The summer has barely begun when we already have the first veritable summer theatre. The Bavarian CSU against the rest of the world! And subsequently: Europe as an “overstretched continent,” as the Handelsblatt newspaper put it on June 28. Europe was therefore overtaxed on four points: Low interest rates instead of reforms, too little growth, division between East and West and a failed refugee policy.
The last would not even be necessary. We do not have a refugee problem in Europe, but a migration problem. Decency alone demands asylum for people escaping war, torture, discrimination or other harassment. No one can object to that. However, Europe is also the promised land for all those who see no prospects in their country and cannot anticipate that they will also have no prospects here in the country.
And those who, thanks to their education, could have good prospects in Europe are, it seems at least, not drawn to the Old Continent, but to the New World – to the USA and to Asia, where the big digital corporations are emerging and growing faster than the rest of the world. Europe is about to lose not only the race in digital change, but also the race for the brightest minds on the planet.
Two studies by the Gartner Group and Unisys have now shown that there is a direct connection between the two, and they asked specialists in companies about their satisfaction with their digital workplace. According to the study, over half of the employees consider their employers’ digital strategies to be too hesitant, while only six percent believe that their company is a digital leader in an international comparison. Worse still, those who are critical of their company are five times more willing to change employers than those who are satisfied with their employer’s digital strategy.
We are in the middle of a digital revolution in which everything is under scrutiny: the way we deal with customers, how we organize our supply chains, how we further automate production processes, how we design an effective and creative workplace for our employees and last but not least how we forge the team of tomorrow from man and machine.
That’s a lot more challenging than scanning in some vouchers. We need perspectives in the companies from which digital strategies can be developed. If this does not succeed, the Old Continent will look very old in the foreseeable future.
In politics, this requires more than just declarations of intent and buzzword bingo in Sunday speeches. We must pursue a plan supported by all EU and non-EU countries to optimise digital business processes, break new business models and promote new forms of work in the sense of industry 4.0, cloud computing, robotics and artificial intelligence. We need framework conditions with which the digital economy can be fairly taxed and more venture capital can be made available for disruptive ideas. We need a migration regime that helps us to attract bright minds to the Old Continent because here they have a chance to pursue their life goals in freedom of movement and security. You can escape these challenges – or migrate to new regulations. This question – escaping or migrating – arises for every single person, every single company and every single government in the Old Continent. We at actesy strongly recommend to draw the migration card. It doesn’t help to pull your head in front of the upcoming problems. We must seek change. That’s what actesy stands for.
From our experience, we have seen how difficult it is for organizations to leave behind the tried and tested and migrate business models, business processes and industry habits into new paths. We have also experienced how success comes about after such a change process.
That’s why we migrate instead of escaping.
See you on the next digital project.
For more information, please contact us at info@actesy.com
