CBM webinar on analyses digital transformation

According to the Accenture Technology Vision 2021, almost twothirds of executives surveyed said that their company’s digital transformation was accelerating, while four out of every five said that they were facing technological changes at an unprecedented speed and scale.

This was one of many insights shared by Ladan Davarzani, a senior principal at Accenture Research based in London. Davarzani presented an online public lecture entitled, Digital transformation: Realising the full value of emerging technologies, which was organised recently by the Economic Research Department of the Central Bank of Malta.

The Cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) account for the great majority of technologies is being considered by companies, with the former seen by 90% of them as the most effective way to be agile and resilient.

While stressing that the important thing was to derive value for the enterprise from the adopted technology, she noted that according to an Accenture study, AI had the potential to double economic growth by 2035, in the 12 countries it had analysed.

However, she stressed that policymakers need to be aware of the pitfalls associated with technological change, such as a widening digital divide, job losses, ethical concerns and cybercrime. This aspect elicited a number of questions from the audience – although there was broad agreement that on balance emerging technologies have the potential to help developed economies address important challenges such as the projected decline in available labour resources as a result of population ageing.

The webinar was opened by the bank’s chief economist Aaron Grech, who noted how the digital transformation could present significant opportunities for the Maltese economy, as it helps to reduce the disadvantages stemming from the peripheral nature of the islands vis-à-vis our main markets. He also noted how this transformation could be key for the success of the plan to become carbon neutral by 2050.

The recording of the webinar is available on https://www.centralbankmalta.org/events

The webinar was the first event of 2021 with others planned for this year. Anyone wishing to be notified of future events can follow the bank on its Facebook ‘Events’ page and on LinkedIn. One can also subscribe via the website to receive a customised newsletter when information of interest is uploaded