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Value Chain 2020 –Value chain strategies for the next decade

“The more that you can have a point of view about the future and clarify what you are about…the more it just unleashes all the creativity.” Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company, (Detroit Free Press, July 18, 2010)

Introduction

This document was prepared to provide you and your company an introduction to Value Chain 2020 (hereafter: VC 2020), a global value-chain research project that IMD – Lausanne, Switzerland and Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands plan to undertake beginning in January, 2011. We are asking for your business and financial support.

Research project goal

Megatrends are changing the world. Companies must adapt their value-chain strategies to new circumstances for long-term business survival. The goal of the research is to help business and value-chain executives transform their value chains over the next decade to achieve and maintain competitive advantage, sustainable growth and profitability. The research will accomplish this by developing new value-chain strategies that support company competitive strategies and create full business alignment.

In order accomplish this goal, twelve strategic questions must be answered. These questions result from the megatrends that changed value chains over the last decade and the new megatrends that will dominate in the next decade.

Strategic research questions to be addressed

• The VC 2020 research program will address the following questions:
• In what ways will future megatrends (discussed below) affect company business models and value-chain strategies?
• What will be the predominant business and value-chain models of the next decade to achieve strategic position in global value chains?
• How will value-chain and company strategies be aligned to deliver customer value?
• In what ways do value chains need to be segmented to meet future customer needs?
• How will firms systematically establish supplier networks that can effectively collaborate to innovate and create new value for customer segments in both developed and developing economies?
• How will value-chain partners be contracted and financed in the future?
• How will environmental sustainability and social responsibility become a source of competitive advantage across the value network?
• How will strategic commodity/category strategies be designed to meet the challenges of increasing scarcity and rising prices and who will participate, internally and externally, to design and implement these strategies?
• What risks and risk management strategies will predominate across the value chain?
• How will information and information technology be used to reduce complexity and ensure value-chain competitiveness?
• How will future value chains be led and managed (organization structure and governance, metrics, incentives, and so forth)?
• How will transformation from current to future value chains be achieved?

For more information click here.