The technology revolution 4.0 is seen as a revolution which is the foundation of the previous three technology revolutions. These industrial revolution boosted significantly labor productivity through scientific and technological advances, but the product cycle is shorter much more than today.

Technology 4.0 is developing as strongly as a storm, which promises to bring both opportunities and challenges for the footwear industry in Vietnam. Accordingly, technology 4.0 will help Vietnam continue to innovate, continue to restructure and abandon the habit of small production that the footwear manufacturers focus on production by volume. The pressure from this revolution will push the government and Vietnamese businesses to change their institutions and policies to catch up with other economies in the world. However, the cheap labor advantage will gradually disappear as robots will begin to replace humans in the footwear production process.

In Vietnam, in the field of making shoes, workers will be replaced by automated systems that produce 500% higher productivity than the average person. To this end, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, General Director of May 10 admitted that the 4.0 industrial revolution will bring many opportunities for developing countries like Vietnam. However, it is forecasted that 86% of the labor force in the textile and garment industry will be unemployed due to the competitiveness of machinery.

According to economic experts, Vietnam's growth model has come to the highest peak of development cycle. Therefore, if do not reform, the economy with small capital, weak administrative policies, business motivation of price difference, dependence on the availability of natural conditions... make sure that Vietnam footwear industry will face to great challenges and the real crisis in the future. To catch up to 4.0 technological industry, the change must have. The tool to create the change is not the people but the invisible hand of the government.

In order to catch up to the industrial revolution 4.0, 4 factors are needed: the first is the institution and leadership which the role of the head person is very important; the second is the system of education, training, new skills and digital resources; the third is the institutional innovation and creativity, the footwear enterprises must be the center, or pragmatism must be very high; the fourth is the network and connection security.

Looking at the fact that most footwear workers are unemployed but machinery can not produce sophisticated shoes or they can not decide whether to replace the market ... This shows that if we know about the work, we still keep our role in production process. Industrial revolution 4.0 is not something that is high in the sky. Even in farming, we can completely revolutionized the 4.0. However, in order to welcome the wave 4.0, it is so important for Vietnamese businesses to change the out-of-dated policies and for the Government to to restructure the economy.