Analysis of the Financial Indicators in the Enterprises Affected by Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is a designation for the current trend of digitization, automation of production and related market changes. The businesses must therefore be prepared both in technology and financial termsas well. However, the introduction of Industry 4.0 in enterprises can increase financial requirements or increase financial instability. In this paper, 17 financial indicators are obtained from the balance sheet of 617 analyzed enterprises, for which both quantitative and qualitative research has been carried out. Data was collected for the year 2017. As it is clear from the analysis, the introduction of Industry 4.0 was reflected mainly in total assets (and intangible fixed assets), short-term receivables, equity and total liabilities (and long-term and short-term bank loans and short-term liabilities). Most of these indicators have higher value for businesses that are affected by Industry 4.0 than those that do not yet incorporate automation and robotics. Only short-term bank loans show lower values. This is due to the fact that enterprises affected by Industry 4.0 invest primarily in fixed assets (as it was confirmed) and these assets are financed by long-term resources. On the other hand, a statistically significant difference was not reflected, for example, in long-term receivables, short-term financial assets, basic capital or reserve funds and other funds created from profit.