Not Prepared for 4th Industrial Revolution
More than half of Korean manufacturers are aware of the importance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but less than four out of ten are actually responding to it.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) has released the results of a survey it recently conducted on 272 manufacturers to find out their responses to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In the survey, 57.9% of the respondents said that the effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution would be significant. Specifically, 6.3% of them said that the revolution would be very important and 51.7% regarded it as an important matter.
However, less than half of them were found to be taking measures to deal with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Only 25.6% of those who said that the effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution were significant were taking measures for the revolution. About 12% of them said that they were about to execute their plans. This means that more than six out of 10 were not prepared for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Of the total, 43.6% said that they were in the process of discussing ways to cope with the issue. About 19% answered that they did not respond at all.
Relatively high proportions of companies in the automobile (52.6%), petrochemical and refinery (50.0%) and information technology (IT) (42.3%) industries were tackling the issue according to the survey. On the other hand, more than half of companies in industries that are sluggish due to recent restructurings such as steel, shipbuilding, and machinery equipment said that they were discussing the matter.
Companies cited a lack of technology and human resources and insufficient support from the government as reasons for their failure to properly respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. They said that their difficulties in responding to the 4th Industrial Revolution were attributable to a lack of technical capabilities (29.9%), a lack of core human resources (21.3%), a lack of infrastructure in Korea (17.5%), a lack of investment funds (16.0%) and insufficient support policies of the government (10.4%).