We’re Becoming A Digital Society

Apart from developing digital solutions, products and services, Dell Technologies also invests its time and effort in the development of society and provides support to numerous events that could help in the achieving of further progress, one of which is the Kopaonik Business Forum. Our interlocutor believes that this year’s forum will – as has been the case in all previous years – highlight areas where we need further progress and development, as well as ways to achieve those goals and improve the country where we live.

The world has been confronted by enormous challenges for the past three years. Initially with the pandemic, then with the war and the arrival of the energy and economic crisis. How did all this reflect on the IT sector?

The previous three years were extremely challenging in a business sense. The stability and development of the IT sector, which had enjoyed natural growth for years, experienced a sudden boom in a very short period. Somewhat unexpectedly, the whole world turned to solutions that had previously existed, but that hadn’t enjoyed widespread use.

With the outbreak of the pandemic, everything shifted online. There were really great challenges at the start, because companies had invested in an “in-house” culture, but employees had to adapt very quickly to the new situation and to function under those conditions. Projects halted instantaneously, but then it was as though someone waved a magic wand and used it to suddenly speed up all activities. We soon reached a paradox: new projects came at such a high speed that companies had to hire additional staff, because their existing human resources were overloaded. Of course, not all companies felt an improvement in their business – unfortunately, a certain section of those same companies had to lower their expectations.

A large part of the problem from the beginning of the pandemic and the general crisis spilled over onto companies that had based their core business on producing IT equipment. There were such major delivery delays that certain projects failed to meet their own planned deadlines and lasted a year and a half longer than planned. That also became our reality at one point, but we then reached production and delivery stabilisation in mid-2022, so everything went back to normal.

It isn’t possible to provide a generic answer explaining how the overall situation impacted the IT industry as a whole. Some segments of our industry flourished markedly and technological solutions found their application, while parts of the industry sustained heavy losses. We will feel the full impact of the crisis in the long run, because the IT industry – according to the assessments of world-renowned agencies – is awaited by a period of instability and unpredictability.

The market is constantly changing and imposing the need to increasingly introduce new solutions and more modern services. Serbia doesn’t differ from the rest of the world in this respect?

The world market is changing by the day, with the use of modern technologies having opened the door to the advancement of humankind. The tempo of daily life has increased drastically, and with it created the need to amend procedures and switch from paper to electronic services. Serbia has been lagging behind and the digitalisation of the entire state administration is underway, and we are thus becoming a digital society. the rest of the world in that sense, and a huge need arose to digitally transform procedures, both in the state and private sectors. The establishment and development of the state’s Office for IT and eGovernment led to significant shifts in the state sector, while in the meantime a significant number of civic procedures have been simplified and transferred to digital channels.

In both the state and private sectors, we will take banks as an example. Services have been simplified so much that we almost don’t need any physical contact in order to interact with the bank and complete everything we need on a daily basis.

Your company is among the sponsors of the Kopaonik Business Forum. What do you expect from the event itself, and how do expect the rest of 2023 to unfold in an economic sense?

Thanks to these developments, we can state unreservedly that Serbia is actually ahead of individual EU member states at this moment, when it comes to the number of services it provides to citizens; that there are no longer long queues to submit requests to issue new passports or identity cards. Apart from the services that are now already basic, we have taken a significant step forward

Apart from developing digital solutions, products and services, Dell Technologies also invests its time and effort in the development of society and provides support to numerous events that could help in the achieving of further progress. The Kopaonik Business Forum is one of the events at which opinions are exchanged regarding the further advancement of society and economy, and simply how we can improve the country where we live. I believe that this year’s forum will – as has been the case in all previous years – highlight areas where we need further progress and development, as well as ways to achieve those goals. From the current perspective, the future appears really unpredictable, alongside all the events currently unfolding around the world, and 2023 will be no less demanding than all previous years. In an economic sense, it was expected that emerging from the two-year crisis caused by the pandemic would usher in a more peaceful period that would enable economic development, first and foremost of fiscal policies, and would provide sufficient time to return to a certain sustainable path, according to the words of world experts. Alongside all the expectations of experts, and there are various opinions, and when we take them all into consideration, I think we shouldn’t stop fighting and that we should have a positive attitude in order to influence the environment and successfully overcome the possible negative impacts of possible crises.

“Our job is to ensure that business is faster, more efficient and simpler, both through regional initiatives like the Open Balkan initiative and the Western Balkans Chamber Investment Forum, as well as through submitting initiatives to the Government in the best interest of the economy“ ~

MIHAILO VESOVIĆ, DIRECTOR OF THE CCIS (PKS) SECTOR FOR STRATEGIC ANALYSIS, SERVICES AND INTERNATIONALISATION

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