World maps of opportunities
World Maps of Opportunities
According to Roland Berger School of Strategy and Economics (RBSE), the scarcity of material and human resources will drive innovation and economic growth. In "World Maps of Opportunities", the second issue of the new THOUGHTS series published by RBSE, our experts predict that the megatrends of climate change, demographics and resource scarcity open up significant growth opportunities for both businesses and economies.
Confident scenario
"We reinterpret the most important megatrends and look for perspectives that are not dominated by the usual threat scenarios," says Roland Berger's Chairman of the Supervisory Board Burkhard Schwenker. The publication builds on the confident economic scenario RBSE developed for 2012 (which be updated in the fall), focusing on those trends that will not peter out but can be counted on to provide a long-term framework for predicting business opportunities and risks.
These megatrends are climate change, demographics and resource scarcity. Among the questions the publication tries to answer are what new demand these megatrends will create, what kinds of companies are best positioned to meet this new demand, and which economies will benefit.
Recommendations for companies and governments
From their findings, our experts derived a number of recommendations. They concluded that megatrends offer considerable growth opportunities to those economies or regions that pursue intelligent industrial policies. For this reason, policies must aim at strengthening industrial competence and advancing core industrial strengths. This creates the right conditions for clustering high-value services that can join with the manufacturing sector to deliver new solutions.
To this end, research policies need to be deliberately aligned with the megatrends and investment is required for relevant research projects: energy, new materials, surface technologies, nano-electronics and organic electronics. The winners will be those economies that focus on health, education, flexibility and mobility. In a nutshell, they must create an environment that encourages companies to think and act optimistically in the spirit of entrepreneurship.
Confident scenario
"We reinterpret the most important megatrends and look for perspectives that are not dominated by the usual threat scenarios," says Roland Berger's Chairman of the Supervisory Board Burkhard Schwenker. The publication builds on the confident economic scenario RBSE developed for 2012 (which be updated in the fall), focusing on those trends that will not peter out but can be counted on to provide a long-term framework for predicting business opportunities and risks.
These megatrends are climate change, demographics and resource scarcity. Among the questions the publication tries to answer are what new demand these megatrends will create, what kinds of companies are best positioned to meet this new demand, and which economies will benefit.
Recommendations for companies and governments
From their findings, our experts derived a number of recommendations. They concluded that megatrends offer considerable growth opportunities to those economies or regions that pursue intelligent industrial policies. For this reason, policies must aim at strengthening industrial competence and advancing core industrial strengths. This creates the right conditions for clustering high-value services that can join with the manufacturing sector to deliver new solutions.
To this end, research policies need to be deliberately aligned with the megatrends and investment is required for relevant research projects: energy, new materials, surface technologies, nano-electronics and organic electronics. The winners will be those economies that focus on health, education, flexibility and mobility. In a nutshell, they must create an environment that encourages companies to think and act optimistically in the spirit of entrepreneurship.
