The Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab recently spoke about an upcoming fourth industrial revolution. He spoke about how this one is unique in comparison with the others previously recorded. A few organizations had the foresight to develop business innovations which have disrupted the way we work. World leaders, educators and economists are gearing up towards this change where all investors, customers and talent are flooding towards the digital landscape. Four kinds of businesses have been identified. Asset builders are those such as Ford, Exxon, Walmart and Boeing that create physical capital. Then there are service providers like Accenture and JP Morgan Chase that deliver value through human capital. Technology creators such as Oracle, Pfizer and Microsoft generate ideas through intellectual capital. And finally there are network orchestrators that use their network capital to deliver value via collaboration. This list includes the likes of Uber, eBay, Trip Advisor and Visa. While the highways in the USA took nearly half a trillion US dollars to build over thirty five years, Facebook achieved more than a billion followers in barely a few years. Sales growth, return on assets, gross profit margin and price to revenue multiplier all show quicker scale growths in the final category as that grows fastest.

Source: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-network-revolution-creating-value-through-platforms-people-and-digital-technology/