To harness the potential of Industry 4.0, nothing is better than the lesson from the pandemic: chart holistic and proactive strategies based on the orderly and systematic management of data.
If the first Industrial Revolution had to do with the steam engine and the Second with electricity, the Third and Fourth mark the path towards electronics, computing, and later, the data era, digitalization, and interconnection.
However, this new stage that we are currently going through is not reached equally by everyone. According to data from the World Economic Forum, the Second Industrial Revolution is still to be experienced by 17% of the global population (about 1.3 billion people), as they lack access to electricity. Meanwhile, 50% of the global population (almost 4 billion) still needs to experience the Third Industrial Revolution, as they do not have access to the internet.
The question is: What about companies? Are they truly fully prepared to leverage the potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution? The pandemic-forced digitization seems to have paved the way, but not entirely.
What makes the Fourth Industrial Revolution different? It is not about responding with a spastic digitization process towards a demand – in this case, the behavioral change brought by COVID-19 – but rather developing a strategy where the company can make decisions from a more holistic approach, based on the volume of information, Big Data and a data management and intelligence policy that is organized, processed, and properly administered.
Data speaks for itself and indicates that in Spain, only 6% of companies used Data Intelligence and Big Data tools in 2020. On the other hand, other studies reveal that 78% of companies allocating necessary resources for digital transformation have succeeded in that process. Spanish organizations are still far from having a consistent data strategy: 54% of companies that consider their digital transformation a success have a technological data plan, while only 13% of companies that are dissatisfied with their digital transformation process have a data strategy, and 42% do not plan to develop one.
Statistician and university professor Edwards Deming said, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory,” but the pandemic has taught us that the BIG question for all companies, without exception, is no longer “Will I experience some disruption?” but “When will the disruption arrive, what form will it take, and how will it affect me and my organization?” With capitalized learning, the lesson is not to wait for another black swan to catch companies off guard.
The transformation process to meet the standards of the 4.0 Revolution requires a shift in business strategy to effectively maximize benefits. If its use is limited to making certain processes more efficient, much deeper and more innovative transformation opportunities are lost. A comprehensive 4.0 business strategy creates opportunities for new products and services, better customer service, and entirely renewed business models.
Innovating after a fire is not a strategic approach. It is a very real example of how companies think and design innovation cycles, but the leap must be towards another model capable of anticipating and seeing the possibilities of technology from a comprehensive and proactive approach.
