World Monitor Magazine, #5, Industry World Monitor Magazine, Industrial Overview | Page 18

EXPERT OPINION

Industry 4.0 – the new world
The Fourth Industrial Revolution has been getting a lot of press,
but what does it mean and how will it affect business and
society?

Mikhail Romanov,
EY Partner, CIS Leader
for Telecom,
Media and Technology

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will
bring new opportunities for people
and machines to collaborate across
geographies to improve lives, and even
to help undo the damage to the world
that resulted from the previous three
industrial revolutions. These revolutions
evolve in successive waves, and these
waves generate new megatrends.
Industry 4.0 brings new megatrends:
redefined industry, reimagined health,
new work patterns, empowered
customers, a new urban world, among
others. These will have a tremendous
impact on governments, businesses and
people.
Unprecedented reinvention of work
is coming. It is unlike anything we
witnessed before. The displacement of
labor by technology and globalization
is hardly a new phenomenon. New wave
of disruptive technology – AI, robotics,
virtual reality, Internet of Things
and sharing economy platforms – is
poised to take labor displacement to a
higher level. As an example – AI is now
disrupting jobs long considered immune
to technological displacement such as
creative endeavors.
Labor-intensive firms will need
to reinvent their business models,
deploying smart technologies and using
labor more productively. However, some
of the biggest disruptive implications
will extend beyond the business world.

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Work is more than a business model;
it is a fundamental part of the human
experience. The radical disruption of
work will have profound political and
social implications. Income inequality
could be greatly exacerbated by
wholesale labor displacements. To
maintain social stability, the world will
need bold solutions. Meanwhile, the
machine economy promises to deliver a
‘leisure dividend’ unlike anything we have
seen before. We do not yet know whether
we will use this spare time to enrich
our lives culturally and intellectually or
whether the loss of work will deprive us
of something elemental that gives our
lives a sense of purpose.
Another megatrend – the urban world.
Cities are likely to become as powerful,
if not more so, than nations themselves.
Future cities built on driverless
transit systems, smart buildings and
green spaces – all inhabited by highly
connected and globally aware citizens
– are already beginning to emerge.
Dubai is testing electric buses and
driverless cars with plans to deploy
them during its hosting of EXPO 2020.
Singapore is on the verge of launching
a driverless taxi pilot. Seoul is levering
smart technologies and mobile web
applications to provide citizen-centric
services.
Brand new cities are being built in
China, India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia
and the Philippines, among others.