WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

We surveyed more than 3,000 CEOs around the world to learn how they are positioning their organizations for success after COVID-19. Five key factors set outperforming CEOs apart.

Performance engineering will be riskier than Moore’s Law ever was. Companies may not know the benefits of their efforts until after they’ve invested substantial programmer time. And speed-ups may be sporadic, uneven, and unpredictable. But as we reach the physical limits of microprocessors, focusing on software performance engineering seems like the best option for most programmers to get more out of their computers.

The internet has changed the way we work, interact and learn with others across the world. How many people in the world are online, and how has this changed over time? Explore global and country-level data on internet access and technology.

Cutting-edge technology gives a glimpse into the future of how things will get made, and what manufacturers must do to stay relevant.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work and relate to one another. It is a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances commensurate with those of the first, second and third industrial revolutions. These advances are merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril. The speed, breadth and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organisations create value and even what it means to be human. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is about more than just technology-driven change; it is an opportunity to help everyone, including leaders, policy-makers and people from all income groups and nations, to harness converging technologies in order to create an inclusive, human-centred future. The real opportunity is to look beyond technology, and find ways to give the greatest number of people the ability to positively impact their families, organisations and communities.

This article serves as a briefing on how various industries can strategically utilize emerging technologies in and around the world today. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather an introduction…

...it forces CEOs to rethink how companies execute, with new business processes, management practices, and information systems, as well as everything about the nature of customer relationships. I’m seeing leaders who get this. They’re all over it: they want to launch five transformation initiatives right now; they’re talking to me and every digital leader they know about where the technology threats are coming from; and they’re hiring the best people to advise them. Yet I’m shocked by—even fearful for—the many CEOs I know who seem to be asleep at the switch.

This paper examines the essential eight technologies that matter and what business leaders now need to do about them, and emerging technologies in general.