Digitization | BlogZynergy

Fall In Love With HOW ICT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO SUSTAINABILITY…CARICOM Community are you there with me..

The ICT sector is growing and in full swing. The prediction is that in 2030, ten percent of the working population will be ICT. On the one hand, production, use and disposal of IT equipment generate significant CO ₂ emissions. On the other hand, there are plenty of opportunities for a more sustainable world.

What is Digital Transformation? – Access for all

The growth of the ICT sector

All sectors depend on IT, but every entrepreneur also uses information and communication technology. Think of computers, software, mobile phone and the internet. The ICT sector is a growing sector with a constant demand for new personnel. For example, you regularly see a vacancy for developer , web designer, engineer or scrum master.

Sustainable digital developments

Countless developments have been achieved with the help of IT that can contribute to a more sustainable world. For example, technology is involved in all saving measures, such as solar panels, heat pumps and LED lighting. But also think of practical solutions such as;
• Tools that provide insight into the level of energy consumption in the home
• Cameras that can better manage traffic flows
• Solutions for more sustainable food production
• Smart sensor solutions for more efficient waste collection

More and more technological possibilities are also emerging to make sustainable energy available and affordable. These are developments that have the potential to accelerate the energy transition. Such as ‘digital mapping’; which links data to satellite images and maps. With this technology, promising areas can be mapped out for the generation of sustainable energy or optimization of infrastructures. Or ‘smart grids’; these are technologies that intelligently manage the electricity network. In this way, energy sources, storage and consumption can be linked and coordinated. In this way, supply and demand are always seamlessly matched. And finally, of course, the facilitating role of ICT in the digital environment of energy companies and customers.

How To Understand Your Digital Transformation

CO ₂ footprint of digitization

It is clear that digitization can make an even greater contribution to sustainability with innovations, more efficient processes, better products and services. The downside is the considerable energy consumption and CO ₂ emissions of data processing and storage. Because many companies are only at the beginning of digitization, it is expected that this will only increase.

Challenges

To be able to make an optimal contribution to sustainability, there are some major challenges for the ICT sector. The main challenge here is to find a balance between the necessary work processes and sustainability. Primarily, of course, it is necessary to keep the servers running and to maintain services, to ensure good data security, cost control and to attract skilled personnel.

In addition, there are other challenges that need to be addressed. For example, the IT sector has to deal with rising energy prices, rising interest rates and a shortage of personnel in the market. Other important issues also play a role, such as the after-effects of the corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Another challenge is intention versus action. While the Scandinavian countries are far ahead of concrete actions.

According to research from Schneider Electric, a major player in power management and automation transformation, there is still a gap between them. For example, the minority of IT and data center companies have a sustainability plan and most are at the beginning of the development of sustainability initiatives.

Once these challenges are overcome, it is expected that innovation and implementation of sustainable initiatives will gain momentum.

As the Caribbean Blog Authority I like to see how the Caribbean Area will make a strong digital transition.

CHANGE IN CULTURE, CHANGE IN MINDSET

One of the key pillars of any digital transformation initiative that is frequently emphasized is that of organizational culture, which is seen as the most critical component of the process. Invariably, and to transition an organization not just from certain processes and the integration of digital solutions as appropriate, the attitude, mindset and behaviour of employees and customers also need to be managed. To that end, it is often recommended that change management efforts be introduced early in the digital transformation process so that internal and external clients are adequately prepared to embrace and adjust to the changes that will occur.

However, and in hindsight, it appears that many Caribbean organizations, though adopting some digital tools and processes, did not include adequate change management and culture transformation in those efforts. As was noted earlier, urgency and survival were top of mind, and so the longer-term impact, and the need to make more comprehensive plans, do not appear to have been core considerations for many organizations.

In my view of things, the Caribbean Community is moving slow. There is more action needed to go full throttle.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS STILL CRUCIAL

As much as Caribbean organisations no longer appear to be aggressively pursuing digital transformation, it is important to highlight that it is still crucial across many fronts. For example, comprehensive digital transformation is essential to improve efficiency, effectiveness and productivity, both organisations-wise and nationally, and to foster innovation, and job creation, along with increasing Caribbean countries’ global competitiveness.

At the country level, it is likely that many reports and roadmaps have been prepared to address either government-related digital transformation, such as under e-government or with a national focus on realising a digital society. However and over the years, individual initiatives in these plans have been pursued and are in various stages of completion, which has resulted in a number of gaps, and challenges in aligning those efforts into a coherent approach or strategy.

Within organisations, and in the absence of a long-term and time-bound commitment to digital transformation, as was noted earlier, there has been little emphasis on the change in corporate culture that ought to underpin such a major transition. Further, digital transformation can be costly, not just in money, but also in the commitment, time and effort needed to execute it well. And unfortunately, many of our organisations do not have the wherewithal to mindset or the resources to truly embark on such an initiative.

However, thanks to fintech and Caribbean countries’ growing focus on digital currency, in particular, the impetus may begin to emerge to more aggressively tackle the digital transformation needed to become a digital society. In seeking to fully leverage a digital currency, for example, financial inclusion, matters related to digital identity, and more seamless processes and transactions with government and across government, among other issues, will need to be addressed.

However, what might be the timeline in which more meaningful digital transformation-enabled results will be realized ? Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway let’s move with higher hopes.

Does/will artificial intelligence displace human contact?

The way in which we have human contact with each other is changing. The qualitative growth spurt of artificially intelligent systems has an impact on multiple domains, including the way in which we will communicate in the future. This communication is not only from person to person, but also from person to machine and vice versa. I see 5 important trends in this landscape. I have listed them for you in this article.

1. More digitization

The first trend is that we will increasingly digitize contact. You already saw that with the rise of social media and smartphones. That line continues. Communicating quickly and asynchronously is convenient, easy and delivers enormous efficiency . We will communicate even more via digital channels.

In addition, we will also outsource tasks to artificially intelligent software systems. These are, for example, e-mail systems that respond to standard e-mail messages on your behalf. And for example Google Duplex-like systems , which can call you on a restaurant to make a reservation.

2. Man-Machine communication

This is how you optimally use social media monitoring [training]

Learn in this training how to get action-oriented insights and gauge the impact of campaigns.We as people are also going to communicate more with artificially intelligent software around us. In many different ways. For example, more and more of the predictable part of our human interaction is being taken over by artificially intelligent systems.

In short: where conversations are still taking place via a decision tree (a standard structure), artificially intelligent assistants can increasingly take over. Think of an intake interview that almost always follows the same pattern or a standardized registration for an event. Conversation is increasingly becoming the domain of artificially intelligent software.

Not unimportant: human voices are also easier to imitate (see the video below). In the future, artificial voices can no longer be distinguished from real ones. Then an AI system takes over part of a conversation. You already notice that when you call a call center. The first three questions generally reach you via a computer voice. This will be expanded more and more in the future.

And I also say nothing new when I claim that in the future we will increasingly communicate with digital assistants such as Alexa, Siri and Google Home. These systems become smarter and can evoke empathy and interest better in their responses. Some people will experience feelings of friendship with their digital assistant in the future, because they are always interested, always available and never seek conflict or give nasty feedback. For some people this contact will be sufficient because they sometimes find human contact unpleasant. Many experience stress and are easily hurt or worry about it for a long time afterwards. An AI system can be more pleasant for them.

3. Human contact as a luxury product

Because we are increasingly digitizing interaction and communication, human contact is becoming scarce. That will be a luxury product, certainly in contact with companies. After all, what you can digitize becomes cheaper. And everything that cannot be digitized therefore has value. Human contact, intimacy, attention, concentration, face-to-face conversations. Again: everything that cannot be digitized and scaled has value. And because it will be a luxury product, it will no longer be available to everyone.

I do sometimes wonder: if human contact is increasingly being digitized and in many cases is being cut away, do we not deprive ourselves and the younger generation in particular of the training material for developing and maintaining social skills? On the contrary, do we learn to expand and value our social skills in the physical world, in the conversation at the checkout, in the store and at the station?

4. Insights with voice analytics

If we look at human contact and communication through the lens of artificial intelligence, we see under the radar that companies (through our ancient drive to communicate continuously) can collect huge amounts of data about our human needs and behavior. As a result, they understand better who we are, what we do, why we do it, what we find important and how we feel.

Certainly if you consider that we are giving more and more voice commands to the devices around us, that our voice is being recorded at call centers to train machines and that companies are using our recorded voice to unleash artificially intelligent analyzes. Then a new dimension is added to what companies know about us: speech analysis.

They record our voice and analyze the speed of speech, volume, pauses, stress, possibly dialect and vocabulary. Then they know how to distil hidden information about our behavior, identity, emotions, appearance and in the future our mental health.

That may seem like the future, but it certainly isn’t. Basic emotions such as joy, anger, sadness or fear can easily be detected by the larger software vendors in this area. That which human ears cannot hear is audible for artificially intelligent software. And these systems can carry out the analyzes with great precision.

Risks

One of the risks is that this type of voice analysis software is used for telephone applications, and that it can then find out whether you are overweight or depressed, for example. Or imagine that you call the roadside assistance when your car breaks down and that the software then registers that you have drunk alcohol. Do we get a box on the table during a job interview, police interview or performance interview that measures our emotions and nervousness?

That is not my only concern. Sometimes I also worry that we will replace really important human contact with interaction with artificially intelligent software. In this context, by the way, this is the last, fifth development that I want to emphasize.

5. Artificial contact

For example, if Alexa gets more and more opportunities and responds more and more extensively and sometimes with more empathy, how is that going to affect our human interaction? Are we going to give the lonely seniors a digital emergency phone that fulfills their need for contact? Not unthinkable, by the way: Alexa can already read the news, tell sports results, come up with riddles, puzzle together, tell a story and make jokes. Are we, just as we sometimes give children a smartphone or iPad to have our hands free, do the same with the senior citizen part of our society? Such an experiment is already underway in South Korea .

And what about the friendship apps, in which artificially intelligent software is built in at the back? Chat apps such as Replika with which you can talk and promise your digital friendship. 24 hours a day, never rejecting, always listening. No matter how often you want to talk about your broken relationship, deceased partner or dismissal, you never get the feeling that you are a nag …Again, for part of our society, artificial intelligence might be a good solution to all the stress and discomfort that occurs during the uncomfortable process of human contact. Or should people not be given the opportunity to isolate themselves in a surrogate form of communication? Is it precisely in the inconvenience the opportunity to learn and thus discover the real key of happiness? (In my opinion: being able to embrace discomfort as an essential part of our human life.)

Consequences for love

Another thing: the Tinder algorithms look for the most suitable partner for us. We only have to open our phone and a new friend is in principle available. Does that lead to us accepting less discomfort in a relationship because a new friend is literally within reach? That Tinder offers an escape route when things are not going well in a relationship? Do dating apps give us so much choice that we automatically set the bar unreal for a partner and therefore almost always remain unhappy ? We continue to doubt our current relationships for longer, because there is always a chance that a nicer partner with a swipecan be found and accessed via an artificially intelligent dating app? Is the accessible availability of hundreds of potential new partners a blessing or a curse?

The real future of human contact

-It remains an interesting domain: the future of human contact and communication viewed through the lens of artificial intelligence. What I think we should not forget in this discussion is how unique we are as humans. We can make real contact with each other because we have a soul, a form of consciousness. Machines do not have that and I think they will never get it. We connect with our humanity, our consciousness, our heart and our soul. And as far as I am concerned, there lies the real future of human contact, in the midst of a world that is increasingly dominated by artificially intelligent systems.

Better business results with digitization

DIGITIZATION TREND WATCH

Your employees have certain technological expectations that you will have to meet. If you give them the right resources, you ensure more productivity, better cooperation between team members and better communication with customers.

If you don’t do that, you have a chance of employees losing the pleasure of their work. This does not improve contact with your customers. And if the customer experience lags behind, there is always a competitor who wants to take over the customer from you.

What does digitizing look like to you?

You need to find out in which areas you need digitization to align your business with your business strategy. Including objectives such as business growth, cost savings, process improvements and specific project objectives. How do you do that?

If you take the right steps on the road to digitization, the agility and productivity of your employees will increase and they will work better together. Why? Simply because it becomes more fun to work at your company. To begin with, ask yourself three questions: what are your business objectives, which processes are you currently using and with which technology can you bring the two in harmony? In this article we explain in three steps how you can make digitization a success.

1. Take a closer look at your document management

To get from point A to point B, you first have to know what point A looks like exactly. You will find out by first taking a close look at how documents are handled within your company. How is printed? And what does the document management look like? Will you die in the paper? Are there overcrowded filing cabinets throughout the organization? On the basis of these types of questions you will discover which model of digital maturity your company falls into. In this way you better understand how far you are in the digitization process and what course you want to take. Perhaps one of the following three scenarios applies to your situation:

Lots of paper: to continue the core business, a lot is done by hand and on paper, with some use of digital data management.
Digital : digital technologies and data are used to stimulate emerging business and your people get insights where they can do something.
Completely digital: to obtain new business, you organize your activities, processes, etc. in such a way that you can optimally utilize the benefits of digital technologies.

In terms of digital maturity, no company fits exactly within one of these three frameworks. Some have yet to start scanning their paper documents. They still do everything by hand and on paper. Others have already digitized certain processes and are on their way.

Map your document processes

You will therefore determine how ‘mature’ your company is in terms of digitization by mapping your current document management processes. It is important to keep your business objectives aside and to draw up recommendations for next steps. You could actually see all these activities as one step. If you look at the current state of printing and document processing, future business goals also suddenly become much clearer. You can consider engaging a consulting team with a lot of experience in the field of digitization. These people can help you view the existing situation objectively. But whether you involve a consultant or not: by starting to think differently about technology, you will gradually make better decisions.

Digitization experts understand that companies have little use of technology if it does not effectively support their strategic activities and innovation is not forthcoming. By starting to think differently about technology, you will better understand what technology is worth for achieving better business results. But before you come to that, you first have to know which route data is still covered by your entire organization.

Look at your current printing infrastructure

Also check to what extent the current printing infrastructure consumes the time of your IT staff. Companies often do not use their printing technology in such a way that the processes actually run more efficiently and IT people can deal with more relevant issues. Maybe it makes much more sense to trade in your print server for the cloud. This gives your employees more time for activities that contribute to your business strategy. If your print infrastructure is already partially or completely in the cloud and you scan your documents directly to the cloud, you already have a higher maturity level than a company that processes all the print work locally. This is a step in the right direction. Once you have a good idea of your current document management processes, you can explore the possibilities of further digitization.

2. Make your processes more efficient with digital data

According to research agency IDC, “87% of directors claim that digitization is a priority. But we often see that they don’t understand the ‘why’. In short, they see digitization only as a collection of technologies and solutions, not as a means to work towards their business goals. The belief that you have to look for technology ‘because you have to’ doesn’t help you find the right technology for your company. Before you start looking for the right technology, you must ask yourself the following:

How can we make better use of data to ensure that our technology works better and that our employees can act faster?
Which manual processes can we automate, so that our people have more time for activities that contribute to the business strategy?
How do we get a digital workplace on the ground that makes our employees more analytical, flexible, innovative and creative?

Based on the answers to these questions, a future image of user-friendly document processes is formed throughout your organization. With that in mind you will determine how you would ideally digitize your data in a way that benefits user processes from start to finish. Below we will take a closer look at the above questions:

Question 1: Determine whether your company is sufficiently capable of continuing and maintaining the core business. These days we need to be able to exchange ideas and information at lightning speed, but the traditional office is not designed for that. From the answer to the first question you can see at which points fast action matters most for your business. This way you can find out which information processes could use a little more efficiency.

Question 2: Discover how you can promote emerging business. For this, employees on location and at a distance must be given the opportunity to act more flexibly and have time for activities that contribute to your business strategy. You give them that freedom by automating manual processes. Once you have identified which processes need to be automated, you can start looking at collaboration tools that allow your employees to exchange ideas more freely with each other and with your customers.

Question 3: Ultimately, you must determine how you want to create new business in the future. You do this by giving your employees the digital support they need to exchange ideas with each other and work in a more innovative way. With all of today’s workplace solutions you can leave productivity largely to technology and your employees can engage in innovation. This is a future-oriented approach: thanks to digitization , your team can work better on your business objectives.

You can also see digitization as follows: it is a step that allows you to switch from slow, inefficient printing processes to optimized workflows. Once you have determined how you can best store digital data and share it with your employees and customers, you plan how you can optimize this data through user processes. In other words: you are going to plan how to get your team to work optimally.

3. Use digitization to let your team perform optimally

In step 2 you investigated how your employees can use data in a more efficient way. In step 3 you will look at how you can optimally organize all processes throughout your organization. With that you can:

Give internal and external employees the time and resources to collaborate more easily and effectively.
Let your employees work better and more productively with handy technology that ensures streamlined workflows.
Measuring data and making information more transparent for employees, so that they can make informed decisions.

Choose the right technology

Exactly how you look at this step is important. It is not so much about using the technology itself. You want to influence the behavior of your employees by improving processes using the right technologies.

Limit the number of manual operations and make your data processes more efficient. Then you make the difference between technology at home and at work smaller – and you deal with the frustrations among your employees. It is important that you focus on the ‘how’ of the workflows: how exactly must those processes change in order to achieve optimum results? The answer to that question leads you to the specific technologies that match the unique work styles of your people.

Stay ahead of the competition

Have you done little to nothing about digitization? Then remember that today’s economy relies heavily on technology. And also remember that you can only keep up with the competition if you provide your employees with the right tech. Urgent action must therefore be taken. The sooner you start digitizing, the better you can stay ahead of the competition.

DIGITIZATION is not anymore a far from my bed show.