HemalSoni, founder of Jewelxy.com comes with more than 22 years of experience in the field of Information and Technology. His ancestral legacy lies in the Gems and Jewellery trade and after successfully working with various blue chip MNCs and living in the UK for 14 years, he went back to his roots to realize the importance of integrating technology in the Gems and Jewellery industry to make the process of buying, selling and procurement simple, efficient and profitable. His current endeavour, Jewelxy, is in line with his long term vision to add value to G&J Industry by creating the best possibilities of growth.

When we think of technology, we automatically think of science; however, most of us fail to realize that technology and science maybe related to each other but are not the same thing. We assume that technology is directly applied science but it goes deeper than that.

Science explains the world we live in by giving us a basic set of rules and methodology which helps us get accurate information to explain the world. In the process of explaining the world, we need to gather information and that’s where technology comes in.

What is interesting is that technology which helps us gather information to explain our reality also ends up changing the reality of the human world through continuous process of development and management.

In the world that we live in, it has become crucial for us to not only accurately understand technology and embrace it but learn how to manage it to benefit us whether it’s business, daily life or education.

In order to understand why embracing adopting and managing technology is crucial in the current times, we need to understand the time we live in. Global experts hint the possibility that we are all currently living in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  A look at the history of the previous industrial revolutions will tell us that the First Industrial Revolution came about when the steam engine used the power of water and steam to mechanize production. 

The second began using electricity for mass production. While the third that we have only recently witnessed uses electronics and information technology or computers to make the production process automatic.

The Fourth Industrial revolution that we now see building up has come about since the Internet came into existence and began to be widely used.  The fourth industrial revolution makes the Internet and advancing technology reach greater heights with faster speed and quicker growth – the extent of which we haven’t yet been able to witness. And, once the human kind succeeds in making artificial intelligence and robotics available on a mass scale, a lot will change much quickly before we have a chance to realize the change.

Judging from the history of the previous industrial revolutions and what followed them, the early adopters - those who embrace technology and innovate early on, are likely to succeed while those who fall behind would have little or no chance to succeed because the growth of their competition will be much faster and at a greater scale making it difficult for them to match it.

Technological innovation in the future will lead to faster communication technology that will transform the growth of Gems and Jewellery Industry unlike we have seen earlier. In fact, as of today, looking the Gems and Jewellery industry itself, we see a large scale emergence of B2B and B2C ecommerce portals, inventories that facilitate buying and selling and business networking platforms.

“The technology of the future will take the growth of the industry much ahead by improving connectivity, procurement, supply chain management, producing the finished product along with logistics owing to a drop in transportation and communication costs. Most of us are seeing this happen today as we get easier access to Global Markets which drives our overall economic growth.”

On the flip side, we will also observe large scale disruption of labour markets as jobs at the lower levels will get replaced by smarter and more intelligent machines eliminating the scope of human error. Craftsmen, artisans, cutters and polishers are likely to be the worst affected as it is much more likely that a machine will replace their job. 

At this stage, it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of the intensity of the scenario, but one thing remains certain those who adopt technology early on will only benefit. Not only industry artisans, craftsmen and workers who embrace and learn this technology before others get a better chance with high skill pay in the job markets but businessmen will also directly take advantage from such skilled labour and automated processes because it will greatly cut down costs increasing their profit margin.

In developed countries, technology has reduced the demand for highly skilled workers but increased the demand for workers with lesser education and lower skills so anything can happen. 

And, that is why it is imperative that entrepreneurs, stakeholders, investors, innovators, intellectuals and governments must join hands in understanding and adopting technology at the earlier stage. This will help to equip the labour markets with a better skill set and make the transition into the Digital Revolution much easier, productive and cost efficient.

In the end, we will see demand at both levels the high and the low and businesses that are open to using new technology and innovate will not only survive but thrive.