In view of the abundance of trouble spots, Achim Berg of the digital lobby association Bitkom called for “digital solutions to be used comprehensively and immediately”. “With digital technologies we can move the world. These current momentous challenges can only be tackled digitally. It will only work with and not without and certainly not against digitalisation,” Berg said at the opening of the hub.berlin technology festival. “Tomorrow's business will be digital for the vast majority of German companies.”
52 percent of companies in Germany say that their industry competitors, who opted for digitization at an early stage, are now ahead of them. Five years ago only 36 percent said so. This is the result of a survey of 604 companies with 20 or more employees on behalf of the digital association Bitkom.
At the same time, two-thirds (65%) of companies are experiencing competitors from the internet and IT industry penetrating their market (2017: 57%). Around two-thirds (63 percent) also note that digitization is making companies from other industries than the Internet and IT industries direct competitors in their core market (2017: 51 percent). “We don't want to talk about if, but about how digitization works,” said Berg.