Day #4: Digitization or digitalization?

From i-scoop.eu

There is no word in Spanish for "digitization", we use the term "digitalization" for both the immediate conversion of analog data into digital; and the deeper transformation of businesses and processes. That is why I have been struggling with these terms throughout the week. Apparently, even in specialised media there is some confusion between those two words, which only differ in two letters. So how can't I be confused, if I can't translate them to my mother tongue?

I found an article particularly interesting. It is a bit long, but it's worth reading: Digitization, digitalization and digital transformation: the differences.

Long story short, they establish a difference between:

• Digitization: "it’s simply converting and/or representing something non-digital (other examples include signals, health records, location data, identity cards, etc.) into a digital format which then can be used by a computing system for numerous possible reasons."

• Digitalization: "In business, digitalization most often refers to enabling, improving and/or transforming business operations and/or business functions and/or business models/processes and/or activities, by leveraging digital technologies and a broader use and context of digitized data, turned into actionable, knowledge, with a specific benefit in mind. It requires digitization of information but it means more and at the very center of it is data."

• Digital transformation: "Digital transformation, as we use it today, is broader than digitalization as a way to move to digital business."

It may sound confusing, and it is, according to the article, since "digitization" and "digitalization" may be interchangeable sometimes, and there is not an objective limit between "digitalization" and "digital transformation". But at least we have got some hints by now, and we can double check when we use these words...

Bonus track: I really liked the sentence from Charlene Li: “Transformation and disruption have something very interesting in similar: they’re both human issues, both human problems to be tackled, not technology problems”.