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European Digital Transformation in its diapers?
I was on holidays last week, and I spent my time reading the book titled “10 Campeones de la transformación digital: 10 Líderes Españoles”. Here you can read about the 10 of the most important Spanish Leaders in Digital Transformation. They come from many different business areas such as finance, technology, transport, healthcare, etc., even for the global environment.
Government
One of the most important points presented in this book, is the huge distance between USA and China to Europe. I am very worried about that, especially when I think of the future. Every day the distance keeps growing. I really don´t know why the European governments are not more involved in this. Even knowing that in the public sector there are a lot of challenges to improve the efficiency and productivity of digital transformation. This could be a good option to reduce the expenses and provide a better service to the citizens.
Public and private sector
Public and private sector are not working together in the appropriate way yet. Right now, the private sector is let alone to be the locomotive. Every day you can read some articles talking about the last Start Up and its new idea. No doubt that the governments have to act on it! For example, including benefits like low stock options, tax relaxations to allow this small companies to grow their talent, etc. Because otherwise, they cannot be competitive and the possibility to attract the “unicorn” is very low.
Education
Regarding talent, I think that the education system is not up to date. That means the way of learning is quite the same than when I was in primary school, and that’s almost 40 years ago! We cannot maintain this. People don´t need to remember something to be put into the exam when you have your smartphone close to you. I think the focus should be put on better understanding the meaning of things, and increase the critical thinking to avoid fake news for example. If you have this capability, you will have the possibility to distinguish between the real or not real information.
Right now, we have many free platforms to learn. All of these provide you up to date courses related to disruptive technologies like Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Agile methodologies, and so on. You must use it to don´t miss the train, because in the next years many jobs will be obsolete and many new ones will be created. That means probably your next job does not exist today!
Business culture
There are a huge quantity of CEO´s that already don’t know how to implement the Digital Transformation. It is an important challenge for them. They will be the motor to start the implementation and define all the milestones to be achieved during the transformation process. In other way, companies that cannot succeed in this, will no doubt lose their position in the market against the competitors.
Another important point inside the companies is the change resistance from some employees. Nowadays, companies need employees aligned with the continuous learning. Because the technologies, workflows, processes and so on, change quite fast. That means if you don´t follow this new paradigm you will be out of market, and your company could let you!
Technology
This allow us to access at the latest disruptive topics like IoT, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, 5G Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in a very simple mode using Cloud mainly. That means you have huge number of possibilities to innovate. Think about how to mix two of these technologies to develop something new. For example using IoT and AI, you could improve your processes and help your company to jump into the Industry 4.0.
In my own case, I am taking courses to increase my knowledge regarding Blockchain. I want to start using it in the Pharmaceutical Industry. I am thinking about how to use this technology to assure the results of the manufacturing process. For sure, I think that it could be a very valuable use case and even regulatory agencies like FDA or AEMPS would agree with it.
CONCLUSION
I think that there are several points still open. The possibilities are growing a lot, and for sure we have to define a clear workflow to face these in an effective way. If not we will miss the train!
The French Government initiative pushed by Emmanuel Macron, could be the first step to really launch disruptive initiatives. I would like to see other presidents following him and create very powerful Hubs in Europe.
Sources:
Romain Dillet, “France want to become an artificial intelligence hub” 28.03.2018. Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/29/france-wants-to-become-an-artificial-intelligence-hub/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=zlN264tEwIHeQYkkRN6SaA
Lorenzo Ramírez, “Campeones de la transformación digital: 10 líderes españoles” 08.11.2018
