Davos 2020: shaping the future of the Digital Economy
We’ve told you about how our CEO Luigi Matrone is among the experts at Davos 2020 and have shared the key learnings from the ‘Shaping the future of consumption’ session. Here, we pull out the highlights from ‘Shaping the future of the digital economy’.
This session chiefly tackled the question of how technology will further disrupt business and society in what is already an incredibly disrupted landscape.
We’ve captured the key takeaways from the ‘Shaping the future of the digital economy’ below.
PayPal, Salesforce and Ericsson leaders among the panellists
Moderated by tech investor Marissa Mayer, the first female Google engineer and former CEO of Yahoo!, the panel featured leaders of the most prominent digital businesses on the planet:
- Börje Ekholm, CEO of Ericsson
- Keith Block, CEO of Salesforce
- Dan Schulman, President of PayPal
- Lauren Woodman, CEO of NetHope
Disruptive forces that will shape the future digital economy
The world will see more innovation in the next five years than it has in the past 30.
This is thanks to the power of emerging technologies — like Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, advances in Cloud, and high-speed, low latency 5G that enables greater connectivity — that enable innovation to build upon innovation, and improve business and the world around us.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution [1] is likely to play out for many years, and new ways of doing things are being invented every day.
This is the era of digital transformation — but how can business leaders best embrace change?
Image source: Getty
The era of Digital Transformation
This age of digital transformation is not only seeing businesses around the world enthusiastically embracing technology, but also new organisational models and working cultures. [2]
This means that every CEO needs to effectively be a Chief Innovation Officer in order to ensure their organisations keep step with — or ahead of — change in an ever-more competitive environment where businesses can’t afford to keep still.
Data driving innovation
The emergence of AI [3] and machine learning means that data will be built into every possible technology application in both the B2B and B2C spheres — and, indeed, in our everyday lives. And this data will inform companies about the customers they are serving and spawn greater innovation to meet their needs.
We’re already seeing this powerful use of data in the world of payments, and every platform company will be able to use data to transform business models and create economies of scale.
The potential of data is endless, which is why it’s so important that businesses can properly understand and harness it.
Trust and responsibility
As the panel was keen to stress, the power of new technologies and data bring with them huge responsibility.
As any brand expert will tell you, trust is of paramount importance to customers. Without the trust of their customers, businesses have nothing — especially when consumers expect higher and higher ethical standards from the brands they buy from.
Doing ‘good’ for the world around us is no longer a nice, fluffy PR exercise, but something that should be inextricably linked with success and profitability. Powerful, disruptive technology innovations and data must be used to improve the world around us.
Helping you embrace the opportunities
These are indeed exciting times. The possibilities of digital transformation, data and new technologies are limitless.
But the potential of these new, powerful tools can also, quite understandably, be daunting to many businesses and their leaders.
Our CEO Luigi Matrone is among the experts lending their voices and visionary thinking to discussions at Davos 2020.
As one of the world’s leading authorities in digital transformation, he and other experts at eBusiness Institute are helping companies around the world to prepare for the drastic and exciting changes to come. If you would like to learn more about our services and how we can help your business thrive in the future, please contact us.
This article was written and created by the eBusiness Institute Team.
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Sources
[1] https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab
[2] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-58327-8_2
Originally published at https://ebusinessinstitute.com on January 23, 2020.
