Impact Of The Digital Revolution On Society Essay

Impact of the digital revolution on society The Revolution in digital communication technology is proceeding and bringing new technologies to everyday life at break-neck speed. Most key technologies are still evolving and will do so beyond 2005. The ground-breaking evolution of the technologies will have a profound effect on the work styles on every individual. More often than not people of all sectors either he is a teacher, researcher, staff member or an administrator will greatly depend on technology assistant and the Internet to go in pursuit of their day to day work schedules. In all the roles the physical boundaries that constraint the individual schedule and activities will be greatly reduced. A variety of tasks that presently used to require a trip like shopping, banking, acquiring news and entertainment are accomplished from anywhere. People depend on the digital assistant for shopping, banking, plan holiday and search information. When people finish work and go home, the machine goes with them. The evolution of digital WEB-TV will help all sectors of people to get connected to World Wide Web. Web TV helps people who are not educated or cannot afford a computer to get connected from their respective homes in a gainful mode. By the year 2005 the much anticipated information technology trends will be well established. * The first is towards smaller, cheaper and faster microprocessor, which in turn allows ever-more effective compression and encryption of data, and makes appliances and tools appear smaller and smart. * The second is the trend toward enormously greater digital storage capacities, and allows vast libraries of information to be stored inexpensively on-line. * The third and forth trends are toward high-speed and wireless networking. By the year 2005 about the usage of Internet enabled wireless phones will surpass and about one billion people will be connected to the Internet. Impact on the Individual, Customer & Consumer By the year 2005 Individuals will make use of the digital evolution resourcefully and save their time. Individuals use internet as an decisive tool for online payment of bills, online banking, online booking of cinema, plan travel, holiday accommodation booking, training & educational needs, make appointments with Beautician, Barber, Solicitor Doctor etc. Large sector of people depend on Internet for email correspondence and searching information for their everyday needs. Individuals will mostly use wireless web enabled devices such as Personal Digital Assistants, Windows CE pocket PC, RIM Pagers over Desktop PC’s. Customer & Consumer By the year 2005 Internet will be the most dominant method for buying products. â€Å"Customer Bargaining Power† becomes more evident as the customers have a great variety of choice from their desktops. Industrial consumer use Internet for placing their orders. On-line orders are expected to grow substantially, distributors selling to industrial customers will get to receive online orders about 40% of their total orders. B2C â€Å"Business to Customer† websites or on-line shops will increase and extend from durable goods into many more areas of consumer goods and daily provisions. But customers purchase only simple products on-line. The items purchased by customer often require minimal support or no customer support, the more the complexity of the product the less the customer but it online. Consumers are more sophisticated. Marketing departments will seek external assistance from specialists such as advertising agents, consumer psychologist and consumer-marketing consultants to ensure their applications are both focused and compelling. Impact on Organisations The rapid pace of development of technologies and the changing environment has made unavoidable that organisation has to redefine their business models and to invest in technology to make them e-business enabled. Organisations continually work on how they can add value to their  e-business. In the highly competitive and fragmented market, customers view independent Internet based procurement marketplaces as the most effective way to obtain competitive pricing on both project packages and standard items. Companies will provide product information on their website and will also make a provision for online ordering as most of the customers during 2005 use Internet for their purchases. In addition most of the organisations will make investment in the technology and have systems like Warehouse Management System, Order Tracking System, Customer Relation Management in place. Companies will unlock their distribution, sales and logistics functions and will train their sales forces to leverage online products and technical information. The sales forces job will become wider from just order takers to teach customers about the product. Large organisations will build their own portals and marketplaces for implenting B2B, more industries will join to implement the B2B business model. Many organisations implement Supply Chain Management and will have closer connections with their suppliers and customers. SCM in 2005 represents a philosophy of managing technology and processes in such a way that the enterprises optimize the delivery of goods, services and information. Supply chain e-markets like value added networks, channel masters, third-party logistics firms, wholesalers, IT vendors and system integrator will emerge and significantly help the organisations to enact a recombinant business model. Impact on Government By the year 2005, Government IT budget and spending will increase substantially. Majority of the government transactional services will be provided online. Transactions between various departments of the government will be networked and a substantial part of transfer of files and paper is saved. Governments implement E-Governance business model and deliver the information and services to the public using electronic means. Use of IT by government facilitates an efficient, speedy and transparent process for disseminating information to the public and other agencies, and  for performing government administration activities. All the departments will be fully computerized and public uses Internet and email for their queries and appointments and payment of bills and taxes. The Government will take a major role in implementing Cyber Law, spreading IT awareness among people and changing their mindsets. The Government will provide IT infrastructure by launching information satellites, establishing national communication grids, establishing satellite communication gateways, information kiosks at public places such as shopping centers, post offices, railway stations and libraries. Impact on Education By the year 2005 the e-learning through internet will grow considerably and will become a cream of the crop for people pursuing higher education. Use of e-learning in higher education will explode and many Universities will provide distance learning. Corporate e-training will grow vividly as e-training to their employees will help the employers to save money by cutting costs on travel and accommodation bills. New industry e-learning product manufacturers will evolve, many organisations will tie up with big universities and develop e-learning training products and will either sell directly or deliver online through subscriptions. This will help prospective students to attain first-rate education at a very low cost. Technology innovations will continue to reshape the e-learning landscape e-learning forums will be established and the e-learning providers will increase their investments and will compete with the education institutions and universities. Impact on markets Technology market will continue to evolve and Internet enabled device market will boom, there will be a substantial increase in the Internet enabled devices. B2B and B2C business models will continue to grow. Software Technology Market Voice Recognition is already a pillar of the technology industry and will become more vital component by 2005 as a next generation of communication product. I see the importance of Voice Recognition growing day by day and most of the computers will be controlled with voice commands, rather than keystrokes or mouse clicks. Streaming Audio Video Revolution. Streaming Media Industry will boom, by the year 2005 Streaming Video and Audio importance will be unleashed and will be used extensively for the purpose of distance education, online news broadcasting, corporate webnairs & seminars and for net meetings. Wireless industry Market Wireless industry will boom and developments in the mobile and wireless soil will continue to drive a near revolution in Europe and America. Penetration of data-enabled mobile phones will exceed two to four times of internet penetration by 2005.Wirelesss devices will ultimately displace the Desktop PC’s as the preferred internet access devices. Mobile commerce will increase and the consumer transactions where sale is committed from a mobile device could be up to $2 trillion by the year 2005. Mobile Network operators will be well equipped to target micro payments. Technologies such as WAP, 3G , NTT Do COMO will spread across the whole world to enable cheap and faster modes of wireless services. Blootooth Revolution, will enable possibilities for establishing quick ad-hoc links, and enable mobility during a cordless connection, which is not offered by infrared enabled products. The Blootooth semiconductors revenues alone might surpass $3 billion, and the bluetooth-enabled devices might exceed 250 million units by the year 2005. As the technology market will be evolving beyond 2005, many new technologies and e- business models will progress. Impact on industries Unlike today, where an explosion of technology companies compete for venture capital, I predict that the internet economy by 2005 will be a network of established businesses whose influence comes from stretches around the world. Number of players will shrink and several large companies dominate each segment of the Internet. However, Internet forces business models to change by the year 2005, great changes will be made in many industries. The Book Industry will fully adapt the digital revolution and many publishers will sell their electronic-books on the Internet. Newspaper industry will experience a great change by 2005 most of its customers buy and read their daily newspaper online. The industry will be fully digital compatible and will sell newspaper on the basis of subscriptions. Readers will buy monthly or yearly subscriptions and read online. By the year 2005 I see great changes in the travel industry and there will be a great impact of digital technology on this industry. Most of the airline companies will be selling flight tickets and deals directly online to the customers. The travel industry will make alliances vertically with the related industries such as Hotel industry, Transport industry Amusement and Parks etc., and will directly sell the Holiday Packages and deals to their customers. As the airline company itself sells flight tickets online and travel agents will evolve themselves as e-travel agent or virtual travel agent and normally sell holiday package deals to the customers. The digital effect is more uncovered and will broaden By 2005 almost every modern, traditional small, large, private and public sector industries will implement some level of digital technology. Impact on leisure, travel, etc. The digital impact on leisure and travel is massive, unlike the present people by 2005 will mostly depend on e- travel agents and airline industry for planning there holiday. People search Internet for their holiday spots and will book all necessary hotel accommodation and travel online. As there will be massive changes in the travel industry the tourism departments of various countries will put their tourism and local festival information online to enable people scattered across the world to know. Planning a holiday in 2005 is more interesting and lively. Conclusion â€Å"Internet considerably shrinks the size of our Universe and we will see a High Tech digital world by the year 2005 and beyond.† ‘The world as I see it †¦2005’ Author : Bhaskar Kolluru Page 3 of 11