We’re continuously told we live in a digital world, but many of our workplace processes are still dependent on paper and not designed for maximum efficiency. Every company in every industry will be radically affected by the digitization trend, and it will be the responsibility of the top teams to lead the charge by building the right capabilities for their companies to remain applicable in the digitized environment, achieve growth, and stay relevant.
During a breakfast meeting organized by Techzim and TBWA in preparation for the Digital Future Conference to be held on 11-12 May 2017. AMH Group Managing Director Vincent Kahiya, Steward Bank CEO Dr. Lance Mambondiani and Executive Director of Retail and E-Commerce at FBC Bank, Agrippa Mugwagwa shared some interesting insights about the digital world and how it’s disrupting traditional business.
New technology deployments and related investments will add up to more than even the largest and wealthiest enterprises can afford. According to Vincent Kahiya, having equipment doesn’t make you digital- you need to use information to develop products and services.
The basis of competition will be set by the companies that embrace and deploy digitization in the right places at the right time. Dr Lance hinted that, “The most important thing in any business is speed to market and at a much cheaper rate. There is always something you can do to reduce your cost of distribution, cost of service, and cost of getting your product to the market. E.g. hotels- why have in-house cleaning staff instead of just outsourcing to a cleaning company?”
“The More We Digitize, The More Things Are Going To Be Available For Free” Dr Lance added.
The speed of digitization is picking up fast but the speediness at which digitization is taking place differs from industry to industry. To gain a better understanding of the relative degree to which digitization is transforming different industries, we take a look at the media and banking sectors.
Steward Bank CEO Dr. Lance Mambondiani delivered a keynote address encapsulating key statistics and highlighting areas that senior management should address in order to respond to the demands of the digital age. “As long as we are not evolving our businesses to the tune of global trends, we are businesses of the past, not of the future. We have to evolve or die,” he emphasised. With two companies in a race to become the first trillion dollar business: Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Apple, the digital age is not slowing down.
For AMH, when it comes to balancing news online verse print, AMH Group Managing Director said “We have to move with the times, if I don’t break the story, 263chat will write the story and run with it. Breaking news is usually only 2 paragraphs, so online you break the story then in the paper you give the full context”
Whether you are presently digitization leaders or laggards, all industries can benefit by investing in the input, processing, and output capabilities needed to extend their digital footprints throughout their business ecosystems.
