Enterprise 4.0 has not yet gained the attention of Industry 4.0, but the two go hand-in-hand and it’s time for a greater focus on Enterprise 4.0.
Last week the Australian arm of digital workplace specialist Ricoh released the results of a survey of Australian organisations designed to assess their level of innovation.
What was not immediately clear from the results was that the survey was primarily designed to assess the level of internal innovation – ways of working, uses of technology in the workplace, etc, rather than external – innovation in products and services offered to the market.
Of course, both are important: no matter how creative a company is with its products and services it is unlikely to succeed if its ability to deliver those is compromised by internal inefficiencies or archaic ways of working.
Ricoh Australia, CEO, Andy Berry, did make this link in the announcement of the survey results when he said: “The research reveals significant disparities between what Australian organisations are pursuing and what is seen as important.
“We know innovation can deliver operational improvements and new business opportunities, but we’re not elevating its strategy value, from the boardroom to front-line staff.”
Ricoh might have got greater leverage from its survey results if it had used a fashionable moniker to represent an internally innovative organisation, and done rather more to emphasise the nexus between internal and external innovation.
Three kinds of 4.0
Why not Enterprise 4.0? After all, 4.0 is flavour of the month right now. Everybody has been talking about Industry 4.0 for some time and the World Economic Forum has been banging on about Globalization 4.0 at its recent Davos gabfest.
Enterprise 4.0 has been around for some time, and is often conflated with Industry 4.0, but there is a distinction.
Optus made this distinction very clearly recently in Enterprise 4.0, “Blueprint for Success in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” released in late October. It Australian organisations too much focussed on external innovation (Industry 4.0) and not sufficiently on internal innovation (Enterprise 4.0)
“Blueprint for Success” was “A study by Optus Business into Australian enterprises’ readiness for the next industrial era and what they must do to succeed.”
Optus applies the label ‘Enterprise 4.0’ to “those enterprises that appropriately arrange their processes to capture the economic value of Industry 4.0.”
Two kinds of innovation
Optus said its research “shows that Australian enterprises are more focused on the development of new products, rather than increasing productivity and optimising the performance of current assets.”
This finding, it says, “contrasts with the experience of Australia’s global counterparts, who place greater value on increasing speed to market and introducing new business models…
“Issues such as increasing speed to market, introducing new business models and preparing for the impact that new solutions will have on society were all ranked much lower by Australian enterprises than enterprises globally: 34 percent versus 49 percent for increasing speed to market; 4 percent versus 48 percent for introducing new business models; and 24 percent versus 39 percent for preparing for the impact of new solutions respectively.”
New business, old methods
Optus’ conclusion: “Essentially, enterprises are trying to be new businesses while still operating with traditional methods.”
That is pretty much the conclusion Ricoh arrived at. “Australian business leaders have a new opportunity to improve how their organisations operate and innovate… Australian companies are not proactive enough when it comes to treating innovation as a core part of the business.
So there needs to be change. And there needs to be greater awareness of the need for change. Enterprise 4.0 seems like a good concept to promote as a means of focussing the attention of the Australian business community.