High-tech Leadership. The way to go!

Companies, in particular SMEs, do not always realise the importance of the digital transformation for their business. For European enterprises to compete, grow and create jobs, EU Member States must ensure that they have access to a large pool of people who can lead the high-tech innovation and transformation of their industry (Strategic Policy Forum on Digital Entrepreneurship 2016).

This scenario will require Europe to generate around 50,000 additional high-tech leaders per year in the years up to 2025, or a total of around 450,000 until 2025 (EC, High-Tech Leadership Skills For Europe – Towards An Agenda For 2020 And Beyond, 2017).

This new type of leaders is, able to spot, create and serve fundamentally new markets. This will depend on the ability to capture the benefits of emerging new technologies. Industrial sectors will continue to be reshaped in the next 3-5 years. However, technology adoption and innovation rates remain relatively low due to the lack of technology savvy leaders who can assess and implement technological innovation (EC, High-Tech Leadership Skills For Europe–Towards An Agenda For 2020 And Beyond,2017).

The high-tech leader has the capabilities needed to exploit opportunities provided by ICTs to ensure a more efficient and effective performance of different types of organisations, to explore possibilities for new ways of conducting business and organisational processes, and to establish new businesses.

The e-leader is a person who recognizes new business opportunities or renew existing business operations by making use of new digital technologies. The new digital technologies provide opportunities for new service products, new ways of working in organizations and can have an effect on the business model and new forms of revenue streams. For instance new sensor technologies provide new services in predictive maintenance and products are not a one-time sale but become service offerings using a more intense customer relationship and recurring revenue streams.

The e-leader is able to translate new technology developments into new business opportunities: to use and apply new digital solutions in fields where it was not implemented before and is able to renew or transform business models within existing or traditional industries.