Companies are operating in an intensely competitive marketplace. Today, success increasingly depends on adopting strategies based around product design and quality just as much as costs and price. Our survey provides some hope that firms are closing the productivity gap with their competitors, with almost half of companies pointing to an improvement in the past 12 months.
Companies also face a number of barriers in seeking to achieve their objectives. These include rising costs and a growing regulatory burden that makes increasing demands on management time.
Whatever their strategy, companies believe they will require higher skill levels in their workforce to achieve it. Only a small proportion of companies foresee their skill needs remaining unchanged over the next three years. Complex supply chains and more sophisticated and flexible production processes, together with the need to tailor manufacturing solutions to customer requirements, are placing greater demands on all levels of management.