The Netherlands has taken global second place for technological infrastructure; Denmark pipped the country to the top spot. That was the finding of Cisco’s Digital Readiness Index 2019, an international study covering the most important parameters that determine the quality and accessibility of our digital society. The Netherlands retained its top-ten position once all the parameters were taken into account: only Singapore, Luxembourg, the United States, Denmark and Switzerland scored higher.
The Digital Readiness Index is an international ranking based on a total of seven parameters: Basic Needs, Human Capital, Ease of Doing Business, Business & Government Investment, Start-Up Environment, Technology Infrastructure and Technology Adoption. Cisco assigned a score for these seven parameters to each of the 141 countries studied, based on standardised data points drawn from reliable sources such as the World Economic Forum, the World Bank and the United Nations.
Edwin Prinsen, Managing Director of Cisco Netherlands, sees Basic Needs, Human Capital and Technology Infrastructure as the three most important elements of digital readiness. “In general, improvements in these domains do the most to strengthen conditions for business. Human Capital is especially crucial in every digital readiness phase, producing employees who can create and use those technologies and who can continually develop new skills.”
Greatest catalyst
The Netherlands performed well overall: with the exception of Start-Up Environment (24th place), the Netherlands made the top 15 in all categories, even achieving second place for Technology Infrastructure and third place for Business & Government Investment.
“Technology has the potential to become the greatest catalyst for economic and social progress,” says Prinsen. “In collaboration with both the private and public sectors, we hope to use our global Digital Readiness Index as a way to evaluate how investments in the fundamentals of a digital society can improve life for every citizen, wherever they are in the world.”
There is a strong correlation between a country’s digital readiness and other performance indicators. For instance, the higher a country’s digital readiness score, the greater its gross domestic product (GDP) per head of population. Smaller countries appear to have an added edge: of the world’s top ten largest economies by GDP, only the United States made it into the top ten for Digital Readiness.
To find out more about the global Digital Readiness Index and to see how individual countries are performing, go to: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/csr/research-resources/digital-readiness.html
Also read ‘Eight pointers for a successful digital transformation’