How Society 5.0 Tailwinds Overcome Your Industry 4.0 Headwinds To Thrive In The Coming Era

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Society 5.0 is the true north and destination of a modern digital transformation. When these values are correctly understood, aligned and encouraged by the Board, CEO, and C-Suite, communicated and reenforced by leadership to the whole enterprise, stakeholder community, consumers, its clear the Society 5.0 trajectory offers the only bridge across the digital chasm.

Society 5.0 at first glance may appear more difficult and challenging, and naturally follow in sequence from Industry 4.0. This thinking is both dangerous and flawed certainly to both your short and long term enterprise health.

In fact, for those struggling to achieve digital transformation objectives against an Industry 4.0 mission, it is easier to bypass Industry 4.0, effectively an extension of the Information Age, and proceed directly to building Society 5.0 – the super smart society.

The reason is Industry 4.0 digital activities and challenges whilst initially and directly may appear similar to 5.0 – there are traditional headwinds of non-digital inertia that hold the enterprises back from achieving essential aspirational transformation objectives.

For example key dimensions like:

attitude, culture, sponsorship, leadership, awareness, mindshare, commitment, competition, fear, distrust and individualism, misalignment, market incongruity, and so on, are essential yet difficult to master in a traditional setting.

These so called soft-skills are very real and well documented headwinds to achieving very complex and difficult ambitions essential to succeed as a leader, as an individual, as an enterprise and yes ultimately as a society.

Society 5.0 however speaks directly to these soft-skills, aligning the Board, The C-Suite priorities to shareholders, investors, the Markets, the Employees, and crucially the new generation of discerning consumer and citizen – that cares and each has something to gain (shared values of young and old alike), who with choice and new and changing values vote with their money and their talent and their commitment and their time. Motivated and united around a common cause, the very difficult headwinds are removed as the whole enterprise and market and value nets organise around a common objective bigger and beyond the profit and shareholder motive alone.

Tapping into motivations hearts minds and spirit of the employee, consumer and citizen pool on the 80/20 principle … maximised and multiplied gains on the indirect soft side of the Society 5.0 mission will assure those mindfully and deliberately on a Society 5.0 trajectory will rapidly catch up and overtake and outperform the Industry 4.0 advocates.

The Market and Society will see to it!

As a Transformation Architect, leader, employee, citizen, consider your current headwinds in one column and who owns them, and consider how they could be removed with a Society 5.0 makeover… how different things will be…