Digital transformation is changing the way businesses, both small and large, operate. Here we take a look at how Sharp Europe is responding to the ever-changing demands of the digital workplace.
Birgit Jackson and Digital Transformation
Birgit Jackson (formerly Sommerer) is the new Commercial Director for Sharp's Visual Solutions business and joins Sharp after almost nine years at NEC, where she rose to Head of the Product Management Team.
Birgit brings over 20 years of experience in Global and EMEA product management to the company, and is set to define our product line-up and portfolio strategy for the European sales regions.
This makes Birgit perfectly placed to discuss the nature of digital transformation and how Sharp Visual Solutions can help your business meet the needs of the digital workplace:
Digital transformation in the workplace has become something of a buzzword of late, but in reality it has been happening over the last 20 years, ever since email started to replace the letter as the main means of communication. However, digitisation today has started to have a real visible impact on the way people want to work, and their technology preferences. For example, the use of smartphones in addition to laptops and traditional office programs has created a more complex ecosystem of digital tools and digital sources of information.
One of the main reasons for this change is seen in the increasing number of Millennials, those in their 20s and early 30s, in the workplace. These workers are tech-savvy, used to juggling digital data, and used to the ease-of-use and immediacy of smartphones. As a result, they are making businesses change the technology they use and the tools they provide.
If organisations don’t keep up with the technology preferences of their people, they suffer, or people just use their own devices instead, and the business loses control of its data. So there’s a pressure to speed up digital transformation.
This creates challenges in the way that people work together. In an increasingly digital working environment, with phones, tablets and virtual teams, it is even more important to get people to collaborate, share and exchange information.
At Sharp we not only look at how devices can help with digitisation but also how our devices can become more intuitive and open to a wider range of users.
In a digital working environment, it is increasingly common that people in a meeting are not in the same room, even the same country. Hence video conferencing and cloud-based storage and information management are very important for day to day work.
That’s why we think having a network-enabled interactive display, such as our BIG PAD range, in a meeting room or a huddle space is important. It means that people can work together on one screen and can be used by everyone. We call this an ‘Eyes Up’ meeting, which makes it more likely you will get everyone’s attention and contribution, compared to a meeting where everyone is eyes down on their own devices.
We believe that people can achieve more when they can focus on the meeting not the technology, so we prioritise ease of use in our displays and something we call Pen-on-Paper, which is getting the experience of using our displays as close as possible to a natural writing experience.
What’s more, by having the interactive display connected to your company network, you not only make video conferencing easier, it also makes collaboration easier as you can seamlessly capture and share information and ideas between those attending the meeting.
Ultimately, digital technologies need to support human interaction rather than replace it and that is the level of innovation we at Sharp are bringing to our Visual Solutions portfolio.
Sharp is constantly working to improve Visual Solutions technologies that meet the needs of the changing workplace and deliver the right tool for the right place. If you would like to find out how we can help your business, Get In Touch.
