How will the Fourth Industrial Revolution impact the skills that executives need in order to thrive in such a rapidly changing sector? The first Industrial Revolution, in the 18th century, created machines to replace manual labor, and gave us the steam engine and water power. In the early 20th century, the second Industrial Revolution gave us electricity, which birthed the assembly line and mass production. Between the 1950s-70s, electronics, computers and digital technology gave birth to automation in manufacturing – ushering in the third Industrial Revolution. And now we face the fourth Industrial Revolution – or, as the German government called it for the first time in 2011, Industry 4.0. There are nine core tenets of Industry 4.0, some of which have existed for some time in a partially siloed environment. But Industrial business leaders believe that they now have the technology to combine these tenets to have a revolutionary effect. PwC’s recent Industry 4.0 survey gathered information from more than 2,000 companies across 26 countries and demonstrates the excitement in the sector about the confluence of these technologies. Globally, over one-third of businesses expect their revenue gains to exceed 20% over the next five years, while 43% expect to [...]