The term industry 4.0 has gained popular status in recent times but others such as industrial internet of things (IIoT), smart factory, connected enterprise, digital manufacturing and many more are all used interchangeably and will drive the data revolution. When combined, these factors will have a significant cross-organizational impact.
From a value creation standpoint, as business models and services evolve, we will see new ways of gaining competitive advantage. In terms of customer experience, there will be growing emphasis on the individualization of products, services and processes facilitated by higher human productivity, new work structures and roles, a safer working environment and better security systems.
Industry 4.0 has been referred to by some academics as, “the fourth industrial revolution,” with the power to revolutionize the way we, and markets, operate. Ubiquitous connectivity, smart technologies, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and prescriptive analytics are not as far away as many may think.
Combined with the onset of cloud-based storage, this has resulted in an explosion in the amount of data being stored, analyzed, interpreted, and is changing very the landscape we operate in. All of which adds up to the fact that our ability to cleanse, categorize, interpret, and visualize business issues from growing quantities of data is now at the core of future corporate survival.
