On October 23, 2024, the Institute of Economics of NAS of Belarus hosted a round table on the topic “Digital Transformation in Consumer Services: Challenges and Opportunities”

On October 23, 2024, the Institute of Economics of NAS of Belarus hosted a round table on the topic “Digital Transformation in Consumer Services: Challenges and Opportunities”, organised by the Department of Service Economy.

The aim of the event was to discuss topical issues related to the impact of digitalisation processes on the services sector and to identify positive and negative trends in different segments, in particular, in education, tourism, trade, transport, and others. The event was attended by the staff of the structural units of the Institute of Economics of NAS of Belarus, representatives of the teaching staff, scientists of BSU, BSEU, BelSUT, BSUIR, RIPE, BelRIT “Transtekhnika”.

Denis Mukha, Director of the Institute of Economics, addressed the participants of the round table with a welcoming speech, noting the role of digitalisation in the development of the economy, its peculiarities in different sectors.

Vitaly PILUI, Deputy Director of the Institute of Economics, noted that the service sector responds quickly to digital transformations in the economic environment and emerging trends, which leads to the impact of a number of factors on the development of the economy.

According to Natalia MOROZOVA, Head of the Department of Service Economy, the round table was structured according to the principle of detailed elaboration, in particular, questions on a number of thematic areas were considered.

The following speakers dwelled on digitalisation in the education system: Valery GOLUBOVSKY, Rector of RIPE, with the report “Digitalisation of Vocational Education: Status and Prospects of Development”; Andrei KRIVENKOV, Head of the Centre for Distance Education Development at BSUIR, who spoke about digitalisation of education at BSUIR; Oleg SOSNOVSKY, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Informatics at BSEU, with the topic “Current Educational Services as a Factor in the Development of Digital Economy”.

The issues related to the digitalisation of railway and unmanned transport were touched upon in the reports of representatives of the Belarusian State University of Transport and the Belarusian Research Institute of Transport “Transtekhnika”. Alexander EROFEYEV, Vice-Rector for Science of BelSUT, spoke about the digital transformation of railway transport services in the formation of digital transport corridors. Vladimir KOZLOV, Head of the Research Laboratory “Transportation Process Management” of BelSUT, touched upon the topic “Digital transformation of business processes of railway transport”. Sergey LYAKHOV, Senior Researcher of the Department of Research in the field of transport security of BelRIT “Transtekhnika”, delivered report on “Development of unmanned transport in the Republic of Belarus and CIS countries”.

The discussion of digitalisation issues in the sphere of trade concerned the research of consumer preferences and the role of chatbots in customer service, which was presented by the BSEU scientists: consulting professor Gennady KOROLENOK, associate professor Lyudmila KLIMCHENYA and lecturer Ellina DASHUK.

The discussion of digitalisation in tourism was touched upon in the speech of Oksana EZHEL, Associate Professor of the Department of Economics and Management of Tourism Industry of BSEU.

The issues of digital labour platforms’ development in the workshop format were presented by Natalia MOROZOVA, Head of the Department of Service Economy of the Institute of Economics, Lyubov DUKTOVA, Associate Professor of the Department of Communication Technologies and Public Relations of BSU, and Tatiana SAVLUK, Junior Researcher of the Department of Service Economy.

In the course of the discussion, the participants discussed problematic issues, approaches, methods, tools and directions of digital transformation of the service sector.