Trends Identified
Economies
At the same time, and as a direct consequence of this population growth, we are forecasting that our global economy will triple in size by 20501 and is set to have doubled to over $130 trillion in just 20 years’ time, in 20302. Much of this growth is amongst the emerging economies (E7) of the world, including China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia. As a consequence, by 2019 the E7, emerging seven major economies, will be a larger economic bloc than the G7 countries who have led the world economically and to a great extent, politically for the past 60 years. By 2050 China will have the largest economy with a GDP of over $24 trillion whilst the United States’ economy is expected to reach £22 trillion and India the third largest economy at $8 trillion.
2012
The future
Steria
Population
We are confronted by the evidence of our rapidly changing world every day and are contributing to its change each in our own way. In the past 50 years, we’ve doubled the number of people alive on our planet, reaching seven billion people at the end of last year. In the next 40 years we are expecting over two billion more people to be alive than today.
2012
The future
Steria
Urbanisation
20 of the world largest 50 cities will be in Asia by 2025, up from only eight in 2007. In 2010 the urbanisation of the world reached 50 percent and it is expected that by 2030, six out of ten people will be city dwellers, which is double the number back in 1950. By 2050 it’s forecast that 70 percent, of the then nine billion people, will live in cities.
2012
The future
Steria
Energy
Global economic growth, prosperity and rising populations will push up energy needs over the coming decades and as a consequence, governments are introducing measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies. The Fukushima nuclear accident, turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010 which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge.
2012
The future
Steria
Environment
To stabilise the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million (ppm), which was the target set by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will cost $542 billion per year, every year till 2030, according to the World Energy Outlook (WEO).
2012
The future
Steria
Business models
A lot has happened in the past few years to shake-up the historical assumptions that underpin companies and their business models. The global economic meltdown and lingering sovereign debt crisis are foremost amongst these changes, which have combined with issues surrounding global climate change, the price of oil, energy and food and longer and more complex supply chains, even access to talent during the downturn84. The result, in short, has been a sea change, against which Chief Executives (CEOs) have seized upon creativity as the necessary life raft for their organisations.
2012
The future
Steria
Technology
Technology has powered much of the convergence in the world’s economies and provided the know-how. It has provided access to global markets for those moving from feudal and agricultural economies to the more valuable industrial, service and intellectual property economies. The internet has expanded to reach 2.1 billion people today and is expected to reach five billion people across the planet by 2020. The raw materials of today’s technology are not inexhaustible and indium, used in liquid-crystal displays, and hafnium, a critical element for next-generation semiconductors, could be exhausted by 2017. Technology is driving the conception of new business models and is set to continue its disruptive and enabling role in the coming decades. When once employees had access to the best technology at work, today it’s more likely that their technology at home or in their hand is superior to their employers. Increasingly, companies are looking to ‘outsource’ personal technologies to their employees enabling them to use their own mobile technologies at work.
2012
The future
Steria
Work
Work itself is changing, with new jobs coming on-stream that didn’t exist ten years ago, as a direct consequence of urbanisation, increasing life expectancy, new technologies, globalisation and climate change. To maintain our workforce we will increasingly hire women, the aged and disabled people and probably have three generations of employees in our firms for the first time in any numbers. The diversity of our workforce and the roles we will ask them to perform, in massively changing circumstances, will put even greater stress on them than they experience today. The direct costs related to stress at work are now estimated to be as high as four percent of EU GDP.
2012
The future
Steria
Outsourcing
As we gain in confidence in being able to collaborate effectively with outside firms and individuals, we are letting go of functions and processes that were once considered essential to retain in-house, increasingly outsourcing them to others to manage for us. Innovation and creativity are two areas where we will invite others to help us more and more, through means such as Engineering R&D outsourcing or through crowdsourcing, where we invite many people to help us discover our next product or service offering.
2012
The future
Steria
Regulation and legislation
Ageing and environmental laws are likely to shape much future regulation and legislation at least within the European Union.
2012
The future
Steria