MTN Business and its technology partners along with the winners of the 2017 edition of the MTN Business App of the Year Awards shared expert advice and showcased solutions to many entrepreneurs and business owners at the second Digital Entrepreneur Masterclass held in Johannesburg today.

The Masterclass aims to enable entrepreneurs to harness the Digital Industrial Revolution and encourage entrepreneurs to achieve operational efficiency and reduce business costs in tough economic times, and take their businesses to the next level.

The Digital Entrepreneur Masterclass helps SMEs make sense of the easily overwhelming online world by answering questions such as, which technology should be taken note of? And how does your business fit in the digital revolution?

The annual Master Class offers extensive networking opportunities, giving attendees the chance to experience MTN’s powerhouse of entrepreneurs, with their tips and tricks and tools and as a result makes them a key enabler for SME’s.

Attendees had the opportunity to discover how MTN Business and its partners can help them to grow their businesses through the application of smart, tailored solutions.

Industry experts have also shared valuable insights on how entrepreneurs can harness the growing artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics ecosystem to stimulate the growth of their businesses, in addition to a range of other informative topics.

The theme of the conference is apt as the changing digital ecosystem will have far-reaching implications for small and medium sized businesses in the near future.

Google, Samsung Huawei, HP, SiMoDiSa, Blue Robot, National Gazelles and CAT have all joined forces with MTN Business to discuss and practically demonstrate the solutions available to entrepreneurs – all designed with the aim of enhancing productivity and reducing costs within small to medium sized enterprises.

Claude Chetty General Manager: SME Sales MTN Business SA, is of meaning that SME’s need to use technology to take their businesses to the next level, however, they first need to take a look at the 9 pillars shaping the Digital industrial revolution, and measure how they will benefit using each or any of these pillars.

Here is a look at the 9 pillars shaping the Digital Industrial Revolution:

1. Big Data and Analytics

Big Data simply implies that data is everywhere. The question for SME’s, however, is what you should do with it, and how to use it to better enable your business. Many companies use Big Data as a means to accurately determine where to locate stores, analyse purchase behaviour, consumer behaviour.

In manufacturing, analytics optimises production quality, saves energy, and improves equipment service. The collection and comprehensive evaluation of data from many different sources—production equipment and systems as well as enterprise- and customer-management systems—will become standard to support real-time decision making.

2. The Cloud

The Cloud computing allows more users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process data, either in a privately or in the cloud, a third party server located in a dtata-center to making information accessible.

Industry 4.0 will require increased data sharing across sites and company boundaries. As a result of this productivity boost, machine data, and functionality will increasingly be deployed to the cloud, making a shift to the cloud an imperative.

By backing up your data in the cloud you increase economies of scale and coherence.

3. Cybersecurity

When the digital revolution took over, secure communication and sophisticated ways for people to access information became essential.

By next year the value of disclosed cyber crimes will hit $2 Million. Along with the connectivity and communications protocols that come with Industry 4.0, the need to protect critical industrial systems and manufacturing lines from cybersecurity threats will increase dramatically.

As a result, secure, reliable communications and sophisticated identity and access management of machines and users will be essential.

4. The Internet of Things

In the Industrial Internet of Things, more devices are be connected, allowing them to communicate and interact with one another and centralized controllers.

“The Internet of Things is an overused word and what most people know enough of is that there will be 20 billion connected devices in 2020. It is about current and following. It is about connecting anything, any device, anybody, anyone, any service, any business, any place, anywhere, anytime, in any context. This is how vast and wide it is.” says Chetty.

5. System Integration

Most of today’s IT systems are not fully integrated, and nor are departments such as engineering, production, and service.

This means there are various systems that any business has, however, these systems may not necessarily able to talk to one another.

System integrators jobs are able to take these various subsystems, integrates and aggregates into one auto management system for your business, that allows you to house your business digitally with one front end.

But with Industry 4.0, companies, departments, functions, and capabilities will become more cohesive as cross-company, universal data-integration networks evolve and enable automated value chains.

6. Additive Manufacturing

Companies have just begun to adopt additive manufacturing, such as 3-D printing, which they are using to prototype and produce individual components.

Additive manufacturing enables us to be able to develop, test and industrialise prototypes at an alarming rate.

With Industry 4.0, these additive manufacturing methods will produce small batches of customized products that offer construction advantages like complex, lightweight design throughout a range of industries including health and education.

7. Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is already implemented on various platforms through apps used on devices, and can assist in difficult tasks such as translation, or identification. For, example an app is able to tell you exactly what is in front of you in a geographic area before you have entered it.

These systems are currently in their infancy, but in the future, companies will make much broader use of augmented reality to improve decision making and work procedures. In the virtual world, operators will learn to interact with machines by clicking on a cyber-representation.

They will also be able to change parameters and retrieve operational data and maintenance instructions.

8. Simulation

A simulation is something that represents something else, it isn’t the real thing. At times you might perform asimulation as a practice for real life, such as a flight simulation that’s used to train people.

Ssimulations will leverage real-time data to mirror the physical world in a virtual model. Operators will be able to test and optimise machine settings in the virtual world before the physical changeover, driving down machine setup times and increasing quality.

9. Autonomous Robots

Autonomous robots are intelligent machines capable of performing tasks in the world by themselves, without explicit human control.

Robots in manufacturing are evolving for even greater utility, becoming more autonomous, flexible, and cooperative, and will eventually interact with one another and work safely side by side with humans. What makes the concept invaluable is that they will cost less and have a greater range of capabilities than those used in manufacturing today.

For more information, visit www.mtndigitalentrepreneur.com