The Next Production Revolution

Abstract

Foresight can be a highly useful tool to address the opportunities and challenges triggered by the next production revolution. As shown by the various country cases considered in this chapter, it facilitates debating and systemic thinking about multiple futures and helps shaping the future through the process of participation and engagement. Given its participatory nature, key actors are mobilised to form shared views about the future, negotiate their future stakes and interests, and agree on actions aligned to their shared vision. The next production revolution requires quick and proactive policy-making, as well as better orchestration across different policy domains. Foresight can assist policy-makers by providing foundations for robust policies, fostering new framing of policy issues, as well as translating long-term concerns into aligned policy priorities. Furthermore, policy implementation is likely to be faster and more effective when key stakeholders are involved early on in shaping these policies. Foresight benefits, however, are far from being automatic: the chapter considers eight factors critical to achieving those. An astute embedding of a foresight process into policy-making enhances the likelihood of impact, but foresight recommendations are no substitute for policy decisions and actions.

Data Rich, Information Poor: Can We Use Electronic Health Records to Create a Learning Healthcare System for Pharmaceuticals?

“…Before addressing the question, let us contextualize the issue of a learning system and consider how data support both the use and the development of products in other high-technology sectors. 19 For example, aircraft manufacturers evaluate and manage systems on board their aircraft as well as manage electronic controls and mechanical features. They can analyze in real time sensor information received from planes that are in the air to support safe operation.…”

“…In most cases, learning is not an explicit goal and the other building blocks are not yet in place. 2,19 Can we learn from the other industries? Are there possible analogies to e.g., the aircraft or agricultural industries, or is health care too different and are the issues too sensitive?…”

How Big Is China’s Digital Economy?

“…In the 2017 G20 Digital Economy Ministerial Declaration 1 , the IMF and OECD were tasked with working on a programme to analyse the impact of digitalisation on measures of GDP (G20, 2017). An earlier attempt was made by the OECD in a series of publications on the digital economy outlook (OECD, 2012(OECD, , 2015(OECD, , 2017b.…”

“…In the international innovation race, the digital sector has probably been China's showcase. The rise of influential Chinese digital giants, including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi (known together by the acronym BATX), has shown the world that China is a global leader in digital innovation (OECD, 2017a). Beyond its domestic market, international statistics clearly point to China's leading role in exporting digital goods and services.…”

Synchronization in Strategic Planning: A Roadmapping Framework

“…One of the most important solutions to reduce the demand for resources and which can also generate cost savings for enterprises is to e±ciently manage resources *Corresponding author. [Heck et al (2014); OECD (2017)]. In particular, a large multi-business unit enterprise can avoid parallel duplicate e®orts and improve synergies by synchronizing strategic planning across business units [Cosner et al (2007); Edler et al (2002); Arasti et al (2016)].…”