Diminished need for competition, enhanced collaboration, and elevated levels of trust will be required of everyone in response to the hyper-connectivity of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), Lance Pullan of Linernet has told a Transnet webinar on the topic.
According to the founder of the data management and analysis company, a different world in many ways awaits human ability as IT capacity spreads its reach in industry.
“Everything is going to be connected,” he said.
“Straight away that creates a very different paradigm in how business is done. By sharing so much info it’s going to affect the wider environment as well, beyond established players.”
As this takes hold, the need for more collaboration is expected to grow as competition conversely decreases.
It will, however, require people to delve deep into the human condition, particularly since much responsiveness in the workplace pertains to trust.
“The 4th Industrial Revolution will bring about a mindset change in terms of not always wanting to compete with everyone.”
A wider network of information sharing, Pullan added, should also result in decentralised control of data.
“It will allow for much larger components to coordinate activities in a much larger ecosystem which could make the whole system more efficient.”
However, it once more underpinned the importance of trust – a key element of decentralised information control, Pullan said.
“When we start opening or bringing down walls and allowing people to share information we have to be able to trust those people and trust that they’re not going use that information against us. Thankfully IT systems are already adapting to the enhanced need for information sharing – and the role of trust in this regard.”
Interestingly, if you take 4IR technology out of the equation, this revolution of rapid industrial leap-frogging has the same qualities as the three that preceded it.
Said Pullan: “All the previous industrial revolutions had the same objective – achieving a much higher level of efficiency.
“Nevertheless, it’s not easy for humans to comprehend when we start to compare ourselves to super computers, alternative intelligence, and machine learning,” he emphasised.
“We just have to embrace it and move with it.”
- Don’t miss the second instalment of Pullan’s talk on the Freight News platform tomorrow during which he explores 4IR and its impact on the shipping industry.
