Farewell to the knowledge economy

The promise of the knowledge economy isn’t being delivered as knowledge becomes a commodity worth less than data.

business customer service is essential in the new economy

One of the mantras of the 1980s was the future of western nations lay in becoming ‘knowledge economies’, unfortunately things don’t look like they are turning out that way.

As the developed economies moved their manufacturing offshore – first to Japan and Korea, then Mexico and finally China – the promise to displaced Western factory workers was the replacement jobs would be in vaguely knowledge based industries like call centres and backoffice computer work.

From the 1990s on, those jobs also started to go overseas  to lower cost centres in India, the Phillipines and other countries.

When the internet became ubiquitous in the developed world in the late 1990s, the creative industries – musicians, artists and writers – found income dried up as their work became commoditised by digital distribution channels.

Now the professions are being affected by combination of offshoring, artificial intelligence and automated processes. Many of the jobs that were done by highly paid accountants and lawyers can now be done by computers or in places not dissimilar to those that took away the call centre jobs twenty years ago.

So it turns out the knowledge economy isn’t the key to riches after all and the future turns out to be more complex than what we thought in the 1990s.

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Author: Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.

One thought on “Farewell to the knowledge economy”

  1. Technology and innovation have been changing everything for centuries. Disruptive technologies would be changing the world and having an economic impact of about $14 trillion to $33 trillion per year by 2025 as shown in the blog below (some of the disruptive innovations were even mentioned in the previous posts above) (this source is used in the below blog with regards to economic impact).

    http://rohitthomas.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/technologies-changing-industries-business-models-and-lifestyles-completely-4/ is a blog done for practice though has all the genuine sources. It shows that an individual would need to adapt including with their line of work. And some of the dying careers would be traditional pharmacists, drivers, astronauts, soldiers, babysitters, sportswriters and other reporters, jobs within hospitality, entertainment and retail outlets as well as manufacturing assembly jobs, postal service workers, office and administrative workers, telemarketing and door-to-door sales. The thriving careers on the other hand would be like data scientists (statisticians), research and design managers, computer programmers and network administrators, medical assistants, etc. Individuals would also need to take into consideration that full-time jobs would be a dying trend.

    Australia’s case (no offence but reality):
    Australia should wake up else it’s all gone.
    1) Innovation:
    Already it is gone quite a bit as most Australian top brands are in foreigner’s hands + also lands, properties, etc. DJ, Myer faces competition from Zara and company. Coles & Woolworths may have duopoly in supermarket arena but faces competition from Aldi, Costco and company. Same goes for other Australian retail players and other Australian sectors – competition due to low technical and innovation skills as written in previous posts above and below. Disruptive innovation is here to stay & has been going on for centuries. Economic impact is worth $14 trillion to $33 trillion per year by 2025 due to those innovations. Adapt or be left behind. Already, Australia is when it comes to Marketing Technology as most developed nations & some developing & emerging countries have already gone for apps marketing & have hit mobile payment space sometime back. Australia hardly has coopetition/coopertition/cooptition like Netflix & Amazon, Apple & Samsung, Tesla & Toyota, Tesla & BMW, etc – cooperating rivals yet innovating (which are there within Asia, Europe, other continents too). Same goes with blue ocean strategies-Australia has hardly any unlike from Tata, Embraer, Tesla, Good Baby, etc – China, India, Brazil, US, etc (just few from Australia like Casella Wines which can be seen from Blue Ocean Strategy Australia site, not many).

    P&G, IBM, etc were 1st ones who shifted it to innovation 30 years ago as relationship alone long gone – doesn’t work. World’s top firms and others from other countries- all innovative ones. Globalisation over as next stage of glocalisation/globality/semi-globalisation where any1 and every1 competes from anywhere and everywhere (Globality video that shows blue ocean strategies under Youtube – book written by Boston Consultancy Group and video used by world’s best business school-Wharton) So, if just have relationships and not much innovation-GAME OVER AUSTRALIA as it has been proved-most top Aussie brands in foreign hands.

    2) Shifting from niche to diversified one:
    Australia for decades has been so dependent on foreign countries for its survival. It was into low-end value and things have changed. Australia gets 70% or so of its revenue from Services – it’s not an agriculture nor mining based economy. It needs to diversify. US manufacturing also fell 30 years back and then rose 10 years later and 1 of those firms is Intel. Another Tesla-Elon Musk who came out with Paypal, Solarcity, SpaceX, etc. All innovations. Yes, robots took some jobs over but they don’t have complete artificial intelligence. China doesn’t need Australia even though they have slowed down. Australia needs to diversify and go towards high-end value if it wants to survive else it can keep giving more of its brands, land and properties to foreigners just to survive.

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