[oc_spacer height=”15″]What is the current status of digitisation in Germany in 2019, what do employees hope for, and how will the digital future work? You can read the latest trends, facts and figures on digitisation here:
The economic landscape is characterised by outstanding examples of digitisation success in the automotive industry, in finance or in cloud platforms and services. But how are companies progressing in terms of digitisation? We took a closer look at the current status of digitisation in Germany in 2019.
Digitisation 2019: Efforts only Partially Successful
Digitisation is on everyone’s lips and is probably on the agenda of almost every company, from small craft businesses to giants on the world market. But have companies in Germany already digitalised themselves sufficiently?
A study by the Munich software house Celonis shows that 58% of managers do not know how to start with the digitisation strategy. Thus, more than half of the companies still seem to be up in the air when it comes to carrying out digitisation. In the same way, more than half (56%) of the leaders surveyed in the study were even of the opinion that previous transformation efforts had been a waste of time. Considerable resources have already been invested: more than 1/3 of the companies have already spent more than 500,000€ on their digitisation in the last 12 months.
Which Topics are Important for German Companies?
The security of the cloud remains a hot topic in digitization. According to Raconteur figures, 9 out of 10 companies have concerns about security in the cloud, particularly the public cloud. Despite this high number, however, the basic feeling towards the cloud seems to have improved: 52% of IT managers stated that confidence in the cloud had increased over the past three years. The three main concerns regarding security of the cloud are data loss and leakage (49%), privacy (46%) and confidentiality (42%). So it is no wonder that 6 out of 10 companies are planning to invest in IT security, according to figures from Tata Consultancy Services.
What other areas are important to companies? According to TCS, especially Collaboration Tools (45%) and company’s own online shops (44%). This makes it clear that German companies primarily want to catch up with missed potentials of digitisation and therefore rely on best practice examples – because international competition is already using many technologies across the board.
Given the cautious and partly uncoordinated approach of German companies to digitisation, it is not surprising that many innovative potentials of modern technologies fall by the wayside.
Digitisation 2019: Potentials
According to TCS, companies see the greatest potential in marketing and sales (64%), followed by employee productivity and mobile workspaces with 49%. As many as 46% of respondents recognise that digitisation can revolutionise their business models and make them fit for the future. With the robust economy behind them, many German companies are not feeling enough pressure to act, and there is also a lack of knowledge. But it is precisely this course-setting and transformation of the business models that is important in order to be able to counter the competition from Silicon Valley and co..
What do Employees Want?
When implementing a digitisation strategy, the needs of employees have the highest priority, because the best technology is a bad investment if it is not considered meaningful by employees and can be used effectively.
A total of 85% of Germans want more relief for routine office work, software manufacturer Wrike found out. File management and documentation are at the top of the wish list, followed by automating repetitive workflows and copying information between systems. If this wish were fulfilled through digitisation, employees themselves estimate that they could achieve 25% to even 50% more. This contrasts with the sobering reality: only 7% of the companies surveyed stated that they were pursuing a company-wide automation strategy.
Employees are also hoping that digitisation will improve work-life balance, i.e. make work and leisure more flexible and connect them with digital technologies. This can be implemented, among other things, with the digital workspaces at oneclick™, which make it possible to work independently of time and place and thus helps combine work, family and leisure.
The Way to a Digitised Company
Even though it is high time in 2019 to push ahead with digitisation in German companies, blind actionism is of course not the way to go. However, it is equally fatal to wait and see and leave the field to competitors or companies from outside the industry. Those who hesitate clearly lose market shares: the accommodation service airbnb for example is a market leader – without owning a single real estate.
Important fields of action need to be identified and pilot projects launched. The exchange with pioneers in digitisation can be helpful here, as can the exchange of ideas with interest groups and start-ups.
A versatile and ready-to-use solution for digitisation is oneclick™, the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for the provision of digital workspaces. Web apps, native applications, desktops and data are centralised in the platform and delivered securely to users via streaming. This works 100% web-based, so a browser is sufficient to access everything employees need for their work. Learn more about how oneclick™ can help your business’s digitisation.
Sources:
- https://blog.wiwo.de/look-at-it/2018/11/19/drei-viertel-der-deutschen-unternehmen-offen-fuer-digitalisierung-ebenso-viele-mit-klarer-strategie/
- https://blog.wiwo.de/look-at-it/2019/03/20/digitale-transformation-sechs-von-zehn-deutschen-fuehrungskraeften-ohne-klare-strategie/
- https://blog.wiwo.de/look-at-it/2019/03/07/9-von-10-unternehmen-mit-sicherheitsbedenken-beim-cloud-computing/
- https://www.computerwoche.de/a/warum-deutsche-unternehmen-digital-zurueckbleiben
- https://blog.wiwo.de/look-at-it/2018/04/04/85-prozent-der-deutschen-wuenschen-sich-mehr-entlastung-bei-routine-arbeiten-im-buero/
- https://www.cio.de/a/probleme-mit-digitalen-geschaeftsmodellen
Image sources:
- Image 1: rawpixel @ pexels.com
- Image 2: Celonis
- Image 3: rawpixel @ pexels.com
