So far we have seen industrial revolutions in agriculture and manufacturing, now we are experiencing an industrial revolution of the service sector. As a fully linked in white collar professional you are a part of this, what role can you expect to play in this new industrial revolution?
Previous industrial revolutions were driven by a desire to increase productivity and enabled by advances in technology. Steam engines mechanised agricultural production in the fields and productivity increased as a result. The implementation of machines into production lines not only increased productivity in manufacturing but also improved the quality and standardisation of the goods produced.
We are now experiencing a new industrial revolution and unsurprisingly, machines will again drive the change. The digital revolution will be applicable to all industry sectors although its impact will be most obvious in the comparatively non-mechanised service industry where office based workers are the primary unit of production, processes are manually intensive and production methods are non-standard. Industries in the service sector are going to experience massive and unprecedented change at an exponential rate. The services industry will experience a pivot from the current un-mechanised environment to a new automated era in a remarkably short timeframe due to the new wave of digital disruptive technology. Mobile, cloud, big data, IOT, machine learning, intelligent process automation, Blockchain all these technologies (and others) have been maturing in the background and now they are all converging to generate a wave of disruption greater than the sum of their, albeit very substantial parts to produce a digital revolution and change the ways things are done across the service industry forever.
As a result, we face a changing landscape where business outcomes will be delivered by utterly changed business processes. This will give rise to business outcomes being delivered cheaper and more efficiently. Enterprises will become more intelligent, adaptive and productive. Possibilities will be vastly increased resulting in changes to client expectations. This will give rise to new waves of competition. Ultimately the consumer will benefit by receiving greater: access, choice and value whilst at the same time being delighted by the experience given by their service provider.
Professional service industry workers should be right to feel enthused about this. Increased automation and collaboration will mean workers can focus on high value knowledge work rather than mundane, repetitive work. They will have improved job satisfaction from increased productivity and improved business outcomes.
At the same time, might they be justified in feeling just a little anxious? Change of this magnitude has traditionally brought turmoil to industry. Look at the farmhands after the agricultural revolution or, the weavers and millers after the manufacturing revolution; many of whom were automated out of a job. Are service industry professionals right to feel anxious about the future?
How actively workers embrace the benefits and address the risks of the new industrial revolution will of course differ. During times of ordinary change some workers are bold and proactive, whilst others take a more conservative ‘wait and see’ approach. However, with digital disruption early indications suggest service industry professionals are taking the initiative to embrace digital. Enterprises have an expectation of seismic change associated with digital. CEOs haven’t been blind; they have looked across to other established enterprises and witnessed digital technology rip through and totally transform those industries. Collectively, there is conjecture this will soon happen to the services industry as a whole. Some workers are saying they simply do not have the option to wait and see, they know they must grasp the nettle and try to meet this change head on.