Page 12 - ICE BUSINESS TIMES December 2019

FROM

THE

EDITOR

Fourth Industrial Revolution has already become a buzzword among the thinkers, innovators,
and policymakers of our country. Much of the discussion revolves around how this revolution,
an outcome of mass digitization ensured by the Third Industrial Revolution will change how we
look at the manufacturing and distribution of products we have created with the help of the
Second Industrial wave. Simply put, all of the previous revolutions happened to create a
platform so that the next big wave can come crashing at the shores of human civilization. As
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of World Economic Forum rightly pointed
out, the theme of this revolution will be to decide how humans create, exchange and distribute
values with the help of technologies. However, this is not only about machines and avant-garde
devices; every revolution that we have endured transformed our societal norms and institutions.
Being under the influence of these changes, the decisions we make will affect our future
generations. As we are all set to bid adieu to 2019, in the Annual C-suite issue, we talked with
the head honchos of some of the leading enterprises of our countries and tried to identify the
challenges they face and ways to overcome those with the greater understanding and proper
implementation of technology.
Our lead interview features Hossain Khaled, the Managing Director of Jute, Automobiles and
Real Estate division of Anwar Groups. The man who was lucky enough to be mentored by his
father Anwar Hossain, one of the most respected first-generation entrepreneurs who started
from scratch and made it to the pinnacle of success by dint of his hard work, praiseworthy
business ethics, and unparalleled farsightedness. Before joining the business in a leading
position, Hossain had to gain experience working outside the family company. An aficionado
of cars, the man who has led various business chambers of Bangladesh, time and again
candidly confessed that the biggest challenge of his life has been the process of unlearning and
relearning at present. According to him, the time has come to question all our current
achievement. With a plethora of technologies flooding our everyday corporate life, how we
plan, operate and evaluate our productivity, be it personal or professional, has come into
question.
A number of other reputed local and foreign CEOs and Managing Directors have echoed the
same concerns regarding the challenges of C-Suit officials in an ever-changing corporate
world. The demographic dividend we all take pride in can become the biggest burden for our
country if we fail to equip them with the right kind of skill set. Though many of us worry about
machines replacing men in the job sector, when it comes to decision making, strategizing and
people management, no machine can ever be efficient enough to call the shots. That's why we
need to shed light on the necessity of developing a workforce that has the right kind of ethics,
knowledge, and experience in handling critical situations with adequate analytical abilities.
The journey to achieving that will be tedious but if it is started on time, we will not fail for sure.
With a new year ushering in, let's hope everyone, starting from policymakers to top bosses to
middle managers and executives to students try to have a grasp on the useful knowledge to
take on tomorrow's challenges, to create more value in their professional, societal and family
atmosphere, and contribute to the globalized world at large.