BERLIN, April 1 (Xinhua) -- A survey published by the digital association Bitkom on Wednesday showed that 90 percent of German companies saw digitization as an opportunity, only 5 percent as a risk.
Although companies in Germany had made progress with digitization over the past 12 months, they were "rather reluctant to assess their own progress," Bitkom noted.
The coronavirus crisis was a "wake-up call to push ahead massively with digitization," said Bitkom President Achim Berg. The crisis had shown "very clearly" the importance of digital technologies for business, administration and society.
Bitkom noted that "digitization intensifies competition". Six out of ten German companies said that competitors with an online business model, the IT industry or other external industries were pushing into their market.
At the same time, almost half of the more than 600 companies from all business sectors in Germany surveyed said that competitors from their own industry, who had focused on digitization at an early stage, were now ahead of them.
However, only 10 percent of companies saw their survival threatened by digitization. Last year, the share was 12 percent and two years ago the share was even at 24 percent, the survey found.
At the same time, one in three German companies reported to have problems coping with digitization, the survey found. The three biggest hurdles in the use of new technologies were requirements of data protection, technical security and a lack of skilled workers.
"It has taken us too long to digitize," stressed Berg. "Now it is a matter of building up digital infrastructure, comprehensively digitizing business processes and developing new, digital business models."
