4th Industrial Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities

ABSTRACT

The world is moving towards a new development era where digital, biological, and physical technologies are driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution and they have achieved an extraordinary development in their respective fields. This paper thus aimed to discuss the 4th industrial revolution, the technological drivers of this revolution, the challenges, and opportunities they bring along and how the organizations around the world are responding to them in terms of technology, firm innovation and creativity. The study applied an ethnographic approach and collected data through contextual interviews. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with three participants of Middle East Propulsion Company, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The collected data was categorized under four themes and later analysed using NVivo. The study findings revealed that there is awareness on the Fourth Industrial Revolution but not to an extent to fully make use of the endless opportunities that it brings along. Apart from opportunities the organizations must face the challenges and obstacles that come in during its implementation such as security and privacy, skilled workforce, and financial investments. The study concluded that the companies must come up with potential solutions to overcome the hurdles and barriers by devising strategies which are long and short-term both along with specific training programs aimed to acquire the required workforce needed in the implementation of Industry 4.0.

Keywords Industry 4.0, cybersecurity, privacy, technological drivers, challenges, and opportunities