More than half of Czech companies will increase investment in digitization in five years

A total of 55 percent of domestic companies plan to increase investment in digitization in the next five years. Three-quarters of companies expect digitization to increase their productivity and put them ahead of the competition. By contrast, about a fifth of companies have no digital transformation strategy. This follows from this year's survey of the Confederation of Industry and Transport among domestic companies.

"The biggest problem in a few years will be companies that still underestimate the digital transformation. They will find themselves not only in data but also in business isolation, and digitally more mature competition will overwhelm them," said Jiří Holoubek, a member of the union's board of directors. About two-fifths of companies manage to keep up with the competition thanks to investments in digitization, and 20 percent consider themselves to be a leader in their field thanks to them.

In the last year, the share of companies that expect an increase in resilience to future crises has jumped. Compared to last year's survey, it rose from 25 to 38 percent. Businesses see a shortage of skilled workers as the biggest obstacle to transformation or face employee resistance to new technologies without understanding them. More than a third of companies have started training their own people and a fifth are already preparing educational programs.

Today, the Confederation of Industry awarded the five best projects of Industry 4.0 in 2021. The award went to Astra Motor for the introduction of digital twins for machine tools, Linde Gas for an automatic monitoring system for technical gas production using artificial intelligence or Škoda Auto for a unique farm of 3D printers used for printing. plastic parts for machine maintenance or printing of spare parts. The award was also given to the T-Mobile operator for creating a testbed at the VŠB - Technical University of Ostrava for the use of 5G networks in industry and Vitesco Technologies for introducing an automated product quality control system using infrared cameras and artificial intelligence.

Source: Confederation of Industry & Transport and CTK