Fourth Industrial Revolution and the opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises

Mr. Denis Brunetti - President of Ericsson Vietnam, Myanamar, Cambodia and Laos and Co-Chairman of EuroCham

As Industry 4.0 is discussed everywhere around the world, big enterprise now are investing in technology innovation towards intelligent production and smart manufacturing, using ICT in manufacturing and production management, what is the role of information security in this context?

Firstly, it’s important to understand the relevance of Industry 4.0 (4^th Industrial Revolution) in the context of Vietnam’s economy and socioeconomic development journey. Ericsson shares the same view as the Vietnam government in relation to the importance of Industry 4.0 to Vietnam’s economy. Industry 4.0 will help Vietnam become more productive, increasing its labor productivity growth rate versus neighboring ASEAN markets such as Thailand and Malaysia. In this way, Vietnam will remain an attractive manufacturing market for European companies. To increase labor productivity, Vietnam needs to accelerate industry digitalization, increasingly adopting ICT applications in production as well as other industries.

In fact, the future of the ICT industry is to digitally transform all other industries, and the government has recognized this fact and embraced the concept by also driving its own e-Government initiative within government offices. In the era of Industry 4.0, low-cost labor will no longer be Vietnam’s advantage. The key is to increase productivity in a high-tech environment, and proactively upskill existing workers and educate students for the jobs of tomorrow. This will also aid the country in improving its innovation capacity, which is also an important initiative as Vietnam moves up the value chain and increasingly focuses on high tech industries.

The core elements of Industry 4.0 include Cloud/Remote Robotics, Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality and Big Data, enabled by secure and super reliable 5G IoT (Internet of Things) mobile network infrastructure. In fact, 5G IoT provides the enabling platform for Industry 4.0 to flourish. And in a 5G IoT & Industry 4.0 environment, cybersecurity will become increasingly important, especially in relation to Smart Manufacturing where data security pertaining to Intellectual Property Rights and protection of trade secrets becomes even more critical. Cybersecurity is also very important in the context of the digital transformation of other industries, such as transport (autonomous/driverless vehicles), healthcare (remote surgery) and with the increased use of drones across many applications.

Indeed, as we increasingly connect devices, especially in a manufacturing environment, reliable and trustworthy cybersecurity capabilities need to be fully integrated in our solutions. Security is part of Ericsson’s design philosophy, and we focus on a ‘secure by design’ approach centered around a ‘Security reliability Model’ (SRM) that ensures we always have the right security in place. Our 5G IoT systems are built upon 5 properties: Resilience, Communication Security, Security Assurance, Privacy and Identity Management. It becomes a matter of public safety and national security. Ericsson is committed to securing and safeguarding 4G and 5G IoT mobile networks as a trusted partner of Vietnam and its people.

Could you please share some successful case studies or examples about security from any manufacturing in the world?

Ericsson today partners with many trusted partners, such as Intel, Fraunhofer, Volvo, Scania, SKF and ABB, in other markets around the world as we jointly aim to experiment, trial and explore opportunities to collaborate and develop cellular IoT based solutions that provide secure ‘Smart Manufacturing’ benefits or use cases, such as preventative maintenance, automation, cloud robotics and cable-free production. We are jointly conducting trials in Europe with some of these partners leveraging Ericsson’s ‘IoT Accelerator’ platform. As part of these trials and pilots, Ericsson is applying its proven ‘Security by Design’ approach into the Cloud, IoT and 5G architecture from an end-to-end basis, building security capabilities, such as strong encryption algorithms and IoT device certification/identification into the solution from the beginning, ensuring the strongest cyber-resilience possible. We do this since its widely recognized that the majority of cyber espionage conducted around the world is conducted in manufacturing environments for the purpose of stealing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and trade secrets.

Industry 4.0 and its enabling platform (5G IoT) requires different thinking. It requires a stronger focus on collaboration and cross-industry ecosystem partnerships.

Do you have any advice for manufacturing enterprises in Vietnam when applying IT into production management?

We recommend that manufacturing enterprises focus on choosing partners carefully. Vietnam has a trusted and long term strategic partner in Ericsson. Ericsson celebrates 25 years in Vietnam in 2018, and as the leading provider of Mobile Network infrastructure and services to all the Mobile Operators in Vietnam, Ericsson is well positioned and committed to working in close collaboration with the government of Vietnam to develop and implement the safe and secure network capabilities needed to safeguard Vietnam’s cybersecurity requirements. Ericsson believes that Smart Cities are safe cities, Smart Cities are secure cities, and our focus and priority is to ensure our mobile network infrastructure addresses this requirement through our unique sense of sustainability, reliability, trustworthiness and innovation.

We also recommend that manufacturing enterprises proactively engage their existing workers and future employees (eg. current university students) by partnering with universities and government to actively upskill them for the new jobs of tomorrow. More jobs will be created than displaced, since more opportunities will be generated from industry digitalization driven by ICT. Future jobs will be created in ICT Innovation and entrepreneurship, and this will further improve Vietnam’s economy as it increasingly embraces, adopts and attracts high tech industries. Ericsson is prepared to work closely with our Mobile Operator customers and the Government of Vietnam to assist in driving and increasing the innovation capacity of Vietnam.