The broadband expansion is progressing – but remains the bottleneck in many places. According to a survey, many companies do not even have the basic requirements for digital business processes.
Gaps in the supply of fast Internet are still holding many companies in Germany down on digitization.
Although the situation with broadband expansion has improved, the Central Association of the Electrical and Electronics Industry (ZVEI) determined on Monday based on a survey in the industry. The situation is “still far from satisfactory”.
In 2016, around a quarter of those surveyed saw the lack of broadband expansion as a cause of slow digitization, now it is twelve percent. “Conversely, this means that more than every tenth company does not have the basis to implement digital business models,” the association concluded. This particularly affects small and medium-sized enterprises, which are often based in the countryside. 139 companies were surveyed, which according to ZVEI accounts for a third of the annual turnover in the industry.
The new federal government called on the ZVEI to promote technological innovations, artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven business models more actively. «AI-based solutions and algorithms have long been part of our everyday lives. Now more than ever, it is important to take advantage of their opportunities and not to freeze in the face of possible risks. To this end, regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles must finally be removed ”, warned ZVEI President Gunther Kegel.
For more than a third of electrical companies, a lack of legal certainty is a major obstacle to digitization. “The new federal government must find a pragmatic way of how personal data can also be used in a legally secure manner within the framework of the GDPR – for example through clearly defined anonymization procedures,” demanded the ZVEI.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union regulates the processing of personal data by private companies and public bodies. Its purpose is to ensure that personal data are protected within the European Union, but at the same time guarantee the free movement of data within the European internal market.
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