Too little attention is often paid to the opportunities offered by digitisation

Whether social media presence, e-mail for business correspondence, online applications or digital document archives - for many companies such terms are no longer foreign to them, as they have already decided to go digital. But many companies have not yet recognized the digital potential.

Bitkom Research presented the figures from the Digitization Survey

The figures show that one in three companies believes that digitization has "medium or large potential" so that new business models can be developed in the future (38 percent). Every third company also believes that it can create new products and thus offer new services (37 percent). Three-quarters, on the other hand, were of the opinion that customer acquisition could be advanced (75 percent) - an improvement in customer service was also possible (73 percent). 58 per cent of the companies were of the opinion that overall efficiency could be increased, with four out of ten companies believing they could increase profits (44 per cent) and reduce costs (40 per cent).

In addition, half of the companies surveyed (48 percent) were convinced that digitization would also contribute to internationalization. "The companies have to think bigger when dealing with the digital transformation," says Dr. Bernhard Rohleder, Bitkom CEO. "If the company produces outstanding products, it should subsequently consider how the products can be combined with a valuable service. Only if services in high demand are offered is it possible to build up an entire ecosystem", Rohleder is convinced.

"The German economy will change"

Companies that have employed more than 500 people believe very strongly that digitization has enormous potential for fundamental change. 44 percent believe that new business models can be developed; 45 percent believe that new services can also be offered and new products manufactured. But not all sectors are confident: 45 percent of the retail companies see medium or large potential; in industry, the figure is just 34 percent, and among service providers 36 percent share this opinion.

However, service providers believe that new offers could be created - in the case of retailers, the figure is just 36 percent and in industry 31 percent. "German industry, which is particularly strong, must take advantage of the new opportunities and also tread paths that are still unknown. It is primarily digital platforms, 3D printing or even self-learning machines and artificial intelligence that will change the German economy," says Rohleder.

Bitkom Research surveyed 503 board members and managing directors of companies that had at least 20 employees.

You can find further information at Bitkom - www.bitkom.org