The fourth Industrial Revolution is here and is going to exponentially change how we live, work, and interact. The fourth Industrial Revolution is disrupting almost every industry globally and creating massive change at unprecedented speeds. Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chair of the World Economic Forum, describes in his latest book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, a world in which physical, digital, and biological spheres merge. This revolution refers to how new technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, voice recognition, and the Internet of Things are blending our digital and physical worlds. You can expect to see changes in the ways individuals, businesses, and governments operate, ultimately leading to transformations similar to what we witnessed in the first three industrial revolutions. Let$$s take a quick look at the first three industrial revolutions before we jump into the fourth.

The First Industrial Revolution $(17601860)$: Began in Britain with the invention of the steam engine, allowing businesses to fully harness the power of steam. This led to the creation of factories along with dramatically improved manufacturing processes.

The Second Industrial Revolution $(18601960)$: Mass production in the steel, oil, and electricity industries drove the invention of the light bulb, telephone, and internal combustion engine.

The Third Industrial Revolution $(19602006)$: The beginning of the digital era saw the invention of the semiconductor chip, Internet, and personal computer. This is also referred to as the $$Digital Revolution.$$

The Fourth Industrial Revolution $(2006$present$)$: Represents the blending of the digital, physical, and biological worlds with the rate of change at hypervelocity speed.

The fourth Industrial Revolution is expected to make the first three look like child$$s play, impacting every single discipline, industry, and economy. In this revolution, we will design and engineer the world around us by manipulating the very atoms and molecules that construct our reality. Atoms and molecules are the $$digital$$ code of the real world, and we are just learning how to hack this code and change reality. Gene editing, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology will reprogram DNA, build human robots and space crafts, and even change the food we consume. The fourth Industrial Revolution offers a giant leap forward for productivity, generating numerous opportunities. Among the simplest is faster acceleration: Changes happen more quickly and organizations can do more things in less time. Just think, it took $75$ years for $100$ million users to adopt the telephone, $2$ years for $100$ million Instagram users, and $1$ month for $100$ million Pok$$mon Go users. Clearly, the rate of technology adoption is occurring faster than ever before in history.

Obviously this era is filled with exciting opportunities as we cure diseases and monitor everything in real time, but it also creates a number of frightening scenarios if the revolution is not managed correctly. Just think of The Matrix or The Terminator movies! Therefore, it is critical to be proactive in shaping the technologies driving this massive disruption. This requires global cooperation and a shared view of how technology is reshaping our economic, social, cultural, and individual lives. Companies should begin by investing in their technical infrastructures and data analysis capabilities. All businesses must be making a move to be smart, connected organizations, or they will soon fall behind the competition.

Questions

Explain how the fourth industrial revolution will impact your career.

Explain why it is important for business managers to understand that data analysis is the future for any industry or functional area.

Demonstrate how data can be transformed into information and business intelligence.

Propose a plan for how a start$-$up company can use data to make better business decisions and find success.