The Digitally Transformed world ..

Most of us get confused by the various digital terms Digitization, Digitalization, Digital Evolution, Digital Revolution and Digital Transformation. (I am engaging a class on Digital Transformation for MBA students and am particularly concerned on the differentiation of these terms).

• Digitization is the movement from the analog world to digital world, as to when I started using digital calculators instead of the slide rule around early eighties.
  
• Digitalisation is about applying digital technology to existing processes, for example using Google pay to pay my milk and vegetable vendor.
• Digital Evolution is the intentional choice of a business to rapidly accelerate their organizational rate of digital adoption and change measured over time, through the simultaneous creation, renovation, and marshaling of digital products, alongside the creation, flexible reinforcement, and agile maturation of their platforms and infrastructure.- endava.com
• Digital Revolution is the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technology to digital electronics which began in the latter half of the 20th century, with the adoption and proliferation of digital computers and digital record-keeping, that continues to the present day. - Wikipedia
• Digital Transformation is the adoption of digital technology to transform services or businesses, through replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes or replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology. - Wikipedia

While carrying out my research to understand the concept of digital transformation, the work done by Prof. Bhaskar Chakravarthy of the Fletcher School of Business Tufts University and colleagues particularly caught my attention. This work was published in Harvard Business Review in Dec '20 (click here).

Prof. Bhaskar and team have plotted about 90 countries of the world on a 2 D chart with Digital Evolution momentum on the x axis and Digital evolution state on y axis, each measured on a scale from 1 to 100. They divided the 90 global countries into 4 groups - Stand Out, Break out , Stall out and Watch out.

Stand out countries have shown good growth of digital technology adoption and have also shown good growth of digital technology acceptance (includes countries from North America, Far east and middle east) while the Break out countries included countries mainly from Asia and South America who exhibited limited infrastructure but great commitment of political leadership to bring in massive change in the coming decades. India and China are included here.

Stall Out countries on the other hand have established digital infrastructure already in place but not the commitment to bring in traction in growth over the coming decades,probably due to a phase of maturity and saturation having been reached. The Watch out countries are the digitally backward nations who are both poorly placed in their present digital infrastructure as well as the commitment to improve the infrastructure in the coming decades. 

While the Standout countries constituted 15% of the total 90 countries studied, Break out countries constituted 35%, by far the largest, Stall out countries were about 21% and Watch out countries constituted the remaining 29%.

Nigeria < Digital Evolution Momentum  < China - a measure of the societal and (political) commitment to Digital Transformation over time.

Ethiopia < Digital Evolution State < Singapore - a measure of the existing digital infrastructure to promote Digital Transformation over time.

The author wishes to bring in a new term called Digital Evolution Index which is a reflection of the strength of the present digital infrastructure of the country and the willingness and passion to continue in the same path. It is the product of the Digital Evolution Momentum (measured on a scale from 1 to 100) and the Digital Evolution State (measured on a scale from 1 to 100).

Accordingly the extreme points on this index are 

Singapore        5194    (53 x 98)

China               5332    (86 x 62)

United States  4320    (48 x 90)

India                2961   (63 x 47)

Ethiopia            882    (42 x 21)

Nigeria             784    (28 x 28)

This measure of the Digital Evolution and hence Digital Transformation is a quantitative measure of the commitment and resolve of countries towards Digital Commitment in the long run. This index could be used by International Financial Agencies to finance countries for their Digital Transformation and to rate nations internationally for their commitment to future growth.

George..