Creating a Competitive Advantage in the Age of Industry 4.0

The paper highlights the role of and the need for the targeted, informed creation and the systematic enhancement of modern organisations’ capacity, as well as the strengthening of their competitive advantages and competitiveness. The 21st century seems to have brought a need for radical changes in these processes. The fourth industrial revolution, also known as the digital revolution, forces companies to face specific competence-related, technological and organisational challenges. They are reflected in resources and skills needed by enterprises, as well as ways (methods, techniques, tools, or strategies) of creating a competitive advantage under the conditions of Industry 4.0. The aim of this study is to identify of key requirements of the process of creating a competitive advantage in the course of the development of Industry 4.0. and an initial attempt to determine the degree of their implementation, as well as their practical suitability for building a competitive advantage in selected enterprises of various sizes. The paper provides a synthetic description of the evolution in approaches to creating competitive advantages of enterprises over the period of four industrial revolutions and presents the characteristics of the so-called Competitive Advantage 4.0. A pilot study regarding the determination of the degree of development/implementation of tools specific to Industry 4.0 and their impact on the dynamization of competitive advantages of selected enterprises is described. This is a literature review and research paper. JEL: L29, O31, O32, O33 null The creation of the English-language version of these publications is fi nanced in the framework of contract No. 607/P-DUN/2018 by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education committed to activities aimed at the promotion of education.