Barriers of Creating Competitive Advantage in the Age of Industry 4.0: Conclusions from International Experience

Abstract

Industry Revolution 4.0 generate significant issues to still a large group of enterprises and often even barriers to the processes of their further growth or improving market competitiveness. Unfortunately, awareness among the businesses regarding their specificity, prevalence and real consequences is limited. This is why identification of major problems of effective shaping of enterprises’ competitiveness in the Industry 4.0 era is the research problem. Consequently, the main goal of the paper is to identify and map the key barriers and potential sources of failure in processes of building competitive advantage of enterprises operating in the age of Industry 4.0, the so-called Black Points and creation of a specific “Road Map”, which is a path/algorithm of actions illustrating how organisations can better prepare themselves to overcome these key barriers. The research was based on a review of the literature on strategic management, competitiveness of businesses, theory on competitive advantage or describing requirements that organisations face in the age of IR 4.0. The collected data was compared with the empirical results of research by global management consultancies who assessed the problems and degree of implementation of IR 4.0 solutions and preparation of enterprises from various countries to the requirements of IR 4.0.