Digitalization: what it is, goals, types, industries, stages of development

Despite the fact that various areas of everyday life and sectors of the economy in Russia and in the world are subject to daily modernization, not everyone knows what digitalization is. To understand in which areas immediate implementation is required, what features this process has, and what successful examples and advantages such implementations can be described, let’s look at the basics of this process, its current state and prospects.

What is this

This process refers to the introduction of new digital technologies at a fairly high rate. The term total digitalization also combines the process of converting primary data obtained into useful knowledge, which can later be used for various purposes, including trends in improvement and modern development in order to reduce labor costs in various systems of human activity.

This is why digitalization is needed in Russia. After all, it will be able to provide a response to new challenges and prospects. Therefore, national projects for the introduction of mass digitalization in various sectors of the economy and spheres of life of the population have become one of the priority ones and are controlled not only by the government and various ministries, but also by a number of local government organizations.

Digitalization the American way: Is the plan to take over Russia already ready?

In a situation where more and more Western sanctions are being introduced against Russia, when import substitution becomes a necessity, our country has a communications system that can hardly be called national. Moreover, modern digitalization projects turn out to be either copied from Western models, or directly implemented by liberal functionaries, whose actions can be viewed rather as working in personal selfish interests or the interests of other states. What are we talking about and what are the problems?

Both government and civil communications systems in any country in the world are an element of the so-called critical infrastructure. In Russia, over the past 20-30 years, a real revolution has occurred in the field of communications, which led not only to the formation of the Big Three operators, but also to ambitious plans for digitalization of the industry, for example, within the framework of the national “Digital Economy” program.

And it would seem that we are on the right path. Russia is not at all some technologically backward country. No, we have already prepared frequencies for the introduction of the new 5G communication standard, we have our own major players in the telecommunications services market, we have developed “fourth generation” networks and even that very “Digital Economy”, which is dreaming with might and main of new achievements within the framework of the “Internet of Things” (IoT). We do not save budget funds on this. But all these positive aspects pale in comparison to how and who is actually modernizing communications in Russia. And most importantly, who will ultimately benefit from it?

Main players and 5G

As you know, the main players in the market are the big three operators: MTS (Mobile Telesystems), Beeline (VimpelCom), MegaFon, as well as another operator – Tele2. They have the largest market share, as well as the greatest opportunities. It is probably for this reason that they were chosen to implement all the latest innovations, including digitalization and 5G networks.

They were joined by Rostelecom, Sberbank (Sber), Rostec, Rosatom and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), which is responsible for the most sensitive aspects of digital transformation in the country. That is, communication in the current understanding in Russia is a wide range of both cellular and Internet capabilities, which are now being developed much more widely, up to all kinds of “smart” systems, “smart” cities, houses and Big Data systems, the “Internet of Things” and so on.

The curators of all metamorphoses with communications and digitalization are the Skolkovo Foundation, VEB, the Ministry of Digital Development, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Economic Development. We will not analyze in detail the issue of frequency sharing in Russia (this is a separate and very large topic). Let’s just say that as a result, in Russia for the 5G standard in 2022, frequencies of 24.45–27.5 GHz were approved, which do not correspond to the global standard of 3.4–3.8 GHz, since in our country these frequencies are occupied by the systems of the Ministry of Defense, FSO and Roscosmos.

In St. Petersburg, meanwhile, 5G base stations should also operate at frequencies of 4.8–4.99 GHz, which has already caused outrage among NATO members Latvia and Estonia, as well as Finland, which is not a member of the alliance. The fact is that NATO military aviation systems operate at these frequencies, and our base stations, as alliance members say, can interfere with communications for European intelligence, in particular in the friend-or-foe recognition system.

Why are we talking about 5G in the first place? The fact is that “fifth generation” networks are a serious step into the future. Whoever implements these networks first or among the first will lead this technology race. And for Russia, this is a question, without exaggeration, of survival in the digital era.

5G will accelerate all services to unprecedented mobile speeds. Do you remember what the first stage of the gadget revolution was like? Android devices, mobile application stores, instant messengers, and new markets for technologies and services have appeared. But the speeds were nothing at all. Then there were 3G and 4G. And the main thing that fifth-generation networks will provide is very fast work with heavy data, including video, image recognition, VR technologies and much, much more.

Let us remember the definition that Russian President Vladimir Putin has already given. After all, he said so back in 2022 that the leader in the world will be the country that wins the technological race.

What is the “Digital Economy”

All innovations in the field of digitalization, including the introduction of 5G, are now being carried out in our country in accordance with the national program “Digital Economy of Russia”. The program is divided into six areas, each of which has its own tasks and responsible persons. Here are some of them.

In the direction of “Regulatory regulation of the digital environment” the curator is the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, the center of competence is the Skolkovo Foundation, and the working group is led by the vice president for interaction with government authorities and public relations of MTS Ruslan Ibragimov.

In the direction of “Personnel for the Digital Economy” the center of competence is ASI, and the person in charge is Dmitry Peskov (not the presidential press secretary, but an IT specialist).

The Information Infrastructure direction is also interesting for us. It is supervised by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, and the working group is led by Operations Director Anna Serebryanikova.

As we see, the “Digital Economy” is closely intertwined with the work of telecom operators, and the immediate project managers are representatives of these same operators. The work of this team is directed by the so-called competence centers, which, in turn, are subordinate to the ministries.

Are the apologists of the “Digital Economy” coping with their tasks?

Firstly , they are the ones who insist on the speedy implementation in Russia of both 5G and IoT (“Internet of Things” - a single principle of interaction between various, so far poorly connected, information systems, databases, etc.). For example, VimpelCom, which is also involved in digitalization, previously stated that IoT and 5G are new growth points for the media, retail, financial sector, education, medicine, mining, agriculture, energy and housing and communal services, as well as security.

Secondly , in 2022, the government met the players in the digital economy halfway and even announced a reduction in tariffs for the use of frequencies for telecom operators. The Ministry of Digital Development issued an order in June 2022, the explanatory note to which stated that a reduction in the amount of fees for the radio frequency spectrum was provided for by the roadmap of the national program “Digital Economy of Russia”.

Thirdly , already in December 2022, the Accounts Chamber criticized the project implemented by Rostelecom within the framework of the Information Infrastructure to connect socially significant objects to the Internet. It turned out, for example, that money was allocated from the budget to connect a number of regional departments of various departments in the Vladimir and Kirov regions, as well as in the Khabarovsk Territory and the Jewish Autonomous Region, which already had access to the Internet. That is, there was duplication and misappropriation of funds. And this despite the fact that in Russia there are tens of thousands of regional consumers who are still only dreaming of normal Internet access.

Fourthly , in the same 2022, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications admitted that the Digital Economy projects had stalled. It was noted that out of the ten stated goals within the Information Infrastructure direction, only one was achieved. On July 17, a meeting of the working group of the Digital Economy ANO was held, where it was stated that the concept for the development of 5G networks has not yet been approved in Russia. In addition, digital transformers did not provide communications coverage of federal highways on schedule, did not transfer information systems of government agencies to a single cloud platform, did not create a public platform for managing rights to the results of intellectual activity, as well as a federal spatial data portal and new services of the Unified State Register of Real Estate. Finally, within the framework of this direction, it was not possible to implement measures to support manufacturers of domestic telecommunications and cable equipment.

In short, there are a lot of reports on paper, for which budget funds were allocated, and the result is still unsatisfactory. Let's take a closer look at telecom operators and the Digital Economy ANO itself to understand who controls this entire system in reality.

Who are the judges?

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE), ANO Digital Economy is based in Moscow on the territory of Innovative. Evgeniy Vladimirovich Kovnir has the right to act on behalf of this legal entity without power of attorney. That is, in fact, it is he who manages the direct activities of the ANO, being the general director of the organization.

The career of Evgeniy Kovnir is very interesting. In the early 2000s, he was involved in the development of information technology in the media industry (projects for informatization of television channels and radio stations), and then, in 2008–2011, he suddenly went to work for the American corporation Microsoft, where he was involved in the development of cloud services. Then Kovnir worked at the Media Group Ukraine holding until 2012, after which in 2013–2015 he served as head of the information technology industry development department at the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. On September 1, 2015, Kovnir began working at the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) as deputy director of the “Young Professionals” direction.

That is, the ANO “Digital Economy” is headed by a former Microsoft manager, who worked for the benefit of Americans for at least three years, and then received a high position in the neoliberal digital ASI, which, by the way, is the main center for the transformation of domestic education according to pro-Western principles. digital patterns with the destruction of traditional principles in favor of “trajectories”, “competencies”, the rejection of textbooks and teachers. You can read more about ASI’s activities in this transformation of education in Russia in the special investigation of Tsargrad.

Go ahead. One of the founders of ANO Digital Economy is listed in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities as Sberbank of Russia. A description of how much this is not a Russian bank, how many shares of Sberbank belong to non-residents, as well as a description of the fact that German Gref is also on the supervisory board of the American bank Morgan Stanley and is engaged in withdrawing funds from the Russian economy necessary for its development, sending them as dividends to foreigners and investing in the development of an unprofitable digital ecosystem will attract more than one journalistic material. Let’s just note that Sberbank, which is increasingly breaking away from Russia along with its leadership, fell into this “feeding trough” at one time. Which, by the way, is full of managers with foreign citizenship.

The founder of the ANO “Digital Economy” was also the same ASI. ASI can easily be considered a liberal and globalist structure. How else can we explain the fact that various agency programs are strictly oriented towards the West, towards the assessments of the World Bank, IMF and transnational corporations? We often hear from ASI representatives that “Russia is lagging behind” and supposedly needs to transform. Probably in order to more easily integrate it into the global liberal system. From ASI in the Digital Economy, the personnel and education department is supervised by one of the authors of the notorious Education 2030 program, Dmitry Peskov.

This person has repeatedly called on us to emulate Microsoft, Cisco, and Bill Gates. It was Peskov who at one time contributed to the emergence of the popular meme that. Peskov also promotes an understanding of the education system as a forge of personnel for transnational corporations, which in the future will place an “order” for a specialist who, according to the social credit system, is obliged in the future to work for the corporation in order to recoup the funds invested in his education. In a word, these are the same Western patterns that have nothing in common with domestic academic science and the education system.

Among the other founders of the ANO “Digital Economy” is the state corporation VEB.RF with its neoliberal head Igor Shuvalov. He headed VEB in 2022, since then the state corporation has received 1.5 trillion rubles from the state. At the same time, this largest development institution in Russia showed losses in the first half of 2022 of 43.5 billion rubles, and the head of VEB, Shuvalov, mysteriously became 2.5 times richer in just the first year at the helm of the corporation.

The founder is also VimpelCom, a large stake in which is owned by the Norwegian operator Telenor, and the board of directors was headed by Joe Lunder, who was involved in a corruption case in Uzbekistan, and the Italian Sergi Herrero, who will leave this post in June 2022. Also, the general director of Veon (mother) was the American Ursula Burns, who left in 2022, leaving the second general director, the Turkish Kaan Terzioglu, to “rule” alone.

What do we end up with?

We have not yet listed all the founders of the Digital Economy ANO, but we believe that this is enough. The main conclusion is this: in Russia there is no national communications system. We see serious international players in the telecommunications market who are now receiving significant budget funds as part of the national program.

Meanwhile, let's return to the axiom that the communication system is an element of the critical infrastructure of the state. Let's return to the axiom voiced by the president about the need for technological leadership. At the moment, it remains a mystery why our connection turned out to be so heavily monopolized by the oligopoly. The same one who lets foreigners into these questions in batches. Norway is also a NATO country. The presence of citizens of this country in projects that are aimed at a technological breakthrough in Russia - what is this? Action in the interests of a potential enemy country? But we are now trying to defend our right to 5G frequencies, which NATO countries do not like.

What about the American presence? How is it even possible to steer the “Digital Economy” through Sberbank, where the management includes a whole squad of US citizens? How can we give questions of our digital sovereignty to characters like Dmitry Peskov from ASI, who sleeps and sees how Education 2030 will turn Russian universities into the Skolkovo Foundation, supervised by Arkady Dvorkovich? But it was the Skolkovo Foundation, according to the Accounts Chamber, that spent 65.5 billion rubles of budget funds in 2013–2015 alone and became famous for its fabulous bonuses to the “tops.”

A source in the telecommunications industry, with whom Tsargrad spoke on this topic, noted that Russia urgently needs to carry out a large-scale reform of the national communications system, making this system national. This specialist, who was at the forefront of the formation of the communications system in Russia, called for “covering up this entire digital economy” by investing billions of budget funds allocated for it in eliminating the technological lag of the regions. This source was amazed that the federal center is investing enormous sums in incomprehensible digitalization with incomprehensible results without clear criteria for assessing effectiveness, when tens of millions of our fellow citizens in the periphery are barely making ends meet and need support, living in already subsidized regions.

Finally, if we now nationalize the communications system and protect it from the influence of foreign citizens and intelligence services, then we still have a chance not to lose the pace of the technological breakthrough, says a high-ranking source from Constantinople. Taking into account everything listed above, it is difficult to disagree with this.

Main directions

We consider in what areas digitalization can be applied and why it may be needed in a particular industry and human life, it is worth highlighting:

Various information fields and industries, including computer science and security.
In the field of higher, additional, secondary education and kindergartens. Even in preschool educational institutions, the introduction of technology can have a positive result in terms of its impact on children’s knowledge acquisition.
In healthcare, rehabilitation, physical education and sports.
In tourism and hotel business.
In energy and power industry.
In the banking and financial sector.
In agriculture and agro-industrial complex.
Global digitalization will also help in various areas of engineering production, shipbuilding and aviation industries.
It can also significantly change the situation in the field of culture and services.

Goals

Regardless of where new technologies will be applied, the concept of such implementation is to achieve the following goals:

Introduction of open information, which is an integral part of global digitalization.
Improvement of social and political factors of human life.
Acceleration and improvement of business processes, which reduces not only financial investments from the owner, but also saves his time and energy for performing routine actions.

Thus, the digitalization of the economy, energy, business, social and other spheres leads to the fact that the quality of life of the population will continuously change for the better.

But at the same time, many may wonder if in Russia, according to the statements of ministers and other responsible persons, digitalization has been successfully implemented at different stages and in different industries for a long time, then why do we not see this scale and do not feel rapid enough changes in our lives.

And the answer to this question is quite simple. A clear indicator of the success of the global process of introducing new technologies is the widespread and reliable acceptance of open information. But, unfortunately, due to age characteristics and mentality, as well as the fact that new technologies have not been introduced into the life of every person in our country, such a process is not possible at all levels.

Thus, the use of smart gadgets, such as a refrigerator, makes it possible to regularly monitor the level of freshness of food. As soon as the expiration date expires, the device itself will signal the need to make a purchase or implement this process of purchasing goods in the required quantity. But not all citizens of the country understand why this is necessary.

And in remote regions, food in rural areas can be stored altogether, in the cellar. And the level of electrification does not allow for uninterrupted Internet. So it turns out to be a kind of vicious circle that will break with itself over time. Since the new generation is quite intensive and more willing to apply and use the fruits of digitalization not only in the capital, but also in the regions.

Technologies shaping the digital economy

Almost the entire layer of modern information and communication technologies has some relation to the digital economy. We will highlight only five technologies that are the most important.

Cloud computing

Cloud Computing is an information technology concept that involves providing ubiquitous and convenient on-demand network access to a total volume of configurable computing resources that can be quickly provisioned and released with minimal operating costs or calls to the provider.

In the everyday understanding, cloud technologies are access to remote data storage and remote computing resources, which are provided to the user on demand and in the required volume.

Examples of resources include data networks, servers, storage devices, applications and services, both together and individually. In other words, cloud technologies are data processing technologies in which computer resources are provided to the Internet user as an online service.

This concept appeared in 2006 and is rapidly taking on an increasingly significant role in practice: the public cloud computing market grew from $17 billion in 2009 (about 5% of the entire information technology market) to $175 billion in 2014. Cloud technologies have a large number of advantages compared to classical IT architecture:

saving on computing power;
fault tolerance;
high data processing speed;
savings on licenses and software;
cheap server space;
accessibility (limited only by the presence/absence of the Internet);
resistance to DDOS attacks.

It must be said that cloud technologies have made a colossal, if not decisive, contribution to the foundation of the digital economy. This contribution is not limited to just the technological component, but also includes economic and ideological components. The development of cloud technologies, for example, led to the emergence of such concepts as production on-demand, software as a service and many others, which became the leitmotif of most business models and the principle of economic interactions in the digital economy.

Big Data

Big Data is a set of approaches, tools and methods designed for processing structured and unstructured data (including from various independent sources) in order to obtain human-perceivable results. Big data is characterized by significant volume, variety and speed of updating, which makes standard methods and tools for working with information insufficiently effective.

Thus, Big Data technology is a tool for making decisions based on large amounts of information.

This area of information technology began to actively develop in 2010. Today, there are many methods and complex software products that allow you to process Big Data, including those from IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, EMC, Apache Software Foundation (HADOOP), etc.

Examples of information sources that require big data techniques include:

logs of user behavior on the Internet;
GPS signals from cars for a transport company;
information about transactions of all bank clients;
information about all purchases in a large retail chain;
information from numerous city IP video cameras;
information from sensors of large production facilities equipped with industrial Internet technology, etc.

The number of data sources is growing rapidly, which means that technologies for processing them are becoming increasingly in demand.

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that combines many technologies, implying that all devices (and things in general) are equipped with sensors and connected to the Internet, which allows for remote monitoring, control and management of processes in real time (including in automatic mode).

Today, two major directions have been formed:

Internet of Things (IoT – Internet of Things),
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT – Industrial Internet of Things).

Instrumentally, these technologies are very similar, the key difference is in the purpose: if the main task of the Internet of Things is to collect all kinds of data (which will be used as a priority for building models and forecasts), then the purpose of the Industrial Internet of Things is to automate production (through remote management of resources and capacities by sensor readings).

According to analysts from Ovum, Machina Research and Nokia, the number of industrial connected devices will exceed 530 million units by 2022, and by 2025 their number will range from 20 to 200 billion units.

In many countries, the development of technologies for managing production resources, including in the interests of their virtual use, is carried out within the framework of government programs for transformation and the creation of a “Digital” economy: Industrie in Germany, Advanced Manufacturing Technology in the USA, a strategic concept for the development of production in China, which is betting on quality, innovation and implementation of advanced technologies, Innovate UK in the UK, National Digital Economy in Australia. Projects for the creation and implementation of IoT platforms and the development of application services are also underway in Russia. The Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IDF) has developed a roadmap for the development of the Internet of Things and established the Internet of Things Association. As part of the activities of the new technical committee for standardization “Cyber-physical systems”, operating within the framework of Rosstandart, it is planned to develop and adopt standards in the field of the Internet of Things.

Cognitive technologies

The name comes from the word cognitio (Latin “to know”), that is, cognitive technologies are technologies that “work” with our cognition: assessing our attention, tracking our state, monitoring the work of the brain and trying to “understand” a person.

The most promising areas for the development of these technologies are:

cognotropic drugs intended to expand human capabilities, including the development of intelligence and memory;
cognitive assistants - adaptive support systems in various situations (access control, autopilot);
virtual interfaces of the “brain-computer” type are intuitive, accessible ways for everyone to control computer systems.

According to IDC estimates, the global market for cognitive technologies will grow by an average of 55% annually in the coming years, and will reach $31.3 billion by 2022. At the same time, more than 40% of the market will be occupied by software: applications for analyzing texts and other materials, searching , machine learning, categorization, hypothesis generation, navigation, as well as cognitive platforms designed for the development of intelligent programs.

Almost 20% of global purchases of cognitive systems will come from the banking industry. In banks, they are used to detect fraud, automate analysis and eliminate threats, as well as develop recommendations. The second and third places in terms of purchase volume are occupied by trade, where cognitive systems provide the work of automated customer service agents, merchandising and healthcare, where they are used in diagnostic and treatment systems.

The development of cognitive technologies and knowledge about the structure of the human brain will help us in the development of artificial intelligence. It is necessary to distinguish between full-fledged Artificial Intelligence, which has almost limitless capabilities and enslaves humanity in many science fiction films, and intellectualized systems, which are the evolutionary development of cognitive systems. True artificial intelligence is currently the subject of, rather, philosophical debate about the fundamental possibility of existence and the potential danger.

Intelligent systems can already be seen, with IBM's Watson supercomputer being a prime example. Already, the cloud-based cognitive system Watson allows you to conduct dialogues with users automatically on the website of USAA (financial services for the military), and makes decisions at WellPoint (a medical insurance company in the USA).

Virtual (digital) currency

Electronic currency is money that does not have a material embodiment, which can be used as a full-fledged banknote.

Cryptocurrency

This is a type of virtual currency, the emission (“production”, mining) of which is based on the specific application of cryptographic algorithms.

Blockchain (distributed ledger, chain of transaction blocks)

BlockChain is a methodology for building distributed databases (without a single center), in which each record contains information about the history of ownership, which makes it extremely difficult to falsify it (the information).

Blockchain is used in virtual currency systems to perform operations (issue of monetary units, transfers) and store their history.

Stages of development

Based on these features, it is worth noting that digital development in our country has its own characteristics that affect not only the quality of life, but also labor relations and other areas of human life and sectors of the economy as a whole. They can be identified in the following steps:

Household. It is the first and fastest step, since its funding is insignificant, and many young people are eager to use new opportunities to facilitate various daily processes.
The second stage involves the introduction of new technologies into different areas of production. This is already more labor- and resource-intensive. But without the use of such technologies, it is impossible to talk about the competitiveness of manufactured products.
At the same time, the use of new opportunities in government agencies and business is increasing. This not only speeds up all processes, but also reduces the error factor. And in some cases it increases the profit received.

Level of development of the digital economy in Russia

But the reality is much more cruel than the situation at Yandex. According to BGG experts, the share of the digital economy in Russia’s GDP is 3-4 times less than that of the digitalization leaders (USA, Japan, UK, China).

Moreover, the lag behind Russia in terms of digitalization from the same rating leaders is about 5-8 years . Is it a lot or a little? Hard to tell.

On the one hand, in 5 years you can make a breakthrough, get close to the leaders and, as was said at the very beginning, increase your GDP by 30%. On the other hand, the lack of stimulation of the digital economy over the same period can easily increase the gap from 5-8 years to 15-20 . It’s somehow not too chic here...

Advantages

Considering the advantages of widespread digitalization, it is worth highlighting:

Possibility of emergence of new specialties.
Increased labor productivity in all sectors of the economy.
Higher quality of life for the population.
Reducing the manifestations of bureaucracy and corruption.

But, at the same time, the concept of this action and the introduction of various electronic and other innovations causes a number of disadvantages that can be described by the following processes and phenomena:

Reduction of jobs.
Increased risks of cybercrime.
Significant financial investments in terms of introducing new technologies.

But the negative processes and consequences are offset by the advantages in terms of the impact on society, the country’s economy and the world structure as a whole.

Why Russia took the path of digitalization

New technologies help countries improve many areas: from education and medicine to public administration. To apply them, you need to create a digital environment.

Refusal of digitalization may lead to the country finding itself on the outskirts of civilization. While neighboring states will take full advantage of modern technologies to improve various areas, more conservative jurisdictions risk stagnation.

To avoid going down this path, Russia has taken up digitalization. The Russian government expects that modern technologies will improve the quality of life of citizens and help businesses reduce costs. To achieve this goal, it is ready to spend billions of rubles.

Presentation of the “Digital Economy” program of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation. Source: official website of the department

Pros of digitalization

Automation. Many processes, such as information processing, logistics and others, will be performed by machines without human intervention.
Reduced errors: risks associated with the human factor can be eliminated.
Reduce costs by automating processes and reducing the number of possible errors.
Speeding up processes. For example, you can digitize a company’s document flow and automate data processing. In this case, reports will be prepared twice as fast, and you won’t have to spend a lot of time searching for the necessary information.

Disadvantages of digitalization

Dependence on technical equipment: the effectiveness of digitalization depends on the quality of technical solutions. If a piece of equipment fails, the entire system will be paralyzed.
Strengthening control over citizens: digitalization allows regulators to organize oversight over many areas. For example, through the launch of digital national currencies, authorities will be able to track all financial transactions.

Industries

If we take a closer look at what digitalization leads to in different industries, these goals can be described as follows.

Healthcare

In healthcare, rehabilitation and beauty preservation industries, the use of new technologies provides a number of the following opportunities:

Use gadgets that make it possible to remotely monitor a person’s health status. This reduces errors and reduces the risk of human error.
The introduction of electronic document management allows a physician to gain access to a patient’s medical history almost instantly.

Economy

Digitalization of business, accounting, budget process, logistics, as well as other areas of the economy provides the following prospects:

Process the entire volume of data and obtain results quickly, efficiently and with minimal errors.
Provides online services.
Go online trading, making electronic payments.
Use crowdfunding.
Use online advertising, thereby expanding the funnel of your potential and regular customers.
Introduce electronic document management.

If earlier the economy was focused on agriculture, then it moved into the industrial and post-industrial phases. Today it is worth talking about the digital economy, which is an area of economic activity where the predominant share of data is processed through the use of new technologies and devices.

Education

In the field of education, both schools and universities, new technologies provide:

Ability to use various simulators and simulators to gain practical skills.
By using gamification, gain new knowledge in an easier and more accessible form.
Accelerate the process of acquiring knowledge or regulate it in accordance with the individual needs of the student.

Business

In the field of small and medium-sized private businesses, the introduction of new technologies can have the following obvious effects:

Acceleration of work with document flow.
Automation of tasks during the transition from device to personnel and in the reverse order.
Optimization of all ongoing processes.
Changing the business management system, from the implementation of economic tasks to strategic planning of any complexity.

Control

In the field of management, digitalization provides the following tangible effects:

Speed of working with archives.
Implementation of speedy transfer of banking transactions and services.
Access to any databases and libraries.
Work with large amounts of data and any staff.

How does the digital economy work?

The digital economy is an activity in which the key factors of production are data presented in digital form, and their processing and use in large volumes, including directly at the time of their formation, allows, compared to traditional forms of management, to significantly increase the efficiency, quality and productivity in various types of production, technologies, equipment, storage, sale, delivery and consumption of goods and services.

An example of a digital economy is any economic activity carried out via the Internet. Any company that seeks to fully or partially transfer its activities online can be called digital. If an enterprise is associated with electronic technologies such important aspects of its functioning as management, control and analysis of business, provision of services or delivery of goods, logistics and marketing, then such a company can be counted among those that form the electronic economy.

For example, Uber or Yandex taxi are certainly technology companies whose activities are based on advanced technologies for interacting with customers. As a result, the consumer received a radically new type of service provision with lower organization costs, which led to cheaper taxi fares.

It also happens that a completely traditional company switches to the digital economy. In particular, this was the case with the Pyaterochka supermarket chain. When the administration realized that almost 70% of resources were spent on maintenance, it launched digital transformation with partner IBS and switched to new technologies, which made it possible to improve the business model.

Benefits of the digital economy

The digital economy, namely the emergence of new opportunities, certainly has a positive impact on human life.

Thanks to the development of digital technologies, consumers can quickly receive the services they need and save money by buying products in online stores at lower prices. Thus, the electronic version of the book will cost you several times cheaper than its printed counterpart; by purchasing wholesale on the Internet, by making arrangements with other consumers, you will save more than by making purchases at offline retail outlets. In the end, a consumer can even start a business online, becoming an entrepreneur, without leaving home.

In its 2016 review “Digital Dividends,” the World Bank lists other advantages of the development of the digital economy:

increase in labor productivity;
increasing the competitiveness of companies;
reduction of production costs;
creation of new jobs;
overcoming poverty and social inequality.

And these are just a few examples of how the digital economy has a positive impact on our lives, giving many opportunities to the average user, and thereby expanding the capabilities of the market itself.

Disadvantages of the digital economy

The introduction of “digital” and e-commerce into life nevertheless brings a number of disadvantages for humanity, including:

the risk of cyber threats associated with the problem of protecting personal data (part of the problem of fraud can be solved by the introduction of so-called digital literacy);
“digital slavery” (the use of data on millions of people to control their behavior);
growth of unemployment in the labor market, since the risk of disappearance of some professions and even industries will increase (for example, many experts seriously believe that the banking system will disappear within the next ten years). This will become possible due to the further spread of information technology and its products, such as stores with electronic cash registers, bots serving customers, unmanned vehicles, etc.);
“digital divide” (a gap in digital education, in terms of access to digital services and products, and, as a consequence, a gap in the level of well-being of people in the same country or in different countries).

Impact on society

As you can see, the impact of digitalization on the economy is exclusively positive. But, given the need to reduce the number of jobs, any introduction of certain innovations must be accompanied by careful planning in order to minimize possible negative effects.

But given that electronic devices and universal Internet connectivity pose a risk of data loss, industries must develop simultaneously with digitalization to ensure data security, both from the point of view of cybercrime and technical failure. The blockchain system and blockchain technologies are designed to implement this.

Why do Russia and other countries need a digital economy?

The digital economy is designed to improve the lives of citizens; it eliminates queues in banks, shops and healthcare institutions. The digital economy allows you to work with huge amounts of information, the so-called. “big data”, analyze it and draw conclusions. Neural networks, robotics, and virtual reality are already improving medicine.

However, the use of the digital economy also reduces the GDP of countries due to the outflow of citizens' funds abroad (for example, Booking - booking a hotel through a foreign service, and not directly; or calling a taxi through Uber, and not through a local taxi service). Therefore, the presence of huge companies forces politicians to come up with strange initiatives, for example, banning Microsoft, as well as inventing their own companies. In this regard, we can look up to China, where Facebook and Twitter are banned, but have their own WeChat messenger.