Effect of Digitalization on Today’s Youth
Personnel nowadays refer to 2016 as the digital equivalent of the industrial revolution because about 46% of the world is now making use of Internet. It is at this exciting time that Millennials are making way into the workforce.
We have written previously the impact on the Asian workforce, but we ventured further. We dived into a study from MakeSense and SAP with the intent of gathering insight and aiming to shed light on young people’s thoughts on the impact of the increasingly digital world in which we live.
The global survey of young people from the range of different countries focused mainly on the digitization and the world they want to live in. Those surveyed came from many different professionals and included employees, students, entrepreneurs as well as freelancers. The questions which were asked by the survey include the following:
- What are your top three priorities to create a world we want to live in?
- What are your top three influencers in creating a world we want to live in?
- Will the digital transformation have a positive impact on work, leisure, relationships, and the world?
- What role would digitization have in creating a world you want to live in?
- What is the one thing that you would like to see technology change about the world today?
- How do you think digitization will impact or change the workplace in the future?
Several interesting findings were presented by the results and they include the following:
Individuals play a vital role in our future
Respondent were asked about the top three influencers in creating a better world for tomorrow. More than half of the respondent (52%) said that individuals (through social media and other online platforms) are the most essential influencers nowadays. Other stakeholders that young people view as playing a vital role are governments (20%), corporations (13%), as well as NGOs (7%).
Digital transformation will play a largely positive role
Perhaps unsurprisingly, when respondents were asked whether the digital transformation would have a positive impact on their career, more than 70% of them think it would. One of the respondent said that it would likewise lead to transparency in finances and bureaucracy. It will hasten the process, allow easy access to statistics, and also cause an efficient production and reasonable management of resources.
Furthermore, the percentage was even higher when it comes to digitization enabling people to make a positive impact on the world (72%). However, digital transformation is perceived differently on relationship where nearly 40% of young people thought it would have a negative impact.
The result which was obtained showed that youth of nowadays is aware of the tremendous impact that an increasingly digital era has and the potential for good that it can have on the world that we live in. Overwhelmingly, respondents likewise felt that digitization should act as an enabler to accessible information and communications.
One participant also stated that digitization acts as a communicator for three major reasons: To connect social innovations, to raise awareness and also to tackle issue locally and globally. Through an increased access to information and communication, digitization should provide more education about the world today.
Millennials likewise had interesting ideas on how digitization could be used to increase efficiency in the working world.
They suggested an app which can be used to replace a manager, establishing missions and objectives for a team and evaluating employees on a peer-to-peer basis, which would increase efficiency and communication.
While digitization provides several advantages, such as the potential of working remotely and increasing efficiency, it also present concerns for millennials. Respondents cited a decrease in direct communication and fewer jobs as examples. One millennial said that the potential implication of a digital era would be fewer jobs available, adding that it would be a luxury to have a physical workplace. Additionally, the research showed an awareness among young people of the negative impact that digitization can create on leisure (20%).
One millennial likewise described the potential impact of a digital era by saying, “Digitization is forcing us to rethink work in general, even more with the rise of cognitive computing. We are also going to see a shift in the skill which we value.”
However, a recent article in the Financial Times highlighted that, while companies are increasingly trying to upgrade their technology in an effort to boost their productivity, the link between digital and productivity is not yet apparent. In addition to that, a recent article in the Economist showed that a consequence of the digital era may be to enhance the efficiency and to facilitate going about out daily jobs, a point that most millennials undertaking this research agreed with.
It’s Time for Growing Companies to Master the Numbers Game
Small and medium business usually views the rise of data everywhere as a reality that they can’t live with and can’t live without. There are some leaders that usually argue that access to sophisticated analytics as well as massive volumes of data offer a rare opportunity so as to out-compete every rival regardless of whether it is large or small. However, other still believe that to implement and also integrate new platforms and solutions requires more talent, time, and money than they have available.
While both sides of the debate have their points, growing companies need to find common ground to move forward and also get the most value from their data. For instance dashboards, spreadsheets, and reporting templates are not cutting it in a world where constant evolution is the rule, employees work anywhere, and first-mover benefit can mean the difference between profit gain and revenue loss.
The Blockchain Solution
In the year 2013, most of the UK supermarket chains observed that products they were selling as beef were actually made at least partly and in some cases, entirely from horsemeat. The resulting uproar led to a series of product recalls, this prompted stricter food testing, and spurred the European food industry to take a closer look at how mislabeled or unlabeled ingredients were making their way into the food chain.
This can be prevented with the aid of digitization, the separation between equine and bovine will become immutable with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, which will help in tracking the provenance as well as the identity of each and every animals from stall to store, adding the data to a Blockchain that can be checked by anyone but no one can alter.
Food processing companies will also be able to use that Blockchain to confirm and label the contents of their products accordingly, down to specific farms and animals representing in every individual package. That level of details may be too much information for shoppers, but they will at least be able to trust that meatballs are gotten from the appropriate species.
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