportunity to lock in profit if the price reaches intermediary points to the strike price, known as ‘rungs’. This reduces the risk associated with options trading and is especially useful if you think the price will move but are unsure of the direction. 2.Up/Down – a trader determines whether the asset price will be above or below a certain level (the strike price) at the time of expiry. 3.One-Touch – one-touch options allow the trader to receive a payout if the asset price touches the strike price at any point before the expiry time. 4.Target – two strike prices are set for target options and the trader will receive a payoff if the price closes within the range. These are also referred to as dual digital options. 5.Hi/Lo – the trader predicts the range for the market’s daily high or low; a good choice when confident about the volatility of an asset. 6.Tunnel – these are similar to target options in that an upper or lower strike price is set, though the trader will only receive a payout if the asset does not touch either strike price at any point. Tunnel digital options are also referred to as double-no-touch options and are a good choice if you think the market is likely to stay flat.

Digital Options vs Binary Options in Trading: When comparing binary options vs digital options, there are a few key distinctions: 1.Timeframes: The available contracted timeframes differ slightly on binary options vs digital options. Digital options tend to be offered with closer expiry times, which could be suited to scalpers. However, specific times may depend on the broker, platform and asset. 2.Risk Levels: Trading digital options can result in a loss beyond your initial investment. The further the price moves away from the initial strike price, the greater the loss. On the other hand, traders only lose their initial stake with binary options. 3.Profit Potential: Similar to the amplified risks, trading digital options can increase profit potential the further away the price moves from the strike price. With binary options, traders can only gain a fixed return.

4.Control Over Strike Price: Digital options allow traders to manually set a strike price, meaning they can exercise more control over their trade. The nature of binary options only requires you to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to whether the asset’s value will rise. There are a handful of similarities to note between binary options vs digital options: 1.Buy Or Sell: Users buy if they believe the market moves above the strike price or sell if they predict the asset will move below the strike price. 2.Two Outcomes: Both binary options vs digital options only have two outcomes, correct or incorrect. 3.Expiry Date: Binary options vs digital options operate with a predetermined expiry date, at which point the position is automatically closed. However, digital options provide the opportunity to close a position before the expiry. 4.Derivatives: Traders do not own the underlying asset they trade. Depending on the broker, trading can be a lot cheaper and flexible because of this. Additionally, you may be exempt from certain taxes, depending on your region. Scalping, day trading, swing trading, and position trading are the four main types of forex trading strategies. Different trading styles are determined by the timeframe and length of time the trade is open, and they are as follows: 1.Scalping Scalping is the shortest-term type of trading. Scalp traders only keep positions open for a few seconds or minutes at most. These shortterm trades are aimed at small intraday price movements. The goal is to execute a large number of quick trades with small profit gains, but to allow profits to accumulate throughout the day due to the large number of trades executed in each trading session. This trading style necessitates tight spreads and liquid markets. As a result of the liquidity and high trading volume, scalpers tend to trade only major currency pairs, such as EURUSD, GBPUSD, and USDJPY. They also tend to trade only during the busiest times of the trading day, when there is higher trading volume and often volatility. Scalpers

seek the tightest spreads possible because they enter the market so frequently that paying a wider spread reduces potential profits. The fast-paced trading environment of trying to scalp a few pips as many times as possible throughout the trading day can be stressful for many traders and time-consuming, given the need to focus on charts for several hours at a time. Scalpers typically trade one or two pairs because scalping can be intense. 2.Day Trading Day trading may be suitable for those who are not comfortable with the intensity of scalp trading but do not want to hold positions overnight. Day traders enter and exit positions on the same day (as opposed to swing and position traders), removing the risk of large overnight moves. They close their position with a profit or a loss at the end of the day. Trades are typically held for minutes or hours, necessitating adequate time to analyze markets and frequently monitor positions throughout the day. Day traders, like scalpers, rely on frequent small gains to build profits. Day traders pay special attention to fundamental and technical analysis, employing technical indicators such as MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence), the Relative Strength Index, and the Stochastic Oscillator to identify trends and market conditions. 3.Swing Trading Unlike day traders, who typically hold positions for less than one day, swing traders typically hold positions for several days, if not weeks. Because positions are held over time, traders do not need to sit constantly monitoring the charts and their trades throughout the day to capture short-term market moves. This makes it a popular trading style for those who have other responsibilities (such as a full-time job) and want to trade in their spare time. However, it is still necessary to devote a few hours per day to market analysis. Swing traders (and some day traders) typically employ trading strategies such as trend trading, counter-trend trading, momentum trading, and breakout trading. 4.Position Trading Position traders are interested in long-term price movement and the potential profits that can be made from major price changes. As a

result, trades typically last several weeks, months, or even years. Position traders typically analyze and evaluate markets using weekly and monthly price charts, as well as a combination of technical indicators and fundamental analysis to identify potential entry and exit levels. Trade is the global economy's lifeblood; it fuels growth and competitiveness. It encourages fairness. It promotes both innovation and efficiency. Trade flows increase jobs, wages, and investment in a rules-based system. Trade finance underpins trade at every stage of the global supply chain. Trade finance ensures that buyers receive their goods and sellers receive their payments by providing liquidity and cash flows and lowering risks. Simply put, trade finance is required for the movement of goods and services across borders. Despite this, the world faces a massive and persistent trade finance gap, estimated by some to be as much as $6.5 trillion, as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on businesses around the world. The COVID-19 crisis occurred during a period of significant change in trade finance, owing largely to digitization and the emergence of new platforms. As we discussed in a panel at the IFC's recent Financial Institutions Conference, the sector now has a chance to continue evolving and emerge stronger from the crisis. In the world of trade finance, we see three major trends. First, banks, financial institutions, and technology providers must collaborate to ensure that liquidity reaches the places where it is most needed. While we haven't seen anything like the reduction in liquidity that occurred during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the pandemic has caused banks to focus their funding on established relationships. This "flight to quality" has left many deserving businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries, without a trade finance option. This risk aversion among global banks must be addressed. Multilateral development banks can provide critical assistance in the short term. However, in the long run, local financial sectors will need to improve their ability to finance their own trade. This is where new platforms can help disseminate and manage risks across institutions. The second trend we see is a greater emphasis on innovative technologies and digitization. COVID-19 has not initiated, but has accelerated, the adoption of technology in an industry that has

been based on paper for centuries. Banks' "procurement super-cycle" will last long after the pandemic has passed. To fully reap the benefits of new technologies, the entire trade ecosystem—banks, regulators, border agencies, trade bodies, and corporations—must collaborate to drive efficiencies through digital innovation. The third trend affecting trade finance right now is product innovation, which has been ushered in by rampant digitization. As tools for aggregating and analyzing massive amounts of data in real time, new platforms can drive intelligent models for banks, allowing them to innovate around financing solutions in the same way that their customers innovate around products. Banks were ripe for financial innovation in the face of shifting business models. Data collection and analysis, for example, can be beneficial to the industry. As platforms collect granular transaction data, banks' ability to understand how their financing can support sustainable activities improves immeasurably. The current environment is difficult, but we remain optimistic. Despite the hardship caused by the pandemic, the crisis has reinforced a desire for banks, global institutions, and technology providers to collaborate, both to support a strong recovery and to build an even stronger global trading ecosystem. Policy Interventions in Digital Trade: 1.International standards that are universal By establishing common international standards, paperless trade systems can be easily connected to one another, breaking down digital silos between the trade ecosystem's component parts: exporters, shippers, ports, customs, warehousing, finance, and importers. The ICC Digital Standards Initiative (DSI), which is supported by the ADB, is tasked with advocating for the reconciliation of a plethora of standards, rules, and regulations in the global trading system. The initiative's central goal is to facilitate technical interoperability in the trade space between blockchain-based and nonblockchain approaches. 2.Electronic document and signature legal recognition A solid framework for the legal recognition of electronic documents and signatures is a necessary first step toward global digital trade. The Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) was

developed by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) to enable the use of these records both domestically and across borders by recognizing the legal validity of electronic equivalents of paper-based records. MLETR is based on the principles of nondiscrimination in the use of electronic means, functional equivalence, and technology neutrality that underpin UNCITRAL ecommerce texts. As a result, it may allow for the use of all technologies and models. By democratizing access to reliable, highquality, and trusted data, the legal recognition and use of electronic transferable records will cause a paradigm shift in international trade. 3.Mechanism for intergovernmental coordination The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is providing a dedicated intergovernmental framework to develop legal and technical solutions to facilitate crossborder paperless trade among willing member states through the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-Border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (CPTA). The framework agreement, which went into effect on February 21, 2021, is guided by the principles of nondiscrimination, functional equivalence, technological neutrality, and interoperability promotion, which are the same general principles that underpin UNCITRAL texts, including the MLETR. As a result, CPTA provides a framework that facilitates MLETR adoption. The ASEAN community, among other things, contributes to the region's digital agenda and trade connectivity through intergovernmental initiatives and frameworks on e-commerce, data governance, and the ASEAN Single Window. The ASEAN Business Advisory Council leads efforts to connect member countries' digital trade platforms in order to facilitate seamless trade flows between countries and their key trading partners. 4.MSMEs can benefit from trade financing. The fundamental issue with MSME financing is their credit risk profile. Inadequate documentation and a poor credit history are barriers to assessing the risk of MSMEs. Banks are also hesitant to provide financial assistance to small businesses due to a lack of collateral and the high cost of due diligence. Distributed ledger technology (e.g., blockchain) can assist in addressing these issues by generating the

necessary data for MSMEs. It offers a decentralized, distributed record of transactions, including credit history and commercial disputes, that are stored in a way that all network participants can rely on. As a result, its data integrity could also simplify the process of developing a global digital identity for MSMEs. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has a Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program(link is external) that assists MSMEs whose ability to trade is hampered by risk perceptions. By providing guarantees and loans to banks, the programme fills market gaps in trade financing. It collaborates with over 240 banks in 21 countries to provide companies with the financial assistance they require to engage in import and export in Asia's most difficult markets. Since 2009, the programme has facilitated over 33,000 transactions totaling $47.5 billion. 5.Global digital identity management system A digital identity is essential for transacting in the modern economy because it allows participation in online markets and reduces the costs of supplier verification processes, which can be burdensome for MSMEs. The Financial Stability Board established the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), a non-profit organization that promotes the implementation and use of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) code, which can aid in anti-money laundering and know-yourcustomer issues. The LEI code is a unique, electronic, 20-digit standard identifier for legal entities based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 17442 standard. It is global and harmonized. The global adoption of LEI has the potential to fuel growth in cross-border trade. Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) developed TradeTrust, an interoperability framework for the exchange of digital trade documentation, in collaboration with the International Chamber of Commerce and other key stakeholders. The TradeTrust framework, which employs distributed ledger technology, provides participants with proof of document authenticity and origin, allowing for a more seamless and efficient flow of goods between digitally interconnected trading partners. It can perform electronic title transfer on trade documents, which is critical in digitalizing paper-based processes for cross-border trade. TradeTrust is currently organized

along the following concurrent workstreams to provide network participants with trust and legal certainty when exchanging digital documents. The laws are: 1.Harmonization of the law. To provide legal certainty to electronic transactions and legally recognize electronic negotiable instruments within the country's jurisdiction, Singapore's Electronic Transactions Act was amended to align with the global standard based on the MLETR. 2.Creating standards. Singapore has actively driven and aligned TradeTrust with standards development at the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UNCTFEB) and the ISO. Components of software TradeTrust provides freely available software components and tools under open-source licencing terms that are designed to make it simple for business applications to connect to blockchains in order to achieve three key functionalities: I ensuring document authenticity; (ii) ensuring document provenance; and (iii) providing legally valid performance obligation transfers between framework implementers. IMDA, Singapore Customs, and the Australian Border Force will launch a TradeTrust trial in November 2020. (ABF). Electronic certificates of origin were generated in accordance with the TradeTrust framework using the ABF-developed Intergovernmental Ledger (IGL) system and distributed to trial participants as well as Singapore Customs for verification. Trial users were asked to provide feedback on the TradeTrust framework's various verification methods. This demonstration ensured the files' authenticity and provenance across two independent and unconnected systems (the IGL and the TradeTrust Reference Implementation), securing acceptance from regulatory authorities and businesses. Similar efforts are being made in Thailand to increase trade digitalization. The National Digital Trade Platform (NDTP), which uses blockchain technology, is the country's central system for linking international digital trade data using international standards. The government intends to connect the platform to the National Single Window and other ASEAN and major trade partners' trade facilitation platforms. The Joint Standing Committee of Commerce, Industry, and

Banking of Thailand conducted an NTDP trial with participants from various industries in 2019. This demonstrated that document processing was 60% faster. Other Asian countries are also working on digitalization and paperless trade. The CPTA of ESCAP has been ratified by Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Iran, the People's Republic of China, and the Philippines, while Armenia and Cambodia have signed it. Other ESCAP member states are in the process of concluding their domestic accession procedures. Recommendations for Digital Trading: 1.Continue digitalization efforts in tandem with rule and regulation modernization. The numerous benefits of digitalization—from traceability to real-time tracking, faster shipment clearance, fraud prevention, and lower compliance costs—cannot be fully realized without an enabling domestic legal environment for electronic transferable records. Countries must adopt the MLETR and join the CPTA, which is intended for member countries at all stages of development and digitalization. Other prerequisites for the growth of digital markets include consumer protection policies and the cross-border data flows that underpin e-commerce transactions. 2.Participate in the trade ecosystem by involving stakeholders. An industry-wide collaboration bringing together the private and public sectors, as well as other actors across the value chain, is required to establish the right mix of policies for this new trade paradigm and ensure that the benefits are shared. Stakeholder dialogues on supply chain strengthening should include discussions on lessons learned from the pandemic in order to reduce the potential for future disruptions and to collectively leverage technologies in addressing the fragilities of trade systems and future-proofing MSMEs, which are the lifeblood of many economies. 3.Determine gaps and the need for capacity building. Because many Asian economies have varying capacities for crossborder paperless trade, they could benefit from ESCAP's Readiness Assessment Guide for Cross-Border Paperless Trade, which can help guide national and agency-level actions in this area. Countries in need

of technical assistance and advice on the CPTA may apply to the ESCAP Accession/Ratification Accelerator Programme. Other policies, such as consumer protection, data governance, and cybersecurity, are critical in the digital economy, and countries must consider their capacity to design and administer effective regulatory and dispute resolution systems in these areas. Capacity building for MSMEs should be considered in order to raise their awareness of the opportunities provided by digital solutions. MSMEs can benefit from distributed ledger technology and other solutions to gain access to new markets and financing. 4.To gain buy-in, conduct proof-of-concept testing and share success stories. When countries see examples of use cases and benefits, they are more likely to adopt the necessary measures to enable paperless trade. Participation in trials and other forms of collaboration can help governments and other stakeholders gain a better understanding of the frameworks and workings of digital trade technologies. Bahrain and Singapore's experiences with MLETR adoption may serve as models for other Asian countries on their digital transformation journey. For the electronic trading sector, the landscape is changing at a breakneck pace. As margins shrink and costs rise, electronic trading firms require faster access to information, faster market insights, and transparent, secure systems that can withstand regulatory and compliance pressures. These are the three key trends influencing the electronic trading ecosystem: latency, diversity, and security. The electronic trading sector is one that relies on speed and connectivity between players, but firms will need to break through old barriers to make faster decisions. With traditional traders increasing their efficiency through automation and low-cost niche competitors entering the market, the lowest latency can mean the difference between winning and losing a trade. As a result, with such a low margin for error and margins on trades themselves, traders are looking to diversify the types of trades they are making in order to stay afloat. Trading strategies are increasingly changing to capitalize on the quality of incoming information, driving creativity in the products

traded. Finally, increased regulation is putting a greater emphasis on both security and transparency. Even as cyber-attacks become more sophisticated, sensitive client data must be protected at all costs; customers also expect access to previously inaccessible information. Legacy IT architecture can no longer keep up with the sector's seismic changes. A lack of information integration across front-, middle-, and back-office processes is allowing more agile, well-connected competitors to steal market share. Static and centralized IT architecture cannot meet customer demands for high-performance, low-latency connectivity across locations and devices. Similarly, market information delivery is slow, depriving traders and customers alike of the market insights required to make critical decisions on the trading floor. Traditional IT architecture also restricts vendor access, resulting in severely hampered service delivery. Meanwhile, betterconnected players are gaining access to big data insights faster, from more sources, and across multiple devices, leaving traditional players in the dust. Many of the above-mentioned latency and data analytics issues are addressed by a distributed IT architecture. Meanwhile, private interconnectivity with vendors and market data providers enables the delivery of market information in a timely manner. As a result, a diverse, interconnected industry ecosystem provides access to premium partners, cloud solutions, and the agility to compete with new market entrants. All of this is possible by implementing an Interconnection Oriented ArchitectureTM (IOA). Equinix, a leading global data center and interconnectivity provider, pioneered this digital architecture strategy to support digital transformation by removing the distance between data exchange points, connecting companies with an unparalleled industry ecosystem, and providing advanced security controls to help organizations control their risk. The securities and trading industry is one of the first to embrace secure, private interconnection. According to Equinix's Global Interconnection Index, which is a market study, interconnection bandwidth in this sector is expected to grow at a 61 percent annual rate, as it is used to interconnect with market data vendors, cloud and IT providers, and others. Across the Middle East, trade and economic activity are advancing at

a rapid pace. This necessitates the development of new technologies and systems to support and enable fluid growth. How are governments in the region evolving and capitalizing on opportunities to support high-speed economic activity? With the IMF recently raising their 2021 economic forecast to a real GDP growth rate of 4%, up from 3.2 percent previously, the financial outlook for the Middle East and North Africa is generally positive. COVID had little impact on a few countries in the region, with some avoiding long-term lockdowns or disruptions to development projects and economic activity. While the outlook varies by country, the drive of several nations to embed innovative technology is reaping huge benefits for regional cooperation, investment, and trade. Increased investment in emerging technologies has emerged as a top priority for a number of Middle Eastern countries. As a result, the region is establishing a strong capacity for governments to address challenges through transformational solutions, thereby accelerating and future-proofing resilient growth economies. The Middle East's trade credit outlook has shifted dramatically in recent years. The departure of the region's major private insurers due to perceived political and economic risks has created a significant gap in trade credit provision. This has created opportunities for governments to take the place of private insurers, resulting in a new trend in the transformation of trade credit insurance. While export credit agencies have traditionally partnered with local exporters, governments are finding innovative ways to transform the function of their public service by providing much-needed trade credit solutions for the domestic market as well as importers and foreign investors, thereby facilitating vital trade for economic growth. Consider the United Arab Emirates, where the government agency Etihad Credit Insurance (ECI) has paved the way in the region for the transformation of trade credit, recognizing the trade finance gap as both a major risk to business and an opportunity to provide solutions to strengthen economic activity at all levels. They will launch ECI Islamic, a suite of Shariah-compliant trade credit and export finance products, in October 2020, with the goal of diversifying the local economy through partnerships with banks, investors, large corporations, and SMEs. Trade credit insurance, letter of credit confirmation insurance, Islamic

export finance, foreign investment insurance, and surety bonding are among their solutions. UAE companies are already reaping the benefits of ECI's assistance, with increased competitiveness and access to international markets. This aligns with the UAE Cabinet's priority of increasing non-oil exports, with a 50 percent increase in trade, which is already worth more than 1.5 trillion Dirhams. Their focus is already paying off, with non-oil trade contributing significantly to ECI's business performance. ECI's offering drives industrial growth and resilience by assisting local manufacturers in developing a larger export market for their locally produced goods. ECI has created a user-friendly, customized online offering to fill the finance gap for local SMEs, providing critical support to facilitate international business growth. SMEs in the region are no longer constrained by letters of credit or cash payment terms, and they can now trade confidently and competitively in a global market. ECI also assists UAE companies undertaking foreign projects by providing significant project financing in sectors such as infrastructure and tourism. Furthermore, they are assisting in the facilitation of foreign investment in domestic projects such as renewables, waste management, and greenfield projects. Elsewhere, due to Egypt's diverse economy and political stability, payment risks and liquidity issues are becoming a thing of the past. Egypt has reinvented its Export Credit Guarantee of Egypt (EGE), introducing a slew of new services for foreign and domestic trade credit in order to maximize trade and investment opportunities. This strategic expansion from a traditional offering has already resulted in significant economic benefits for the region. In 2020, EGE experienced a spectacular increase in activity, multiplying its previous GWP by ten in only one year. With an ambitious goal of increasing Egyptian exports to $100 billion in five years, EGE's exponential growth is promising. Egypt is in an accelerated growth phase, with cheap energy available as a result of its natural gas windfall, paving the way for large industrial projects. The country is on the verge of urbanization, with plans for affordable housing, city expansion, and the construction of a new administrative capital. Egypt's growing role as a regional energy and technology hub, as well as a stable Arab leader, is attracting significant investment from other regional partners such as Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. In

the region, we are witnessing a model of long-term support through the transformation of the role of government export credit agencies. Without a doubt, other forward-thinking governments in the Middle East and North Africa are looking to the UAE and Egypt for inspiration. Export credit agencies are likely to grow in the region as more countries seek to support their economies by providing guarantees not only to large exporters but also to SMEs, banks, and foreign suppliers. In doing so, they will be promoting much-needed economic growth in their respective countries. Once viewed as a security risk, artificial intelligence (AI) is now collaborating with some of the most forward-thinking governmental policies in the region. This is evident in the United Arab Emirates, where the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031 aspires to position the UAE as a global leader in AI by developing integrated systems to embed AI in all critical areas of the country. The strategy is the first of its kind in the region, with goals such as increasing governmental efficiency and performance at all levels, creating new economic markets, and developing quick, efficient solutions. In the context of international trade opportunities, there is no doubt that AI and transformational technology can and will help the UAE achieve its growth objectives. AI will come into its own to support growth ambitions, providing an unparalleled benefit across private and public sectors alike, with optimized supply chains, paperless processes, and accurate, fast intelligence all considered key success factors. Egypt is planning one of the most significant IT infrastructures in the region, employing digital innovation and artificial intelligence to build smart infrastructure in the country's new administrative capital. The new capital has been designed from the ground up to be Egypt's first Smart City, promoting a national model for innovation. The city is part of Egypt's connectivity roadmap for the future. The system, which is scheduled to go live in 2022, will digitize all ministries, launching an end-to-end, automated e-government system. With a greater emphasis on non-oil trade and a growing global Islamic population with an increased demand for halal products, encouraging inclusive trade at all levels makes a lot of sense. This necessitates the need for scalable, quick trade credit solutions capable of providing automated, embedded systems and an optimized customer

experience. Along with a growing demand for Shariah-compliant trading terms, new sophisticated technologies are assisting export credit agencies in adapting and customizing every aspect of their offering, allowing them to deliver scalable, market-ready Takaful trade credit. As a result, governments are expanding opportunities to collaborate with local and regional businesses and banks to provide an unparalleled end-to-end, inclusive user experience that takes advantage of local risk knowledge while adhering to Shariah obligations. High-speed economic activity in the Middle East necessitates the development of new ways to support it. Export credit agencies' demand for intelligent, transformative technology solutions will grow as they evolve. New ways of thinking, requiring embedded digital frameworks, are bringing huge benefits for scalability and trade ease across the region. Legacy systems based on outdated paper and spreadsheets are unable to keep up with the pace of transactions in this new era, slowing trade and putting operating costs at a competitive disadvantage. To reduce turnaround time and increase market penetration, the market will see an increasing demand for stronger, faster, and more intuitive embedded technology solutions. With export credit agencies in the region beginning to see this as a requirement rather than an added bonus, the possibilities are endless. As digital technologies become more powerful, they will continue to transform commodity trading’s value chain—before, during, and after a trade: 1.Securitization. Instead of each deal being negotiated by commercial departments and commodity traders, financial products can be grouped, regrouped, and traded instantly. 2.Investment Decision Support. Commodity traders now have immediate access to new types of data that can help them understand future supply-demand dynamics. 3.Position Generation. Digital technologies are transforming position generation by allowing automated decision making that is faster and more precise, and by driving down costs. 4.Portfolio Management. Integrated, intelligent trading systems allow traders to perform much more realistic, path-dependent risk assessments as well as sophisticated scenario analyses instantly

through available cloud-based computational capacity. 5.Execution. Intelligent trading systems can lower costs as well as make a company’s execution less obvious and optimize the trades so that they have only a minimal effect on the market price. 6.After the Trade. Most trading firms have also digitized their backoffice processes to improve the quality of their posttrade reports.

Figure 9.3 Models of Digital Trade Customs officials in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) can use new technologies and innovations to accelerate digital transformation and streamline foreign trade logistics. This, in turn, can help improve competitiveness and boost economic growth in the countries. The pandemic underscored the significance of trade and foreign trade logistics. COVID-19 will transform daily life as we know it in March 2020. Nonetheless, trade has largely remained unaffected by international transportation restrictions and social distancing policies. It has even grown significantly in some areas, such as e-commerce and online trade. According to an Amazon report, between the first half of 2019 and the same period in 2020, international net sales increased by 28.3 percent. The pandemic has put customs authorities and their response capacities to the test by shining a light on the

opportunities brought about by digital transformation. The urgent need to clear critical goods required to respond to the health emergency while maintaining regular trade flows compelled authorities to switch to digital customs systems almost overnight. According to 2019 data, even before the pandemic, LAC was lagging behind North America, Europe, and Asia in implementing the commitments it had made under the World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation Agreement. As a result, the region must improve its international trade logistics. LAC's economic recovery is primarily dependent on how well its foreign trade logistics perform, which is dependent on adequate physical and digital infrastructure, as well as related transportation services. In response to these challenges, the new IDB publication Logistics in Latin America and the Caribbean: Opportunities, Challenges, and Lines of Action discusses some of the technologies that countries in the region could use to innovate and transform their customs administration. New technologies address a variety of issues, including the optimization, automation, and digitization of customs and border processes. These elements are the bedrocks of modernization, laying the groundwork for the generation of high-quality data required to implement robust and effective risk management systems. Customs, for example, must be able to obtain, process, and analyze large amounts of high-quality data in order to strengthen regional value chains and make them agile and secure. Other innovative components, such as electronic signatures and authentication mechanisms for internal and external users, are also required for automation. Traceability of goods is another ingredient in the recipe for effective and efficient customs. New technologies such as radio frequency identification systems (RFID), the Internet of Things (IoT), geolocation tools, electronic seals for container and trailer doors, and optical character recognition (OCR) license plate readers enable tracking of cargo, vehicles, and the people who drive them. These systems can be installed at strategic locations such as manufacturing plants, bonded warehouses, and road corridors that connect land border crossings, seaports, and airports. One example is the Brazilian system for tracking and tracing cargo vehicles, packaging, and products by integrating this data with electronic tax documents. Similarly, physical traceability can be supplemented with

digitally documented data from each transaction. By digitizing and associating the data collected by customs authorities with freight and transportation documents, the data collected by customs authorities has enormous value for customs and border risk management (cargo manifests, bills of lading, customs declaration data, and electronic invoices). Once the data has been collected, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data tools enable the processing and analysis of massive amounts of data in order to identify patterns and potentially risky or fraudulent operations. It is also critical for supply chains and foreign trade logistics that new technologies are used in the context of Coordinated Border Management between customs and other authorities involved in border processes. This coordination is streamlined through interoperability between authorities and economic operators via Single Windows for Foreign Trade (SWs) or Port Community Systems, which reduces time and costs for operators while increasing control capacity. Adoption of a SW system, for example, in Costa Rica is associated with a 1.4 percentage point increase in exports of companies that used the system versus those that did not. Through interoperability initiatives between customs systems and other border entities, there is also an opportunity to promote and strengthen regional value chains. The Central American Digital Trade Platform (PDCC) and the CADENA application, which uses blockchain to facilitate data exchange from companies whose reliability has been certified, such as authorized economic operators, are examples of these. Finally, these components would be ineffective if there was no functional infrastructure at the points of entry and exit for goods at land borders, seaports, and airports. Similarly, if the infrastructure did not include advanced technological entry, exit, inspection, and monitoring systems, the effect would be different. The Customs Technological Integration Project (PITA) of Mexico's customs authority is an example of a comprehensive technology-based border infrastructure intervention. Nicaraguan, Costa Rican, and Panamanian customs authorities are following suit and implementing border crossing reform processes that include the use of cutting-edge technologies. Today there are over 130 global securities exchanges that are trading equities, options, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), futures, swaps, and

derivatives for cash, energy, and commodities. All are operating in a banking and capital markets industry being reshaped by business challenges, strategic choices, and the possibilities that emerging technologies offer. Current drivers include: 1.Revenue pressures from regulatory mandates and restrictions (for example, fee transparency for market data services and connectivity) and a squeeze on traditional exchange users due to the knock-on effect of quantitative easing; also, tightening margins from increased competition (easy access to new exchanges and products) and lower switching costs driven by technology advancements. 2.Exacerbating legacy operational inefficiencies and technology debt as older and traditional exchanges face stiffer competition from new, nimble exchanges. 3.Heightened regulatory activity globally, with a particular focus on transparency, oversight, and robust operational controls and risk management processes; scrutiny of operational resilience and riskspanning surveillance, recovery, and ability to handle stressed markets. 4.Constant and evolving cybersecurity threats, requiring laser focus on protecting data and technology ecosystems. 5.Significant consolidation of exchanges emanating from technological, legal, and competitive changes and the need to expand into new markets, products, and service offerings. 6.An evolving digital ecosystem incorporating blockchain, big data analytics, cloud, artificial intelligence/machine learning, and other emerging technologies. Over the past few years, some global exchanges have embarked on journeys in digital transformation to reshape their business models, redefine and refresh the customer experience, support new product and service offerings, and strengthen regulatory compliance. Among key focus areas for technology enablement: 1.Reduce manual operations. Automate processes through digital interventions across member onboarding, payments, and listings. 2.Provide data on demand. Develop models that provide data and information to help clients make efficient trading decisions and better

manage capital. 3.Reduce latency for various services. Minimize turnaround time for high-volume activities, including risk and regulatory reporting. 4.Launch digital products and services. Reduce time to market for blockchain, chatbots, and other offerings. 5.Access global exchanges. Partner to provide additional benefits for companies, such as dual listing and increased investor reach. 6.Enhance market surveillance. Better identify market manipulation, fraud, and compliance issues with minimal manual intervention. Because this is the first time that a number of technology waves (cloud, IOT, AI, etc.) have broken simultaneously and at a price point that makes enormous functionality and processing power available relatively cheaply, digital has assumed such significance. When you combine that with other structural and societal factors, such as the virus's now well-documented effect on accelerating digital adoption, it's easy to believe that this is now unstoppable. In the period 2016– 2017, we saw a flurry of activity in the industry, with high-profile consortia investing in blockchain to improve documentary post-trade processes, significant company investment in analytics, and the emergence of a new start-up ecosystem. I recently spoke with one of these start-ups, which has a genuinely powerful product, solid financial backing, and executives with industry experience. Despite the logical strength of the sales pitch, he bemoaned the lack of takeup from established players. But, rather than debating whether this was a success or failure, consider why a commodities trader should be digitising from a strategic standpoint. One of the central tenets of digital is that it is disruptive to incumbent players across all industries – new businesses use new technologies to underpin new ways of doing business based on speed, low costs, customer intimacy, and so on. Existing players respond by attempting to defend their competitive position through the use of digital to reduce costs, improve customer service, and so on. We'll see who wins, but we can see this battle in plain sight in industries such as automotive. However, this has not been the tone of the messages accompanying digital investments in commodity trading. What investment there has been has gone toward improving trade execution efficiency and cost, track and trace in

agriculture, and using technology to try to recapture the trading edge that a supply chain footprint used to provide. The potential terminal disruption to existing business models that rely on bridging deficits with surpluses is rarely addressed. According to consensus, despite the masking effects of recent volatility, these structural challenges have not vanished. It's also debatable whether regulators and governments will allow commodity market volatility to affect the energy transition. So, what should you do? Simply put, find ways to use digital to generate cash to invest in pivoting the business toward the new opportunities presented by the market. When incumbents face structural changes, margins in the core business tend to compress slowly, eroding the economic headroom to invest in new businesses over time. If a trader is unable to make investments, it will be unable to fund innovations and will face the risk of its business model becoming obsolete. However, diverting the net cash from a well-established business into something new and unproven is not an easy task. Shifting to a new model is not a one-time event, but rather a deliberate journey over time. So, what are some simple pointers to help you along the way? 1.Transform the core business – focus on using digital to make a significant difference in internal efficiency and costs, with the specific goal of increasing investment capacity in the new. 2.Grow the core business where opportunities exist – identify new areas of adjacent opportunity to the core business and figure out how to scale it quickly. 3.Pivot with caution – sound judgement is required to balance investments between the core and the new so that the business can continue to generate profits in the core that fund the new. 4.Scale the new – stay ahead of the old business's potential obsolescence. It's easier said than done, especially for me as a consultant, and on paper it appears simple. But what if that doesn't work? I believe this is a "burn the boats" moment in commodities trading. Yes, resilient businesses with scale and access to cheap capital will likely survive and even thrive in the coming years, but what happens when that capital reprices? What happens when producers and consumers

connect in a direct and efficient manner? What if one of the outcomes of Covid is a growing acceptance of the need for government intervention to manage markets in order to accelerate the energy transition? The trading landscape is no different and going through its own digital transformation. Commodity trading companies are increasingly switching from legacy CTRM systems to cloud-based technologies. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise when last year, Forbes magazine estimated up to 83% of companies will use cloud-based software to make their work easier and faster. Early adopters of cloudbased CTRM solutions are reaping the benefits of a SaaS-based solution, and almost immediately. Let’s take a look at some of these advantages:

1.Instant Deployment: Gone are the days of expensive, lengthy implementation projects – they no longer take months or years, but rather weeks.

2.Flexibility i)Cloud solutions scale with your business ii)A cloud-native solution gives users the power to easily scale up and down as their business needs require it, providing real time insights and intraday risk reporting iii)Legacy systems and spreadsheets (which are a common alternative to a CTRM system) do not: the timing and performance of intraday and EOD of calculations will inevitably slow and impact the productivity of your teams. As large batch processes end up taking place over night – key business decisions are unnecessarily on hold iv)A cloud solution will allow you to work from anywhere, anytime. Pretty perfect given the events of 2020.

3.Continuous development Never miss an update – system upgrades are done quickly and easily, causing little or no disruption. That’s right – updates are rolled out almost instantly with no downtime for users.

4.Reduced TCO With lower hardware costs, less people required to manage and maintain a clunky on-premise installation and no scary deployment costs, TCO is drastically reduced – not just in the short-term but beyond.

5.True View A single source of truth is crucial to risk management and accurate trade captures. Cloud-native CTRM systems allow your teams to work collaboratively and mitigate risks together.

6.Security i)Multi-tenant systems are designed from the ground up to ensure complete segmentation and security of client data. Solutions that are built for single-tenant deployment tend to ignore security at the software architecture level with the assumption being that security can be achieved by a closed physical infrastructure ii)Disaster recovery keeps valuable data safe.

7.Competitive edge Cloud technology has the potential to level out the playing field because it makes enterprise-grade technology available to everyone. It allows smaller businesses to act faster than big, established competitors, giving them the means to go head-to-head with bigger players.

8.Compliance Mandated compliance, audit reporting and regulations like EMIR and Dodd Frank are increasing. Timely, accurate intraday and real time reporting cannot be accomplished using legacy end of processes.

9.Agile or Fragile? In a post covid world, it’s not an option to hold your business back with dated technology: it’s no longer new but normal to provide your teams with remote system access. And with ever-increasing market volatility, more and more companies are gaining competitive edge by leveraging the promise that a cloud native technology delivers. Where are you in your digital transformation journey? Deloitte outlines a framework for government agencies to help them navigate Trade 4.0. “With the trade ecosystem becoming increasingly digitised, government agencies should adapt their roles across the

three archetypes of facilitators, enforcers, and negotiators of Trade 4.0. This can help them keep pace with the evolving international trade milieu and make the most of the opportunities while minimising risks to their profits and populations. Here are the trends: 1.Facilitator - In its role as a facilitator, the government evaluates, assigns, and collects trade tariffs and duties. “With cross-border trade growing manifold in complexity and volume, there will continue to be room for government agencies to grow their role in this area,” says the report. 2.Enforcer - With a view to uphold laws and protect national and economic security, government works to ensure that global supply chains are safe, secure, legitimate, and fair. Trade enforcement is an interagency effort. 3.Negotiator - Governments formulate trade agreements, resolve trade-related disputes, and represent their economies’ best interests in front of global trade forums. The UK government has announced a five-point digital strategy aimed at improving international digital trade for businesses and consumers while also preparing the sector for the future. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the new secretary of state for international trade, announced the strategy today during a speech at London Tech Week's Global Leaders Innovation Summit. Trevelyan emphasised the importance of international digital trade for the UK during his speech. According to her, the digital sector contributed £150.6 billion to the national economy in 2019, and the government is working on an estimate that digital transformation investments could bring $6.8 trillion to the economy between 2020 and 2023. "As we recover from Covid, free trade and enterprise will be critical," Trevelyan said. "The United Kingdom has so much to offer the global market." We are the world's second-largest exporter of services. We are one of the most innovative economies, with the majority of our services being exported digitally. "This five-point plan is appropriately ambitious, but we are rapidly delivering on it through our independent trade policy." According to Trevelyan, the digital trade plan aims to capitalise on that promise by assisting businesses in reaching a wider consumer base by selling online and increasing efficiency by trading remotely, making

the supply of services more resilient to disruption. The ability to connect remotely, according to the government, has lessened the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the cost of providing services. However, the strategy described existing and emerging threats to the strategy as "considerable," given that some countries are more open to digital trade than others. Among the issues are ensuring data flows and safeguards, as well as establishing digital trading systems to assist businesses in reducing red tape. Addressing these roadblocks should help the UK's overall international trade strategy, growth plans, and trade and investment campaigns. On open digital markets, the strategy states that the goal is to secure access for British businesses to overseas digital markets while also allowing UK consumers to access a broader range of products and services from abroad. This will be accomplished through actions such as encouraging investment in digitally delivered services and working to remove barriers that result in "discriminatory conditions" for e-commerce activities, as well as eliminating measures that inhibit the use of electronic authentication. The data flows strategy includes actions such as the UK championing data flows internationally and attempting to reduce data localisation, which is seen as detrimental to competition. The country will support businesses that trade goods that rely on embedded data and services, and it will require its trading partners to create or maintain data protection frameworks while ensuring compliance with UK legislation on the subject. According to the strategy, the UK considers consumer trust in the security of their data to be critical to its trade approach and to increasing online shopping and digital service consumption. In addition, the Department for International Trade will work to promote consumer benefits and business safeguards in digital trade. This will be accomplished through the advancement of digital consumer rights, such as the reduction of spam. Net neutrality commitments will also be sought, and trade partners will be asked to refrain from making "unreasonable or unjustified" data requests, such as requiring source code disclosure as a condition of operating in certain markets. On digital trading systems, the plan is to assist businesses in becoming "digital by default" and to promote simplified customs and border processes, while also introducing paperless trading, electronic contracts,

electronic authentication, and electronic trust services to increase the effectiveness of international trade. Work on this will also include the facilitation of data flows required to support the digitisation of customs and border processes. The strategy recognises that trading systems around the world are still insufficiently digitally enabled, which increases the time and cost of doing business across borders. Work with countries to ensure system compatibility and overcome challenges such as the limited availability of digital customs and logistics systems is part of the strategy. Work in this area is part of a larger effort to promote global interoperability of digital standards and frameworks in order to maximise the opportunities and benefits of digital trade. Trevelyan stated that free trade agreements (FTAs) play an important role in the strategy and that the UK is making progress in this area. Since the deal with Japan, 68 countries and the European Union have signed FTAs worth £744 billion, which she described as setting "a new standard for digital trade" by creating "opportunities for both countries across all sectors of the economy." Trevelyan predicted that the United Kingdom would be the first European country to pursue a digital economy agreement with Singapore. "That's the kind of modern deal we can and should strike,". Other digital economy treaties include the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is expected to strengthen the UK's digital trade links with 11 Indo-Pacific markets. Negotiations with India are underway, and trade agreements signed with Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein include provisions for "the most advanced digital trade deals to date," she said. "By seizing new opportunities on the global market, we will raise the country's standing through trade and investment," Trevelyan said. "This means more high-quality jobs in future industries in every region and nation of the UK." She also stated that the UK intends to be a "strong advocate" for the World Trade Organization's moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, opposing such duties indefinitely. It also intends to collaborate with WTO members to "advance new rulemaking on digital trade" and to establish FTAs that include cooperation in areas such as innovation and emerging technologies, fintech, and cyber security. Transparency, dependability, fairness, and integrity are all critical characteristics that drive a marketplace's and the capital markets

ecosystem's effectiveness. We've noticed that in the absence of a transparent, efficient electronic mechanism for matching, or connecting, buyers and sellers, organisations frequently rely on middlemen, who drive higher fees, less transparency around pricing, and a variety of other inefficiencies that take power away from buyers. Without price transparency, one person may end up paying significantly more than another for the same product or service. You can build a platform powered by trust between all active parties if you apply the dynamics that govern capital markets, such as known and vetted buyers and sellers, full transparency around price formation, and consistent monitoring for abusive behaviour. The authentication of the buyers and sellers contributes to the development of trust in the other side of the transaction. Transparent pricing and the publication of historical prices assist participants in forming an educated opinion on the value of a specific good or service for which they are willing to pay. All of this makes it easier to conduct business in a way that gives buyers and sellers confidence while also encouraging participation. We've worked with companies in a variety of industries, including sports, shipping and logistics, health care, real estate, agriculture, and luxury goods, and many understand that dynamic electronic marketplaces can: 1.make illiquid assets more liquid 2.assist them in transforming with agile, forward-thinking business models 3.Excess inventory can be monetized by capturing data and analysing it for monetization opportunities. 4.distinguish themselves from competitors increase trust and integrity in the transaction chain attract new investors and consumers Companies can build trust in their ecosystem by digitising and issuing goods or services as a tradeable asset, putting power in the hands of consumers, improving brand affinity, and expanding their customer base. Businesses and consumers can benefit from a smooth customer experience with more transparent and efficient transactions that was previously reserved for global financial markets, thanks to tried and proven processes, structures, and technology used for decades in one of the world's most highly regulated industries. The definition of a

marketplace has shifted dramatically in recent years, something that Nasdaq, as a market operator and builder, has witnessed firsthand. We are committed to democratising marketplace technology by providing essential components of traditional matching engine technology used by financial markets and bringing the capabilities to a cross-asset, cross-industry environment via the cloud. While crypto assets may have sparked the digital asset revolution, anything that can be traded will almost certainly be traded through a digital asset in the future. Historically, only institutional investors or the very wealthy could invest in commercial real estate. In the meantime, the highly regulated process of selling commercial real estate required months or years of negotiations and paperwork. This not only kept ordinary people out of the asset class, but it also made it more difficult for developers and landlords to access liquidity. However, we can enable trading in a commercial real estate securities marketplace that allows developers and investors to quickly and easily trade shares of commercial properties via a fractionalized share model using the Nasdaq Marketplace Services Platform, our technology platform that powers more transparent and efficient trading of all types of assets. Investors are given the freedom to build a customised and diverse real estate portfolio, while property owners can unlock equity without giving up control of their properties, which could be critical in a post-COVID19 environment. In a similar vein, many ESG-focused businesses are utilising marketplace models to achieve their environmental objectives. Puro.earth, which was acquired by Nasdaq earlier this year, is the world's first marketplace to provide industrial carbon removal instruments that are verifiable and tradable via an open, online platform. Some of the world's leading corporations, including Microsoft and SEB, already use the platform to remove carbon emissions. Similar examples are emerging across industries, with a diverse range of business cases, goals, and objectives fuelled by digital asset trading and exchange-like models. As an increasing number of organisations choose this path, accelerating their digital transformation and implementing a business model to ensure their survival, the first and possibly most important step will be selecting the right partner: a trusted, experienced provider with technological knowhow and market operations expertise.

A-Team TradingTech Summit Virtual, in its first iteration since the global Covid-19 pandemic, will focus on how emerging technology and infrastructure are presenting capital markets organisations with the opportunity to digitally transform their businesses. The event will discuss how practitioners can benefit from the adoption of modern applications, cloud technologies, and optimised infrastructures in their trading operations, with the work-from-home phenomenon and the explosion in data volumes pointing to the need for a more flexible and data-driven approach. Irina Sonich Bright, Managing Director at Credit Suisse, will kick off the event with a fireside chat about the outlook for trading technology, specifically how to use disruption to drive innovation. The first panel session of the day, featuring representatives from Citihub Digital, Deutsche Bank, and IPC, will look at how businesses can adopt a flexible and scalable cloud-based data infrastructure to support business agility and AI. "The power of cloud and SaaS services is undeniable," says panellist Tim Carmody, Chief Technology Officer, IPC. "However, financial organisations must proceed with caution when migrating workflows and data to the cloud in order to maintain their competitive advantages in trading with deterministic performance, low latency, continuity of experience, and without jeopardising security or compliance." Private and hybrid cloud models can provide the benefits of the cloud, such as advanced data access, AI, and new technologies, while still retaining guarantees and governance." Nathan Snyder, Head of Banking and Capital Markets Consulting at DXC Luxoft, will deliver a keynote address titled 'The Capital Markets Enterprise 2021: Digitalizing for Competitive Advantage.' "DXC Luxoft is thrilled to be a part of this year's Trading Tech Summit Virtual," Snyder says. "Based on our market experience, we'll be sharing our ideas and providing our perspective on new trends in the capital markets industry, as well as the benefits of digitalization." This is an excellent opportunity to interact with our target audience and peers, as well as to discuss important issues confronting the capital markets industry, such as how banks can use innovative technological solutions to accelerate their digital transformation journey." The following panel discussion, which will include representatives from IgniteG2M, Credit Suisse, TD Securities, CJC, BSO, and Options IT,

will focus on optimising trading infrastructure for high performance in fast markets. "There are many elements involved in trading infrastructure, including data centre hosting, low latency connectivity between global data centres, and – increasingly – connectivity into and out of the cloud," says BSO Account Director Judith Perez Monasterio. "I'm looking forward to discussing how all of these aspects are coming together with the other panellists and hearing their perspectives on the topic." "Firms are increasingly looking for analytics from data infrastructures, trade infrastructures, and post trade systems to predict what their costs will be," says Steve Moreton, Global Head of Product Management at CJC, who will also be on the panel. So I'd like to talk about how the same disciplines used in trade infrastructure monitoring can benefit firms in other industries." The day's final panel discussion will focus on how businesses can accelerate digital transformation and migrate legacy apps to create a best-in-class trading environment. "We expect to gain some unique insights into real-world business problems, which we can then map on to features and functions of our platform," says James Wooster, COO of Glue42, who will be joined on the panel by JP Morgan, BNY Mellon, and DXC Luxoft representatives. "As an integration vendor, it will enable us to validate that we are on the right track in terms of developing our ecosystem." And part of that learning process is understanding how other software vendors want to embed their software in their client systems." Digitalisation discussions today must include more than just capturing efficiency gains; they must also include the rise of newer technologies and the next big market development, such as digital assets. "When it comes to tokenisation, a whole new universe is emerging." Tokenised assets will exist in a different universe than traditional digital assets. It will be built on a blockchain, and the infrastructure surrounding these assets will be brand new," says Matthias Voelkel, Partner at McKinsey & Company. According to Voelkel, capital market adoption of tokenisation and blockchain is beginning to rise as the retail side of the finance industry benefits from the economies of scale afforded by digitalisation. Process mining, upgrading legacy systems with microservices architectures, or utilising externally provided cloudbased services are examples of newer technology deployments.

Cloud technology is not new to capital markets, but adoption has been slower in the post-trade arena, according to Amrik Thethi, Chief Technology Officer at Torstone Technology. Some larger organisations are experimenting with Robotics Process Automation (RPA) in tandem with Torstone, as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI). Machine learning is also being used more and more to aid in pattern recognition and decision making, particularly in the area of reconciliations, Thethiadds. Many applications are opening up their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to allow integration between different platforms, which is a relatively new development. "Every vendor's product has some level of ability to call into others, allowing firms to create systems that would not necessarily exist in isolation." They can take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and combine them to form a larger system, and by tying that together with RPA and possibly even AI, they can create a much more sophisticated post-trade environment," Thethisays. With the rise of digitalisation comes an increase in cyber risk, which regulators are paying attention to. Institutions continue to invest in cyber capabilities and defence mechanisms, and they are much more aware of the importance of mitigating those risks. "It is especially important with smart contracts and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to control what those contracts that are automatically executed at some point will do." "This space is maturing, and we hope to see the first large post-trade processing platforms use smart contracts as an efficient means of decentralising security operations," says Stefan Schorsch, Associate Partner at McKinsey & Co. While the use of automated tools in financial markets has grown, the commodities sector has remained stagnant in terms of innovation and adoption. One reason for this is that physical commodities like oil and LNG (liquefied natural gas) are traded in the spot market, which is fundamentally different from trading stocks in secondary markets. Furthermore, the spot market involves the exchange of large quantities of a physical commodity, which must be financed, insured, stored, transported, and received. As a result, price volatility and risk affect the entire commodity supply chain. Commodity market participants are embracing new technologies such as machine learning and Blockchain to improve physical commodity storage,

logistics, and transaction, significantly increasing market efficiency and transparency. However, in order to fully benefit from these technologies, businesses must first digitise their data and workflows: the primary benefit of digitalisation in commodities is the ability to extract insights through data analysis, obtain real-time business information, and reduce costs – all of which are critical considerations in a market with extremely thin margins. Big data and predictive algorithms improve the rigour and accuracy of fundamental analysis, while information specialists provide structured data to trading systems directly. These modifications have levelled the playing field, as virtually all commodity traders and analysts now have access to critical data and near-real-time information that was previously only available to a select few. The data explosion has effectively eroded the traditional "informational advantage," and transparency is being introduced into an industry that has been shrouded in mystery for far too long. As digital technologies continue to develop in strength, they will continue to transform the commodity trading value chain – before, during, and after a transaction: 1.Securitisation. Rather than requiring trading desks and commodity traders to negotiate each transaction, financial products can be pooled and traded instantly. 2.Assistance with investment decisions. Commodity traders now have instant access to various new types of data that can assist them in predicting future supply and demand dynamics. While many organisations already have access to a wealth of data, many continue to spend significant time and resources discovering, evaluating, ingesting, mapping, normalising, and analysing data that comes in a variety of formats and from a variety of frequently disparate sources. 3.Generation of positions. By enabling automated, faster, and more accurate decision making and cost reduction, digital technologies are transforming item generation. Today’s technologies, such as those offered by Kensho, enable real-time viewing of bids, offers, and transactions. As a result, market participants can now observe cash market activity as watching a video game. By viewing live interactions between buyers and sellers via conversion charts, market participants

can make more informed trading decisions.. 4.Portfolios Management. With the computing power available in the cloud, integrated, intelligent trading systems enable traders to conduct much more realistic, path-dependent risk assessments and sophisticated scenario analysis in real-time. Companies that monitor global commodity supply and demand, storage capacity, refining capacity, and transportation of commodities are paying attention. Each day, this data is digitised and made available to market participants via APIs, enabling them to make informed decisions. 5.Execution. Intelligent trading systems can help reduce costs, make trade execution less noticeable, and optimise trades to have the most negligible impact on market price. Rather than a series of discrete and sequential technology adaptations or upgrades, this transformation entails anticipating and responding to changes and challenges on an ongoing basis. Additionally, it requires a disruptive vision, a willingness to experiment, and senior management’s strong support and commitment. 6.After-trade. Additionally, most trading firms have digitised their back-office processes to enhance the quality of their post-trading relationships. International Standards have never been more important in assisting in the formation of new consensus, the reduction of uncertainty, and the restoration of much-needed confidence in global supply chains. When it comes to trade, speed is everything, especially for developing countries attempting to integrate into global markets. When goods and inputs are time-sensitive, International Standards for transporting goods from one country to another can help to eliminate costly delays. All of this aligns with the goals and priorities of the timely ISO Strategy 2030, which aims to ensure that standards – particularly International Standards – will be critical to building our economy and increasing trade. The opportunity for meaningful change exists on the other side of uncertainty, and organisations and businesses that are agile and ready to embrace change will be more successful in achieving their goals. In a recent interview, former ISO President Eddy Njoroge stated, "There has never been a more important time for market-led, consensus-based International Standards to support the global

challenges confronting a multilateral trading system." External factors that shape our economy include economic and trade uncertainty, changing societal expectations, and the urgency for sustainability and digital transformation, which form the foundation of our new ISO Strategy 2030. However, with appropriate standards, it will be possible to address these multiple challenges at both the global and national levels." According to ISO, its mission is to "bring people together to agree on International Standards that respond to global challenges through our members and their stakeholders." To achieve a sustainable future, ISO standards support global trade, drive inclusive and equitable economic growth, advance innovation, and promote health and safety." The ISO Strategy to 2030 also aligns with the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which recognises international trade as a driver of inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction, as well as an important means of achieving the SDGs (SDGs). According to UNCTAD's Kituyi, "achieving this beneficial interaction between trade and investment catalyses the structural transformation of economies, creates jobs, and develops skills in direct support of SDG 8 (promoting decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation), and SDG 10 (promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation)" (reducing inequality within and among countries). Furthermore, among the global partnerships for sustainable development whose revitalization is called for by SDG 17 (strengthening the means of implementation and revitalising the global partnership for sustainable development) is a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory, and equitable multilateral trading regime that provides the institutional framework for sustained global trade. ISO has already taken significant steps in reducing poverty and making people's lives easier, safer, and better by developing key standards such as supply chain security (ISO 28000), risk management (ISO 31000), and asset management (ISO 55001). Moreover, despite changes caused by economic and trade uncertainty, which may affect demand for and relevance of International Standards, ISO has a framework and blueprint to meet

these challenges with its Strategy 2030. One of the most important issues for digital trade is the cross-border movement of data. Today, trade and production are heavily dependent on moving, storing and using digital information (data), increasingly across borders. Data enables the co-ordination of international production processes through GVCs, helps small firms reach global markets, can be an asset that can be traded, or a conduit for delivering services, and is a key component for automation in trade facilitation. It is increasingly difficult for an international trade transaction to take place without a cross-border data transfer of some sort. However, the pervasive exchange of data, including across borders, has fuelled concerns about the use and, especially the misuse, of data, amplifying concerns about privacy protection, digital security, intellectual property protection, regulatory reach, competition policy and industrial policy. As a result, countries have been adopting and adapting regulations addressing the movement of data, often introducing new measures that condition the movement of data across borders or, in some cases, measures that mandate that data is stored or processed in specific locations (data localisation). The resulting patchwork of rules and regulations is making it difficult not only to effectively enforce public policy goals such as privacy and data protection across different jurisdictions, but also for firms to operate across markets, affecting their ability to internationalise and benefit from operating on a global scale. The internet is global and borderless but regulations are not. Governments have been using a range of instruments to ensure that, upon crossing a border, data is granted the desired degree of protection or oversight. However, there is no one, single, mechanism to enable what has come to be called ‘data free flows with trust’. Governments pursue different, or even multiple and complementary, approaches (Casalini, Lopez-Gonzalez and Nemoto, forthcoming) and they are: 1.A range of unilateral mechanismsfor safeguarding cross-border transfers exist. These vary according to whether safeguards require public sector approval before transfer (pre-authorised safeguards), or if they leave discretion as to how to safeguard transfers to the private sector (open safeguards). Analysis reveals that pre-authorised safeguards, such as public adequacy decisions and ex-ante legal

safeguards are more common (65%). However open safeguards, which include accountability principles, private sector adequacy evaluations and contracts, are also widely used (54%). Most countries incorporate some form of safeguard into their data transfers, but they go about it in different ways. 2.Plurilateral arrangements that aim to generate consensus around privacy and personal data protection, including in relation to international transfers, have also been widely adopted (including by 96 economies). As both a consequence, and a driver, of these arrangements, 68% of the elements covered in existing domestic privacy and data protection regulation across a sample of OECD and emerging economies overlap. This suggests that there is a high degree of commonality in existing frameworks and therefore some common ground to build on to enable data transfers 3.Since 2008, 29 trade agreements between 73 economies have included provisions on data flows. Not all provisions have the same depth– 45% of agreements include binding commitments on data flows (for all types of data). Of those with binding provisions, all include exceptions allowing parties to restrict data flows to meet “legitimate public policy objectives” and all couple data flow provisions with provisions on privacy or consumer protection frameworks (including through references to plurilateral arrangements). 4.Standards and technology-driven initiatives such as ISO standards and privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), including cryptography and sandboxes, are increasingly being used by organisations to protect and control access to data. Despite wide differences across instruments, a range of commonalities emerge within and between instruments. For instance, whether through unilateral mechanisms, trade agreements or plurilateral arrangements, there appears to be consensus on the dual goals of safeguarding data and enabling its flow across borders. There is also growing evidence of convergence, whether in the trade agreements which combine binding data flow provisions with provisions on privacy and consumer protection frameworks, or in the principles that underpin domestic privacy and personal data protection frameworks. Finally, there exists a high degree of complementarity

between instruments. Unilateral mechanisms draw from, and contribute to, plurilateral arrangements and trade agreements increasingly reference plurilateral data protection arrangements along with their binding data flow provisions. Together, these can be seen as indicating the emergence of an international architecture, or architectures, aimed at reaping the benefits of data flows while enabling governments to meet other legitimate public policy objectives. As the entire energy industry transitions across upstream, downstream, and midstream, there is an increasing need for industry experts to take on some of the challenges we face collectively. Outsiders in the industry frequently promote technology solutions that appear attractive on paper but fail to recognise some of the unique challenges that only those with relevant experience and expertise can identify. However, by combining new ideas, technological solutions, and the knowledge gained from working in our industry, we have the potential to drive the change that will be an unavoidable part of the coming decades. The trading of these commodities and the freight that transports them is an important component of the energy ecosystem. Traders are constantly looking for flexibility; the ability to choose when, what, and how much to buy and sell. This flexibility enables them to identify opportunities and add value to their respective businesses. Traders frequently buy or sell at a premium or a discount to a specific index when deciding on which price to apply to a specific deal. Some of the most common examples of these indices are Brent crude oil, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, and Henry Hub natural gas. Although there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution for the commodities market, the vast majority of these price indices are defined by price reporting agencies (PRAs), which are usually just one or two companies. Traders then use these prices as a reference when discussing deals (which can take anywhere from hours to days to complete, depending on their structure and complexity), constantly attempting to extract value but frequently lacking the transparency required to make the best decisions. It would be analogous to buying or selling property without having a good understanding of the value of houses in your city and street. Prices generated by incumbent PRAs (covering oil, gas, agricultural products, metals, and many other

commodities), whose business model typically relies on an army of journalists to gather price and transaction information, have an impact on almost everyone on the planet. These prices are then shared with the trading community, usually at a significant cost, often via basic platforms or in PDF format, making it difficult for traders to understand how such prices are derived. Despite the enormous impact these prices and organisations have on each of us, few people can name even one of these PRAs. At a macro level, the methodologies governing how these prices are determined are frequently ambiguous, difficult to comprehend, and difficult to locate. However, these price assessments have an impact on entire trade flows, GDPs, and thus entire populations, not to mention the costs of everyday items. At the micro level, traders, despite their constant pursuit of optionality, have almost no say over who or what defines prices, with one index typically dominating an entire market. This situation just didn't make sense conceptually. So, in early 2019, I left a job I loved (trading LNG cargoes and freight) to launch Spark Commodities, a Singapore-based company backed by Kpler, the industry's leading commodities analytics and data provider, and EEX, a world-renowned global exchange that is part of the Deutsche Boerse Group. The goal was straightforward: to reshape how commodity markets operate. The reality was that we were going up against some of the most powerful and well-established players in a multibillion-dollar sector of the energy industry. However, a strong combination of shareholder support and a strong in-house developer team provided us with the foundation to make an impact. Importantly, it enabled us to position ourselves in such a way that the market would have a choice when deciding which index to support on critical commodities. Our initial focus was—and continues to be—on LNG freight, a critical component of the LNG value chain that previously lacked a price index and was (and continues to be) increasingly volatile and difficult to manage. To put that volatility into context, rates were $17,750/day in June 2020 before peaking at $322,500/day in January 2021. They have since fallen to a low of $16,750/day in March, just two months after reaching record highs. They are currently at $82,500/day as of writing on June 29, 2021. This volatility

emphasises the importance of tools for understanding and riskmanaging such price movements. We provide the market with far more insight-driven information, supported by a larger volume of data, by removing the journalistic assessment component and replacing the traditional black box inherent in most PRAs with more transparency. Prices that are more trustworthy have a higher probability of adoption, trust, and thus liquidity, which helps risk managers manage risk more effectively. Spark has built an organisation that is designed to be responsive and relentlessly opportunistic as the wider industry continues to evolve and adapt to the various challenges in accurately assessing commodity pricing by keeping technology and execution at the heart of what we do. Spark now has a product suite, strong market support, and a partnership with Intercontinental Exchange, one of the world's largest exchanges (ICE). Our customers will be able to trade more easily as a result of our partnership with ICE. To use the ever-evolving cryptocurrency revolution as an example, the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin and other tokens on exchanges (rather than just bilaterally) has rapidly accelerated their adoption as well as the ability for a broader range of buyers and sellers to enter the market. The same principle applies to us, albeit on a smaller scale. Most people said this was impossible two years ago, questioning how a start-up could compete with some of the industry's biggest, well-funded names. After two years, 200 organisations on the Spark platform, and one listing, I hope we have demonstrated the industry's willingness to embrace change. This is especially true when industry expertise and technology are combined to provide customers with superior value. Digital twins are real-time digital replicas of physical systems that can forecast maintenance issues or potential failures and helps in Global digital trading. This assistance is especially useful in complex or largescale engineering projects where the cost and potential consequences of failure can be substantial. A modern bridge can now be packaged with a matching digital bridge and diagnostic software. The digital twin is constantly updated with real-time data, such as weather conditions, air humidity or salinity, or traffic crossing the bridge. As a result, the digital model can predict future maintenance issues, reducing the need for physical inspections. This innovation benefits citizens as well,

as the bridge will be closed less frequently. The rapid adoption of digital technologies such as 3D printing (3DP), artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 5G, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is catapulting the global economy into the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" and the next wave of globalisation (Montresor 2016). As new global supply chains, this time for services, are being built, tasks are being divided more finely, opening up new entry points for poorer countries' service exports. Digitally enabled services are helping to stabilise global production networks, offset the reshoring push, and revitalise traditional exports in agriculture, fisheries, handicrafts, and tourism, among other things, by better matching sellers and buyers and providing finance access. New trade opportunities are opening up for both developing and advanced economies. Digitally enabled trade (henceforth "e-commerce") has emerged as the primary driver of global trade growth. As the digital age takes hold, services (which are already dominant in most domestic economies) are gaining importance in international trade, both in their own right and as a supplement to goods trade (WTO 2019b). Digitalization allows an ever-expanding range of services to be traded across borders via digital networks[1]; roughly half of traded services are digitally enabled, compared to 15% of traded goods (McKinsey Global Institute 2016). Trade in digitally enabled services, in turn, is critically dependent on cross-border data flows, which are expanding at an exponential rate and now contribute more to global GDP growth than trade in goods and services (McKinsey Global Institute 2016). The development of international rules governing cross-border data flows and Internet-based activities is becoming increasingly important for firm-level competitiveness, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). These developments present significant new challenges for digital-age trade, investment, innovation, and industry policy. Harnessing the benefits of digital technology in trade, particularly in services, necessitates multilateral governance and regulatory frameworks designed for the twenty-first century. The Group of Twenty (G20) must address these challenges and ensure potential growth in international trade flows, thereby facilitating rather than stifling global gains in economic growth and development. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on domestic economic

activity as well as global value chains in both the goods and services industries, as highlighted in the Appendix. Its most significant shortterm effect has been a strong push toward digitalization. The negative effects of widespread social distancing measures have been mitigated by a variety of digital technologies and cross-border services (ranging from online education to e-signatures and new modes of communication); many activities that would otherwise have been closed down have remained operational. While the increased reliance on online interactions exposes new privacy risks that must be addressed, the benefits of digitally enabled services, which rely on unimpeded cross-border data flows, for ensuring business continuity and agility have been amply demonstrated (WTO 2020c). A push for international standards and disciplines on cross-border data flows would lock in these benefits and lay the groundwork for continued growth of digitised services. Managing the transition to digital trade and fully realising its benefits in a mutually beneficial manner necessitates policy decisions that allow trade to flourish while also achieving domestic public policy goals. G20 members should take the lead by enacting best-practice policies and establishing interoperable regulatory frameworks so that every economy can benefit from the digital age's productivity gains. The following section presents our policy recommendations, which address challenges in the transition to digital trade and propose concerted action by the G20 on eight fronts: 1. Clarify the definition of and update global rules for digital trade Challenge: We have entered the digital age, but do not have a single recognized and accepted definition or means of measurement of digital trade yet. Solution: G20 members need to urgently confirm their understanding that cross border data flows fall under the definition of trade, as indicated by the draft UN Handbook on Measuring Digital Trade. The concept of digital trade is broadly perceived as encompassing international trade enabled by digital technologies. The World Trade Organization (WTO) defines “electronic commerce” as “the production, distribution, marketing, sale or delivery of goods and services by electronic means” (WTO 1998). The extent to which this definition of

e-commerce encompasses all aspects of digital trade needs to be clarified in the WTO, including how it interacts with international data traffic. G20 members should work together to hasten this process. The digital transformation of trade and society has accelerated during the COVID-19 crisis, and public awareness of this is high. The G20 should take this opportunity to focus on steps to improve international governance in trade in digitally enabled e-services, in associated cross-border data flows, and in e-commerce, more generally. Today, data flows are alongside or embedded in—one way or another—every trade transaction. Yet the WTO definition of trade does not explicitly include data flows. If and how to include them is debated[2]. To the extent that data flows are not yet universally understood or formally accepted as falling under the definition of services trade, and are hence governed by the GATS, a vital aspect of WTO reform is the development of a springboard for digital transactions that can be integrated into global trade governance. The draft UN Handbook on Measuring Digital Trade proposes including cross-border data flows that contribute to consumer welfare and can be measured as such (OECD/WTO/IMF 2020).G20 members should confirm their understanding that cross-border data flows fall under the definition of trade. Data flows could then be integrated in the GATS framework relatively easily. We call on the G20 to play a leadership role on this aspect of WTO reform. Digital transactions must be streamlined urgently into global trade governance and need not be confined to the agreement on e-commerce. 2. Improve market access for e-services Challenge: Barriers to cross-border trade in digitally enabled services (mode 1) remain relatively high and, as evidence shows, are also intensifying. WTO members have made relatively fewer commitments to the liberalization of mode 1 when compared to the commitments they have made for other modes of service supply. Solution: As a minimum, G20 members should come together to signal preparedness to initiate the first steps to increase transparency by voluntarily updating their GATS schedules to remove/replace references to mode 1 not being technically feasible and hence not

applicable. One forum for this is the WTO, where plurilateral negotiations can be held toward arriving at an agreement on ecommerce. In 2019, plurilateral negotiations were launched for a WTO agreement on trade related aspects of e-commerce to “reduce the barriers around the world that threaten to undermine the growth of the digital economy” (WTO 2019a). The G20 needs to recognize the significance of these negotiations for developing solutions regarding eservices and lead a call for all WTO members to join as observers if not as full participants. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is the world’s biggest and best opportunity for productivity gains, economic growth, and sustainable development. Maximizing opportunities requires connectivity for digitally enabled services. But evidence from the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index shows that regulatory trends over the last three years constrained trade more than liberalizing it (Ferencz 2019), and the emerging digital economy is in danger of fragmentation rather than globalization. The WTO negotiations on e-commerce offer an avenue for some potential solutions. All WTO members owe it to their own competitive futures to engage. It is important for WTO credibility that these negotiations include services market access. Data intensive business services have been among the fastest growing components of world trade, delivering vital business inputs to all economic sectors. However, as illustrated , WTO members have made fewer services commitments under mode 1 (cross-border trade through digital networks) than for other modes, not only in the GATS and the Doha Round GATS offers, but also bilaterally in preferential trade agreements. Mode 1 (including electronic service delivery) is relatively more “unbound” across all groups of WTO members (Roy 2019).Irrespective of whether G20 members participate in the plurilateral WTO e-commerce negotiations, they can jointly grasp the low-hanging fruit and together signal a preparedness to initiate first steps to increase transparency with respect to mode 1. One approach would involve voluntarily updating the GATS schedules to remove and replace all references in the schedules to mode 1 not being technically feasible and hence not applicable. 3. Uphold the WTO moratorium on customs duties on etransmissions

Challenge: The WTO moratorium has evidently contributed to digital trade growth. Efforts to raise revenue or promote domestic digital transformation by levying tariffs on electronic transmissions will likely be fraught with practical difficulties and major economic inefficiencies. Solution: Value-added (VAT) or sales taxes offer alternative ways of raising revenue that may be vastly more efficient, practical, and equitable. The G20 should commission a joint study of options. For 20 years, the global trading system has witnessed the widespread benefits of the absence of tariffs on e-transmissions. The soft law device, the WTO Moratorium on Customs Duties on Electronic Transmissions, has facilitated innovation everywhere, including the adoption of digital business tools by SMEs, which have enabled a major drop in trade costs, as well as the participation in global services value chains and take-off in business services exports (Makiyama and Narayanan 2019; Andrenelli and Lopez-Gonzalez 2019).G20 members should confirm that levying of tariffs on electronic transmissions is likely to be fraught with practical difficulties and inefficiencies for the following reasons: i)Taxes are best levied on a broad base and on goods and services with low demand elasticities. E-transmissions and online services are a small fraction of trade, and e-commerce tends to be price sensitive. ii)The technical difficulties (if not near impossibility) of tracking and taxing cross-border e-transmissions will render such revenue generation extremely costineffective. iii)E-transmitted digitizable goods have very high services intensity and are increasingly different from their physical counterparts. For instance, while software (such as operating systems) used to be purchased bundled on CD-ROMs, operating systems nowadays resemble an interactive process with frequent updates and may reside entirely in the cloud. This is before considering the treatment of related services or applications that are notionally provided for free. iv)The value of 3DP computer-aided design files is hard to ascertain as it depends on the subsequent number of printings in the destination country.

v)Customs duties on e-transmissions would not address concerns about various forms of digital divides or tackle the problem of the lack of digital competitiveness among firms in developing countries. On the contrary, imports of “digitizable products” like software help current and prospective developing country exporters improve production processes and enhance quality and competitiveness of their export goods and services. In the digital age, VAT or sales tax may also be more practical revenue-raising alternatives to customs duties (WTO 2020a and 2020b). The G20 should commission a joint study of the above factors. 4. Adopt principles for domestic regulation of services Challenge: Regulatory differences arise as governments pursue their legitimate right to regulate for public policy purposes, but differences often involve inefficiencies that raise trade costs for service providers, more so for SMEs. Solution: All G20 members should adopt regulatory principles that facilitate trade in services, including for SMEs, while protecting consumers and privacy. Looking beyond the anticipated adoption of the outcome of the WTO Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation by WTO Ministers, the natural starting point is to revisit the WTO Reference Paper on Telecommunications. Significant services trade costs result from compliance with regulatory differences in export jurisdictions. These costs are often independent of export value and hurt SMEs more than large enterprises. Even reasonable, necessary regulation may constitute insurmountable trade costs for SMEs merely because they differ from equivalent domestic regulation. These costs can be eased through regulatory cooperation and mutual recognition agreements on standards and compliance assessments. G20 members should agree to establish regular mechanisms for regulatory cooperation aimed at reducing trade costs for services providers and facilitating trade in services. Efficient, nondiscriminatory service regulation can drive technology diffusion, and can help local firms participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Notable recent progress has been made in developing regulatory

principles for the services sector. At the regional level, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2018) established a voluntary set of Non-Binding Principles for Domestic Regulation of the Services Sector in 2019. In the WTO, the 2017 Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation (WTO 2019c) has resulted in outcomes including a reference paper and a set of indicative schedules that await adoption by WTO Ministers. All G20 members should signal support for these outcomes and willingness to bind the associated commitments in their GATS schedules. G20 members could also acknowledge that recent progress enables wider collaboration on regulatory principles that protect consumers and privacy while seizing opportunities for increased trade in digitally enabled knowledge-intensive services. Therefore, the WTO Reference Paper on Telecommunications should be revisited against the backdrop of the technological revolution experienced since it came into force in 1998. We also call on the G20 to adopt a variety of best-practice regulatory principles that maximize opportunities for the digital economy via e-commerce. SMEs typically account for the majority of services businesses in any economy and a substantial share of services employment. Digitalization and global services value chains offer important new avenues for SMEs to thrive (ERIA 2018). This is partly because digital content and associated services, once created, can be exported at virtually zero additional cost. For this channel to work most efficiently, structural imbalances between powerful platforms and smaller firms need to be addressed by competition policy to prevent market power abuse. Efforts should also be made, while safeguarding customer privacy and security, to ease compliance costs for SMEs. Regulatory flexibility in registering intellectual property (IP), for both local and foreign entities, will also be particularly helpful for smaller businesses. Many digital offerings incorporate intangible assets, so IP protection assumes special significance for facilitating e-services trade. 5. Introduce trade disciplines on cross-border data flows Challenge: At the heart of different approaches to regulating data and digital flows lies the policy challenge of striking an optimal balance between supporting an innovative competitive digital economy while protecting consumer privacy and security. Restrictions on cross-

border data flows, for whatever public policy reason, can adversely affect trade in e-services. Solution: G20 members should signal recognition of the need to strengthen global governance of cross-border data flows. The lack of internationally comparable statistics challenges evidencebased policymaking. Yet the need for policies to deal with crossborder services and data flows is greater than ever as barriers to these international transactions are being erected without a clear understanding of their costs and long-run impacts. Whether motivated by cybersecurity or privacy considerations, consumer rights, regulatory oversight or digital industrial policy, restrictions on crossborder data flows impact productivity and trade in services negatively. Data localization requirements have an especially adverse effect (Ferracane and van der Marel 2018; Ferracane et al. 2020). Current GATS disciplines are helpful in that they secure the right of governments to regulate while encouraging that regulations should not unnecessarily restrict trade. A coherent common framework on data flows would be better, including to secure the abovementioned public policy objectives. Many measures currently applied appear to contradict the Internet’s underlying logic by transforming a borderless cyberspace into “balkanized” units in which information and knowledge are obstructed, adversely affecting the growth of the digital economy. Obligations on cross-border data flows, including disciplines on data localization requirements, applied horizontally across all services sectors, would considerably strengthen global governance. Governments would retain access to exceptions such as national security in trade agreements to justify actions to restrict data flows unless legitimate domestic policy needs are met. Development of international rules on cross-border data flows and Internet-based activities is becoming critical to firm-level competitiveness, including for SMEs. Services suppliers sometimes need to comply with multiple overlapping or conflicting domestic regulations and seek multiple regulatory approvals for routine cross-border transfers, all of which impede trade flows and raise costs. Regulatory heterogeneity across OECD economies affects the value of services trade; specifically, a reduction in regulatory heterogeneity by 0.05 points leads, on average, to 2.5% higher services exports (Kyvik-Nordås 2016).

Addressing the “regulatory jungle” pertaining to data flow governance may entail a similar trade-enhancing effect. 6. Promote interoperability in privacy regulation Challenge: Rapid technological change requires urgent governance solutions but building global data governance is especially challenging, given the varying approaches to data privacy. Solution: The G20 should signal the recognition of the idea that solutions may lie in the interoperability of data privacy approaches. This begins with domestic policymakers ensuring that their legal frameworks clarify that firms with a legal nexus in their jurisdiction are responsible for managing data in a certain manner, wherever the data are transferred and stored. A country’s data-protection rules thus travel with the data. Potential models of how to proceed include the OECD Privacy Principles and the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Regime. Facilitating e-commerce, including cross-border data flows, can enable businesses to realize economies of scale and scope. Meanwhile, strong consumer privacy rules are likely to create the trusted online environment that is arguably a precondition for demanddriven growth. We call on the G20 to renew efforts toward finding a consensus with regard to these trade-offs, as a set of widely accepted policies would benefit firms and economies worldwide. The urgency of finding common rules is driven by rapid technological advances that, for example, turn watches into activity-recognition systems that detect, record, and recognize human activity in real time. The G20 should recognize that such developments present unprecedented new challenges for regulating trade. It is a simple fact that international trade involving consumers cannot occur without collecting and sending personal data, such as names, addresses, and billing information, across borders. For services suppliers, complex data privacy regimes reduce flexibility, increase compliance costs, and inhibit managing operations efficiently (Chen et al. 2019). The increasing burden of diverse local privacy rules also impacts the price of consumer goods and services. This is an emerging problem as companies collect and analyse personal data to better understand customers’ preferences and willingness to pay and adapt offerings

accordingly. The discussion around global data governance and privacy concerns has been building for some time, most recently with Japan’s initiative for “data free flow with trust” at the 2019 G20 meeting. This initiative, and related discussions within trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere, show that a growing number of countries recognize the need for greater coordination and new norms and agreements to manage data privacy. While national laws often share many of the same core principles, such as the OECD Privacy Principles, there is no single harmonized approach to privacy (OECD 2013). This is why interoperability has become a defining goal for much of the world, such as at the OECD and in many trade agreements, as globally interoperable privacy frameworks ensure effective privacy protection while maintaining the flow of personal information. A strong global network of privacy enforcement authorities is needed to complement efforts to build interoperability, and domestic regulators will need these resources and mechanisms to collaborate effectively. Interoperable privacy regulations (as compared to harmonized regulations) are a better and more realistic goal; although legal, cultural, and political differences mean countries often approach privacy differently, these can be based on common principles (such as from the OECD Privacy Principles). The Swiss-US Privacy Shield, and the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules are examples of formal mechanisms to build interoperability. These mechanisms provide greater certainty that a country’s data protection travels with the data. 7. Adjust development strategies for digitization and boost digital aid-for-trade Challenge: A key message from the 2017 Global Review of Aid-forTrade (OECD/WTO 2017) was that since digital networks are integral to global trade, developing countries need far more assistance to maximize digital technologies’ benefits. Solution: Improved information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, accessible and affordable Internet connectivity, digital skills and literacy, and a supportive regulatory framework should be priority G20 goals for digital development strategies and digital aid-for-

trade (AfT). The application of ICT technologies, deepening of Internet penetration, and uptake of smartphones is well underway. Indeed, digital connectivity development is often faster than physical connectivity, providing remote and rural areas with enhanced access to job opportunities and exchange of goods and services. However, to achieve its potential as a vehicle for more inclusive growth, development of digitally enabled services should also be incorporated explicitly into development strategies of newly developed and developing countries. In manufacturing, automation, advanced robotics, and 3DP are beginning to compensate for wage differentials as factors determining companies’ production locations and investment decisions. Conversely, for services industries, while some require talent that remains scarce in developing countries, a growing variety of services are performed and delivered remotely. Developing country wage differentials will continue to attract this work. Indeed, the increase in demand for offshore e-services from developing countries is expected to intensify (Baldwin 2019). Over the last decade, donor countries and regional and multilateral development agencies have focused more on helping developing countries use digital technologies for trade and development. These plans remain limited in size and scope and are supported by few donors and private sector partners. Less than 5% of donor support under the WTO AfT umbrella is directed to services. Of the USD 525 billion provided by multilateral development banks to low- and middle-income countries from 20122016, less than 1.5% went to ICT projects, with only 5% of this amount going to digital policy development (World Wide Web Foundation and the Alliance for Affordable Internet 2018). Donors need to provide more resources for digital development and establish digital AfT guidelines. Building an enabling policy environment, focusing on cross-border digital transactions, will be key to success. We propose five key principles to ensure productive AfT. First, digital project assessments should be holistic within a broad country- or sector-specific analysis and digital development strategy. Second, they should have clear governance structures with local leadership, including public and private participation, and be coordinated and targeted at key bottlenecks. Third, projects should embrace digital

trade by using existing digital goods and services rather than focusing on high-risk project-specific innovations (UNCTAD 2018). Fourth, development agencies should collaborate to develop digital development templates for different sectors to help expedite assessments and strategy formulation. Finally, projects should focus on building infrastructure for digital connectivity, both physical and institutional. Physical infrastructure for digital connectivity centers on providing access to stable, high-speed, and affordable Internet connection. Unlike traditional physical infrastructure, much of this investment can be implemented by the private market, including inward direct investment. Some government involvement will be required, as well as international collaboration, to deliver universal services and ensure access for remote communities and SMEs. Institutional infrastructure is equally important. All countries must focus on preparing a best-practice policy and regulatory environment for utilizing digital technologies. AfT should help establish policy frameworks governing dataflows and data-related businesses ranging from consumer protection and competition policy to privacy, cybersecurity, and digital taxation. Developed countries should ensure that legitimate concerns about privacy, security, money laundering, and piracy do not erect insurmountable barriers for companies in developing countries to sell offerings over digital platforms. 8. Upskill the workforce and stimulate digital innovation Education: Challenge: In the digital economy, workers need IT skills but also social skills like communication and management. New jobs are being created, but these generally involve re-skilling. Solution: G20 members should urgently prioritize improving human capital formation through education reform, including greater openness to trade and investment in education services.

9.Innovation

Challenge: National-level innovation systems must become more entrepreneurial and collaborative. Solution: The G20 should promote greater collaboration among national innovation ecosystems and establish guiding principles for associated knowledge exchanges. Value co-creation between national innovation ecosystems could strengthen digital job creation and help economies catch up with opportunities specific to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Services activities have already become major global sources of growth for employment; and access to talent has become key to the competitiveness of services firms. Various policy actions can enhance the outcomes for the digital economy by building the required human capital assets. These include openness to mode 4 (movement of natural persons), education reforms both for re-skilling and future jobs, openness to trade and investment in education services, and sharing of best practices. The public associates digital transformation with automation of many activities that has led to a shift in the demand toward high-skilled workers and growing income inequality in the past. As services are increasingly drawn into the digital realm, however, new jobs are emerging that present opportunities for middle-skilled workers. While jobs that create digital tools tend to be technical and cognitive skills-intensive, many complementary jobs are intensive in interdisciplinary and interpersonal skills, and empathy (Börner et al. 2018). The digital economy will offer new opportunities in these areas, not least for women. A country’s level of income reflects the outcome of its education system. Upskilling requires an education system designed both for skilling the future workforce and for upgrading the skills of those in the current workforce. While these policies are mostly domestic, international cooperation allows sharing of experience and best practices. The application of digital technologies and cross-border flows of education services is likely to become substantially more important both for educating the future workforce and upgrading current workforce skills. Positive growth in digital jobs would be strengthened if at the national level, innovation ecosystems become more entrepreneurial, focused on global value creation, and responsive to global digital trade opportunities. We also see the chance for G20 members to initiate new approaches for collaboration between their individual innovation

ecosystems, both to mitigate the current pandemic’s impact and to build a strong platform for rapid post-crisis global trade recovery. By establishing guiding principles and standards, including IP protection, for collaborative innovation in stateof-the-art technology, G20 members could set the stage for innovative solutions to current and future global challenges. Such action would signal a global reminder that innovative solutions lie in international collaboration rather than in inward-looking policies. G20 members can lead by example, creating mechanisms to bring the global community of creative thinkers, entrepreneurs, investors, public officials, academics, and research organizations closer. This would facilitate the information and resource flow that is needed for continuous learning and collective problemsolving. The envisaged collaborative ecosystems must link to global value creation, contributing domestically and internationally to trade and investment growth. This will have a global impact, creating a widespread enabling environment for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Processes of digitalization are causing profound changes in the production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services. These shifts include changes in "traditional" sectors as well as the emergence of new digital-based products and services (Foster et al. 2018). In recent years, "digital trade" has emerged as a concept that encompasses a variety of trade flows in which the internet plays a key role (Aaronson 2016; Branstetter 2016). Digital trade is frequently defined broadly, but it typically includes digitally enabled trade in goods or services, whether delivered digitally or physically (Monteiro and Teh 2017; López González and Ferencz 2018). This broad definition encompasses a variety of digitally driven processes, including e-commerce, in which a digital platform handles transactions and activities such as search, payment, and logistics. It also includes trade in goods and services that have transitioned from physical to digital forms, such as entertainment, publishing, software, music, and financial services. It also includes new economic activities like cloud computing and the app economy. All of these components of digital trade have experienced very rapid growth in recent years (USITC 2017), and as a result of this growth, digital trade is rapidly becoming a significant mechanism for trade. A growing number of products, including automobiles, consumer electronics, and industrial

machinery, are incorporating digital technologies. As a result, data is becoming increasingly important in the trade of "traditional" goods, a trend that is expected to accelerate with technologies such as autonomous driving and the internet of things (IoT) (Cecchinel et al. 2014; Gerla et al. 2014). The growing importance of digital trade has far-reaching consequences for the international trade regime. As goods transition from tangible to digital forms, there is debate about what this means for trade rules (Wunsch-Vincent 2008; Meltzer 2014). Similarly, states are debating the implications of market access commitments as more services are delivered online. More fundamentally, digitally delivered products and the embedding of digital services in physical goods call into question some of the most fundamental concepts underpinning the international regime—specifically, the distinction between goods and services, as well as the modes of supply that are central to agreements such as the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (Smith and Woods 2005). Furthermore, digitalization enables the implementation of new policies with implications for international trade. Policies restricting website access and regulating cross-border data flows, for example, could have serious implications for trade. While goods (e.g., vehicles, industrial machinery) are subject to relatively clear and predictable trade rules, the data on which they rely is not, allowing data policies to influence trade in such goods. In recent years, these dynamics have resulted in active campaigns centred on digital trade, first to incorporate elements of "internet governance" into the international trade regime, and then to push for stronger digital trade rules within the international trade regime. The United States has emerged as the primary proponent of incorporating digital issues into the international trade regime, bolstered by demands from the rapidly globalising American "tech sector" advocating for a more favourable and predictable global playing field. The resulting "digital trade agenda" led by the United States has been promoted at the WTO's multilateral level as well as in regional and bilateral forums. The digital trade agenda was initiated during the Obama presidency; the so-called "twentieth-century trade agreements," particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), were seen as

important steps in promoting new digital trade rules, with the TPP being described as the "most ambitious and visionary Internet trade agreement ever attempted" by US trade policymakers (USTR 2015). There is a growing recognition within international institutions that digital trade is becoming an important issue, with a growing technical and policy literature. The digital trade agenda, on the other hand, has received little research attention from those studying international trade politics. This paper seeks to fill that gap by investigating the origins of the digital trade agenda as well as the politics of digital trade agenda negotiations in various forums. We contend that the goals of the "digital trade agenda" go beyond updating the international regime to better integrate digital trade and toward deepening trade liberalisation by overcoming existing barriers to trade in goods and services as a greater share of these products is digitised. We emphasise the technological contingency of international trade rules, as well as how technological change can undermine the effectiveness of existing rules and drive regime formation and forum shifting. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The second section introduces digital trade as well as key concepts related to international trade regimes. Sections three and four delve deeper into the political economy of digital trade. Section three examines the disparities in national internet governance as a key driver of the digital trade agenda. Section four investigates the political economy of the digital trade agenda within the context of the international trade regime. Section five discusses the analysis's findings. The methodology used to create our analysis was a comprehensive qualitative approach to research (Hesse-Biber and Leavy 2010). A systematic use of document analysis, participant observation, and semi structured interviews aided our research. We began by highlighting key aspects influencing digital trade through a desk-based literature review. Based on this analysis, we conducted 41 semi structured interviews in Washington, DC, Brussels, and Geneva with stakeholders involved in the topic. Senior trade policy officers from leading digital firms, key industry business associations, trade policymakers and negotiators, and academics and experts were among those interviewed. The interviews were conducted in 2017 and 2018, with each lasting between thirty minutes and an hour. We used transcriptions to

conduct content analysis on the rich data obtained from the interviews in order to analyse it (Bengtsson 2016). We also conducted a systemic analysis of lobbying by the digital industry, utilising filings under the US Lobbying Disclosure Act and other data sources on lobbying and campaign contributions. Furthermore, our analysis is informed by the author's direct and close participation in WTO debates on digital trade in 2017 and 2018. This involvement included attendance at a number of public and closed-door WTO events, as well as detailed and repeated discussions with WTO negotiators representing various states and civil society organisations. Over the last few decades, the multilateral trading regime has undergone significant changes. Aside from more states joining the multilateral system, the regime's scope has expanded significantly, with the inclusion of issues such as investments, services, and intellectual property rights. Parallel shifts have occurred at the bilateral and regional levels (Kim 2015; Orefice and Rocha 2014). Through these processes, the international trading regime has progressed from a narrow definition of trade that focused on "at-the-border" issues like tariffs and quotas to a more comprehensive regime that governs a growing list of "behind-the-border" issues. Some of the newer issue areas incorporated into the trade regime, such as intellectual property, were previously weakly governed by nonbinding or weakly enforced global governance mechanisms and were brought to the international trade regime through a process of regime and forum shifting (Helfer 2009; Sell 2011). The forces driving the push for deep integration are complicated (Young and Peterson 2006; Orefice and Rocha 2014). The role of interest groups and lobbying efforts in the formulation of trade policy has been highlighted in the trade literature (Grossman and Helpman 1996; Grossman and Helpman 2001). A special emphasis in this literature has been on explaining the role of political mobilisation of interest groups in shaping US trade policy as a key to driving the postwar international trade regime (Conconi et al. 2014). According to this viewpoint, one motivation for international trade policy is the attempt to lock in specific rules that are difficult for subsequent governments to change (Nzelibe 2011). Other studies have highlighted the role of mobilisation by interest groups in shaping European trade policy and building transnational business coalitions

as the EU has become an important bloc within international trade regimes (Sell 2003; Dür 2008; Poletti and De Bievre 2014; Curran and Eckhardt 2017).The literature has investigated why the trade regime— and specific venues within the trade regime—are chosen to govern new issue-areas. In terms of selecting a trade regime to govern such issues, the trade regime's stronger enforceability in comparison to other global governance regimes is an important factor because it connects trade issues and allows for cross-retaliation (De Bièvre 2006). The preference for the trade regime was also related to the trade arena's strong dispute resolution mechanisms. The issue of venue selection within the international trading regime has been examined from a variety of angles (Jupille and Snidal 2005; Elsig 2007). According to Mansfield and Reinhardt (2003), the proliferation of preferential trade agreements at the regional and bilateral levels over the last two decades is directly related to multilateral developments. Preferential or regional agreements can be a way to secure rules that are difficult to achieve at the multilateral level, as well as a way for powerful actors to leverage their market size in these forums (Martin 1999; Shadlen 2008). Preferential trade agreements are also used by states to strengthen their bargaining positions at the multilateral level. Sell (2011) demonstrates how vertical forum shifting, or negotiating normsetting, rule-making, implementation, and enforcement at levels lower than the multilateral level, has been used to achieve intellectual property rights rules that were initially difficult to achieve in the WTO due to developing countries' resistance. Thus, processes of "competitive regime creation" are a common means by which a state or group of states dissatisfied with existing multilateral institutions may establish new multilateral forums with new rules, practises, or membership (Morse and Koehane 2014). Urpelainen and Van de Graaf (2015) argue, using the case of the AntiCounterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), that the creation of new overlapping institutions reflects the capture of existing focal institutions combined with domestic political pressure in a "challenger" state to reach or change existing institutions. The application of these analytical concepts provides a framework for comprehending the recent evolution of the international trade regime. The success of

powerful states in achieving their objectives in the international trade regime is frequently viewed as a confirmation of realist perspectives of international organisations as merely reflections of power distribution and vehicles for powerful states to achieve their objectives (Haggard and Simmons 1987; Steinberg 2002). These dynamics of regime/forum creation and shifting can be seen as a key trend in the evolution of the trade arena in recent years, as well as a primary mechanism through which advanced states have been able to include new issue-areas in the trade regime. However, subsequent developments in the international trade arena have called into question this realist viewpoint held by international institutions. The conclusion of the Uruguay Round and the establishment of the WTO were intended as a starting point for advanced economies in advancing a more ambitious governance agenda. In this case, developing countries have strongly opposed this agenda at the WTO (Narlikar and Tussie 2004). While the growing power of states such as China, India, and Brazil contributes to this ability to resist, there is also evidence of developing countries using the WTO as a forum to build coalitions and take advantage of the onecountry-one-vote system (Hopewell 2015). (Narlikar and Tussie 2004). This appears to validate institutional perspectives on international organisations that emphasise issues such as institutional design and coalition building as critical in how such institutions can mitigate power differences (Narlikar 2003; Wilkinson 2013). Nonetheless, we have seen further vertical forum shifting by the US and the EU in recent years as they have shifted their focus to regional and bilateral agreements. The emergence of so-called "mega trade agreements" heralds a new stage of evolution marked by the establishment of competitive regimes. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (which included twelve Asia-Pacific countries accounting for around 40% of global GDP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) (between the US and the EU), both led by the US during the Obama presidency and often referred to as "twenty-first century trade agreements," are important examples. The failure of the WTO to liberalise services also resulted in the formation of the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which is being negotiated by twenty-three mostly advanced states. Some scholars saw this as

part of the fragmentation of the international trade regime as it moves toward an international trade regime complex (Raustiala and Victor 2004; Meunier and Morin 2015). In conclusion, we have discussed how the international trade regime is still undergoing significant changes, as well as some of the dynamics underlying these shifts. The advanced economies' constant demand for deeper integration has been met with strong opposition from developing and emerging economies. Vertical forum shifting and competitive regime creation by advanced economies highlight efforts by developing and emerging economies to reconfigure regimes for their benefit and overcome obstacles such as structural and institutional power. However, technological change is an important component of these shifts, which we will now discuss. The expansion of digital trade is having important implications on the international trade regime. This impact includes challenging existing trade rules and creating demands for new rules. In what follows, we discuss some of the key emerging issues in these two areas and here they are:

1.Challenging Existing Rules The rise of digital trade is challenging existing trade rules at different levels. The cornerstone of the international trading regime is the classification of goods and services and the adoption of rules that govern the different classifications. The distinction between goods and services reflects the historical evolution of the trading regime rather than a clear definition of what constitutes a good and what constitutes a service. In the WTO regime, for example, there is no clear definition of what is a good and what is a service, the latter defined by the way it is traded rather than according to a clear definition (Smith and Woods 2005). However, the goods/services distinction is fundamental to the specific agreement or chapter under which specific activities are covered.

2.Evolution from goods to data flows This issue of distinction can be seen in the case of goods that were previously traded physically but are increasingly traded digitally. This applies to goods such as software, books and magazines, film, TV,

and music. Some states have maintained that as goods become electronically delivered they should be reclassified as services and subject to the GATS agreement (Darsinouei 2017). Others objected to that argument maintaining that those physical products maintain “goods-like” characteristics even when they are transmitted digitally. The debate reflects the different commitments and rules around goods and services. Important actors such as the EU maintain market access limitations on services such as audio-visual that enable quotas for local cultural content. By classifying newly digitized goods as services, the EU would be able to maintain these restrictions. The EU is moving ahead with plans to impose 30 percent local content on streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix (Rankin 2018).

3.Modes of supply The international trade regime regulates exchange in products reflecting the mode of supply of delivery of these products. While this is more explicit in the case of trade in services, where the GATS agreement provides market access commitments according to four modes of delivery,1 the same logic can be seen in rules around trade in goods. At a fundamental level, a question that has received substantial attention is if digital trade is most similar to mode 1 (crossborder delivery), in which a firm crosses national borders to sell products to consumers, or mode 2 (consumption abroad), in which consumers travel to consume products abroad. Historically, the international trade regime has paid more attention to mode 1, reflecting the fact that it is easier to regulate and the most common form of delivery. As such, states impose rules on products exported to their markets, including tariffs and standards, but have fewer restrictions on their citizens traveling abroad to consume services and buy goods (including bringing these goods home in a small scale). In the GATS agreement, states tend to provide less restrictive market access on consumption abroad in comparison to cross-border delivery. Digital trade predominantly defined under mode 1 would provide states with higher ability to determine which digital goods and services a consumer might access. Thus, they might have the ability to control the conditions, standards, and regulations that providers of those digital goods and services have to follow. The challenge facing

policy makers here is operational—how to expand the application of existing rules into these new types of trade flows, including small scale trade through digital platforms. In contrast, thinking of digital trade as mode 2 entails that through the internet the ability to travel abroad and consume have expanded from a relatively small percentage of the population (with access to passports and financial means) into every citizen with internet access. Consumers visiting foreign websites to purchase goods and services is akin to them traveling abroad physically. In such an understanding of digital trade, the role of the state in shaping market access and the standards and regulations, at least using traditional tools, becomes limited. Governing digital trade as mode 2, however, would enable highly unequal global environments for the delivery of digital goods and services, as firms could serve the globe from a handful of locations. These issues have been debated since the 1990s at the WTO in the context of the “Work Programme on Electronic Commerce” (WTO 1998). Despite those debates, questions around the mode of supply most appropriate for digitally delivered services and the “technological neutrality” of market access commitments—if a commitment applies to new technologies of delivery even if that technology did not exist when the commitment was made—remain contested in the WTO.2 The debates on technological neutrality reflected that many countries liberalized services under mode 1 in areas that were seen unfeasible to deliver on cross-border basis at the time. But, with digital technology, such services are becoming possible to deliver across borders (Kelsey 2018).3

4.Tariffs on digital trade As more products become digital, the issue of the imposition of tariffs on digital trade is also becoming more crucial. In the Geneva Ministerial in 1998, the WTO adopted the Declaration on Global Electronic Commerce, which, in addition to launching the “Work Programme on e-commerce,” included a commitment by states not to impose customs duties on electronic transmissions (the moratorium on e-commerce). This commitment has been renewed every two

years at every subsequent ministerial. Nonetheless, as we discuss in section 4, as digitalization in economies expands the scope of digital flows, debates are growing on the renewal of this moratorium and the definition of “electronic transmissions.” Digitalization is also creating demands for new trade rules. These demands can be grouped into two areas. The first are demands to discipline the use of new tools that states can use to shape digital trade. The second are demands for rules that create a more favourable environment for digital trade. In this section, we provide a brief discussion of these two groups of policies. As trade in products and services through the internet increases, states are using policies to control and shape data flows. These policies are sometimes explicitly driven by economic factors, but often they are framed within debates on national security, political freedoms, privacy, and law enforcement access to data. We highlight two examples of such policies, internet filtering, data localization, and source code/encryption keys transfer requirements:

1.Internet filtering Access to websites, digital tools, and services located on foreign servers is a prerequisite to access digital goods and services provided by firms, including both digitally delivered products and physically delivered products. As such, engineering the structure of the internet to block such cross-border access is a very effective way of controlling digital trade. China's so-called “Great Firewall,” the filtering/blocking of websites in China, is the archetypal case of internet filtering. Undoubtedly this remains a key tool that enables the Chinese state to censor information. Yet, it also serves as a trade barrier by limiting the delivery of foreign goods and services to businesses and consumers in China. As we will outline in the next section, commentators and Chinese policymakers have increasingly identified that this filtering has been very effective in supporting the emergence of successful digital firms in China (Calinoff 2010; Liu 2011). While the case of China is the most widely known case of internet filtering at this scale, similar but smaller scale filtering measures exist in other states.

2.Data localization

Data localization policy is used to control trade flows and access to foreign digital products. Data localization includes a number of policies that demand that data (or certain categories of data) generated within a state are subject to additional rules, typically rules requiring the storage of data domestically. Such a policy raises the cost of global firms serving a market by demanding that foreign digital firms build or purchase domestic data storage capacities. Through such a policy, data localization could strengthen the position of domestic firms and strengthen local digital ecosystems. For example, requesting local storage can affect which companies can bid for government contracts. In other examples, such as new digital machinery or driverless vehicles, which are highly data-intensive, requirements to maintain the data collected within a state could act as a protectionist trade policy, especially considering the huge costs of establishing the data infrastructure for such storage and processing. Thus, data localization can be used as part of a policy to promote aspects of a national digital industry by forcing transnational firms to invest in a country or by promoting national firms. While the economic contribution of hosting data centers is still debated (WRC 2013; Bauer et al. 2014; BCG 2014), it could be seen as attractive to policy makers. Often as part of security requirements, a number of states adopt policies that seek to mandate technology transfer through policies such as source code transfer requirements. Such conditions can have major economic implications, as most companies will consider access to their source code a red line (due to the risks of losing key intellectual property), leading to this requirement serving as a market access restriction. Parallel policies are also emerging in regard to mandating firms to reveal encryption keys and algorithms. This can be a major issue for companies, as it could lead to blocking market access if they refuse to comply or to jeopardizing data security and the trust of customers if they do. In addition to new policy tools that states could use to shape trade, the growth in digital trade is leading to demands for new trade rules that create a more favourable environment for digital trade. This is particularly important as new types of firms with digital-based business models emerge and expand. As digital transactions across borders become central to digital trade, ensuring clear rules and norms around digital-only business models is

crucial. Thus electronic authentication and paperless trading, which ensure access to and validity of trade documents in electronic form, are crucial to facilitating novel business models (Darsinouei 2017). The digital economy is also enabling new types of firms to trade more vigorously across borders, particularly small and micro-enterprises using e-commerce (Foster 2017). This issue was not central to international trade in the past, reflecting the scale barriers to entry to international trade. The growth in e-commerce and the role of digital platforms has changed this, providing the infrastructure for small-value trade (connectivity, logistics, payments, contracts). A key policy discussion has been around harmonizing and increasing levels of de minimis, the ceiling value below which goods crossing borders are not subject to tariffs or to complex clearance procedures. Some states and e-commerce firms are pushing to raise the levels of de minimis in international trade negotiations to allow faster and cheaper delivery of such goods (USITC 2017). Such discussions were parts of the recent renegotiations of NAFTA between the United States, Canada, and Mexico (Evans 2018). Some of these issues were previously discussed as part of internet governance, but in recent years they have become increasingly framed in the context of trade policy. This shift was the result of an active campaign to bring these issues into the trade policy arena. This campaign was driven by the links between these new digital issues and trade but also by the fact that contrary to the trade arena where a state-centered framework with a strong dispute settlement mechanism is in place, internet governance remains a nascent area with weaker implications for states. We now move to discuss this issue. Over the last two decades, debates on internet governance have taken place in a variety of venues and institutions. While organisations such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) have historically played a role in regulating broadcast and telecommunications, the advent of the internet has altered the governance landscape. Overall, internet governance is characterised by a diversity of institutions, with no single focal institution or group of institutions with distinct mandates (Nye 2014; Raymond 2016). The

World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) defined internet governance in 2011 as "the development and application of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet by governments, the private sector, and civil society in their respective roles." Scholars in the field of internet governance have argued that we should consider internet governance to be a multi-layered structure (Drake et al. 2016). These different layers progress from more technical aspects of internet governance to those involving economic and social interactions, though there are concerns about the ability of more technically oriented governance forums to govern the internet's economic and social layer (Mueller 2010; Drake et al. 2016). Internet governance evolved from telecom institutions to bodies established with the mission of managing the internet's infrastructure. In 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was founded in response to the need for orderly domain names and IP addresses. Similarly, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), established in 1986, has taken on the responsibility of maintaining an orderly set of internet protocols and standards. While internet governance continues to manage the internet's evolving infrastructure, the scope of internet governance has expanded. As a result, internet governance institutions and forums have increasingly sought to address a broader range of issues, including global internet governance. WSIS and the Internet Governance Forum are two key internet governance institutions where digital trade discussions have taken place (IGF). WSIS was formed under the auspices of the ITU and with UN backing to support a global information society. The IGF was formed in 2005 to address public policy issues related to the internet. The goal of non-profit, open organisational structure, and the ability to accept contributions from multiple stakeholders are important commonalities among the various internet governance institutions. Indepth examination of these institutions, on the other hand, has frequently raised questions about whether they truly follow open and multistakeholder approaches, and has questioned the democratic legitimacy of such models. For example, while ICANN is defined as a multistakeholder organisation "with participants from all over the world

dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable, and interoperable" (ICANN 2018), it is a non-profit international organisation with a Governing Advisory Council (GAC) rather than a formal international organisation constituted under the UN system (Mueller 2010). Until late 2016, ICANN was sponsored by the United States Department of Commerce. Prior to that, there was growing dissatisfaction with the fact that ICANN was still officially under the control of the US government. Furthermore, due to the nonbinding nature of the board recommendations, there have been criticisms that the organisation lacks representativeness (Mueller 1999; Mueller 2010; Powers and Jablonski 2015). Similarly, the IETF is dominated by a highly technical community, with a rather procedural decision-making process and a steering group committee dominated by representatives from the United States (Powers and Jablonski 2015). Several efforts have been made to bring ICANN under the purview of a treaty-based international organisation. One of these emerged at WSIS in 2005, when several proposals to incorporate it into the UN system were made. These attempts, however, were unsuccessful, and the United States resisted the move toward treaty organisation, fearing that multilateralism would lead to state-controlled internet regimes. Instead, the IGF was established to provide additional space for discussing internet governance (Kruger 2016). Recognizing the internet's growing global reach and concerns about internet surveillance (especially after the Snowden revelations) (Dencik et al. 2016) aided in fostering consensus about the need to separate ICANN from the US government. Following that, ICANN became a private non-profit corporation under California law, where "internationalisation through privatisation" was adopted, favouring a multistakeholder model approach once more (Mueller 2017; Mueller and Badiei 2017). As previously stated, e-commerce was first recognised in the WTO framework in 1998, when the Geneva Ministerial adopted a declaration that established an e-commerce work programme and a moratorium on e-commerce. As previously discussed, initial discussions focused on issues such as digital service delivery mode and technological neutrality. However, little progress was made in the 2000s in terms of rules and commitments (Meltzer 2014). A number of major points of contention were also avoided. For example, despite

many arguing that China's Great Wall of China could be challenged at the WTO under existing rules (Palmer 2010), no attempt has been made. This reluctance is due to a number of factors, including limitations in existing rules and digital firms' fear that pursuing such a case would jeopardise their ability to access the rapidly growing Chinese market. 16 During this time, states renewed the e-commerce moratorium, which committed them to no customs duties on electronic transmissions. This situation began to shift in the 2010s, reflecting the emerging digital trade agenda in the United States. The US pursued new rules, such as converting the e-commerce moratorium into a permanent commitment and pressuring the WTO to change the mandate of the "Work Programme on E-commerce" from discussion to negotiation. The EU has also joined this latter effort, advocating for more modest goals, largely reflecting the previously stated differences in positions on the issue among different European states and institutions. 17 On this issue, developing and emerging countries remain divided. Some believe that new WTO digital trade rules will help them attract digital investments, while others are concerned that broader WTO rules will result in complete liberalisation of digitally delivered products, limiting their policy space to pursue digital policies. Many developing countries have also expressed opposition to addressing new issues in the WTO, arguing that previously stalled Doha round negotiations must be resolved first (Palmer 2010), with a few arguing that digital issues are beyond the scope of the WTO and that trade negotiators lack the capacity to deal with them. These tensions in the WTO reached a boiling point in the run-up to the 2017 ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires. The advanced economies' goal in the ministerial was to shift the working group's mandate to negotiations in order to discuss new rules. However, some developing and emerging countries, particularly the African Group and India, have expressed strong opposition to such a change. The Africa group was extremely active on the issue, owing to the efforts of a small group of states within the group. 18 The negotiators from those states played a critical role in reaching a consensus within the group by organising internal group discussions and coalition-building in the run-up to the WTO Ministerial through public events at the WTO.

Along with this surge of opposition, momentum faded with the change in US administration, as President Donald Trump's administration disengaged from WTO negotiations, limiting the pressure on developing countries for a time. The ministerial ended with a tepid statement on future activities, the renewal of the moratorium, and the continuation of the 1998 working group, but no further progress (Foster & Azmeh 2018). With this failure to move forward, 76 WTO members, including the US, the EU, and Japan, announced during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019 that they will begin to work in a plurilateral manner to explore how future WTO negotiations can address e-commerce (Kihara 2019). Subsequently, debates over an e-commerce moratorium have grown. Indonesia demanded that the term "electronic transmissions" be defined to exclude digitised goods. While some members, such as the United States, demanded that the moratorium be made permanent, India and South Africa argued that "reality prevailing in 1998, when WTO members agreed for the first time to the temporary moratorium on custom duties on electronic transmissions, has changed significantly over the subsequent two decades" (WTO 2018). They emphasised the growing risk of losing custom revenues as more products are digitalized (Banga 2019). India and South Africa also contended that making the moratorium permanent implies that tariffs on digital goods will be zero even if tariffs on physical forms of these goods are higher. As a growing number of goods and services are exchanged via the internet, and an increasing number of products incorporate features that rely on connectivity and data, digital trade is becoming an increasingly important part of global trade. The rapid spread of digital technology in an increasing number of economic sectors has significant implications for the international trade regime. Changes brought about by digitalization processes are posing challenges to existing trade rules and necessitating the development of new trade rules. In contrast to international trade, where binding and enforceable rules have been developed over decades, the internet governance regime remains highly fragmented, with no clear focal institution(s) and limited implications for states. This has resulted in a significant and growing divergence in national internet governance, as evidenced

by policies such as data localization, internet filtering, and privacydriven controls. As previously discussed, such policies are frequently intertwined with economic goals to control trade flows or as part of strategic industrial and trade policies to support domestic digital sectors and digital catch-up. The threat posed by these trends to globalised digital firms (as well as digitalizing transnational firms) has sparked political mobilisation around the issue. The goal for these actors has been to incorporate key elements of the previous internet governance regime into the international trade regime. One goal of this campaign is to discipline states' use of digital policies, as well as to create a more predictable regulatory landscape for these firms' global operations. However, including digital trade in the international regime not only overcomes emerging issues such as state divergence in digital, but it may also enable broader processes of further trade liberalisation. The "digital trade agenda" can thus be viewed as a means of overcoming existing trade barriers through further liberalisation of trade in services and zero-tariff treatment of digital products. The United States is spearheading this campaign by adopting the digital trade agenda and promoting digital trade rules at the World Trade Organization and other forums. The TPP and TTIP agreements were viewed as important tools by US trade policymakers for governing digital trade with two key markets (the EU and Asia-Pacific), as well as as US models for future multilateral rules. The TPP, in particular, would have increased pressure on China to open up its digital market and abandon key elements of the "Great Firewall" through trade and investment diversion. At the multilateral level, the success of emerging and developing countries in resisting the digital trade agenda is driven not only by structural factors (particularly the growing role of emerging economies), but also by institutional factors such as the WTO's role as a forum for coalition building and mobilisation, particularly by the Africa Group. In contrast to the earlier case of intellectual property rights (Sell 2003), the campaign for digital rules was hampered by the absence of a strong coalition among advanced economies, as well as significant differences, particularly between the United States and the EU, on the governance regime for digital trade and data flows. This

analysis demonstrates that the emergence of digital trade and debates over digital trade governance are important factors in driving processes of regime shifting and competitive regime creation, contributing to further fragmentation of the international trade regime (Aggarwal and Evenett 2013) and what Morse and Keohane (2014) referred to as "contested multilateralism" (Griffith et al. 2017). Our discussion highlights another important aspect of the international trade regime analysis: the technological contingency of existing international regimes. The case of digital trade demonstrates how trade rules reflect a specific understanding of what trade is and the path dependency of existing institutions, as seen in issues such as the distinction of goods and services and the classification of modes of service supply in the WTO. Technological transformation, on the other hand, has the potential to fundamentally alter these modes and provide actors (states and firms) with new tools for navigating these rules. The international regime's policy space provided to states is determined not only by the strength or weakness of the rules in multilateral, regional, or bilateral agreements, but also by technological shifts in the modes of production, exchange, and consumption that underpin the trading regime. This calls into question the ability of existing institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, to deal with various technological modes of trade. The campaign to bring digital trade into the WTO demonstrates the difficulties in dealing with technological change through existing institutions. There is no clarity or rules on how to deal with such technological shifts, as evidenced by debates on technological neutrality or definitions of electronic transmissions. Aside from issues of technical competence and mandate, the politics and institutional design of existing institutions may make addressing these new issues difficult. Digitalization and technological transformation are now important factors in the processes of competitive regime creation, forum shifting, and the fragmentation of the international trade regime. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) published a global review of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on e-commerce and digital trade, concluding that greater efforts are needed to reduce disparities in e-trade readiness among countries. According to the report, governments, businesses,

consumers, and international development partners must work together to ensure that e-commerce plays a "positive and powerful role" in national and international recovery efforts. According to the report titled 'COVID-19 and E-commerce: A Global Review,' global GDP will fall by 4.3 percent in 2020. Global trade in goods fell by 9%, while global trade in services fell by 15%. Simultaneously, e-share commerce's of global retail increased from 14 percent to 17 percent between 2019 and 2020. In China, for example, between August 2019 and August 2020, the online retail share increased from 19.4 percent to 24.6 percent. Over the same time period, Kazakhstan's online retail share increased from 5% to 9.4%. Between February 2020 and March 2020, the number of shopping apps downloaded in Thailand increased by 60%. Teleworking, distance learning, online conferencing, gaming, and digital entertainment all experienced digital transformation accelerations in 2020. According to the report, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and highlighted the importance of addressing existing e-commerce barriers. According to the report, the accelerated trend toward e-commerce "is likely to be sustained during recovery," and e-commerce platforms are likely to retain a large portion of their market share gains. The digital economy and e-commerce, according to the report, "are at the heart of the SDGs," bringing both opportunities and challenges. Widening digital divides with increased income inequality, job and task automation, and consumer protection, data privacy, and cyber-crime are all challenges. Opportunities include improved access to global markets for goods and services, increased online retail share, and faster digital transformation. According to the report, countries that capitalise on the potential of e-commerce will be better positioned to benefit from global markets for their goods and services in a digitalizing economy, whereas countries that do not capitalise on this potential risk falling behind. The report suggests addressing existing barriers to countries' digital readiness and creating an enabling environment for e-commerce through a multi-stakeholder approach across the entire e-commerce value chain. Approaches include e-commerce readiness assessments and strategy formulation, ICT infrastructure and services, access to ecommerce financing, e-commerce skill development, and empowering

entrepreneurs in developing countries. Governments can support these approaches by collecting and analysing data on the impact of policies and business practises, identifying critical gaps that require intervention, developing ecommerce strategies that are integrated into broader national development, fostering public-private partnerships (PPPs) to increase consumer and merchant awareness and trust in e-commerce, and strengthening inter-ministerial and stakeholder dialogues for ecommerce. Businesses in developing countries can improve their readiness to participate in the digital economy by improving their data capture and utilisation capabilities and accelerating digitalization for small businesses. The recommendations in the report are intended to supplement current negotiations among World Trade Organization (WTO) members on a consolidated draught text on e-commerce, including the legal structure and path the e-commerce initiative will take within the WTO framework. Members met in small groups on March 16 during e-commerce negotiations to discuss text proposals on open government data, online consumer protection, paperless trading, source code, and open internet access. Members discussed a threshold for low-value goods below which customs duties or taxes will not be collected, improved trade facilitation, logistics services, single windows data exchange, system interoperability, the use of technology for the release and clearance of goods, trade policy improvements, and the provision of trade facilitating services. According to a WTO press release, members are close to reaching an agreement on a clean text on electronic signatures and authentication. George Mina (Australia), co-convener, reminded members of their goal to "deliver clean text on ten areas of the negotiations before the summer break." He praised the progress made through small group discussions and urged members to be willing to compromise. Coconvener Hung Seng Tan (Singapore) urged members to maintain their ambition in the talks, and urged them to ensure that the initiative "remains commercially meaningful to stakeholders" by ensuring that the agreements address modern business needs and new realities. Co-convenor Kazuyuki Yamazaki (Japan) stated that the initiative should continue to "pay attention to developing countries that are facing challenges related to capacity building and the digital divide."

The e-commerce joint statement initiative (JSI) is one of several such processes, which also include JSIs on investment facilitation, domestic regulation of services, micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and trade and gender. The global review of COVID-19 and e-commerce was led by UNCTAD and the UN Regional Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The study also drew on regional reports from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), and a variety of other organisations. The study is the first researchoriented project carried out under the 'eTrade for all' banner. eTrade for All is an initiative that aims to fill knowledge gaps in e-commerce while also encouraging collaboration among partners. Here are the Trends for Digital Trade: 1. Cross border data flows 2.Privacy Standards 3.Cybersecurity Standards 4. E-commerce related market Access 5.Competition Policy Digital trade is polymorphic and ubiquitous, making it extremely difficult to define. It's difficult to draw a line between digital and nondigital goods and services. Is a physical book ordered online digital if a digital book is a digital product? This question necessitates the classification of goods, but it also concerns the entire trade system, from order to delivery via production. Digitalisation has an impact on every aspect of trade: it improves product delivery efficiency, catalyses physical production and value chains, connects products and consumers globally, and enables data flows that, even if nonmonetary, generate resources and monetary outcomes. Embracing and measuring such large changes and evolutions in trade is naturally

difficult. This challenge begins with defining and categorising what constitutes and does not constitute digital trade. Beginning in 2012, with the initiative of the United States International Trade Commission (USITC), and later developed by governmental and international organisations (IO), a common definition framework for digital trade was established, which has been coalescing in recent years. In 2016, Germany, as the G20 Presidency, prioritised digital trade, and the OECD, WTO, and other IO developed a common collaborative working strategy and increased their research efforts on the topic of digital trade in general, and on its related statistics in particular. The USITC established the first definitions in 2012, followed by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis in 2013. If the first stated that digital trade excludes physical goods with digital counterparts, such as books or CDs[1,] the second stated that any trade from a "digitally enabled" industry was included. Unfortunately, the results of these two first definitions could be vastly different in terms of digital trade. The USITC concluded that digital trade has a 0.0 percent to 0.3 percent effect on real GDP (Williamson, 2013), and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis discovered that digital trade accounted for 56 percent of service imports and 61 percent of service exports in 2010, for a 116 billion dollar surplus (U.S Department of Commerce, 2012). This example demonstrates both the difficulty of establishing a definition and, more importantly, the enormous gap that can result from measurement based on different definitions. The absence of a global base framework impedes accurate measurement of digital trade, as well as the resulting research and policy development. Measuring digital trade, like defining it, is a difficult task. A sizable portion of digital commerce easily slips through the measurement net. It is also frequently difficult to determine the precise impact of digital technology on industry and trade. The first issue that arises in the measurement process after establishing a framework is the identification and classification of transactions. Many transactions remain difficult to classify within the specified framework. Is a 3D printing transaction considered a trade in goods or a trade in services? In the case of a ride-sharing platform that connects clients and drivers, such as Uber, is the transaction considered a business or a

transportation service? The growing number of under-the-radar and barely measurable transactions also makes accurate measurement of digital trade difficult. Non-monetary transactions and the exchange of intangible goods are particularly difficult to quantify. A typical nonmonetary transaction would be the free use of a social media website that provides data to companies like Google or Facebook that can be used or traded for monetary value. Because of the internet, any digital good can now be copied and sent multiple times. Furthermore, because these digital goods are frequently only sold once, they generate unaccounted value. Furthermore, digital technologies act as a catalyst for physical trade flows. "Digital Wrappers," as they are referred to, enable increased productivity by providing valuable information on value chains, production, or transportation, and thus optimise value creation. Such improvements, however, are difficult to quantify, and one may wonder to what extent these digital tools improve productivity and to what extent industry could develop without these digital technologies. What is the true added value of digital technologies in physical trade? Clearly, accounting for the net impact of digitalization on trade is a conundrum. The line between what digital tools enabled and what could have been done without them is very hazy. As a result, various methods are employed in order to accurately assess the impact of digitalization on trade. One approach is to use a proxy, such as data flow or e-commerce data (McKinsey, 2016). While this proxy provides interesting results for digitally enabled trade, it does not adequately capture the increase in productivity enabled by digitalization. On the other hand, according to the GED project's proposed study on digital trade (Bertelsmann, 2016), one can investigate the extent to which sectors are digitally intensive and assess the impact of digitalization on trade depending on the sector. However, as previously stated, exhaustive and precise quantification of digital transactions is nearly impossible. For commodity trading companies, digitalization is about leveraging new technology to improve business processes and increase value. Advances in computer power, connectivity, and mobile devices enable a more connected value chain, powering significant improvements in communication, collaboration, and decision making and here they are:

1.Connectivity links real-time data from across the value chain Even a decade ago, no one could have predicted the level of connectedness we experience in 2019. Commodity trading companies have access to real-time market feeds, weather reports, product movements, news, manufacturing and shipping schedules, inventory levels, and more. IoT sensors are embedded in everything from shipping containers to soil sensors, providing a real-time view of agriculture products from farm to fork, metals from mine to manufacturer, and oil from discovery to consumption. The challenge is ensuring you are using all the information that can help you grow your business. Can your commodity trading and risk management (CTRM) software aggregate and analyse all this data to help you make better trading decisions? Information alone is not enough, you also need the analytics to make sense of it.

2.Artificial Intelligence (AI) turns big data into insights Artificial Intelligence has been around for decades, but only recently have computers been powerful enough to rapidly analyse the quantity of data generated in commodity management each day. Now, computers can aggregate real-time information, analyse it, and create valuable intelligence in the period of just a few minutes. Take, for example, a farmer analysing the health of his crop. He can upload a photo of a plant and an app on his phone can immediately tell him if the plant is diseased or not. This is a process typically takes days, or even weeks, requiring contracting a specialist, scheduling an appointment, and waiting for the specialist to evaluate the crop. If the crop was diseased, that disease could spread while the farmer waits for the specialist – ruining more of the crop.

3.Mobile enables faster, smarter decision making Today’s mobile phones connect people, systems and data together in real time. If there is an emergency on a Saturday night, someone can call you, email you, text you, and message you and all four of those messages will arrive to your phone immediately. If a market disruption occurs, you can log into your CTRM from your phone and immediately evaluate your options. For example, if you have Eka’s Position

app and you see a news story that concerns you, you can quickly log into the app on your phone, view your position in real time, run a few simulations based on the news story, and create some reports to share with your team. You can do all of this in minutes, without leaving your house, enabling you to take quick action when required.

4.Cloud computing enables faster implementations, better access, and greater flexibility Moving from on-premise systems to a cloud-native platform lets you access your data at any time, ensuring mobile access to both data and systems. Beyond that, perhaps the biggest advantage of cloudnative software is the ability to implement it quickly – both the initial implementation and scaling and extending the solution. Imagine you are a small trading house just starting out. You need a starter CTRM with basic, out-of-the-box apps. With Eka, our simplest implementations can be completed in under two weeks, so you are up and running fast. Six months later your business has exploded, and you need more capacity. That’s not a problem with a cloud-based commodity management platform, you simply use more server space. There is no need to purchase additional hardware. Now a year passes, and you need some additional reporting and risk management apps. Since the platform is cloud based, you can quickly and easily implement additional apps without purchasing new hardware or disrupting your existing CTRM processes. The cloud-based platform grows with you.

5.Blockchain enables collaboration across the entire value chain Blockchain has the power to improve commodity trading efficiency exponentially. By connecting all trading partners via blockchain, you can eliminate cumbersome and repetitive paperwork, reduce email and phone correspondence, and eliminate middlemen in transactions. Creating a blockchain where every member of the value chain has instant, accurate visibility into the entire value chain ensures all parties can negotiate quickly and effectively, track commodities in transit, and settle invoices in a timely manner. One example of the power of blockchain is the first coffee blockchain marketplace that Eka implemented to enable coffee traders in India to negotiate directly with trading partners, provide complete traceability of crops, and improve billing and paperwork. Commodity trading companies must embrace new technology to succeed in rapidly evolving commodity markets. Real-time data and the ability to analyse it provide the chance to stay ahead as markets shift, and that ability provides a competitive

advantage to companies savvy enough to use it. Don’t be the one left behind. Digital trade, like traditional trade, is part of the larger economic picture. Digital trade is a component of the growing digital economy and has an impact on the non-digital economy as a whole. Digital commerce is not a new concept. Despite the fact that it has been around for a while, there is no universally agreed-upon definition and scope. This has resulted in a lack of agreement and a slew of debates and discussions about how to best apply rules to digital trade. Later in this paper, we'll get into that. For the time being, a simple definition of digital trade is the sale and purchase of goods and services via the internet, with the digital good or digital services delivered digitally. Many argue that even if the entire transaction takes place online, if the end product is a physical good or service, it is not digital trade. This will be covered in greater detail later in the paper. To help clarify this narrow definition, some examples of digitally enabled transactions are provided below. The entire production chain, from placing the order to developing the product to receiving it digitally, is an example of digital trade. For example, suppose a small business decides to establish a presence on the internet. It then contacts a website developer, who can provide server space, a domain name, and the creation and design of the website. The website developer agrees, both parties agree on a price and timeframe, and once the website is up and running, the small company that ordered it will pay the developer via wire transfer from their bank to the developer's bank account. Payment has been received, and the transaction has been completed successfully. This is digital commerce. The second example is streaming services for movies and TV shows. There are several companies, but for the sake of brevity, this report uses Netflix as an example of a pioneer in this field. Movies and television shows delivered digitally are technically goods; however, the way this transaction is defined is as paying for a service delivered directly to the consumer digitally. Netflix is classified as a digital consumer service because it does not sell movies or television shows; instead, it charges a subscription fee that can be paid monthly or annually with a credit card. The subscription then provides the consumer with direct access to its library of movies and TV shows.

This model has proven to be extremely successful, as Netflix now has 195 million global subscribers[iii], placing it among the top 40 global companies in terms of market capitalization. Other brands have emerged and begun to offer the same subscription model, but the closest competitor, Disney Plus, has only 60 million subscribers to date. This business model is classified as digital trade. A consumer service is being delivered digitally, and electronic payment is possible. The third example is a business-to-consumer transportation model. Uber is a technology company that provides transportation services to consumers. The Uber application must be installed on a smartphone, and the user must then register their information, including credit card information and address. The consumer can then use the Uber application to request transportation through the app. The application then sends an alert to Uber drivers, allowing them to respond to the request. Typically, the driver who is closest to the consumer responds and is connected to the consumer by Uber. These Uber drivers are not professional taxi drivers with taxis; rather, an Uber driver is someone who owns a car, has a smartphone, and has registered with Uber to be on the list of drivers who can be contacted through the ride hailing application. These Uber drivers then receive a portion of the money paid to Uber. All of these transactions take place and are supported digitally. Even if you are physically able to give it to the driver after they drop you off at the destination you specified when you requested the ride, your tip at the end of the ride is given to the driver via the application, not in cash. Also, Uber is now available in many countries, allowing users to use the service even if they are not in their registered home country. Being able to hail a ride from your phone in a foreign country that you've just visited is convenient; you don't even need to have the local currency or speak the language because the app handles all of the communication and payment between their Uber driver and you, the Uber customer. This is the delivery of a digitally enabled service. This is also a form of digital trade. Following the success of the Uber model, several other tech companies, including Lyft, Grab, and others, have made this service available. A financial transaction is the fourth example. It's pretty straightforward. Conference documents, for example, must be translated into a number of languages so that participants can access them in their

preferred language. The conference organisers then hire a team of professional interpreters to translate the documents. A price and timetable have been agreed upon. The translated documents are sent to the conference organisers via the internet, who then send the agreed-upon payment. This payment can be made in a variety of ways, including by bank transfer. In this case, the example is PayPal, a payment hub. Both the payee and the payor sign up for PayPal online, and the conference organiser can then send the payment to the translator via PayPal, which he or she receives into their account. This is digital commerce. The fifth example is purchasing a digital good, such as a digital book or e-book. Amazon is one of many online bookstores or websites that sell e-books. The consumer is assumed to have a device – an e-book reader, a Kindle, an iPad, a computer, or any other technology that allows you to read digital material like e-books; the consumer then orders one or more e-books from Amazon online, pays with a credit card, and receives the book/s digitally directly to their preferred gadget. That is the electronic sale and delivery of a digital good. That is digital commerce. The sixth example is purchasing applications or software for your electronic devices. People with iPhones, for example, can connect online, browse the App Store, and select applications ranging from ride hailing apps like Uber to games to various photo editing software to document readers. All of this is done online, paid for with your already pre-registered credit card on your device, and then delivered directly to your device. This is digital commerce.

Policy recommendations for a swift recovery in Digital Trading: To support Industry to recover and conquer new markets we call for European leaders to: 1.Adopt Leadership at multilateral level: Continue to push for a realistic and meaningful reform of the WTO to stay relevant and to maintain the rules-based multilateral approach to trade. This requires updating the rulebook to address trade-distorting practices, which lead to an uneven playing field, unfair competition, and increasing

challenges for European industry. This includes maintaining an open and collaborative transatlantic dialogue. 2.Foster collaboration to boost technological capacity: Seek geopolitical alliances with like-minded partners at the WTO, through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Investment Protection Agreements (IPAs). Through these agreements, Europe can remove barriers, create transparency, require reciprocity, support the creation of a global level playing field, advance the global agenda, and ensure access to critical raw materials and inputs for its Industry. It is crucial that tackling these trade barriers remains the EU’s top priority. 3.Maintain an “open for business” Europe: Use Europe’s improved trade defence instruments (TDI) in a qualitative way – after careful consideration of possible harmful side-effects on other sectors, and always in line with WTO compliance – to enforce its rights. Harmonize the approach in Member States on the screening of Foreign Direct Investments in strategic sectors to avoid unintended consequences. The FDI screening tool is a powerful tool to respond to national security concerns. However, to enhance legal certainty for investors and to avoid misuse of the term ‘national security,’ it should always remain interpreted within the scope of Regulation (EU) 2019/452. 4.Champion digital trade globally: With digital technologies being key to economic recovery and resilience, the EU should take a leading role in promoting digital trade globally. By promoting mechanisms that allow for European companies to be plugged into the global data economy through data flows that meet our strong privacy and security standards, we can strengthen the European Industry for the decades to come. At the WTO we should work towards the successful conclusion of the agreement on e-commerce and make permanent the moratorium removing customs duties on electronic transmissions. 5.Boost the trade of digital technologies: Keep building upon the spirit of the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) by promoting the elimination of import tariffs on ICT equipment. These are critical to help companies shifting to a digital work environment, and for further public and private investment in digital transformation. Also, exempt ICT and consumer electronics goods (e.g. servers, storage, networking, end-user devices such as desktop PCs, laptops,

monitors, printers, routers, Smart TVs etc.) from movement restrictions and internal border controls, as they are essential to keep critical infrastructures running and to enable remote working as well as keeping European citizens connected. To ensure a seamless supply, the EU should also advocate internationally to include ICT equipment in the list of “essential goods” where this distinction is made. 6.Refrain from unilateral export control measures: The same technologies that were promoted under the ITA mentioned above might be at risk of falling under unilateral export control measures, leading to a fragmentation of the digital ecosystem and global supply chains. The EU should try to seek a common approach on export control of dual use items and emerging technologies at the level of the Wassenaar Arrangement. 7.Lead on international standards and certification schemes to ensure flexibility in supply chains: As supply chains suffered strong disruptions due to the pandemic, 3D Printing quickly stepped in and helped to solve supply chain gaps by covering the surplus demand in providing access to equipment. The use of additive manufacturing also provided on-demand solutions allowing flexible substitution of critical parts from global sources with parts produced on-site. However, the pandemic stressed the issue of lack of standards and certifications currently available in this sector as well of a trained workforce. An adequate regulatory response should be considered to ensure that the full potential of these technologies – especially to render supply chains more flexible – can be exploited. 8.Continue to promote a business-friendly approach to taxation policy and support OECD efforts: Taxation should enhance, not hinder, digitalization and consider its benefits for more efficient and sustainable businesses and societies. A specific tax model targeting digitalization and covering just the EU would lead to costly tax disputes, double taxation, and tax increases, harming not only European companies but also the EU. Given the Covid-19 crisis, the need for a multilateral solution to the tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy is even greater. Furthermore, the outcome should be principled and not disproportionately impact a specific sector or country.

9.Use economic diplomacy to ensure an external dimension: The new Industrial policy has the opportunity to strengthen Europe’s strategic and competitive advantages (e.g. digital and sustainable technologies, industrial AI and Internet of Things) to empower its companies to compete and lead globally. Europe should also promote a level playing field via new WTO rules and push for the adoption of new diplomatic instruments, such as the International Procurement Instrument, to put pressure on trading partners to open up their markets. 9.10 Banking Digital banking is a term that means different things to different people. Customers benefit from the benefits of innovation and convenience when they use digital banking. Digital banking means improved customer satisfaction, increased business and operational efficiency for financial institutions, including banks. It ensures an easy flow of data, better control, and monitoring for regulators. In a nutshell, digital banking means increased customer engagement, profitability, and control. Digital banking can be defined as banks providing transactional services to customers via various secure digital channels while also ensuring data security, risk mitigation, and regulatory compliance. This is accomplished by integrating online (internet) and mobile banking services through the use of cutting-edge digital technologies such as analytics, social media, innovative payment solutions, and mobile technology with the goal of exceeding customer expectations, convenience, and experience. Until about two decades ago, banks relied on a physical branch network (brick and mortar) to expand their customer base and branch network. This method incurs additional costs in the form of rent, maintenance costs, electricity charges, and so on. Despite significant progress in digital banking, many banks' cost-to-income ratios remain in the 45-55 percent range. Payment and Settlement Enablers via Digital Channels. During the last 20 years, the technology boom has been a major driving force behind the expansion of banking business in India and around the world. Internet and mobile access are now available even

in the most remote corners of the globe, connecting people and organisations like never before. Over time, the technological revolution altered customer expectations as well as the way organisations functioned. The first impact was felt in terms of improved operational ease, but this was only the beginning. The proliferation of mobile connectivity and related infrastructure has opened up the banking sector to fintech technology firms. Fintech companies were successful in launching a variety of customer-friendly products that drew a large number of customers. The challenge posed by these companies compelled banks to redesign their processes and products in order to retain customers, resulting in the first face of digital banking. The introduction of cash-dispensing Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) was only the beginning of the revolution. The next step in digital banking was to meet rising customer expectations. This compelled banks to develop better innovations, products, and services in order to ensure customer satisfaction and delight. The style of banking has been redefined by digital banking. Customers can now manage their banking transactions from the comfort of their own living room, without the involvement of banking personnel. Banks began offering 24 x 7 service to customers by the end of the last century by leveraging technology, but now customers carry 24 x 7 banking facility with them, in their smart phones. Smartphones now handle the vast majority of payments and settlements. The process of converting data into digital format is known as digitization. One example is converting an analogue audio signal to a digital format. Strings of binary numbers, 1 and 0, are used to represent the converted data in this process. Beyond digitization, there is digitalization. Digitalization allows for a fully interactive and multimedia experience. It provides better results through effective customer engagement. Digitization in banking refers to the process of storing transaction details digitally. However, digital banking is the business process of keeping records in digital form, interpreting the data to useful information through the use of analytical methods, improving customer engagement and generating more business through customer specific interaction, and thus improving operating efficiency and income for the bank. Different Channels, Goals, and

Benefits of Digital Banking. Banks aim to reduce operational expenses and improve business opportunities by providing digital banking services by focusing on three factors: • Establish an appropriate conversation with the customer via various touch points. • Anticipate customer needs and provide tailored solutions • Ensure customer satisfaction The physical network of branches and related expenses have had a negative impact on bank balance sheets. Banks are now collecting data and patterns of customer interactions with them via digital channels. The captured data is converted to useful information using an analytical framework, and customers are offered customer-specific products. Customer-specific data is being pushed to the physical network as well, so that they can interact with customers face to face and generate more business, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of physical networks. To reach as many customers as possible, digital banking is available through a variety of channels. Because customer preferences differ, different channels are required. Customers can conduct transactions and interact with the bank primarily through four digital channels. They are:

i.ATMs, Cash Dispensing Machines (CDMs), and Payment Cards. ii. Internet-based applications iii. Mobile (including UPI-based) applications and SMS iv. Contact Centre/ Interactive Voice Response Normal usages are classified as shown below: 1. The majority of customers prefer Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and Cash Dispensing Machines (CDM) for cash withdrawal and remittance, respectively.

2. Online (Internet channel), mobile (SMS channel), and contact centre/IVR channel: a. Account opening and closing, loan inquiry and eligibility determination, loan application, and financial advice. b. Carrying out transactions, gathering transaction details, and service requests related to accounts such as debit/credit card requests, stop payments, chequebook requests, and so on. c. Using third-party services such as income tax filing, ticket booking, hotel booking, and so on. d. For receiving alerts and paying bills e. Settlements and payments 3. Customers who prefer human interaction choose Contact Centre/IVR to report a problem or inquire about a fee, service charge, or transactional details. All of the aforementioned activities are carried out through highly secure channels and environments. The aforementioned services are also available at physical locations. However, some banks have a policy of charging customers if they visit a branch to obtain certain services. This inadvertently encourages customers to switch to digital banking. What are the advantages of digital banking for customers? • Convenience of banking anywhere and at any time • Simplified transactions • Transaction secrecy, even without the intervention of bank staff • Innovative products and services provided by banks There will be no trips to branches or queues, resulting in cost savings and time savings. What are the advantages of digital banking for banks?

• Satisfaction of customers through innovative products and services • Improved customer focus through the use of technology that predicts customer demands and preferences; • Increased customer loyalty through the provision of personalised offers and services at the customer's convenience; • Increased business through the use of analytics to offer customerspecific products. • Increased profitability by reducing reliance on the physical branch network • Complying with regulatory requirements via transparency and disclosures • Dealing with the challenges posed by innovative fintech solutions. • Achieving business goals and objectives in a cost-effective manner. • A 360-degree view of customers based on data gathered from bank records, social media, and other publicly available sources. • Obtaining new customers, particularly young ones, to ensure future business prospects • Increase operational efficiency by ensuring accurate data and dependable management. System of Information In digital channel enablers worked wonders, making digital banking transactions the default option for payments and settlements. The competition among banks to delight customers by providing a better banking experience has popularised digital channels and digital banking. Simultaneously, innovative products offered by non-bank entities, as well as their promotional activities, prompted the population to experiment with digital channel-based payment systems. Banks and non-bank entities have been competing to offer mobilebased payment services by leveraging increased mobile density and mobile internet users. They were successful in making mobile the most powerful digital channel tool for payments and settlements. Banks used the power of SMS, USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Services Data), NEFT, and IMPS to migrate customers to digital banking, while non-banking entities used IMPS, BHIM, and QR codes to attract customers. These developments facilitated the transition from cash-based settlements to payments and settlements via digital

channels. Customers in today's fast-paced world expect funds to be transferred across the globe in real time and to transact in the physical world without the use of physical cash. The desire to conduct business without leaving the comfort of one's office prompted banks to develop alternative delivery channels as part of their transition to digital banking. ATMs, cards, POS machines, internet banking, and mobile banking are now the most common alternative banking channels. Customers can now get money transfers, online investments, deposit openings, tax, bill, and fee payments, forex transactions, equity trades, and other services without having to visit a bank branch. Fintech firms have played a significant role in rewriting the banking industry by leveraging technology and meeting customer demands in real time without even involving banks. Traditional banks are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with such disruptive banking innovations. Recognizing that they cannot compete and survive on branch banking alone, traditional banks have begun to invest heavily in technology in order to remain relevant to their customers. Traditional banks are facing a significant financial burden as a result of their investments in ever-changing technology. However, the digital journey has become essential for traditional banks as well, and they now use data mining and analytics in the background to explore the possibility of upselling while customers interact with the bank online. Banks' ability to analyse investment patterns, spending preferences, and transaction habits has allowed them to develop a comprehensive profile of their customers. With a better understanding of their customers, banks can predict their wants and satisfy them by offering tailor-made products. Banks have succeeded in delighting customers and retaining a significant portion of their wallet by improving product offerings and providing value-added services based on customer preferences. The transition to digital banking has presented banks with a significant challenge: protecting themselves from cyberattacks. Banks are the first choice of hawkers because they accept deposits from customers and are also the custodians of money. Banks are required to ensure

end-to-end information security and cyber security from bank servers to the devise with the customer when extending the channels of operations to their customers' mobiles. They face numerous challenges in this endeavour. Banks must align their security practises with their business practises and remain vigilant at all times. To protect the money entrusted to them by the public, the best information security and cyber security practises should be in place. A branch attack can only result in a minor loss for the bank. An attack on the bank's main server, on the other hand, calls the bank's very existence into question. New threats emerge as technology advances. To keep up with technology and follow the latest trends in digital banking, a bank must invest heavily in both technology and threat prevention. The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is an excellent payment system that has evolved into the backbone of digital banking in India. UPI allows the user to instantly transfer funds from his account to the payee's account by providing the recipient's identification code and a PIN. It also allows for receipt. The Unified Payment Interface is a smartphone application that connects multiple bank accounts to a simple and easy-to-use mobile application. When using the exceptional interface, the user is not required to provide information about his or her own accounts or those of the beneficiary. The UPI has evolved into a critical component of digital payments, promoting digital banking among the general public. It encourages cashless transactions by reducing reliance on physical currency. UPI and mobile wallets are critical components of digital banking. Typically, a mobile wallet is a closed wallet. This means that in order for a transaction to take place, both parties must be registered with the same wallet service provider. However, UPI frees users from this reliance. It is not necessary for the beneficiary to have an account with the same bank as the payer. Furthermore, the user can use any bank's UPI-based application. It does not have to be the one recommended by his own bank. As a result, the customer can download the most straightforward and user-friendly UPI-based application for his digital banking transactions. UPI eliminates barriers

between banks. It should be noted, however, that the RBI is looking into the possibility of allowing inter-wallet transactions. The following are the benefits of UPI-based digital banking applications: i. The payee is not required to provide the payer with his account information. ii. Because UPI-based digital banking technology is indigenous, transaction costs are lower. iii.Payments can be initiated by either the payee or the payer. iv. It is a simple digital payment system that ensures secure transactions without the use of a credit card or net banking. To complete any transaction via the UPI-based application, the customer must first log in to the UPI-based application by providing the log in credentials. Paying money (push/payment option) to a beneficiary can be accomplished by entering the beneficiary's virtual ID and amount, as well as authenticating the transaction via personal identification number (PIN). To collect the amount, the user must initiate the receive payment (pull / receive option) and enter the remitter's virtual ID and the amount. The payer will receive a message upon authentication. When the payee approves the transaction, his account is debited and the funds are transferred to the recipients' accounts. In all types of transactions, both the payee and the payer will receive confirmation messages. When we asked Austin Kilgore, director of digital lending at Javelin Strategy & Research, about the path to digital, he said, "Consumers who eagerly embrace digital channels value the ability to accomplish tasks more efficiently and on a timeframe that is convenient for their schedule." "Those who still prefer in-person or paper-based processes are typically looking for an experience with which they are already familiar and believe will make it easier to ask questions or get help." Consumers on opposite ends of the digital spectrum share the same desire to interact with their financial institution with confidence. "That's why, in addition to providing a comprehensive set of customer

engagement tools, it's critical to clearly communicate their availability and utility to customers," Kilgore continued. At this point in time, lenders have an opportunity to engage more of their customers through digital channels. What is the key to breaking through any remaining resistance? Creating exceptional, user-friendly digital experiences that are accessible to all types of consumers. We've compiled a list of four critical steps for converting banking customers to digital channels. Here they are: 1.Step 1: Adopt an omnichannel strategy. Customers will feel more at ease using online banking channels if they are branded and provide the familiar experience they have come to expect from a branch. However, omnichannel banking entails more than just providing consistent services to customers across physical and digital channels. Consumers today expect to be able to switch between channels with ease. In fact, 74% of consumers say they use multiple channels to begin and finish a transaction. True omnichannel banking is about meeting customers where they are, on their terms, with an experience that seamlessly transitions between digital and inperson interactions. This can include allowing a borrower to begin an application in person before completing it online, or allowing a borrower to make an inquiry online before handing it over to an employee. If you get this step right, the benefits can be substantial. Companies with strong omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain 89 percent of their customers, compared to 33 percent for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement. 2.Step 2: Emphasize simplicity and usability. Because ease of use is one of the most important factors influencing the adoption of online banking services, a simple user interface is critical. Slow response times, lag, muddled interfaces, and overengineering can cause friction between customers and financial institutions, limiting digital banking experiences and potentially jeopardising relationships. Details such as in-app chat and responsive design can have a long-term impact. "Banks that encourage and

support customers now will be well positioned to increase use of digital channels in the future," McKinsey writes. 3.Step 3: Provide assistance where it is required. When making financial decisions, consumers, particularly those who are new to digital channels, want to feel reassured. Customers are more confident in exploring online options when lending teams prioritise communication efforts about the availability of digital channels. And the best online experiences go above and beyond by answering questions as they arise in real time to put users at ease. It is critical to have a frictionless handoff to employees when things become difficult. However, human assistance isn't always the best option. More than 80% of customers prefer to resolve issues on their own before contacting a live representative. This emphasises the importance of providing in-line support or tips for customers, as well as clear error message explanations and status updates, to improve interaction intelligibility. 4.Step 4: Select the best partner Many software vendors provide industry-agnostic applications that financial institutions can customise. However, technology designed specifically for banking leverages expertise and domain knowledge, allowing lending teams to deliver more seamless, compliant digital experiences. Choose a partner who provides cutting-edge banking software designed specifically for the financial services industry. White-labelled solutions are also useful because they enable customised experiences and processes to best meet the needs of a financial institution. Top digital banking features for an exceptional customer experience: 1. Convenient account opening in a matter of minutes Customers can open a bank account using digital self-onboarding regardless of where they are or what device they are using.

Simplifying access to banking services and reducing the time it takes to open an account to a few minutes simplifies life for customers and removes barriers to switching. Gathering and validating basic information about a customer, reviewing provided documents, and performing due diligence to ensure legal and regulatory compliance are all part of next-generation onboarding. By using remote review services from ID and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to automate the document review and validation steps, this process can be completed in about five steps in less than five minutes. According to OneSpan.com, banks and financial institutions have already made digital account opening a top priority. It is actively used in 68 percent of respondents' onboarding processes. Self-service not only improves the customer experience, but it also streamlines data collection and processing, allowing banks to reallocate resources elsewhere. 2. Account-to-account (A2A) transactions P2P payments, also known as peer-to-peer payments, are a simple but effective solution that allows for near-instantaneous money transfers between any device. Customers can pay and send money to friends and family from their phone or computer with just a few taps. Mobile-first customers have little patience for multi-day bank transfers that do not work on weekends when better and faster alternatives are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Banks that provide the convenience and simplicity of instant payments can keep their customers rather than losing them to payment services such as Venmo. 3. Loan applications that are intuitive Customers can easily open new accounts, obtain credit cards, and apply for loans using an automated digital application process. The ability to apply for any banking service with a few clicks can boost conversion rates for both existing and new financial products. Lending is a core banking service that can reap significant benefits from a next-generation digital strategy.

Customers do not have to re-enter data that is already in the system because the loan application process is integrated into a core banking system. Customers can save and reopen their applications at a later time, while banks can track these leads and follow up with assistance and personalised offers. 4. Payments that are scheduled Monthly and annual bills are time-consuming recurring payments. Automation and management billing tools provide a new level of convenience for both individuals and customers. Banks can provide their customers with the ability to centralise and control their spending by linking billers directly to bank accounts or cards. Quick access to all subscriptions with a real-time overview helps customers avoid unexpected costs and provides peace of mind. Bulk transfers, like scheduled payments, allow account holders to send money from a single account to multiple recipients. Business transactions, salaries, and other frequent payments can be streamlined to provide customers with a quick, easy, and efficient method of processing bulk payments. 5. Personal digital card administration Banks can give customers more control over their finances by using digital card management. Setting online spending limits and blocking payment cards with a few taps increases convenience and security. Customers can use digital card management to tailor their settings to their purchasing habits by turning contactless NFC and online payments on or off. A detailed transaction history organised by country, merchant type, and location aids in the prevention of irregularities and the early detection of fraudulent transactions. 6. Reliable security Digital banking services collect and store sensitive customer data, which must be protected and secured using cutting-edge technology. Banks and financial institutions must meet stringent regulatory data requirements and implement industry best practises in order to

provide a next-generation customer experience. A modern banking experience must include multi-factor biometric authentication, locationbased security, suspicious activity notifications, card tokenization, and predictive fraud detection systems. 7. Notifications sent on time Customers can monitor their financial activity and protect themselves from fraudulent withdrawals and transactions by using in-app alerts and notifications. Customers can stay on top of their finances with real-time notifications of incoming and outgoing payments, low balance alerts, overdraft protection alerts, and payment providers. Each app alert represents a new opportunity for banks to provide better products and services to their customers. 8.Personal Finance Management Banks can play an active role in assisting customers to improve their financial behaviour and make better financial decisions. Customers can use PFM tools and features to plan their finances by setting spending and savings goals. Clients can choose to allocate more of their income to savings or retirement accounts by tracking weekly and monthly progress with clear visual charts. Banks that assist their customers in making better decisions can increase customer trust and loyalty. 9. Beneficial Loyalty Programs Customers feel valued when they are rewarded for making certain decisions, such as becoming a member of an exclusive banking community. Reward coupons, custom cards, special offers, cashback, and referral rewards are just a few of the strategies used by digital banking platforms to reward customers for brand loyalty. Customers who are pleased with a product or service become the best brand ambassadors. 10 simple digital insurance policies

Bancassurance, or partnerships and integrations between insurance companies and banks, is assisting financial institutions in expanding their service offerings within their ecosystem. Personalized digital insurance packages that come with an account increase customer satisfaction while providing banks with new revenue streams. Insurance linked to a bank account simplifies the claims process and significantly shortens the time it takes to receive reimbursement. 4 Advantages of a Banking Digital Transformation: 1. Online, trustworthiness is gained. People nowadays select their banks based on how they perceive the institution. The way a financial institution positions itself online shapes their perception. Social media platforms, websites, and advertisements all have an impact on people. If banks can do good online marketing, it will help them build trust in the eyes of the public. There are numerous ways to develop a relationship with a customer, but one strategy in particular that has yielded excellent results is Online Reputation Management. 2. It is less expensive and simpler to acquire new customers. Customers rely on banks just as much as banks rely on customers. As a result, financial institutions can no longer be passive in their approach to attracting customers for financial services. The good news is that there is a less expensive and simpler way to attract these customers to you. The Internet provides excellent platforms for reaching out directly to these potential customers on their devices. This makes influencing them easier, which increases the likelihood of them approaching you. It's also known as Content Marketing, and it's the new word of mouth. It increases engagement and builds trust with both prospects and customers. 3. Personalized Gift

Financial institutions can better understand what their customers want thanks to digital transformation. They can tailor their financial services to meet the needs of their customers rather than relying on guesswork. Banks can strengthen customer engagement with personalised offerings thanks to new innovative technological developments. 4. Allows for Innovation and Adaptability Banking institutions are better equipped to respond to technological and market trends, and to scale their efforts with incremental success. Only by upgrading itself will an institution be able to meet the demands of new-age customers. Advanced digital technologies have transformed the traditional banking process. The emergence of shopping portals, social channels, and integrated mobile apps has increased the number of channels through which banks can reach out to their customers. Banking institutions must embrace this new digital world by embarking on a digital transformation. Here's an interesting fact: Millennials would rather watch a three-minute YouTube video than read a lengthy pamphlet. As a result, because they are concise and engaging, videos are becoming increasingly popular. The key factors driving banking's digital transformation: The increasing use of smart devices, increased connectivity, and the demand for a high end-user experience are the primary drivers of the digital transformation trend, which is bringing banking solutions to customers' doorsteps. Along with these aspects, six critical factors have a significant impact on the success of digital banking. Here are the trends: 1.Customer importance Why would a bank switch to digital platforms? Because that is where their clients are. The digital strategy is focused on meeting the needs and expectations of its customers. With modern solutions, banks are now delivering personalised product experiences, seamless query

disintegration, transparency, and security as the foundation of customer satisfaction. In short, the transformation has made it necessary to adopt a "customer approach," resulting in maximum engagement. 2.Model of operation Customers today want a hybrid experience, one that combines speed and convenience with a personal connection to the product. As a result, the evolving banking sector employs three distinct operating models. Digital as a business – This is typically at the executive level. Digital as a new line of business entails establishing a separate digital division to handle digital activities at the next level. Digital Native – This is a new setup with their own technology stack that focuses solely on consumers. 3.Infrastructure modernization As previously stated, achieving digital transformation entails more than simply implementing cutting-edge technologies. Because of the underlying infrastructure that facilitates data to front-end operations, the digital transformation in financial services has advanced today. As a result, modernising legacy infrastructure has been the single most important factor in driving digital transformation in banking. 4.Data's Influence Banking and financial institutions are well aware of the importance of consumer data. This requires more data analytics practises to be implemented in order to analyse and monitor customer patterns. This has aided the banking sector in developing more relevant products and services that are in line with customer needs. This is most likely why major fintech companies outsource their data analytics needs to development firms. 5.The entire digitally-driven market

We must not forget how every industry, including banking, eCommerce, agriculture, and information technology, is advancing with digital capabilities. This includes business culture, technologies, strategies, and skills that contribute to the journey of digital transformation. As a result, the entire consumer market is on the verge of digital transformation, which is one of the driving forces behind digital banking transformation. The following are some of the most commonly used tools and technologies in the digital banking sector: 1.Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) (ML) Online assistants and chatbots use AI in banking to resolve customer issues by providing necessary information. In addition, artificial intelligence is used for data analysis and management, data security, and improving customer experience. For example, by analysing consumer data in seconds, AI can detect repetitive patterns. Machine learning is another tool that banks can use to collect, store, and compare user data in real time. One of the most significant benefits of using machine learning in the banking industry is fraud detection. Machine learning makes it easier to detect changes in user behaviour and take timely preventive measures. 2.The Internet of Things (IoT) IoT is extremely useful for real-time data analysis, which allows for a more personalised and tailored customer experience. Customers can make contactless payments in seconds thanks to IoT and its smart connectivity among devices. Furthermore, the Internet of Things has altered the financial ecosystem by introducing risk management, authorization processes (biometric sensors), and access to multiple platforms. 3.Blockchain Without blockchain, no discussion of digital banking implementation is

complete. The use of blockchain in the financial sector has resulted in more secure data transactions, greater accuracy, and an improved interface. Modern customers have a strong belief in blockchain solutions, believing that they have made transactions and other banking operations more transparent and convenient. Indeed, the convergence of blockchain and IoT (BIoT) has been one of the most significant digital banking technology trends. 4.APIs and cloud computing By far the most popular technology used by banks and financial institutions is cloud computing. A cloud-based service improves operations, increases productivity, and allows for the instant delivery of products and services. Banks are now more open to using banking APIs to promote data sharing and improve the overall experience, thanks to the cloud integration. 5.Analytics based on big data Customers today do not view banks in the same way they did a decade ago. All thanks to big data technology, which enables banks to analyse customer spending, monitor risk, and manage feedback to increase customer loyalty. Data analytics solutions have opened up new avenues for banking development and have been quick to respond to rising market demands.

The following advantages have resulted from digital banking innovation from customer centric vision: 1.Digital platform for investment banking The growth of digital banking has resulted in fewer intermediary processes, greater data transparency, and alternative methods of accessing intellectual data. All of these factors reduce operating costs and make transactions easier and faster. Banking digitization has replaced investment banks with small investors pooled together on a

centralised digital platform. The digital transformation has also caused investment banks to prioritise short-term goals and allow immediate customer needs to guide technology investments, which is great news for digital enterprises and businesses. 2.Compliance The adoption of a modern digital financial management system has made it easier for banks to maintain compliance. Auto auditing, for example, allows employees to spend less time auditing reports and documents. The digital data remains consistent and can be shared across multiple platforms without error. Furthermore, the cloud-based digital payroll system provides timely updates, removing the need for banks to worry about updating regulations. 3.Increased ease of acquiring new customers Customers are required by businesses, just as customers are required by services. Because financial institutions are no longer passive about their services, attracting new customers has become less expensive and easier for all industries, not just banks. Every customer and business can operate smoothly with instant online payment. 4.Business adaptability and innovation The emergence of social channels, shopping portals, and mobile banking applications has enabled banks and other businesses to communicate with their customers. Banking digitization has resulted in new business innovations that rely heavily on banking services. 5.improved security Customer data security is one of the difficult issues that businesses and institutions are attempting to resolve. Banks can now use sophisticated software development services to protect sensitive data and save accounts from scammers, hacker attacks, phishing, and other threats.

6.Offerings that are customised Banking and financial services have benefited from digital transformation, allowing banks to provide exactly what their customers require. Instead of guesswork, financial institutions have begun to formulate their products and offers based on their customers' daily expenses, which is by far the most significant benefit of digital banking to its users. How digital transformation helps businesses solve problems in Banking: 1. Problem: decision-making fragmentation. Solution: plan based on the most recent analytical data on the market situation and the audience's needs. 2. Problem: passivity and inconsistent communication with clients. Solution: transferring contacts to an online system where the bank can stay in touch 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including through the use of chatbots. 3. Problem: a standardised approach to services. Solution: develop personalised offers based on the client's needs and previous interactions with the bank. 4. Problem: Static communication. Solution: Using multiple digital channels to communicate with the client where it is most convenient for them at the time. 5.Problem :Reports are being delivered late. Solution: Automated calculation of sales and marketing metrics to

generate and send digital reports in real time. 6 Problem: Lack of clear objectives and goals. Solution: Implementation of tools for corporate communications and planning, as well as departmental data access differentiation. Digital Banking Difficulties to Overcome: 1.Regulation New laws (such as Open Banking) have undoubtedly created new opportunities for startups to operate in the payment and financial services sectors. To move forward more quickly, clear rules for new assets and unified global regulations are still required. 2.The Component It takes time to design banking and financial products. At the moment, traditional banks' product offerings appear to be more appealing to customers. As a result, for decisions such as mortgages, the consumer typically refers to its traditional bank. Neobanks, on the other hand, have more innovative assets, such as cryptocurrency, and are constantly adding new services to their portfolio. 3.Trust and reputation The financial sector is synonymous with trust and reputation. The old banks have been in business for many years, whereas small projects are still newcomers who must prove their reputation and build their brand. It may also take some time. 4.Revenue Last but not least is startup revenue. It is significantly lower when compared to the bank's earnings. According to the business model, startups that provide a better service will take on banking clients. The

revenue model is based on lower commissions but a larger client base. There are other options, such as introducing new products that do not currently exist in banking. 5.The market opportunity The rise of neo banking was aided by a global pandemic. The market share of digital banks in 2020 was USD 34.77 billion, it had already reached 47.1 billion in 2021, and the forecast for 2028 (in seven years) is around 722.6 billion. Statista was used to collect the data. The following are the key factors that contribute to the banking industry's digital transformation. Factors Driving Digital Transformation in Banking : 1. Leverage Data Power Banking institutions can benefit from data, as well as related tools and resources, to help them grow. The various data analytics practises can be used to understand and learn about customer thought patterns. Analysing the patterns assists them in developing the desired product that meets the needs of the customers. It could also gain insights in order to provide a better product, experience, and strengthen customer relationships. 2. Upgrade infrastructure Aside from the incorporation of innovative digital technologies, infrastructure has an impact on digital transformation. The infrastructure is critical in streamlining the information flow needed for digital front-end operations. The upgraded infrastructure supports the digital platforms. APIs, DevOps, and microservice architecture, for example, can help upgrade core systems for continuous integration and delivery, resulting in shorter release cycles. 3. Constant Improvement

With consumer expectations doubling, banks require smooth functioning stages to track market trends, test innovative products, and use fast feedback mechanisms. In the banking industry, these stages tend to improve over time. These stages of the agile innovation pipeline contribute to on-demand service delivery, continuous improvement, and faster time-to-market and customer engagement. 4. Educate and train the workforce According to the World Economic Forum report, more than 55 percent of finance sector employees will need to upgrade their skill set to meet current and changing functional demands. The driving force for improved skillet will necessitate the necessary investment in operational and learning strategy, thinking patterns, skillet training, and other areas across teams. 5. Improving the customer experience Customers nowadays expect seamless digital experiences across all channels, services, and products. Creating a digital customer journey entails starting the process of integrating and integrating everything into a single online platform. This would make it easier to handle the customer using similar tools and people with the same information throughout the process. A digitised customer journey, for example, enables a customer to click on an ad, sign up for an account online, receive tutorials and on-boarding information via their app, receive automated loan decisions, and pay bills or send funds online. To succeed in this competitive environment, financial institutions must adopt a "customer-first" approach as a result of digital transformation. In today's fast-changing market trend, seamless service delivery, high end-user experience, personalised product services, transparency, and high security are at the forefront of customer satisfaction. Banks are using artificial intelligence (AI) on the front end to improve customer identification and authentication, connect live employees via chatbots and voice assistants, deepen customer relationships, and provide personalised insights and recommendations. Here are a few

examples of how AI technology has transformed banking operations: 1.Robotic Advisers Robo Advisors are automated platforms that offer financial and investment advice. To gather information, they employ algorithms. AI is used to create these tools, which include cognitive systems, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a result, Robo advisors are capable of making investment recommendations based on the client's expectations. Customers seeking digital interaction or a "do-it-yourself" approach can benefit from contextualised products and experiences, financial advice, and cost-cutting measures. 2.Credit Evaluation Banks rely on transactional data, statistical analysis, and involved risks to assess the creditworthiness of their customers. AI technology enables precise scoring with improved credit access and assists banks in providing appropriate debt plans for their customers. Artificial intelligence ensures that banks manage credit risk in order to maintain financial stability. 3.Detection of fraud The detection of fraud has been a hotspot for the use of AI in banking. AI aids in the detection and prevention of suspicious financial activity. A Fraud Detection System (FDS) handles threats such as moneytransfer attacks on banks or clients, identity fraud, and fraudulent cases among employees. To detect fraudulent activities, the FDS goes through several stages of data collection, supervised adaptive learning, and transactional data analysis. Aside from saving financial institutions money, AI-based solutions can be used effectively in AML and other financial crimes. 4.Chatbots and virtual assistants These AI applications have transformed customer service and

business communication. A virtual assistant can anticipate and answer thousands of customer questions in real time, as well as assist customers with banking transactions. Customers cannot be kept waiting for long periods of time to have their questions answered. They expect immediate responses and effective solutions to their problems. Chatbots in banking organisations effectively offer financial advice, assist customers with registration, and save time and human resources for two-way communication such as email, phone, and so on. They have had intelligent conversations with millions of customers in order to connect with banks. 5.Gains in Productivity Almost the top 20% of back-office work accounts for 85% of the cost. With the use of AI tools and technologies, labour-intensive tasks such as compliance reporting, new customer onboarding communications, and documentation can become highly accurate and efficient. The following are some of the advantages of Blockchain technology in the banking sector: 1.The importance of time Blockchain allows for the real-time settlement of recorded transactions, which reduces risk and improves the customer experience. 2.Processing by hand Blockchain keeps an automated audit trail of transactions, reducing the need for manual data validations and reconciliations. 3.Transparency and consistency The hashes/pointers of the blockchain records are immutable and irreversible. As a result, it is impossible to alter any data, removing the possibility of fraudulent cases.

4.Authentication Smart contracts enable business transaction processing records.

validations

and

automated

5.Intermediary Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that eliminates the need for middlemen while also lowering costs and latency. 6.The Distribution of Data The distributed ledger and consensus mechanism of blockchain enable data consistency across multiple participants. Aside from numerous advantages, blockchain provides numerous opportunities for use in the banking industry. Some of the most prominent blockchain use-cases in banking are listed below: 1.Clearance and Payments With blockchain banking, cross-border payments are faster and less expensive. The costs of remittance within the blockchain are 2-3% of the total amount, compared to 5-20% withheld by other third parties. It eliminates the need for intermediaries or third-party authorization, resulting in a faster cross-border payment process. Accenture estimates that blockchain deployment would save investment banks $10 billion by improving the efficiency of clearing and settlement systems. 2.KYC The blockchain serves as a foundation for automating KYC processes. Because blockchain is a secure distributed ledger, it can be used to store and share KYC-related information. Banks spend a significant amount of time verifying where customers' money came from, their financial history, their business interests, and so on. The industry must automate the updating of a database containing KYC-based customer

data. When looking for a legally permissible solution to share such data between banks and loan officers, a blockchain solution is preferable. 3.Finance for Trade Financial institutions act as a payment guarantee between the seller and the buyer. While issuing a letter of credit to the seller necessitates the involvement of intermediaries such as banks, financiers, insurers, and export credit agencies. They are all more expensive. Implementing blockchain-based trade solutions could reduce recordkeeping costs and eliminate intermediaries, saving time and money. 4.Syndicated Financing Syndicated lending refers to the provision of loans to individuals by a group of lenders. Typically, these lenders are banks. In the case of traditional banking methods, the involvement of numerous participants slows down processing time. As a result, blockchain-based solutions accelerate the process while maintaining transparency. Decentralized ledger technology enables banks to distribute tasks related to local compliance or KYC and associate them with a single customer block. IoT covers numerous banking solutions with some of the existing usecases mentioned below. 1.Smart Collaterals IoT technology can enable banks to control a customer’s mortgaged assets, such as cars, machinery and help monitor them. The bank can issue the loan immediately and monitor the collateral status in realtime without taking physical custody of the asset. The bank can remotely disable or enable the machine/motor anytime based on defined business rules. For instance, if loan EMIs are not paid, the engine could be disabled. The quality of the collateral can also be monitored in real-time. 2.Wearable Payments Wearables such as smart-watches, rings, apparel are poised to

enhance the retail banking experience. Smart-watches add to the style statement and make it easy to transfer money and make payments from your bank. This whole new online banking experience through smart-watches has made it easier for a customer to interact with the bank directly from the wrist of the hand. Some banks have experimented with providing their own branded wearables to customers as a primary payment device. Smart glasses are the newest wearables adopted by some financial institutions to process customer information for the employees. Paired with wearables, the impact of the IoT on the banking industry is growing tremendously. The IoT technology has the potential to transform the way banking organizations allow users to pay the bills, speed up transactions, and increase its quality and security. Here are a few potential ways to use wearable technology in banking: i)When the client arrives at the bank, the IoT system sends announcements and notifications related to finance to his wearable device. In this way, banks are able to foster a meaningful connection with customers and improve brand visibility. ii)Wearables can replace Google or Apple-based transaction apps to execute the transactions easily. iii)Contactless wallets enable bank clients instantly for checking their account balance or loan status. 3.Wealth Management and Automated Transactions The data processing algorithms help to get wealth management insights. IoT technology plays a crucial role in enhancing accuracy and gains insights. These insights will help you in improving the decision-making for efficient wealth management. An automated transaction IoT application in banking allows each of the payment transactions to be administered in real-time. IoT allows a secure and monitored trading environment where all payment procedures are executed with smart sensors and connected applications. 4.Proactive Customer Services The Internet of Things (IoT) technology helps the banks to predict customers’ needs through scanned data collected at the time of their visits to banks. Right from the data collection to offering services, the

IoT improves the customer experience in the following ways: i)It is possible to redirect the clients to a free counter or notify them of the total waiting time to improve their task management efficiency. ii)A beacon-based system enables the bank clients to search the nearest branch in a different city or country; iii)Branches can share user data immediately to offer a quick and personalized experience in any location; iv)Banks can start functioning without any human intervention. The banking industry places a premium on the use of intelligent automation to increase efficiency, eliminate repetition, and improve customer satisfaction through quick service. The technology behind this automation is known as robotic process automation (RPA). With RPA, the bank can use customer service bots to handle low-priority questions from customers such as account balance checks, payment inquiries, and so on, freeing up human agents to handle high-priority issues. It will boost productivity while also lowering operational costs and the likelihood of errors. Users can use RPA to make a quick decision on their credit card application without requiring any human intervention. The following are some of the most significant advantages of RPA in the banking industry: 1.Cost savings: The cost of robot software is roughly one-ninth of the cost of a full-time employee in an onshore location. When a robot is hired, the cost of employees is reduced. 2.Accuracy: Robots are programmed to follow a set of instructions precisely and productively. Hiring a robot can increase accuracy by up to 99.5 percent when compared to humans. 3.Performance Efficiency: When it comes to task execution, robots outperform humans. As a result, RPA automates standard banking tasks such as customer onboarding, account opening, and loan processing to some extent. 4.Compliance: RPA can improve monitoring and testing compliance levels. RPAs have the ability to collect and retrieve data from a variety of sources. As a result, regulatory, non-financial, and risk reporting tasks become more efficient. Innovative technologies such as augmented and virtual reality are

improving the customer experience in the banking industry. Customers can complete transactions from the comfort of their own homes thanks to AR/VR technologies. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, for example, had implemented an augmented reality application for customers looking to buy or sell a home. It provides the bank with information such as current listings, recent sales, and price budgets to assist customers in making better decisions. Virtual banks are also gaining traction by simulating a physical environment in order to connect with customers remotely. Banks can use the virtual facility to provide their customers with a complete banking experience, including interactions and transactions. Virtual branches eliminate the need to find a physical location for a branch and help to reduce the operational costs associated with the branch. When it comes to customer management, automation of business processes, offering newer payment methods, and other measures, digital transformation in banking is an expensive set of measures. This fact must be considered by the banking industry, which must prepare the full amount of resources required to successfully implement emerging technologies. With so many competitors in the market, the only way to win is to keep an eye on current trends and begin to implement them more effectively. By keeping up with the latest technologies, you can reap enormous benefits and improve business results. Banking institutions can benefit from digital transformation in the following ways: 1.Security has been improved at all levels of data handling. Data encryption protects banks from external and internal information leaks to fraudsters and competitors. Most importantly, it improves transaction security. 2.Reduced wait times and faster operation. Clients dislike waiting, especially when they have entrusted large sums of money to your bank. Big Data processing systems built on a microservices architecture ensure fast and secure transaction processing. 3.Better banking operations analysis and risk management. If you have good fraud detection systems, you will not have any problems with fraud schemes. Furthermore, multi-level transaction validation eliminates the possibility of errors by your customers and staff.

4.Capabilities for prediction Knowing ahead of time what problems and transformations your market will face is critical to your financial success. Having reliable information on various potential scenarios, ranging from minor hiccups to a global economic crisis, will allow you to plan ahead of time. This way, you can make the best business decisions and implement winning Fintech solutions ahead of your competitors, or you can shift your operations to a more promising and financially rewarding industry. 5.Customization. Customers dislike receiving standard offers that they do not require, but they appreciate receiving timely offers that address their specific needs. You will be able to customise your offers and make this process automated and safe if you use software with the right analytical, data mining, and processing compounds. 6.Repetitive task automation When managers extract the same information to build the same reports over and over again, it is mindless and inefficient labour for your staff and your company because you are paying salaries for something that can be done better by one piece of software in seconds rather than hours or days by people. 7 Essentials for Successful Digital Banking Transformation: 1. Ascend to the position of Data and Analytics Leader To realise the full potential of digital banking transformation, data, analytics, and artificial intelligence must be used to provide an exceptional customer experience. Beyond the ability to personalise engagement and improve security and privacy, organisations that incorporate big data and analytics into their operations outperform their peers in both productivity and profitability. Customers have come to expect businesses to use their personal information to create tailored solutions. Consumers have grown accustomed to the benefits of Netflix and Spotify using machine learning for entertainment recommendations, Zoom requiring only a few clicks to create video engagement, and Google Home or Amazon Alexa using voice for everything from answering questions to simplifying shopping, particularly during the pandemic. These same customers anticipate

that their bank or credit union will use their relationship date, behaviours, and preferences in the same way... or better. However, advanced analytics and AI should not be viewed as a goal in and of themselves. These tools should be used to supplement larger-scale strategies. "Instead of exhaustively looking for all the areas where AI could fit in," Wharton writes, "a better approach would be for companies to analyse existing goals and challenges with a close eye for the problems that AI is uniquely equipped to solve." Some solutions range from fraud detection to assisting customers with predictive solution recommendations. AI must be used to deliver human-like intelligence across the entire organisation now more than ever. Simultaneously, as part of the advanced analytics process, machine learning must be used to improve data interpretation. According to the Digital Banking Report's research, while financial institutions understand the importance of data and advanced analytics, 75% of institutions do not consider themselves adept at using these capabilities. In fact, data and analytics are major challenges for the majority of mid-sized and large financial institutions. The use of advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning will be successful when it is used for purposes other than security and risk reduction, as well as cost reduction and efficiency improvement. It will be when businesses use these tools throughout their systems to develop new products and services and improve customer experiences. 2. Improve Customer Experiences COVID-19 transformed consumers' use of digital technology in an instant, raising awareness of the potential of digital apps and establishing new digital habits. Consumers can now get what they want almost exactly when they want it thanks to the integration of new technologies, improved use of data and analytics, the ubiquity of mobile devices, and new digital apps. This has influenced the way consumers bank as well as their expectations of digital solutions and digital engagement. According to McKinsey, as a result of the pandemic, not only have consumers shifted away from traditional physical facilities and toward digital options in greater numbers, but

age is no longer a differentiator for digital preferences. In other words, digital is no longer just for the young. Consumers today expect businesses to understand their personal preferences, leverage their relationship insights, and use data from external sources to provide real-time, contextual recommendations. According to Accenture, 75% of customers say they are more likely to buy from a company that knows their purchase history and recommends products based on previous purchases. According to Digital Banking Report research, most consumers want their financial institution to use their data, but 94 percent of financial institutions are unable to deliver on the "personalization promise." McKinsey believes that financial institutions must reconsider the function and future of branch networks in order to meet the needs of a changing consumer. This includes: i) optimising the branch footprint in light of the digital transition ii) changing branch personnel roles to reflect new consumer behaviours iii) developing a new omnichannel sales and service model iv) understanding customer journeys v) improving cross-channel marketing communications. 3. Encourage Innovation A culture of innovation is required to achieve digital transformation. For the Banking Transformed podcast, we interviewed dozens of founders of disruptive fintech firms and leaders of exciting new digital units of legacy banks, and the first thing they mention is the importance of an innovation culture. Innovation and digital transformation are inextricably linked and linked. Organizations that are further along in their digital transformation journey are also leaders in innovation. As discovered during the early stages of COVID-19 lockdown, there is an opportunity for financial institutions to use digital to drive innovation and reset the paradigm for both the present and the future. Traditional and non-traditional competition is changing the banking ecosystem by embracing innovation as part of their business model, posing a threat to those organisations that are not fostering innovation as part of the digital transformation process. When

considering the financial services industry, keep in mind that technology is available to all institutions equally, so technology, by itself, does not provide a distinct competitive advantage. Instead, it is the leadership, culture, and human component that distinguishes firms in the technology and innovation process. In other words, digital technologies allow for increased efficiency and better customer experiences. However, if the people in the organisation lack the innovation mindset to change current processes and solutions, the technology will simply magnify organisational flaws. When it comes to innovation initiatives, banks and credit unions must start with the needs of their customers. In other words, any effort must be preceded by a diagnostic phase that includes in-depth consumer input about what they expect – despite the fact that these expectations are shifting rapidly. And, rather than attempting to hit the target in a single major change, most organisations have discovered that the best way to improve a customer experience is to make smaller-scale changes to different components of the engagement that can be implemented more easily with rapid iterations over time.

4. Leverage Modern Technologies In other words, banks and credit unions must deploy new technologies into all areas of the business, changing the way organizations operate and deliver value to customers. It also requires an ongoing challenge to the status quo, with experimentation and an increasing comfort with failure. The reason for embracing new technologies is because the playing field in banking has changed because of new competitors and a greater awareness by consumers of what is possible as they order meals from a voice device, engage with others with video, hail a cab with their phone, and get a home loan in minutes. 5. Improve Systems and Procedures Most financial institutions' ability to successfully embark on a digital banking transformation strategy is still hampered by the prevalence of legacy systems. According to the Digital Banking Report's research, legacy systems are a major barrier to transformation. When an organisation spends 75% of its IT budget on supporting legacy systems, there is a limit to what can be modernised. The good news is that there are numerous solution providers who can incrementally upgrade systems, allowing organisations to focus on areas of greatest need. To keep up with the rapid changes in the market, many banks and credit unions are moving to cloud computing and adopting agile principles, which allow for the processing of massive amounts of data and insights in real time and at a significantly reduced cost. 6. Workforce Retraining The skills required to embark on a digital transformation journey are likely to be in short supply in most financial institutions, making talent management and employee reskilling especially important. While some of the new skills required can be addressed through hiring, banks and credit unions must consider a long-term strategy for growing their talent base through training and cross-functional deployment. Organizations must consider the adjustment of legacy mindsets that will be required, especially as back-office processes and procedures are rethought, in addition to the hard skills required for

digital transformation. For example, how does a seasoned product manager broaden their thinking about how a digital deposit account should be built or how a digital loan application process should be simplified? Unfortunately, most financial institutions continue to underinvest in training in a sector with a severe skills shortage. In a relatively short period of time, up to two-thirds of current employees will need to be trained to be "digital workers" and "digital makers." We must also recognise that the rate of change has resulted in a situation in which the majority of children in primary school today will work in jobs that do not even exist today. To be relevant in the marketplace, existing workers and those who have not yet entered the workforce will need to continually reskill and embrace lifelong learning. 7. Align Leadership and Culture in Preparation for a Digital Future As has frequently been stated, digital transformation necessitates more than simply updating technology or developing new digital applications. Failure to align leadership and employee efforts, values, and behaviours can cause friction and risks within an organisation. When, on the other hand, leadership embraces the necessary changes and supports a comprehensive and collaborative effort to advance digital transformation, all efforts to "become digital" have a better chance of success. A critical component of any successful digital transformation effort is having communication and actions that support the efforts at the top of the organisation. It also necessitates the support and buy-in of those at higher levels of the organisation, including middle management that has been doing things the same way for decades. Top management and boards must focus on communicating the cultural aspects that will help efforts succeed, such as transparency, accountability, and a willingness to experiment and even fail, in addition to making the goals of the digital transformation clear and how the process will positively impact corporate objectives and strategies. Regardless of how the pandemic will unfold, the time to act is now. Those that do so will be better prepared to compete in an ever-changing banking ecosystem, with a stronger value proposition, increased efficiency, and higher profitability.

A Culture of Innovation is Required for Digital Transformation in banking and they are: 1.The Culture of Innovation Begins at the Top All executives in financial institutions want their companies to be more innovative. They observe comparatively young fintech firms and massive tech behemoths develop and market financial products and services that steal market share and revenues by leveraging data, analytics, and new technology. According to research conducted by the Digital Banking Report over the last five years, corporate culture is far more important than company size, level of investment, geographic location, or even regulatory environment. The question then becomes, "How can leaders create and sustain an innovation culture within their organisation?" According to research published in the MIT Sloan Management Review by Babson College professors Jay Rao and Joseph Weintraub, an innovative culture is built on a foundation of six building blocks. Resources, processes, values, behaviour, climate, and success are examples of these. Each of these building blocks is linked in a dynamic way. The professors' research is consistent with recent findings from the Digital Banking Report, which show that increasing investment, changing processes, and measuring success are all necessary... but not sufficient. Organizations must also pay attention to the company's overarching values, the actions of its employees (behaviours), and the internal environment (climate). These are less tangible and more difficult to measure and manage, but they are equally important to the success of innovation and the ability to create a sustained competitive advantage. 2. Impact of COVID-19 on Innovation Strategies To compete with nimble fintech players and well-funded big tech firms, the banking industry was already under pressure to transform their organisations with data, analytics, and new technologies. When the pandemic struck, digital banking usage skyrocketed, requiring many

companies to build solutions that had not previously been prioritised. "Banks had planned for years for disaster recovery if their technology failed, but never for disaster recovery if their buildings closed," Chris Skinner, author, speaker, and CEO of The Finanser Ltd., stated. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit's seventh annual global banking survey, 45 percent of respondents said their strategic response to the COVID crisis was to build a "true digital ecosystem." The top response was the goal of digital transformation, which increased from 41 percent of respondents in 2019. As the COVID crisis dragged on into autumn, this percentage was bound to rise. For the second year in a row, new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), and other technologies based on data and advanced analytics are viewed as the primary driver of change (66 percent, up from 42 percent in 2019). This emphasises the significance of these new tools in countering the competitive threat posed by fintech firms and large technology corporations. It is also a response to what customers are increasingly expecting from their financial institutions. The increased importance of regulations is in response to an increase in security concerns as more banks and credit unions expand their digital offerings. When the Digital Banking Report asked financial services executives worldwide in August which areas would see the most innovation over the next five years, product delivery (channels) was by far the most popular answer (64 percent), with product innovation, product use, and competition faring much worse. 3.There is no guarantee of success if you are aware of innovation. While most organisations believe they are open to responding to identified consumer needs or exploring new opportunities, many do not provide their teams with the guidance or resources they need to pursue these opportunities effectively. This challenge became even more acute when teams were required to work remotely... developing new solutions while in crisis mode. Many leaders want innovation, but they don't want to change underlying processes or policies. As a

result, teams are shackled by legacy processes and are afraid to take risks or disrupt the status quo. As a result, many solutions simply replicate what was done previously, albeit on a different channel. This is akin to putting lipstick on a pig in terms of digital banking. The level of success event with traditional products is relatively low, as shown below. The highest levels of innovation success were seen in the lending, payments, and check (current) account product lines, which were potentially influenced positively by competitive pressures. Nonetheless, the majority of organisations did not give themselves high marks in any product category. 4. Developing into an Innovative Organization To begin with, becoming a "innovative organisation" does not necessitate the creation of a large number of "made from scratch" products that do not currently exist. In the vast majority of cases, fostering an innovation culture entails improving current solutions (digitise, simplify, support across channels) and implementing ideas that are already on the market. In other words, a strong iteration may be preferable to disruption of what already exists. Second, rather than focusing on areas where your organisation is weak, it is usually best to capitalise on its strengths. For example, your organisation may already have a number of individuals with an innovative spirit who can lead the innovation process. Innovation can occur by providing them with the resources they require to support the organization's digital transformation vision. Finally, it is usually preferable to concentrate on a few key areas and leverage their successes into a larger transformation over time. Cultures evolve at a glacial pace. People may be resistant to this new focus if innovation has not been adequately supported in the past. Leaders should aim for small victories, at least at first, for the best results. "Small successes will usually trigger a widening circle of improvement," write Jay Rao and Joseph Weintraub. Measurable outcomes are more persuasive than arguments, campaigns, and mandates: "People change when they see their peers becoming more productive, engaged, and successful." Banks and credit unions are unable to deliver a friendly face or a dog

biscuit via digital channels. This is not to say that digital consumer journeys should be devoid of personality, an understanding of the customer's needs, or a positive brand experience. In fact, digital engagement can more than replicate the personalization and human connection that consumers crave. Despite the fact that many surveys indicate that consumers prefer to visit a branch to open a new checking or savings account or apply for a loan in person, this physical interaction has been driven more by habit and necessity than by a desire to sit down and fill out lengthy forms. According to Accenture, consumers prefer online channels (desktops and laptops) to going to a branch to open accounts (47 percent), with mobile channels ranking third (37 percent ). It is expected that if these options were faster and easier to use, there would be an even greater shift to digital banking. While consumers continue to shop for financial services based on price, an increasing number of consumers want a strong value proposition for their relationship. As economic uncertainty decreases in a post-pandemic world, the value provided by banks and credit unions will become even more important. Personalization and humanised engagements will be required in the future to demonstrate a commitment to a consumer's long-term financial well-being. Consumers prefer personalised solutions and advice based on realtime changes in their financial lives rather than a set of products that can be replicated by any financial institution. This can include everything from automated savings programmes to always-on credit availability to one-on-one advice from a 'financial concierge.' Financial institutions, for the most part, continue to fall short of consumer expectations by failing to demonstrate an understanding of individual financial needs and by emphasising products over solutions. When organisations provide tailored solutions based on an understanding of a consumer's unique challenges and goals, trust is built. This is equivalent to demonstrating empathy... a humanised trait that can be demonstrated through digital channels. In a world altered by the pandemic, consumers will no longer accept a retrospective view of what has already occurred with accounts. Consumers will instead expect their financial institution to provide a GPS view of what they should do to prepare for and respond to financial opportunities and challenges. Consumers will expect this level of understanding and

advice delivery across all channels as connected experiences. Top 7 Banking Customer Experience (CX) Trends: 1. The Customer Experience Race is Won by Speed and Simplicity

When it comes to a pandemic-affected customer experience criterion set, digital simplicity and speed of engagement will drive trust, loyalty, and retention more than clever words and expanded product options. Simplicity will be viewed as more valuable by consumers in the future, with the majority willing to pay a premium for it. Google, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon are all brands built on highly complex digital capabilities, but ultimately offer solutions that are tailored to users and make their lives easier through simplicity. That is where future competitive differentiation will be achieved. While clarity will help competitors stand out, financial institutions will still need to simplify products, redefine back-office processes, and provide clear customer communication. A culture of simplicity demonstrates customer centricity at a time when people have less free time and more decision-making responsibility. When an organization's primary goal is simplicity and clarity, the customer will feel in control, boosting their confidence and providing peace of mind. 2. Uniformity in the Channel is Assumed, and Institutions Must Adapt The modern consumer does not distinguish between digital and offline engagement and interacts with their financial institution through various touchpoints. These touchpoints will shift over time depending on where a customer is and what else they are doing. The same transaction can be completed online, via mobile channel, in a branch, with a call centre representative, via voice device, or via video channel. Whatever option the consumer chooses, they will expect to have the same brand experience every time – in real time. Banks and credit unions must adapt to this expectation of uniformity in the buying and contact experience in a digitally enabled world. When we consider the requirement to personalise the experience in real time, financial

institutions will be dealing with a new customer approach that will necessitate a significant transformation of current internal processes. Monitoring and measuring the customer experience throughout the customer journey will be a part of this transformation. 3. Design is important, and you can't afford to make a mistake even once in front of the majority of consumers. A poor online or mobile experience can seriously harm your brand's reputation, as well as its potential for sales and future engagement. For example, 57% of customers will not recommend a company that has a poorly designed website or mobile app. What's incredible is that it only takes about 50 milliseconds for your customers and prospects to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like it or not — whether they'll stay or leave. For a mobile app, that opinion is formed even faster. Remember that there are dozens or more search results that fit the user's needs for any given search query. When a customer is scrolling for the best fit for any inquiry, they will decide which company to do business with based on first impressions. And these impressions are typically formed while using a mobile device. So, if you have the ability to focus on the redesign of any of your platforms, begin with the mobile app. According to our research, the largest banks redesign their mobile platforms much more frequently than their websites. 4. Proactive Personalization Is Necessary Knowing who your customer is is no longer enough. As a result of the numerous new digital interactions that consumers have encountered since COVID disrupted life, they now expect you to be able to help them manage their money in the same way that a GPS system manages navigation to a destination. Banks and credit unions will use information from previous interactions, as well as internal and external insights, to instantly customise the customer's experience. Amazon's recommendation engine and Netflix's intelligent viewing algorithm are good examples of how this will work. While remembering what a customer has done in the past is a good place to start, proactive

personalization will also need to optimise the customer's journey on their behalf. This includes developing new customised solution sets that will optimise financial outcomes, in the same way that a GPS system changes the recommended route in response to real-time changes in traffic patterns. The proactive personalization process will include focusing on how an investment in journey mapping improves the economics of delivering products and journeys to a customer segment – and how powerfully it reinforces engagement – rather than just how it drives sales or reduces costs. 5. The Importance of Sustainability Increases Over the summer, global health challenges and social justice protests highlighted the importance of creating a customer experience that reflects the broader scope of sustainability. Consumers around the world will expect banks and credit unions to support community investment, social and gender equality, and even environmental issues. As more consumers look for companies that share their personal values on social, economic, and environmental issues, financial institutions will need to put words into action that customers recognise as part of the organization's brand and culture. Customers are most likely to return to a brand for the quality of its products, according to a 2020 survey, but sustainable business practises are a close second. In fact, 68 percent of consumers say knowing that they share the same values motivates them to be loyal to a brand. Sustainability is more than simply changing your organization's practises to become more socially conscious, environmentally conscious, or ethical. Consumers want you to help them behave more sustainably in the future as well. 6. Technology as a Facilitator of Superior Customer Experience While technology will be an important part of the overall customer experience, it will not be what consumers look for when determining how well a company is doing. The technology that powers an experience will be imperceptible. "Customers expect technology to always work," according to PWC (and are unlikely to take note of new

technology unless it malfunctions or interrupts the seamless, friendly experience). They want websites and mobile apps to be elegant and user-friendly, and they want automation to make the experience easier. However, these advancements are meaningless unless they are accompanied by speed, convenience, and access to the right information at the right time." Investing in the latest and greatest thing is not a winning strategy. After establishing business objectives and committing to integrating technology, people, process, and culture to support the consumer experience, financial institutions must decide which digital tools to use. The customer experience must be built from the inside out and designed from the outside in. This means that once the customer provides input, the technology is determined and processes are reset for digital. 7. Customer Dissatisfaction with Poor Customer Service Is Growing When a customer becomes upset, the impact of a negative experience will be felt faster than ever before, possibly without the opportunity to make things right. According to PWC, one-third of consumers (32%) say they will abandon a favourite brand after just one bad experience. The plethora of options available to consumers only adds to their impatience. If your bank or credit union does not appeal to them right away, another brand will. According to recent research, if they do not find what they are looking for within three seconds, 29 percent of mobile users will switch to another app or website. With so many new products and services on the market, when a consumer begins shopping, they already know what kind of experience they want. Another word of caution: If a current customer becomes dissatisfied, they may not tell you, and they may switch providers without formally terminating their current relationship. To put it another way, in a digital world, attrition may be both invisible and unavoidable. Banks must not only reinvent and shift away from their traditional approaches; they must also invest in these disruptive technologies in order to successfully navigate and capitalise on the various digital

banking challenges and opportunities arising from these changes. Here are a few examples: #1. Social Media Communications According to an ABA study, nearly half of bankers believe that within the next five years, customers will rely on social media as their primary method of communication with banks. This can be a good way for banks to introduce their social media strategy by emphasising how it streamlines and simplifies communication with their customers. Given the vast reach of social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, investments in these channels will only increase. However, using social media to expedite client communications presents two of the most significant digital banking challenges ever: security and compliance. It's also frighteningly simple for someone to post something that's misguided at best, and a regulatory violation at worst. Furthermore, you cannot afford to leave your social channels vulnerable to malicious intrusions or employee negligence. The security of social media channels should be a top priority. All communications should be routed through a centralised monitoring system that automatically detects and mitigates violations of corporate policy before they reach the public. The importance of implementing effective yet user-friendly controls over social communications cannot be overstated in an industry where trust is everything. #2. Legacy Applications Many banks' lack of technological competence is concerning, and consumers want more than ever to enjoy an experience that traditional banking systems simply cannot provide. Many large banking systems, for example, are written in the COBOL programming language, which has been around for more than 60 years! These legacy systems were simply not designed for today's connected digital environment, necessitating a major overhaul of back-office technology. It can be difficult to make the transition from dated and disparate legacy banking systems to a modern, digitally connected environment. The necessary applications, custom processes, integrations with external

systems, security, and maintenance will necessitate a significant upfront investment. Furthermore, people will need to be trained and kept up to date if you want to maximise your investment and get the most out of it. And, when you think about it, newer technology is inherently safer and more in line with compliance requirements, thanks to the availability of centralised platforms for monitoring security and compliance. This demonstrates that you care deeply about your customers' data and privacy, which increases their trust in your company. #3. Resolving Security Aside from securing social communication channels, one of the most significant digital transformation challenges faced by banks undergoing or contemplating digital transformation is the security of their IT infrastructure and all of the data contained within it. There was a time when IT security was simple. You'd simply install a firewall and call it a day. That is certainly no longer the case. Nowadays, a typical banking environment contains tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of networked computers and other connected devices. When social, cloud, and mobile channels are added to the mix, the potential attack surface grows exponentially. How do you keep security on such a large scale? The good news is that the digital transformation in banking is also fuelling the demand for customised security and compliance solutions that can scale in response to demand. No matter how large a bank's digital asset portfolio is, there are now solutions that scale to practically any size, leveraging automation and full cloud enablement to protect everything – from WhatsApp chats to Facebook status updates. SaaS solutions' scalability is precisely what makes them critical in the retail banking sector. #4. Risk Mitigation Banks have long been compartmentalised organisations. Different departments, each with their own set of goals, use disparate systems. As a result, growth is stifled, scalability is limited, and customer

satisfaction suffers. In fact, more traditional banks have a notorious reputation for giving customers the run-around whenever they apply for a new service or seek assistance. Banking's digital transformation heralds the arrival of a unified platform that centralises data and connects multiple systems and departments. It effectively eliminates the problems that silos cause. Keep in mind that information silos can also pose security and compliance risks because there is a fundamental lack of cooperation and consistency in corporate policymaking. And, now that marketing is the new frontline of brand defence, CMOs and CISOs should collaborate to implement integrated solutions that benefit everyone. 5. Call-to-action Despite the advent and proliferation of digital technology, a sizable number of clients still prefer to transact within the confines of a physical bank. That is a proven fact. Players in the banking industry must recognise this as one of the industry's ongoing digital banking challenges and opportunities: finding a happy medium where they can meet the needs of all their customers while also achieving transformation. Some customers prefer to check balances on their phones but send payments from a desktop computer. Others prefer the ease of filling out a quick online questionnaire to apply for a loan. Nonetheless, more than two-thirds of consumers believe that having a local branch nearby is important. Since everyone is talking about digital transformation these days, there appears to be a widespread misconception that bank branches are doomed to become extinct. This is simply not true, because many people still prefer face-to-face interactions when discussing important financial matters such as personal loans and mortgages. Digital technology isn't meant to completely replace these traditional interactions; rather, it's meant to supplement them. Overall, if banks do not want to be left behind by the evolution of digital technology, digital transformation in the banking sector is a must. However, where most people see challenges, banks should see opportunities to improve services and build strong relationships with their customers. Because, at the end of the day, it's the customers' satisfaction and trust that matters.

A successful digital transformation journey in the banking industry, on the other hand, is dependent on eight key factors, which are as follows: 1) The Customer Is Everything Make certain that you understand and analyse what the customer is looking for. In today's fast-changing market trend, seamless service delivery, high end-user experience, personalised product experience, transparency, and security are at the heart of customer satisfaction. To be successful in this competitive environment, organisations must adopt a 'customer-first' approach. Change operating procedures, incorporate digital platforms into service offerings, improve customer interaction procedures, and more. All of these activities not only improve your service delivery, but also increase customer engagement with your company, which is the primary driver of any business's success. 2) Constant Improvement Continuous improvement requires a seamless innovation delivery pipeline built on agile principles. The pipeline should be highly effective and capable of easily tracking changing market trends, testing innovative products, and facilitating quick feedback mechanisms to iterate products for enhancements. This cycle contributes naturally to on-demand service delivery, continuous innovation, and continuous improvement, resulting in a shorter timeto-market. 3) Update infrastructure It is not enough to simply introduce digital technologies to achieve digital transformation. The underlying infrastructure is critical in facilitating the information flow required for frontend digital operations. As a result, it is critical to modernise your legacy infrastructure in order to support digital platforms.

In this regard, microservice architecture, APIs, and DevOps can be beneficial for continuous integration and delivery, resulting in shorter release cycles. 4) Business Model Customers now require a hybrid experience, a combination of neverbefore-seen digital experiences in terms of speed and convenience, as well as a personalised look and feel of the product. . 5) Identify Potential Solutions Make certain that nothing is overlooked during the process of modernising your legacy infrastructure. Even things you consider obsolete can make a significant contribution. Identify and capitalise on the potential of all minimum viable solutions, then roll them out across digital channels. Ensure that existing options are used as effectively and as efficiently as possible. 6) Make Use of Data's Strength Banking institutions must recognise the value of data, as well as related tools and resources, in driving business success. They must think more about implementing data analytics practises in order to understand and monitor customer thought patterns. This enables them to create the most relevant products that meet the needs of their customers. This will also assist them in gaining key market insights that will aid them in improving product offerings, experience, and deepening customer relationships. 7) Expand your skill set According to the World Economic Forum report, more than 55 percent of finance sector employees will need to upgrade their skill set to meet existing and changing operational demands. The drive for improved skill sets will necessitate the necessary investment in operating

culture, thinking patterns, learning culture, skill set training, and other areas across teams. 8) Completely reliant on technology Finally, the organisation should have all digital capabilities, such as a digital strategy, culture, relevant technologies, funding, skillset, and so on, that contribute to a complete digital transformation journey. Learn from past mistakes, implement the best available practises, and create the ideal digital strategy.

Here are some pointers to help you succeed in this digital banking transformation: 1. Describe your objectives. Before you begin, you should define your goals for migrating to digitization. Do you want to improve the efficiency of your processes? Or use digital services to attract or retain new customers? However, you must consider who will be in charge of leading the process and what support team will accompany it, whether the change will be implemented gradually or abruptly, and what data and metrics should be considered. Otherwise, we'll just go digital with the same ineffective processes we had before, but with a different presentation. 2. Research your competitors and their product offerings. Monitoring the competition is a practise that must be done on a continuous basis, both at the product and service levels, to determine what is worth replicating with our personal seal, such as the quality and efficiency of our website, and what rating our digital services would have in comparison to what is available in the market. Similarly, ongoing education of our employees on digital trends and our clients on the security required in this regard is critical. In this regard, hiring FinTech development services will be an excellent

choice because it will make it easier for you to offer the same loan product across multiple digital platforms. "The collaboration between fintech and banking entities, while still in its early stages, is promoting open banking initiatives for service distribution," explains the InterAmerican Development Bank in its study "Towards the digital transformation of public development banking in Latin America and the Caribbean." 3. Process evaluation In terms of digital transformation initiatives, processes must be analysed from the ground up; are our mechanisms optimal enough to allow the user to easily carry out all of their processes in a timely manner? How feasible it is for our clients to communicate with us with the same efficiency as they would with a friend on a social network. In this regard, incorporating a 24/7 electronic service platform to supplement traditional service channels will allow for significant time and even resource savings if self-service systems are included. The goal is to create a comprehensive list of processes that will be digitised based on time and budget constraints, so that your team's efforts can be focused on more strategic activities. "100% of the banks surveyed mentioned having digitization initiatives underway, but only 70% stated that they had a unit in charge of digitising the entity, with only 62 percent in Central America having one," according to the IDB. The National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) in Brazil currently processes 98 percent of all indirect operations through its online tools. It has added more than 56,000 new clients and connected its system to more than 44 institutions, in addition to significantly reducing internal transaction times and credit approvals. 4. Evaluate culture and adaptability In this regard, it is critical to assess the adaptability of the banking entity's work environment in terms of culture, leadership, and, most importantly, organisational structure. Similarly, it is necessary to train employees and involve them in a leadership process that allows for the consolidation of long-term results from agile adaptation in

decision-making that demonstrate the results of digital transformation. The spearhead of this sustained process can range from a unit head to the bank's own presidency, but it always involves an empowered multidisciplinary team that facilitates rapid decision-making via agile methodology. "Most banks (55 percent) train their employees on digitization issues; however, the training is targeted at specific groups within their collaborators." Only 21% train their entire staff in digital matters, while 24% do not provide any training, according to the IDB's study.

5. Examine talent and hiring practises You should conduct an internal assessment of your organisation to determine whether you have enough IT professionals and experts to make the leap to digital transformation, or if it is more cost effective to outsource these services based on experience, quality, innovation, and time required in this type of hiring. 6. Inventory management systems and products How frequently do you assess your products? Are there any capabilities that you haven't used? Do you have annual product planning activities that are in accordance with your budget and strategic plan? In this regard, it is necessary to assess how to make the most of the resources that your organisation already has, how you want to improve your digital capabilities, and what path you will take to achieve the digital transformation objectives. 7. Identify customer and member segments. With the incorporation of Big Data and artificial intelligence, the reliability of data analysis results has increased significantly, which is useful for making operational decisions in the creation of products that are more personalised to our clients. The goal is to create a

programme that defines how to predict which customers are more likely to use and add digital services from the bank, thereby leveraging greater growth. 8. Think about your communication and marketing strategies. Do you have a solid internal and external communications strategy in place to support your digital transformation? Your objectives are twofold: create an internal communications plan that clearly defines who needs to know what, and create a marketing plan that outlines what your customers should expect when interacting with your financial institution. Furthermore, by developing more direct marketing to your target audience, the addition of mobile applications will help you reach a larger audience.

9. Carry out a risk assessment Have you put your knowledge to use in areas like manual process automation? Your risk assessment can include items such as: i)Regulatory actions that are pending ii)Commitment of the regulator iii)Evaluations of partners and suppliers iv)Commitment of the risk and compliance team A thorough risk assessment will identify potential areas of concern or focus for your digital transformation. 10. Set priorities When strategizing for your digital transformation, look for quick wins, keeping in mind that while data, technology, and digital processes are important, your human resources are just as important. People in your

organisation can provide insight and intelligence that leads to empowered decision making across the enterprise when a common methodology for accessing and managing information is implemented. Similarly, strategic alliances with FinTech firms will aid in the development and adoption of digital technologies that aid in the transformation of processes to the digital age.

Existing technologies face the following challenges when undergoing digital transformation in banking: 1.Increasing Competition FinTechs (financial technology) pose enormous risks to traditional banking processes, which generally focus on the most productive areas of financial administration. Prior expertise in various areas of manual financial management, as suggested by the examples above, is easily outclassed by implementing modern technology. Unless they adapt to FinTechs, the new industry sharks who have incorporated a stellar digital framework into their financial sector force numerous smaller organisations to look for partnerships or acquisition opportunities as a backup plan or security measure, just to stay afloat. 2.Obsolescence in Culture Manual models and frameworks have no place in the computerised world, which is quickly becoming a well-known fact. To address financial industry challenges, banks and similar financial unions must consider technologically forward goals on a proactive basis. This is not unattainable or unrealistic; rather, it is required to avoid obsolescence. Indeed, it is the major players in finance who support a culture of development and evolution in which technology is used to improve existing processes and provide strategies to achieve the best results. This game-changing social shift toward a more culturally adaptive business framework is the bare minimum for competing in today's financial climate, and it is indicative of a larger, mutually agreed-upon change for a digital future.

3.Increasing Expectations The modern buyer (particularly the millennial) is more intelligent, savvy, and educated than any previous generation. The current climate of expectations in any industry, particularly finance, is for targeted personalization and organic comfort from banking experiences. Clients who are easily swayed and indirect marketing to more informed demographics play a significant role in these expectations: each new decade of banking client brings with it more specifications, an innate and detailed understanding of technology, and, as a result, a higher expectation from their banking experiences. 4.Customer Retention To build on the previous point, financial service clients expect customised, basic, and instinctive interfaces on smart devices to derive meaningful experiences from their endeavours. This could be as simple as conducting a Google search through speech, or as complex as sending a personalised gift to a loved one via e-commerce websites. One of the most pressing concerns for digital banks in 2017 is removing friction from the customer journey. Banks are struggling to compete with an onslaught of FinTech companies and start-ups that specialise in resolving some common banking issues and simplifying the customer journey through mobility and context. So, what are some strategies that banks and financial institutions can use to better serve their digital customers? 1. Stay in touch with the market: Make sure your bank or financial service is up to date on all of the latest developments and innovations in digital banking from around the world, as well as how these trends affect the business model and customer journey. 2. Prioritize: Not all digital innovations or technology are applicable at the same time. Choose the areas you want to concentrate on while

keeping in mind the customer's priorities and expectations. 3. Security and user experience: Cybersecurity is a major and growing concern. Optimize authentication, access, and privacy technologies to be as user-friendly as possible. 4. Mobility: Mobility will increasingly be at the heart of the user experience – providing a seamless device experience as well as a design that makes user onboarding intuitive and simple. 5. Content and assistance for user conversion: Create content that assists users in better understanding your products and services. Be it how-to applications, videos, animated content, calculators, and tools – anything that can break down customer barriers, generate consumer trust, influence decisions, and increase sales. 6. First contact resolution: In today's highly competitive landscape, first contact resolution is critical for customer retention. According to one Accenture survey, 80% of customers who switched providers complained about poor customer service and said they could have been retained. 7. Implement small but targeted technological changes: Banks can achieve significant performance gains by implementing small but targeted digital enhancements. Some approaches include the use of tools such as e-forms and workflow systems that can be deployed quickly.

8. Be selective in your larger transformation goals: Some areas will necessitate more radical transformation investments, but not every aspect of banking processes and products must be overhauled. Aim for the big wins – the few that require the most capacity and provide the best rewards. You may want to retire an old application that is causing the most bottlenecks and opt for application re-engineering in select processes, or you may want to opt for application integration to improve the collaboration of your existing systems.

A banking CRM will keep you informed of these selling points and will assist you in positioning your bank's offerings in such a way that your customer base grows on a regular basis. Here are some ways that a banking CRM can help you increase conversion rates in digital banking: 1. Enable data flow from all sources. As a bank, you may obtain customers from a variety of online and offline sources. This could be visitors to your website, cold outreach, paid ads, social media, referrals, email campaigns, or through thirdparty vendors. Your banking CRM should assist you in capturing all of these leads who are interested in all of your products on a single platform. This way, you will ensure that none of your potential clients are overlooked. 2. Manage multiple products and teams As previously stated, a bank is no longer just about monetary transactions. They now have a portfolio of products, with separate teams servicing each of these verticals. When you have multiple teams/products, it is critical that they all work together to achieve a common goal. All teams must have a transparent system in place for this to happen. If properly configured, a banking CRM can assist you in doing just that. 3. Automate prospect qualification When it comes to loan disbursements, banks must ensure that their prospects are genuinely interested in applying for a loan. Banks typically use telemarketers to contact applicants and request confirmation. However, this is a lengthy and manual process that is sometimes prone to human error. A good banking CRM, on the other hand, can automate the entire process, making life much easier for bankers and their telemarketing teams. Furthermore, banks must determine whether a person is qualified to receive the loan for which

he has applied. Different banks have different requirements, such as credit score, income, mode of employment, and so on. You can use a CRM to auto-qualify your leads for loans and then distribute them to your relationship managers. 4. Establish long-term relationships through timely communication. It is critical to stay in touch with your prospects in order to keep their interest. Your CRM can assist you in creating customer journeys, and you can send automated emails to them based on certain actions. You can also create dynamic templates that send offers to users based on their website activity. You can also set up instant notifications when your lead engages in a sales-friendly activity. For example, if a prospect begins filling out your loan application but then abandons it halfway through, you can either send them an automated email asking them to finish or alert the appropriate salesperson, who can manually follow up with them. 5. Give your call centre teams more authority. Call centre teams are one of the most important cogs in any bank's machinery. They help both in bringing in new customers and in resolving issues with existing customers. When this is the case, it is critical that your call centre team is provided with the necessary tools to complete this task. Some of the features that will make your banking CRM ideal for your call centre team are automatic lead distribution, instant call notifications, and complete lead history.

6. Consolidate your entire process onto a single platform. Every bank has its own set of procedures in place. This means that the CRM they select should be capable of conforming to these processes based on the requirements. The banking CRM should be easily customizable, with no need for complicated coding or integrations.

7. Look for cross-sell/upsell opportunities. The best thing about banks is that most products are interconnected, which means you can sell more than one product to a customer. You can detect these sales cues with the right CRM and assist your team in pitching a relevant product that will benefit the customer. For example, if you notice that your savings account customer spends a lot of money on movies, your team can offer him a credit card with movie discounts. 8. Give your field teams mobile access. In all of this, don't forget about your on-the-ground team, which goes out into the field. Your banking CRM should be compatible with mobile devices as well as desktop computers. Your field team will be able to easily access a lead's history in order to make a relevant pitch or identify upsell opportunities. Furthermore, having an instant document verification system on the mobile app will speed up the loan application process. 9. Obtain comprehensive and detailed reports Timely and detailed reports assist banks in staying on top of the success of their sales processes. They can determine which product is generating the most revenue, in which geography, and through which relationship manager. This way, they can keep track of what works and what doesn't. A significant increase in loan disbursements in one geography can indicate a positive impact, and they can easily determine why. If credit card purchases fall, they can try offering ones with higher discounts. The key for modern banks is to embrace digital transformation with a growth mindset. A banking CRM is the perfect solution to your problems. Look for a CRM that meets all of the above requirements and more. Strong integrations with your other banking tools will only ensure that all of your systems work as one. Previously, KYC verification was done physically through paper-based approaches, which made the process extremely time-consuming. These modern processes, also known as eKYC, are combined with

advanced customer authentication technologies such as AI, ML, biometrics, and so on to ensure complete security. Because of the COVID crisis, the video-led KYC process has picked up significantly in recent times. Banks that implement Digital KYC-led strategies can gain a significant competitive advantage, lower costs, and accelerate customer onboarding, resulting in a superior customer experience. Introducing the 3Ps of digital transformation in Banking: 1.Product This is one of the most crucial aspects to get right as it provides a distinct competitive differentiator. Research from Viacom shows that 53% of millennials do not think their bank offers anything different. This must be addressed, and soon. Banks need to think about how they can offer exceptional mobile banking services with personalized offers, real-time customer service and budgeting advice tailored to each customer. In an omnichannel banking era, the customer has become the point-of-sale. If you aren’t thinking about the customer experience at every stage, retention will decline. 31 per cent of customers used to mobile banking would consider changing bank if the experience was poor. And this sentiment will only increase as disruptive challenger banks built on mobile continue to gain prominence. 2.People The bank branch was for decades one of the mainstays of any community, with the manager known by everyone. Nowadays branches are being closed, and customer service phone lines automated or outsourced. Some banks are in danger of omitting one of the most important features of what has made them the institutions they have become; the relationship with their customers. Banks must recapture that sense of familiarity so their customers value and appreciate each and every interaction. This isn’t just mortgage and loan negotiations, but also on-boarding, cross-selling and dealing with any issues that arise—whether in branch, online, or on mobile. Challenger banks must think hard about how they communicate without the advantage of face-to-face branch interactions. The good

news is that many day-to-day banking tasks can be automated which delivers efficiencies for banks, but also streamlines and improves the customer experience too. 3.Process Completing the digital transformation is no mean feat, and persevering to achieve the vision can be difficult as it can seem never ending. The important thing to note is that the process comes to be seen as continuous. Technology, regulation and methods of banking will always continue to evolve. Witness the current excitement over the blockchain as the latest trend forecast to disrupt the landscape once again. Decision makers must become comfortable with the unknown, and have the confidence to deploy technology and processes that are flexible to shifting trends. Digital transformation is disruptive and there is nothing to suggest it will slow down. The critical factor is banks’ ability to forecast how these new developments will impact their organizations, and how their response will improve the experience for customers and returns for investors. 9.11 Construction Industry A digital transformation, in general, entails two types of change: business-model innovation, in which companies introduce digitally enabled products and services, and operational improvement, in which companies apply advanced technologies and ways of working to improve project development and delivery. The transition from physical to digital is a response to global trends. Climate change is one of the most significant trends driving this change in the building and construction industry. As carbon continues to have an impact on the global climate, the construction industry is being compelled to abandon old methods in order to reduce carbon emissions. Given the fact that the problem is expected to worsen in the coming decades, reducing the footprint is critical. Another factor dictating the need for new solutions to stop this environmental exploitation is the increase in the extraction of materials used in construction. Furthermore, more waste is being generated, which is causing serious problems. Technology enables the construction industry to continue developing large-scale projects while also taking into account the environmental

impact. The construction industry is also experiencing a severe labour shortage, which is lowering productivity. Finding professionals to fill high-level positions is becoming increasingly difficult, and the talent shortage is worse than ever. Technology can help with this because the use of software, machines, and robots means fewer construction workers are needed. Finally, urbanisation is a major driver of the shift toward digital technology. Globally, the population of urban areas is increasing. According to a WEF study, approximately 200k people move from rural to urban areas every day! This means that there will be a greater demand for construction and the construction of not only more houses, but also roads, schools, water and power plants, and so on. After spending tens of thousands of dollars on testing new software platforms and ways of working, the executive team of a large contractor was almost ready to call the program's digital transformation a success. Several attempts to streamline projects using digital solutions, such as 5D BIM, had failed. A few had succeeded in the pilot stage, but the company had struggled to implement those solutions on a large scale. Workers on-site and in the office grumbled about having to adopt yet another new technology before abandoning it and returning to their old ways of working. Overall, projects were running late and over budget at the same rate as before, and productivity had barely increased. Scenarios like this are all too common in the engineering and construction (E&C) sector, which is one of the least digitised in the world. 1 The challenges are understandable. A typical construction project involves a slew of independent subcontractors and suppliers, who have little incentive to adopt new methods during their brief time on the job. Because projects vary greatly, E&C firms frequently struggle to develop tools and methods that can be used repeatedly. Due to limited R&D budgets, E&C businesses are unable to invest as heavily in digital as companies in other industries. Furthermore, construction work is frequently performed in remote, harsh environments that are not well suited to office-developed hardware and software. It's no surprise, then, that many E&C firms end up with

little to show for their technological investments. However, we are seeing an increasing number of E&C firms overcome these challenges in order to digitally transform projects or even business divisions. When we evaluated construction companies that successfully implemented digital technologies and ways of working, we discovered that, despite differing circumstances, their transformations shared five practises that other E&C companies embarking on similar transformations could learn from: 1.Instead of installing IT solutions, concentrate on resolving pain points. 2.Create digital use cases that encourage collaboration. 3.Engineer teams must be reskilled and restructured. 4.To capture value, adjust project baselines. 5.Connect projects to maximise impact across the organisation. With the exception of a few large projects, few construction companies have fully digitised their operations. They aren't on their own. Digital transformations frequently fall short of expectations, according to companies across all industries. According to one McKinsey survey, only 16% of respondents said their organisations' digital transformations resulted in long-term performance improvements. Common challenges include ambiguous definitions of what digital means, a hazy understanding of what the transformation should achieve, and a lack of integration of digital tools with business processes. However, these factors do not fully explain why digital transformation in the E&C industry is so difficult. The construction industry's following characteristics make digital transformation particularly difficult: 1.Fragmentation. Construction projects are typically fragmented along the value chain, with specialists focusing on one or a few disciplines. Furthermore, each step in the value chain involves multiple layers of contractors and subcontractors. Implementing digital solutions across a project thus necessitates coordinating changes across organisations, which is a particularly difficult task given the short-term and often adversarial nature of construction contracts.

2.The absence of replication. Construction projects are almost always one-of-a-kind endeavours with unique requirements that necessitate customised design and delivery methods. Because these approaches are rarely used again, it is more difficult to implement changes across multiple projects, as full-scale transformation necessitates. The exceptions are multiyear major projects on which businesses can establish and reinforce processes over time. 3.Transience. Typically, a new construction project will bring together a new set of organisations. Project teams, like individuals, are rarely consistent. At the enterprise level, where workforce turnover is high, contractors face similar challenges. Transience at the project and company levels makes it difficult for E&C firms and their subconsultants and subcontractors to establish new ways of working and build capabilities that can be transferred from one project to the next. 4.Decentralization. Large E&C firms are often highly federated, with business units and divisions adhering to their own processes rather than standardised ones, not least because many have grown through the acquisition of smaller firms. Individual projects are carried out at locations remote from the company's headquarters. And few workplaces are conducive to teaching employees how to work in new ways or use cutting-edge technology. E&C firms all over the world are upgrading and replacing legacy backoffice systems, as well as implementing new systems and software, to boost engineering and field productivity. Companies, on the other hand, can become overly focused on IT, pursuing system and software improvements as ends in themselves. We frequently see E&C firms deploy cutting-edge technology tools before determining whether and how those tools can improve their operations. This techfirst approach may result in digital "organ rejection," in which a solution fails to deliver visible benefits and the workforce, recognising this, does not adopt it. Companies in the E&C industry can increase the likelihood that digital technologies will make a positive difference by

first identifying operational changes that will improve performance and then defining digital use cases that will enable those operational changes. This process-centered approach assists in focusing each use case on a real business need while suppressing the desire to chase technological trends. Use cases defined in this manner provide greater benefits while increasing workforce understanding and conviction, from the CEO to managers and frontline workers in various functional groups and decentralised business units. These types of use cases are also easier to replicate across multiple projects and to introduce to new employees. The focus on business processes should not end with the first wave of use cases. The development of use cases is a continuous process, and new opportunities for improvement frequently emerge once the first-wave use cases are in place. One contractor, for example, created an app that allows supervisors to digitally sign completion certificates. Following the development of the app, the team defined a new use case to push safety briefings and alerts through the app so that supervisors could distribute them to teams. A good processcentered use case should specify three things: the process change, the necessary enablers (data and technology tools, capabilities, changes in mandates and responsibilities, legal and contractual requirements, and so on), and the expected benefit. A use case such as "reduce losses from unrecoverable rework on steel-concrete connections by 10% by visualising fabrication details with 3-D models" is easier to understand and act on than one such as "provide access to 3-D models from all devices." As a result, E&C firms should pay special attention to activities that involve multiple disciplines and groups, as well as design digital use cases that facilitate interactions among them. Real-time progress reporting from the construction site, for example, can help ensure that subcontractors raise invoices on time and accurately. Of course, use cases can be more difficult to implement when multiple designers, subcontractors, and specialists are involved. However, if E&C firms implement compelling incentives, cross-cutting use cases can unlock significant value despite the industry's fragmentation. One contractor's

experience demonstrated why it is critical to implement digital solutions that encourage and support collaboration among various parties. Previously, site workers had not provided feedback to a supplier on all defects in the elements that the supplier was producing. When they did provide feedback, it was anecdotal, unstructured, and difficult to implement. Defects persisted, so workers were forced to either repair faulty products or wait for replacements. Unplanned rework raised labour costs and caused delays. The company saw an opportunity to solve the problem by improving the feedback mechanism between the site team and the supplier. The site team used a mobile app to tag defects against specific elements in the BIM model and store them in a common data environment (CDE), which is a centralised repository for project information. The supplier tracked defect reports in the CDE before conducting root-cause analyses with its factory team to diagnose and reduce defects. The resulting improvement, a 12% decrease in rework hours at the contractor's job site, demonstrated the value of improving communication between these previously disconnected organisations. Engineering design has undergone significant changes as a result of digital technologies. For example, generative design tools, which automatically propose a variety of design options based on userdefined specifications, can drastically reduce the time required to develop designs. The ability to examine and optimise a generative design product is arguably becoming as important as the ability to create an original design. Furthermore, the adoption of modular construction methods has increased the importance of standardising design elements and storing them in design libraries so that they can be reused. Using these new techniques necessitates designers not only learning technical skills but also designing in novel ways. E&C firms with internal design functions should invest in new technical skills, such as hiring developers to create standard libraries of design elements and automate certain aspects of the design process. They should also begin to adopt digital ways of working, moving away from a traditional, linear design process and toward a more agile approach that includes faster iteration in short test-and-refine loops. Such a shift necessitates a shift in mindset on the part of designers, who must use

their experience to validate model results and look for opportunities for standardisation and repetition. This method of working frees up designers' time to work on more intellectually challenging problems, such as reviewing and refining generative designs, for which engineering brainpower is indispensable. Many of the E&C executives we speak with say that while digitization has increased productivity, it has had little impact on the bottom line because the savings from increased productivity do not cover the cost of implementing new software and systems. This can happen when productivity-enhancing use cases generate float during the execution phase and managers fail to remove this float from the project baseline. Managers must adjust baselines to eliminate unproductive time and generate value in order to realise the full bottom-line benefit from digital use cases. For example, there is little benefit to shortening the time it takes to survey a site if excavators are not available for employees to begin earthworks as soon as the survey is finished. Similarly, digital tools can help speed up construction by reducing defects and, as a result, reducing rework. However, if the labour force is not streamlined or reassigned to other activities, workers will be forced to wait during the time they would have spent on rework, and the costs will continue to mount. Managers can reap the benefits of increased productivity in a variety of ways, including compressing onsite schedules, reducing noncritical resources, and even limiting overtime. This approach necessitates close collaboration among the organisations involved in the project, as well as clear communication about the project plan, particularly with new employees who are used to a slower pace of execution. Companies can also modify contracts and incentives to distribute benefits and risks more evenly across the value chain. Project visibility is critical for keeping deadlines on track. Obtaining deep visibility through analog-based processes, on the other hand, is time-consuming. Through graphic representations of data, 3D BIM speeds up project delivery by allowing participants to walk through the construction process step by step during the design and planning phases, anticipating potential problems with design, building

processes, workflow, safety, and other concerns. The addition of 4D BIM to 3D models adds the element of time, allowing for seamless schedule planning and real-time schedule adjustment. 4D information also allows for more efficient resource utilisation and provides insight into how a project is progressing. The transition to 5D BIM integrates costing and quantity generation into the design matrix. This contributes to higher-quality project estimates and can be used early on to investigate how design and process choices affect project costs. 5D usage continues during actual construction, providing insight into predicted versus actual expenses as well as instant understanding of the financial impact of project changes during the construction cycle. Digital construction management also addresses a major impediment to project completion on time: communication. Participants no longer have to rely on email, phone calls, or in-person conversations to stay abreast of occurrences that threaten project progress because changes anywhere in a project are immediately reflected in every aspect of the project data, similar to how a spreadsheet works. As part of their digital transformation journey, organisations in the construction industry are increasingly deploying Digital Twin technology. Construction is already one of the world's largest industries. According to PwC's Global Construction 2030 forecast, global construction output will increase by 85% to $15.5 trillion by 2030, with three countries, China, the United States, and India, leading the way and accounting for 57% of total global growth. However, the sector continues to face four persistent challenges: (1) low productivity and profitability; (2) project performance – primarily timing and budget issues; (3) skilled labour shortages; (4) concerns about sustainability. Is there an answer? The technology of digital twins. Digital twins enable the creation of a virtual replica of potential and actual physical assets, processes, people, places, systems, and devices, which can then be used for a variety of purposes.

Companies use digital twins for a variety of reasons, including testing new assets or procedures before releasing them in the real world, where it is more expensive and difficult to fix any issues, improving ongoing operations, and training employees. In practise, this type of technology can aid in ensuring that buildings meet sustainability, efficiency, and regulatory standards. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, a digital twin can help predict potential failures and suggest ways to avoid those failures. The concept of digital twins is becoming more relevant to a broader range of industries and potential applications. This is due to the rapid growth of digital transformation. As a result, buildings and cities are becoming smarter – all thanks to data and the application of that data. According to Gartner, there will be over 25 billion Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints by 2021, with digital twins for potentially billions of scenarios . Asset optimization, competitive differentiation, and improved user experience will be among the benefits. As more IoT platform providers and analytics firms invest in digital twin technology, digital twinning is quickly becoming essential to IoT deployment. These cover functions ranging from initial concepts to design, development, and construction. Construction designers and developers are frequently forced to limit their creativity because any new building design or concept must be approved in order to meet the necessary safety requirements. Time constraints may also prevent developers from being too experimental with their ideas. Developers, on the other hand, can test out their ideas quickly through digital simulation that includes all of the necessary real-world factors such as scale, gravity, and weather, for example, reducing the total timeframe during which they could share and get their ideas approved by 100x. Furthermore, because the simulation directly derives data from the real world, the safety, practicability, and sustainability of the new building designs can now be tested in a simulation, and the feedback will be just as accurate as if the test were carried out in real life. There are benefits to be had; for example, energy accounts for approximately 19% of total building expenditures, so proactive, datadriven energy management can have a significant impact on the bottom line and the environment – a digital twin can help make this

possible. When assets are deployed or construction is completed, a digital twin can be continuously updated with ongoing operational and process data, such as maintenance and performance records, and) Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensor data. Variations from optimal process and asset design are captured during run-time during the operational stages, and the digital twin is automatically updated with this information. Knowing the current state of an asset, the digital model can use predictive learning technology to proactively identify potential asset failures and even suggest ways to prevent those failures. In other words, the digital twin can predict when its physical counterpart will break long before it occurs. The digital twin can also make use of artificial intelligence for advanced process control, control strategy design, and process optimization. These tools incorporate process and asset design variations into engineering asset or plant data, enabling a complete and efficient digital value loop and unified lifecycle management. Inefficiencies and opportunities in ongoing operations can be identified and executed in real-time as organisations scale up to a digital twin of the enterprise operating model. Digital transformation combines cutting-edge innovative tools and processes with in-house domain expertise within organisations. This not only allows for the contextualization of new and existing data, but it also provides actionable insights and information. Enterprises can then put these new insights into action, closing the loop on continuous process improvement. To achieve this, every digital transformation journey must begin with the critical realisation that information and data have become a priceless and strategic asset to the enterprise. Each asset requires a unique set of asset data services, as well as engineering master data, effective visualisation tools, and collaboration and workflow procedures, in order to establish an effective digital twin strategy: 1.Create a digital twin model that uses accurate data feeds to help understand product or operation performance and adjust critical

control points to provide both short- and long-term value. 2.Determine where digital twin simulations and predictive maintenance can provide the most value, such as improvements in operations or processes, cost savings, or risk reduction. 3.Create a digital twin architectural roadmap that enables digital transformation programme and project planning. 4.Data insight reigns supreme. Use a digital twin for deployments or projects to reveal how the organisation or project is linked to its current state and how it is likely to respond to internal or external changes. A digital twin incorporates data from these disparate data points, resulting in a plethora of potential benefits, such as the ability to test process changes before they are implemented, as well as making better and more accurate data-driven decisions. As we all know, the spread of the pandemic has accelerated the spread of digital transformation in all sectors, which has had the collateral effect – primarily as a result of smart working – of making new technologies even more important. For that is, in essence, what digital transformation is: the process of evolving business models, beginning with technological advances. The introduction of new digital tools, hardware, and software has resulted in and continues to feed a radical shift in business culture, work methods, and workflows. As a result, digital transformation is causing an evolution in the construction sector: let's look at how construction has changed and is changing as a result of this new approach, the result of IT developments. In 2020, IDC conducted a global study of digital transformation in construction titled "The Future of Connected Construction." Over 800 professionals from Europe, North and South America, and Asia participated in the study. The most intriguing finding was that digital transformation was a top priority for nearly four out of every five construction companies. In particular, 72 percent of interviewees identified digital transformation as a top priority for the development of work processes, business models, and company ecosystems. The study also reported individual

country results, so it is clear, for example, how much importance is attributed to digital transformation in the construction sector in the United Kingdom, where digital transformation was indicated as a priority by 83% of interviewees. Furthermore, this isn't just a case of future wishes or goals: 81% of British professionals said they were actively involved in the digital transformation process. However, in terms of current projects, it must be stated that the use of digital solutions remains marginal. For example, only 1% of interviewees claimed to use digital tools in more than 60% of their projects, whereas more than 70% of businesses used digital solutions in less than 30% of their projects. So, while there are clear benefits to digital developments, and businesses are prepared, it appears that we are still waiting for what may be referred to as the "great leap forward" in digital transformation in construction. According to IDC, there are five digital challenges that companies in the sector must address in the coming years. The first challenge is to develop a shared technological roadmap at the company level in order to determine the extent of digital investment required; the second is to develop a scalable technological architecture; the third is to develop clear objectives for measuring development; and the final two challenges are to gather the necessary technological skills and to integrate the best digital practises into the company. It is undeniably true that if there is one critical tool that can guide digital transformation in the construction industry, it is the well-known BIM, which stands for Building Information Modelling. In a nutshell, this is a digital representation of a building that can show physical and functional characteristics of the building, such as other stages in the lifecycle. BIM is becoming more widely used in the construction industry around the world, ensuring sharing, flexibility, and broadranging interaction: it should be noted that this tool brings together the various professionals involved in a project, providing opportunities for encounter throughout the entire construction process. BIM can be thought of as the virtualization of all project information, which is extremely useful during the design phase, as well as the construction phase and, later, the maintenance phase. The construction industry is in desperate need of a digital makeover. Faced with project efficiency

challenges, ongoing safety concerns, and flatlining labour productivity levels, the industry's slow adoption of new technologies has reached a tipping point. To improve communication, efficiency, productivity, and safety, digital transformation necessitates changing processes and utilising new resources that harness the power of data. This can help construction firms position themselves for profitable growth in a highly competitive industry while also addressing workforce issues. The construction industry has an older workforce, and as more baby boomers retire, the industry faces a labour shortage that is expected to worsen. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, there were approximately 300,000 construction job openings in June 2019, with the industry expected to require 747,000 more workers by 2026. Despite the fact that the demand for skilled craftspeople has been steadily increasing, fewer young people are entering the industry. Prospective employees simply do not see construction as an appealing and viable career option, especially when other industries are considered more tech-savvy and offer perks that appeal to millennial workers. To navigate these conditions and maintain their competitive edge, construction firms must pursue a two-pronged strategy: invest in new technologies to streamline operations and reduce costs from blueprint to final product, and invest in the workforce through retraining initiatives and talent pipeline expansion. Digital transformation is more than just digitising analogue functions; it allows for a fundamental shift in how a business operates in order to compete in a digital world. End-user adoption ultimately enables three key areas of transformation: Digital Business enables expansion, Digital Process improves efficiency and profitability, and Digital Backbone secures usability for business needs. Identifying and implementing valuable digital tools, data-enabled hardware, and field software can lay the groundwork for long-term growth. Using drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for aerial photography, for example, can help speed up a land survey and aid planning by utilising digital imaging techniques, precise topographic mapping software, and data analytics that inform building strategy. Continued

UAV surveillance can also aid in site security by inspecting for safety hazards or structural flaws. These innovative building techniques, when combined with 3-D printing, automated equipment tracking, and progress reporting, reduce the time, effort, and cost associated with more traditional construction approaches. In an industry beleaguered by price disruptions, such as tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium imposed in 2018, increasing efficiencies and lowering controllable costs are more important than ever. Innovative software can identify and quantify work tasks, reducing or eliminating unnecessary work to help maximise time and effort. Supply chain data can even be tracked in the cloud, increasing transparency and accuracy by collecting data on a single platform. Digital tools not only help with project budgets and timelines, but they also improve worker safety and morale. Workforce issues abound in the construction industry. The industry has been dealing with a lack of organised site management, miscommunications between the field and the regional office, and a decline in employee morale. The flow of information from the job site to the regional office to the corporate level can be fragmented, delayed, and insufficient. The amount of time it can take to enter information into the system results in a lack of real-time visibility into the progress of a project, which can have an impact on cashflow. Data integration can help to improve communication and deliver more accurate information more quickly. Work in Progress (WIP) tools track work in real time, analysing data that can then be used to inform future project plans. They also enable more precise scheduling with the appropriate amount of margin and risk tolerance built into project plans. Building Information Modelling (BIM) can similarly synthesise all essential aspects of a project's input into a single plan with 3-D modelling, allowing contributors to stay in timely communication. By creating more jobs that require technological skills, digital transformation can also help attract younger workers to the industry. According to U.S. News & World Report, less than 10% of construction workers are under the age of 25, with the median age being over 42. Modernizing processes through increased technological adoption can both create new jobs and ensure the

industry's long-term viability. Technology also allows construction managers to standardise approaches across a project (or multiple projects), allowing for greater clarity in delegating responsibility and even safety. According to IDC, 279 million wearables will be in use by the end of 2023, a technology that can be used to improve site safety and productivity monitoring. Sensors attached to workers' clothing or hard hats, for example, can detect signs of fatigue to prevent an accident, monitor body temperature to prevent hypothermia or heat exhaustion, send an alert via noise or vibration to indicate a hazard, and provide supervisors with real-time information about the number and location of employees on site. Successful digital adoption may reinforce competitive capabilities and lay the groundwork for a successful future for companies that can augment their capabilities now. Innovative applications of technology can fundamentally change the project design and development process, from project management tools that provide real-time communication, updates, and project overviews to cloud and mobile technology, advanced uses for GPS, robotics, drones, and more. Digital transformation can help the industry navigate workforce issues, discover new efficiencies, and build an integrated platform to reenergize growth for future generations.

Digital technologies are increasingly being used in construction. However, the transformation effects of digital technology implementation in the context of construction have yet to be fully understood. As a result, the goal of this research was to provide a comprehensive understanding of digital transformation in construction. The study drew on existing literature by reviewing 36 journal publications published between 2016, when digital transformation emerged in the field of information systems, and 2020. This resulted in the creation of an inductive framework based on a grounded theory methodology (GTM) to highlight digital transformation in construction as a process in which the implementation of digital technologies generates transformation effects that prompt strategic considerations for putting in place the enablers that facilitate transformation effects and suppressing the barriers to it. Using the framework as a

foundation, this study described and presented strategic considerations for facilitating specific enablers and suppressing specific barriers as a digital transformation guideline in construction. This study demonstrated how the implementation of digital technologies has increased understanding of and provided a foundation for digital transformation in the construction industry. Building information modelling (BIM), augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), laser scanning, robotics, 3D printing, prefabrication and DfMa platforms, analytics software, blockchain, digital twins, internet of things (IoTs), and machine learning solutions are increasingly being implemented throughout the built asset lifecycle (e.g., project, organisation, and industry levels) (Ibem and Laryea, 2014; Koch et al., 2019; Singh, 2019). The review of academic research reveals not only an increase in implementation but also an adaptation of digital technologies for construction operations (Oesterreich and Teuteberg, 2016; Morgan, 2019; Pan et al., 2020; Zabidin et al., 2020). Construction professionals, construction companies, professional bodies, and government agencies around the world have expressed their preferences for implementing digital technologies in construction. According to McKinsey & Company, top players in the construction industry agree that digital technologies are critical to their survival (Buisman, 2018), and the most forward-thinking are aggressively implementing them (KPMG, 2019). Some of these technologies, such as BIM, have become the standard in construction project delivery and are nearing maturity in many businesses (Maskuriy et al., 2019b; Zabidin et al., 2020). The application of digital technologies has transformational effects, which are referred to as digital transformation (DT). DT refers to the changes (or disruptions) that the implementation of digital technologies causes to existing business models in the construction production process, construction companies, and the construction supply chain (Hausberg et al., 2019; Nadkarni and Prügl, 2020). The transformation effects of digital technologies differentiate DT from digitization, which is simply the conversion of analogue information (e.g., texts, photos, and sounds) into digital information (or binary

numbers) that can be encoded by a computer, and digitalization, which is the broader use of digital technologies to optimise existing business processes and functions through enhanced coordination to create more business opportunities and customer value (Verhoef et al., 2019; Berlak et al., 2020). In the construction industry, for example, old 2D designs on paper can now be modelled in 3D using computer-aided designs (CAD) (digitization). Another example is the integration of CAD designs from various trades into the BIM common platform, which allows for improved project procurement through shared access, clash detection, scheduling, costing, and analytics (digitalization). Finally, client integration in the building procurement process via augmented interaction with 3D or higher models, flatter project–organization structure as a result of global access to project information in the BIM platform, or the evolution of new competencies such as construction informatics are typical examples of transformations resulting from the implementation of digital technologies in construction (DT). Based on the examples, digitization–digitalization–DT appears to be a logical progression from one to the next. Indeed, it has been proposed that digitization and digitalization are required in order to achieve DT (Verhoef et al., 2019) It is worth noting that the construction industry is on the verge of a "grand" digital technology implementation (Murray, 2018; Autodesk, 2020), but progress toward DT will be difficult. DT is concerned with introducing digital technologies and implementing the appropriate technologies by assessing business needs, strategizing for future needs, and developing a future roadmap (Murray, 2018; Shapiro et al., 2019). As a result, a strategic implementation of digital technologies is required to facilitate the enablers of DT while suppressing the barriers to it in construction (Pan et al., 2020). Full-scale DT has a wide range of benefits in construction at the industry (through increased productivity and market share), organisational (through sustained competitiveness and lower costs in construction companies), and project levels (through improved project performance and safety) (Agarwal et al., 2016). By 2025, these benefits are estimated to be worth USD$1.2 trillion in the residential sector alone (Gerbert et al., 2016). Meanwhile, DT is not solely concerned with positive outcomes.

Negative outcomes such as loss of investments, job loss, and loss of the construction industry's identity due to digital technologies are possible, especially in a construction industry characterised by fragmentation, lack of replication, transience, and decentralisation, making DT extremely difficult (Koeleman et al., 2019). As a result, DT must be performed correctly in order to maximise the benefits while minimising the risks. With recent literature aggregation revealing an increase in digital technology implementation (Maskuriy et al., 2019a; Maskuriy et al., 2019b; Zabidin et al., 2020), the transformational effects of these technologies will begin to materialise as DT in construction. Meanwhile, current research on DT in fields such as information systems (IS) (Vial, 2019), business economics (Reis et al., 2018), and interdisciplinary management (Henriette et al., 2015; Verhoef et al., 2019; Nadkarni and Prügl, 2020) has not provided an adequate understanding of DT in construction. As a result, it is currently unknown how construction stakeholders will respond to and adapt to DT. The purpose of this study was to conduct a literature review to assess current knowledge and provide an understanding of DT in construction. It is hoped that this research will help construction stakeholders respond to and adapt to DT in the construction industry. The first research goal is to propose an inductive research approach for reviewing the literature using a GTM. The method provides an exploratory research guideline for DT in construction. The second goal is to identify and describe the following: strategic considerations for implementing digital technologies in construction, enablers that facilitate DT in construction, and barriers that inhibit it. The third goal is to present and describe an illustrative framework for how strategic considerations facilitate and suppress specific enablers and barriers to DT in construction. This research makes two contributions. The first is a review that incorporates current DT knowledge in construction. The second is to open up avenues for the development of DT guidelines in the construction industry. The increasing use of digital technologies such as virtual reality gadgets and smartphones, as well as their proclivity to disrupt existing

business practises and competition landscapes, as well as to cause changes in end users' behaviours in response to the technologies, has been the bedrock upon which the conceptualization of digital transformation (DT) in the literature has been built. There are numerous digital technologies used in construction, which can be classified into four categories: digital data, automation systems, digital access, and connectivity (Dallasega et al., 2018; Heusler and Kadija, 2018). When digital technologies are used, they generate data (Vial, 2019); for example, wearable sensors and smart metres are used as digital data collection points in construction (Craveiroa et al., 2019). Digital technologies are used in automation systems to create selforganizing systems such as robots for lifting objects on construction sites (Berlak et al., 2020) and blockchain for executable payment to contractors (Li et al., 2019). Digital access is derived from automation systems, and it is the ability provided by mobile access to internet networks to execute real-time solutions such as data analytics and processing to make on-the-spot decisions or make future predictions (Berger, 2016; Buisman, 2018; Maskuriy et al., 2019b). Connectivity or network refers to the linking and synchronisation of separate activities in the BIM platform, such as 3D model development and energy-use simulation (Keskin et al., 2020), or the linking of the physical-to-digitalto-physical in construction using sensors, cloud computing, IoT, augmented reality, and virtual reality (Craveiroa et al., 2019). DT evolved initially from the domains of business transformation strategy and information systems (Ismail et al., 2017). Business process transformation establishes new ideas, concepts, opportunities, and competitive strategies to drive business processes, whereas information and communication technology (ICT) is used to trigger business transformations. As this evolution unfolds over time, the impact has resulted in radical changes in business management in project and organisational contexts (Morakanyane et al., 2017). The changes have given rise to the buzzword "digital transformation" (DT). DT can be defined as the use of digital technologies to improve business performance (Henriette et al., 2015). Meanwhile, it is not just about technologies, but also about the changes that are occurring as a result of the adoption of digital technologies (Verhoef et al., 2019). The changes or effects are frequently the creation and addition of value to

the existing business (Hausberg et al., 2019) and, on occasion, a decrease in business value. Value addition may improve customer experiences of digitally enabled products and services (Verhoef et al., 2019), improve employee skills and talents (Ismail et al., 2017), and achieve competitive business models (Morakanyane et al., 2017; Reis et al., 2018). DT can also be defined in terms of the individual, organisational, societal, and industry levels where disruptions occur as a result of the adoption of digital technologies. Businesses adopt digital technologies to alter their value creation process in response to disruptions caused by the proliferation and adoption of digital technologies in general society or a specific industry. As a result, DT is a process in which digital technologies play a critical role in creating and reinforcing disruptions that have significant consequences for business performance (Ismail et al., 2017; Reis et al., 2018). Given the breadth of digital technologies, DT guidelines for correctly implementing them should be established in order to maximise their transformational impacts in construction. An inductive approach to the literature review was chosen with the goal of expanding on current knowledge to provide an understanding of DT in construction. This study used the procedures advocated by Sutrisna and Setiawan (2016a) and Wolfswinkel et al. (2013) to review the literature, employing their procedural steps adapted from grounded theory methodology (GTM) analysis. The guidelines are divided into six steps and thirteen substeps that guided the review process, from the definition of the scope of review to the presentation of findings. To ensure a transparent and replicable process of analysing the literature on DT in construction (Nadkarni and Prügl, 2020), the approach uses the outcome of one step to perform the next (Hausberg et al., 2019). Here they are: Step 1—Determining the Review's Scope This review will concentrate on the research contributions to DT in the construction domain. DT is essentially the impact of digital technology implementation, and it is still being revealed in both practise and research in the construction industry. As a result, focusing on this

sector only aided in being sensitive to emerging concepts in the analysis and obtaining in-depth understanding, rather than focusing on research contributions across multidisciplinary sectors, as Verhoef et al. did (2019). Meanwhile, it was recognised that construction operates on several levels, primarily the project, organisational, and industry levels. To avoid contextual bias, these levels were included in the preliminary/descriptive analysis. Furthermore, due to the nascent nature of the subject, no time frame was established in the scoping to allow the date of research publications to emerge from the data. Step 2—Selecting Research Contribution Sources In this step, the databases to source data from have been identified as Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS). One of the reasons was that these databases are domain specific; they cover more high-quality research publications than other online sources, particularly construction research publications (Chadegani et al., 2013). (Maskuriy et al., 2019b). Peer-reviewed journal publications were the primary focus of these databases. Construction journal publications are subjected to a more rigorous peer-review process than conference papers and practitioner reports. As a result, they provide a more valid and reliable conceptualization of a subject, particularly one that is still in its early stages as DT in construction. As a result, academics and practitioners typically prefer journal publications to disseminate new findings (Henriette et al., 2015).

Step 3—Keyword Selection A preliminary search in the Google scholar database was conducted in this step to identify the keywords and search terms for the review. It was discovered that while DT is the generic keyword used in multidisciplinary disciplines (Verhoef et al., 2019), it is also used to describe the impact of implementing digital technologies in the construction sector [for example, (Bonanomi et al., 2019)]. As a result,

a search term criterion that includes a general keyword to account for the impact of digital technology implementation ("digital transformation") and a domain-specific keyword ("construction") was adopted. The search terms containing the words "digital transformation" AND "construction" were created to collect information. Although it was acknowledged that keywords such as "digitization" and "digitalization" could be relevant, the search term combination adequately meets the criterion. Step 4: Screening Procedure In July 2020, the search process in the databases using the keywords search combination yielded up to 5797 publications. This is a large number because broad keywords, particularly "construction," can convey meanings other than describing a sector (semantics). The publications were scanned by title, and the abstracts of those relevant to the study's goal were read (Wolfswinkel et al., 2013; Verhoef et al., 2019). Due to the use of multiple databases, duplications and peerreviewed publications that are not journals were filtered. Conference papers published in ScienceDirect proceedings and Springer publication outlets are two examples. To avoid incorrect interpretations, we removed publications that were not written in English as part of the filtration process (Reis et al., 2018). It was reduced to 151 publications after reading the abstracts and filtering. Before downloading the publications in PDF format from Endnote, the search query was run again to ensure that they were correctly included for a more in-depth review (Chadegani et al., 2013). Step 5—Application Eligibility As previously stated, the 151 publications were subjected to a more thorough study and analysis, employing more stringent inclusion/exclusion criteria to select publications that qualified for the final sample, as follows: 1) publications were required to primarily focus on and contribute to DT in the construction sector, including the project, organisational, and industry levels of construction operation [e.g., Bonanomi et al(2019) .'s study on the impact of DT on

organisational structures in large AEC firms]; 2) publications were required to use DT as the theoretical lens of research and may use this theoretical lens to: propose hypotheses; identify the research variables; and for data collection. Following the eligibility process, a final sample of 36 journal publications that met the criteria was selected. The publications in the sample were published between 2016 and 2020, with 35 of them appearing between 2018 and 2020. This indicates that research on DT in construction is still in its early stages, stemming from DT as a research topic that emerged only about 5–10 years ago from the broader field of IS (Ismail et al., 2017; Nadkarni and Prügl, 2020). Step 6: Structure and Analysis of the Coding The coding structure is split into two sections. The first is descriptive information about journal publications, which is divided into three categories: publication field, nature of the study, and context. The categories are further subdivided into children categories, which contain more detailed information about the publications. The majority of the sources are journals that aim to produce publications on construction information and technology (36 percent ). Without jeopardising the scoping process, the five publications from nonconstruction journals included in the sample (including Computers in Industry, from which three publications were sourced) are consistent with the selection criteria. These publications show that other disciplines are interested in DT in construction. Furthermore, 58 percent (21) of the journal publications are empirical studies using quantitative or qualitative research methodologies, with the remainder (15 percent or 42 percent) being conceptual studies. While this contradicts previous findings in DT research in other fields (Nadkarni and Prügl, 2020; Reis et al., 2018), it suggests that more efforts should be made to test the existing theoretical foundations on DT in construction. To match the enthusiasm for empirical testing of DT in construction, studies that seek to conceptualise the field, such as this one, are required. Finally, in line with the broader implications of DT in various contexts (society, organisation, industry, and project contexts) (Keskin et al., 2020; Bharadwaj et al., 2013; Morakanyane et al.,

2017), 55 percent of the publications focused on DT in the construction industry context, 28 percent in the project context, and 17 percent in the organisational context. Surprisingly, the majority of conceptual studies (13/15, or 87 percent) focused on the context of the construction industry. It reinforces the emerging nature of research on DT in construction, beginning with more field research conceptualization (conceptual studies) from a higher context, which is the construction industry context. The second is the coding structure for the sample's concepts or main points of focus. It is divided into three sections: strategic considerations, enablers, and barriers to DT in construction. Similarly, the categories are further subdivided into categories for children. The techniques borrowed from the GTM were used in this step to carefully analyse the texts in the final sample (Böhm, 2004; Sutrisna and Setiawan, 2016b) in order to develop an understanding of the literature under review (Vial, 2019). As a result, the three GTM techniques (open coding, axial coding, and selective coding) were used. Open coding is the conceptualization and categorization of phenomena based on a thorough examination of the data. Axial coding is the process of exploring and identifying the relationships between concepts and categories developed through the open coding process. The integration of the various categories that were developed, elaborated, and mutually related during axial coding into one cohesive whole is known as selective coding. It's worth noting that selective coding is very similar to axial coding, except that it's done on a higher level. The open coding was carried out by interrogating the main text in the 36 publications regarding the findings, discussions, concluding sections, and other relevant parts, while also taking notes in the NVivo software to summarise each publication (Hull, 2013; Sutrisna and Setiawan, 2016a; Nadkarni and Prügl, 2020). This resulted in the first abstraction of the sample's concepts. At this point, four hundred and twenty-three (423) first-order categories were identified using open coding. In the following axial coding, the open codes were searched for meanings and patterns in order to assemble them into second-order categories in NVivo. For example, first-order categories such as "concerns about information exchange" and "inconsistent standards" were assigned to a secondorder category coded "Low standardisation." In accordance with GTM,

the publications and open codes were revisited iteratively, with new insights recorded in a separate document. The coding instances were greatly reduced after a round in order to retain the 26 second-order categories through axial coding. The final technique that represented the highest level of abstraction in our coding was selective coding, where we attempted to integrate the second-order categories. We further reduced the 26 second-order categories into three main categories at this point. In accordance with the GTM, the analysis was designed to progress from one level of abstraction to the next, beginning with the sample's descriptive information and progressing to the storyline or node summary of the main categories and children categories of the concepts or main points of focus in the sample (open coding, axial coding, and selective coding). Finally, the mapping tree of the categories' interactions is presented to discuss the findings. Meanwhile, using an inductive content analysis method, a separate analysis of the publications was carried out to reveal construction activity fields and their digital transformation. Due to the emergent nature of the subject of investigation (Kyngäs, 2020), this method was used in accordance with the previous inductive approach to literature review (or data collection). The first step involved data reduction, in which the first author read through the 36 publications to identify and select those that focused on the use of specific digital technologies in their analysis. Craveiroa et al. (2019), for example, focused on the application of 3D printing for architectural and engineering designs and was chosen. Aghimien et al(2020a) .'s study was not chosen to investigate digital partnering solely from a professional standpoint. Nineteen of the 36 publications met this criterion and were chosen. The second step involved data grouping, in which the second author, an experienced qualitative researcher [e.g., Sutrisna and Setiawan, 2016b], identified construction activity fields that were used in the 19 publications. For cross analysis and descriptions, the author used MS Excel to tabulate digital technologies in "rows" and "construction activity fields" in columns. The construction activity fields refer to project-based tasks like physical construction (Koseoglu et al., 2019) and organisational processes like interfirm relations (Hetemi et al., 2020) that are involved in project delivery and asset lifecycle. The final step was to develop concepts. Both authors contributed by extracting

the applications of digital technologies to specific construction activity fields in the publications using the table created in the previous step. It was necessary to reconcile the construction activity field of application of a digital technology, such as whether BIM is applicable to either supply chain integration or interfirm relations (Hetemi et al., 2020). The authors extracted and retained both activity fields because the same digital technology (e.g., BIM) was used in other publications in the sample [e.g., Berlak et al., 2020]. Considerations Construction:

for

Strategic

Use

of

Digital

Technologies

in

1.Process Process-centric strategic thinking suggests systematic implementation of digital technologies and has been shown to promote DT in the construction industry (Li et al., 2019; Aghimien et al., 2020b). This strategic consideration aligns the procedural implementation of digital technologies with the phases of the construction project lifecycle (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Morgan, 2019), for example, initially implementing BIM in the design and construction phases and later implementing the tool during the building operation phase. According to a study, the process-centric strategy was used in the blockchain implementation, which proceeded in a controlled manner based on project lifecycle phases (Li et al., 2019). As a result, the consequences of blockchain implementation, such as circumventing existing regulations, were better controlled and evaluated (Li et al., 2019). Furthermore, digital technologies have the potential to be extremely disruptive. The process-centric strategic consideration enables incremental digital technology implementation, which aids in controlling the rate of diffusion of implemented technology before it reaches the disruptive stage (Deraman et al., 2019; Morgan, 2019). 2.Collaboration Strategic considerations for digital technology implementation should encourage collaboration and interaction among construction supply

chain stakeholders (Dallasega et al., 2018; Craveiroa et al., 2019; Keskin et al., 2020). According to a recent study, most stakeholders who implement BIM are still immature and frequently struggle with basic understanding of how it fosters stakeholder collaboration (Yang and Chou, 2019). It becomes clear that strategic considerations should promote collaboration in a virtual environment, such as those seen with BIM tool platforms (Koseoglu et al., 2019). A synergistic working relationship among stakeholders (Dallasega et al., 2018) and improved project performance are the benefits (Papadonikolaki, 2018; Papadonikolaki et al., 2019). In practise, strategic considerations that encourage collaboration can be seen as digital partnering among project organisations to share digital resources (Lavikka et al., 2017; Aghimien et al., 2020a). Furthermore, it could be a collaborative ecosystem enabled by technology (Aghimien et al., 2020a) in which digital technologies coevolve across software, hardware, products, people, and processes (Singh, 2019; Hetemi et al., 2020; Keskin et al., 2020). As a result, strategic consideration specifies how people and machines can be linked, particularly in large-scale infrastructure projects (Keskin et al., 2020). This strategic consideration is required to guide the implementation of cobots (collaborative robots) to work alongside humans in construction environments (Darko et al., 2020). 3.Learning Because technology is constantly evolving, the starting point is frequently ambiguous, and the learning curve is never-ending (Buisman, 2018). New digital technologies appear to be developed incrementally, which frequently results in subsequent model upgrades. This necessitates continuous learning among digital technology implementers in the construction industry, essentially understanding the new features in upgraded digital technologies and correctly applying them (de Soto et al., 2018). As a result, strategic consideration for continuous digital learning is required and has been shown to improve understanding of the gaps and solutions to digital technology applications in the design, construction, and operation phases (Chen, 2019b). The feedback process is specified in the strategic consideration for continuous learning, whereby lessons

learned from implemented digital technologies in construction become inputs for improving future digital technology design and development (Dallasega et al., 2018; Chen, 2019b). The use of 3D printing technology in the manufacturing sector is being considered. Continuous learning among construction stakeholders has been discovered to be beneficial in adapting technology in the construction sector (Chen, 2019b). As a result, construction technology is gradually becoming domain specialisation (Dallasega et al., 2018). 4.Value It is critical to identify the quantitative and qualitative benefits that could be derived from the use of digital technologies in the construction industry (Darko et al., 2020). This corresponds to value capture and can be accomplished by developing business cases that specify the value added by utilising digital construction technologies (Winch and Cha, 2020). As a result, strategic considerations for implementing digital technologies should include the development of business cases (Tezel et al., 2020; Winch and Cha, 2020). The business case for digital technologies reveals short and long-term benefits and/or value added. The business case for digital technologies with a high initial cost, such as 3D printing, should specify the long-term value added (Craveiora, 2019). When such technologies are used over a long period of time, they are more likely to deliver higher value (Craveiroa et al., 2019). Similarly, the use of AI technologies can be costly in terms of money, time, and complexity; thus, a long-term business case should be developed (Darko et al., 2020). To summarise, developing a business case that captures the value of digital technologies is a strategic way of justifying investment in digital technologies in construction in both the short and long term (Greif et al., 2020; Hetemi et al., 2020). 5.Lifecycle Digital technologies, such as cloud technology, that support lifecycle project implementation are becoming more prevalent. Cloud technology is used in construction to automate lifecycle tasks such as

lifecycle information exchange (Keskin et al., 2020), as demonstrated by Succar and Poirier's work (2020). As a result, strategic planning should anticipate and support the implementation of digital technologies throughout the project lifecycle. This ensures that the transformational effects are felt throughout the lifecycle of the built asset (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Keskin et al., 2020). The BIM execution plan, for example, is an operational strategy for BIM implementation not only during the project design stage, but also throughout the project lifecycle. According to Papadonikolaki (2018), extending BIM implementation through facility management to the end of the built asset lifecycle has increased BIM implementation and impacts in the construction supply chain and many construction organisations. The result, which can also be seen in IoT implementation, has assisted construction organisations in better adapting to digital evolutions that ensure positive outcomes (Woodhead et al., 2018). (Newman et al., 2020). Digital champions are created as a result of the implementation of digital technologies in the construction industry (Morgan, 2019). In the case of BIM implementation, BIM champions are distinguished from adopters-only by emphasising institutional outcomes other than implementation-only (Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020). (Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020; Hetemi et al., 2020). Construction and project leaders who have a strong commitment to implementing digital technologies even when it is inconvenient can be considered digital champions (Chen, 2019a; Aghimien et al., 2020b). Such dedication can be exemplary for construction operation-level employees (Berlak et al., 2020) and has been shown to motivate them to become digital champions (Bonanomi et al., 2019). Digital champions have been identified at the organisational level to encourage the interorganizational application of digital technologies through digital partnerships (Aghimien et al., 2020b). Furthermore, digital champions facilitate DT at the institutional level by ensuring that digital agents (users) apply digital technologies in accordance with professional institution rules and standards in the construction industry (Morgan, 2019).

Because of the ability to perform tasks digitally, the use of digital technologies has become an attractive point that accelerates DT in construction. The construction skill-base is digitally empowered by digital technologies, and construction processes are transformed (Craveiroa et al., 2019). (de Soto et al., 2018). As a result of the use of digital technologies in construction, studies have identified the emergence of new construction skills (e.g., construction informatics and block chaining) (Tezel et al., 2020), job displacement such as traditional cost quantification (de Soto et al., 2018), and the evolution of new tasks such as sensor monitoring (Woodhead et al., 2018) as transformations. The enthusiasm for such transformations is higher among the younger generation of construction workers, who are eager to use new technologies and implement new ways of working (Pham et al., 2020; Soman and Whyte, 2020). They improve their technical and soft skills, such as communication (Braun and Sydow, 2019; Papadonikolaki et al., 2019; Winch and Cha, 2020), advancing them from digital talents to digital agents (Goulding et al., 2018; Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020). Encouraging the next generation to use digital technologies to perform construction tasks is critical to the success of DT in construction (Koseoglu et al., 2019). Another important factor is that the construction industry is an intellectual space where digital talents are challenged and nurtured through creative professional opportunities that lead to DT advancement (Singh, 2019; Pan et al., 2020). This is exacerbated by the IT industry's lack of construction knowledge, which creates a digital opportunity for construction professionals and practitioners (Woodhead et al., 2018). The rise of digital technologies necessitates an educational agenda (Li et al., 2019), manifested in the form of ongoing digital training (Aghimien et al., 2020b; Hetemi et al., 2020). The training has improved digital construction knowledge, skills, and capabilities (Goulding et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019; Aghimien et al., 2020b). Intraorganizational (including project organisation) digital training (e.g., facilitated workshops and meetings) is used to shorten the digital learning curve, especially for young construction workers (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Aghimien et al., 2020b). However, such pieces of training necessitate the use of outsourced specialists (Koch et al., 2019),

which is both time consuming and costly in BIM training (Newman et al., 2020). In addition, institutionalised training that enables the organic development of digital innovation across the industry is on the rise (Maskuriy et al., 2019b; Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020). For example, in the United Kingdom construction industry, the degree apprenticeship model of undergraduate education is increasingly being used to improve students' digital capabilities and graduates' digital capabilities (Woodhead et al., 2018). This model emphasises the significance of higher education in the construction industry's journey toward DT. Interindustry digital training is becoming more common in the construction industry (Goulding et al., 2018; Darko et al., 2020), which has been useful in harvesting prefabrication and robotics development skills from the manufacturing and engineering sectors, respectively (Pan et al., 2020; Singh, 2019). The growing use of digital technologies has created a fertile ground for construction innovation (Craveiroa et al., 2019; Pan et al., 2020). The most common is the application of digital technologies, which are primarily found in the manufacturing sector. It has resulted in the development of an interdisciplinary digital innovation environment in which construction practises can interact with practises from other industries (Chen, 2019b). It has also increased the transfer of technology between the construction and other sectors (Goulding et al., 2018; Singh, 2019). Surprisingly, digitally savvy construction clients have taken advantage of the created interface (Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020) to learn from other industries and demand similar digital technology applications in their projects (Woodhead et al., 2018). It now symbolises how construction clients bring innovation to their projects, influencing those involved to use digital technologies in the project delivery process (Hetemi et al., 2020). Innovation, on the other hand, can be either positive or negative. On the plus side, the transformative impact of these innovations accelerates the adoption of digital technologies. On the negative side, an aggressive stance could spark an industry-wide antipathy toward the use of digital technologies, stifling innovation in the process (Koseoglu et al., 2019). The presence of a third-party (system) facilitates the successful

implementation of digital technologies in the construction industry (Aghimien et al., 2020b). Sepasgozar and Loosemore (2017) identified visionaries, innovators, followers, and conservatives as key players in the interaction between stakeholders who manufacture digital technologies (or vendors) and customers who use them in construction. Visionary manufacturers offer installation assistance (either online or in person) for digital technologies purchased for construction purposes (Berlak et al., 2020). Such Autodesk solution support has increased the use of digital technologies in construction (Newman et al., 2020). Recently, system support has gradually expanded to include benchmarking the impact of digital technologies on bottom-line construction performance metrics (such as productivity and competitiveness) (Berlak et al., 2020). This has increased cocreation between innovative (or innovators) construction stakeholders and manufacturers such as Autodesk to produce customised digital technologies while also transforming existing digital capabilities (Woodhead et al., 2018). (Braun and Sydow, 2019). Cocreation between construction stakeholders and manufacturers has aided in the development of real world-class proofs-of-concept (Pan et al., 2020) by pragmatists for robotic design and implementation on construction sites (Sepasgozar and Loosemore, 2017). Another aspect of system support is when construction companies collaborate digitally with IT domain companies (Aghimien et al., 2020a). As demonstrated in a BIM implementation study (Braun and Sydow, 2019), it is prudently engaging in digital partnerships to gain access to digital resources and capabilities that were previously unavailable but are critical to successful BIM implementation (Bonanomi et al., 2019; Aghimien et al., 2020a). To reap the full benefits of digital technologies and their transformational impacts in construction, new forms of organisation encompassing project and organisational relationships, roles and responsibilities, and organisational structure are required (Bonanomi et al., 2019; Darko et al., 2020). Less departmentalized structures enable employees in construction organisations to easily distribute digital knowledge (Bonanomi et al., 2019; Hetemi et al., 2020). It is critical to consider the size of construction organisations. It is critical to

clarify the ease of digital technology diffusion in both large and small organisations (Morgan, 2019; Newman et al., 2020). Role flexibility, which allows construction professionals to take on additional responsibilities outside of their primary domain, improves DT, particularly in large organisations (Bonanomi et al., 2019; Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020). It gives practitioners more freedom to innovate by allowing them to draw on individual, organisational, and institutional resources (Morgan, 2019). Furthermore, the adaptability ensures that existing informal roles and relationships are not destroyed but rather properly aligned with new ones (Bonanomi et al., 2019). To deliver the transformational impacts of digital technologies, particularly BIM, new roles such as Chief Digital Officer (CDO) (and departments) are increasingly being created (Maskuriy et al., 2019b; Braun and Sydow, 2019; Koseoglu et al., 2019; Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020). Many digital construction technologies, such as blockchain, are not solutions in and of themselves, but become a better solution when integrated with the internet or IoT. (Li et al., 2019). Legitimizing such an integration, both legally and ethically (Li et al., 2019), prescribes how such digital technologies should be implemented in an integrated manner (Papadonikolaki, 2018). In practise, construction organisations are in charge of obtaining such legitimacy from the government (Morgan, 2019), whose role has become dominant (Hetemi et al., 2020). The government is primarily responsible for issuing directives and national initiatives that promote digital service integration and digital technology interoperability (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Li et al., 2019). Some of the directives for controlling BIM instrumentality in the public domain are the Norway BIM manual and the United Kingdom BIM level 2 mandate. As a result of the government's role, professional institutions and professional bodies have issued initiatives (for example, a precontract BIM execution plan) for quasicontractual digital collaboration (Papadonikolaki, 2018; Papadonikolaki et al., 2019) and created a common platform for BIM use among multidisciplinary actors (Morgan, 2019). External legitimation, whether by the government or professional institutions, has become the guideline for implementing digital technologies in construction; for example, in Spain, the use of BIM in public tendering

(Hetemi et al., 2020). On the negative side, the government's role in legitimising digital technologies is primarily focused on BIM in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, and European countries. Other digital technologies, on the other hand, are still underutilised in other countries. Regardless, a study on blockchain application in construction predicted that external legitimization through the government's role would continue as interest in digital technologies in construction grew (Chen, 2019a; Tezel et al., 2020). Construction's Digital Transformation Obstacles: 1.Processing of Complex Data Digital technologies used in construction project design, construction and operation, and management operations generate a large amount of (semantic and geometric) data that is difficult to process and analyse (Keskin et al., 2020). It becomes more complicated when data must be transferred from one digital technology to another (for example, from a sensor on-site to an office server) (Buisman, 2018). The use of AI and ML techniques has aided in the processing and analysis of complex construction data, but it is not without flaws. Because of the lengthy data preparation required before the techniques can be used to obtain valid results, real-time data processing and analytics may not be possible (Heusler and Kadija, 2018; Maskuriy et al., 2019b; Chen, 2019b). One noticeable feature of BIM data is the complexity of processing and analysing construction data derived from various trades (Keskin et al., 2020). According to studies, this prevents attempts by constructors and facility managers involved in a large airport project to make sense of BIM data (Koch et al., 2019; Koseoglu et al., 2019). This is a threat to DT in construction because isolated digital solutions are used instead of embedding digital solutions from various disciplines (Koseoglu et al., 2019). In terms of blockchain, the public blockchain can only process small amounts of data and is limited to a few transactions per second (Tezel et al., 2020), limiting its integration with smart cities and digital twins (Chen, 2019a; Li et al., 2019). However, in small organisations that generate mostly small construction data, data processing may not be

complex (Pham et al., 2020). 2.Access to and ownership of data As many construction projects and organisations struggle to achieve open-data sharing, data generated during the construction process is still treated as confidential (Aghimien et al., 2020a). It generates legal issues that have not been tested or precedented (Maskuriy et al., 2019a) (Li et al., 2019). For example, in the construction industry, data ownership and data use rights are frequently linked together to the detriment of data sharing/access (Chen, 2019a). Data owners are overly concerned with privacy (Chen, 2019a), and they treat data differently across project delivery (e.g., planning data vs. execution data) (Koch et al., 2019; Berlak et al., 2020). When multiple project phases or departments are involved, it results in independent data management where data is rarely shared Chen (2019a). Recent BIM platforms (e.g., BIM 360) enable data access across project phases (Koseoglu et al., 2019), but legal and interoperability issues remain unresolved (Koch et al., 2019). 3.Integration of Systems Lack of system integration is defined as the misalignment or incompatibility of implemented digital technologies in construction (Braun and Sydow, 2019), as well as the absence of an integrated layer of hardware, software, information flows, and connectivity (Woodhead et al., 2018). As is common in BIM implementation, the problem escalates when different trades use incompatible software packages that are not sufficiently integrated (or interoperable) (Braun and Sydow, 2019; Koch et al., 2019). Furthermore, the limited end-toend integration of the new generation of digital technologies (e.g., IoT, blockchains, cloud platforms, AI, and big data) across the construction value chain stems from the interoperability issue (Chen, 2019a). It confines digital technologies to a single application, focuses on a single problem or use-case (Woodhead et al., 2018), such as an enterprise management system (EMS) that records construction workers' wage rates but is unrelated to their productivity on-site (Chen,

2019b). To address this issue, it has been common practise to combine many point solutions that rarely accept integrative use of data (Woodhead et al., 2018; Chen, 2019b), resulting in silo solutions (Greif et al., 2020). According to Zabidin et al. (2020), nonintegration causes digital technologies to be used independently of one another, which slows down DT in construction. A lack of integration between BIM and IoT, for example, prevents the cyber-physical potential and a bidirectional information exchange between the physical and virtual environments (Zabidin et al., 2020). 4.Lack of standardisation The lack of standards (or standardisation) to guide the integration of various digital technologies in construction exacerbates the lack of system integration (Chen, 2019a). This reduces the number of digital technologies available in the construction technology ecosystem (Woodhead et al., 2018; Tezel et al., 2020). Because of a lack of standards to guide the integration of digital technologies, this problem becomes more difficult during the building operation phase (Koch et al., 2019). To standardise the integration of digital technologies in construction, a plethora of standard documents, such as the ISO suite of standards (Morgan, 2019; Succar and Poirier, 2020), have been released (Woodhead et al., 2018; Succar and Poirier, 2020). However, because of the influx of digital technologies used in construction, it has resulted in over standardization, making it difficult to determine what to standardise (or not) (Succar and Poirier, 2020). Furthermore, the ISO standards do not provide adequate guidelines for integrating digital technologies that cross sectors (e.g., 3D printing application in the manufacturing sector) (Craveiroa et al., 2019; Succar and Poirier, 2020), which may be due to a disparity in standardisation approaches between the product-oriented manufacturing industry and the processoriented construction industry (Succar and Poirier, 2020). In practise, the lack of standards for integrating digital technologies that cross industries stymies smart-city development (Chen, 2019a). 5.Uncertainty in Return on Investment

Digital technologies in construction frequently have high initial costs (Newman et al., 2020), which inspires adopters to expect a quick return on digital investment (ROI) (Woodhead et al., 2018; Berlak et al., 2020). When investing in digital technologies, construction owner organisations, in particular, are fixated on the concept of benefit realisation (Winch and Cha, 2020). This notion, according to Woodhead et al. (2018), fuels scepticism because of the uncertainty that frequently surrounds the benefits of digital technologies in construction (Oesterreich and Teuteberg, 2016). The concept promotes "future-proof" rather than aggressive investment in digital technologies (Woodhead et al., 2018; Greif et al., 2020). As a result, there is a fear of losing digital investment (Woodhead et al., 2018; Aghimien et al., 2020a), which is reinforced by a low profit margin in construction (Newman et al., 2020). Small businesses are more hesitant to invest in digital technologies because there are fewer incentives to recoup investment (Tezel et al., 2020). Meanwhile, it is not all doom and gloom, as certainty in the ROI of digital investments is possible. According to a cost-benefit analysis of robots, only repetitive application robots in complex projects are more economically competitive (de Soto et al., 2018). Furthermore, where a small amount of data is generated and analysed, the certainty of the ROI on digital investments increases (Chen, 2019a). A large amount of data complicates analytics and raises operational costs (Chen, 2019a). 6.Owners' Reluctance to Participate According to Winch and Cha, 2020, the goal of implementing digital technology in construction should be to meet the needs and expectations of owners regarding project delivery and organisational performance. This ensures not only owner buy-in to digital technologies (Hetemi et al., 2020; Keskin et al., 2020), but also the changes that may occur to the owner project and organisation as a result of digital technology implementation (Aghimien et al., 2020a; Berlak et al., 2020). For example, in order to support digital technology implementation, the owner organization's digital capabilities must be operational (Newman et al., 2020; Tezel et al., 2020). However, a lack

of owner buy-in in digital technologies persists in the construction industry, as does their inability to adapt to emerging changes (Koch et al., 2019). Lack of owner buy-in in digital technologies manifests as an add-on mentality of digital technologies (Papadonikolaki et al., 2019), emphasising partial implementation of digital technologies (Dallasega et al., 2018; Hetemi et al., 2020). It should be noted that a lack of owner buy-in does not preclude the implementation of digital technology in the owners' projects or organisations. The problem is that the use of digital technologies in owner projects has not been optimal due to a lack of owner buy-in (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Winch and Cha, 2020). (Berlak et al., 2020). 7.Displacement of Senior Citizens Because of the rapid development of technology, the implementation of digital technologies in construction has resulted in the introduction of digital capabilities that are opaque but, more concerningly, are primarily associated with young people (e.g., construction informatics) (Braun and Sydow, 2019; Koseoglu et al., 2019). Contrary to the knowledge management principle (Grant, 2002), this occurrence continues to displace older people who have experiential domain knowledge that fosters DT when appropriately combined with the digital capabilities of young construction workers (Woodhead et al., 2018). Parallel to this, there is a risk of digital technologies (e.g., robots) displacing traditional roles (e.g., material inventory) that are commonly handled by older people on construction sites (Woodhead et al., 2018; Pan et al., 2020). This continues to undermine older people's experiential contributions in construction. Older people, particularly those in strategic positions in project organisations, have been observed to express their dissatisfaction with the use of digital technology in construction projects (Koseoglu et al., 2019). Without an institutionalised age management approach to identify digital capabilities among older people, the characterization of ageing as a lack of skill (Pan et al., 2020) is commonplace in construction and has hampered DT efforts (Maskuriy et al., 2019b). 8.Outdated Business Models

The implementation of digital technologies is expected to result in innovative business models (where business and information technology are integrated) that transform the digital construction production process (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Keskin et al., 2020). This implies the abolition of physical construction (Singh, 2019) in favour of service-only construction (Keskin et al., 2020), such as IoT-enabled "buildings as a service" selling or self-organizing trades using blockchain (Woodhead et al., 2018). However, it is impossible, resulting in the preservation of existing (old) business models in construction (Tezel et al., 2020). Part of the issue stems from a lack of precedent (or use-cases) for innovative business models in construction (Singh, 2019; Tezel et al., 2020). As a result, innovative business models are condemned as a subjective proposition (Goulding et al., 2018). The trade-off of existing business models remains a contentious issue, particularly for incumbent construction firms (Verhoef et al., 2019). 9.The Digital Divide The digital divide manifests itself in large, often incumbent construction organisations having more resources and influence to effect greater external and internal changes through the use of digital technologies (Morgan, 2019). Small organisations have the advantage of adapting to changes caused by digital technology implementation more quickly (Morgan, 2019), but they have fewer resources and influence (Goulding et al., 2018; Papadonikolaki, 2018). Because of the digital divide, the traceability and transparency functions of blockchain are easily translated to business models in large construction organisations (Tezel et al., 2020). In large organisations, the digital divide in construction primarily favors/accentuates digital technology applications. This automatically undermines DT in construction because the more densely populated small construction organisations are excluded (Berlak et al., 2020; Newman et al., 2020). Furthermore, because of the supply chain's reliance on large and small organisations (Newman et al., 2020), an inequitable implementation of digital technologies reduces DT in construction

(Craveiroa et al., 2019). 10.System Invasions The increased use of digital technologies raises the risk of system attacks in the construction industry (Maskuriy et al., 2019a). BIM tools, for example, are widely used digital technologies in construction, but little has been done to secure BIM data (Maskuriy et al., 2019a). When used in construction, data security in private blockchains is still vulnerable to unsolicited data manipulation (Tezel et al., 2020). According to a study of smart city development in China, data and system security can be extremely difficult due to persistent leakage in many digital technologies (Chen, 2019a). The high risk of data and security breaches (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Morgan, 2019) undermines client and user trust and confidence in the digital construction process (Koseoglu et al., 2019). Fields of Construction Activity and Their Digital Transformation: 1.Designing Concurrently (and Printing) Architectural and engineering design is a construction activity that is undergoing digital transformation in the construction industry. The use of digital technologies has resulted in the creation of objects that can be modelled, visualised, exchanged, and analysed within a 3D space, as opposed to symbolic 2D drawings (plans, sections, and elevations). These features enable the digital transformation of architectural and engineering designs in the construction industry. According to Craveiroa et al. (2019), 3D printing technology (using extrusion or binder jetting processes) allows for the concurrent design and construction of concrete and other polymetric construction elements. In addition, Heusler and Kadija (2018) used Artificial Intelligence to propose a semiautomatic and generative façade design in buildings that is based on both rules and intuition. 2.Integration of Construction Processes

The use of digital technologies, particularly BIM, in construction project delivery has integrated construction processes, which include people, technology, and processes. In terms of people, BIM implementation fosters a "bind" that may manifest in similar pressures and logics felt by the actors in an organisation (Hetemi et al., 2020). Furthermore, BIM implementation leads to a streamlining of the construction technology ecosystem, which increases connectivity among project parties (Keskin et al., 2020). As a result, BIM implementation unifies intraorganizational silos in the construction process and accelerates project delivery (Koseoglu et al., 2019; Azzouz and Papadonikolaki, 2020). 3.Interfirm Interactions Implementing BIM for construction project delivery has shifted interfirm dependencies toward interfirm relationships in the construction industry. Historically, mutual relationships between organisations in the construction supply chain have resulted in dense interfirm dependencies. Interfirm relations, on the other hand, imbue a network view of innovation, which manifests conditionally, in terms of digital information sharing. According to Papadonikolaki (2018), BIM implementation that is internally motivated (e.g., improve service quality) results in more collaborative and flexible relationships with other BIM implementers. Otherwise, an externally motivated BIM implementation (e.g., to gain market reputation) results in competition, which impedes smooth interfirm relations (Papadonikolaki, 2018). Furthermore, BIM implementers with similar motivations produce more consistent project results (Papadonikolaki, 2018). Interfirm relationships exemplify a unified digital technology organisation with the potential to transform the construction supply chain (Morgan, 2019). 4.System of Automated Payments Making payments to vendors and tying them to contracts is another construction activity that is undergoing digital transformation in the construction industry. Although blockchain (or Distributed Ledger

Technology (DLT)) is still being tested in many cases, it is a nearly universally accepted technology for automating payments and contracts in the construction industry (Tezel et al., 2020). Li et al. (2019) introduced "Project Bank Accounts" (PBA), which began in the United Kingdom as an electronic bank account set up by the client (and the main contractor) to ring-fence funds for different contractors by putting the funds into a trust. When a contractual obligation is completed, clients make payments directly and simultaneously to the main contractor and vendors associated with the PBA (Tezel et al., 2020). Similarly, smart contracts can embed funds into a contract to protect contractors and vendors from insolvency, and payments can be triggered by automation. 5.Digital Development Digital technologies are increasingly being used to automate excavation, earth movement, form or structure erection, material and equipment purchase, and other physical construction activities. Robots, for example, have been used in the construction of residential walls (Berlak et al., 2020). According to research, robots increase productivity in concrete wall construction by reducing costs and shortening completion times (de Soto et al., 2018). Another study found that BIM improves project organisation and control (Koseoglu and Nurtan-Gunes, 2018). Integrated teams using the BIM digital environment can respond to project demands immediately (Berlak et al., 2020). As a result, BIM provides construction managers with a digital construction management approach (Koseoglu and NurtanGunes, 2018). Furthermore, Greif et al. (2020) demonstrate the use of digital twins to automate construction site logistics. The study used digital twins to demonstrate the transformation of bulk silos for material storage. 6.Exchange of Information Sensors used in construction project delivery, for example, generate data, which activates data/information exchange among integrated project team members. A lack of a platform for information exchange

or incompatible information exchange platforms results in a significant loss of useful project information (Koch et al., 2019). Information exchange frameworks, such as the "Lifecycle Information Transformation and Exchange (LITE)" framework, are increasingly being used to define, manage, and integrate project and asset lifecycle information (Succar and Poirier, 2020). The LITE framework demonstrates the transformations that can be achieved through information exchange in the construction industry. These include information flows from physical to digital assets, small to large assets, and assets within and outside of construction domains. Other possible transformations include information exchange at various scales, such as a single information exchange activity or a set of activities, information exchange in a project delivery phase or complete project delivery phases, or information exchange throughout the asset lifecycle. Here are five examples of how digital transformation is improving the construction industry: 1. Productivity of Employees Traditional, analogue methods are frequently prone to human error. They slow down processes, don't provide a good way to collect and/or analyse data, and are expensive to store. These systems also tend to overburden management and place unnecessary administrative burdens on both field and office employees. Miscommunication is also increased when construction forms and processes remain in the physical world. Finally, many businesses are unable to truly scale their operations because they are mired in paperwork and managing disorganised, ineffective processes that no longer serve their needs. Companies can benefit from digital tools by reducing human error and streamlining their business processes. The right technology solutions can increase productivity by eliminating unnecessary work and improving communication and reporting within a company.

2. Improved Agility While the rest of the world came to a halt last spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the construction industry pivoted to protect workers and keep critical projects moving forward. This was made possible as a result of digital transformation. With digital tools in the hands of field workers, project managers, and administrative personnel, businesses could bring certain operations online and collect data directly from the field. Workers could clock in, answer digital safety surveys, stream safety videos, report safety and hazard issues, and track their day's work without ever coming into contact with another worker. Digital tools that collect and generate live field data will continue to be critical in driving decisions. Companies can make critical decisions on the fly with this information at their fingertips thanks to digital tools. If data indicates that one project is falling behind schedule, staff and equipment can be transferred from one project to another to keep all projects on track. 3. Long-Term Cost Savings Some contractors are still concerned about the costs of digitally transforming businesses. However, the cost of not implementing technology is far greater. After tripling the number of employees, a Texas-based commercial specialty contractor implemented a digital transformation strategy, rendering the contractor's paper time card and data collection systems unmanageable. The company implemented a mobile workforce management solution that enabled it to sync its time tracking, field reports, and job costing. Regular and overtime hours alone saved the company more than $1 million in the first year. A concrete company in Texas incorporated a mobile workforce platform into its digital transformation strategy in order to eliminate the use of paper forms for material requests and purchase orders. The company's office staff received purchase orders faster and negotiated better pricing with more accurate information by using digital forms, saving the company $154,000 on materials. In the first year of using these additional verification tools, the company saved $729,00 by switching to an advanced real-time digital time tracking

solution with GPS and face recognition. These savings would not have been realised in a year if the companies had not embraced technology and digital transformation. As each company expands its digital transformation, it will continue to see cost savings. 4. Data Consolidation Construction crews frequently work in silos. Construction companies can connect their independent teams and consolidate labour, safety, purchase, change orders, progress, and equipment management in one place by embracing digital transformation and effectively utilising the digital tools available to them. This means that actionable data can be placed in the hands of those who have the ability to affect change. Companies can align their operations and make better decisions when data is consolidated and synced across departments and teams. 5. Competitiveness in the Market When evaluating bids, developers and owners are now looking at a contractor's technology stack. Clients prefer to work with companies that complete projects on time and within budget. They are increasingly choosing contractors who use technology to ensure this happens, even if the contractor's proposal is not the lowest one received.For clients, technology means greater transparency into projects. Delays in reporting and billing are no longer tolerated. They aren't, and they shouldn't be. With today's technology, businesses can collect time, job costs, and project progress all in one place. This data, which is frequently collected in the field and integrated with an ERP system, provides project managers and, as a result, clients with realtime estimates of labour and production costs. Digital transformation is a continuous process that allows businesses to streamline operations, reduce costs, and achieve their objectives. Steps are taken to realise digital transformation. They do not have to be large. Any step toward digitising business operations is a step toward digital transformation and capitalising on time and cost savings for years to come.

Digital technologies can help the construction industry in the following ways: 1.Increased productivity: According to a McKinsey study, global productivity growth in the construction sector has averaged 1% per year over the last two decades, which is significantly lower than in other sectors. Digital technologies can help increase productivity by optimising planning, design, building environment management, and other construction operations. 2.Increased safety and risk mitigation: A construction project involves a variety of risks, and digital technologies can assist in mitigating those tasks. Field workers, for example, can gather vital data without jeopardising their lives by using high-tech devices such as laser scanners or laser distance metres. 3.High-quality construction: Using digital technologies, human errors in construction engineering and architecture tasks can be reduced. It can aid in the creation of accurate designs and documents, as well as the overall modelling of the building. 4.Improved collaboration: Digital transformation can also provide a shared data environment, which can improve collaboration and speed up the workflow between subcontractors and suppliers in a construction supply chain. Digital transformation in the construction industry has been slow in recent years. Digital transformation is not an easy task, and the construction industry, like any other, faces numerous challenges that stymie the sector's digitization. Among these difficulties are: 1.Lack of coordination: A construction company works with a large number of small and medium-sized contractors and suppliers. In this case, implementing digital technologies is difficult because contracts are frequently short and there is a misalignment in both parties' motivation. Furthermore, cost can be a factor because suppliers

frequently work on small margins and cannot afford the cost of expensive technologies. 2.Projects that are unique: Unique construction projects frequently necessitate bespoke design and delivery approaches. This can make it difficult to implement costly digital technologies and tailor them to the project. This challenge, however, does not apply to long-term projects that last for many years. Poor data management: For a long time, the construction industry has been collecting and managing data inefficiently. 3.Poor data strategies are estimated to cost the global construction industry $1.85 trillion in 2020, according to a report. Because large amounts of data are required when implementing any digital technology in a business, the sector's poor data management can become a barrier to implementing digital solutions. This problem can be solved by implementing more digital data management methods at the operational and management levels, as well as integrating applications used by subcontractors and vendors to record data. 4.Employee or worker training issues: Before implementing any technology in any business, it is critical to get the employees or workers on board. Because the construction industry is reliant on an ageing workforce, there is a reluctance to embrace new technologies. It can also be difficult to train employees to use new digital technologies. Excitement and willingness do not always result in action. Many businesses are still in the early stages of their digital transformation strategies and are finding it difficult to progress. They miss out on the full benefits of their digital solutions by remaining in the "implementation" phase. Even worse than failing to pass implementation is the percentage of respondents who have no transformation strategy at all. According to the data, more than a third of office-level employees are working on implementing digital solutions and consider it a high

priority. However, only 15% have fully implemented their strategy, and 38% have not built out their strategy or are not making it a priority at all. This sluggish approach could be due to the inherent complexity of digital transformation. Researching, proposing, and implementing digital tools is difficult, and many people encounter difficulties as they begin their digital journey. These issues can range in severity, slowing down the process, incurring additional costs, or even completely halting the process and disrupting existing workflows. This was the experience of nearly half of our respondents (49 percent), with 39 percent reporting that the issues they encountered significantly increased the cost of their digital transformation strategy. Even those who have completed their process and passed implementation have a muddled understanding of what digital transformation entails. With so many options, many people have reduced successful digital transformation to mobile devices replacing traditional methods on the jobsite. According to our data, nearly a third of respondents have introduced smartphones to the jobsite, and 30% have used iPads or tablets. Many people are missing out on the true benefits of digital transformation because of its narrow scope. The adoption of digital technology must be accelerated in order to increase the efficiency and resilience of the construction industry. Digital technology is no longer considered a luxury, but rather a necessity. The digital technology that many construction companies already use has been critical to their survival. Digital sign-offs, for example, have enabled businesses to continue delivering products and accepting deliveries. Augmented reality technologies have enabled construction site managers to work from home and implement change. These new technologies have been critical in allowing construction work to continue during a lockdown and will continue to be critical in adapting to the post-pandemic UK landscape. Several changes must be made to the construction industry in order to retain, adopt, and widely use digital technologies. Historically, this industry has had a poor reputation for adopting these types of technologies. For many years, there has been a "tried-and-true" approach that requires start-ups proposing new initiatives and technologies to repeatedly demonstrate the effectiveness of their product to multiple

clients before being accepted. As a result of this process, many startups fail before they have a chance to prove themselves; a pattern that fails the client, the company, and the start-ups. To thrive in the postcovid landscape, the construction industry must reduce red tape, work to change cultural attitudes toward new technologies, and upskill more of their workforce to be able to use these technologies. 5G is quickly becoming the primary focus of the UK construction industry's digital transformation. 5G promises a more dependable, faster internet with more capacity than previous models. EE initially launched this service in 2019, with a larger rollout planned for 2020. The China State Construction Engineering Corp was the first construction site in the UK to use this technology earlier this year. 5G is widely regarded as having the potential to transform the construction industry across all projects and at all stages of construction delivery. For starters, the speed at which 5G operates enables real-time data collection, capture, and analysis, as well as real-time decision making. Multiple users can access and interact with intensive edge and cloud applications at the same time. This is especially useful in the construction industry, which frequently relies on the input of individuals from multiple teams spread across the country who use complex computer systems to carry out their work. 5G also has low latency rates, allowing remote workers to monitor construction site activity in real time and operate machinery remotely. While some machinery can be controlled remotely without 5G, the process is often slow and inconvenient. Remote working allows for fewer workers to be required to work on-site. This is especially useful in today's post-lockdown environment. 5G is also useful for monitoring the status of site machinery and components; information such as operational availability, plan changes, and remote operations can be collected and recorded in real time. Furthermore, large and complex data formats, such as videos, can be quickly stored, analysed, and sent to common data environments, making them instantly accessible to multiple users. Among the digital technologies that 5G promises to transform, Augmented Reality (AR) is regarded as a key player in the

construction industry's future. The integration of computer-generated and camera-generated images of a project is referred to as augmented reality (AR). This technology in construction allows the user to see what a building project will look like before it is built. During the planning phase of a construction project, augmented reality can be used to improve efficiency. Users can easily spot design flaws and resolve them by simply changing the model by transferring design models onto the construction site itself. This method makes it easier to identify potential flaws than non-AR methods, in which 3D design models are converted into 2D documents after each change to a project. AR then improves efficiency and lowers costs by reducing the likelihood of projects being delayed due to issues discovered during the construction and completion stages. This method can also be used to train students to identify potential hazards in a safe environment with no significant consequences. AR can also be used to improve construction project safety. It can be used in conjunction with Visual Reality to simulate various types of accidents that could occur on a construction site. This alerts staff to potential hazards on the site and instructs them on what to do if a real-life accident occurs. External agencies, such as fire departments, can be brought in to use AR to highlight hazards that must be addressed on-site. Similarly, 'wearable' AR technology allows users to scan construction sites with AR goggles to identify potential safety hazards. On-site, this can be used to ‘see' behind walls and under floors to ensure that everything is in working order. While Visual Reality (VR) is already being used in conjunction with AR to improve the safety of construction projects, it is not yet widely used in construction contexts. However, 65.3 percent of construction workers believe that virtual reality (VR) will play an important role in the construction industry's future. VR differs from Augmented Reality in that it is a fully immersive and interactive computer-generated experience. The interactive component could allow designers to test innovations or changes to a construction site before any work begins. The term "connected construction" refers to the process of connecting all teams involved in a construction project using digital technology.

This is made possible through the use of a shared data environment, such as cloud technology. The data environment is based on the use of tools and equipment such as sensors on construction sites, 3D data that allows designers to create building profiles in real-time, and digital dashboards that provide real-time notifications of project status updates. Connected construction ensures that everyone has access to all of the information they require. This improves efficiency by lowering the likelihood of teams working on inaccurate information. It ensures that everyone is on the same page at all times. It raises the visibility of projects and, as a result, their transparency. It introduces the possibility of learning from project failures and successes. It opens up possibilities for collaboration. The collaborative process is enhanced when it is supported by 5g technology, which enables real-time interaction. While connected construction is not yet widely used, there is compelling evidence of the success it could bring to the construction industry once it is more widely adopted. Brown and Read Engineering, for example, quadrupled their estimation productivity by using connected, BIM-powered software. Megans Installations experienced an increase in layout productivity when they used cloud-based modelling and layout software. Overall, connected construction is critical for the digital transformation of the UK construction industry because it enables us to agree on a shared vision for the future of infrastructure, which is more important now than ever. There are five key approaches that can help make this happen: 1. Concentrate on problem solving rather than technology for the sake of technology. Remember when social media first exploded and businesses rushed to set up pages and write attention-grabbing posts – before they realised why it was a good thing or what their customers would gain from it? As a result, costly creative departments produced unfocused content with little intent or strategy. They may have amassed a large number of followers and likes, but the majority of businesses saw very little actual, useful return on investment as a result of their efforts. If done

incorrectly, digitalisation of the construction industry could result in a similar situation: brand new 'flavour of the month' IT systems going unused or being used for the wrong reasons, because they do not actually solve the problems that construction teams face on a daily basis. For example, creating a channel for site workers to share feedback and challenges may seem like a good idea. But, if what you give them is more akin to an online message board, don't be surprised if you end up with a long list of 'thank you' posts to colleagues. It may appear simple, but the right mindset at this early stage, combined with careful choices, can save construction companies millions of dollars in the long run.

2. Develop Persuasive Business Cases that Unite Teams The preceding example demonstrates what happens when a business case for digitalisation in the construction industry is developed but the end product is inadequate. In this section, we will imagine what a good solution might look like. To arrive at that solution, you must first create a business case that clearly defines the logistical problem as well as the tangible benefits of resolving it. For example, the preceding concept began with the notion that workers sharing feedback and challenges would be beneficial. Why? Assume you make the case that your construction company spends hundreds of extra man-hours correcting manufacturing flaws because there is no way to capture issues ahead of time and fix them before work begins. Having a way to capture those flaws early on could be a huge cost-saver, with significant financial benefits to all future projects. The path to developing a specialised app then opens up, and the question is no longer "should we make one," but "what features will it have" and "how quickly can we get it?" That is only one example of how the construction industry and digital transformation can coexist. What would your business benefit from if you were in the construction industry? 3. Train Employees to Adapt to New Technologies

After you've done your homework and developed a business case for the positive impact of digital transformation on construction, it's time to train your teams on how to use the new technology effectively. In the case of the aforementioned app, establishing training and processes should be relatively simple. When you start thinking bigger, the human and technological challenges only get bigger. One good example is the widespread availability of computer design tools. On a more human level, their use necessitates ongoing training to keep designers current. To get the most out of these tools, invest in Cloud-based databases, which enable construction teams to not only store designs for future reference, but also access them from anywhere, on any device. The latter is a particular concern for site managers and office staff, who may find themselves working at home one day, on-site the next, and in a corporate office the week after a pandemic. 4. Consider incorporating new digital tools into project planning. One of the reasons why the construction industry's digitalization hasn't been as profitable as it could be is that when construction companies do invest in new digital tools, they often don't plan effectively around them. When used correctly, digital tools can assist site managers in reducing unnecessary resource use, more efficiently managing their site staff's time, and generally speeding up workflows. In theory, they reduce costs, bring disparate teams together, and save time and money for everyone. However, because construction firms have been slow to adopt new technologies, many lack the know-how to plan these timelines and resources accurately around these tools. This can leave workers in limbo until the next phase of a project begins, and it can feel more wasteful than the 'old' way of working. This learning curve, on the other hand, can be a source of strength. The same digital tools that enable different companies to collaborate on projects can also enable their managers to collaborate to pilot new technology on a smaller scale, monitor the results, and learn from each other's areas of expertise. They will then be in a better position to implement these new tools on a larger scale. 5. Digital Transformation at the Corporate Level

When it comes to the construction industry and digital transformation, the most astute companies will take innovations from one project and apply them to several. In doing so, they alter the way their entire business operates. For example, construction buyers may use machine learning-powered digital tools to take an in-depth inventory of their current inventory. This would enable them to better understand the differences between similar items from different suppliers and make the best purchasing decisions for specific designs on each project they work on. As a result of having the right materials to a consistent standard, workers on each project would need to spend less time adapting and modifying materials to meet the project's specifications.

A set of potential recommendations has been identified in order to accelerate the sector's digitalization. 1. Develop a business case in a multi-step iterative process. By far the most important trigger for digital transformation is identifying the right business case. Before facing the challenges of digital transformation, businesses want to fully understand the benefits of digitalization for their own operations. As a result, when attempting to stimulate digital transformation in organisations, a multi-step iterative approach has proven to be effective. 2. Identify needs/problems using digital (data) technologies. Collecting, integrating, and crossing large datasets from processes and operations can help better investigate future construction site problems and inefficiencies, paving the way for research into new outcome-based solutions. Access to data and understanding how to use it is a necessary precondition for the emergence of new opportunities and the identification of the business case. 3. Use an ecosystem-based approach to find outcome-based solutions. The gradual transition to a servitized outcome-based business model, which affects all parties in the construction industry,

entails monetizing services that can be offered to end-users by leveraging the power of data analysis. To provide them with outcomebased solutions, data analytics must be used to investigate the dynamics of the ecosystem as a whole in order to determine the potential costs and returns of adopting innovative solutions a priori (products and services). 4. Concentrate on data-sharing agreements. The potential (and resulting risk) lies in the use of data, not in its ownership, so in order to reap the full benefits of data analysis, it is necessary to reconcile the interests of all parties in the value chain by establishing new data sharing agreements. There are already several successful examples of data-sharing and data-management both inside and outside the sector that could be used as a model for the discussion. 5. Boost collaboration. As a result of the increased interest in the collection and analysis of data about processes and operations with the goal of improving the overall efficiency of the construction site, new forms of collaboration among all parties in the value chain and in the IT sector are already emerging. To provide successful solutions, the gradual shift toward an ecosystem approach necessitates stronger collaboration among parties. 6. Encourage new types of public support for digitalization. New industry-driven funding schemes at the EU level to support the digitalization of the construction sectors – i.e. PPPs and/or Joint Ventures Awareness of data and techniques for extracting value from data – which is closely related to the adoption of other technologies such as IoT, drones, and cloud – is critical to facilitating the process. Greater understanding of a disruptive phenomenon such as digitalisation will also encourage actors to embrace change, as greater awareness of risks and opportunities implies (potentially) greater acceptance. 7. Strike a proper balance between the "pull and push" approach. The best examples of digitalisation occur when governments in public procurement strike the right balance between mandating the adoption

of digital technology (push) and reducing burdens (i.e. tax breaks, incentives) for companies that go down the digitalisation path (pull). Close collaboration between the public and private sectors is required for this to happen. In this regard, the public sector can assist by encouraging and supervising the parties' standardisation efforts. 8. Improve training and education. Given that skills will gradually shift as a result of digital transformation, new forms of collaboration with universities and VET schools for the development of educational programmes are encouraged. The new programmes will, on the one hand, aim to provide current and future employees with the necessary technical and digital skills, while also addressing the need to create a new class of executives capable of leading organisations in the new digital scenario. 8 Things to Do to Transform Your Construction Company Digitally:

1.Application of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence The construction industry is being transformed by Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI enables you to learn things about your project that you never thought possible. You can collect data from various sources and use it to forecast potential safety hazards, longterm maintenance, house resale value, and much more. At first glance, this data may appear to be random numbers and text, but with AI and Big Data, you can make sense of it and predict what will happen if something goes wrong. The best part about all of this information is that it is completely customizable — if you want specific information more than others, you can choose to focus on that specific data point. 2.Automate the procedure As technology advances, our world becomes increasingly interconnected, and one of the simplest ways for a construction company to keep up is to find smart but inexpensive solutions to make

things happen as efficiently as possible. Construction firms can use a variety of technologies to automatically update spreadsheets, schedule jobs using a GPS app on a tablet, generate reports with web-based software, manage their business expense account online, send photos directly from a company phone to a job supervisor via email or text message, and much more. 3.Construction Software in the Cloud Who doesn't want to be able to work from home? However, if you work in the construction industry, you do not have the option of working from home. Things happen, repairs must be made, and complaints must be filed. These things frequently transport a person to the job site. Until now, that is. Cloud-based construction software enables businesses to work on projects from anywhere in the world. This software is web-based and accessible from any device. This means that you can communicate with team members, access blueprints, issue work orders, and more from anywhere in the world. Cloud Migration has taken the world by storm and shows no signs of slowing down. 4.Collaboration in Real Time The cloud enables businesses to share tasks and documents in real time, which is a necessary component of digitising a construction company. The most important aspect of digitization, however, is coordinating with contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and others all over the world. If you can do this effectively, you can save time and money by "pushing" work to contractors so that they don't have to wait for your approval before starting work. 5.Smart Contracts and Blockchain Blockchains and smart contracts are new technologies that enable construction companies to effectively digitise. This may appear to be a lot of jargon – but it is simply using technology to empower people by sharing transactions in an open network, automatically verifying them,

and ensuring that everyone involved is kept up to date on the entire process. Blockchains can be used to track projects, create digital contracts for each project, and pay contractors on time without the need for third-party oversight. 6.Building Information Modelling (BIM) Building Information Modelling (BIM) is the leading technology that has allowed the construction industry to be completely digitised. It is a relatively new technology that allows you to create 3D models of your construction projects, which can then be used for visualisation, modelling, documentation, design, and other purposes. By integrating all data with project management software, BIM technology can help construction companies improve the efficiency of their workflows. 7.VR and augmented reality AR/VR software is a programme that allows users to explore a 3D environment while experiencing the same immersive effects as virtual reality. It enables users to manipulate digital objects, view 3D data in real-time, share real-time video, and much more. Furthermore, it is completely immersive, so you can't tell what kind of technology is being used on the inside from the outside. 8.Make Use of Technology Integrate new technologies with existing systems to eliminate redundancies and automate processes. This will save you money and time while also assisting you in reaching your goals. As a result, many construction companies are now incorporating new technology into their business processes in order to meet the demands of the digital economy. Here we are revealing a few more advantages of digital transformation in the construction industry. 1.Improved Collaboration

Digital Collaboration can provide access to that information, allowing the job to be completed more quickly. It is about gathering information regardless of where you are or where you are in the world, and empowering everyone on the project theme. Working in a shared data environment is a good way to improve collaboration. The standard data environment serves as the project's centralised, single source of truth. In this manner, you can centralise that information in an electronic format, allowing everyone to contribute to the project while viewing the same set of data. The common data environment facilitates collaboration; ultimately, it is about working together on the project to obtain information in a unified manner. 2.On-site risk mitigation and safety Working in construction is not like walking down the street and seeing a building project that you helped bring to life. The goal of risk management is to increase the likelihood of achieving the project's goals while minimising the negative effects of potential risks. You can reduce risks in the construction industry by utilising digital transformation. New digital technology, such as laser scanners and laser distance metres, has reduced risky situations and provided detailed information. 3.Productivity has increased. Construction spending accounts for 13% of global GDP, according to a recent Mckinsey report. However, annual productivity growth in the sector has been only 1% over the last 20 years. Digital technology is a key player in boosting productivity in the construction industry. Digitalization in the construction industry involves the use of digital tools, planning, designs, construction operations, and building environment management. 4.Buildings of higher quality The most well-known digital technologies used in architecture and

engineering for design, drafting, and documentation are CAD or Computer Aided Design tools. Its benefits include high accuracy, simple modification, simple scaling, flexible drawing size, import and export, and compatibility and integration with other digital technologies. Well, CAD aids in the improvement of building quality by allowing you to create the perfect design for your structure. Don't forget about BIM integration and its benefits. This digital transformation has allowed the industry to refocus on what is most important – high-quality, safe work. We are becoming better professionals, bringing more value to our customers, thanks in part to these technologies: "on time and within budget" is standard operating procedure. This new emphasis on quality and safety, however, is not unaccompanied by other changes. Here are five advantages I've seen from digital transformation in the construction industry: 1. Increased productivity We see an increase in productivity when crews can first understand design in the office and then bring it to life in construction in the field. There will be no more back and forth between the plans and what is actually happening on the ground. Crews experience productivity gains and stay on track and within budget by using digital designs that can be referenced right on site. This productivity leads to incredible gains at scale; according to the World Economic Forum report Shaping the Future of Construction – A Landscape in Transformation: An Introduction, a 1% decrease in global construction costs would save society $100 billion globally. 2. More secure operations With digital design and construction, crews are no longer required to enter dangerous situations to obtain difficult-to-reach information. Crews can easily capture information while keeping their feet on the ground by using sensors such as laser scanners or laser distance metres.

3. Improved precision Construction professionals can more accurately capture information and incorporate that knowledge into project plans and construction when they use digital technologies. A point cloud captured by a laser scanner, for example, provides infinitely more detail than a 2D paper blueprint for as-built checks. Similarly, robotic total stations fed with BIM data can allow a single person to lay out construction work with far greater precision than a tape measure and a multi-person crew. 4. Improved communication According to a recent survey of construction leaders, miscommunication was responsible for 48 percent of rework. The use of cloud-connected mobile apps has become the norm and is now accepted on the majority of field projects. This enables accessible and clear communication – and with integration to equipment for digital layout and reality capture, the connection to the "real world" is complete and transparent. 5. More creativity Until recently, a construction firm's core competency was considered to be innovation. Indeed, spending on innovation frequently viewed as wasteful and was targeted for reduction. rapid adoption of digital technologies on the construction site started a virtuous cycle in which innovation is becoming a differentiator, fuelling additional adoption and investment.

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The construction site of 2050 will be devoid of humans. Robots will work in groups to construct complex structures out of dynamic new materials. Elements of the construction will self-assemble. Drones flying overhead will constantly inspect the work and use the data collected to predict and solve problems before they occur, sending instructions to robotic cranes, diggers, and automated builders without the need for human intervention. The human overseer's role will be to remotely manage multiple projects at the same time, accessing 3D

and 4D visuals and data from on-site machines and ensuring the build is proceeding according to specification. The few people who will be allowed to enter the site will be wearing robotically enhanced exoskeletons and will use neural-control technology to move and control machinery and other robots on site. This vision may appear fanciful today. Consider the complex tasks performed by robots in a modern factory, and it is not difficult to envision a similar future for the construction site. Indeed, in many areas of life, robots are not on their way, but have already arrived. From self-service checkouts in supermarkets to self-driving cars on the road and voice-activated technologies in our homes, digital technologies are changing the way we work, shop, travel, and relax, how we interact with the world around us, and how we plan, commission, and build infrastructure. These technological developments present significant opportunities for transformational change in the infrastructure industry. Balfour Beatty believes that the rise of digitisation and robotics in construction will result in a significant increase in productivity in a large but historically low-productivity sector. It will increase efficiency, address the issue of global skills shortages, and remove the risk of construction, making Zero Harm a reality. What is the impetus for these changes? In many countries around the world, infrastructure is a political and economic priority. To stimulate sluggish economies, upgrade old systems, and accommodate growing and changing populations, increasingly complex projects are being commissioned. With high economic growth and rapidly growing populations resulting in significant urbanisation, the demand for new infrastructure is expected to skyrocket in the coming decades. Other new challenges include changing demographics, rising expectations of businesses, service users, and the general public, as well as the need to reduce carbon emissions and waste. These factors all contribute to a dynamic and testing environment for the industry and those commissioning new projects. Adoption and mainstreaming of digital and other new technologies, such as advances in robotics and artificial intelligence, will be game

changers for the industry, hastening the otherwise slow-and-steady modernization of the sector and providing answers to the challenges and opportunities we face. The benefits of digitization are obvious to companies like Balfour Beatty, which is already implementing them across its business and projects. By leveraging the power of cloud computing and enhanced mobile technology, projects can be delivered more effectively and efficiently. BIM in the form of 3D digital representations of projects overlaid with 4D detail on scheduling and cost, combined with augmented and virtual reality technology, enables seamless interaction between offices and sites, facilitating a "build right the first time" approach. Drones enable teams to track progress in a safer, more efficient, and more accurate manner, collecting data more frequently than human surveyors. Telematics monitors how we drive our vehicles, ensuring that we do so in an economical, safe, and sustainable manner. And, rather than the slower, more expensive, and less reliable "find and fix" model that the industry has relied on for decades, we are using data analytics to begin to predict and prevent problems as they arise in infrastructure. Looking ahead and beyond the human-less construction site, we can make a number of other predictions, which we will do later in this paper. We already use intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in the form of sensors embedded in traffic lights, parking lots, roads, and bridges to regulate traffic flows, as well as smart buildings with lighting that dims or turns off when no one is moving. The Internet of Things will power smart buildings built with new, self-healing, energygenerating, or breathable materials, in smart cities that can model the future and adapt instantly to changing circumstances; construction will become faster, with the introduction of 3D printing of bespoke components and even entire buildings, and 4D printing, in which selftransforming objects respond to changes in heat, sound, or moisture levels to change shape; Of course, cutting-edge technologies and rapid change will present us with both challenges and opportunities. The risk of cyber-attack increases with increased digitisation, as the world saw in May 2017 with the "WannaCry" ransomware attack – the worst global incident to

date. Within the next decade, the high levels of energy required by increased data usage and storage will also begin to have a significant impact on resources. And competition for "digital natives," those who grew up in the digital age and are able to combine digital skills with creativity and new ideas, will skyrocket. Companies all over the world will need to step up and make sure they have the infrastructure and policies in place to deal with these challenges. So, where does this leave the infrastructure industry as it currently exists? The landscape is likely to change dramatically, and the industry will evolve as the disruptive change that has affected other industries spreads to ours. New business models are already emerging that will force customers to change how they procure new infrastructure and force businesses to go digital. Commissioners will start collaborating directly with disruptors. Payment methods and incentives will be modified. This will necessitate large infrastructure and construction companies increasingly balancing their existing offerings with innovating and nurturing new ideas, something that many large organisations with standardised, controlled processes frequently struggle to do1. Policymakers and regulators, as well as the industry, will need to ensure that they are prepared for the changes, which is why Balfour Beatty is investing in digital and the skilled workforce that goes with it. Change is long overdue in the industry. The digital revolution will reshape the industry. It will result in a reshaping of business strategies, a reimagining of our customer offering, and a shift in the types of roles that infrastructure companies recruit for. For businesses to capitalise on it, digital transformation cannot be limited to a single team – it must encompass the entire organisation. More importantly, it must be pushed down the supply chain in order to maximise the benefits. The use of cutting-edge digital technology and tools should become the norm rather than the exception. We must respond to and embrace the transformation that new technology can provide in order to deliver future infrastructure. Top ten predictions for the construction industry via digitization by

2050: 1. The industry will become more focused on innovation, with both contractors and customers becoming less risk-averse. 2. The infrastructure industry's shape and offer will change dramatically as new business models, products, and services emerge. 3. Infrastructure will transition away from concrete and steel and toward new materials that respond to their surroundings.

4. New jobs and industries will be created – and some will be eliminated, particularly low or no skill roles and those that rely on repetitive tasks. 5. As infrastructure becomes more multifunctional, focusing solely on design and construction will become obsolete. 6. Construction robots will become more common. 7. Construction will become more efficient through the use of 3D and 4D printing, as well as self-transforming objects that self-assemble. 8. Disruptive new ideas for making mass transit faster, safer, and less harmful to the environment will emerge. 9. We will use wearable technology, such as exoskeletons, more frequently. 10.The industry will be able to use direct neural control over devices and vehicles. Recommendations for improved construction industry include:

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1. The construction and infrastructure industries must improve their agility – Tier 1 contractors must become disruptors: As companies experiment with new models and products and develop multiple fields of expertise, the business landscape will become less defined and predictable, and there will be more cross-industry competition. As the market for ConstrucTech develops, large technology players (Amazon, Google, Microsoft), bespoke SMEs, and construction firms will form pan-industry partnerships. As a result, incumbents will have to become more agile – there will be no room or time for complacency. Companies that have relied on a single, traditional approach will need to become disruptors or implement strong strategies to avoid disruption.

2. Cyber risk must be taken seriously and built into the system: To protect critical infrastructure, governments will need to scale up and invest in national cyber defence programmes. However, the infrastructure industry must shoulder some of the responsibility for addressing these issues. It must make certain that data is treated as a valuable asset. Cyber risk, like any other risk, must be programmed in. Governance must be strong, with best practises embedded and strictly adhered to. Employees must receive proper training, and security software must be kept up to date. Customers will, understandably, become more demanding of cyber-security compliance, and the legal implications, given the importance of some of the data involved, will be significant. The infrastructure industry must take risks seriously and take proactive measures to address them. 3. Infrastructure companies will have to weigh the benefits of collecting more data against privacy concerns: Demands for privacy regulation are likely to rise, and infrastructure companies embedding sensors will need to respond to the privacy challenge by ensuring the highest levels of encryption and anonymity. 4. The industry will require a more adaptable workforce with new skills: The industry will require a more dynamic, agile workforce capable of challenging conventional solutions. This means that education systems all over the world will have to respond to the challenge of teaching students how to solve problems that haven't even happened yet, let alone been imagined. In order to attract the skilled individuals required to carry out its digital transformation, the infrastructure and construction industry will need to improve its image and explain the wide range of exciting and challenging roles available. 5.Customers must encourage and support innovation in the following ways:

Customers must show courage and assist companies in adopting new technology by, for example, investigating the incentives that govern infrastructure networks, both regulated and unregulated, in order to address the fact that they frequently promote low risk behaviour and have an impact on procurement processes. Overly-detailed specifications should be challenged where they stifle innovation and make it difficult for suppliers to adapt to unexpected challenges that arise after contracts are signed. Barriers to developing and accepting innovative ideas must also be addressed, and regulators and other key players should be encouraged to foster innovation, while companies that pioneer innovative new ways to drive efficiency while maintaining quality should be recognised. 6. Businesses must drive digital throughout their operations and supply chains: Companies that commit to digital must alter their design, procurement, and construction processes. They must take a digital strategy-based approach and drive it throughout the organisation, changing and improving the way the organisation operates and interacts with its customers. Digital transformation cannot be limited to a single team. It must be an integral part of the entire business at all stages, and it must be owned by those in positions of leadership in particular. Ensuring that the digital strategy is implemented throughout the supply chain will be critical to maximising the value of the changes. 7. Regulatory systems must be change-ready: To be able to embrace new technologies as they emerge, countries around the world must be prepared with the various regulatory frameworks required, and infrastructure and construction companies must ensure that they have the necessary skills, knowledge, and systems in place. 8. Owners and designers of infrastructure, as well as regulators and policymakers, will need to ensure that energy systems are ready for

the digital revolution: As the number of sensors in the world increases exponentially, putting pressure on energy systems, infrastructure design will need to take climate projections and impacts into account. The use of renewable energy may need to be significantly increased, and new technologies and data storage methods may need to be developed. To play a role in this, regulators and policymakers will need to upskill and ensure that they are providing frameworks that allow industry and digital solutions to thrive, while also incentivizing the development of new energy solutions and ensuring that resources are not irreversibly depleted. 9. Infrastructure providers must be ready to process and use massive amounts of data: Aggregating and making sense of significantly increased volumes of data generated continuously by a wide range of sources will necessitate new software and algorithms, skilled data analysts, improved information management and insight, and the creation of mega databases that understand every aspect of the built environment for the construction and infrastructure industries. To ensure that information is used to drive improvements in the way systems operate and infrastructure is used and built, data collection and storage must become more intelligent. 10. As new infrastructure is built, future-proof it: Once the infrastructure is built, the digital technologies used to operate and maintain it will continue to evolve. As a result, infrastructure owners and operators will need to develop strategies for integrating and utilising different generations of technology, as well as Intelligent Information that is effectively managed and reused. It is believed that technology has the potential to reshape the industry and assist it in addressing some of these challenges, turning them into opportunities in the following ways:

1.Dealing with skill shortages Infrastructure investment has a well-documented economic multiplier effect3, and significant, large-scale projects are likely to be commissioned to help rebalance and boost economies worldwide. The global population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 20504, while the way we live is changing, with two-thirds of the world's population expected to live in cities by 20505. Meanwhile, our expectations of our infrastructure and how we want it to perform are growing. More infrastructure will be required to meet the needs of these growing, changing, and more demanding populations. Construction of new infrastructure. Improved infrastructure. These demands, however, will put additional strain on an industry that is already suffering from a skills shortage in many countries. Balfour Beatty believes that continued investment in new technologies will help address skills shortages by changing outdated perceptions of the industry, allowing us to attract a more diverse and skilled labour force. The increased use of robots and automation will also mean that the industry becomes more productive, creating new roles for skilled workers in cutting-edge areas while decreasing the need for those performing repetitive, manual tasks6 such as bricklaying, reducing long-term health risks. Moving to off-site construction techniques such as precasting, pre-fabricating, and pre-assembly, on the other hand, has the potential to address the skilled labour shortage while also increasing efficiency, consistency, and precision, as well as improving health and safety. As a result, the industry's productivity is expected to skyrocket. Indeed, customers are beginning to welcome our use of technology, particularly drone surveys, BIM, and off-site construction, to replace more labour-intensive options, though some customers are more open to new solutions than others. 2.Providing for the customer Customers will always expect contractors to exercise fiscal restraint, lowering construction costs wherever possible while improving project delivery and safety. According to Balfour Beatty, new technologies,

techniques, and materials will enable us to improve our customer offering in terms of both the design and construction phases, as well as the life-cycle costs and performance of the infrastructure we build, in the long run. That is why we are already providing digital features and products to customers, as well as analytics and other new digital services. Recently, this has included laser scanning, Virtual Reality walkthroughs, worker access control through portals, and interactive "as-builts" to help us deliver our service more reliably. Both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have significant potential to deliver customer-focused products. Customers, for example, can experience a scheme in a simulated environment in 3 or 4D rather than looking at pictures of what it might look like. This allows them to experience the structure as if it had already been built and understand what the structure will look like before it has been finalised, allowing them to provide more detailed and accurate feedback on the proposals before construction begins, resulting in an end product that matches the customer's requirements as closely as possible. Drones can contribute to this improved customer offering by collecting highresolution images for input into PC or cloud-based photogrammetry systems to produce 3D models and point clouds, enabling detailed virtual reality walk-throughs of remote sites and ensuring decisionmaking is based on the most up-to-date and accurate information. Companies that use drones, such as Balfour Beatty, are reaping the benefits by making data-driven decisions that were previously impossible and keeping customers constantly informed. Digital transformation is also a challenge for infrastructure lifecycle management, necessitating designs that are future-proofed with transformative solutions. New infrastructure, for example, is being designed and built to last for decades, but the digital technologies used to operate and maintain it will continue to evolve. As a result, infrastructure owners and operators will need to devise strategies for integrating and deploying different generations of technology. Construction, on the other hand, has traditionally been a risk-averse industry, and innovation brings with it uncertainty and risk. This is one of the reasons why the industry has been slow to adopt some innovations. Customers, according to Balfour Beatty, must show courage and assist companies in adopting new technology by, for

example, investigating the incentives, both regulated and nonregulated, that govern infrastructure networks in order to address the fact that they frequently promote low risk behaviour and have an impact on procurement processes. For all parties, innovation represents a huge opportunity. Overly detailed specifications should be avoided where they prevent greater innovation and make it difficult for suppliers to adapt to unexpected challenges that arise after contracts have been signed. Barriers to developing and accepting innovative ideas must also be addressed, and regulators and other key players should be encouraged to foster innovation, while companies that pioneer innovative new ways to drive efficiency while maintaining quality should be recognised. While there will always be an element of risk in attempting new techniques, Balfour Beatty believes that governments should support this rather than oppose it due to the risk of increased short-term costs. If governments were to be "early adopters" of new technologies and practises, it would give them the credibility they need to attract other companies and investors. 3.Improved collaboration Paper is still used in some cases by the industry for things like blueprints, design drawings, and orders. As a result, progress may be sluggish, and team members may be working from different versions of the same plans. However, process digitization entails abandoning paper in favour of cloud-based, real-time information sharing that integrates all aspects of a project to ensure that everyone involved has access to the most up-to-date information, facilitating collaboration, and improving outcomes. Balfour Beatty believes that online collaboration platforms have enormous potential for keeping all project participants up to date with the most recent information. People will increasingly be able to be transported into an environment where they can work collaboratively with remote colleagues, show them what they are seeing, and share their experiences as if they were physically present, allowing problems to be solved more efficiently and reducing travel costs and the number of people required on-site.

4.Health, safety, and quality have all improved. The need to continuously improve health and safety, as well as the need to deliver high-quality infrastructure, necessitates that the industry continue to innovate and embrace new ideas. New technologies provide a real opportunity to do both, for example, by increasing automation and improving accuracy and reducing human error. Equipment with embedded sensors will also increasingly be able to send updates alerting teams to the fact that they require maintenance or repair, reducing the need for "find-and-fix" in hazardous environments and, as a result, reducing health and safety impacts and time delays. Balfour Beatty has used virtual reality simulation for health and safety training. Because of the fully immersive simulation, we will be able to prevent on-site accidents through improved training. The virtual experience, which includes various real-world scenarios, allows workers to experience live and potentially dangerous site environments, understand the space of the build, determine where heavy equipment should be placed, and game plan how complex elements of the scheme can be best carried out, all from the safety of an office or training room and without the need for lengthy manuals, training sessions, or specialist personnel. 5.Increased profitability Increased use of digital technologies will boost industry productivity significantly. It can also assist the industry in addressing the problem of endemic low profitability. For example, the availability of real-time data enables businesses to offer more personalised products and customised solutions to customers, which typically generate higher margins. The ability to properly plan a large-scale construction project, where, for example, a hundred cement trucks need to access a site at the same time, can reduce project overruns, cut costs, and increase margins by game-planning it in a virtual environment. The increased use of offsite, preassembled modules reduces costs and speeds up construction, providing real savings for the customer and increased profitability for the contractor.

6.More long-lasting The infrastructure and construction sectors are increasingly being challenged, and rightly so, to reduce their environmental footprint. This will take the form of improving resource utilisation (the industry consumes a significant amount of raw materials) and reducing waste and CO2 emissions. It will also be critical that we build infrastructure that is more efficient in the long run. This will necessitate the construction of new infrastructure. Balfour Beatty is looking forward to the development of new building materials that are more environmentally friendly, have a lower carbon footprint, and are more durable, resulting in less waste and less frequent replacement or upgrading, such as insulating gels that are also transparent and can be used on buildings with a large number of windows. Responding to these challenges and capitalising on opportunities will place enormous strain on the infrastructure industry. In our opinion, the companies that are digitally ready, or early adopters, will be best positioned to respond. However, embracing digital entails more than just purchasing a few new gadgets. Companies that commit to digital must alter their design, procurement, and construction processes. They must take a digital strategy-based approach and drive it throughout the organisation, changing and improving the way the organisation operates and interacts with its customers. Data is increasingly being used to drive business decisions, and digital is already beginning to shape business strategies. As a result, digital transformation cannot be limited to a single team. It must transcend the IT department and become an organizational-wide initiative, led by those in positions of authority in particular. Equally important, ensuring that the digital strategy is implemented throughout the supply chain will be critical to maximising the value of the changes. Technology is rapidly redefining the infrastructure and construction sectors, as well as other industries. Indeed, the scale and speed of change as we transition to smarter technology and digital solutions is expected to be comparable to the Industrial Revolution. While the impact of these changes on the industry is difficult to predict, Balfour

Beatty has made the following ten predictions for how the industry will look and be driven in 2050: 1. The industry will become more focused on innovation, with contractors and customers becoming less risk-averse. Competitive advantage will be taken for granted even less frequently than it is now. As the rate of change accelerates, the ability to be innovative, creative, and reimagine the business and provide solutions will become a differentiating factor. In the future, infrastructure and construction companies are likely to become even more focused on horizon-scanning and innovation, looking for new ways to build competitive strengths and enable the development of new products and services. This will necessitate bravery, as new technologies are inherently untested when they first appear on the market. There will be some risk in testing them, and both contractors and customers will have to manage that risk: we must remain cautious while also being willing to experiment more. 2. The infrastructure industry's shape and offer will change dramatically, with new business models, products, and services. Balfour Beatty predicts that the contractor landscape will look very different in 30 years. The disruptive change that has occurred in other industries, for example, through innovative companies such as Uber and Airbnb, will begin to take off in construction and infrastructure. Rather than owning and operating infrastructure, both of these companies have revolutionised existing infrastructure-based services by providing digital platforms that connect those with supply and those with demand. It is possible that disruptors will enter the infrastructure and construction industries today in the same way. Companies like Balfour Beatty will need to become more agile and reconsider their business models, potentially changing their product and service portfolios, in order to provide a personalised, next-generation offer, meet their customers' needs, and secure their market position. This will necessitate companies increasingly balancing their existing offering with innovating and nurturing new ideas, which many large

organisations with standardised, controlled processes struggle to do. Large infrastructure and construction firms are likely to focus on systems integration rather than a more traditional offer, as commissioners seek to cut out the middleman by directly pursuing smaller disruptors and designing new payment and incentive mechanisms, for example. Companies that have relied on a single, traditional approach will need to become disruptors or implement strong strategies to avoid disruption. The sector will increase its use of data analytics to better understand and meet the needs of customers, and it will collaborate more with startups to develop new solutions, new market capacity, and solutions to problems that do not yet exist. It will also begin to work more closely with top universities around the world to harness their talent, which Balfour Beatty has been doing for a number of years, particularly in the United States, where we regularly collaborate on research with Penn State University, Stanford, University of Denver, University of Minnesota, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, and others. The research focuses on digital technology use cases for enabling design and construction, such as virtual reality, site safety training, virtual mock-ups, and parametric decision making via advanced modelling. 3. Infrastructure will transition away from concrete and steel and toward new materials. New materials technologies will mature, resulting in massive changes to the appearance and operation of the built environment. Materials such as self-healing concrete, which repairs cracks without the use of humans, will become commonplace, and we will increasingly demand that our infrastructure serve multiple functions. Kinetic technologies, such as Pavegen and Lybra, which allow flooring to harness the energy of vehicles or people moving on surfaces, will, for example, become more common. Every surface will be a potential interface point for computers, devices, and networked technology. Photovoltaic glazing, which can effectively convert entire buildings into solar panels, will also become more popular, as will new materials that can respond to a variety of environmental conditions or reduce carbon emissions from the environment around them. In some cases, the

technology behind these new materials has been around for a while, but their use has been limited by a lack of scale availability in some cases, as well as a general reluctance among customers to try new technologies and among contractors to suggest their use. 4. New jobs and industries will be created, while others will be lost. Traditional industries, such as manufacturing, are likely to decline as self-learning technologies eliminate the risk of human error and replace humans in repetitive, unskilled roles. Traditional roles, and even entire disciplines, will evolve and change in the infrastructure industry. Digitisation has progressed in unexpected ways, and it is likely that this will continue: twenty years ago, it was unthinkable that thousands of drone pilots and drone data analysts would be required. Looking ahead, it is predicted that 65 percent of today's schoolchildren will work in jobs that do not yet exist8. This means that this industry, as well as others, will require a more dynamic, agile workforce capable of challenging conventional solutions. Existing processes and structures will need to change, and businesses will require robust data analytics capabilities: data has little value on its own. The data must be processed and analysed in order to provide intelligence that drives change. As a result, significant changes will occur in the labour market as employers begin to look for the types of skills that workers of the future will require. To be successful, technology requires human interaction, but we must change our expectations about roles. This means that education systems all over the world will have to respond to the challenge of teaching students how to solve problems that haven't even happened yet, let alone been imagined. It is unavoidable that technological advancements and increased computerization will put additional strain on low-skill, low-wage jobs. Other jobs will become less labour-intensive and will require fewer people. However, there will be a greater need for more specialised skills, and competition for "digital natives," those who grew up in the digital age and are able to combine digital skills with creativity and new ideas, will skyrocket. Skilled individuals will become more valuable differentiators, and those with ideas and creativity will be more valued. They will, however, need to be prepared to constantly upskill and be

retrained. The concept of a "lifetime job" will become obsolete. There is likely to be a skills gap in the short to medium term. With companies like Amazon and Google currently struggling to find enough skilled workers, and the infrastructure industry increasingly looking to recruit from the same talent pool, we must work to improve the industry's image and explain the wide range of exciting and challenging roles in order to attract the skilled individuals we require. 5. As infrastructure becomes more multifunctional, focusing solely on design and construction will become obsolete. Data is already being captured, stored, and acted upon by machines, objects, and materials. Data or performance metrics gathered from sensor networks will become increasingly important. Smart buildings and smart cities will be powered by the Internet of Things. Objects will order their own replacement parts as needed, and traffic lights will collect data and intelligently adjust traffic flows. Buses will be routed to areas where people are queuing if public transportation systems detect congestion or a need. Balfour Beatty believes that future infrastructure designs will become proactive and anticipatory. The emphasis will shift away from delivering infrastructure that serves a single purpose, such as a bridge spanning a river, and toward how the infrastructure interacts with the larger built environment, as well as the long-term life and performance of assets. 6. Construction robots will become more common. Although some construction robots are already in use, their use is largely limited to roles such as diagnostics in dangerous or difficult-toreach areas. Even so, the current high costs are prohibitive. Robots will become more cost-effective over time, and we will see a surge in the use of robots in construction. The increasing use of robots on-site will begin with repetitive tasks. In other areas, it will take the form of machine-to-machine communication, such as remote inspection and site visits, or the assembly of preassembled modules. Machines will then begin to take on the industry's most dangerous jobs. However, we believe that by 2050, a large portion of the actual building and

construction process will be automated. This will be especially effective when technology combinations are used, such as drones capturing site data so that real-time 3D models can be sent to robots and unmanned machines, such as bulldozers and diggers, that will carry out the main demolition and construction work under the supervision of a human. Aerial construction will also become more common as drones are used to carry out construction, initially specialising in difficult-to-reach or dangerous locations, particularly those that are high up. In the long run, as we transition to an industry driven by better data and predictive analytics, the majority of decision making will shift away from humans. 7. Construction will become more efficient through the use of 3D and 4D printing, as well as self-transforming objects that self-assemble. Already, laser scanning and point clouds are bringing new levels of accuracy and efficiency. Advances in 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, indicate that we will soon be able to print bespoke components on-site rather than ordering them and waiting for them to arrive. The next step is to 3D print entire buildings, which will have significant implications for housing affordability, the ease with which they can be made bespoke, and the speed with which they can be built. With every major urban economy in the world experiencing a housing shortage, the potential here is enormous. Experiments are already underway, and prototypes are being built. For example, a team at USC is working on a 3D printer that aims to build a whole house, including electricity and plumbing, in less than 24 hours9; in Amsterdam, a team of architects built the Print Canal House, a micro house made of bio-based, renewable materials; and a Chinese company called WinSun claims to be able to do it10 at scale and affordably. While its full potential has yet to be realised, and 3D printing has yet to change the way the infrastructure and construction industries build, it has actually been around for more than 30 years. Indeed, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are already experimenting with 4D printing11, a term that refers to self-transforming objects. It entails printing a small item that changes shape in response to a stimulus, such as a change in heat,

sound, or moisture levels. This could result in the development of smart objects ranging from roads to pipes that can respond to changing environmental conditions. MIT is also working on reconfigurable robots12, which have the potential to result in selfassembling objects that could be useful for installing infrastructure in difficult-to-reach places. M Blocks, a system of discrete cubes guided by algorithms, has already been created. It can move independently to form a structure, then break apart and reform into a new structure. Scientists have proposed that the current design be improved so that it can be used to repair bridges temporarily during emergencies, for example. However, if scaled up, this could represent a significant shift in the way we design, build, and operate our structures. Although it is some time in the future, it may bring in buildings that can respond to their surroundings and give those who live and work in them the ability to change the building to better suit their needs. 8. Disruptive new ideas for making mass transit faster, safer, and less harmful to the environment will emerge. Beyond autonomous vehicles, which will allow the creation of safer, faster transport systems with much greater capacity, many believe that within the next decade, we will also see a working Hyperloop – a new method of transportation that relies on electric propulsion and levitation to send pods from city to city at speeds of up to 760 miles per hour. Balfour Beatty believes that other new, disruptive ideas for making mass transit faster, safer, and less environmentally damaging will emerge, providing a response to congestion, vehicle-dominated cities, and issues such as noise and air pollution. Airbus, for example, has proposed that aircraft could be catapulted into the sky by 205013, based on a concept known as 'eco-climb,' which builds on a concept used by the military to launch craft from aircraft carriers for several decades. Airbus has also proposed the use of 'express skyways,' which would allow planes to fly in formation, while 'free-glide' landings would produce less noise and pollution as planes approached the runway. To be able to embrace these technologies as they emerge, countries around the world must be prepared with the various regulatory frameworks required, and infrastructure and construction

companies must ensure that they have the necessary skills, knowledge, and systems in place. 9. We will use wearable technology, such as exoskeletons, more frequently. Exoskeletons have been used in other areas of society for some time, such as powered walking suits that help people learn to walk again after serious accidents. Their application in construction is now beginning to be realised in terms of improving worker health and safety while operating heavy machinery, as well as productivity. Gammon Construction, a subsidiary of Balfour Beatty, is using exoskeleton systems in Hong Kong to increase productivity and make tasks involving heavy lifting and repetition easier. While we believe that exoskeletons will be widely used by 2050, we also believe that other forms of advanced clothing will emerge to help the industry carry out a variety of tasks while keeping workers safe and healthy. We believe that in the future, the emphasis will shift from safety to health and well-being. Wearable health technology will become the norm, and employees will be able to choose from a variety of wellness options. The industry will be known as the No. 1 industry for those who prioritise health and well-being, essentially creating a Super Workforce that leads to increased productivity, among other things. 10. The industry will be able to use direct neural control over devices and vehicles. Although it may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, primitive forms of direct neural control already exist, allowing amputees to control prosthetic devices with direct neural signals, for example. Although experiments are still in the early stages, researchers at Tianjing's Nankai University15 and Berlin's Free University have already developed cars that can be driven using elements of mind control via sensors in a gadget worn on the head. It is not implausible that by 2050, technology will have advanced sufficiently to deliver a neural control system for the construction industry via implantable microchips – or even without them. In this

scenario, "digital people" would be able to disseminate information and control devices such as "hands-free" robots or exoskeletons using direct neural input. 4 Digital Strategies for the Construction Industry's Most Difficulties: 1.Challenge: AEC's large customers are undergoing digital transformation. They are requiring their suppliers and contractors to integrate digitally with their systems and processes. They expect businesses to be digitally mature in order to do business with them. Every organisation must develop a business transformation strategy that reimagines how they interact with their customers in order to provide an exceptional experience, build stickiness, and make it difficult for them to switch to competitors. To achieve this holy grail of business transformation, use digital technologies to seamlessly integrate with customers (systems and processes). A digital transformation strategy that includes API integration, self-service portals, data and analytics, and automation is a key technology investment. Some industries, such as retail, finance, and oil and gas, have embraced and implemented their digital transformation journeys before others. Construction firms are no exception. Customers are served in a manner similar to that of companies in these industries. They can apply what makes sense for them in their journey by learning from and adapting best practises, methodologies, and tactics from these industries. To succeed, they must first develop a clearly articulated business transformation strategy that will serve as the foundation for their digital transformation technology stack. The digital strategy must address system rationalisation and modernization, omnichannel customer engagement, digital-enabled operations, data intelligence to grow the business, and automation where possible (Hint: keep reading!). Transparency in customer service can be achieved through API integration, customer self-service portals, performance reports and dashboards (KPIs, SLAs), and automation to eliminate friction in customer interactions. These strategies will increase customer loyalty and foster long-term relationships.

2.Challenge : Construction workers face a labour shortage and a skills gap, necessitating the evolution of training and onboarding in order to retain workers and adapt to new digital skillsets. Traditional hiring, onboarding, and training methods may not be sufficient to meet the urgent need to fill the 200,000 to 300,000 worker shortage. One way to close the workforce gap is to invest in digital technologies that streamline the process while maintaining productivity and safety standards. Automation in key workstreams to increase productivity is a key technology investment. How can a move to digital support training initiatives improve efficiency and onboarding? There are two ways that automation can be used to support HR and recruitment functions. We have seen success with both of these approaches and anticipate increased demand for employee lifecycle automation. M-Files is today's Enterprise Content Management (ECM). M-Files, or intelligent information management, is a safeguard against all of the common "grandfathered disasters" of traditional construction document management. Let's look at a few great examples of intelligent information management: i)Not only is everything searchable based on what is INSIDE the document (rather than just what it is called), but personnel data is also safe and secure. ii)Documents that require signatures or version control are difficult to manage in remote settings. Automation of notices and the creation of workflows around approval processes are critical to achieving compliance and eradicating the paper-based models of the past. Missing or expired certifications and licencing documentation can trigger alerts, automations, and workflows. Training materials are referenced at the appropriate time based on requirements, intelligently organised, accessed, and processed in context by role and individual. The show must go on despite labour shortages. To avoid further setbacks, it then focuses on getting project knowledge transfer right the first time. Every construction project necessitates the use of engineering documents. The ability to properly share these documents

with subcontractors via a modern Engineering Document Management System reduces risk and safety by ensuring all parties are working with the most up-to-date documents. Another tool in our arsenal of automation? RPA. You've probably noticed an increase in companies accelerating their Robotic Process Automation (RPA) journey. RPA is a technology that uses bots to mimic human actions within computer systems. It is associated with mundane, repetitive, rule-based tasks that take far too long to complete manually.While it may sound intimidating, the cost and complexity of deploying RPA have decreased since the pandemic, and more options (such as RPAas-a-Service) have emerged. Here are a few examples of how RPA can help with labour shortages: i)Using document understanding to filter applicants, identify missing requirements, and streamline HR and recruiting manual screenings, we are standardising and normalising incoming applications. ii)New hire provisioning entails assisting new employees in obtaining licences for the tools they require from infrastructure, administration, and human resources teams. RPA software bots can handle almost all aspects of onboarding new hires. Here's a video that shows it in action. When applied to mechanisms such as RPA, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) can improve their ability to deliver intelligent outcomes. Following the deployment of a successful RPA pilot, most businesses begin to focus on hyperautomation as a means of discovering and deploying automations at a faster rate. One of these well-established proven deployments is AI-enabled hyperautomation for document processing. 3.Challenge: To diversify portfolios through alliances, mergers, and acquisitions in order to reduce exposure and vulnerabilities. According to a recent Deloitte survey of engineering and construction executives, construction firms are expected to increase M&A activity. Furthermore, more unconventional partnerships, such as alliances

and public-private partnerships, are on the rise. Diversification and acquisition of specialty firms will help companies become more resilient to recessions and keep underperforming segments from tanking revenue targets. Merging the applications and data of a newly acquired company into the parent company is a time-consuming task. During this critical period, a modern cloud data architecture and platform will improve speed and consistency. Pre-determined and approved data and cloud technical standards are the ideal approach. When the two merging companies have competing applications or data platforms, it will result in a less technical business system analysis (these could be on-premise or cloud-based systems). Instead of months of capital approvals, purchase orders, and business approvals, the cloud enables necessary infrastructure to be set up with the click of a button. This translates to faster M&A KPI tracking and visibility, all thanks to a modern cloud data architecture. Because businesses are embracing the cloud, the evolution of connected construction promises project success. As a result of digitised equipment sensors, one great example that is on the rise is the tracking and detection of fraud in equipment fuel usage. This, and many other examples, could not be accomplished using the old processes. However, when it is digitally transformed, it unlocks the data, analytics, and value that are required to drive success. 4.Challenge: Inadequacies in the supply chain and rising raw material prices have resulted in soaring demand. The projects exist, but the resources do not. Land, people, and raw building materials are all in short supply. Real-time insights into pricing, availability, and your options are critical for maintaining your profit margin. Salesforce for bid and proposal management is a key technology investment. Salesforce is viewed as a sales and marketing tool first, then as a vendor management tool in most industries. However, in the construction industry, there is a compelling case for Salesforce to serve as the central hub for visibility into all of the activities that occur behind the scenes. Construction professionals may want to include specific construction

project data pertaining to sales opportunities. Salesforce can be set up to track bidding information on viable projects, such as the opportunity name, bid dates, contract value, construction type, sales stage, and market segment. Is your entire team capable of reviewing and responding to bids from anywhere? Preparing a bid packet is typically more difficult in the construction industry than in other industries. With limited Salesforce resources, you'll continue to fall behind if your Salesforce organisation lacks the ability to report on historical bid and project data, as well as mobile access to bid packets. The technology investments that architecture, engineering, and construction firms must make will lay the groundwork for today's connected enterprise. Moving away from standalone project-related issues and toward enterprise-level business problems will provide firms with the information, analytics, and insights they require. Early in the pandemic, governments attempted to limit disruption by mandating social distancing and hygiene protocols to ensure construction workers' well-being and health. In the United States, for example, the Los Angeles Department of Buildings adopted a set of safety construction guidelines based on CDC recommendations, consisting of 16 rules such as social distancing, frequent hand washing, and wearing face masks while working on-site. It also required an inspection to ensure that the guidelines were followed onsite. Similarly, in China, where the construction industry employs 58 million people, the National Health Commission issued detailed guidelines for construction site management. Work shifts that were staggered, the use of protective equipment, the disinfection of areas that did not have proper ventilation, occupational safety and health trainings, and regular health check-ups were all included. The most significant changes in construction, however, went beyond hygiene and safety and focused on remote work and digital tools to help construction projects run smoothly. A fully digitalized process has proven critical for service continuity and processing in emergency situations. Since 2007, 29 economies have established web-based portals to coordinate building permit processes. Singapore's Construction Real Estate Network (CORENET) e-submission platform, which was first introduced in 2001, already had all of the elements in

place for an entirely digital building plan submission, checking, and approval process, allowing the country to continue all permitting services remotely even during their "circuit-breaker" period of strict social distancing between April and May of 2020. The process is entirely paperless, as electronic formats and signatures have rendered physical documents and in-person meetings obsolete. Other countries did not have all of the information technology infrastructure in place, but they responded quickly to the pandemic by deploying or improving e-government platforms and solutions to ensure construction sector continuity. Morocco's Rokhas platform, for example, has expanded its capabilities to allow for videoconferencing and digital and remote review of building plans. During the course of 2020, the city of Yangon, Myanmar, expanded the use of digital construction permits, which it had been testing for two years, and the government of Benin launched a digital application portal as well. During the health emergency, building permitting authorities around the world were also faced with the challenge of ensuring building quality control of construction projects. Rather than continuing with business as usual or suspending inspections entirely, authorities around the world have adopted low-cost, readily available digital tools to perform remote inspections. Kuwait was among the first to replace in-person inspections with the submission of photos and videos to ensure that qualified engineers performed quality control. Virtual inspections of construction sites via Zoom or Microsoft Teams video calls are now routine between engineers on site and building control officials in the US city of Miami. Before the COVID emergency, authorities in the United Arab Emirates were already using CCTV and drones to inspect construction sites, and they were able to retool their capabilities to move further into virtual and remote inspections beginning in March 2020. Having an electronic submission system does not guarantee that services will continue to be provided. The construction permitting process is frequently complicated, involving multiple agencies that must review, approve, and collect applicable fees before the permit is issued. To ensure that the transition from paper to digital permitting and inspections is feasible, several preconditions must be met: investments in software and cybersecurity are required to meet record-keeping and privacy requirements; existing software must be

adapted to accommodate videoconferencing and real-time interactions; standards on which 3D or 4D formats are to be used must be agreed upon with the private sector; and electronic payments must be integrated. Above all, both the private sector and civil servants must be trained and persuaded of the benefits of using these digital tools. This may be a daunting task even in advanced economies. In the United States, 40% of local building permitting departments report that they do not have the capability to conduct electronic plan reviews, and 60% report that they are not prepared for remote virtual inspections. Launching electronic platforms or imposing virtual remote inspections on local governments or the private sector that are not prepared for the digital transition could result in even more backlogs in building permits and further delay the construction industry's recovery. A recent case study revealed that, prior to the COVID pandemic, an increasing number of governments were already taking serious steps to accelerate the digitalization of construction permitting and promote the use of collaborative software. As countries prioritise reviving their economies and revitalising their construction industries, the need to transition to more efficient and digital processes has become even more pressing.

A new study from Dodge Construction Network reveals that construction owners are driving digital transformation. This report is based on responses from owners regarding the extent to which they and the companies with whom they work use technology for specific tasks and workflows that allow them to improve multi-party data exchange. Among the key findings are: 1.Owners are more involved in digital workflows than other project team members — more than half (54 percent) of owners have integrated software solutions or use a single, connected construction management solution. Designers and contractors lag significantly in this area, implying that owners are more likely to be able to effectively conduct digital workflows. 2.Owners recognise the importance of improving the flow of

communication and data between themselves and other project team members — 59% of owners report frequent breakdowns in communication between themselves and other project team members. Less than half (45 percent) are pleased with their connectivity with those outside companies. 3.Owners' experiences with the benefits of digital workflows will help drive further engagement; 66% of owners who use digital workflows report that they frequently result in better-informed decision-making on their projects. Fortunately, this is also the top potential benefit that small to midsize business owners report will motivate them to increase their use of digital workflows. 4.The ability to conduct root-cause analysis improves decision-making for owners — The findings explain why owners who use digital workflows can make better decisions: they are far more likely than those who do not use digital workflows to be able to trace the root causes of delays and errors on their projects back to specific activities. 5.More than two-thirds of owners contractually require contractors to use some form of digital documentation and practises — This finding demonstrates the importance that owners place on having digital data on their projects. 6.Owners can use their greater experience digitising internal workflows to help them digitise external ones — 60% of owners report having digital workflows for at least half of their project data between departments within their organisation. However, only 28% report a comparable level of digital data exchange with third-party companies. This experience with internal digital workflows has already helped drive their appreciation of their value and can provide valuable experience for assisting them in the future as they transform traditional processes into digital workflows.

The following are some examples of digital risks in the AEC industry:

1.Cybersecurity Danger We're talking about the threat of cyberattacks here. These attacks frequently have the goal of gaining access to sensitive information and then using that information for malicious purposes. For example, extortion and obstructing normal business processes. This translates into wire fraud, business email compromise, and ransomware risks in the construction industry.

2.Workforce Danger A workforce risk is any single issue that may jeopardise an organization's goals. To put it another way, workforce risks include skill shortages and high employee turnover. When it comes to new technology adoption, the workforce's attitude toward new technology poses an additional risk. 3.Cloud Threat Changes in architecture, implementation, deployment, or management of new digital business operations and IT systems pose these risks. Cybersecurity risk is unquestionably a factor in this discussion. Cloud architectures provide a significant advantage when properly managed. However, if they are not properly managed, they have the potential to create cost spirals. Simultaneously, IT teams implementing cloud architectures in the same way they would premise-based architectures frequently introduce unexpected flaws. 4.Risk of Noncompliance This risk pertains to any new requirements or rules that are required for new technology. When you implement new technology, your company runs the risk of failing to meet regulatory requirements for business operations, data retention, and other business practises. Today, the majority of compliance risk is associated with personnel privacy. Compliance hasn't been a big issue for the construction

industry because few 2x4s care about their privacy, but it is becoming a bigger issue for firms doing business with the defence department or firms obligated by their clients to protect plans, drawings, and other sensitive information. 5.Third-Party Danger These are the dangers of outsourcing to third-party vendors or service providers. Third-party risks include, for example, vulnerabilities related to intellectual property, data, operations, finances, customer information, or other sensitive information. 6.Automation Danger Along with automation, there will be risks such as compatibility issues with other technology, a lack of resources, and governance issues, to name a few. 7.Risk of Resilience This refers to the possibility of negative events occurring as a result of the adoption of new technology, as well as the difficulty in minimising the damage caused. Risks to the availability of business operations following a disruption must also be considered. 8.Risk to Data Privacy The ability to protect personal information, such as full names, email addresses, passwords, physical addresses, and even dates of birth, poses a risk to data privacy. Hackers can easily exploit this data to harm or misappropriate an individual's identity. 9.Managing Digital Threats Adoption of new technologies should include a discussion of the potential digital risks they may pose. "What risks does this technology introduce to our firm?" you might ask. "How do we manage or mitigate

these risks?" These questions are a good place to start as long as they are asked of someone who has a thorough understanding of the risks involved. As new technologies are chosen and implemented, a more detailed, comprehensive, and cutting-edge approach, such as risk analysis, should be taken. Proper risk management will increase the likelihood of successful adoption, reduce the risk of unintended negative consequences, and give you peace of mind. Looking ahead, there are five trends that are already in the deployment or prototyping stages that will determine which construction companies succeed in the coming years. Here's a quick rundown of the new technologies covered in McKinsey's report on the future of construction: 1. High-Definition Survey and Geolocation Equipment Many construction companies have been looking for the best tools for high-definition (HD) photography and 3-D laser scanning of worksites for years. Drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have significantly improved coverage and image quality. Photogrammetry is a good example because it takes HD survey images and quickly converts them to images that can be shared with other stakeholders. Light detection and ranging (lidar) data is fed directly into projectplanning tools and building information modelling (BIM) software in 3D imaging. Lidar is frequently used in conjunction with groundpenetrating radar and magnetometers to examine impacts both above and below ground. This reduces the possibility of work stoppages or disruptions before work begins in densely populated areas, environmentally sensitive areas, or historic sites. These advanced survey techniques are used to create geographic information systems and area maps with GPS positioning data overlays. A survey of potential riverside sites for a small hydropower plant in Southeast Asia is a good example of how these technologies have been combined. The surveyors charted the terrain information using lidar maps and sent out HD drone-mounted cameras to image specific areas.

2. More thorough project planning In addition to 3-D spatial inputs for BIM, new platforms add two more dimensions: cost and scheduling. Based on geometry, project specifications, aesthetic goals, thermal requirements, and acoustic properties, this 5-D approach simplifies project scope and design parameters. Companies, project managers, and contractors can all quickly agree on how changes will affect project costs and timelines. Three-fourths of those who used 5-D BIM reporting saw a positive ROI in the form of shorter project life cycles and lower material costs. Some governments, including those in Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Finland, have made the use of BIM technologies for public infrastructure projects mandatory. Wearables with augmented reality technology, such as holographic displays and screens that map out projects onto video feeds of the actual environment, are the next step. 3. Mobility and Digital Collaboration Construction firms have been the most aggressive in adopting this trend. The transition to a paperless workflow and mobile devices has accelerated decision-making and streamlined collaborations. Expectations for real-time progress reports, more accurate risk assessments, detailed quality control evaluations, and overall better outcomes have been the most immediate results. Procurement and contracting tasks benefit from historical performance analysis, which was not possible with paper forms and reports. Inadequate security and paper trail management led to numerous disagreements between project owners and their contractors. In many cases, these new technologies have eliminated disagreements over project completion, the implementation of change orders, and the handling of claims. Around 60% of the industry's venture funding has gone to collaboration and mobility solutions. One app can provide worksite managers with real-time changes in construction blueprints, as well as site photos that can be linked to construction plans. It keeps a master set of documents for reliable version control and cloud-based access

to the most recent data. Mobile time tracking, cost coding, contractor geolocation, and streamlined issue logging are just a few of the most popular advancements. 4. Design for the Future The introduction of new building materials that have been in feasibility testing for years has resulted in some of the most exciting and exotic potential. Self-healing concrete, aerogels, and nanomaterials are a few examples. There are also many novel approaches to construction processes, such as on-demand 3-D printing of materials and the delivery of preassembled modules to the jobsite. These materials and processes have significantly reduced construction costs and project timelines. Simultaneously, some of these decisions are motivated by increased environmental scrutiny and calls for transparency on the jobsite. Some stakeholders have imposed constraints on projects in order to achieve stricter energy controls and a lower carbon footprint. The following are some of the related trends that are driving these changes: i)Lean management principles advocate for greater material cost efficiency. ii)Construction in remote or densely populated areas necessitates more flexible supply chains. iii)Reduced available building land lengthens the expected commercial life of projects. iv)Concrete cloth that can be formed into any shape and then set in place with water to be used for channels, drains, and passages. 5. Internet of Things and Performance Analytics Sensors, near-field communication (NFC), and software-defined monitoring services have all played an important role in increasing productivity. Simultaneously, they have increased site safety for both

people and assets. Project sites are becoming denser, which could lead to more accidents if not closely monitored. Equipment is becoming more expensive and difficult to repair, which may result in work stoppages if problems are not anticipated and avoided. As a result, data analytics based on new information collected by a slew of sensors are mission critical for safety and performance. One of the new developments involves "smart structures," which measure vibrations to determine structure strength and resilience. Wearables can track equipment operators and send alerts if they become tired. Sensors can also detect when expensive equipment resources are underutilised. RFID technology is also used for smarter logistics and inventory reporting. RFID chips are becoming smaller and less expensive, making them more useful on the construction site. RFID tags are being used by one construction company to track truck inspection schedules, monitor tool usage, and streamline training for new hires.

The following are some of the areas where digital solutions can be used in the AEC industry: 1.Extensive site inspections The traditional method entails using dedicated resources to manage information available in books, spreadsheets, or e-mail. Site inspection apps, on the other hand, assist on-the-ground workers in inspecting the site and digitally capturing and storing information. This reduces process delays and promotes continuous communication with stakeholders. Photographs of the sites inspected, as well as the signatures of the site in charge and site inspector, can be used to create dynamic inspection forms. 2.Prompt reporting of safety incidents With safety being such an important factor in the engineering and construction industries, a safety app assists the project management team in reporting any mishaps or incidents that occur on the job site.

This includes the ability to photograph incidents and geotag them. 3.Correct punch lists Punch list preparation at the end of each engineering and construction project is a time-consuming task that can lead to errors if done manually. The automation of punch list processes ensures accuracy and a smoother payment process. 4.Timesheets and materials tracking should be done on a regular basis. A single project necessitates various types of materials and manpower at various stages of engineering and construction, which must be tracked for a variety of reasons. On a daily basis, the material and timesheet tracking app assists businesses in tracking and recording the status of material and manpower. 5.Inventory and material management that works One of the most important yet difficult tasks is inventory and material management. The system's digitalisation aids asset management by providing features such as timely alerts that can be set up to warn of low stock. 6.Quotes delivered on time and invoice management This system assists the internal procurement team in managing quotations and invoices related to project requirements in an efficient, transparent, and timely manner. 7.Total project management This aids in the tracking of all project-related tasks, from requirement capture to implementation and support. Equipment scheduling and maintenance are critical factors in determining a construction company's bottom line. Tracking, managing, and logging equipment

use and hours becomes a relatively simple task with a mobile solution, greatly improving planning and usage. 8.Contract management that is seamless When contract terms are renegotiated, these tools aid in the seamless updating of contract-compliance checklists or the collection of information about client and contractor communications. 9.Effective performance management Applications aid in the instant updating and sharing of critical workforce information throughout the pre-construction and construction phases. Some performance dashboards can import field data, making data collection easier. 10.Improved document management Document management applications can assist with document uploading, tracking changes, and keeping track of all decisions, as well as providing easy access to past records. Using mobile apps to collect information on the job site improves accuracy and reduces issues like manual writing, illegible handwriting, unpredictable data, and information gaps. On-site photos, GPS, time stamps, and invoices provide an accurate and indisputable audit trail for the project, delivering much-needed accountability to clients or serving as evidence in legal matters. 11.Connectivity with IoT Just a few minutes of downtime can have a significant impact on your manufacturing facility's bottom line, so it's critical that your technicians are notified as soon as a piece of machinery or equipment fails. Integrating these applications with IoT allows for faster response time, and the facility can resume operations within minutes of the repair. Despite a growing cultural shift toward digitization, the construction

industry is still a dinosaur, albeit a sleeping one. According to a Roland Berger survey for developed countries, prior to the COVID-19 crisis, 93 percent of construction industry players agreed that digitization would soon affect every process, but only 6 percent of construction companies made full use of digital planning tools. However, the pandemic has pushed all industries to find new ways to operate online, with equal parts opportunity and setback – and construction is no exception. In fact, the current global situation may be the catalyst that the industry requires to achieve progressive, yet significant – and necessary – digitization. Surprisingly, the global howfar-can-we-go-with-online-work simulacrum that companies around the world have been experiencing as a result of COVID-19 leaves no choice but to rapidly transition many analogue activities into the digital environment. This is especially true for SMEs with processes such as logistics, procurement, risk management, design, and on-site production that can be partially or completely digitalized to work more efficiently and save money. As a result, the current situation provides an opportunity to transform construction's digitization-averse stakeholders and agents into the kind of digital advocates who could facilitate an industry revolution in the coming years. The slow adoption of digitalization is not solely due to cultural factors. With its disaggregated value chains, a strong physical work component, and high risk embedded in its operations, the construction industry is rife with roadblocks, making it difficult to achieve consensus, integration, and stakeholder collaboration. As a result, this type of forced digital momentum provides an opportunity for industry leaders to take careful note of how the construction industry operates during the pandemic, to work within the constraints (and opportunities) presented, and to become advocates for digitization afterward. We are experiencing unprecedented transversal alignment. The term "digital" is commonly associated with innovation and connectivity, but it can also be a shortcut to sustainability, particularly in construction. For example, nowadays, reducing embedded carbon is genuinely dependent on digitization because it necessitates traceability across all activities and participants in the construction process – which is practically impossible without a mature and interconnected technological environment. Taking advantage of the pandemic's opportunity to

rapidly and thoroughly digitise the construction industry could thus open the door to addressing one of the industry's most difficult and pressing issues: reducing the embedded carbon footprint in construction activities. There has been no significant improvement in this area in the last 20 years, and the construction industry accounts for nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions. The Anthropocene clock keeps ticking, but the current period of forced digitalization provides an opportunity to slow it down or better align it with the environment. Enhanced technology use and the spread of B2B applications – in all industries, not just construction – integrate processes and agents from a similar value chain into distinct digital environments, for example, through platforms geared toward efficiency, cost savings, and improved collaboration. B2B platforms and applications are primarily intended to connect diverse agents around a very simple interaction with very clear rules – for example, connecting builders, suppliers, architects, and engineers around project creation, buying or selling products, consulting data, messaging, or cost control. These relationships, which are curated to provide value to users, are more likely to generate organic consensus and widespread transnational adoption than imposed or penalization-oriented industry rules. These dynamics, when combined with sufficient digital and ethical momentum, can significantly contribute to addressing complex and important problems in the industry that are not initially appealing from a business standpoint but have significant value and impact, such as embedded energy. The latter necessitates in-depth knowledge of the origins of building materials, as well as how resources are extracted, transported, and transformed, as well as familiarity with the intermediaries involved in these operations. In each case, it is also necessary to monitor the on-site processes, demolition, and recycling. Aggregating this data would not only give construction promoters, participants, and, ultimately, end-users the ability to strategically choose what they incorporate into a project, but would also allow them to know – objectively speaking – the environmental cost of their choices. It may be difficult to believe, but due to a lack of appropriate tools in construction projects of any size, such a decision-making process is currently not entirely attainable in terms of ease and depth. Because of the pandemic's urgency, digitization allows us to imagine

new ways of working, methods that protect the world and create a sustainable future – even in an industry as ancient and seemingly intractable as construction. The veracity and traceability of information collected throughout the construction process can now be ensured by gradually implementing technologies such as blockchain and coordinating an increasing number of agents in all segments of industry, from residential and commercial building to industrial construction, who have a genuine interest in creating and capturing value through sustainability. They, along with technology leaders, are critical to driving digitization and navigating this significant shift. Construction, which accounts for 13% of global GDP and roughly onethird of global CO2 emissions, has natural ties to and implications with many other activities, including logistics, mechanics, and land management. It is also all around us in our daily lives. Although it is easy to overlook, construction is critical in shaping our streets, parks, highways, airports, homes, and schools – as well as the air quality around them. A significant portion of the world has recently developed a keen awareness of sustainability in specific value chains, such as food and retail, requiring traceability, non-invasive production, and fair trade. A path to sustainability in the construction industry can be made possible by investing in digitization. Not to mention that it would be extremely profitable: the impact of digitization in construction is estimated to be worth approximately 1.6 trillion USD. Furthermore, implementation can be aided to some extent by the sharing of tools and frameworks that have already been used in the complex production ecosystems of other industries. Sustainability and digitization in construction should be considered essential in the coming years, and should be demanded as such by both those within and outside the industry. If we want to make a difference, the complexity of this challenge forces the realm to consider embedded energy reduction as a non-negotiable requirement of construction services, similar to structural integrity assurance or other already in place requirements. Hopefully, this momentum will prove to be at least one positive outcome of this difficult crisis. Even if construction industry players are still confused and hesitant about change and new technologies, the time has come for them to

develop a true digital strategy. Many players have established innovation labs and launched "proof of concept" (POC) explorations, often through local business unit initiatives, to test potential options and remain open to new possibilities without making large investments. Those local experiences are no longer sufficient to ensure future success and staying ahead of the curve in the coming years. It is important to note that, while the necessary digital evolution can be a threat if not approached properly, it is primarily a land of opportunities in terms of both cost efficiency and top-line client experience improvement and offer differentiation. If today's market leaders do not catch the ball in time, their market positions and values will suffer significantly. Influenced by other rapidly changing markets (such as B2C with platforms that have triggered new relationships, tailored products, and powerful service levels), consumers now expect the same from their homes, offices, commercial buildings, and infrastructures in order to make their "connected lives" a reality. Constructions must become more individualised, modular, and connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), allowing for specific performance tracking, energy optimization, and improved security and health parameters, for example. Client demands are rapidly increasing and becoming more complex, with expectations increasingly focused on "usage" rather than the product itself. Sensors, various hardware, and software have seen cost reductions and increased efficiency in recent years, paving the way for new possibilities. There are more technologies available on the market than ever before (such as virtual and augmented reality, drones, robotics, and additive printing), making it critical to distinguish the more valuable ones from mere novelties. Tech savvy is spreading throughout the construction industry, which has traditionally been resistant to change, hastening the adoption of digital tools. Innovative university curricula are preparing the next generation for jobs in emerging technology. Many new jobs, as yet unknown, will be created in the coming years as new tools and processes are adopted. Startups have seized market opportunities created by some of these trends in order to fill newly created added-value gaps. Since 2010, Oliver Wyman has identified nearly 1,200 startups in real estate and

construction around the world. Over the course of the period, these startups received approximately US$19.4 billion in funding, with half of it coming in 2017. Virtual, augmented, and mixed realities, as well as dematerialization, in-situ documentation, linked schedules and immediate planning adjustments, and historical change vision are all possibilities. Through more efficient, transparent, and rapid collaboration, process efficiency has the potential to skyrocket. Machines, equipment, and workers are all linked together. All machines and equipment (including construction workers) have the potential to be connected in the future, resulting in improvements in areas such as maintenance, energy consumption, health and safety incidents, delays, and quality. Robotics-related innovations are also being tested and are increasingly being used to automate the execution of repetitive tasks and to assist workers. Clients are increasingly becoming a part of their own project, for example, through improved visualisation and possible participation in conception. Furthermore, easing their often-heavy administrative burden and truly caring about their satisfaction at every stage of their journey becomes a priority. Platformization of the promoter business is also a part of this shift, as it ultimately aims to reduce costs and improve the client experience. A major issue confronting the construction industry is how to convert unproductive sites—sites that are currently too difficult to build on— into productive use. The need is pressing: As societies urbanise, they must make better use of the limited amount of land available to them. As more land is developed, sites that were previously too difficult, if not impossible, to build on become desirable. The construction industry is ripe for change. Large projects across asset classes typically take 20% longer to complete than planned and are up to 80% over budget. In some markets, construction productivity has actually declined since the 1990s, and financial returns for contractors are frequently low and volatile. While the construction industry has been slow to adopt process and technology innovations, there is also a persistent challenge in fixing the fundamentals. Project planning, for example, is often done on paper and remains uncoordinated between

the office and the field. Contracts lack incentives for risk sharing and innovation; performance management is inadequate; and supply-chain practises remain crude. Even though the long-term benefits are significant, the industry has yet to embrace new digital technologies that require upfront investment. Construction R&D spending lags far behind that of other industries, at less than 1% of revenues, compared to 3.5 to 4.5 percent for the auto and aerospace industries. This is also true for information technology spending, which accounts for less than 1% of construction revenue, despite the fact that a number of new software solutions have been developed for the industry. The construction industry's technical challenges contribute to the slow pace of digitization. It is not easy to roll out solutions across construction sites for multiple sectors that are geographically dispersed—compare an oil pipeline to an airport, for example. Building new capabilities at scale is another challenge, given the varying sophistication levels of smaller construction firms that frequently function as subcontractors. But none of this is going to get any easier. Projects are becoming increasingly complex and large in scope. The growing demand for environmentally friendly construction necessitates a shift in traditional practises. And the shortage of skilled labour and supervisory personnel is only going to get worse. These are significant issues that necessitate new ways of thinking and working. Traditionally, the sector has focused on making incremental improvements, in part because many people believe that each project is unique, that new ideas cannot be scaled up, and that embracing new technologies is impractical. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, the world will need to spend $57 trillion on infrastructure by 2030 in order to keep up with global GDP growth. 9.12 Manufacturing What exactly is digital manufacturing? The term can refer to anything from robot arms on a factory floor to built-in data collection systems used by digital camera manufacturers. In essence, it refers to the use of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence to improve and streamline all aspects of the manufacturing process, from the initial design concept to the end user. As manufacturing digitalization

progresses, new technologies that can increase production efficiency will emerge. The digital manufacturing market is growing at an exponential rate, and the associated technology is changing and advancing at a rapid pace. Understanding the history, present, and future of digital manufacturing is critical to remaining competitive in today's market. Inventory control and material requirements planning (MRP) systems from the late twentieth century used early computer algorithms to optimise product supply chains. Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) was used to streamline production processes by determining the most efficient factory floor layout as digital manufacturing evolved. The prototyping stage of product development was made easier by computer-aided design (CAD). With the introduction of computer numerical control (CNC) machines in the 1990s, digital manufacturing and design technology achieved a seamless transition from product concept to product realisation. On the same day, a digital camera manufacturer could use CAD software to design a prototype lens mount and mill it in a CNC machine. From design to inventory management, digital manufacturing encompassed all aspects of a product's life cycle. Product life-cycle management (PLM) systems are now used in digital manufacturing. A digital print silk scarf manufacturer will use one piece of software to design patterns, another to determine factory layout, a third to interface with suppliers and determine material requirements, and yet another to distribute inventory. Integrating separate digital manufacturing processes into PLM systems improves efficiency over the life of a product. Smart manufacturing powered by digital twins is a critical component of modern PLM systems. Real-time data is used to update a virtual simulation of a product or machine. This enables virtual monitoring of production processes as well as unprecedented levels of quality control automation. A digital textile manufacturer, for example, can monitor ink levels on a simulated silk press based on the designs and number of scarves produced on a given day. If the digital twin produces too many or too few scarves to meet current demand, these ink levels can be adjusted. Is it true that a viral YouTube video instantly increased market demand for checkered fabrics? Social media monitoring software can feed that data directly

into the digital twin, which can then instruct its physical counterpart to drastically change the ink supply. Companies such as the Alibaba Group are disrupting the market as you read this by collecting data to improve sales forecasts and paint a real-time picture of consumer preferences. Through virtual factory replication, digital twin-driven manufacturing achieves excellence. Our silk scarf manufacturer is linked to a smart PLM system, which instructs factory machines to change to a new pattern in response to increased consumer demand. A sufficient number of scarves are produced to meet consumer demand, resulting in less waste and higher customer satisfaction. Automation, AI, and robots appear to have pervaded almost every sector, from digital marketing strategy for manufacturers to factory floor plan optimization. Still, some industries, such as pharmaceutical companies, are lagging in their adoption of digital manufacturing. When medical imaging, pharmaceutical, and other life sciences companies begin to implement smart technology and automation, the field will undergo dramatic changes. The transformation of a biomedical factory from one vaccine to another could be automated and controlled by highly evolved digital twin smart manufacturing technology. With the high workload imposed by AI systems and the massive amount of data that must be collected and analysed to keep a large factory running, serverless computing is frequently mentioned as a feature of digital manufacturing. A vaccine company can monitor production in real time with a smart, data-driven PLM system on a virtual server without having to maintain their own servers. In recent years, a number of technologies have emerged that are critical to the advancement of smart manufacturing and the Industrial IoT. Big Data, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), operational intelligence, advanced robotics, cyber-physical systems, next-generation material science, and generative design for additive manufacturing are examples of these. While all of these technologies are changing the face of manufacturing today, according to ARC Advisory Group research, the Industrial IoT, connected smart assets, and, in particular, the digital twin, are having the most immediate and significant impact on how companies

implement smart manufacturing. The fundamental concept of the digital twin is not novel. This entails combining virtual engineering models with physical products or equipment in an environment that allows for change and optimization of the product as-designed and as-built. However, as enabling technologies advance and evolve, there is a renewed emphasis on the implementation of the digital twin and the associated benefits that can be realised. Manufacturers can reduce the time and cost associated with assembling, installing, and validating factory production systems by using digital twins that represent the product and production systems. Furthermore, implementing digital twins for asset management typically provides quantifiable benefits for field equipment maintenance. In manufacturing, a digital twin is a virtual representation of the asdesigned, as-built, and as-maintained physical product, augmented by real-time process data and analytics based on accurate physical product, production systems, or equipment configurations. In essence, this is the operational context of the digital twin required to support performance optimization. While virtual models are conceptual, realtime and operational data is a digital representation of real-world events. CAD models represent the digital twin's physical counterpart's virtual fit, form, and function. Real-time operational and asset data, on the other hand, are required to execute analytics applications that define the state and behaviour of the performance-based digital twin and enable optimization and process improvement. Based on real-world implementations, manufacturers are considering new business models in which they sell services instead of products and then use the digital twin to monitor and optimise the product's availability and performance. Customers are offered the use of the product/equipment as well as complete maintenance and operational optimization based on the digital twin's predictive/prescriptive capabilities. As a more manageable and profitable business model, the manufacturer retains ownership of the equipment while providing maintenance services based on a digital twin.

Here is a list of five ways that digitalization will reshape the manufacturing industry: 1. Digital Interconnection Manufacturing and other industries have taken a hit as a result of the global pandemic. It hampered the adaptability of communication channels. According to statista.com, approximately 20% of logistics industry professionals believe that a global pandemic will disrupt their supply chains in 2020. Furthermore, nearly 11% of respondents said their orders were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, digital connectivity is becoming the top priority for all manufacturing companies. Businesses implemented digital connectivity to avoid further disruptions in the manufacturing process. Surprisingly, the Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly expanding. Furthermore, it is estimated that by 2025, over 75 billion manufacturing devices will be connected and communicating with one another. The following is a list of connecting tools that businesses will use to maintain connectivity: i)Customers Operations Inventory Employees Equipment Customers ii)Digital transformation improves the efficiency with which data connectivity is utilised. It has optimised manufacturing processes ranging from B2B to warehouse systems. 2. Intelligent Technology In 2021, manufacturing industries will have paved the way for smart technology. Because of the pandemic, most manufacturing industries have shifted toward automation to ensure that processes run smoothly. According to the International Federation of Robotics, there are 2.7 million industrial robots in use in factories around the world. Implementing smart technology such as AI, 3D printing, Robotics, and other cutting-edge digital tools would yield positive results. It reduces human errors or injuries, increases production rate, and improves

quality, among other things. Automated guided vehicles (AGV), autonomous mobile robots (AMR), robotic sorting systems, and collaborative robots are examples of robotics and automation systems (cobots). They are expected to be in higher demand in manufacturing domains such as logistics, warehouses, packaging, and others. The workflow would be smooth if the right digital tools were used. As a result, the business process's productivity would improve. Furthermore, robots would be able to handle difficult tasks with ease and flexibility. It would aid in relieving employees or labourers of complex tasks and monotonous schedules. Finally, smart and innovative technology strategizes holistic optimization access. It establishes methods for improving the ERP of business performance, supply chains, and other aspects. 3. Management of Operations Manufacturing industries' operations management is becoming more agile. The top priority for industries is to return to normalcy following the 2020 pandemic crisis. Furthermore, manufacturers are implementing innovative process methodologies to reduce operating costs. It entails cutting waste, streamlining workflow, improving processes, and ensuring stable operations. Manufacturing industry operation management has been transformed by digital transformation. It aids in the monitoring of real-time data, optimises efficiency, improves production, improves quality and compliance, and so on. 4. Manufacturing that is environmentally friendly and long-lasting Manufacturing industries account for approximately 54 percent of global energy consumption and 20 percent of global emissions, according to statistics. As a result, it is critical for the manufacturing and food processing industries to adopt green and sustainable practises. Furthermore, manufacturing industries, such as the building materials industry, are looking for more sustainable solutions. It will provide certain

advantages. It includes things like tracking waste reduction methods, switching to renewable energy, repurposing materials and resources, and so on. Finally, manufacturing companies have the space and time to test new ideas. Create space as well to work toward a more sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing process. 5. Interaction Because of the pandemic, millions of workers were forced to work remotely. The primary factor to consider is effective communication. As a result, approximately 60% of industries used digital tools to centralise communication. Manufacturing industries reaped greater benefits from digitalization in order to maintain and improve productivity. It preserves workflow and has no negative impact on productivity. Furthermore, it encourages better data communication between employees and departments. Furthermore, digitalization allows for accessibility regardless of time or location. The impact of digital transformation in manufacturing on businesses, suppliers, customers, and other third parties is enormous. Digital technologies assist manufacturers in improving operational efficiencies and optimising various business areas, ranging from product development to supply chain management. Advanced manufacturing technologies provide numerous benefits, such as assisting companies in unlocking digital business models, adapting to changes faster, and even anticipating changes before they occur – all of which are critical to manufacturing. It's not surprising that IDC predicts that by the end of 2022, half of all manufacturers will have invested in smart manufacturing through improved resilience, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. As the digital landscape shows no signs of abating, such as what digital transformation in manufacturing entails and which technologies are driving it. What makes it significant? What is preventing businesses from embarking on a digital transformation journey? And how can they get ready to take the leap? In manufacturing, digital transformation entails enhancing traditional manufacturing processes, products, and workforce with digital technologies such as automation software, eCommerce, sensors,

industrial robots, and more. The goal of digital manufacturing transformation is to: 1.Increase operational efficiency, cut costs, and increase revenue. 2.Boost the quality of manufactured goods 3.Enhance the customer experience (e.g. streamline the ordering process) 4.Improve decision-making abilities 5.To maintain a competitive advantage, adapt quickly to changes in customer demands and the market. Because of volatility in the global, economic, and policy landscapes, the state of manufacturing is constantly changing. Not to mention that many manufacturing businesses were severely impacted by the pandemic and needed to adapt quickly in order to survive. Aside from these changes, we're seeing a slew of technological advancements that promise to upend the industry. 5G network capabilities, an emphasis on IoT, Industry 4.0, machine learning, and data-driven predictive analytics all have an impact on manufacturing. They pioneered a new concept of smart factories, fuelled by increased efficiency and sustainability. Customer expectations and resolving customer pain points are both important drivers of manufacturing's digital transformation. Customer data is more visible than ever before, thanks to eCommerce for manufacturers, CRM, ERP platforms, and manufacturing execution systems, and poor experiences have become too large to ignore. Nonetheless, starting the conversation can provide manufacturers with a candid look at their inefficiencies, resource allocation procedures, and expose them to new technologies. Any digital transformation initiative can place strain on the technology stack and development structure of the IT department. This may necessitate the use of new release cycles, processes, APIs, or other areas of digital infrastructure and performance innovation. Human resource costs are incurred as a result of digitalization in the manufacturing industry: the workforce may become disillusioned in the face of changing workplace realities and requirements. Manufacturers are also challenged by employee

reluctance and communication issues. Manufacturers must carefully address any budget and investment constraints because they work in a dynamic and cash-sensitive industry. This may cause hesitation in adhering to the factory digital transformation strategy. Manufacturing operations are complicated by tight schedules and a plethora of resource constraints. As a result, management is not amused by negative effects on operations prior to seeing any benefits from their digital transformation for manufacturing. Although embarking on a digital transformation journey can be difficult, it is not done alone. There are numerous digital transformation consultants and advisory services available to help manufacturers on their digital transformation journeys. Furthermore, numerous digital transformation manufacturing success stories and case studies demonstrate how businesses benefited from smart manufacturing. Top 8 Manufacturing Digital Transformation Trends: 1. Industrial Revolution 4.0 The term "Industry 4.0" refers to the integration of traditional manufacturing, industrial factories, and smart technology across value and supply chains. The main goal of Industry 4.0, also known as "the fourth industrial revolution," is to automate production processes to the point where all processes are automated and controlled digitally in real-time. A fourth industrial revolution technology might be a machine with embedded sensors that interacts with another machine based on data from the sensors, all without the intervention of another human. In the future, Industry 4.0 may blur the distinction between physical and virtual warehouses, allowing employees to collaborate more effectively. 2. Internet of Things The Internet of Things (IoT) is a key technology of Industry 4.0. It is a network of interconnected physical objects that communicate based on calculated data and their environment, including data fed from outside. Manufacturers can benefit from adopting IoT by gaining new

functions, insights, services, and benefits. The most visible IoT use cases are in operations, asset management, and human resource management. Manufacturers, for example, can implement preventative maintenance programmes with real-time monitoring, improve energy efficiency and working conditions through intelligent air management, risk management, worker productivity, and other methods. 3. Artificial intelligence With the amount of data that machines are collecting, it is easier than ever to use algorithms to quickly perform the best course of action among multiple options – something that humans would be far too slow to do. Today's machines have demonstrated that efficiency does not imply sacrificing quality, as machines can more precisely identify and anticipate which factors will impact production, or assembly line speed and quality. Machine learning can be used to suggest the best course of action for employees, predict waiting times, shipping times, or create behaviour models for supply chain risk prevention. Another case in point is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in B2B eCommerce experiences. When machine data is integrated throughout the supply chain, it provides insights into all aspects of the manufacturing process. 4. Robots Future robots are unlikely to differ significantly from what we see in manufacturing today. What will change is the ability to learn from previous behaviour and the use of pattern recognition to improve results. The number of connected devices, how they interact with one another, and the volume of data are all expected to grow. New robotics technologies will continue to innovate against the backdrop of connectivity, particularly in autonomous driving, dexterous carrying, moving, and so on. As robots become more autonomous, flexible, and cooperative, they will be able to handle more complex tasks, relieving employees of repetitive tasks and increasing factory floor productivity.

5. Business-to-Business eCommerce Today's B2B eCommerce platforms must respond quickly to B2B buyer needs, which often mirror those of B2C consumers. It is difficult to maintain B2C-like experiences when B2Bs require custom checkout workflows, pricing rules, product data personalization, and other complex functions to run in the background. Manufacturers such as Saltworks and Samuel Hubbard, on the other hand, are excellent examples of digital transformation manufacturing case studies that were able to digitally transform their stores by implementing OroCommerce. This transformation enabled them to use a single website for segmentation and multichannel capabilities, which aided in the improvement of their business models. Aside from providing accurate product information to customers, B2B eCommerce platforms can automatically sync data with ERP and WMS systems, reducing inventory management efforts and the possibility of human error. More importantly, B2B eCommerce allows manufacturers to sell direct to consumers or B2B2C without disrupting their existing channels. 6. Additive manufacturing Along with robotics and intelligent systems, additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is a key technology that provides opportunities for digital transformation. Additive manufacturing is a manufacturing method that uses digital 3D models to create parts layer by layer with a 3D printer. 3D printing is often a more cost-effective manufacturing option than more traditional technologies for complex, intricate objects (e.g., aircraft parts, some consumer goods such as jewellery, and medical implants). Modern manufacturers incorporate 3D printing into their digital strategy to reduce time-to-market for new products, boost profitability, and support operational improvements. 7. Digital Twins The concept of a digital twin has enormous potential for improving the performance and upkeep of manufacturing systems. A digital twin is a

digital representation of a physical product, machine, process, or system that enables businesses to better understand, analyse, and optimise their processes using real-time simulation. An operator, for example, can use a digital twin to determine why a machine part is malfunctioning or to predict the lifetime of a product. This continuous, real-time simulation aids in the improvement of product designs as well as the uptime of equipment. 8. Virtual and augmented reality Despite its popularity in consumer applications, Augmented Reality (AR) technology is only now making inroads into the manufacturing industry. Nonetheless, there is a significant untapped potential for using AR. What is luring manufacturers to AR? AR, for example, enables workers to speed up assembly and improve decision-making. Workers can use AR glasses to see data projected on the real part, such as assembly guidelines or component serial numbers, allowing for faster and easier work procedures. Many manufacturers have accelerated their digital transformation journey by deploying new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) tools, edge computing, data lakes, new connectivity standards, advanced analytics, and robotics. However, digital transformation encompasses more than just tools and technologies; it also encompasses people, processes, and things. Furthermore, manufacturers from a variety of industries are leveraging information and data from a variety of manufacturing processes to structure new business models that improve operational efficiencies and lower costs. The transformation of business, industrial products, operations, value chains, and services enabled by the augmentation of people, knowledge, and workplaces through the expanded use of digital technologies is referred to as digital transformation. It is about the people who work there, as well as the processes, technologies, and services. Finally, it comes down to adding value to the organisation and resolving business issues. Plants are becoming more autonomous as a result of digital transformation, with fewer people required on-site. Depending on the industry, company, process,

products, and a variety of other variables, some industries will always have people on-site, while others will run completely autonomously; however, the future lies in autonomous and optimised plants. The ability to use the knowledge and experience gained from subject matter experts (SMEs) – the operators, engineers, and other workers – in conjunction with data scientists' and business managers' expertise in data and business. People, culture, and processes all play a role in digital transformation. It is about integrating or even replacing ageing systems and business models, as well as older work processes, with connected systems, connected data, connected operations, and connected supply chains in a connected enterprise. Because cloud deployments are important in digital transformation, they inquired about MES/MOM production deployment by application, specifically whether the applications were deployed on-premises, in private clouds, in public clouds, or in a combination of public and private clouds. In terms of some of the more common MES/MOM applications, we discovered that companies are beginning to migrate applications to the cloud. Advanced applications, performance management/KPIs, and visualisation were the most commonly deployed cloud applications. Although cloud deployment is increasing, on-premises applications are still the most common, as shown in light blue. Companies are migrating such applications to the cloud because they do not require the information right away. This is consistent with other studies that show a shift in data storage to the cloud. Furthermore, we believe that cloud adoption for MES/MOM applications will accelerate as a result of COVID and the need for remote connected workers to monitor plant data. While the production of physical items appears to be limited to the physical realm, increasing the adoption of cloud-based architecture offers significant benefits to organisations. Cloud-agnostic software enables agile development and eliminates the need for monolithic legacy applications. There is a greater demand for data as the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more prevalent. Organizations must have systems that can handle massive amounts of data and process it quickly with no disruption or risk of loss. A well-researched and implemented cloud-based system provides manufacturers with distinct

advantages. Manufacturing can continue without staff thanks to remote operations. A system that is designed holistically means that every stage of production is automated, eliminating the risk of error at every stage. A customer, for example, places an order online. If there is insufficient product in stock, the system instructs the production line to create new products. If necessary, it orders raw materials automatically. The product is created, with machinery being checked for flaws, faults, or problems along the way. The product is shipped, and the customer is automatically billed. While humans are still required, cloud-based systems allow them to access information, make changes, and track progress from anywhere. In recent years, everyone has been talking about 5G. However, this year is critical because 5G has finally entered the manufacturing world. Industry 4.0, also known as the fourth industrial revolution, ushers in an era of smart factories with connected devices that can communicate with one another and make decentralised decisions. This transformation, however, is not possible without 5G. This fifthgeneration mobile network is faster and more powerful, capable of supporting full IIoT integration in a smart factory. 5G's high capacity, wireless flexibility, and low-latency performance make it the obvious choice for manufacturer support. Some businesses are already experimenting with it. Audi, the automotive company, has already implemented 5G to support its robotics, reducing delivery time by 30% to 50%. The implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a critical step in the digitization of the manufacturing industry. It enables businesses to manage their operations through a centralised and integrated system. Businesses gain a competitive advantage by automating processes, improving insights, making better decisions, and lowering costs. Mr. Rajeev explained the significance of ERP systems in manufacturing, saying, "ERP is the core foundation of a manufacturing company." All of the processes and operations in a digital firm necessitate a very robust system in which all of the information is interconnected and communicates with one another. The resource boundary has also expanded beyond

people, processes, and products to include a variety of other aspects. As a result, the foundation of a business must be solid." Furthermore, he emphasised the importance of migrating ERP systems to the cloud, which has become increasingly important since the pandemic. Mr. Bino added, "Cloud-based analytics is the way out because you can look at different subsystems within an ERP as well as additional ecosystems within an enterprise's ecosystem." Logistics has changed dramatically in the last few decades. It evolved from a purely operational function focused on sales and manufacturing to an independent function focusing on advanced planning processes. Industry 4.0 has caused companies to rethink how their supply chain operates, resulting in the development of several technologies that have altered traditional manufacturing. Thus, Mr. Rakesh emphasised the significance of Industry 4.0 in the digitization of manufacturing "The supply chain is critical for operational efficiency. The most pressing issue confronting manufacturing right now is the timely availability of raw materials. The future of Industry4.0 will undoubtedly aid in improving time management and increasing people-efficiency." Digitization is now putting businesses on the path to becoming more crisis-resilient and future-proof. To remain relevant and ensure business continuity, digital transformation has become a must. As a result, when asked about the latest manufacturing trends, Mr. Bino stated, "There are two things; you will see a higher speed of personalization and companies will be able to give a lot more configuration to customers." Another significant trend that may emerge is a significant increase in protection against ransomware. So, even from a technological standpoint, you'll need to work with partners who can protect you from ransomware attacks." Digitization enables businesses to connect disparate manufacturing systems and use data analytics, AI, and deep learning to generate insights that employees can use to inform their decision-making. However, simply having digital tools in place is insufficient. Manufacturing has reached a tipping point, and it is now critical that these digital tools be integrated into the manufacturing process's infrastructure. Manufacturers can now strategize production capacities, save costs, reduce risks, and meet evolving customer needs more quickly with a real-time

understanding of customer needs, newer innovations, and market trends. Manufacturing's future is digital, which is required to remain competitive and achieve world-class status. The ability of a company to adapt to a changing business environment is critical to its ultimate success. Manufacturing firms are constantly striving to improve their ability to respond successfully to changing customer needs and preferences, disruptions in their supply chains, increasing competition, and other similar challenges. Manufacturing companies used to rely on methodologies like benchmarking, total quality management, and Kaizen to improve their business and production processes. These manual methodologies aided industrial firms in achieving only incremental improvements in specific areas. The main limitations of these methodologies are their inability to access all necessary and comprehensive information, to handle large amounts of data, and to effectively analyse them in order to make appropriate decisions. Emerging digital technologies, such as the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), artificial intelligence, and others, have the potential to assist manufacturers in overcoming these constraints. The current buzz about digital transformation is primarily due to an increased level of awareness among manufacturers of the capabilities of these technologies. Digital transformation is the deliberate process of bringing about comprehensive changes through the use of emerging digital technologies in order to achieve overarching objectives—which, in the business context, frequently include improving a company's business and production processes, increasing customer and shareholder value, becoming more efficient and productive, and other such goals. Companies can overcome market challenges, ensure customer satisfaction, improve performance, and become future-ready by undergoing such transformation. Companies that want to achieve transformative goals can use digital transformation as a powerful tool. The overwhelming industry consensus and expectation is that through digital transformation, a manufacturing company will be able to achieve its performance improvement objectives. Digital technologies are extremely powerful

tools that businesses can use to improve their ability to acquire large amounts of information and then process, analyse, share, and visualise it. A physical entity, such as a pump or compressor, becomes self-monitoring when it is embedded with an internetconnected edge computing device and control components consisting of sensors and actuators. It can generate data about its own operation and share it with other cyber-physical systems, as well as on-premise and cloud computing resources. While edge computing allows a physical entity to process data that requires lower latency and faster response closer to the source, cloud computing allows for more complex tasks to be performed, and the internet provides communication connectivity. Internet-enabled and networked cyberphysical systems and computers are inexpensive and capable of efficiently sharing, processing, analysing, and storing massive amounts of data. The field of data analytics is one of the most visible applications of digital transformation efforts. It assists businesses in examining datasets in order to uncover previously hidden information and understand interrelationships between seemingly disparate areas. Companies can use this technique to uncover patterns and thus extract valuable insights from raw data. Within the field of data analytics, descriptive analytics examines data to describe what is happening, whereas predictive analytics forecasts what will occur under a given set of conditions. With its cognitive capabilities, artificial intelligence technology can be used to predict potential outcomes under a set of plausible conditions; thus, it can be useful for problem-solving and decision-making. Another powerful tool is digital twin technology, which can be used to create a digital representation of a physical object, such as a power plant or a blast furnace; with its help, one can imitate the physical object's operation in order to study and improve its performance. Manufacturing companies must embrace digital transformation in order to effectively and comprehensively evolve all of their business and production processes and operations in order to achieve market success. To successfully transition from the third to the fourth eras of industrialization, manufacturing companies must implement a digital transformation strategy.

The implementation of advanced digital solutions assists businesses in cutting costs, improving customer experience, and increasing ROI; however, it is not without challenges. What are the obstacles to digital transformation initiatives in manufacturing firms? 1.The approval of upper management. Going digital entails significant costs as well as significant workflow and HR management changes, which may be opposed by upper management. 2.The reorganisation of the IT department. No technical transformation is possible unless all IT-related processes, the IT department structure, and the technology stack are properly tuned. 3.Personnel assistance. Changing processes, workflows, schedules, and responsibilities, as well as employee retraining, may be perceived as threatening or unwanted by employees, and may be met with resistance. 4.Budget constraints Manufacturing technological innovations necessitate a significant investment, which may pose a problem for many businesses. Manufacturing systems that are extremely interconnected. Systems with tightly coupled parts and fatal delays may be unsuitable for changes and transformations. 5.Customer behaviour must be altered. Customer demands are constantly changing (from high service speed to higher product quality and overall customer experiences), requiring businesses to secondguess future needs, which is why digital transformation initiatives should be planned ahead of time. 6.Geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions are tumultuous. Changing customer expectations, volatile markets, disruptive competition, political uncertainty, and other factors make developing an all-encompassing transformation strategy difficult. The Customer Centric Benefits of Manufacturing Industry via

Digitization are: 1.Data-driven decision-making. Manufacturers that have implemented a proper digital transformation strategy get to enjoy efficient data handling, processing, analytics and advanced decisionmaking, which is reflected in CRM, ERP, e-Commerce and other systems. 2.Streamlined processes. Many operations are automated and methods are revolutionized based on real-time insights, which helps optimize production and internal workflows. 3.Production efficiency. Digital transformation is inextricably linked with technical innovations that improve process efficiency and use of the floor space. 4.Better control. Real-time monitoring and advanced maintenance solutions enable an uninterrupted, 360-degree overview of the production processes and industrial capacities. 5.Lower costs. Efficient workflows, process automation and optimized use of resources encourage labor savings and reduce expenses. 6.Focus on the customer. Advanced software solutions allow manufacturers to synchronize production with customer needs by monitoring demand, ordering and their specifics according to a region, season, etc., as well as to shift from mass production to customized production. 7.Higher quality of products. Enhanced processes enable better quality of assembly, bonding, blanking, etc., which is the key to enriched products. 8.Enhanced safety. Digitalized processes help obviate human involvement in dangerous and difficult tasks, which contributes to safety and minimizes accidents. Manufacturers have begun to shift away from impersonalized sales and toward customer-centricity, with unmediated transactions with their ultimate clients becoming a top priority. And for good reason: by omitting intermediaries, this business model provides the following benefits to both parties:

1.Financial. Companies receive the full profit based on the manufacturer's recommended retail price, whereas customers can purchase at prices that do not include the intermediaries' commission. 2.Time-related. Companies release products more quickly, and customers receive them more quickly. 3.Reputational. Companies have complete control over their brand reputation, and buyers aren't confused by potential poor representation by intermediaries. 4.Quality-related. Manufacturers can now quickly make the necessary changes to produce higher-quality products and provide a better customer experience because it is now possible to track clients' responses and behaviour first-hand. Here are all the reasons to transform your industrial shop with digital manufacturing technology: 1.Improved processes enhance operational efficiency. Departing from traditional paper and manual processes by deploying automated, cloud-based solutions helps streamline process flow, access helpful analytics, improve decision-making capabilities, avoid costly rework and downtime, simplify performance monitoring, deliver to market faster, and provide detailed digital product representations—all while improving quality and reducing waste. 2.Innovate by utilizing state-of-the-art technology. To achieve new capabilities like increased employee collaboration, predictive analytics, machine learning, connectivity and 3D modeling, it’s worth it to invest in the right digital infrastructure. Digital platforms help eliminate silos by interweaving planning and development. 3.Attract and empower the next generation of workers. Digital manufacturing can help fill job openings in the manufacturing industry. By investing in new digital manufacturing technology, there’s a better chance of attracting and retaining new workers who want to use that technology to increase efficiencies through process improvement. 4.Increase customer satisfaction. Digital manufacturing helps increase brand awareness, in turn helping businesses provide more

customer-specific solutions. 5.Reduce costs. Digital manufacturing helps businesses gain better insight into supply/chain issues, such as inventory levels, delivery status and demand cycles. This increased visibility helps reduce unnecessary risk and costs related to issues like excessive inventory. The top digitally mature manufacturing sectors in 2019 and 2022: 1. Semiconductors, Electronics, and Pharmaceuticals are at the top of the 2022 Maturity rankings, with Logistics gaining ground. Despite their leadership positions, these top three industries are not immune to today's challenges, which include ongoing value-chain disruptions, global chip shortages, and industrial decarbonization. These developments will reshape the global manufacturing landscape, and companies in these leading sectors, as long-standing innovators and early adopters of new concepts and technologies, must confront these issues head-on in order to transform them into opportunities for all. 2. There is a high degree of diversity among industry sectors; more tailored approaches are required to better support industry transformation. Governments and solution providers frequently use "one-size-fits-all" approaches to assisting manufacturers on their digitalization journeys, such as state-level subsidies for the adoption of new automation equipment or industry-led forums that study use cases of multinational corporations. Such broad-based interventions have had limited impact and efficacy. 3. The most digitally mature organisations are attempting to integrate their already digitised processes and systems, whereas the average manufacturer is still attempting to digitise existing operational processes. Manufacturers now have a plethora of options thanks to new digital and hardware technologies, as well as integrative design principles. In response to pandemic-related challenges, most manufacturers have taken their first steps toward digitalization over the last two years. Companies that began earlier are now moving to the next stage of integrating their digitised processes. 4. Top companies have placed a high priority on connectivity in order

to achieve greater integration and insights. Connectivity is quickly overtaking automation as a key driver of success in today's digital economy. Top companies understand the value of connectivity. Many companies have already established interoperable and secure networks within their manufacturing facilities, allowing equipment, machinery, and computer-based systems to interact and exchange information with few constraints. 5. Manufacturers should place a greater emphasis on updating and broadening their digitalization and workforce retraining strategies. Job scopes and work arrangements are rapidly changing as a result of digitalization. As manufacturers formalise their digitalization strategies to improve their manufacturing and enterprise processes, they must also reconsider how they organise their workforce and workspaces as remote working becomes more common in the digital era. 6. MNCs and SMEs prioritise productivity and quality-related KPIs, but flexibility and speed are emerging as new priorities. Exponential demand growth, shifting consumer patterns, and chronic supply-chain disruptions during the pandemic have prompted some companies to shift their focus to flexibility and speed-related KPIs in order to improve adaptability and resiliency. Manufacturers' efforts to reorganise their supply chains based on regional geographical markets, dual/triple sourcing, and the adoption of hybrid inventory management models that include elements of both "just-in-time" and "just-in-case" strategies are examples of such shifts. 7. Data confirms that SME-dominated industries are less mature than MNC-dominated industries. Exponential demand growth, shifting consumer patterns, and chronic supply-chain disruptions during the pandemic have prompted some companies to shift their focus to flexibility and speed-related KPIs in order to improve adaptability and resiliency. Manufacturers' efforts to reorganise their supply chains based on regional geographical markets, dual/triple sourcing, and the adoption of hybrid inventory management models that include elements of both "just-in-time" and "just-in-case" strategies are examples of such shifts.

8.MNCs and companies nearing the top of the maturity curve are more likely to plan for the long term. A new non-governmental, nonprofit organisation – International Centre for Industrial Transformation (INCIT) – has also been established to support the international scaleup of SIRI. INCIT, as a neutral, independent entity, will collaborate with manufacturing-related organisations in both the public and private sectors to catalyse and support industrial transformation across geographies and industries. The coronavirus pandemic is transforming manufacturing operations to unprecedented levels. Organizations and leaders are responding to supply-chain shifts that are affecting sourcing and distribution logistics as they strive to ensure the health and safety of their employees. Supplier resilience is being highlighted, and labour shortages are causing many production lines to come to a halt. However, the crisis will eventually end, and production facilities will need to respond quickly to new sources of supply and shifting customer demands. These types of pressures are what drive the importance of digital capabilities, which provide manufacturers with the flexibility and resilience they require to mobilise and operate in unfamiliar territory. Despite this, most companies that have attempted enterprise-wide "digital transformation" have failed to capitalise on the full range of business opportunities presented by new technologies. What can manufacturers learn from the few organisations that have successfully scaled digital innovations from small pilot projects to large-scale production networks? Our most recent research and experience have provided us with new insights into the challenges and success factors associated with implementing digital manufacturing at scale. Furthermore, our research has revealed that European manufacturing lags behind the rest of the world. Only 17 of the 44 members of the Global Lighthouse Network (manufacturers recognised for leading the way in digital technology adoption) are in Europe, and only three of these are using fourth industrial revolution (4IR) tools across their endto-end value chains. Some of this apparent hesitancy may be due to the fact that many European manufacturers operate on brownfield sites. Improving legacy processes, systems, and machinery with 4IR

tools may appear more difficult than constructing a digital production facility from the ground up. However, there is a danger that much of European manufacturing will lag so far behind that it will be unable to catch up with more technologically advanced manufacturers elsewhere. The time has come for organisations to act and implement digital. Regardless of a manufacturer's starting point, our research has revealed five fundamental principles that translate into tangible actions for scaling and sustaining digital technologies. To be successful, digital manufacturing must be scaled from the company's digital strategy, with clear financial and operational performance goals. These aspirations must then be formalised, linked to real business needs, and disseminated throughout the organisation. For example, at a global pharmaceutical company, various business units had been experimenting with digital innovations in their operations for some time—but few ideas had much broader impact. Company leaders recognised the need to clarify on a network-wide basis which digital solutions could contribute to the overall enterprise's business needs and priorities—and, as a result, where to focus transformation efforts and how to scale implementation. A three-month digital scan included qualitative interviews as well as a quantitative evaluation of prioritised sites. The effort aided the company in achieving four critical goals: 1.Confirm where and how the value in digital manufacturing can support real-world business needs. 2.Create a prioritised portfolio of digital solutions for scalability. 3.Recognize the level of readiness of its data and technology infrastructure across the network 4.Recognize the investment needed in technical, managerial, and transformational capabilities The insights gained from the scan were used to develop an aligned and value-oriented road map for implementing the digital

transformation across the network. The strategy incorporated both digital and traditional enhancements, accounted for resources and technology requirements, and reflected a clear strategy for scaling capabilities. To drive transformational change, a company must use an integrated approach across all of its locations. The approach should address a broad range of capabilities and adhere to a welldefined process: 1.Create digital solutions based on a library of value-driven use cases. Deploy the use cases as "integrated bundles" to maximise ROI and centre them on user journeys to improve sustainability. 2.Create the data and technical architecture in collaboration with the IT function to ensure scalable solutions for future roll-out. Horizontal scalability, for example, allows for the incorporation of more use cases into the architecture, whereas vertical scalability allows for the connection of more data, users, and sites. 3.Invest in and develop new roles and capabilities, while also involving the existing line organisation in a comprehensive reskilling and upskilling programme. 4.Create a cross-functional team and work in an agile manner. Build "minimum viable products" quickly and iteratively, for example, while keeping things simple and learning along the way to make adjustments as needed. A well-thought-out operating model serves as the foundation for establishing the cross-functional setups and new capabilities required for successful deployment. To help both leadership and the front lines with implementation, the company should create communities of practitioners that include digital change agents, data scientists, data engineers, and IT architects. The company also requires "translators" to help technical experts and businesspeople communicate. The company should combine new and existing capabilities to maximise the value of the transformation . For example, a global MedTech company is enhancing rather than replacing its existing leanmanagement and operational-excellence capabilities with new digital

capabilities. The power of this combination is evident in the use of advanced analytics to improve manufacturing-line performance. The technology cannot self-deploy: A skilled process engineer is required to install sensors and then use them to improve the process. The engineer creates a root-cause hypothesis for poor performance and identifies potential countermeasures, in collaboration with a data scientist who uses advanced analytics and modelling to prepare, process, analyse, and interpret the data generated by the sensors. A domain expert with prior lean-management experience must also act as a translator, facilitating the interface between the line teams and the analytics and data experts. The translator connects the new and existing capabilities, allowing the team to interpret the results and make changes on the shop floor. Most members of the transformation team should be 100 percent committed to the effort over a set period of time, utilising a capability-building strategy that combines on- and off-the-job training with rigorous talent development. Organizations that have already codified their best capability practises into an existing manufacturing and supply chain academy can provide training for the new roles and skillsets, which will culminate in accreditation. A company must have strong innovation governance in place in order to develop value-driven use cases across its network on a continuous (and preferably industrialised) basis. Successful structures typically rely on some degree of centralization: for example, an internal "lighthouse" site that has successfully implemented multiple 4IR technologies, or a "agile studio" environment for experiencing agile working practises, or a "innovation hub" for new idea generation. These structures' insights can then be quickly replicated across the business. Structures impose order as well, for example, by categorising use cases based on maturity: in development, ready for industrialization, or scalable. It is critical to have clear objectives and a set of rules for driving the development and scaling of use cases, as well as promoting positive network collaboration. Some sites will take the lead on development, while others will industrialise use cases for scale deployment in the remaining sites. The deployment and scaling of the use cases should make use of the company's shared library of approved applications as well as formalised playbooks. For example,

a multinational corporation identified priority use cases and was preparing to implement digital manufacturing across its network. It invested in a collaborative effort by practitioners at selected sites and its global centre of excellence (CoE) to capture and codify a repository of use-cases that included detailed how-to guides and tactical training material. The repository's contents were made available for redeployment across the network. The network scale-up should be formalised in a roadmap that includes adapted deployment models that are best suited to the organization's context and needs, scaling mechanisms, and a resourcing strategy. The scaling sequence and timeline should reflect the company's priorities in terms of which use cases to implement, where to implement them, and when to start and scale up. Prioritization should take into account business requirements, the value at stake, potential ROI, and site readiness. Here are few trends: 1.An organisation can combine and tailor various roll-out options based on its situation and maturity. Among these alternatives are: 2.A site-by-site rollout, with a dedicated team assisting each site's transformation and capability development. 3.Using a "academy" to transform multiple sites at the same time through structured on-the-ground capability building, with fieldwork to achieve concrete changes in between training sessions 4.A use-case propagation strategy in which specific, well-defined initiatives are developed and rolled out across multiple sites, potentially in an accelerated manner as no-regrets moves. 5.A hybrid model in which certain use cases are deployed more quickly than others in the context of a comprehensive site transformation. A digital CoE provides the necessary backbone for large-scale digital transformation and site support. Early on, the company should clarify the CoE's overarching role at each stage of the road map's execution. A global company, for example, specified the following roles and

responsibilities to define the best value proposition for its CoE: 1.Creating and codifying digital solutions, as well as new ways of working with the sites 2.Providing and developing digital capabilities at the site level, as well as creating digital communities—for example, by utilising a "see, do, teach" approach that includes capability accreditation. 3.Providing on-the-ground support and coaching for digital deployment to site leaders, change teams, and front lines to assist them in meeting their objectives; this includes, for example, using common playbooks to support change management, capability building, and sustainability. Finally, ensuring data accessibility and scalability within a flexible technology architecture is a major enabler of large-scale deployment. Most businesses will need to create and implement a future-state data and technology architecture, which will include data capture, extraction, consolidation, systems, tools, and site hardware. To create this architecture, a company must have an integrated view of the potential use cases as well as the necessary data and technology. It must also consider the long term in order to sustain this new architecture by anticipating potential future technological developments and disruptions. All of these elements should be linked to a future-state data and technology architecture design that is syndicated. To assess a company’s readiness to orchestrate a digital manufacturing transformation that integrates the five fundamental principles, leaders of manufacturing organizations should consider the following questions: 1.Where would digital, robotics, and advanced analytics create the most value in your manufacturing network? 2.What is your current ambition level for a digital transformation? What impact do you aspire to in the short term and medium term, respectively?

3.How have you connected your digital strategy to your existing operations strategy? 4.How advanced is your organization in its journey from digital development and piloting to at-scale deployment? 5.Have you already established a lighthouse, agile studio, or innovation hub within your organization to support robust governance? 6.What successes have you achieved? Which factors have been critical to success? 7.What main challenges are you facing? What mitigation actions are you working on? 8.How are you balancing the need for tangible change with the imperative for a quick return on investment? 9.To what extent are you combining transformations of your business, technology, and organizational capabilities? Manufacturers who failed to transition from manual to automated processes during the Industrial Revolution became obsolete, and the same is true in the digital era. Manufacturers who are not digitally transforming, learning how to network their shop floors, and gathering data for long-term strategic assessments and planning will fall far behind those who are. The good news is that this isn't just a playground for large multinational corporations with vast financial resources to throw at the problem. No, you probably won't be able to build a factory from the ground up using 5G networks, IIoT devices, and data analytics systems. A digital twin to simulate operations and test tweaks and adjustments may be out of reach for a small or medium-sized business. However, with the decreasing cost of IIoT devices and the rise of no-code data analysis software, making incremental changes without incurring massive costs is possible. Adopting just a few additive manufacturing machines can help a shop generate new revenue. Simple data analytics can help a manufacturer make day-to-day operations more efficient and handle projects that would have previously been nerve-racking logistical challenges. "By 2022, I expect the industry to see a surge in investment in automation and digitization." While these tools aren't panaceas, they can help alleviate labour concerns, adapt to unbalanced demand cycles, and

empower workers to up-level on more critical tasks,". "The technology has proven its worth, and 2022 will be the year of widespread industry adoption,". "Experts predicted that by 2021, most supply chains would invest in true resiliency technologies and processes." They also predicted that organisations would invest in data governance, digital engineering, and digital operations technologies to move toward autonomous operations; and that manufacturers would reduce onsite personnel by using machine vision, augmented reality, and virtual reality to deliver engineering and maintenance support from anywhere," says Glynn Newby of SAS. "While some of those predictions came true, others are still ongoing." For example, in 2022, manufacturers will still be grappling with issues of automation and autonomous operations, but first they must address the challenge of a secure, connected operation that leverages modern connectivity technologies such as 5G," Newby continues. "All warehouses will be digitalized over the next few years." They will become more connected as 5G and edge computing become more prevalent. "They'll also automate all manual equipment individually, transforming dumb forklifts into autonomous mobile robots," says Matthew Cherewka, Vecna Robotics' Director of Business Development and Strategy. "Once this equipment is powered by technology and warehouse systems can run applications more effectively, we'll see all advanced technologies ‘speak the same language' in terms of interoperability." This will enable the orchestration of all people, equipment, software, and so on to operate at peak performance, resulting in organisations working more efficiently and effectively," Cherewka continues. "The need for comprehensive data strategies (digital threads) will become a priority for manufacturing companies in 2022, and as a result, investment will increase," says Dave Lewis, partner at technology research and advisory firm ISG. "IoT devices, IIoT automated plants, engineering simulations, and customer interactions generate petabytes [one million gigabytes] of data." Leaders are connecting these threads to drive operational efficiency and quality, improve customer brand loyalty and experience, and ultimately feed continuous product performance data back to engineering to improve the quality and performance of new designs that are heavily focused

on the customer experience." "With the increase in IoT applications, particularly on the manufacturing floor via Industrial IoT, more realtime data sources from disparate systems are coming into play," says Sam Mahalingam, Global Strategist at Altair. "In order for businesses to benefit from this technology, whether for increased efficiency or predictive maintenance, data processing must occur at two levels: first, real-time data insights must be gathered at the edge and then streamed back into the cloud." "Using this 'distributed cloud' approach will be the best way for businesses to meet specific time and performance requirements by improving flexibility, scalability, and processing capability." "Mahalingam keeps going. "In 2022, expect more IIoT-related businesses to adopt distributed cloud frameworks that can extend cloud computing capabilities from data centres to the edge. The development of new or improved networks may necessitate investments in new operational technology (OT), such as additional cable and wireless cells, as well as additional drains on power grids and the associated costs. Manufacturers must also be aware of the cybersecurity implications at all times. "Manufacturers will continue to improve operational efficiency through digitalization—connecting legacy equipment to OT networks, which will expose new areas of vulnerability," says ABS Group president and CEO Ryan Moody. "By leveraging connectivity, these systems have been updated over time to include novel technologies and remote monitoring in order to modernise, optimise, streamline, and expand their operations." "As a result, cyber criminals' attack surface has continued to expand, creating new vulnerabilities for organisations with operational environments." Manufacturers must prioritise the identification of these new vulnerabilities and the implementation of domain-specific cybersecurity programmes that explicitly address them by 2022," Moody continues. Organizations can create a digital twin of an entire business using real-time digital threads, supply chains, factory floor setups, and product maintenance data. This enables full-fledged simulation of everything, tracing the interconnectedness of every step in the chain and allowing manufacturers to experiment with changes and predict whether or not it is worthwhile to adjust a process. "By 2022, smart

manufacturers will prioritise the digital representation of the product, working backward to understand what backend interfaces, systems, and tools are required to deliver the test, software, and a plethora of other necessary data." They will then do the same with the physical product, taking into account the production line, factory floor, and material setup. "Customer requirements will be raised to new heights, forever altering system thinking,". "On a number of levels, the global pandemic has accelerated the trend toward a more virtualized enterprise." "For many industries, simulation-driven design is the most effective alternative to in-person product testing, and it has been especially impactful in a time when physical separation remains critical," says Brett Chouinard, CTO at Altair. "In 2022, designers and engineers will continue to push the boundaries of what simulation models can do, steadily reducing the need for physical testing and saving countless hours, resources, and materials," Chouinard adds. "By 2022, we will have created and integrated these digital tools into human workflows so that the right optimised actions are done at the right time," says Colin Parris, senior vice president and CTO at GE Digital. "This integration of Lean (process transformation) and digital transformation will ensure that new operational processes make use of the newly created digital enablement." "In 2022, data will also be used to create network digital twins to aid in planning for new bulk generation (transmission) and distributed energy resources," Parris adds. "This modelling will indicate what and where to build centralised generation resources, as well as plan for their grid impacts." Network digital twins will also assist utilities in determining the impact of rapidly growing distributed energy resources DER assets on the network, including the impact on capacity, reliability, and resiliency, as well as the vulnerabilities of power generation assets to volatile weather conditions or cyber situations." The use of existing data, all available information, and, most importantly, the collective know-how of an agile, open, new digital world is an important success factor for digital transformation. Rather than optimising a single production step, it is critical to recognise the overall context and realise the true benefits of available technology. Using the HPE Digital Journey Map, Digital Advisors demonstrate how this can be accomplished. It is founded on three critical capabilities of

a digital organisation: digitalization at the edge, a cloud-enabled IT supply chain, and a data infrastructure capable of connecting both. The framework is made up of four "Journeys," all of which are aimed at achieving business objectives captured within the framework of a digital strategy: 1.Redefine Experiences: Digitalization alters not only the user experience at the edge, but also the way employees work, their efficiency, and productivity. Today, we can improve employee satisfaction by improving man-machine collaboration or freeing employees from repetitive tasks. Video analytics solutions, such as those based on the OpenVino toolkit (Open Visual Inference and Neural Network Optimization, Open Source/Intel®), enable automated and AI-based detection of anomalies and defects in manufacturing processes, relieving quality assurance employees. These systems can also be used to ensure the safety of workers. Intelligent cameras can monitor the entrance to a dangerous area autonomously and detect any violations of safety regulations. If an employee attempts to enter such a hazardous area without the necessary safety equipment, the system will deny access. 2.Gain Insight and Control: As more sensors are deployed at the edge, it becomes easier to capture and analyse production processes and usage patterns. With the help of the collected data, production can be more efficiently controlled, and product development can be more closely aligned to actual customer needs. One example is the manufacture of electromobility batteries. It is a difficult process because mechanical, chemical, and electrical requirements must all be met. Because of the length and complexity of the process chain, a massive amount of data must be captured, saved, and analysed. 3.Accelerate Development: This journey focuses on reducing productto-market time by improving collaboration among engineers, technology experts, and product managers. A significant challenge is exchanging information between teams and understanding the impact of all data at each stage of the production process. Examining production and supply chains provides a practical example. Companies may use different software or software releases for business tasks, supplier management, or production control, all of

which complicates data exchange. The issue can be solved by constructing a data-centric architecture that serves as the foundation for data flowing between suppliers, partners, and customers in a data ecosystem. It decouples the data from the applications that use it by organising them through a special data hub. 4.Modernize and Move: In this section, we will look at developing an optimised supply chain. What technologies should be employed? Do I put cloud capabilities in place? Where do I need the expertise – in the data centre or at the edge, where data is created? These are the journey's questions. Consider a successful implementation of a Hybrid-IT-infrastructure with SAP S/4 HANA in a pay-per-use-Model that meets two functions at the same time: an ERP-environment based on cutting-edge technology reflecting business processes, and a high-performance engineering platform satisfying a high-tech company's research and development department. Digital transformation is no small task, but with the right partner who has the necessary experience and expertise, it can be made as easy and painless as possible. At Hitachi Solutions, we have been assisting organisations of all sizes in completing their digital transformation in a way that is appropriate for their operations and industry. Digital Compass refers to the technology solutions needed for a manufacturing digital transformation that will assist you in transforming your company into a truly data-driven operation. The Hitachi Solutions-powered manufacturing digital transformation revolves around six key innovation tracks: information and insights, unified business operations, differentiated experiences, organisational productivity, modern infrastructure, and enhanced capabilities. We can most effectively assist manufacturers when we use technology to optimise these six pillars: 1.Information and Insights: Finding and using data in meaningful ways is critical to the success of a manufacturing digital transformation. Manufacturers require a scalable data solution that can adapt to their needs by providing managed and optimised resources, automatically scaling for data growth, providing world-class security to protect the data, and producing predictive analytics that deliver value. Implementing a modern data environment capable of supporting and

leveraging machine learning, big data analytics, natural language processing, and other advanced capabilities is the key to success. 2.Unified Business Operations: From top to bottom, a modern manufacturing operation is linked and automated. Innovative CRM, ERP, and customer and field service programmes allow the organisation to optimise key functions by using data to drive decision making. These technologies will support the following in a mature digital organisation: 3.ERP: Manages finance, operations, project services, talent management, and point of sale and provides organisations with the tools needed to connect and manage internal operations in a unified, integrated environment. 4.CRM: Enhances relationship management by centralising customer data, acting on data insights, and providing more responsive and personalised marketing and customer service. 5.Customer & Field Service: Delivers personalised, proactive, and predictive experiences to improve customer service, drive productivity in your customers' operations, and boost loyalty. 6.Differentiated Experiences: The customer and user experience is critical in achieving overall satisfaction and fostering long-term loyalty. Manufacturing digital transformation allows businesses to use cuttingedge technology to provide better service and experiences to customers, distributors, suppliers, and employees. Deploying multiple digital touchpoints and self-service options through a consistent interface is critical for providing a superior level of experience to your customers and distinguishing your brand from the competition. 7.Organizational Productivity: When it comes to their own work experience, employees have certain expectations. Creating a modern workplace entails implementing technology to provide your employees with the tools they require to do their jobs well. Employees can collaborate and communicate more effectively with connected environments, intelligent dashboards, and a unified digital experience. 8.Modern Infrastructure: The power of your Industry 4.0/manufacturing digital transformation is that all of these capabilities are enabled by the Cloud. As you might expect, this necessitates the establishment of a

solid cloud infrastructure capable of supporting and scaling with you. Modernization involves the replacement of legacy applications, data, and infrastructure with cloud services that are secure, manageable, and optimised for your needs. 9.Capabilities Increased: The technology associated with a modern manufacturing infrastructure will enable your development team to be more agile, productive, and innovative. Companies that use cuttingedge software development tools and techniques, manage technology initiatives across functional teams, and foster an agile environment achieve higher developer velocity and, as a result, improved performance and market leadership. Also known as servitization, PaaS is providing customers with options to purchase a desired result, rather than just a traditional physical product. While the “product” provided may require the use of a physical device, it could just as easily require access to an application or a cloud-based service. Like other “as a service” models, the end user doesn’t necessarily “own” the actual product, but instead subscribes to the right to make use of it. Often this subscription model will include additional benefits, such as technical support and maintenance provided by the manufacturer. Customers may also choose to return the products after they’re finished, at which point the manufacturer could “rent” that product to another customer or repurpose it. What makes PaaS possible is IoT technology that can be linked directly to the customer’s own systems. Low-cost sensors, embedded controllers, and wireless communication combine remote monitoring with data analysis to allow for features like predictive maintenance and real-time reports – benefits that can help reduce downtime and free up resources for customers. Other customer benefits include: 1.A shift from large capital expenses of product purchases into smaller operating expenses over time. 2.A reduction of risk of product failure, as the manufacturer can take on the responsibility for maintenance. 3.The capability to optimize the use of the product through detailed status reports.

4.Ongoing support, including upgrades, which can quickly replace obsolete equipment. For manufacturers, one of the main benefits comes from a long-term engagement with customers, which delivers a more consistent revenue stream, which in turn creates a more sustainable business model. Additional benefits for manufacturers include: 1.Better insight into how products are being used, which can help manufacturers quickly address issue and more easily develop best practices. 2.Automatic feedback on variables like product reliability and performance, which can provide guidance for potential updates or feature enhancements. 3.The utilization of data analytics to measure performance metrics, delivering insights on what additional services could enhance customer value and provide new revenue opportunities. Manufacturers that offer PaaS for their customers have more to consider than just product and plant efficiency – they’ll need to consider whether they’re providing differentiated services to their customers. While customer satisfaction was always a concern, now manufacturers need to consider how they can develop and utilize customer-facing metrics when they undertake their digital transformation. Fortunately, the advantages that companies can achieve at the end of the digitization journey meet expectations. Among the critical benefits identified by organizations that have applied the smart factory approach are: 1.Increased productivity. The Deloitte and MAPI Smart Factory study states that investing in digital transformation has provided manufacturers with “a 12% growth in labor productivity” and “10% in total production output.” The particular tendency may skyrocket in the next decade and promote the manufacturing industry to record the increase in labor productivity three times faster compared to the previous ten years. 2.Reduced costs. As a result of the increased productivity, manufacturing digitization also allows cutting down the overall

operating costs. Companies can achieve this objective by identifying cost-cutting opportunities regarding the production workflow due to data analytics or automating numerous time-consuming processes and tasks. That may fall under RPA (robotic process automation) and robotics use cases. 3.Better quality. Apart from increasing productivity, digital transformation in manufacturing improves quality. With predictive analytics in place, manufacturers can detect relevant defects, which allows ensuring better product quality and requires lower efforts. After all, according to the McKinsey report, “machines’ superior accuracy results in 10-20% decreases in the cost of quality-related operations.” 4.Safety. Thanks to applying IoT-enabled sensors and combining them with ML-based prediction models, organizations can analyse machinery operation, detect or even predict dangerous failures that may affect employees’ health. Besides, manufacturers can achieve higher safety by providing workers with wearables that monitor their conditions and spot signs of unease or fatigue. 5.Customization. Since customers have become more demanding, companies should consider greater product personalization among the key approaches to coping with the particular pickiness. At the same time, increased flexibility and productivity of digitally transformed manufacturing lines allow creating a large number of customized products and maintaining competitive prices. 10 Stakeholder Benefits of Digital Transformation in the Manufacturing Industry: 1.Lowers costs Technology is a valuable ally in the process of reducing an industrial company's costs in the face of the future. The incorporation of digital technologies results in the transformation of procedures and the digitization of documents, resulting in the overall process optimization. As a result, unnecessary spending is reduced, resulting in lower labour costs. Furthermore, digitalisation enables businesses to calculate and estimate expenses infinitely more precisely, ensuring that budgets are kept under control. Furthermore, it eliminates and/or replaces redundant tasks within processes, making them far more efficient. This efficiency is converted into time savings, resulting in far

more cost-effective production. 2.Production is decentralised. Industrial digital transformation provides businesses with fully remote monitoring systems, allowing production to continue on its own. This means that, in exceptional circumstances such as Covid-19, digitalised businesses did not have to halt or even slow down their production chain. These systems can operate without interruptions and for many more hours per week than any worker. Furthermore, digitalisation increases the adaptability and responsiveness of methodologies. For example, if there is a problem in a manufacturing plant, an automatic warning is sent, and the problem is handled regardless of the day, time, or whether someone is physically present at the time. 3.Increases productivity and efficiency Smart product connectivity enables devices to connect and communicate with one another (M2M). This enables them to make decisions at the local level. Many tasks no longer require an employee to be physically present at all times. This new manufacturing and production model eliminates monotonous and sometimes dangerous tasks while increasing accuracy, efficiency, and responsiveness. Aside from optimising processes and tasks, digital transformation allows for faster, more effective decisions based on accurate, realtime data. Furthermore, because training, modifications, and repair processes occur less frequently and are largely automated, they are no longer a problem. 4.New business opportunities are created. New digital systems enable the production of previously unviable products and/or services for the company, thereby creating new revenue streams. Furthermore, the rate at which new services (innovation or reorientation) are introduced is much faster. Companies can experiment, stay ahead of trends, and predict which new developments will be popular with customers by making good use of big data and artificial intelligence. These technologies may even make it easier for businesses to become environmentally friendly, producing greener and less harmful products to our environment.

5.Increases the speed with which the company responds to changes in demand. The responsiveness of advanced manufacturing systems allows for a quick response to volatile changes in demand. Tasks can be rescheduled in a matter of hours, and products can be manufactured using customised patterns tailored to each consumer without wasting time. Companies can achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction in this manner without having to manually manipulate each of them. 6.Enhances competitive advantage New technologies enhance the quality of manufactured goods by incorporating new functionalities into production systems that improve the end result. This capitalises on the differentiation of the product in question and adds value to the brand. Comprehensive quality reviews, on the other hand, are generated to ensure compliance with standards and various regulations. Furthermore, it allows employees to develop their potential and professional skills rather than being assigned tasks that do not add intellectual value to the company. 7.Encourages innovation in the face of disruption. The company's culture of innovation is driven by digital transformation, which leads to the discovery of new value propositions and emerging trends. Companies that nurture data have the opportunity to innovate with previously unexplored information in order to prepare for future trends and, as a result, save money in the face of future disruptions. 8.Improves internal cohesion The flow of information enabled by digitalisation facilitates communication between departments, allowing employees from various areas of the company to participate and collaborate in projects and decision making. Furthermore, it provides businesses with an overall view of the organization's various entities. As a result, global management can be more profitable. On the other hand, the fact that information is instantly accessible from anywhere and at any time facilitates collaboration among various teams. 9.Enhances data capacity utilisation Digital transformation fosters a data-driven decision-making culture that is aided by technology tools. The advancement of analytical

systems leads to a greater understanding of data. This improves informed decision-making, key recommendations, and quick response. 10.Pick the interest of new talent Digitalised businesses that are up to date with trends and processes pique the interest of trained professionals with fundamental capabilities in this complex and disruptive environment. Furthermore, if the change is managed appropriately and responsibly, it will benefit all of its constituents, resulting in a higher value of job satisfaction for employees. Human motivation, combined with effective digital tools, will be reflected in the company's productivity and profitability. The process of decentralising production in order to manufacture the final product closer to the end-user is known as distributed manufacturing. Unlike traditional processes, which require tools and custom parts, additive manufacturing with a digitally-threaded core enables this practise. It makes it possible for a more collaborative, transparent, and efficient supply chain. Of course, none of this would be possible without a solid IT infrastructure. When combined with an intelligent digital supply chain, additive manufacturing has the potential to significantly improve your distributed manufacturing practises and overall success. You can use real-time insights into the health of your supply chain to analyse historical data and use predictive analytics to respond proactively to changing market conditions. Production rates can also be adjusted based on location, providing a competitive advantage. We effectively use distributed manufacturing through our work with additive manufacturing. Our Silicon Valley R&D team collaborates seamlessly with local production teams as well as those at a smart factory in Singapore, where final parts are manufactured. For prototyping and final production parts, digital files are exchanged, streamlining the entire manufacturing process. Better overall equipment effectiveness is the overarching goal of transforming the manufacturing environment (OEE). Improved OEE increases efficiency and yield, reduces or eliminates scrap, and improves quality, all of which leads to a higher return on investment (ROI) and a more sustainable, efficient, and environmentally responsible enterprise. All of these objectives can be met with the help

of IIoT. You can get there by following these five steps: 1. Create a strategy that leverages data to generate insights for longterm, sustainable success. The use of data to drive decisions that improve your operations should be your guiding strategic principle. Begin by establishing priorities based on business requirements rather than technology. Technology is a tool, not a strategic requirement in and of itself. Identify your business objectives and create a priority-based transformation strategy that leverages the appropriate technology to achieve your objectives, including long-term sustainability goals. An effective strategy aligns your current and future investments with the desired outcomes — and paves the way for a more sustainable future. For example, by improving the efficiency of your processes, you can improve how you use everything from raw materials to energy. More efficiency can reduce scrap and waste, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, making your digital transformation a win not only for your organisation, but also for the world. Hitachi's Stairway to Value framework can assist you in developing digital plans. I Your organisation will be able to connect equipment, visualise and analyse data in real time, and benefit from predictive and prescriptive processes for long-term value if a strategy is successfully implemented. 2. Begin your transformation by assessing your current systems and needs. It can be difficult to know where to begin with digital transformation when there are so many technological options. Many systems, such as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and a manufacturing operating system, are most likely already in place (MOS). Don't worry, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. By incorporating digital technology into existing systems, you can improve efficiency and effectiveness. Begin by identifying your most difficult challenges, areas of variability in your processes, and cost centres. Then, with your team, brainstorm issues (use cases). You may get different results in different parts of your organisation. Divide large problems into smaller parts. Once you've identified the issues, determine their financial impact and level of difficulty. Then, create a

four-quadrant risk-to-value model that maps the financial impact on the y-axis and the risk/difficulty on the x-axis to prioritise each issue or use case. 3. Begin small: Determine a test use case. Even after prioritisation, you may still have a list of high-priority, highvalue digital transformation use cases that are all important. However, it is best to begin slowly. Take on bite-sized projects with a measurable return on investment. You can see which issues are lower risk if you used the risk-to-value model in step 2. These issues may have a smaller impact, but they are often the simplest to address and can be a good place to begin. This first use case is critical to your future success because it allows you to test the waters, engage your people, and provide evidence that will give your organisation the confidence it needs to move forward. This first use case can also highlight any gaps in skills, tools, or technology that may be impeding your progress. Learn from the first application. This is an opportunity to identify issues that may be impeding the progress of your transformation. Address them as soon as possible to reduce risk as you add more use cases. 4. Create key performance indicators to track ROI. You may be hesitant to make your first investment if you are unsure whether the transformation will pay for itself. Set key performance indicators (KPIs) and link them to financial goals or another measurable value, such as uptime versus downtime or scrap versus yield. Your first use case is also a litmus test for demonstrating that your digital transformation efforts will bear fruit. Even a small project can demonstrate the potential for future savings. Using KPIs will assist your organisation in staying on track and achieving the desired results with measurable ROI. Remember, don't get caught up in technology. All too often, the allure of "cool" technology can divert attention away from the true goal of a transformation initiative. Any technology you use must be a part of your ROI model and directly related to business priorities. Don't waste time or money on technology that doesn't align with your goals and processes. 5. Prepare and involve your employees Building a strong and successful infrastructure for digital

transformation necessitates far more than simply purchasing and implementing cutting-edge technology. It all starts with people. Digital transformation is a cultural as well as a technological transformation. You may have the right tools and partners, but your transformation will fail unless your employees are engaged. Make an effort to identify and communicate with all stakeholders throughout the organisation. It is critical that they comprehend and support this transition. Recognize that change is disruptive, but emphasise that it also brings opportunities and is necessary for the organization's long-term sustainability. Take the time to educate and engage your employees, assist them in acquiring new skills as needed, and evangelise the value of digital transformation to the entire organisation. Digital Transformation (DT) has been breaking the limits of what we have known as long-standing manufacturing standards. Change of this magnitude requires a fitting set of criteria that accurately defines the meaning of success. This features some of the top key performance indicators (KPIs) of digital manufacturing. Here they are: 1.Operational Availability One of the fundamental indicators of manufacturing performance is whether a facility operates according to its intended capacity. Operational availability refers to the duration that a system is available for productive work and is not experiencing unexpected downtime. A digitally-capable facility aims to improve availability. And while it seems intuitive for mature companies, it can pose a challenge for transitioning processes. For example, it is easy to imagine that a fully robotic production line can work tirelessly for hours on end. However, if these high-tech machines are new additions to a facility, there could be a demanding learning curve before perfecting the maintenance practices. An experienced maintenance team that can service a conventional piece of equipment in a couple of hours will not necessarily fix new specialized equipment as quickly. Repair time and familiarity with the required tasks both factor into overall operational availability. A stable, well-planned process fits into predictable outcomes and consistent availability more easily. Improving operational availability alongside DT suggests achieving the benefits of new technology instead of new tools becoming a hindrance.

2.Reactive Maintenance Percentage While it is fundamental to know the capacity of a facility to perform work, there could be many possible actionable areas. Measuring the amount of reactive maintenance is a more specific metric that can open up improvement opportunities to increase uptime. A National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report showed that the top 25% of establishments relying on reactive maintenance were associated with more than three times more downtime than the bottom 25%. Aiming to reduce the amount of reactive maintenance paves the way for cost savings in the long run by reducing non-productive time. A reduction in reactive maintenance work may indicate that new tools are working, especially if coupled with a decrease in equipment breakdowns. 3.Overall Cycle Time Some of the most sought-after technologies in digital manufacturing involve automation and autonomous systems. Seeing a decreasing cycle time for each unit produced is a perceptible and measurable metric that demonstrates productivity. The reduction in overall cycle time can originate from several applications of digital technology. For instance, using automated machines in production can speed up manufacturing processes such as welding, assembly, and painting. Another application of automation is in incorporating robotic systems into quality inspection procedures. In both scenarios, reducing manual work can result in significant cycle time efficiencies. 4.Operational Improvement DT typically involves a collective of initiatives rather than a single, isolated project. When thinking about performance indicators, it makes sense to consider the total impact of digitalized processes. Operational improvement evaluates the combined list of processes transitioning digitally and their aggregate impact on productivity. It gives the company insights into the success of the assumed technologies. Moreover, this KPI can provide information about areas that require additional training, underutilized systems, or a possible elimination of redundant steps.

5.Throughput The production capacity of a facility remains to be a primary concern for manufacturing companies. Having an initial idea of overall availability and cycle time should equip manufacturers with the information to face continuous demand. Tracking throughput on top of these metrics describes the state of production capability in line with ongoing DT initiatives. Analysis of throughput data together with cycle time and availability can help a company learn about the drivers of improvements. Conversely, it can also highlight pain points and bottlenecks in the manufacturing process. The desired trends for throughput include increases, accompanied by reduced cycle time, and maintained or improved availability. 6.Quality Equally important as increasing productivity is ensuring that products attain a high level of quality. Quality, or the rate of quality products, describes how well a manufacturer eliminates defects in the final product. We previously mentioned that robotics is a proven way to reduce cycle times. An additional benefit is that precise controls and measurements also become achievable. For instance, optical measuring machines enable facilities to make more reliable process controls. Such tasks were previously dependent on manual devices like callipers and micrometres. The result is an increase in the accuracy of creating quality products in a fraction of the time. 7.Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) As the name suggests, Overall Equipment Effectiveness factors in multiple performance indicators, providing a more holistic view of effectiveness. The components of OEE include equipment availability, performance efficiency, and product quality. Monitoring a multidimensional metric such as OEE provides a more expansive view for the company. Modern software takes the metric a step further by including root cause analysis procedures and recommendations for solutions. Achieving perfect OEE, in simple terms, means that the facility is creating high-quality products in the most efficient way possible. 8.Return on Investment

Out of 125 manufacturing leaders surveyed, more than half identified a positive ROI as the measure of a successful DT program. On top of all the technological technicalities involved in DT, it all boils down to how the initiative resonates with the broader business objective. While ROI seems like a straightforward KPI, it requires proper attention in scoping terms and definitions. For instance, it should consider milestones within the project duration that would require significant resource outflow, and set the right expectations with management. Similarly, projections of value payback should be practical and evidence-based. The calculation of ROI figures also needs to align reasonably with market fluctuations and industry contingencies. A healthy ROI of a digitally-focused initiative speaks volumes about the business case for undertaking the project. However, keep in mind that it is also valuable to consider the ROI of all DT initiatives as a whole. Think of a DT program as an overall strategy that uses the collective power of technology rather than collecting multiple tools working independently. While Smart Manufacturing holds tremendous promise, and is the inevitable route every manufacturer must adopt in the future, many plants still deal with (legacy) installed base applications. The questions it poses for plant managers are vexing: What is the right roadmap for me to switch to Smart Manufacturing? How do I initiate the switch to Smart Manufacturing? And even if I do find assistance, will I have to abandon my current investment in plant infrastructure that could be anywhere between $1 million and $3 million for each plant, or even more for larger plants? The answer is simple. Consider this example. A plant with operational expenses of say $50 million a year, shows 5% to 10% improvement a year using Smart Manufacturing techniques. This enables savings of upto $2.5 million a year and secures your current investment in plant infrastructure. There are compelling reasons to embrace Smart Manufacturing sooner rather than later. These include: 1.Need for First Time Right and Zero Defects on Product Realization and Quality: Smart Manufacturing helps integrate end-toend processes as well as product measurement and quality data 2.End-to-End Traceability: Smart Manufacturing helps have end-to-

end automated traceability at any time for both, the production process as well as the product genealogy 3.User-centric Manufacturing: Smart Manufacturing includes visualization and mobile insights to decision making, anytime and anywhere 4.Advancing Workforce Maturity: Smart Manufacturing can help capture and enable the transfer of knowledge to the younger generation of human resources with specialized skills and capabilities. For decades, most manufacturing products have had a high craftsmanship factor. With aging workforce as well as the changing requirements with respect to competencies, because of advanced products, domain experience and knowledge need to be sustainable and accessible 5.Growing Obsolescence of Existing Manufacturing Technology: Smart Manufacturing presents the possible option/alternative for ageing technology. It either helps extend the lifecycle of the existing technology or replace it with an affordable selfsustaining solution 6.Urgent Need to Expand the Lifecycle of Investments and Solutions: Smart Manufacturing can be a critical aid in attaining this goal by introducing a digital foundation that enables rapid synchronization and global alignment across plants. Rather, it is standardizing on common systems or acting in a diverse application landscape, while having advantages that comes with digitalizing 7.Strategic Consolidation of Plants and Operations: Smart Manufacturing frameworks can support organizations that aim to reduce operational complexity through plant consolidation by implementing a digital foundation 8.Growth and Market Expansion through New Plants and Operations: Smart Manufacturing makes the ideal starting point for new investments that are future ready 9.Integration for More Efficient and Agile Response to Market Changes: Smart Manufacturing can be the fabric that integrates internal with external processes to ensure agility and responsiveness If only the most daring and ambitious businesses embarked on the

digital transformation journey a few years ago, the industry landscape has shifted. Digitalization of manufacturing and supply chain processes is now required. This is especially true in the postpandemic era, where COVID-19 exposed gaps and weaknesses in the manufacturing industry. According to Fictiv's State of Manufacturing report released earlier this year, 95 percent of industry leaders recognise that digital transformation is a necessity for their company's development and success. Manufacturers are expected to provide more and more digital-driven services, such as real-time production, tracking, and analysis, in order to compete in this ever-changing market. The first step in accomplishing this is to develop a digital transformation roadmap. It assists in setting priorities, managing change, identifying and allocating resources, and much more. A digital transformation roadmap is essential for any organization's successful digitalization. Digital transformation is a critical change in any organisation, particularly in the manufacturing industry. Unfortunately, many manufacturers do not make adequate use of digital and technological solutions. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including a lack of knowledge, security concerns, a shaky supply chain, a scarcity of digital talent, or relevant experience. Even when manufacturers accept the need for digitalization within the organisation, the magnitude and complexity of the changes can be overwhelming. Because digitalization affects every aspect of the business, it must take place in a highly coordinated and well-planned manner. The roadmap outlines a staged approach that senior management will use to develop a strategy, define end-goals, and allocate all available resources and assets for the transformation. This assists in determining where the company currently stands and where it wishes to be in terms of digitalization. It also provides answers to critical questions such as, "What are your company's priorities?" Where should resources be spent? How can digital transformation be used to maximise profits? Is the company equipped with the necessary institutional support to even begin the transformation? In other words, the goal of the manufacturing digital transformation roadmap is to assist stakeholders in getting their ducks in a row before embarking on the journey. Only then will you be able to successfully digitalize your assets,

manufacturing processes, KPIs, and much more. Before embarking on any type of transformation, organisations should have a clear vision of what they hope to achieve. It is critical for the leadership team to be able to communicate the company's goal to partners, employees, and clients. Only then will they be able to ensure that everyone in the organisation understands and supports their vision. Ideas that resonate with your team members, are feasible, and have the potential to achieve long-term change will drive the success of your organisation. The digital transformation process is ambitious and, as a result, not always smooth. Those roadblocks can only be overcome if everyone is on the same page about the scope, pace, and goal of the digital transformation. After that, you can focus on discussing the implementation of various technologies, business models, and processes, as well as the availability of sufficient digital talent, which is frequently a major bottleneck in companies' digital transformation. Taking the time to properly and realistically plan your budget is critical when creating your digital transformation roadmap. Sometimes brainstorming and coming up with ambitious ideas for your organization's digital future comes naturally. However, when all is said and done, those ideas may not be feasible due to financial constraints. Based on your resources, you should be very clear about what is possible and what should be included in the scope. Calculate and weigh the complexity and cost of each implementation, as well as the impact it will have. You can also divide the budget and assign it to different owners. You can hold regular meetings to discuss whether any changes are required and whether the budget has any impact on the general business resources. The journey of digital transformation is never-ending. You can always start small and make small changes as you go, as long as your budget allows. Creating a budget is a critical step in defining your strategy. And the more clear that strategy is, the more trust and support you will see in the organization's people. Implementing Agile methodologies in manufacturing companies' digital transformations, as well as in end-to-end internal processes, can have a significant impact on flexibility, efficiency, and productivity. Agility enables businesses to create products and services at a much faster

rate by breaking the process down into smaller iterations. This aids in shortening the production timeline, receiving timely feedback on delivered products, and acting accordingly. Agility enables the entire team to be more flexible and adaptable to new environments and technological changes brought about by digital transformation. Once the digital transformation has been implemented, the manufacturers' organisational structure, as well as the customer journey, will need to be realigned. All new technologies, skill sets, and capabilities should be implemented throughout the entire lifecycle of the final product – design, production, testing, and maintenance. Manufacturers can now see what their customers are interested in – what they buy – by conducting data-driven analysis and gathering insights about user behaviour. What is their response? What channels do they use to make purchases? Manufacturers can use that purchasing data to make ad hoc changes to the user experience by integrating more channels such as applications and websites when implementing agile methods. As you enter this new era of digitalization, you must assess your organization's talent and technological capabilities. The technical and operational expertise within the company is an important factor in this transition of processes and business models. Cloud computing, data analytics, connected devices, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, and other technologies are the superheroes of your digital transformation, and your team must have both the knowledge and willingness to adapt to these changing and constantly developing technologies in order to achieve a successful transformation. In cases where this is not possible, many businesses choose to work with an IT solutions company like Accedia, which can provide an experienced dedicated team of software consultants who can guide the process from beginning to end. Then there's the question of which technology platforms you'll use for your digital transformation. Spend some time researching the market. This has the potential to save you money and resources. Consider how this technology can fill gaps and meet the needs of your organisation. You must examine the legacy systems, applications, and processes currently in use to determine what flaws can be addressed by implementing digital solutions. This is an excellent opportunity to consult with the aforementioned IT solution

providers, who can advise on best practises. A thorough assessment is critical because it can assist the leadership team in making strategic and data-driven decisions regarding the digitalization of resources and processes. After completing your in-house talent assessment, you may have realised that it simply would not suffice to manage such a large-scale change as digital transformation. As a result, you and your organisation may find yourself in need of a trusted collaborator who will be there for you along the way and will support you throughout the digital transformation journey. Before selecting a technology partner, carefully consider their manufacturing industry expertise, technological capabilities, and ability to consult and lead a successful digital transformation strategy. These are just a few of the reasons why many manufacturing executives have selected Accedia to manage digital transformation projects. "An obvious example is one of Europe's largest manufacturers and distributors of high-quality ready-mixed and prefabricated concrete: "Over the last two years, we've been working on establishing a so-called business collaboration platform on which to provide various types of digital services to our clients." We wanted to create a model web portal and mobile app where we could share various types of information with our customers. All of this was done to make our collaborations easier and more efficient... [Accedia's] technical expertise and eagerness to learn new things place them at the cutting edge of technology... It's critical for us to have that level of technical expertise among our consultants." Customers in today's world are looking for more than just a good deal on their desired product. Manufacturers must commit to a more di