Planned well ahead of the current coronavirus pandemic and the desperate fight for survival that has gripped virtually every country throughout the world, this month’s cover story – “The march towards digital transformation” – could not have come at a more opportune time.
Already faced with prospects of a domestic recession due to more than a decade of unbridled corruption and mismanagement by the ANC-led government as well as a general slowdown in the global economy, the Covid-19 crisis has triggered a massive collapse of not only the local economic outlook, but also business and social norms across the entire planet.
In the face of this devastating disruption to life as we know it – and have wallowed in so blissfully for just over a century since the Spanish Flu killed an estimated, but unconfirmed 25-million to 100-million people in 1918 – transformation of one type or another across all walks of life and disciplines has suddenly become a non-negotiable necessity.
Very often rather cynically regarded as yet another “buzzword” or “techno speak” jargon phrase conjured up by highly creative and mystifying marketers hell-bent on trying to sell nothing more than a fairly obvious upgrade path to the next generation in the fairly predictable but fast-paced evolution of information technology, “digital transformation” is fundamentally nothing new.
As has been described in this column on a previous occasion, the origins of the word digital can be traced back to the advent of the science of computational algorithms way back in the early 1930s. Based on this pedigree, digital transformation is therefore nothing more than the conversion of information of whatever nature from a physical form into a binary format that can be read, understood and processed by a computer.
The challenge now faced is not how to transform information from one format into another, or even how to adopt new ways of handling information in the form of new or gimmicky “apps” or tools such as “the Internet of Things” and various other iterations of fashionable trends such as 4IR and “artificial intelligence” (which, incidentally, is reliably understood not the definition of the word Trump).
The immediate challenge is to radically transform how we do things and alter normal or habitual behavioural patterns using technology that is already immediately or readily available and in great abundance.
For example, with governments around the world forced into taking some harsh and even desperate measures to protect the lives of all citizens, lockdown regulations in terms of sweeping powers invoked by emergency regulations forced businesses to shut and schools and institutions of higher education to close.
This situation suddenly invoked measures by commercial enterprises to get staff to work from home and get parents, learners and students to consider adopting “e-learning” techniques to avoid falling behind in the academic calendar.
Although the technology, and an incredible amount of the essential infrastructure has been around for many years to enable and support this “digital transformation” from locations based on fixed bricks and mortar premises to virtual or digital techniques of doing and performing exactly the same tasks and activities, nothing of any significance has really been achieved in these spheres. Perhaps the virus crisis will spark a more meaningful and rapid transformation to a more creative and productive way of living a “normal digital life” when the crisis has passed.
Although the Covid-19 crisis has spared no nation from devastating economic and social effects, the universal situation has done a lot to level the playing field. In many instances, so-called First World economies have been harder hit in some respects than many Third World or emerging economies.
This provides an opportunity for countries such as South Africa to recover from this and other domestic inflicted economic setbacks by exploring and implementing creative “digital transformation” solutions for doing normal things better and more productively without getting too shot away with the jargon.