We are on the cusp of a profound technology change in the world we live in today. General technologies –  ones that have broad application across a range of industries – will drive the next era of productivity growth. They will lead to disruptive innovation and change the basis of competition. Disruption was seen first in technology companies and then in consumer products – now it’s coming to traditional industries and the implications are broad.

The World Economic Forum refers to this as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Estimates of the opportunity size vary, but in one example Forbes cites a Cisco forecast that the global Internet of Things market will be worth more than $14 trillion by 2022.  

Half of this value is expected to come from improved logistics, reduced costs and increased employee productivity. Areas like  areas the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Big Data, cloud computing, 3D printing, and autonomous vehicles. 

The resources and capabilities controlled by today’s leaders in our industry may well become the liabilities that hold them back. Consider, for  example, companies such as Amazon, Uber and AirBnB that have disrupted traditional industries by combining flexible, re-configurable services with real-time, transparent customer information.

They do not own any of the conventional assets that determined winners in the past – such as prime real-estate, taxi cabs or hotel bed-space. These companies grew by serving individual consumers but expect shortly to see them, or similar, in industrial settings disrupting processes in procurement, logistics and short-run asset rentals.

To harness the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires: knowing where everything is, and how it’s is performing; when it will arrive and how long until it is working (if in transit or mobile); sharing this information widely; setting the context in which connections combined; understanding and continually learning what all this information means; making risk-based decisions; and taking proactive or responsive actions.

If these steps can be achieved without intervention, processes can be automated, optimised and made better. Barriers to change are no longer technical – they are human and commercial.

Know-how, insight, and large-scale behavioural change need to combine with investment cases that cater for non-linear changes in business practice.

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