Companies which fail to digitalize their operations on time are risking their own survival. This is what the head executives of IT companies and banks say when asked whether a company can survive on the market without going online.
Telecommunications companies in Serbia have launched or acquiring online banks, banks are replacing the old-fashioned counters with e-services and mobile phone services, while retailers are in a hurry to enable their customers online shopping.
“Digitalization has caused a great phenomenon – older people are no longer teaching young ones but it is rather the young ones that are teaching older ones how to find their way in today’s world, and about the direction in which the world is heading to”, says CEO of VIP Mobile, Dejan Turk. “If a company fails to go digital in the next few years, there won’t be much chance for its survival. Digitalization doesn’t only imply investing in IT infrastructure, computers, platforms and software, but, first and foremost, into people who have to grasp what digitalization entails and to live this new, digital lifestyle. Only such people are going to be able to instigate change in their companies”, Turk adds.
Chairman of Erste Bank’s Executive Board, Slavko Caric shares the same opinion and says that, without digitalization, companies will be able to survive only a little while longer.
“What that means that only the companies which go digital as soon as possible will have the biggest chance of surviving after the 4th industrial revolution”, he says and adds that, in the case of banks, that means implementing e-services like e-banking, m-banking (banking services via mobile phones), and virtualization of all services they provide.
CEO of the New Frontier Group, Branislav Vujovic says that the good thing about digital transformation is that it covers all industrial branches, while the bad one is that it is not happening simultaneously in all of the industrial segments.
“A company will not shut down immediately if it doesn’t go digital. However, look at Air Serbia. They would have definitely suffered loss if they did not launch online ticket sale”, Vujovic explains.
(Vecernje Novosti, 12.03.2017)
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