Where Does the Digital Transformation Come from?

00:06 To understand what's going on right now, we also need to look a bit into the past.

00:12 So, what has really driven this time period? Why do we live the way we do right now? And if we look at the 1990s, that's when the first private homes started using the Internet. Maybe you remember the 56k modem, which made surfing the Internet very slow.

00:31 Now, I'd say that it wasn't until later, maybe in the early 2000s, that the first sellers showed up, eBay got famous, and people from all walks of life started buying and selling on eBay.

00:44 When eBay became popular, the first chat features were used.

00:49 Chat was by far the most popular way for people my age to talk to each other.

00:55 For instance, people my age used ICQ, which was a big deal.

00:59 You answered when you got a new message, so you were basically chatting the whole day.

01:03 You might have used ICQ yourself, or your kids might have told you about it.

01:08 That was sometime in the 2000s, which is also when the first social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing , and business networks appeared.

01:18 Twitter came later, and it's also pretty interesting that the iPhone came out in 2007.

01:23 The iPhone was the first smartphone, and it started the smartphone age.

01:29 More and more people were carrying smartphones, which sped up this whole process. So, the smartphone was the biggest reason for this change.

01:36 You could say that it just happened that way since 2007, and because we all use smartphones, our needs have also changed.

01:46 Based on what customers want, the market, companies, products, and services all change.

01:53 The point is that. What are the expectations, really? The first expectation is that everything needs to be faster.

02:01 Everything needs to be faster right now.

02:03 We don't know how to wait any longer.

02:05 We want to order now and get it as soon as possible, preferably today or tomorrow at the latest. When we call or order something, we don't want to hear, "Yes, we will deliver it in three months." This doesn't fit with how things are now.

02:20 Everything has to be right now, all the time, and Christmas is no different.

02:24 People used to say that the customer was king.

02:28 Now, the customer knows that they are king, so they act like one.

02:33 The big difference is that.

02:34 They will call the call center when something doesn't work, and they don't want to wait on hold for twenty minutes.

02:40 No, they act like this because they want an answer to their problem right away.

02:44 So the pressure to live up to these expectations grows, and you have to.

02:49 We don't have to pay for shipping or worry about running out of supplies anymore.

02:53 Everything is always there, and customers are getting used to it.

02:56 There are big systems like Amazon, Google, and eBay, and they've got it down pat.

03:02 The customer is the way they are because they have built them up and spent a lot of money and time on them.

03:08 Because of this, we also think it should work the same way at the bakery around the corner, the painter in town, and the carpenter in the city.

03:17 We have the same goals, but we don't have the right systems or know how to reach them.

03:23 This is changing, and some businesses are trying to find a way to deal with it.

03:28 They do this through customer experience, user experience, or UX design.

03:34 These are the buzzwords we have here, so you're basically trying to give the customer the best service.

03:39 You're trying to give the customer an experience, just like Amazon and other companies "We are here to help.

03:46 Many people think of you as king, but I think you're the best king I've ever seen." And that's what it's all about.

03:53 This, in turn, is changing the companies; there are completely new requirements.

03:59 There is more pressure from competitors.

04:02 There are new business models around every corner, and the half-lives of the ones that are already out there are getting shorter and shorter.

04:10 The world is getting smaller and more connected.

04:13 Everything is linked together digitally, and this is already very far along.

04:18 This gives rise to what you could call "business drivers." One of these business drivers could be that you say, "Our operation has to be great.

04:27 We need to keep costs as low as possible and build perfect structures so we can make things as cheaply and quickly as possible.

04:34 This will allow us to sell things and get stronger and better in this field." So, let's move on to the next thing that drives business.

04:41 We need to do better than the other guys.

04:43 This is easy, but it's getting harder because there are more and more people trying to do the same thing.

04:48 The auto industry has noticed that companies like Alibaba, Apple, Google, Tesla, and so on are now competing with them.

04:56 That means we have to deal with this pressure today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. We also have to look ahead to tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and try to break into completely new markets.

05:08 That means we need to think about things that might not be important to us right now but might be in five or ten years.

05:14 So we also have to look into the crystal ball and try things out.

05:17 This lets us see where the tensions are.

05:19 We have customers who have very high standards and won't stand for any mistakes.

05:24 On top of that, we're supposed to keep changing, always think ahead, be creative, and try new things.

05:32 We have to make mistakes sometimes, but the customer doesn't like them.

05:35 This doesn't make sense, but in our new world, it might be the way things are done.

05:38 Now, if we look at today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, we can see that a lot has changed, especially in one area: companies now have a lot more contact with their customers, suppliers, and partners.

05:47 This isn't a one-way conversation; it's a real conversation.

05:50 For instance, people used to say that digitization would make people more honest.

05:55 Yes, you're right. We send information out, but at the same time, companies are also becoming more open.

06:03 We have review sites, price comparison sites, we compare things all the time, we compare scandals, we rate things, and so on.

06:12 All of this is based on what our friends have told us about what they like and don't like. We can also see this happening with suppliers and partners.

06:22 So you could say that the economy is becoming more honest because it is becoming more open and clear.