3 tips to Create Value in a Digital Economy

The key to success in business used to be trust and growth. Nowadays we are shifting from institutional trust to network based trust. There is no better time than today for innovators and entrepreneurs.

They are the ones that will create value in the digital economy. Stefan started by explaining what he means with the trust shifting from institutional to network based.

3 TIPS

1. From institutional trust to network based trust

There is a major generation shift going on. The time where we used to trust big companies and brands are over. Now we trust one thing more than others and that is networks.

People don’t care what a company says about itself or how good the message is the brand puts out there. They do care about what others have to say about the company.

Innovation used to be centralised, it came from the market leader. Now we have the Internet, which is decentralised. Innovation and new technology comes from everywhere now.

Startups are disrupting the top companies and most of the brands we will talk about in ten years’ time don’t even exist yet. But this isn’t a bad thing, innovation is necessary to be successful and to create value in this new digital economy.

2. Technology as a new way to solve a problem

Technology as it is portrayed by the media makes us scared. The media constantly talks about how robots are going to take over our jobs.

But actually technology is part of us, instead of against us. We, humans, are the ones who come up with ideas of how technology can solve our problems. We need to look at technology as a new way to solve a problem.

3. Digitalisation means dematerialisation

Stefan had a great example for proving this, Apple and its iPhone. A couple of years ago we had to buy a Walkman to listen to music, an alarm to wake up in the morning, a phone to call someone, a camera to take a picture…

The list goes on forever. Now we have the iPhone, a device which can do it all. Also if you can solve a problem digitally, you don’t have to ship products or stuff, which saves costs.

Let’s end with a quote of Stefan Hyttfors about how to create value in a digital economy.

“The only solution is to create more with less, the future is to digitise.” – Stefan Hyttfors