First of a three-part series on policy recommendations for the digital agenda
Who invented the iPad? Was it Steve Jobs,
or was it George W. Bush? According to Bloomberg columnist Mark Buchanan, the
question is perhaps not as easy to answer as you might think. As his critical
appraisal of the innovations by US computer giant Apple concludes, "Every
one of the most important technologies in Apple's smart products, including the
iPhone and iPad, were developed elsewhere and largely thanks to state
funding."
You don't need to belittle the accomplishments
of Steve Jobs to be able to agree with Buchanan on one thing: From the internet
through to satellite communications, some of the essential enabling
technologies for digitization would never have come into being without
government funding. But the direct subsidization of technological projects is
not the only way for the state to seed innovation. The way governments set up a
regulatory framework gives them a huge amount of influence on what future technologies
will be developed where and how fast they will become established. Look no
further than the energy transition for proof of that.
The same goes for the digital transformation:
Governments and policymakers can be instrumental in pushing the development of enabling
technologies and enhancing the innovation capacity of companies. Owing to the substantially
more favorable financial, legal and institutional conditions in the US and also
in China, Europe's firms are at risk of falling behind in the digital race of
the regions, in spite of the strength of the continent's industrial base. For
the moment, at least, not one European internet firm has made it into the
global top 20.
To these ends, governments should help
Europe to pool its strengths and resources, improve the digital maturity of its
companies, prevent a form of standardization that undermines manufacturing
skills, encourage investment in the digital economy, and create points of
access and platforms that can be shared by companies, research institutions and
other organizations.
Pooling
strengths and resources. Germany and Europe have no
lack of associations and platforms to discuss the digital transformation. The Federal
Government of Germany, for example, has come up with several industry-wide
strategies to promote digitization. A Smart Networking Strategy is currently
being drawn up for the Digital Agenda, the focal point of these efforts. The
aim is to integrate cross-industry activities in an overall concept, the
cornerstones of which were unveiled at the CeBIT trade show in spring 2014. Further
projects and initiatives encompass Die neue Hightech-Strategie (The New
High-Tech Strategy), Zukunftsprojekt Industrie 4.0 (Future Project Industry
4.0) or IKT 2020 (ICT 2020).
At the EU level, a whole range of
additional strategies and actions can be listed – first and foremost Horizon
2020, but also programs focused on specific areas. The latter include ITEA for
software innovations and Artemis for cyber-physical systems.
Systematically bundling these initiatives
and focusing them on a series of cross-industry objectives would appear
necessary to make them more efficient and effective. Two important steps would
be:
- To define a shared vision,
common objectives and the most important areas of action in a digital
transformation charter for industry- To coordinate all ongoing and planned initiatives via a single project office
The National IT Summit that the German government
is currently developing and refocusing in line with the seven areas of action
laid out in its Digital Agenda could play a pioneering role in bundling the
country's digital activities. Current efforts by the Fraunhofer Society,
industry and the German government to create an Industrial Data Consortium are
an important and proper approach to bundling and coordinating efforts and
resources at least at the national level. Further steps must nevertheless
follow.
Stay tuned for two more posts on policy recommendations for the digital agenda.
To learn more about the digital transformation of industry, click here.Stay tuned for two more posts on policy recommendations for the digital agenda.
