Area Development
A new study from Celerant and The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), based on interviews with more than 600 senior managers in Europe and the United States, provides advice on how companies can cope with the changing times. Companies are advised to develop research-based understanding of what the current and future drivers of change are; identify shared obstacles leaders face when executing change;  and - crucially - gauge the critical factors involved in making change work tomorrow as well as today.
Celerant's new Manufacturing vice president, Mitch Schrudder says the biggest challenges facing business are "the growing complexities related to virtually all parts of the global supply chain. Manufacturers continue to wrestle with the most productive and economical ways to address make/buy decisions, make outsource/in-source decisions, evaluate warehousing locations, get new products to market quickly, and ensure their logistics strategy is in place to support global success."

He adds, "The focus is once again on controlling overall costs. The past five years were focused on how best to deal with unpredictable rising costs of commodity materials. Since these appear to have settled down, cost reduction, revenue growth and driving predictable performance have become the new imperative."