The post-coronavirus remedy: speeding up digitalization
This column was previously published in L’Opinion on 9th april 2020
The current crisis is unique in that it concerns not only public health but also the economy and finance. Although the Asian example shows that the health aspect can be controlled and massive intervention by governments and central banks may give us cause to expect only a limited financial crisis, the scale of the economic crisis, on the other hand, looks likely to be unprecedented. It suggests that we have to rethink the world since it carries a message that we did not want to hear in 2008: we are moving from a community of 700 million privileged Westerners to a planet of over 7 billion inhabitants.
We are pretending only now to find out that the Chinese Foxconn worker who assembles our iPhones lives alongside people who eat anteaters and whom we can no longer ignore. A new economy based on sharing is establishing itself with a vengeance, only made possible by speeding up digitalization, in complete opposition to the theories of supporters of degrowth. Hence the need for us to undertake a new “3Ds” data revolution that redefines the means of designing, manufacturing and selling products and services.
A new economy based on sharing is establishing itself with a vengeance, only made possible by speeding up digitalization, in complete opposition to the theories of supporters of degrowth.
First of all, the D-isintegration of our value chains in R&D, so as to build new “money for value” models that, by means of data analysis, focus only on what consumers see as real value. The example of the Chinese doctor, who is only paid if the patient is cured, should make us reverse the way we look at the way we go about things — thereby reducing the environmental, capitalistic and human impact of our operations. Although, up to now, digitalization has only affected the media, trade and leisure sectors in the B2C sphere, the next decade will give us the chance to rebuild the most inefficient sectors, such as finance, health care, education and, more generally, the B2B sphere.
Secondly, the D-ematerialization of production, as in the case of Chinese TechFin that has invented a new inclusive finance with tech as its starting point. Cashless payment services are everywhere these days; the large industrial groups directly finance supply chains by using the blockchain, bypassing the banking system, and personalized management of assets by means of big data now offers savers portfolios that reflect their personal consumption choices. The emergence of the Internet of Things, which combines hardware and software, will make it possible to replace product by service, service by customer experience, and customer experience by transformation.
Finally, the D-isintermediation of sales, or the rise of social commerce, as promoted by the Chinese social media WeChat, means that online shopping has become a real experience, whilst the West, as exemplified by Amazon, is still content with simply facilitating the act of purchase. In China, this ”Direct to the Consumer” model combines individual preference and social responsibility — the famous “Me in We”, especially for the rising Z generation.
Looking beyond the economic nightmare of the coming months, the technological revolution will therefore replace the smartphone as the main vector of the last ten years by the data of the next decade. Against a “Japanizing” background of zero interest rates and inflated balance sheets of central banks; new digital leaders will emerge — those who will have been savvy enough to profit from this crisis. And they will not only come to light in Europe or the USA, but in China as well.
