The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Harness the Power of Data and Technology

By Beth Porter, Four Corners Broadcasting

We are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, fueled by data and emerging technologies. Like previous industrial revolutions, the cost of goods are falling with a concurrent increase in quality. Ease of transactions are evident in activities like organizing transportation, making a restaurant reservation, buying pretty much anything, online bill-pay, listening to music, reading books or watching your favorite show or sporting event on your laptop or phone.

And of course, as with any change in business, leaders have to be on top of these new trends to understand how to leverage them for success and guard against becoming outdated and irrelevant in the eyes of their customers and other stakeholders.

For the past few months, these articles have been inspired by a Forbes article outlining leadership trends for 2024. One of the trends we’ve already explored is adaptive leadership, meaning the ability to lead in unpredictable and ever-changing environments. The data and technology landscape is certainly one that needs constant observation and the ability to adopt those technologies that will serve the best interests of the business.

While your business may not be data or technology driven in terms of products or services, all businesses are impacted by an increasing dependence on cyber security. Furthermore, good data can be invaluable for critical decision-making. Businesses with manufacturing capabilities need to be aware of existing and emerging automation technologies to stay current in the marketplace.

For retail businesses, data literacy is used to understand customer data and take action in response to that data to bring new customers in and keep current customers coming back. That then leads to using data to understand and predict sales trends, manage inventory and understand market dynamics.

Business leaders must understand current and emerging technologies and how to leverage data for critical thinking in making decisions. Being able to understand and adapt to evolving technologies and data sets are contingent on understanding digital tools and platforms, plus the ability to extract meaningful insights from that data.

New advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning are happening daily. They will continue to impact our lives, from workplace automation to stores with advanced self-checkout to fully autonomous self-driving vehicles. These innovations mean leaders in all industries need to stay abreast of the latest technologies available as they will impact costs, workforce and customer expectations.

Data is increasingly important in driving decisions. Understanding the data, how it is collected and collated, is key to making sound strategic decisions. Here’s where the adage bad data in, bad data out can mean the difference between a decision that leads to success and one that leads, well, elsewhere.

What are some of today’s emerging technologies? If you’ve used digital street view or an interior decorator app to see what a paint color looks like in your living room, you’ve used augmented reality. Blockchain is a digital platform for recording transactions in a way that eliminates the need for third-party verification and also have an uncorruptible time stamp. Blockchain technology can be used for things as diverse as managing supply chains to protecting copyrights to managing  clinical trials data and electronic medical records.

Whether we want to or not, we are all using artificial intelligence (AI) in activities as common as Google searches for soil amendments! Being able to understand these technologies means being able to harness their potential to create more efficient processes and to improve overall productivity.

Technology and data literacy means the ability to identify, understand, operate on, and use data and emerging technologies. This can be using data-based communication to bring clarity to enterprise-wide communications. Harvesting data from website traffic, transactions, social media and more to better understand customers and to harness new platforms to keep those customers engaged with your business. Using data to clarify and quantify for better decisions, essentially turning data into action. Adopting emerging technologies to increase productivity or enhance cyber security. Today’s leaders must stay abreast of new technologies and data usage to confidently lead their teams and to anticipate future breakthroughs.

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