What trend or update surprised you in your industry in 2022, and can we expect this to continue next year?
It was no surprise the biggest trend that is affecting Manufacturing and growing going forward is that “DISRUPTION is now CONSTANT”.
Different forms of global disruption such as, climate, conflict, geo-politics, health, logistics, and financial instabilities are driving manufacturers to go digital to automate and share processes across factories and supply chains at scale in order to be agile enough to react. Efforts are focused on building visibility and resilience across the business. Particularly in the Supply Chain.
What can we expect to see more of next year? This could be tech adoption, customer behavior, ways of working, etc.
IDC identifies digital transformation will continue to be driven with investment in The Cloud.
As manufacturers continue to gather data lakes of information, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning will increase the value of data processing deriving insights that should improve performance.
Are your priorities different in 2023 vs this year, and if so, why? What is your number one priority next year?
Manufacturing priorities are rarely short term as business plans take multiple years to deliver. My number one project got next year is advocating and evangelizing the importance of using information to create business advantage in the business by creating a better collaboration environment to leverage information to better support the bottom line. I will also increase activities around manufacturing sustainability.
What emerging trends or industry behaviors can we expect to see develop in 2023 and beyond over the coming years?
Continued commitment to Sustainability and ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) is important to drive Net Zero Carbon goals and regulation requirements towards 2035 and 2050. This will be key to brand loyalty. We already have customer examples. (CUSTOMER NAMES are confidential). While disruptive technology like quantum computing power and the metaverse still look for manufacturing applicability
What will we see less of next year?
We should see some reduction in the impact of disruption as manufacturers work to mitigate where possible. Digital Transformation has a significant role to play here as manufacturers use Manufacturing 4.0 technologies to help to improve business agility.