Les managers voient des opportunités comme des risques dans la mondialisation. Etude de McKinsey...

Voilà une étude ultra-intéressante : on a demandé à des centaines de managers leur opinion sur divers sujets. Etude publiée en avril 2007 (en anglais)

• Business executives around the world agree that knowledge and technology trends, as well as those linked to economic growth in emerging markets, will have a positive impact on the profitability of their companies, the latest McKinsey Quarterly survey shows.
• But there is a gap between the impact that executives assign to these trends and the extent to which they have taken active steps to seize the opportunities.
• Their responses to questions about 14 macroeconomic, political, social, environmental, and business trends also reveal that executives view some—including geopolitical instability and a social backlash against corporate activity—more as risks than as opportunities.

Les tendances pour le futur

Important trends It is crucial for companies to anticipate correctly the future implications of trends shaping the global landscape so that they can ride the currents rather than swim against them. When asked about the importance of the 14 trends for global business over the next five years, respondents cite trends linked to economic growth in emerging markets as key (Exhibit 1). Increasingly, the rising number of consumers in emerging economies, global labor and talent markets, and the shifting economic activity between and within regions make up three of the top four trends, all rated as “important” or “very important” by more than 75 percent of the panel. The panel also puts trends in knowledge and technology at the top of its list, with 75 percent of the respondents rating three trends in this area as “important” or “very important.”

L'impact sur les profits

Good or bad for profits? When it comes to corporate profitability, the importance of the trends shifts: a majority of executives believe each of the six trends will have a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” impact on their profitability over the coming five years, but knowledge and technology trends are at the top of the list. Respondents view the increasing availability of knowledge and the faster pace of technological innovation as the two most positive trends, with the development of technologies that empower consumers and communities in fourth place . Interestingly, executives rate a management trend—the adoption of scientific management techniques—higher for its positive impact on profitability (61 percent) than for its importance to global business as a whole (50 percent).

Agir sur le plan opérationnel

The action gap While executives view many trends as opportunities and see significant risk in others, their companies have not taken active steps to address them to the extent that would appear warranted. While 76 percent of the respondents expect a positive impact on profits from the increasing availability of knowledge and the ability to exploit it, only 59 percent say their companies have acted on this opportunity (Exhibit 3). The gap is even wider between the 63 percent of executives who view consumers in emerging markets as a future source of profits and the 41 percent who say their companies have pursued this opportunity. Executives appear better prepared to manage the riskiest trends in their industries than they are to seize the ones they see as opportunities. For example, executives within the pharmaceutical and energy and mining industries are the ones most concerned with the social backlash against corporate activity—more than 40 percent see this trend as negative for the profitability of their companies. They are also the most likely, at well over 30 percent, to report that they have taken active steps to address it.

Les changements structuraux (partenariats stratégiques)

Structural changes Shifting industry structures and emerging forms of corporate organization are characteristics of an increasingly competitive global economy. Nearly five out of ten respondents view this trend as important for global business, and four out of ten believe it will have a positive impact on the profitability of their companies. Over half of all executives say their industries have consolidated in the past five years, and as many expect this development to continue. In contrast, less than 10 percent of respondents have seen or expect fragmentation in their industries. Examining the responses by industry, executives in the travel and transport, health care, manufacturing, and automotive industries expect the pace of consolidation to increase. Executives in the energy and mining, financial-services, pharmaceuticals, and retail industries expect less consolidation during the next five years. Strategic partnerships are an important example of emerging forms of corporate organization. Six out of ten executives report that their companies have more partnerships today than they had five years ago, and 75 percent say a need to strengthen their competitive position has prompted changes to their partnerships. A majority of companies in all the surveyed industries have added to their portfolio of partnerships, with pharmaceuticals as the most active, at 72 percent. Almost half of the companies have entered into distribution partnerships, three out of ten into manufacturing outsourcing, and two out of ten into product design outsourcing (Exhibit 4). The telecom and travel and transport industries were most active at entering distribution partnerships, with two-thirds of executives in each category saying they had done so. Partnerships to outsource manufacturing were, perhaps surprisingly, particularly common in both the manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries. Almost six out of ten respondents in each of these industries say they had entered such partnerships. The pharmaceutical industry was also the most active in establishing strategic partnerships to outsource product design.

A la recherche du savoir In search of knowledge Many executives focus on knowledge, innovation, and technology trends as important drivers of future profits, which might suggest that companies are reaching beyond their companies to source knowledge. However, two out of three executives say internal development is their companies’ most important source of knowledge. Little more than two out of ten report that external sources—partnerships with other businesses, cooperation with academic institutions, or relationships with investors such as venture capital firms—are most important . While all respondents are biased toward internal knowledge creation, there are significant splits among industries about the ways this knowledge is gathered. Industries with an engineering or scientific focus—particularly pharmaceuticals and manufacturing—are most likely to use formal internal R&D processes. In industries with a strong people focus, including business and financial services and retail, some 40 percent of executives favor an informal approach.