*4.1.3 Advanced coordination across the firms*

Another challenge of the implementation of Industry 4.0 is how to connect all data efficiently. Industry 4.0 requires the cooperation of all organizational units, from manufacturing, R&D, IT, to sales and finance departments. Sometimes the walls separating these departments are very hard to break, adding to the difficulty of the transition. But the coordination of functions is only part of the issue: Industry 4.0 requires the management of the large quantities of data generated by diverse sources in the company. For example, production data will have to be processed and coordinated along with data from customer information systems.

Data Integration is, therefore, a very difficult task, and the firms need to have the necessary talent from data scientists that will be able to process and model this data.

#### *4.1.4 Inequalities for SMEs compared to large firms*

More than 98% of firms in the developed markets are considered as SMEs, and they are increasingly participating in the global value chains and global trades of goods, services, and components. Introducing the new I4.0 paradigm may have varying levels of difficulty depending on the size and available resources of the targeted firms. Starting conditions between Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and larger firms are obviously very different and bring different challenges. According to Matt et al. [43], SMEs need specific strategies to properly implement I4.0 to their business model.

Large companies will usually follow the higher maturity level in the technological domain faster and more easily than SMEs because of the resources. Indeed, they have more money, expertise, and time to invest in this project. As a consequence, I4.0 is spreading more quickly across large companies which are investing and working intensively on introducing and enabling the necessary technologies. SMEs, however, are lagging behind because they lack the financial and human resources to research into the risks and potential of implementing I4.0. These difficulties further enlarge the gap between SMEs and large multinational companies. However, SMEs have an advantage over large companies, which have a much more complex organizational structure and production processes. Therefore, it is much easier to implement the necessary changes to the organization and culture of SMEs.

#### **4.2 Human resources challenges**

According to the study made by Glass et al. [44], across 176 SMEs and 71 large enterprises, numerous barriers to Industry 4.0 must be underlined across business processes and models. The most important challenges include, of course, the multiple issues which arise from Industry 4.0 strategy modeling and the growing need for highly skilled workers with specific know-how, particularly oriented in high technologies, smart engineering, automation, and digitalization competencies and expertise, etc.

We can easily understand that, beyond such technical and future-oriented subjects applying to industries, which is already developed in multiple kinds of business corporations, human resources remain a major challenge for the spread of Industry 4.0 concepts, methodologies, models, and tools. For instance, Mubarak and Petraite [45] have raised a fundamental HR component of Industry 4.0 implementation: The concept of digital trust. Digital trust is situated between trust and Industry 4.0 implementation and implies HR issues. We can identify major human resources issues related to Industry 4.0 as the followings:

#### *4.2.1 The dangers of the technocentric approach*

When digital trust refers to a new working environment where technology and Humans interact for the welfare of a company and to answer the stakeholder's needs, a danger of this approach would be the growth of technocentric businesses. In fact, in this model, the stakeholders will give more confidence to technologies, artificial intelligence, and automation to run their business activities and corporations rather than human beings. Indeed, The Deloitte reports questioned the

#### *Evolution of Industry 4.0 and Its Implications for International Business DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101764*

preparedness of HR in an era of Industry 4.0 and the global value chain. Among the 32% of firms that are ready to face technological challenges, only 12% are ready to face the challenges emanating from the Industry 4.0 ecosystem [46]. This statistic illustrates the new trends for companies to focus on efficiency with the highest technological implementation rather than hiring people and maintaining their position through retention policies.
