Project Methodology

During the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012, the Forum-Deloitte LLP project team presented key findings from The Future of Manufacturing report, the culmination of a one-year project that explores why manufacturing is a key driver of economic growth, how the global manufacturing ecosystem has changed and continues to change, and what the key factors for both companies and countries will be to compete in the future.

In a largely unified response, project stakeholders – senior manufacturing executives, policy-makers and civil society leaders – directed the Forum-Deloitte team to continue the project by defining specific, effective, near-term ways to react to these future competitive factors. The resulting project, Manufacturing for Growth, defines key strategies for driving growth and high-value job creation through manufacturing industry sectors, and provides best practice examples for reacting to universal challenges in the area of talent development and innovation.

The Manufacturing for Growth project brings together extensive primary and secondary research from industry, academic and policy leaders. The extended global project team conducted face-to-face interviews around the world with over 70 chief executives of multinational manufacturing companies. Insights from these interviews were supplemented with input collected during workshops hosting senior manufacturing leaders, including members of the Project Consultative Group, in the following locations:

• World Economic Forum private session in Tokyo, Japan: 24 April 2012
• Manufacturing & Society in the 21st Century, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute, Aspen, USA: 17 August 2012
• World Economic Forum private session in Berlin, Germany: 17 October 2012
• World Economic Forum private session in New Delhi, India: 6 November 2012
• Talent-Driven Innovation Symposium, in collaboration with the Manufacturing Institute and Alcoa Foundation, Washington DC, USA: 28 November 2012
• World Economic Forum private session in Davos, Switzerland: 24 January 2013

The project team also gleaned findings from the Forum’s official sessions on manufacturing during the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, in September 2012 and the World Economic Forum on India in Gurgaon, India, in November 2012.

Additionally, this effort benefited from the invaluable time and content developed with a number of experts in the areas of policy, value chain analysis, human capital and specific manufacturing sectors: Deloitte Tax LLP; Deloitte Consulting’s Energy Practice; the National Association of Manufacturers; Duke’s Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness; The Dow Chemical Company; and Nissan.