The future of work is about your business’s ability to adapt to various forces and changes impacting and reshaping three major work dimensions: process, employees, and the workplace. Here are some tips to prepare for these changes:
Embrace Digital Technologies and Continuously Innovate
Digital disruption, the convergence of technology, intelligence, and customer expectations, impacts businesses across all industry sectors. One way to protect your business against digital disruption is to embrace Smart Manufacturing technologies and continuously innovate to improve the ability to self-learn, self-adapt, and self-optimize performance in real-time throughout the production process.
Improve Business Agility
Your business must be prepared to respond quickly to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative solutions. Market and consumer research and real-time information gathering to assess and measure performance data, product sales trends, customer-consumer demands, and current market trends will help identify new markets and rapidly introduce new products.
Remake Supply Chains
In the past, businesses were located in areas where they could obtain their raw materials and resources from suppliers within a day or two. In recent years, long-established supply chains have been rendered fragile as they became stretched to their limits during COVID-19 and other recent global supply chain disruptions. Additive manufacturing 2.0 (AM 2.0) technologies, like high-speed, high-capacity 3-D printing, provide benefits like rapid production and increased customization, allowing manufacturers to bring their facilities closer to consumers. [i] Edge-based computing is another innovation that repositions a portion of supply chain data closer to its source and away from a central data center to reduce delays in collecting, transferring, processing, and storing information.[ii]
Strengthening Cyber Security
Data breaches and network shutdowns can cripple your business. To strengthen cyber security and protect against phishing, ransomware, intellectual property theft, supply chain attacks, IoT (Internet of Things), and other cyber threats, employ these methods[iii]:
- Ransomware[iii]
- Keep your data backed up and check to see that your backups are working properly and consistently.
- Using multi-factor authentication will keep attackers out of your systems and networks.
- Update your software by patching. Not doing so will leave your systems and networks vulnerable to attackers looking to exploit weaknesses.
- Having multiple security systems is ideal. Firewalls, anti-virus software, and spam filters will enable you to detect intrusions quickly.
- Awareness training for your employees is important. They should know how to spot phishing emails to avoid compromising the organization. iii
- Phishing Attacks[iii]
- Have a layered approach to email security by consistently sending phishing simulations designed to evaluate an employee’s familiarity with email phishing attacks.
- Use role-based training to familiarize employees with digital threats.
- Intellectual Property Theft[iii]
- Identify the most valuable data and know what intellectual property you have and where it may be located.
- Periodically review the user access to your IP and sensitive data.
- Locate your cyber security gaps and weak spots by reviewing user access rights.
- Establish a data security policy.
- Monitor your employees to ensure they work securely within the corporate network.
- Supply Chain Attacks[iii]
- Investing in SOC analysts will ensure that your organization’s cyber security infrastructure is examined and that problems are identified.
- Utilize your organization’s red and blue teams and create a fake supply chain attack that mimics a real threat. This will help you identify whether or not your current security practices are enough to stop a threat.
- Password management platforms will help prevent supply chain attacks and give IT admins insight into employee password practices. This will also enforce password security best practices across the whole organization.
- Vendors should have limited access to your systems and should only have access to what they need to do their job.
- IoT Theft[iii]
- Each device should have a strong unique ID.
- Disable unnecessary ports or services.
- Monitor network activity to determine unauthorized use.
- Update your software consistently.
[i] “Remaking Supply Chains Through Manufacturing Transformation,” Forbes.com
[ii] “Supply Chains at the Edge of Food and Beverage: The Benefits of Moving Beyond Data Centers,” GenerixGroup.com
[iii] “The Top 5 Cyber Threats within the Manufacturing Industry,” Avertium.com
The SPI of Chicago team of expert recruiters leverages an extensive industry network and body of experience to bring you top talent in the packaging and plastics industry. We focus on saving you time and money by securing candidates who can increase revenue efficiency with offers designed to attract the top performers in the industry. When you partner with SPI of Chicago, our skill for negotiating offers attracts and solidifies placements for a smooth and successful hiring process. Contact SPI of Chicago Today! 815-261-4403 x100