We begin a New Year. Not much is assured, but perhaps one thing we can count on is more technology. This year will probably be associated with more self-driving cars, drones and faster download speeds – but some benefit from progress more than others.
A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute entitled Digital America: A Tale of the Haves and Have-Mores highlights a growing digital divide. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the report’s authors begin with the premise that nearly everyone is benefiting from technology at some level, whether consumers driving home with the use of GPS to small businesses that sell merchandise online. But some frontier firms – those on the leading edge of digitization -- are making far better use of it.
The report measures digitization along three axes: investment in assets like computers and data storage, usage of technologies like payment systems or social marketing, and how digitally enabled the workforce is.
The McKinsey authors conclude that companies that use digital technology enjoy higher growth, higher profitability, and are disrupting their industries to the benefit of their executives and workers, but not necessarily to the benefit of others. These are the firms that are likely to have the best twenty sixteen.
