3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
Exporting Products, Expertise and Knowledge-as-a-Service
The Industry Working Group views public-private partnerships as the cornerstone in pursuing
and advancing the myriad aspects constituting the Third Industrial Revolution and the
Luxembourg industry sector becoming a leading international platform. More than 80% of
Luxembourg’s exported goods flow into other EU countries (55% to the three surrounding
nations of Germany, France and Belgium). These regional trade partners simultaneously pose
both challenges and opportunities.
The challenges stem from competition by other EU nations in pursuit to varying degrees of TIR
growth opportunities, also focusing on energy and resource efficiency, RDI and Smart Industry
venues. The flip side of the coin, however, is the opportunities rooted in the EU’s collective
vision and manifest policies, programs and initiatives which strongly promote the TIR economy
throughout the EU. The Industry Working Group recognizes this upside, both for leveraging
available financial resources, as well as exploring partnership opportunities for growing exports
within and beyond the EU.
With accumulating experience and learning curves in using IoT/IoS/IoN platforms and GAIN
technology innovations, one of the core advantages is increasing the intellectual/intelligence
capital, along with advancements in human and social capital, that are the prerequisites for
creating Knowledge-as-a-Services expertise as an export business model innovation.
The fractal metaphor is apt in conceptualizing this export growth potential. Local and regional
transformation of buildings into nanogrids, with EVs as picogrids, connected together in a
fractal-like manner, becomes a replicable export business model; packaging together integrated
smart products and skills with Knowledge-as-a-Service expertise.
Re-Skilling & Up-Skilling for the TIR
Like previous industrial revolutions, TIR induces movements towards de-skilling. Digitalization,
human/intelligent machine interface, Big Data analytics, advances in robotics, and automation
will displace, destroy and create new jobs. There is no consensus on the percentage of job
destruction due to these changes (it varies between 12% in Germany for ZEW estimates 194 and
50% in Luxembourg or Germany for Bruegel calculations 195 ) but it is crucial to invest in
194 Bonin, H., Gregory, T. and Zierahn, U. (2015) “Übertragung der Studie von Frey/Osborne (2013) auf
Deutschland“, Kurzexpertise Nr. 57, ZEW (Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung),
http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/gutachten/Kurzexpertise_BMAS_ZEW2015.pdf
195 Bowles, J. (2014) The Computerisation of European Jobs, Bruegel, http://bruegel.org/2014/07/thecomputerisation-of-european-jobs/.
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