Page 60 - The Fourth Industrial Revolution

is one of the most important, emerging drivers of competitiveness. In a

world where talent is the dominant form of strategic advantage, the nature of
organizational structures will have to be rethought. Flexible hierarchies,
new ways of measuring and rewarding performance, new strategies for
attracting and retaining skilled talent will all become key for organizational

success. A capacity for agility will be as much about employee motivation
and communication as it will be about setting business priorities and
managing physical assets.

My sense is that successful organizations will increasingly shift from
hierarchical structures to more networked and collaborative models.

Motivation will be increasingly intrinsic, driven by the collaborative desire
of employees and management for mastery, independence and meaning. This
suggests that businesses will become increasingly organized around
distributed teams, remote workers and dynamic collectives, with a
continuous exchange of data and insights about the things or tasks being

worked on.

An emerging workplace scenario that reflects this change builds on the

rapid rise of wearable technology when combined with the internet of
things, which is progressively enabling companies to blend digital and
physical experiences to benefit workers as well as consumers. For example,

workers operating with highly complex equipment or in difficult situations
can use wearables to help design and repair components. Downloads and
updates to connected machinery ensure that both workers in the field and the
capital equipment they use are kept up to date with the latest developments.
In the world of the fourth industrial revolution, where it is standard practice

to upgrade cloud-based software and refresh data assets through the cloud,
it will be even more important to ensure that humans and their skills keep
pace.

Combining the digital, physical and biological worlds

Companies able to combine multiple dimensions – digital, physical and
biological – often succeed in disrupting an entire industry and their related

systems of production, distribution and consumption.

Uber’s popularity in many cities starts with an improved customer
experience – tracking of the car location via a mobile device, a description

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