This interview is part of the Dialogue on Digital Transformation series.
Simon Kemp is the Founder and CEO of Kepios, a marketing consultancy that helps brands make sense of the future. Kemp is also the Chief Analyst of DataReportal, a collection of free reports exploring people’s digital behaviors worldwide. Kemp has produced widely disseminated marketing books, guides and reports, and regularly delivers guest lectures for the world’s leading universities.
In this interview, Simon Kemp dives into the “mindset” that individuals, organizations and governments need to adopt in order to reap the benefits of digital transformation. Regarding the differing rates of Internet adoption worldwide, and reflecting on his own experiences moving from London to Singapore fifteen years ago, Kemp explains that it all comes down to whether individuals, firms and governments approach digital transformation with a sense of openness and curiosity, or whether they envision digital changes as threats to their lives and livelihoods.
While the pandemic crisis has necessitated digital transformations, with digital tools now an integrated part of many individuals’ day-to-day lives, approaching digital transformation as an obligation is misleading, Kemp argues. Going digital is an opportunity, not an obligation. The momentum generated by digital changes to consumer behavior (for example, the wide-reaching changes to the world of online shopping) will outlive the crisis and endure for years to come.
Throughout the interview, Kemp stresses that this moment represents a unique opportunity to reskill individuals and digitally transform businesses and governments to be future-ready.
