Strengthening global collaboration to address systemic cybersecurity challenges and improve digital trust to safeguard innovation, protecting institutions, businesses and individuals.
As technological advances and global interconnectivity accelerate exponentially in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, unprecedented systemic security risks and threats are undermining trust and growth.
The Platforms leads a strong and growing global effort championing cybersecurity as a competitive advantage that creates value and opportunities for public and private organizations, and ultimately for all. Effective cybersecurity safeguards digital trust, spurs innovation and progress in society, enhances the social responsibility and accountability of organizations, the cumulative effects of which enable economic prosperity and inclusion.
Through ongoing collaborative action and partnership in the Forum’s public-private network of leaders from business, government, civil society, academia and top experts, the Platforms promotes a secure and prosperous digital future for all.
Modernizing can introduce new potential as well as new risk.
Achieving the ideal efficiency for your substation can be challenging, especially with limited personnel. For many utilities, remote communications offer the perfect solution: the ability to integrate more devices into the system and manage them centrally, thereby allowing other resources to be better allocated. However, adding remote communications and more automation could leave your utility vulnerable to cyber attacks—unless you have the right technology and Support
The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work and relate to one another. It is a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances commensurate with those of the first, second and third industrial revolutions. These advances are merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril.
The speed, breadth and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organisations create value and even what it means to be human.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is about more than just technology-driven change; it is an opportunity to help everyone, including leaders, policy-makers and people from all income groups and nations, to harness converging technologies in order to create an inclusive, human-centred future.
The real opportunity is to look beyond technology, and find ways to give the greatest number of people the ability to positively impact their families, organisations and communities.
Challenges and opportunities
Like the revolutions that preceded it, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations around the world. To date, those who have gained the most from it have been consumers able to afford and access the digital world; technology has made possible new products and services that increase the efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives. Ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film, or playing a game—any of these can now be done remotely.
In the future, technological innovation will also lead to a supply-side miracle, with long-term gains in efficiency and productivity. Transportation and communication costs will drop, logistics and global supply chains will become more effective, and the cost of trade will diminish, all of which will open new markets and drive economic growth.
On the whole, there are four main effects that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has on business—on customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organizational forms. Whether consumers or businesses, customers are increasingly at the epicenter of the economy, which is all about improving how customers are served. Physical products and services, moreover, can now be enhanced with digital capabilities that increase their value.
New technologies make assets more durable and resilient, while data and analytics are transforming how they are maintained. A world of customer experiences, data-based services, and asset performance through analytics, meanwhile, requires new forms of collaboration, particularly given the speed at which innovation and disruption are taking place. And the emergence of global platforms and other new business models, finally, means that talent, culture, and organizational forms will have to be rethought.