I work in B2B sales at a company that wholesales building materials. In my work I use company´s ERP system and Microsoft office programs. Digitalisation has made work easier because all information is now available in electronically. It is easy to search for prices online and it has made customers more price aware. Thanks to electronic data transfer (EDI), placing orders is much easier and online stores are common in B2B trade. Meetings can be held remotely, and it has reduced travel. In the future, online shopping will increase in B2B sales.

Digitalization offers opportunities and challenges. Some professions disappear but will be replaced by new ones. In the future, ICT skills will be emphasized. Artificial intelligence increases automation and robots can do simple task that require repetition. Artificial intelligence can be used in various design tasks, and it can be used for example to improve inventory management. The amount of data increase and it can be analysed more efficiently, so it is easier to make various predictions.

A risk in an open digital society is personal data ending up in a wrong hand. A DoS (denial-of-service) attacks can disrupt society´s functions by targeting websites. They can also be used to disrupt the services of banks and making it impossible to pay with credit cards. Online scams are more sophisticated and harder to identify.  The development of artificial intelligence unfortunately provides more tool, like a deepfake technology, for online scammers. Perhaps due to a cyber-attack and the possibility of a technical problem, electronic voting is not used in Finnish elections.

I think GDPR is a good thing because it was made to protect the privacy of all of us and organizations have had to improve their data protection practices. It has improved people´s awareness of data protection and privacy. Hopefully people think more about where they give their personal data. I personally don’t see any disadvantages in the GDPR regulation. It causes cost for companies, but poorly managed information security can become even more expensive when reputation damage is included.

I have used artificial intelligence and noticed, that it gives correct answers, but the question must be written simply. The problem with the free version is that information is not necessarily up to date. I asked AI a few questions about the future of the working life and the answers seems reasonable. AI is a good tool for quick information acquisition. AI is developing fast, and it can analyze big amounts of data thus help to make better decisions. It can be used to automate many functions.

In the future, digitalization will play a growing role in our lives. It also contains risks, that everyone must be prepared for.  The video about the use of drones was interesting and made me think about the possibilities of using them in the future, when sensor technology is still developing.

COMMENTS

Raija´s site – My blog (savonia.fi)

Hello Raija! Thank you for your blog post. It was interesting to get to know the surgical robot and think about what kind of opportunities such technology can offer in the future. I thought that in robotic surgery, the reliability of technology and communication connections is critical factor. I also remember the slowness of the GPRS connections. The connections of that time cannot be compared to today.

DIGI SOCIETY | Digitalized Working Environment course (savonia.fi)

Hello! Thank you for your blog post. It was good point to highlight the problems of the Finnish healthcare. At least incredible amount of money has been invested in its ICT systems over the years. But could IOT be the solution to the problems?