The concept of “post-digital era” is bandied about a lot these days. As the world is swiftly moving towards the Post-digital era architecture and transformative technologies like Artificial Intelligence, and extended reality, tech leaders need to set their sights beyond their current digital transformations. According to the Global leaders, over nine in 10 business and IT executives view pace of technology innovation in their organizations as either accelerated or significantly accelerated in the past three years.
Right at the end of 2018, something quite remarkable happened that slipped relatively under the radar. For the first time ever, more than half of the world’s population was online. That is over 4.2 billion people. The Information Society Report indicates that the world’s richest countries have been showing steady growth in internet use, which has risen from 51.3 percent of their populations in 2005 to 80.9 percent now. The gains have meanwhile been more dramatic in developing countries, where 45.3 percent of people are currently online, compared to just 7.7 percent 13 years ago.
This level of growth in the relative blink of an eye is quite remarkable. So it might sound strange to propose that we are on the verge of the post-digital world. However, the fact remains the same. Just as over a half of the world’s population has gone on the web, organizations are simply not looking for digital transformation. They have done it or at least in the process. Innovation that was ‘new’ just a couple of years ago are now closer and closer to their core. To ordinary.
What we are starting to see is less appeal for technology for the sake of it – the sharp focus is on the end results – the trust and the experiences that are created by it. In the post-digital era, competitive advantage comes from applying digital in powerful new ways. It is an era where building trust with employees, customers, and other stakeholders through a responsible approach is a top priority for the C-suite executives who want to grow and succeed. A few years ago, the technology vision was that every business is a digital business where the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) were driving a significant part of the transformation. However, a few years down the road, the obsession with technology had driven some organizations to overlook why we needed it in the first place: to enhance people’s lives – at work, at home, or elsewhere in their lives. This has created critical discussions about responsibility.
Data Security in Technology
Companies have increasingly started to realize that just buying technology is not the end. But it is the means to transforming the world around them. They should approach each project with a plan built around people – their behavior, interests and how to protect their interests.
The data privacy and security breaches from the past year have however caused an increased skepticism of technology. From the famous Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach to Google+ data leaks – there were plenty of reasons to worry about data protection. At best, these companies were woefully unprepared to keep our data private and safe. At worst, they allowed the data we gave them to enable others to influence our fragile democracy.
As a result, people have a starting position of trust, at a point where trust has never been more important. We see tremendous strides being taken around what technology can do, and that will become more impactful in the new post-digital era. However, people need to be more reassured than ever that it is going to benefit them.
Creating a competitive advantage in the Post-digital era
The next wave of tech-powered change will look slightly different. As every business does indeed become digital business, however, the C-Suite executives will depend on how fast your company can continue to master AI, Mobile, extended reality, quantum computing and more.
The post-digital era offers enterprises a vast opportunity to innovate and grow their business, along with an unprecedented and urgent mandate to focus on building trust and responsible innovation. And, addressing the privacy, safety, ethics, and governance that come along with this level of technology-enabled access is of greatest importance.
To learn more about how to you can take your company’s digital transformation journey to the next level by applying new strategies and next-gen technologies, Talk to our team now!
