The fourth industrial revolution – the “digital era” – is set to change the pace of adaptation, in line with Moore’s Law, or result in companies being left out in the cold.

The exponential growth of the fourth industrial revolution and the rapid transitional momentum that was under way, would have a ripple effect as the disrupted became disruptors, leaving no industry untouched, Deloitte Africa digital innovation leader Valter Adão said on Friday.

Moore’s Law set out that the capacity of technology would double and its cost halve every 18 months, which was clearly being seen in the development of technology currently.

“Without a doubt, it will have a big impact on us,” Adão commented at a Deloitte technology conversation at the company’s headquarters in Woodmead, adding that corporations needed to keep in mind that, along with this exponential growth, all linear growth paths were now off the table.

The accelerated digital transformation went well beyond analytics, mobile, cloud, social content and Web, with the fourth industrial revolution exponential disruptors ultimately driving the industrial revolution.

These included the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, genomics, autonomous drones, three-dimensional printing, electric and connected cars, connected homes, cryptocurrencies, wearables, robotics and mobile payments.

“Industries are experiencing exceptional progression,” Adão commented on the transition of deceptive technology developments to disruptive technology, citing innovation that not many believed would have an impact until it was too late.

The digital era was also dematerialised and demonetised, he pointed out, citing Uber, which had no taxi fleet, Amazon, with no bookstores and AirBNB, without hotel chains, as well as innovations that provided a service free-of-charge to the consumer, but sourced revenue elsewhere, through advertisements, access or information provision, besides others.

Further, the digital era was democratised, with the increasing leveraging of individuals’ inputs to build and influence other institutions’ potential success, this included sites such as Trip Advisor, Kickstarter, Coursera or SunXchange.

For some industries, the consequences were dire over the next five years.

The retail and the telecommunications and media sectors had become among the first to be disrupted, along with the professional services and real estate sectors, besides others.

However, the more these industries were disrupted, the further out they ventured into other industries to revive profitability and relevancy, which would lead to disruption in the coming years of the education, medical and health, transport, agriculture, utilities and government service sectors.

Linear solutions would not be effective in an exponential market, and agility was critical, noted Adão.

Companies were not gearing up properly to mitigate or leverage the impact, with innovation only happening when there was a problem, he said, suggesting that companies “Uber themselves before they got Kodaked”.