4.0 market: A game changer

OFall the many diverse and stomach- churning challenges facing Nigeria, the most intense and urgent is the multidimensional poverty. Poverty is the foster father of insecurity, youth unemployment and other vices.

But there is a window of opportunity: the world is at the intersection of a revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we work, live, socialize and create wealth. In its scope, scale, size, speed, and possibilities, the fourth ( 4.0) industrial revolution is completely unlike anything humankind has experienced in history.

There are profound paradigm shifts globally underscored by the emergence of new business and governance models: the disruptions of incumbents and the re- calibration of production, distribution, marketing and consumptions vis- àvis the adoption of e- governance, will significantly transform the entire superstructure of not only the world economy but humanity. Therefore, fortune will no longer be found in her old address, fortune is parking into a new house, new address ‘’ industry 4.0 Villa’’. Inside the Villa are new technologies like: App economy, Platform economy, Artificial Intelligence ( Ai), Internet of Things ( IOT), Blockchain,

Advanced Robotics, Metaverse, Autonomous Vehicles, Big Data, 3D& 4D Printing, Block chain, Materials Science, New Materials, Energy storage, Quantum Computing, Cloud Technology,

Nanotechnology and Biotechnology among others. They have the capacity to create wealth that grows geometrically as against the arithmetic growth of today. Apple Inc., for instance, is now a $ 2.7 Trillion company, far bigger than the entire GDP of Africa, bigger than South Korea, almost the size of UK GDP and half of Japan! One company!

Therefore, looking into the panoramic view of the May 29 wedding ceremonies between the Groom ( the new government) and the Bride ( Nigeria), the real exam, which is the marriage, starts the Day after. Putting back smiles on the face of the malnourished Bride requires audacious, innovative ideas capable of creating new, faster and bigger wealth in order to replace the bride’s hopelessness with hope, frustration with fulfilment, disappointments with dignity.

The most veritable pathway to abundance is ‘’ industry 4.0’’

Since the beginning of civilization, technology has always played a decisive role in determining which nations would be the Top Dogs and which ones would be underdogs.

Greece once ruled the world when it gained technological superiority above others. Greece invented the Wind Vane technology first, which was mounted on a clock tower called The Tower of the Winds in Athens in 50 BCE that depicted the Greek god, Triton.

Taiwan’s economy, a small country of 23 million people, less than Lagos, is three times the size of Nigeria’s economy, courtesy of technological advancement. 30% of the Taiwanese GDP of $ 1.3 Trillion and 60% of the workforce are from technology. No industry matters more to Taiwan than chip making, which powers everything: telephone, electric cars, computers etc. Taiwan produces 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones.

South Korea is another country that relies on technology to power her modernisation, with specialization in electronics and semiconductors. Samsung’s workforce alone is about 300,000 and responsible for about 17% of their GDP with a revenue of $ 246 billion in 2022.

All smart nations without exception, in search of transformation ask the following seven questions in their strategy session, which the new class captain and his team need to ask before they get overwhelmed: ( 1) what capacity do we have?

( 2) What capacity do we need? ( 3) What are the top 3 areas where we have both competitive and comparative advantages over other countries? ( 4) What are the 7 MUST- WIN battles on the road to transformation? ( 5) What is left, new, hot or next that we can leverage on? ( 6) Who does what, when and how and at what cost? ( 7) What is the measure of success?

Against that background, besides Agriculture, Technology ( not oil) is the second most important breakout opportunity for Nigeria. The raw materials are here ( youths- energetic, teachable and hungry for success). But which technology is left that Nigeria can dominate and own the same way India owns software programming, Switzerland owns fintech and Israel owns Cyber Security?

Disrupt & Leapfrog

Every country that has escaped poverty did it by disrupting the status quo. Period. UAE and Qatar disrupted the Aviation and hospitality industries and collected Europe and America feeding bottles. South Korea disrupted the electronics world and relegated Japan, the former king of electronics to second division, while China disrupted the Global Supply Chain to leapfrog from 30th position to world’s second biggest economy within 30 years.

Europe dominated the first two industrial evolutions in the 17th and the 18th centuries, a period the world transited from muscle power to mechanical power. America emerged the world’s class captain through superior innovations in ICT, which gave birth to the 3rd industrial revolution.

Today, the world is in a new era of ‘’ industry 4.0’’, the era of connected machines and systems, smart factories where additive manufacturing ( 3D& 4D Printing) is replacing the traditional subtractive manufacturing. These technologies can power Nigeria’s economy to evolve at an exponential rather than linear pace.

4.0 MARKET: Seeking Truth from the rainforest of Facts.

Every investor ( nations, corporations or individuals) always ask three fundamental questions before investing: ( 1) what is the size of the market? ( 2) What is the growth projection? ( 3) What is the state of competition? The 4.0 market is big, almost limitless with un- parallel growth opportunities, and little competition because the market is still at infancy. Let us have a look at just nine of the markets: ( 1) Public Cloud Market is valued at $ 483.98 Billion in 2022, growing at Compound Annual Growth Rate ( CAGR) of 14.1%, forecast to reach $ 1Trillion in 2030, ( 2) Data Storage: $ 247.3billion in 2023, growing to $ 777.98billion in 2030 at 17.8 CAGR, ( 3) Internet of Things: $ 300.3Billion in 2021, projected to reach $ 650.5Billion in 2026 at a CAGR OF 16.7%, ( 4) Cyber Security: $ 236.96Billion in 2023, projected to reach $ 479.15 Billion in 2030 at a CAGR of 9%, ( 5) Blockchain to reach $ 163 billion in 2026 growing at a CAGR of 56.3%, Autonomous Vehicles currently at $ 94.43 Billion is projected to reach $ 1.8 Trillion by 2030 at a CAGR of 38.8%,,

( 7) Big Data currently at $ 273.4Billion, growing at CAGR of 11% , ( 8), App economy is currently valued at $ 500 Billion, and finally ( 9), the elephant in the room: Artificial Intelligence, currently valued at $ 100 Billion projected to grow at twentyfold to reach $ 2 Trillion in 6 years.

Conversely, the global crude oil market size will grow from $ 2.7Trillion in 2022 to $ 2.9Trillion ( 2023 projection), a CAGR of just 5.7%. Betting on crude oil business for Nigeria’s economic salvation is like signing an irrevocable MOU with perennial failure. The crude oil horse is old, tired, and sickly, fielding it in the Kentucky Derby is like planting mangoes and expecting to harvest apples! Oil’s best years were yesterday.