Digital Transformation: the most important terms

It is well known that digital transformation is revolutionizing the world and, in addition to winners, also knows losers. But which concepts should everyone know in order to have a say? A glossary as part of our theme week Digital Transformation.

App push notifications

Prerequisite for push notifications is that the user has an app of the marketing company or one of its partners installed. As a result, the company can send messages to the user via the app, even if the app does not actively open the app. The push notification appears on the smartphone, similar to an SMS or WhatsApp message, and typically (but not necessarily) links to content in the app. Push notifications from apps have become an important channel in digital dialogue marketing.

Augmented reality

This is a form of digital reality. Augmented reality is the term for an additional level of reality, which is placed over the existing reality. For example, Hololens from Microsoft offers the option to show one. Likewise, more and more games ("Pokemon Go") use the technology to place the little Pokemons on the smartphone and the camera function in the real world.

Autonomous driving

Driving an object completely autonomously eliminates the need for a human driver. The technology benefits among others cars and robots. In order to categorize the degree of automation, vehicles can be classified into different levels. The international association Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has created a concept in this regard. Following this, the degree of automation or autonomy extends from level zero ("driver only") to level five ("driverless", "full automation"). A car that fits in the latter category can be described as a "robot car". For example, even under adverse weather and road conditions, it has to be in control of every imaginable traffic situation and can do without a human driver.

Big Data

Big data analytics means concepts, procedures, technologies, and software applications that process large volumes of data from proprietary and external data sources for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Six percent of German companies with ten or more employees carried out big data analyzes in 2015, reported the Federal Statistical Office in September 2017. Large companies had used the methods more often than smaller ones. For large companies with 250 and more employees, the proportion was 17 percent, for medium-sized companies (50 to 249 employees) at nine percent. Small businesses (ten to 49 employees) would have needed 5 percent less big data.

Blockchain

Blockchain technology is considered the Internet of the future. In simple terms, each blockchain consists of a chain of records managed and calculated by all computers on the network. A copy of the encrypted data ends up on each connected computer. Thus, a forgery or even deletion of data is de facto no longer possible. In this way, bitcoins can be stored quickly and safely and transferred to an account.