Digital Technologies in Industry

The following sample essay on Digital Technologies in Industry tells about Industrial Internet of Things.

All over the world, from machine learning to artificial intelligence, new technologies have become a concern that envisage the future of virtually every industry. Although most employees understand that technology will affect the way work will be done in the future, but only few can tell exactly how and what changes will evolve. Some employees are excited about the opportunity to use new technology, while others are anxious that technology may eliminate their current portfolios or hinder future opportunities.

From the case, we spot that digitalization and internet are reinventing many industries, and about 64% top executives in large corporations believe that their firms will struggle for survival, if they fail to leverage on digital technology (Accenture, 2018a). Leveraging on digital technology will involve design, re-engineering, innovation, personal production, and after-sales technical support (Accenture, 2018a). It is believed that Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will impact predictive analytics, exclusive web optimization, asset tracking, clouding computing, data drive, process automation, etc.

Applying integrated communication elements such as the IIoT in organizations, will increase its competitive advantage, boost profits, reduce costs, and energy growth (Epicor, n.d).

Besides these benefits, I believe that the progressive integration of communications, IT, data, and physical elements will also result in employee downsizing within organizations that take advantage of these opportunities. Simply, because it is faster, less stressful, efficient process and more cost effective to apply digital technologies than to pay each employee that would be providing these services with an annual salary and benefits package.

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However, the cut in the workforce in these organizations will be dependent on what problem the intended technology is willing solve. According to a McKinsey study, it is predicted that by 2030, about 800 million jobs will be lost, worldwide, due to automation and new jobs will be created that will offset some of the projected losses (Vincent, 2017). From a worker’s perspective, I believe IIoT will increase job vacancies in some fields and reduce the others. Most of the digital related jobs such as software/app developers, digital marketing, cybersecurity, digital business analyst, content developers, graphic designers, etc., will be in high demand in the future. More so, professions under the medics, managerial and political leadership, clerics, etc., will not be affected since robots cannot perform these tasks as it requires empathy, feeling, guts, intuition, etc. However, routine jobs which involve automation will fall dramatically and these include jobs related to production, manual labor, security guard, loan officer, cashier, driver, etc. (The Guardian, 2018).

In addition, having considered that losses are imminent, according to (Ustundag, & Cevikcan (2018), data can be produced to help inform the entrepreneurial employees of such organizations, so as to be confident about hiring those with new ideas if they have data to support the need and the market demand for the types of products they would like to create. On the other hand, there will be lack of skilled experts to lead the evolution of the IIoT. According to Barkai (2016), “manufacturers will need to hire more software engineers. They will need professionals specialized in a range of new disciplines such as security, big data analytics, and decision support systems.”I believe that this presents an opportunity for mid-career professionals, whose jobs may be directly affected by automation, to train for innovation and evolution into communication, data or IT roles. This will give them an edge since they have the business skills that new employees may not have built. Some of the job areas that will increase are software, app developers, graphic designers, data analysts, IT engineers, electromechanical engineers, etc. (Gilchrist, 2016). More so, increased demand for human intellectual activities which artificial intelligence cannot replace will emerge. It is expedient that employees prepare themselves for the reality of constant continuous learning in this rapidly changing business world if they must remain relevant in an organization’s workforce (Popkova, Ragulina, & Bogoviz, 2019).

In conclusion, there is no doubt in my mind that jobs will be lost. But there are pros and cons to the progressive integration of communications, IT, data, and physical elements that will result in downsizing of workforce within an organization. However, employees should better equip themselves for the IIoT evolution because it is inevitable.