How to succeed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

How to succeed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Every industry on the planet is about to be affected by the 4th Industrial Revolution as its pace of change and scale continues to increase.

The 4th industrial revolution describes the increasingly blurry boundaries between humans and machines.  It will affect every aspect of our economy and society including transport, finance, health, education, communication and perhaps most importantly energy. This revolution will lead to the disappearance of many (well known) companies, but it will also lead to the creation of a new wave of businesses ready to embrace the disruption and the opportunities. 
It will affect every aspect of our economy and society including finance, health, education, employment and perhaps most importantly energy.

The energy sector is one of those sectors ripe for disruption across the globe. The old business models of large behemoths building massive power stations, running electricity networks and selling energy is starting to fall down. Instead, smart, distributed, clean suppliers are knocking older competitors out of the park.  In future, we may see consumers become prosumers, actively generating, maybe even selling excess power over an AirBnB style platform. 

EnergyElephant is aiming to be a leader in the area of energy disruption much like Tesla or Nest.  We want to do this by taking the laborious tasks we currently get people to do in the area of energy and replace them with software.  We see this as a way of helping those working in the area do their jobs better hence making them more efficient, and helping those who currently do nothing (the vast majority) to engage in the transition to a smarter energy future.  Governments continue to create a range of legislation around what we would term "dumb" energy initiatives. A huge number of these initiatives are around creating (low level) jobs, which technology will remove pretty quickly and unfortunately with huge disruption and pain for those involved.  Short term thinkings like this need to be avoided, even when elections are imminent.  

Instead, the focus should be on the overarching objectives (reducing energy prices, reducing energy waste, reducing carbon emissions, improving security) and not on the means for implementation.  This would allow technology to step in and help find the most efficient means of reaching these objectives a bit like the invisible hand of economics. 

To succeed in the 4th industrial revolution we all need to become technology savvy, similar to the way we all need to be able read and write. We also need to embrace change and where possible be a part of it.  Only in this way can we hope to become leaders in the space and the thrive. 

The 4th industrial revolution is coming sooner than you think. 

In fact, for most it has already arrived.

The views in this article are personal and non attributed.