World Champion Austria Digitisation
Mastering the digital transformation with full speed Michael Zettel, head of Accenture Austria, talks about successful digitisation, challenges and why we are where we are.
Some people consider their business successfully digitised when they check their emails on the smartphone, others when an AI is organising production and at least two of their machines can communicate via 5G. Who is right? No one. “Successful digitisation” means that all processes – from sales to production and service – are largely automated. Those who are “successfully digitised” don’t sell simple products or
services, they sell smart products and digital services. The majority of Austrian companies are right in the middle of the digital transformation – but on many different levels. The trailblazers are already far advanced and in particular many medium-sized companies are catching up now. We described the levels of digital transformation in a study together with the Federation of Austrian Industries: Stage 0 is “digitally blind”. The majority of data storage and information transfer is done on paper. Stage 1 means “digital mapping” – IT is used as a tool for work. Stage 2 is called “act digitally’’. These companies use their data, have digital process optimisation, but humans still make the decisions. Stage 3, the final stage, stands for being
© Michael Inmann
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he digital transformation is often compared to the great inventions and their effects on society. For example, the development of the printing press in the modern era or the steam engine in the mid-1800s. The fact remains that the digital transformation is a technological development that will turn the existing economic, political, social, societal and scientific world upside down. This offers up new opportunities but also brings challenges, allowing for new scopes of action and also making structural changes necessary. For the digital transformation it is not enough to simply have access to new technologies but to also use them as a modern society – jobs, leisure time and knowledge are determined more and more by digital applications – emails, messengers, browsers, AI, chatbots, augmented reality and so on. Thanks to digitisation we are able to work, study, teach and research largely independent from time and place. But it also remains a fact that the Covid pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns pushed digitisation right into everybody’s attention. The pandemic five years ago would have been kind of manageable with lots of effort and more debts. But ten or even twenty years ago? A horror scenario we can’t even begin to imagine… But what does successful digitisation mean? We spoke to digitisation pioneer Michael Zettel, Country Managing Director of IT service provider and consultant Accenture Austria.
Michael Zettel, Country Managing Director of Accenture Austria
