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Management Challenges in the Digital Era

Management Challenges in the Digital Era

Radek Liska (University of Economics, Czech Republic)
Copyright: © 2018 |Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3468-6.ch005
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Abstract

The chapter gives overview of factors that business leaders need to consider while leading their enterprise to new era of industry. Robotics, automation, and digitalization represent both an opportunity and a threat to any impacted company. The chapter introduces analysis of current trends in industrial world with focus on OECD countries. Also, it provides an overall summary of current changes to managerial roles and suggests how to steer transformation endeavor from multiple viewpoints. Furthermore, a set of general recommendations on reorganization matters towards agile structure is presented. Other challenges arising from i4.0 such as adjustments in education process and changes to employees' mindset are also addressed from managerial viewpoint. The final part of the chapter points out main conclusions and core message as well as areas of further research.
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Era Of Digital Management

Most business leaders are aware of the large changes that currently impact most industries. It is crucial that company executives understand what challenges they must deal with in the upcoming years. As well as what should be considered in advance to deliver successful business transformation in a changing and innovative world.

Issues, Controversies, and Problems

The impact of digital transformation is not only limited to technical aspects of the global industry. It also brings new challenges in the field of managerial work such as leading and managing teams, companies, or organizations. Many of the arising challenges are omnipresent in the business world, however there are some specifics exclusive to i4.0 transformation.

The everchanging way to manage organizations includes new ICT trends and globalization may be easy to comprehend by many managers, hence there is a risk to not recognize the full scale of this specific era. The inability to recognize such i4.0 specific trends may prove virulent to any future company development or managerial endeavours.

There are four main areas of interest that companies are most likely to encounter in the upcoming years. Any individual with a somewhat leading role in an organization that deals with i4.0 phenomenon, should consider the following questions:

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    Change in structure of teams and employee’s skillset – the structure of desired education and skill background is changing in all impacted departments.

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    Possible employee jobs reduction that currently occupy automatable jobs – the company leadership may face pressure from labour unions and employees themselves to stall implementation of solutions that would lead to jobs reduction.

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    Lack of support/motivation among company employees – the i4.0 trends are perceived as factors representing significant change to jobs framework and could lead to outplacements.

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    The company in a post i4.0 environment – How to manage a company that underwent dramatic changes in the structure of the workforce? The company itself may need a new managerial model, respecting different processes and employee structure.

These challenging managerial questions are further discussed in this chapter.

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