The rise in the frequency and intensity of global disruptions is sparking uncertainty, and triggering profound transformations across value chains – as highlighted in the recent report Beyond Cost: Country Readiness for the Future of Manufacturing and Supply Chains. As global value chains start to rewire, the Global Future Council on Advanced Manufacturing and Value Chains has set out to create potential scenarios to guide manufacturers’ decision-making processes as they rethink their operations to account for critical driving forces including climate disruption, consumer expectations and behaviour, global relations and trade, technology evolution, cybersecurity, regulatory complexity, workforce and skills, and social equity.
The Council’s 2023/2024 mandate aimed to map various scenarios for value chain configurations across the time horizons of 2030, 2040, and 2050. These dates were chosen because:
- 2030 represents an anchor point. The Council recognizes manufacturers are taking strategic action in preparation for 2030, as evidenced through case studies. These baseline actions aim to ground 2040 and 2050 strategies in actionable progress, ensuring future goals are both ambitious and achievable.
- 2040 is the Council’s core focus, where scenario-planning methodology – utilized by over 140 C-suite executives, academics, and public officials to date – explores potential configurations of future-ready value chains, and represents a stepping stone along the journey to 2050.
- 2050 is a visionary timeline that allows stakeholders to step out of an incremental mindset, and to consider ambitious alternatives – a north star – and examine the long-term decisions necessary in the coming years to reach these goals.
The framework
To address challenges and uncertainties related to the driving forces that the manufacturing ecosystem will continue to navigate through 2050, the Council designed a strategic framework outlining three key dimensions considered essential for shaping future value chain configurations: integrated sustainability, end-to-end collaboration, and technology adoption.
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