National Technology Initiative in the Digitalization of the Industry

With the disruptive impact of rapidly maturing digital technologies, the world has been facing a great transformation called the fourth industrial revolution. This transformation, which causes paradigm shifts in almost all fields of economic and social activity, increase the capability of humanity for producing added value, especially in the industry, to a very high level.

In the new era that started with the fourth industrial revolution, by the National Technology Initiative, Türkiye has declared its goals and vision in the competitive global environment shaped by technological breakthrough. As to digital transformation in the industry, it constitutes one of the most important components of the National Technology Initiative.

Türkiye, having a strong industrial capacity, focuses its development strategy on high value-added industrial production. In this respect, while increasing the share of high-tech products in production, Türkiye also should maximize productivity in the industry by utilizing the means of technology at the highest level. Accelerating the transformation in the industry is of great importance for the vision of National Technology, Strong Industry. There are some probable barriers which should be handled by Türkiye in the digital transformation of the industry. The need for the guidance on how digital transformation should be addressed at the strategic level and how to manage implementation, the cost of the investments to be made and the skills gap in the execution of the transformation process are the major issues that most of the organizations would face. In Türkiye, although various public support mechanisms such as consultancy services, project-based grants and investment incentives are provided for digitalization of businesses, it is necessary to accelerate the digital transformation of the industry in order to achieve the goals of the National Technology Initiative. With this perspective, a new incentive mechanism should be introduced that will ease the identified main barriers and bring the digital maturity level of the industry to a higher level.