Digital twins are transforming our world….

Yes, here’s another ground-breaking development for business leaders to understand. All significant external developments demand changes in how managers lead and prepare their organisations to work faster, lighter and smarter.

When I read about the emergence of digital twins, I realised that this is a disruptive development that is here to stay. It is also considered the third wave of the internet, after search and social media. Business leaders who do not have IT expertise will also have to become familiar with this growing technology in order to build or sustain a competitive advantage.

A digital twin is a digital copy of a process, product, person, place or system. It is a replica in a virtual environment of something in our real world. Data collected from systems or sensors we have installed in the tangible environment are evaluated and applied to the virtual copy of the real asset.

A digital twin continuously learns and updates itself from multiple sources (using e.g. internet of things and artificial intelligence) so that it can copy its real counterpart as closely as possible.

The digital twin enables companies to have a digital footprint of all of their products throughout the entire product life cycle. Instead of experimenting on physical products and systems, experimentation takes place on the digital replica allowing for much faster and smarter improvements in the real environment.

This use of digital twins is set to transform the consumer internet as we have known it to an enterprise internet, changing the way assets are monitored, improved and managed. Digital twins can be used in many industries such as manufacturing, automotive, construction, healthcare. This is said to be a revolutionary development for the creation of new products and services and for vastly improved processes.

In the meantime, this new path will require heightened cyber security and privacy measures… And for leaders, it is a new dimension to consider with a view to safer, faster, better improvements and innovations.

Janet Poot
International Business Consultant
Executive Coach