By Bridgestone SA

Various related trends are inexorably driving profound changes in the way that tyre manufacturers operate—and the kinds of skills they demand of their employees. Corporate executives and machine operators alike face the tough challenge of acquiring new skills.

The trends driving these changes are all related to the increasing digitalisation of both society and business. This digitalisation is not only revolutionising how we interact socially, it is changing the way business is conducted and how people work. In tandem, machines are being designed differently: sensors, machine learning, artificial intelligence and related technologies, all backed up by the limitless (in practical terms) computer power of the cloud, mean that they are getting smarter and capable of greater levels of autonomous action.

Welcome to the emerging Fourth Industrial Revolution.

For executives in tyre manufacturing, the new skills they must acquire will not differ greatly from those required of leaders in every industry. Now, more than ever, leaders will need to have a clear idea of where the organisation is going—but at a time when obtaining that picture has never been more difficult. A related challenge is to ensure that company strategies are aligned with a socio-economic environment constantly in flux.

From a strategic point of view, too, there is a move from the traditional short-term focus on the bottom line to a longer term view that balances profits with sustainability.

When it comes to management, there are a host of new skills to acquire. Work processes are becoming less discrete, and work environments are more diverse and can span many countries. The ability to manage cross-skilled teams from different cultures and ways of life is becoming essential.

The key output of digitalisation, we now realise, is data—lots of it. Whereas once executives learned how to acquire data, now they need to know how to identify the data that matters, and how to translate it into actionable business insights.