Change is inevitable—and we are living in a time of incredible change

In 2016, Klaus Schwab, the Founder of the World Economic Forum, suggested the world was at the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
He explained we were entering a new era, one that “builds and extends on the impact of the digitisation of our lives in new and unanticipated ways.”
Since the launch of many artificial intelligence platforms, the impact and potential of this Fourth Industrial Revolution has begun to feel more tangible.
We’ve all become a lot more conscious of the potential disruptive impact of AI on how we live our lives and earn our livings.
Of course, in the automotive industry, we’ve been dealing with disruption for a long time.
Our industry was a part of the First Industrial Revolution (the shift from using animals to using machines to power the economy) and has continued to evolve through the other two of Schwab’s identified revolutions (breakthroughs in power generation in the first half of the last century, and in communication and computing in the second half).
But, for the first time since stables and farriers gave way to automotive workshops, it really feels like the next generation of businesses in our industry, and the skills required to operate and work in them, will look very different to what we’ve been used to.
This change isn’t necessarily something to be afraid of, it holds a huge amount of excitement and opportunity for those that are willing to embrace it in the right way.
While the future is always uncertain, there’s plenty we can do to make it less daunting.
While change is inevitable, the pace of change is not predetermined. The good news is that we have time to prepare.

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