Digitisation and the rise of Generation C: SA

Charles Darwin said that it won’t be the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it’s the one that is the most adaptable to change. With the rapid evolution of digitisation, and Cisco’s predictions that 40% of business will die in the next ten years, digital transformation is critical to survival in the new world order. Cassie Lessing, managing director, Strato IT Group, developer of StratoPOD, a mobile business application for delivery documentation, says 2017 has seen a wave of new interest in digitisation.

“While 2016 showed marginal interest in implementing and featured discussions around the concepts, 2017 has seen companies from a broad range of industries requesting Proof of Concepts. There is a sense of urgency, possibly proof that industry has realised that those businesses that are not digitising will start to fail,” says Lessing.

Strato IT Group’s digital proof of delivery app StratoPOD, has been implemented with great success in the building, manufacturing and logistics industries, most notably, Toyota South Africa’s National Parts Distribution Centre. Lessing says these implementations have enabled the company to innovate further and provide more value to each client.

“Partnering with our customers and working together as a team has enabled us to meet the industriousness necessary to transform our client’s business into a digital one. This evolution of digital technology has in most parts already happened in our personal lives, and is now starting to underpin almost every facet of business.”

Gartner predicts that by 2017, 60 percent of Global 1000 organisations will execute on at least one revolutionary and currently unimaginable business transformation effort and that by 2023, superior digital business capabilities will lead four out of five industry leaders to reposition their brand promise or build new brands.

Lessing says that it is this unimaginable transformation that will tip the centre of gravity for IT and the landscape will change significantly. According to sources globally, digital business incompetence will cause 25% of businesses to lose market position: “It is no longer a question of if a company needs to digitise, in fact, it is not even when. Digitisation has become a true necessity.”

He says that the difference with the new order of digitisation is that it is entirely focused on meeting customer needs and providing almost immediate value to the user. “This scenario could place traditional vendors at high risk.”

Complicating the situation is the changing face of the consumer. According to Ernst & Young, in its ‘digitisation of everything’ report, by the year 2020, an entire generation, Generation C (for “connected”), will have grown up in a primarily digital world. Lessing says this makes the digitisation challenge all the greater as companies grapple to understand and deliver value to this digitised generation.

“We will be dealing with people that are already fully adapted to the digital environment according to Ernst & Young and these individuals will have a natural expectation to always be connected. So the digitisation challenge for business is significant no matter what industry you are in,” says Lessing.