The Future of Skills Preparing for Industry 4 0 and Beyond

“A time of turbulence is a dangerous time, but its greatest danger is a temptation to deny reality…. But a time of turbulence is also one of great opportunity for those who can understand, accept, and exploit the new realities.” - Peter Drucker, Management in Turbulent Times

The accelerated pace of technological revolution and adoption seems to rush forward unabated, and it does not seem like it will slow down anytime soon. The root causes are attributed to globalization of business, stiff competition, customer-centricity and the ever-growing customer expectations, and maintaining the cost at reasonable levels with the associated top- and bottom-line targets, in addition to post-pandemic effects, namely pandemic-induced recession.

Above all, Industry 4.0—Industrial Internet of Things or the 4^th Industrial revolution, as it is popularly addressed—has arrived with lots of opportunities and challenges that have the potential to transform the marketplace completely. Industry 4.0 refers to the “smart” and connected production systems that are designed to sense, predict and interact with the physical world so as to make decisions that support production in real-time, increasing productivity, energy efficiency and sustainability.

McKinsey estimates that IoT has the potential to unlock an economic value somewhere between US$5.5 to $12.6 trillion by 2030.

Therefore, with so many changes happening so quickly, neither employers nor employees (both employed and yet to be employed) can afford to ignore them or to stay in their comfort zone following the same old practices or skills. A report by World Economic Forum states that 84 percent of employers are set to rapidly digitalize working processes with the potential to move 44 percent of their workforce to operate remotely, and the top skills needed as we lead up to 2025 are critical thinking and analysis, problem solving, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility.

Active learning, skilling and re-skilling are very important from the perspectives of both the organization and the employees. It should be a collaborative effort, as it will lead to a win-win situation. Employers should take steps to skill their employees instead of resorting to elimination of workforce and mindless terminations, as it will be detrimental to the long-term interest of the organization. It should be emphasized that a motivated, talented and loyal workforce is paramount for any organization to survive and succeed in the current marketplace.

Under this context, it is important to understand the technological adoption trends that are predicted to occur in the near future. The report by WEF states the following technologies are likely to be adopted by 2025 (top 5):

1. Cloud Computing
2. Big Data Analytics
3. Internet of things and connected devices
4. Encryption and Cyber Security
5. Artificial Intelligence including Machine learning and NLP

Regarding the discussions above, current research reports and publications and industry leaders’ opinions generally point out that the skills requirement of the future can be broadly classified into two categories: technology governance/management skills and core technology skills.

Technology Governance/Management Skills

1. Enterprise Technology Governance and Cyber Security
   Interestingly, industry leaders expect these two competencies to be combined, as they expect CISOs to be part of C-suite and that they should be able to put forth and suggest strong recommendations to CIOs/CTOs (whose main responsibility is technology governance). Technology governance skills’ importance is set to reach an all-time high in view of the accelerated transformations happening in technology. Cybersecurity skills will be paramount and in great demand; however, coping and being updated with the current knowledge is going to be a big challenge.
   
   
2. Risk Management
   Though this can be considered as part of technology governance skills, risk management as a separate discipline has gained strong importance in proportion to the level of prevailing uncertainty. Therefore, well-trained and qualified risk management professionals will be in great demand.
   
   
3. Project Management and Agile Practices
   Considering the current accelerated technological and digital transformations, project/program management professionals with the knowledge of agile and cutting-edge best practices will be very much sought after.

Core Technology Skills (Top 5)

1. Cloud Computing
   The demand for cloud computing skills has always been rising, and even more so during the post-pandemic period, as they enable businesses to effectively and efficiently manage increasingly decentralized data, systems and workers. 
   
   
2. Artificial Intelligence
   Research data points out that last year, 33 percent of IT job postings required AI skills, and 97 million jobs will be created by 2025.
   
   
3. Coding Skills
   Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, C++, R and Java will be sought after, as they have tremendous native utilities and functional utilities in AI and software-defined networking (SDN). In addition, Rust is gaining popularity quickly, as it enables great memory safety and high-level performance, operates closely to the hardware, and offers open-source solutions.
   
   
4. Data Science
   Proficiency in data science and related skills are much sought after by employers, and the reasons are very simple: regardless of industry or title, knowledge of data science concepts and tools can enable one to make more data-driven decisions, to understand an organization’s performance and to plan for the future.
   
   
5. DevOps
   Opportunities for DevOps professionals are increasing every year. The future looks bright for anyone with DevOps skills, as the market exceeded US $4billion in 2019 and is projected to grow over by 20% between 2020 and 2026.

Both organizations and employees should team together to build up the knowledge and skills required to survive and effectively deliver in the changing market conditions. As stated by Peter Drucker, times of turbulence and uncertainty can bring in unforeseen opportunities, which can be leveraged by successful leadership.

Author’s note: The opinions expressed are of the author’s own views and do not represent those of the organization or of the certification bodies he is affiliated with.