Facetten der Digitalisierung

With the arrival of the digital age, massive societal transitions are taking place, urging moral philosophy to reconsider its traditional tenets. It would indeed be revolutionary if evocative objects were viewed as ethical objects – something which should be open for discussion in all its possible variations. An abandonment of categorical values would be less far-fetched, as a network society yields value diversity and brings forth flexible online-personae. Since artificial intelligence introduces a vast sum of possibilities, good might appear in several dimensions, and it might not be appropriate anymore to define right and wrong before every situation. Just as the time has come to accept that there is not only one conception of reality but plenty of perspectives. This goes back to the idea that communication itself has always been digital. Similarly, putting norms into question must always be legitimate. Empirical facts such as the phenomenon of impact without intention, the enormously rapid growth of complexity, the humanizing of objects, the default of communicative rationality and pure reason need to be taken into account in order to sketch an ethical theory which is practicable, psychologically acceptable and has an impact on people. The emancipated and critical mind-set, the opposition to established authorities, and intellectual openness – all those principles of the Age of Enlightenment might experience a renaissance.

A“Hey, Alexa!”, “Ok, Google!” – Commands like these already underline the immense impact of the Smart Home industry on consumers’ minds and business marketing activities. A Smart Home provides several benefits and improvements to the life of consumers – especially from a convenience point of view. In terms of business perspective, Smart Home products including Smart Speakers pose serious challenges for marketers as it is primarily Smart Homes change the entire customer journey. Secondly, Smart Speakers significantly shorten the customer journey. At the same time, together with the rise of Smart Speakers, audio branding and voice profiling have become progressively important. As a result, in order to remain competitive in upcoming eras businesses are forced to reconsider their advertising activities. Smart Speaker providers already integrate ads into music streaming as well as into news sections. Purchasing is aided through socalled proprietary ‘skills’ or ‘actions’. In order to market Smart Home devices more effectively, brands will be dependent on Amazons’ sheer abundancy of products as well as on Google’s advertising power. This article presents an assessment of the positive and negative aspects of the current Smart Home market. Furthermore, information on the development of the Smart Home market and where it is to be located within the marketing mix is provided. Lastly, the paper gives a future outlook of Smart Home development and prospects.

Vorliegender Beitrag entwirft einen Leitfaden für eine „State-of-the-Art“-Unternehmenskommunikation in einem digitalen und digitalisierten Kontext. Mehr und mehr Grenzen verschwimmen, mehr und mehr Möglichkeiten tun sich auf, und eine ohnehin noch junge Disziplin findet sich in einer ungeahnt bedeutsamen Rolle wieder, in der vieles richtig, aber auch viel falsch gemacht werden kann. Der im Beitrag dargelegte D.I.G.I.T.A.L.-Leitfaden gibt dem Unternehmenskommunikator eine Orientierung an die Hand und empfiehlt ihm diverse Vorgehensweisen sowie Strategien für seine Arbeit. So wird z. B. der Dialog im weitesten Sinne als effektivster Kommunikationsmodus herausgearbeitet, eine den Kunden in seiner Bedürfnis- und Wertewelt abholende Ansprache empfohlen und Authentizität als oberste Prämisse postuliert. Alle Empfehlungen des Leitfadens dienen in letzter Instanz dem Kunden, dem Adressaten: Die an ihn gerichteten Botschaften müssen so gestaltet sein, dass sie ihn in seiner Lebenswirklichkeit an seinen Orten, zu seinen Zeiten, in seinen Kanälen abholen bzw. ihm von Menschen nahegebracht werden, die er als vertrauenswürdig einstuft. Die moderne Unternehmenskommunikation nutzt dabei alle Möglichkeiten des Digitalen – von Social Media über Big Data bis hin zum Auslesen des digitalen Footprints – um den Kunden von Überfluss, Uninteressantem und Unechtem zu befreien und ihn mit den vermeintlich wirklich wichtigen Inhalten zu versorgen. Das Ziel: Der Kunde belohnt den beinahe fürsorglichen Service mit Treue, einem entsprechenden Kaufgebaren und konvertiert bestenfalls selbst zum Markenbotschafter.

Die Digitalisierung und das damit verbundene exponentielle Wachstum von Daten bietet Unternehmen im Marketing große Chancen, stellt diese aber zugleich vor ebenso große Herausforderungen. Wer in der Lage ist, die heute und in Zukunft zur Verfügung stehenden Informationen über Kunden und Märkte systematisch nutzbar zu machen, kann sich bedeutende Wettbewerbsvorteile erschließen. Die sogenannte vierte industrielle Revolution und mit ihr die Entwicklung künstlicher Intelligenz bedingt auch die Transformation der Marktbearbeitung und somit eine weitgehende Veränderung der Funktionsbereiche des Marketings. Ausmaß, Reichweite und Komplexität dieser Veränderungen sind heute erkennbar und rufen sowohl Euphorie, als auch Zweifel hervor. Die transformative Kraft der technologischen Entwicklung entfaltet sich in den verschiedenen Marketingfunktionen jedoch unterschiedlich stark. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden mit den Bereichen Kundenservice, Social-Media-Marketing, Online-Werbung und Marktforschung exemplarisch vier Funktionen näher hinsichtlich möglicher Potenziale künstlicher Intelligenz untersucht.

Digitalization in the health sector that started with electronically supported data and information management and now moved to the management of processes and the implementation of procedures, including work previously done by health professionals (e.g. in the area of diagnostic screening), has helped us living longer and leading safer, healthier, and more productive lives. However, a purposeful approach is needed to strengthen the impact of digital solutions on improved access to quality health care while controlling for risks related to the privacy of health-related data and the use of tools and instruments that lack evidence for their clinical effectiveness and economic efficiency.

This paper outlines challenges for the cannabis industry in Germany in light of the internationally accelerating legalization of the drug for medical and recreational use. As handling of active substances in Europe and especially in Germany is strictly regulated, thorough documentation of all supply chain stages is required. We investigate if blockchain-based solutions can fulfill legal requirements and provide additional benefits in creation and analysis of big data. The structural design of a prototype solution is outlined and specified in order to facilitate the use of the technology to enable safe, secure and impeccably documented use and distribution of cannabis and its derivatives in Germany.

The application of well-known techniques to make an asset investable is the base of a whole financial industry, the securitization of assets. Securitization is the packaging of assets in order to mitigate risks or simply to make them investable. The processes can be complex, lengthy, and expensive due to legal regulation, securities law, and settlement.

The rise of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) may solve some of the issues of securitization, especially by eliminating process steps and increasing accessibility of asset investments for a larger group of investors. Distributed Ledger Technology introduces the opportunity to create a digital representation, a so-called token, of a given asset and might lead to the elimination of process steps or even of parties involved in the traditional securitization process. By creating DLT-based digital representatives, assets may be fractionalized which may increase liquidity and tradability of the given assets. The aforementioned process of creating asset-representing tokens can be described in the wording of tokenization.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the use of Distributed Ledger Technology in the field of tokenization and securitization by comparing fundamental processes.