Preface: the “Cloud Way” to Digital Transformation and New Business Models

Abstract

Tomorrow, traffic will be safer, more sustainable and more efficient. Autonomous vehicles will move around without direct driver input to transport people and goods, on demand, from door to door using the most efficient routes. They will interact with other transport systems, offering seamless end‐to‐end journey connectivity and producing convenient and affordable mobility to everybody.

Tomorrow, healthcare will be more reliable, more individual and more preventive. The access to a massive amount of digitized data combined with analytics and artificial intelligence will enable researchers as well as physicians to develop more specific measures and more personalized treatments – enhancing medical care on a large scale.

Tomorrow, manufacturing will be smarter, more agile and more resilient. Connectivity and the internet of things will allow companies to react faster and more directly to customers’ needs, producing and delivering better products at lower costs – creating better value for businesses and consumers all over the world.

Tomorrow, work will be more flexible, more mobile and more productive. New technologies will enable virtual teams to collaborate without boundaries and to seamlessly share knowledge and ideas – enhancing freedom of thinking and creativity.

Similar changes will soon occur in many other areas and profoundly affect our lives. Enabling that transformation are intelligent systems that help us gain insight and take action from large amounts of data – based on the power of cloud computing (see Fig. 61.1).