Measuring the Digital Transformation maps existing indicators drawn from a wide range of areas including education, innovation, trade, economic and social outcomes against current digital policy issues, as presented in Going Digital: Shaping Policies, Improving Lives.
By so doing, it identifies gaps in the current measurement framework and assesses progress made by several initiatives towards filling these gaps. The overarching objective of Measuring the Digital Transformation is to advance the measurement agenda by building on these roadmaps and a wide body of ongoing work in national and other international organisations, as well as areas already identified in Measuring the Digital Economy: This is a challenge. Existing metrics and measurement tools struggle to keep up with the rapid pace of the digital transformation. The range of questions that can be asked about its impacts is daunting. How can digital transformations be measured and tracked in all sectors of the economy, including the public sector? How to measure the disruption of existing business models and the emergence of new ones, the reorganisation of work or the size of the sharing economy? How can the value of data, both private and public, be captured in standardised statistics? How can international transactions of digitised goods and services be traced? How should the impact of policies on the digital economy be monitored and assessed? What are the economic activities and jobs of the future? What are the impacts of digital transformations on the well-being of citizens and society at large? Much of the information required to respond to these questions already exists or is being developed, but not all. There is a recognition that statistical information systems need to adapt, and in some cases expand, to capitalise on their ability to provide more granular insights. There is also a need for new, complementary, data infrastructures capable of tracking the emergence of new activities and monitoring their substitution for traditional ones, on a timely basis wherever these occur. Such information systems must also adapt to newly emerging digital footprints that are now being generated.
