The Kopaonik Business Forum, the leading domestic economic event, organised on Tuesday night a panel themed “Industry 4.0 - The Future of Employment”, with Nikolaj Zalevski, Chief Digital Officer of NIS, as one of the speakers.
03.03.2020At the panel held at the Grand Hotel, Zalevski talked about the impact which digitalisation would have on the future of the oil industry and how new technologies already gave rise to changes in NIS operations and about actions taken by the Company to respond to challenges it faces.
In addition to representatives of NIS, the panel was also attended by Dragan Filipović, CEO of Generali osiguranje Srbija, Dušan Milićević, General Manager of Comtrade System Integration, Vuk Guberinić, founder of Cargo Technologies and Piter Dajko, CEO of Avala Studios.
It was a joint estimate that the Fourth Industrial Revolution already caused various changes to take place on the labour market and despite huge challenges, also brought about many opportunities for development. The participants agreed that this process should provide young people with opportunities for growth of their potential, without the fear of making a mistake and that any opportunity arising from the development of new technologies should be seized.
Nikolaj Zalevski said that the oil industry is conservative but that the digitalisation process brings about numerous chances for improvement.
“When speaking about NIS specifically, first we must stress that NIS is not a petrol station alone and that there are a lot of other stuff involved there as well. Activities of an oil company span from oil reservoirs via refinery to the service station. When we talk about digitalisation, we are talking about changes in every segment possible. In terms of digitalisation, the oil industry is focused on two things – on one hand, we believe that it could help us improve operational efficiency while, on the other hand, it could enable us to find additional oil and gas resources which are currently invisible or unobtainable to us due to the fact that our current technologies do not offer such capabilities. We need to establish a good connection between the classical geology and modern digital technologies to ensure that our geologists can find new oil reserves together with IT experts and by using IT tools”
When it comes to the sales and distribution segment, Chief Digital Officer of NIS says that the company is primarily focused on creating a digital platform for communication with its consumers and on using such platform to offer them additional services on top of the standard fuel assortment. “In this sense, I believe that digital technologies enable us as an oil company to increase our efficiency but also to transform the company into a somewhat different player in the market”, said Zalevski.
Dragan Filipović from Generali osiguranje says that research show that speedy technological changes will bring about significant changes to as much as 45% of current occupations in the upcoming years.
All industrial revolutions so far significantly have changed the world but the Fourth Industrial Revolution will thoroughly change the Mankind as it will erase all boundaries whether they are spatial, biological or economic”, said Filipović.
Piter Dajko says that today 70% of the movie industry uses digital technologies while the film tape is now used only by individual conservative filmmakers.
“This will also change the profile of those involved in the making of the movies. More than half of them are now hired for post-production editing and special effects which bespeaks the vast impact of digitalisation. But this is also an opportunity for new people because we need new professionally qualified personnel in our industry”, said Dajko.
Dušan Milićević from Comtrade System Integration Company said that major changes have taken place over a short period of time and that no one can say for sure what kind of impact they will have on the labour market and companies in the upcoming periods.
“We must keep track of these changes together and ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is of service to us and not the other way around. As an IT Company, we have a task to capture these changes and make available to other industries the tools that will enable them to become more efficient and profitable”, said Milićević.
Vuk Guberinić from Cargo Technologies Company says that digitalisation should not be viewed only in the context of disappearance of many occupations but also in the light of the fact that new technologies enable people to immerse themselves in more creative stuff.
“Young people of Serbia need to get the chance for growth. They are looking for challenges and for this reason the opportunities must be offered to as many young people as possible, without fear of mistake”, said Guberinić.
At the end of the gathering, it was a common estimate that the man will remain the focal point of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and will continue to make critical decisions, while the participants invited the young people to remain open to innovations and to use all opportunities which arise for their growth.
