Bringing together technology and people to address a more dynamic marketplace. 

The recent development in technology has driven an incredible pace of change across diverse industry verticals. Offering a superior product or service no longer ensures business market leadership. The evolution of digital technology such as AI, automation and Cloud, among others, have shattered traditional fences of business functions, providing customers with more choices and creating a competitive marketplace. Thus, to stay ahead of the competition, organizations require to envisage, react and scale the ever-changing market, and turn to new technologies.

They also must introduce automation and digitalization of their business processes and consider the distinct stages of the processing to remain vibrant and productive. According to the report, over 70 percent of SMEs in France do not have any digital tool for daily, repetitive tasks that can be automated and secured. In this way, they lose thousands of hours every year due to the lack of automation, resulting in considerably the reduction of productivity and competitiveness.

Embracing Digitalization and Automation

Focusing on appropriate digital and automation solutions should assist in fostering greater intelligence and agility, thereby enabling organizations to stay on top of customer expectations and keep up with the ever-changing ecosystem. In order to adopt the right approach of digitalization and automation of business processes, companies need to rethink them in their entirety such as interaction, optimization, and fluidity of information.

Already, digital technologies have brought about a digital and hyperconnected society that draws an evolving environment toward immediacy, datafication, globalization, automation, and disruptions. 

At the Digital Enterprise Virtual Summit by Siemens, experts speak out that digitalized and highly automated production are more important than ever for companies when it comes to gaining a competitive edge and flexibility keeping in mind the current pandemic situation. Representatives from different and process industries, as part of the conference, discussed strategies and technologies for future success under these new conditions.

According to Klaus Helmrich, a member of the board of Siemens and CEO of the digital industries business unit, digital and automation solutions proved themselves during this crisis. Companies that had already invested in digitalization were better equipped to handle the new requirements, such as quickly scaling back production, for example in the automotive industry, or ramping up production, such as in the pharmaceutical sector.

Forward-looking business leaders recognize opportunities to streamline operations to lessen the number of systems and programs needed to get the job done. Moreover, making a customized strategy and plan that address each firm's challenges and opportunities in the digital environment can help companies to drive agility and leverage data effectively to generate value-add business competence. Agility provides organizations with the opportunity to be more flexible and allows them to scale fast enough to keep up with business needs to create an effective responsive environment.

Comprehensively, effectively leveraging automation and digitalization solutions can deliver a significant competitive edge over the highly competitive business scenario, offering superior customer experience.