THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION by Klaus Schwab

THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (2017) by Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum, Switzerland, p 172

There is no doubt about the speed of change that has accelerated in last few decades due to technology interventions.  It has affected our thinking so much so that we are not able to predict the future even for next one decade.  Last three hundred years have transformed the world in its demography, geography, economics and politics.  Europe and Americas have dominated the scene till the 20th century and it is presumed that this century belongs to Asia.

In these changing times and trials Klaus Schwab (famously known for founding World Economic Forum) brings out this book out of his experiences and interactions to advocate the case for fourth industrial revolution which is going to be dominated by technology at a different level.  The term Fourth Industrial Revolution or 4IR is in currency for last few years and has attracted the academia, practitioners and policy makers to get prepared and respond to this revolution in order to stay relevant.  The book argues the exponential nature of change with the disruption created by technology in all kinds of market, industry and services.

The evolution of industry over the last few centuries has demonstrated transformations in business, industry, market, society and polity.  The inventions and explorations have made life easier and comfortable.  Railways facilitated movements and transportation, electricity brought light to human life and internet opened unthinkable opportunities which culminated into ubiquitous market spaces.  The algorithms and binaries have redefined the way search engines operate and researches are conducted.  It has revolutionized thinking, expectations and experiences.  Last few centuries and decades also witnessed marketable knowledge creation affecting development of new disciplines of study.

Klaus Schwab informs that there are going to be four main physical manifestations of the technological megatrends, viz., autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, advanced robotics, and new materials.  The way research is being conducted and availability of physical space is reducing, nano technology shall change the way manufacturing happen in future and products are developed.  The tipping points that are expected by 2025 are just terrific - 91.2 per cent of the respondents feeling that 10 per cent of people shall be wearing clothes connected to the internet; around 90 per cent of the respondents feeling that there would be around 1 trillion sensors connected to the internet; more than 80 per cent of the respondents feel that 90 per cent population shall be using smart phones; around half of the respondents felt that there would be AI (Artificial Intelligence) machine on a corporate board of directors; etc.  These are not vague estimations or wild imagination, this is how things are expected to shape in the 4IR domain and all stakeholders needs to get prepared for this time.

Technology shall impact growth and GDP as demand shall accelerate and so would production.  Nature of job in future shall change as automation shall take away traditional jobs and new opportunities and jobs shall get created in the domain of new technologies. As highlighted in the book, occupations like telemarketing, tax preparers, insurance appraisers, legal secretaries, real stake brokers etc shall be more prone to automation as compared to mental health, choreographers, psychologists, counselors, HR managers, sales managers, CEOs, etc.

Because digital technology knows no borders, there are many questions that come to mind when considering the geographic impact of technology and the impact of geography on technology. What will define the roles that countries, regions and cities play in the fourth industrial revolution? Will Western Europe and the US lead the transformation, as they did the previous industrial revolutions? Which countries will be able to leapfrog? Will there 71 be greater and more effective collaboration for the bettering of society, or will we see increased fragmentation not only within countries but also across countries? In a world where goods and services can be produced almost everywhere, and where much of the demand for low-skilled and low-wage work is overtaken by automation, will those who can afford it congregate in countries with strong institutions and proven quality of life? (p 74) 

The whole ecosystem of interactions, interventions, governance, employment, ethics, delivery, citizenship, and society is expected to witness paradigm shift beyond imagination. Some of it would be gradual so may not surprise much, some of it would also be abrupt and shall steal away human creativity beyond imaginarium.

The way forwards as briefed by Klaus Schwab for disruption by nurturing and applying four different types of intelligence, viz., contextual (the mind); emotional (the heart); inspired (the soul); and physical (the body).  Certainly these are important and they need to be looked at from the perspective of a caution as well.  The deep shifts as given in the appendix of the book provide an insight into the expected future in 4IR environment.  There are 23 shifts that are narrated with their respective positives and negatives. 

1. Implantable Technologies; 2. Our Digital Presence; 3. Vision as the New Interface; 4. Wearable Internet; 5. Ubiquitous Computing; 6. A Supercomputer in Your Pocket; 7. Storage for All; 8. The Internet of and for Things; 9. The Connected Home; 10. Smart Cities; 11. Big Data for Decisions; 12. Driverless Cars; 13. Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making; 14. AI and White-Collar Jobs; 15. Robotics and Services; 16. Bitcoin and the Blockchain; 17. The Sharing Economy; 18. Governments and the Blockchain; 19. 3D Printing and Manufacturing; 20. 3D Printing and Human Health; 21. 3D Printing and Consumer Products; 22. Designer Beings; and 23. Neurotechnologies,

It is a fascinating story based on facts and figures, experiences and experiments, observations and studies which opens the eyes of the reader for embracing technology driven future.  Technology and time shall certainly influence the nature of instant gratification which would not be a good sign for human well-being.  But that is the price humans shall have to pay by succumbing.  What to say, we all have inherent desire to survive. The book is a must read for the young students of today and teachers of tomorrow so that they are able to see the future and develop an appropriate appetite.  Only time shall tell us how it is distributed and digested.

THE DIGITAL TSUNAMI by Abhijit Bhaduri

THE DIGITAL TSUNAMI - Succeeding in a world turned upside-down by Abhijit Bhaduri (2016), Rupa, New Delhi p 187

Change is the only constant and for business organizations it is much greater a challenge to respond to changing dynamics of market, business, polity and people. Technology has driven the change much faster in the 21st century. Last two decades have witnessed much visible transformations in business and society than any two decades in the last two centuries. It has been phenomenal and exponential in scale and speed.  The emergence of social media has redefined the nature of conversation and communication and has replaced normal bar for millennials in much of their expectations, attitude and assertiveness. Millennials are writing history every day.

In these times Abhijit Bhaduri (HR expert and blogger, consultant and coach) introduces us to the Digital Tsunami through his own style of narrative and experiences. Abhijit weaves an excellent story around contemporary corporations thriving on disruption through technology and drives the reader to understand the pulls and pressures though entrepreneurial successes of some the highly valued corporations of today.  As I write this review, I learn Google has surpassed Apple in market valuation as a brand and has become world's most valuable brand according to Brand Finance.

The book begins with the science of developing a habit and takes the reader along with propriety of reference, posterity of thought and prominence of learning mindset. On one side digitalization is creating opportunities, on the other it is leading the process of automation and robotics is subject to pose a challenge for HR. The mindset has to bridge that gap through exploring new areas of innovation and entrepreneurship to be relevant and responsive.  The escapists are going to suffer the most until some unexpected disruption finds its way.  The book has lot of academic merit (as it derives strength from the contribution of popular researchers in the domain of Digital networks) and provides rich practical lessons (with corporate examples of practices and transformation).

The researches quoted in the text develop a defense for the prepositions Abhijit is putting before the readers. The ownership of ideas and practice is well explained through an excellent example of Drew Manning (of fit2fat2fit fame), Byju Raveendran (of byju.com) and many others. Technology driven companies are going to lead in almost all spheres of business which was unheard in major part of the 20th century. Taxi services (uber), hotel rooms (aibnb), retailing (walmart/amazon), education (byju/coursera/moocs etc), reading (kindle), social connections (facebook/linkedin/twitter) etc are heading towards much greater valuations than the hard core traditional brick and mortar companies. The trend is going to further continue for few more decades and in order to imbibe this change the firms would have to create facilitating physical and virtual environment. It was surprising to note through the book that between 2008 and 2010, eBook sales grew by 1260 per cent. This is something which is unbelievable. Transformation is exponential whereas change is linear.  Digital world is much more inclusive than the analog world.

Companies will have to go digital not to keep up with the competitive forces but simply to keep up with customers (p 45). This is an apt observation by the author. Customers are getting engaged with the products and producers and helping co-creating products and services, hence the competition lies much around customer and his/her experiences rather than the competitor or if we put it differently the customer is the competitor. Digital responsibility needs to be carried out in such a way that it allows customers to help organizations to design appropriate products/services and to have engaging relationship with them.

The world is going to be led by digital leaders of the market to whom Abhijit gives an acronym as FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix & Google) and he offers suggestion to build a digital organizational culture through transdisciplinary collaboration, employee branding, innovation, managing workforce diversity effectively, creating digital communication infrastructure, responding through speed and scale, embracing failure, preferring fluid structures and learning to become resilient.

The author suggests to follow five behaviours to develop a mindset towards responding to the Digital Tsunami. They are:

1. Wear someone else's shoes
2. From internal to external focus
3. Design, strategy and technology
4. Rapid prototyping and rapid growth
5. Insights allow for individualization.

Apart from this I appreciate his advice at individual level to go for some MOOCs, listen to something inspiring, and leveraging social media for one's advantage. I personally feel that the workforce has to follow a mix of traditional and pragmatic ways of learning.  May be fully moving away from traditional methods would be too early step.  The doodles given throughout the text makes the book engaging as the summaries explained through them create effective recall in the mind of the reader. He proves to be a digital artist who can draw essence of the narrative in an excellent manner. His understanding of issues is sharp, his language is simple, his articulation looks real, his ability to respond to the call of time is praise worthy, his approach towards future is optimist and his lessons are practical.

The book provides rich information from different sources and much of it is left to the reader to convert it positively into knowledge base according to one's ability. The book is small and could be finished in two sittings. But if one really wants to have some key takeaways it might take little more time.  Overall it is an excellent treat to all the young students of today who are interested in the study of organizations, technology, business, entrepreneurship, strategy and future.  I strongly recommend this title to all who believe in the power of technology and are passionate about future.

Employees First, Customers Second by Vineet Nayar

EMPLOYEES FIRST, CUSTOMERS SECOND - turning conventional management upside down by Vineet Nayar (2010) Harvard Business Press, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Pages 199.

Vineet Nayar who took over HCL Technologies as CEO from Shiv Nadar, has brilliantly portrayed his personal belief and conviction in the thought and practice of considering employees over customers.  As a teacher of OB, Strategy and HR, I always had this view of prioritising employees over customers as they are the ones who put efforts to satisfy customers.  A satisfied employee only can deliver satisfaction to the customers.  Nayar's application of this concept (EFCS - Employees First, Customers Second) in HCLT further reiterates my belief in long standing assumption with which I have been living all through these years.  This book is a great treat to all HR teachers and practitioners who can pick up the methods and manners in which Engagement and Empowerment can be practiced by the organizations.

The book is divided in 5 chapters apart from introduction, notes, acknowledgement etc.  The foreword is written by late CK Prahalad, an internationally aclaimed scholar of business strategy, formerly known for core competence (competing for the future) and recently known for BOP (Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid) concept.  The introduction of the book provides the motivation of writing this book. 

The book gains more ground even as it questions a long accepted belief of management that the dependence of business is on customers, hence the customers should be the prime focus of strategies and policies of business organisations.  As the title suggests, the author strongly believes that it is the employees who are more important than customers, it is employees who should be the prime focus and then comes the customers.  His practical experiment at HCLT makes the case more authoritative.  As one reads the book, one keeps gathering strong processes to really make it happen and successfully engaging the employees in achieving the business goal. The feed-forward communication holds the key to drive the employees to get engaged and dedicated to the cause of organizational commitment and performance.  

The path so designed and followed by Vineet is based on his learning and experiences from his personal life, his growing up, his family, school, college and friends, his visits and interactions, which does find place in the book at several places as they helped him developing an action plan.  It tells us that every event of our life, every interaction of ours, every action of ours get reflected in what decisions we make.  So the internal as well as external factors contribute in shaping a successful leader.

The book discusses the transformations as they happened as the result of following EFCS approach. The involvement of employees from micro to macro level for doing what is good for the organisation is the step followed as 'All aboard' and these agents become the transformers for introducing change in the organization as well as contribute to growth of the organization.  The author advises to use mirror for better reflection and to see the events of the past (Mirror Mirror exercise) and warns to get away with the excuse culture.  Similarly engaging customers also is said to be important for organizational responses and growth as well as to serve a great value through putting employees first, customers second, and management third.  The examples of Facebook and Google for bringing out innovated products and services are well placed in the book.    

The employees need to be driven to believe that they are most important for the organization, they are the first players and through this they have to have a sense of pride of belonging and owning the organization.  As the author mentions -  pride can be a great source of strength when coupled with a desire to change. Change is the only thing which is constant.  Organizations imbibe change in order to respond to market and customers.  As society changes customer expectation also changes and the organizations face this great challenge to respond to customer’s expectations.  Successful organizations develop a culture of change and nourish this culture through strategies and policies.  The way HCLT took initiatives to develop such a culture based on mutual trust is really remarkable and it was possible through the concept of EFCS.  Trust quotient has to be improved all through ranks in the organization and through leading by example one has to develop a sense of acceptance among the followers so that they can believe that their boss is a trustworthy person. 

The four dimensions of trust - Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy, Self-orientation as mentioned in The Trusted Advisor by Maister are well cited by the author in the book.  It is to be followed with employees as well as with customers, as both play strong role in building the organization.  On one side the organization communicates the sense of trust to employees and on the other hand it has to communicate it to the customers as well.  In the model of EFCS, the customers have to know why do they come second (as against common belief that customer is always first - because the customer is King, and the King can do no wrong, hence the customer can do no wrong - thinking) and it is the responsibility of the leader to positively communicate and convince them why do they come second. 

The culture of trust is learnt at the first institution called the family and the values one learns in the family get reflected in one’s behavior as one takes charge of activities in an organization.  Apart from trust, in order to build a sustainable organization one has to be transparent in his/her approach as elaborated by the author through the Amsterdam Window experience as he mentions – A transparent house, has a dramatic effect on the culture inside.  In fact through this experience he successfully communicates the advantages of being transparent.  He introduced a system at HCLT which connected the CEO with all its employees through a exclusive networking group for HCL employees called ‘U&I’, which seemed to have worked quite successfully there.  This approach sounds unique and through leveraging technology the organization provides an ear to the issues of concern for all its employees. 

The fifth P of marketing viz., People (employees, partners, customers) play an important role in the life of an organization.  The concept of inverting the organizational pyramid is all centered on people as experimented at HCLT through reversing accountability by concentrating on enabling functions, the managerial chain of command all the way to the CEO, and the influencers who are not part of hierarchy but are critical to achieving the desired wow in the value zone. The company introduced Smart Service Desk (SSD) to resolve issues related to employees quickly by using technology and expertise of employees. It was based on common practice of customer care service provided to the customers.  SSD was meant to resolve problems and issues of employees.  Initially the employees at HCLT were little skeptical about the whole scope and operations of this desk as to if any employee has a problem/issue with his/her boss (upto the level of CEO), how would it be presented, processed and resolved.  But slowly it got working well and as mentioned they were resolving thousands of transactions each month at an amazing rate. This further got a concentration on zero ticket call for evaluating employee’s performance and they willingly and successfully followed 360 degree model keeping the Happy Feet. Inversion of organizational pyramid

The mention of the major achievement (during the transformation phase at HCLT between 2005-2009) towards the end of the book is the outcome of EFCS approach.  It makes the model incredible, practical and convincing. Collective wisdom outshines individual judgment.  I truly loved this statement which is the core of the book entitled The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. EFCS model traces its root in the work of Surowiecki which got Vineet thinking and using it while developing the whole concept.    Though the book is based on the practices followed at HCL Technologies which is an IT company, however the concept is well appropriate for any organization dealing in products or services in any sector of the economy. 

EFCS through its engaging appeal makes a strong case for prioritizing employees over customers.  It is possible through developing committed systems and processes for engaging the whole employee and not just his/her performance.  The role of a leader is very crucial to make EFCS model successful as there as to be a culture of change, trust and transparency which has to keep the CEO under attentive scanning of their employees.  The openness of CEO and a sense of humility as portrayed in the acknowledgement section of the book towards the end is just unparallel.  Vineet Nayar gets full marks for writing such a wonderful piece (acknowledgment), acknowledging all concerned individuals. This is what takes to envisage a concept called Employees First, Customers Second.

(finished reading it ...8 Aug 2011).