This article covers the convergence of Digital Transformation and Quantum Transformation.
Quick Recap
The last issue of OneQuantum Libya addressed the stepping milestones of transitioning from Digital Transformation (DX) into Quantum Transformation (QX). This new issue will cover any differences that government programs should be aware of.
Let’s do a quick recap, for enterprises and organizations, DX consists of 4 areas to transform: the process, the organizational culture , the business model, and the market domain. QX and DX have many similar landscapes that we can discuss; both require time to develop, regulations need to be set the earliest, the business targets must be clear, enterprises have to operate new models which lead to domain transformation as a result.
If both transformations have such similarities, then what are the causes that push the leading governments to establish major quantum initiatives and programs even before the wide commercialization?
There are actually many streams of rationalization that can be considered as an answer. Let’s discuss the common ones between these transformations.
Perspicuous Adoption Or Not
In the last couple of decades, digital technologies (DT) have been very expedient for many nations that have created new business and employment opportunities in the private and public sectors. To make businesses make use of a technology, there must be some barriers to manuouver. In that road, technologists must create real business scenarios in which these would be useful in solving complex problems, automating many daily tasks and enhancing the time efficiency for human capacity development.
For the recent years, the continuous business needs for DX, made it possible for private companies to support these needs through out developing distinctive solutions using software programs. Such efforts have been boosted by the huge impact of some of the cloud models; Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) from wide range of infrastructure providers.
These advancements in solving real world business scenarios came as a result of the belief from Venture Capitalists (VCs) that have supported the mission of software startups globally where some of these startups made it through, yet many others didn’t, The journey of incorporating VCs to invest in tech companies, requires from the startup team to make the products, mission and goals very clear for the non-technical VCs to understand and estimate the risks, the revenues, and the amount of Return On Investment (ROI) such a project can produce.
But What About The Techies Side?
Of course, SaaS and PaaS services would need techies that understand the technology and have the know-how of leveraging their resources financially and technologically. This would result into creating innovative solutions for businesses and enterprises, which by default would bring a high ROI in relatively short period of timeline. Now if we focus on the technological landscape, creating innovative solutions has never been a monopoly only for those that studied or have been incorporated within the Informations and Communications Technology (ICT) field by any means. The advancements of tech ecosystems globally was actually by the engagements from non-technical professionals that found it easy to get into a certain ICT market. Either being in technical support, business development or investments, millions have worked on developing DT supported by the fact that there’s almost no deep science is needed nor solving complex engineering problems is required (In most cases), making DX not difficult to adopt technically.
The Private & Public Sectors Dilemma!
Probably the reader is wondering now, if DX is not hard to adopt, then how come there are many wealthy governments haven’t yet transformed their operations and services to become totally digital? Here are couple of rationalizations :
The Impact of amounts of easy investments and funds can be poured to support the DX roadmaps has opened the doors for significant corruption opportunities in many countries. In Libya, for instance, many private initiatives for innovative solutions have been acquired and taken by government officials for personal monetization benefits, discarding the outcomes that many projects could bring to governmental development landscape. This raises huge barrier for private initiatives to develop DT solutions dedicated to transform the governmental services to public.
Another big hurdle that stood still against DX, is the lack of clear legislations and regulations that govern the corporations between the public and privates sectors. The act of governmental institutions setting the rules and roles of each public enterprise is required even before that the technology products and services are developed. This means, the roles of the governmental institutions to keep up with the pace of recent international advancements, and suggest the most technologies that the country can leverage. Thus starting very early to creating the regulations and how enterprises can incorporate to boost the local economical ecosystem.
Roadmaps & Timeline
We have learned from the previous issue of the newsletter that DX is a step by step process where we need to transform the culture, the domain, and the business model the enterprise is acquiring. However, this process depends on the flexibility of the organizations to keep the momentum of transformation at a face pace. Moreover, as discussed above that DT are not difficult to adopt technically for even many non-technical employees and managers. This would make the timeline of the transformation to be revolving around the domain and business model mainly, rather than for implementing the technical projects only.
However, the situation with Quantum Technologies (QT) is different. In the current decade, while many enterprises and companies would be interested to jump on the quantum train, yet there are many reasons that QX wouldn’t be as fluent as DX can get. To be precise, board members and middle management should be aware of the following aspects;
Technical-Wise
There are many quantum computing (QC) physical implementation techniques (modalities) and computing paradigms (digital & analog); each one needs to be tested and R&D teams should identify the best modality that suits the enterprise’s infrastructure and technical resources.
QT require many pilot projects and testbeds; tryout different approaches for quantum applications to create quantum applications oriented to the organization’s needs while working to adapt the business model to leverage such use cases, thus being creative in operating the business.
Strategic-Wise
The C-Suite executives must have special sessions fed by success stories from leading organizations that have transformed their business targets according to the future technology shift. Such sessions must be included with evidences around the massive revenues that early adopters have made, when innovating in sustaining their business model and creating new revenue streams.
Legal-Wise
According to the legislation discussion above, the process of the adoption might take years if the governmental officials in the public sector have a slow pace of establishing the framework of QT by the private sector. Thus, enterprises should put extra efforts, invest in talents that can facilitate the legalization process and getting the licenses to start incorporating QT within their infrastructure. In many lagging countries, governments usually have some specialists and consultants that understand the role of technologies and have the know-how how new DT can be licensed and what are the roles of each public organization. Now What now happens if there are totally no business architects to envision the architecture of the framework and the roadmap that should be taken? That’s the case with QX, nations need to develop talents in all pillars of the ecosystem.
What About The Next Issue?
One the important factors that have influenced the establishment of DX projects is the wide engagements from VCs and business incubation programs that have boosted the rise of tech startups! Such an aspect is to be discussed in the following issue of this serious in which i will cover up more about the landscape of investments and how should VCs play in the upcoming era of high-tech advancements
Also, we will investigate how both transformations differ by means of considering how DX is targeting businesses both internally and externally with their clients, while QX currently focuses into transforming enterprises’ internal business operations. The upcoming years would tell if the quantum ship would sail to the end-user resort…
Stay Tuned.
============================================================================
If you want to volunteer, partner, or support us, please reach out to me with your goals on LinkedIn; Abdulmalek Baitulmal or email me at a.baitulmal@quanta.ly.
Sign up now for our Newsletter so that you will never miss out on quantum tech news, updates, events, and opportunities.
AbdulMalek Baitulmal | President | OneQuantum Libya
Let’s take a moment to get to know some of Libyan landscapes;
Balfo Waterfall, Raʾs al-Helal
Ras al-Helal (Arabic: رأس الهلال, Raʾs al-Helal, "Crescent Cape") is a village on the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea in Derna District, Cyrenaica, Libya. It takes its name from its cape, which appears to have a crescent shape when viewed from the surrounding Jebel Akhdar foothills. Ras al-Helal is known for its green, forested beach and its nearby waterfalls.