Today´s topic is World Changing Technologies for Competitive Advantage.

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – John Dewey

We have seen several Industry 4.0 emerging technologies during some of the past Legs and a few of our port stopovers were explanatory of them.   I won´t spend time by making a list of them or analyzing the pros and cons about them. It is up to each of the companies, industries, and economies to do their own homework about them. Educational Systems must be re-designed and re-structured if we want to get into Industry 4.0 seriously, whatever the level we decide to deploy it (as top performers, learners or newcomers).

What I wish to share with you today is the video about the type of waves and tremendous impact of the ocean conditions for each of us in the Southern Ocean. With such conditions (you are about to see them), you need to be acquainted with the extreme sailing we have been living during the last 9 days.

Picture Source: Sail-World

I feel emotionally overwhelmed when writing about today´s theme. I have never met the British sailor who went overboard, Mr. John Fisher. He also never met me.  But I follow this race since October last year and little by little I have met the fleet by interacting virtually with them. Every single day, since I am writing this blog for all of us, I wake up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and I watch the news and the videos about the teams at the Volvo Ocean Race website. Sometimes, I even go to YouTube to visit each of the teams’ videos, with the hope to learn about each sailing day experience. Every morning, I pray God to give me wisdom on how to share with you about strategy topics, using the resources of our daily life at the Volvo Ocean Race. I try to find metaphors and the right inspiration to share ideas about competitive advantage. And the last thing I wish to do is to write about this heartbreaking situation. But valiantly and respectfully, I decided to do it. The team SHK/Scallywag has reported the following reasons for this tragic accident:

An unclipped tether.

“John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether. As the mainsail swung across the boat in the gybe, the mainsheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat”: Oh my God: “Mr. Fisher had unclipped his tether”. Incredible, this race has all the world class top-tier technologies available, and this terrible accident happened because of an “unclipped tether”. Please, may our Lord bless and comfort Mr. Fisher family and friends during this time of grief.

Today´s topic is about how can we prudently be ready to deploy Industry 4.0 with all our gear in place, in order to avoid future disasters which can defeat us and cause us imminent difficulties and troubles.

How can we anchor and ensure the right deployment of Industry 4.0? What is the main source of competitive advantage for Industry 4.0? The answer: EDUCATION.  All the issues we have encountered during these initial beginnings of Industry 4.0,  we have to fix them through education. How can we design our educational systems (in each proper level: Elementary School, Secondary school, University, Vocational Training, Educational Sharing, etc.) to be ready for our sailing into Industry 4.0?, How can we raise the needed resources to implement the educational system in place? Regardless of the sharing enthusiasm by using internet platforms (which will facilitate it immensely).  We still have between 20 to 30 years to solve all these issues.

“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”
– B.B. King

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Advanced Robotics, Big Data,  The Cloud, Blockchain, Crypto Exchanges, Genetic Advanced Medicine, Cancer, and AIDS Cures using genetic technologies, 3D Metal Printing, and so on and on and on. Many new technologies will continue arising in the next 20 to 30 years too. Each of the current and future emerging technologies will encounter issues or problems at different levels (conceptual, technical, strategic, operational, workforce training and re-learning, etc).

SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University: A beautiful combination of old and new.

My advice: Please do not rush.  We must take our time to educate ourselves on a good plan. We have to design our gears for sailing into Industry 4.0 and test them appropriately. Moreover, we can´t dismiss the importance of a tether and a clip, even if high tech tools will help us to sail. We can´t dismiss traditional books and the best of my education, even though we have the five-star smart classrooms.  In addition, we have to design and follow the rules we will start to create for Industry 4.0. We don´t know yet how the Industry 4.0 will impact our societies. The design of our Educational Systems must be integral (a melange of the good old things which were taught to me, and the new smart high technologies).

Personally, as you know I have not had babies yet, and every time I write for you, I think in the future precious babies I will have with Alejandro Guillermo Lozano Artolachipi. And as a future mom, the last thing I wish is to see my future babies being used as guinea pigs. Then, I ask myself: What would my future little babies have to know about strategy for Industry 4.0? And I believe the best gift I would like to give to them is education, as the proper integral gear and how to use it when big waves come into their oceans of life.  The gear of high tech “SMART” education, and of course, the clip and the tether. Big Waves can crush our life. Tragedy accidents happen but we must try to avoid them. The objective of sailing is to have fun, to cooperate in order to win, to overcome the wind, extreme weather and the difficult conditions of the Southern Ocean with all the knowledge gathered by previous generations, experience, new skills, good capabilities and the latest technologies.

Gear Kit at Volvo Ocean Race 2017-2018

Nevertheless, the most important thing we can do at the moment is to educate ourselves, educate the next generations in what gear to use for sailing into Industry 4.0,  how to use the gear correctly, when to use it and where. The whole gear (which is the education and training in both levels-old and new) will protect us. Experience will mold us and teach us through mistakes, but the gear will save us. Even if we have the top premium technologies, let´s not forget that our future depends on such little details, such as a tether and a clip.

Blessings, and thank you so much.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy