One of the results presented by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) during the two-day Digital Summit of the Federal Government Study shows that in Germany, small and medium-sized enterprises in particular have a lot of catching up to do in terms of digitisation. As expected, the information and communication industry (ICT) is the front-runner in the digitization index with 273 points. An index of 100 points was defined as the mean value across all sectors.
Other sectors that are the technology of the future such as Cloud systems that have already been used productively and thus performed well in the Digitisation Index are vehicle construction (193 points), mechanical and electrical engineering (144 points) and business-related services (135 points). The chemical, pharmaceutical and basic materials sectors were slightly below average (99 points), followed by trade, logistics and transport (75 points). At the bottom of the table are the other manufacturing industries (55 points), tourism (64 points) and other manufacturing industries (66 points).
Digitization depending on company size
Apart from the industry, the degree of digitisation of a company depends above all on its size. Large companies (more than 249 employees) have a higher digitisation rate on average than medium-sized companies (50 to 249 employees). According to the study, however, small companies (1 to 49 employees) have the greatest digitization potential.
In addition, there are strong regional differences in the degree of digitization. Southern Germany and metropolitan areas such as Berlin, Hanover, Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg and Munich are leading the way.
Annual study on digitisation planned
In future, the Digitisation Index is to be published annually as part of the project "Development and Measurement of Digitisation of the German Economy". This will ensure that the effects of measures such as the European cloud initiative Gaia-X can be measured by concrete key figures.
In the current first year, the starting places are quasi determined. We can see that there are enormous differences in the degree of digitization between the industries.
Thomas Jarzombek, Representative of the Ministry of Economics for the Digital Economy and Start-ups
In addition, the results of the Digitisation Index are intended to help industry and politics to gear new digitisation measures such as the planned data strategy of the EU Commission even more specifically to the needs of companies. In this context, 37 indicators will be collected which reflect the status of digitisation.
