May 12, 2019 at 19:04What are “digital transformation” and “digital assets”?
Today I want to talk about what a "number" is. Digital transformation, digital assets, digital product ... These words are heard everywhere today. In Russia, national programs are launched and even the ministry is renamed, but reading articles and reports one comes across rounded phrases and indistinct definitions. And recently, at work, I was at a “high-level” meeting, where representatives of one respected institute training personnel in the field of information technology answered the question “What is the difference between informatization and digitalization” that “it is one and the same - just digitalization - it such a hype word. "
I think it's time to figure it out.
If you try to find clear definitions somewhere, there are none. Usually they start from technologies (they say where they introduce big date, artificial intelligence and the like - there is a digital transformation). Sometimes human participation is paramount (supposedly if robots crowd people out, this is digitalization).
I have a different proposition. I propose to find a criterion that will help distinguish between “digital” and “ordinary”. Having found the criterion, we come to a simple and understandable definition.
In order not to become obsolete, this criterion should not appeal either to technologies (they appear like mushrooms after rain), or to the participation of people in the technological process (this story has already been “worked out” by the technological revolution).
Pay attention to the business model and product. At the same time, I call a product something (a product or service) that carries value (for example, a cake, a car or a haircut in a hairdresser), and a business model - a set of processes aimed at producing value and delivering it to the consumer.
Historically, the product was “ordinary” (if you want, say “analog”, but for me, “a loaf of analog bread” sounds elaborate). In the world there were and will be a mass of ordinary goods and services. All of them are united by the fact that for the production of each copy of such a product you need to spend resources (as Cat Matroskin said, to sell something unnecessary, you need to buy something unnecessary). To make a loaf of bread, you need flour and water, to make a car you need a lot of things, to mow someone you need to spend time.
Each time, for each copy.
And there are such products, the cost of production of each new copy of which is zero (or tends to zero). For example, you recorded a song, took a photo, developed a program for an iPhone-android and that’s all ... You sell them again and again, and they, firstly, do not end there, and secondly, each new copy does not cost you anything.
The idea is not new. In world history, there are many examples of products whose production of each copy cost nothing. For example, the sale of sites on the moon or units closer to us in some financial pyramid (for example, MMM tickets). Usually it was something illegal (at the same time, I’m not even talking about the criminal code, but about the same law of conservation of “energy-matter-life-universe-and-all-that” voiced by cat Matroskin).
However, with the development of technologies (the advent of computers, computer networks, and all that is derived from them - cloud technology, artificial intelligence, big dates, etc.), a unique opportunity has appeared to copy products endlessly and for free. Someone took it literally and simply copied money on a copier (but this is again illegal), but selling digitalized musical compositions on Ai-tuns, digital photos in photo banks, applications in Google Play or Appstore - all this is legal and quite profitable , because, as you remember, each new copy brings money and costs nothing. This is a digital product.
A digital asset is what allows you to produce a product (to duplicate a product or provide a service), the cost of production of each next copy of which tends to zero (for example, your online store through which you sell something or a database of sensors of an atomic reactor, which allows you to make forecasts and conduct experiments).
Digital transformation is the transition from the production of tangible products to the production of digital products, as well as (and / or) the transition to business models that use digital assets.
As you can see, everything is simple. Such a transformation.
I think it's time to figure it out.
If you try to find clear definitions somewhere, there are none. Usually they start from technologies (they say where they introduce big date, artificial intelligence and the like - there is a digital transformation). Sometimes human participation is paramount (supposedly if robots crowd people out, this is digitalization).
I have a different proposition. I propose to find a criterion that will help distinguish between “digital” and “ordinary”. Having found the criterion, we come to a simple and understandable definition.
In order not to become obsolete, this criterion should not appeal either to technologies (they appear like mushrooms after rain), or to the participation of people in the technological process (this story has already been “worked out” by the technological revolution).
Pay attention to the business model and product. At the same time, I call a product something (a product or service) that carries value (for example, a cake, a car or a haircut in a hairdresser), and a business model - a set of processes aimed at producing value and delivering it to the consumer.
Historically, the product was “ordinary” (if you want, say “analog”, but for me, “a loaf of analog bread” sounds elaborate). In the world there were and will be a mass of ordinary goods and services. All of them are united by the fact that for the production of each copy of such a product you need to spend resources (as Cat Matroskin said, to sell something unnecessary, you need to buy something unnecessary). To make a loaf of bread, you need flour and water, to make a car you need a lot of things, to mow someone you need to spend time.
Each time, for each copy.
And there are such products, the cost of production of each new copy of which is zero (or tends to zero). For example, you recorded a song, took a photo, developed a program for an iPhone-android and that’s all ... You sell them again and again, and they, firstly, do not end there, and secondly, each new copy does not cost you anything.
The idea is not new. In world history, there are many examples of products whose production of each copy cost nothing. For example, the sale of sites on the moon or units closer to us in some financial pyramid (for example, MMM tickets). Usually it was something illegal (at the same time, I’m not even talking about the criminal code, but about the same law of conservation of “energy-matter-life-universe-and-all-that” voiced by cat Matroskin).
However, with the development of technologies (the advent of computers, computer networks, and all that is derived from them - cloud technology, artificial intelligence, big dates, etc.), a unique opportunity has appeared to copy products endlessly and for free. Someone took it literally and simply copied money on a copier (but this is again illegal), but selling digitalized musical compositions on Ai-tuns, digital photos in photo banks, applications in Google Play or Appstore - all this is legal and quite profitable , because, as you remember, each new copy brings money and costs nothing. This is a digital product.
A digital asset is what allows you to produce a product (to duplicate a product or provide a service), the cost of production of each next copy of which tends to zero (for example, your online store through which you sell something or a database of sensors of an atomic reactor, which allows you to make forecasts and conduct experiments).
Digital transformation is the transition from the production of tangible products to the production of digital products, as well as (and / or) the transition to business models that use digital assets.
As you can see, everything is simple. Such a transformation.