The 4th Industry Revolution (Industry 4.0), built on the Digital Revolution, is marked by emerging technology innovations in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the Internet of Things, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles.
Challenges and opportunities:
Industry 4.0 has the potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations around the world, producing new products and services that increase the efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives: ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film, or playing a game, all these being done remotely.
Regarding supply chains and logistics, Industry 4.0 will open new markets and drive economic growth, brings long-term gains in efficiency and productivity. The response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.
The impact on business: There are four main effects that the 4th Industry Revolution has on business—on customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organisational forms. Industry 4.0 is disrupting almost every industry in every country, indicating the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.
Many workers are disillusioned and fearful that their own real incomes will continue to deteriorate. The displacement of workers by technology might aggravates social tensions between low-skill/low-pay and “high-skill/high-pay” segments. Talent and skilled workers, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production, as the largest beneficiaries of innovation tend to be the providers of intellectual and physical capital—the innovators, shareholders, and investors—which explains the rising gap in wealth between those dependent on capital versus labour.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants and software that analyses vast amounts of data, which creates new ways of serving existing needs and significantly disrupt existing industry value chains; demand, growing transparency, consumer engagement, and new patterns of consumer behaviour, design of products, market, and deliver products and services, platforms that combine both demand and supply industry structures, are all being disrupted by AI.
The use of Social Media platforms to connect, learn, and share information is unparalleled; billions of people connected by mobile devices, with extraordinary processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are millions. In an ideal world, these interactions would provide an opportunity for cross-cultural understanding and cohesion. However, they can also create unrealistic expectations.
Industry 4.0 will change and affect our identity, our sense of privacy, our consumption, work and leisure time patterns, how we cultivate our skills, meet people or how we nourish our relations; t is already changing our health and leading to a self-centric way of life, diminishing some of our essential human capacities, such cooperation. Constant connection may deprive us of the time to pause, reflect, and engage in meaningful conversation. The impact on the loss of control over our data will only intensify in the years to come.
Conclusions: Industry 4.0 may indeed have the potential to “robotise” humanity. We need to shape a future that works for all of us, by putting people first and empowering them. Today’s decision-makers, however, are too often trapped in traditional, linear thinking. Talent, culture, and organisational forms will have to be rethought. Business leaders and senior executives need to understand the changing environment and challenges that the innovation based on combinations of technology – Industry 4.0 - brings in, to re-examine the way they do business.
Dave Food