Hungary

Abstract

The digital era presents National Competition Authorities (NCAs) with new challenges since the impact of the fourth industrial revolution reaches all markets and affects market behaviour. Datafication, digitalisation, data-driven markets, online platforms, digital economy, the Internet of Things—even this short list of examples highlights that a new set of terminology requires interpretation and the underlying new market phenomena require new assessment methods. The digitalisation of the value chain is reshaping processes from the development of products through production, logistics and sales systems to their acquisition by end users. Product digitalisation is creating new markets and is fundamentally changing data-driven business models, which are simultaneously generating new organisational structures and working methods. There are industries where consumers pay with their personal data for ‘free’ services, and consumers’ data serve as the fuel for economic growth. These parallel processes result in new channels and context in the communication with buyers, consumers, customers, clients, users and employees. At the same time, traditional roles have been expanded since consumers are present on the demand side not only by virtue of their purchasing decisions but also because they create new content, share information, rank products and discuss their performed or planned consumer choices in all available public fora.

Members of the Working Group (in alphabetical order): Virág Balogh, Bálint Bassola, Balázs Bence, Borbála Dömötörfy, Krisztina Grimm, Maxim Járdai, Anikó Keller, Márton Kocsis, Ádám Liber, Ákos Réger and Ildikó Sopov.