What is digitalisation¶
Think about this morning. The alarm on your phone woke you up, you checked the bus on an app, you paid a friend back with Bizum and you listened to music on the way. How many of those things would your parents have done on paper, face to face, or not at all, when they were your age?
That change has a name, and it is the subject of this whole module. It is not only about you: in 2025, people in Spain sent about 1,237 million Bizum payments, money that twenty years ago moved in cash or at a bank counter. Every company you will write software for is going through the same change, and many of them will hire you precisely to push it forward.
What you will learn
- Tell digitisation, digitalisation and digital transformation apart with one example of each
- Avoid the trap: digitalising is not buying computers, it is changing how the work is done
- Explain how digitalising a process changes the organisation of a company: tasks, roles and departments
- Recognise the two faces of a company, IT and OT, and give an example of each
- See your company as a city you run, with a city hall and an infrastructure
Three words that people mix up¶
The three words sound alike, and even newspapers confuse them. They are three different steps.
Digitisation is turning analogue information into a digital format. The medium changes; the process does not.
Digitalisation is using digital technology to improve or automate a process that already exists.
Digital transformation is a deep change in the business model, the organisation or the relationship with the customer, made possible by digital technology.
Follow one hotel in Calvià through the three steps. It is a made-up hotel, but every Balearic hotel has walked this road.
| Step | What the hotel does | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Digitisation | The paper guest cards are scanned and saved as PDF files | Only the medium: paper became a file |
| Digitalisation | Guests check in online and open their room with the phone | The process: no queue at reception, no plastic key |
| Digital transformation | Prices change every day according to demand, and most rooms are sold directly on the hotel's website instead of through travel agencies | The business: how the hotel earns its money |
Now your morning:
| Service | Which step? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Photos of your class notes | Digitisation | The notes are the same; only the medium changed |
| Bus ticket on the phone | Digitalisation | Same trip, better process: no coins, no paper ticket |
| Bizum and mobile banking | Digitalisation, and a transformation of the sector | Paying is faster, and the relationship with the bank moved from the branch to the phone |
| Spotify or Netflix | Digital transformation | The business changed from selling a physical object (a CD, a DVD) to selling access |
Careful: \"digitalising means buying computers\"
A company can fill its offices with new laptops and keep working exactly as before: printing emails, copying numbers from one program to another, filing paper. That is not digitalisation. Digitalising changes the process. The technology is the tool, not the goal.
Digitalising changes the organisation¶
When the hotel moves check-in online, the change does not stop at reception. Ask yourself: what happens inside the company?
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Several receptionists typing guest data at the desk | Fewer people on repetitive tasks; more people on customer care |
| The hotel learns who the guest is when they arrive | The guest's data arrive days earlier: the room can be prepared, services can be offered |
| Nobody in charge of the systems | New roles: systems administrator, data analyst, cybersecurity |
Technology moves tasks from one person to another, creates new jobs and makes others disappear. That is why the programme of this module asks you to relate digital technology to the organisation of the company: you cannot digitalise a process without reorganising the people around it.
IT and OT: the two faces of a company¶
Back to the city-builder game. A company is a city you run, and every city has two halves.
IT (information technology) is the technology that manages information and business data: the office side.
OT (operational technology) is the technology that monitors and controls physical processes, machines and installations: the operational side.
flowchart LR
subgraph IT["<b>IT</b> (the city hall)"]
A["Bookings, invoices,<br>payroll, email"]
end
subgraph OT["<b>OT</b> (the infrastructure)"]
B["Air conditioning, lifts,<br>door locks, boilers"]
end
A -- "the booking switches on<br>the room's air conditioning" --> B| IT · Information technology | OT · Operational technology | |
|---|---|---|
| Manages | Information and business data | Physical processes, machines and installations |
| Where | Offices: administration, accounting, HR, sales | Plant, factory, installations, the field |
| Examples | ERP, CRM, email, website, booking system | PLC, SCADA, sensors, robots, air conditioning, access control |
| Priority | Confidentiality and integrity of the data | Safety of people and availability: it cannot stop |
| Lifespan | 3–5 years, frequent updates | 10–15 years or more, very controlled changes |
Look at the arrow in the diagram. When the hotel's booking system (IT) switches on the room's air conditioning (OT) before the guest arrives, the two halves of the city are talking to each other. This connection is the heart of the unit, and you will study it properly in Plant, business and IT–OT.
Does every company have OT?
Almost every company has IT. Not every company has much OT. A company that sells hotel rooms online to other businesses, such as Hotelbeds in Palma, is almost all IT: its "factory" is software. A water company like EMAYA, an airport or a cheese factory has a lot of OT. For your course project you need a company with both halves.
In class: my digital life and the two faces¶
The session had two short activities.
| Step | Do this | You should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Write down three digital services you used today between waking up and arriving in class | A list that mixes apps, payments and media |
| 2 | Classify each one: digitisation, digitalisation or digital transformation | Most are digitalisation; streaming and banking are transformations |
| 3 | In groups, take one real Balearic company (Meliá, Palma airport, the Port of Palma, EMAYA, EMT Palma or Hotelbeds) and write two IT systems and two OT systems you think it has | A short table; if the company has no OT, a sentence saying why |
| 4 | Propose one connection between an IT system and an OT system that would add value | For example: the bus app (IT) shows the position sent by the bus GPS (OT) |
These were hypotheses: you guessed what systems each company has. From now on, in the project, you will have to find them and cite the source.
For your project¶
Your group now works on one real company for the whole year (see the course project). This lesson feeds Deliverable 1:
- The group introduction says what digitalising means for your company, with the three words used correctly.
- Section A describes how digital technology is organised in the company: departments, roles, systems.
- The group comparison of IT and OT starts from the table on this page, filled with your company's real systems.
Key takeaways¶
- Digitisation changes the medium, digitalisation changes the process, digital transformation changes the business.
- Buying computers is not digitalising: what matters is how the work is done.
- Digitalising a process changes the organisation: tasks move, new roles appear, others disappear.
- IT manages information (the city hall); OT controls physical processes (the infrastructure).
- IT protects the data; OT protects people and availability, and lives much longer.
- The most valuable work happens where IT and OT connect.
Quick check¶
1. A dental clinic scans its old paper patient files and stores them as PDFs. Nothing else changes. What is it?
- Digitisation
- Digitalisation
- Digital transformation
- Industry 4.0
The information moved from paper to a file, but the way the clinic works is the same. Only the medium changed, so it is digitisation.
2. Which example is a digital transformation?
- A shop starts accepting card payments at the till
- An office scans its contracts
- A software company stops selling licences and sells a monthly cloud subscription instead
- A school sends the timetable by email instead of printing it
Selling a subscription instead of a product changes how the company earns money: the business model. That is digital transformation. The other three improve a process or change a medium.
3. A company buys 50 new laptops, but everybody keeps printing the orders and typing them again into the accounting program. Has it digitalised?
- Yes: it has more digital technology than before
- No: the process is the same; digitalising means changing how the work is done
- Yes, as long as the laptops are connected to the internet
- No, because digitalising requires a factory
Digitalisation improves or automates a process. New hardware with the same paper-and-retyping process changes nothing. The technology is the tool, not the goal.
4. Which of these is an OT system in a hotel?
- The booking system
- The payroll program
- The control of the air conditioning in the rooms
- The hotel's website
OT controls physical processes and installations. The air conditioning heats and cools real rooms; the other three manage information, so they are IT.
5. What is usually the first priority in an OT environment?
- Keeping the data confidential
- The safety of people and keeping the process running
- Installing updates as soon as they appear
- Replacing the equipment every three years
In OT, if the system stops, the plant stops, and a failure can hurt people. That is why safety and availability come first, and why OT equipment is changed rarely and carefully.
6. A hotel moves its check-in online. Which TWO changes in the organisation are likely?
- Fewer people doing repetitive data entry at reception
- The hotel no longer needs any staff
- New roles appear, such as someone in charge of the systems or the data
- The accounting department disappears
Digitalising moves tasks: repetitive work shrinks and new technical and customer-care roles appear. It does not remove people or whole departments by magic.
7. In the city-builder analogy, which part of the city is OT?
- The city hall with its registers and taxes
- The citizens' service desk
- The water plant, the power station and the traffic lights
- The city's budget
OT is the infrastructure that physically works. The city hall, the service desk and the budget handle information and records: that is the IT half.
Now you know the two halves of the city. Next, where all this comes from, who uses IT inside a company, and how similar IT and OT really are: Industry 4.0 and IT systems.