智识与洞见 | 工业

Egon Zehnder surveyed 235 Chief Supply Chain Officers across 23 countries to see what it takes to succeed in the role and where the future of supply chain is heading. Read the results.

In recent years oil and gas companies have applied innovative technologies to make discoveries of vast new hydrocarbon resources. If only it were that easy for them to deal with a dire challenge above ground: identifying and training a new generation of qualified and prepared executives who are ready and willing to lead oil and gas companies at this pivotal time in the industry’s history.

The combination of 3G Capital’s ongoing acquisitions, margin pressure from discounters like Aldi and Lidl and the expectations of activist investors has thrown consumer packaged goods companies in the food space squarely on the defensive. Most have reacted by going into cost-cutting mode, slashing entire layers of marketing and R&D talent from their organizations.

Given the growing danger of being left behind and commoditized by advancing technology, we asked ten senior leaders in Construction, Agriculture and Mining Equipment how their strategies are adapting. Titles of those we interviewed include President and CEO, General Manager, President of Agricultural Solutions, Chief Information Officer, Chief Digital Officer, and Digital Transformation Officer.

In 2013, Carol SingletonSlade, Steve Goodman, Trent Aulbaugh and Roger Aguirre of Egon Zehnder’s Global Energy Practice warned of the dire need for identifying and training a new generation of qualified and prepared executives who are ready and willing to lead oil and gas companies. Four years later, as Chevron’s chief executive John Watson is set to step down, his likely replacement is a representation of this “new leadership for a changing oil world.”

Digital transformation is driving demand for business engineers, reports the German daily Main-Echo. “Business engineers are particularly relevant today because they straddle two worlds,” explains Thorsten Gerhard, Egon Zehnder’s Industrial Practice Leader.

For decades, search firms in India and around the world have built their businesses on C-suite placements. But with the industry being disrupted by social networks and a complex hiring environment, business models are changing and search firms and management consultancies are now offering more value-added services.

Technology is transforming the industrial sector, bringing dramatic change in everything from time to market to customization. Realizing these benefits, however, requires organizations to undergo transformational change. But who, exactly, is going to make that change happen?

In 2016, nearly 200 transactions, with a value of more than $90 billion, took place in the chemical industry, and 2017 may well surpass that pace. But what are the implications of having these transactions play such a large role in reshaping the industry?

Cyclical market volatility will continue to be standard in the energy industry. An impending market rebound has many feeling cautiously optimistic, but the extended cycle of the current downturn — now being characterized as “lower for longer” — has revealed a new reality in the energy sector that will change leadership imperatives for the foreseeable future.

As Women’s History Month comes to a close and I reflect on the conversations and specific goals this year’s initiatives supported, I feel an overwhelming sense of urgency to continue the momentum in an area near and dear to me: increasing the presence of women and women leaders in STEM fields.

Recently, I outlined the current talent crisis in the chemical industry, in which pipeline and succession challenges have hit just as the industry undergoes its most dramatic set of changes in a generation. There is no single path out of this dilemma, but the first step is to parse the ways in which the industry has become more complex.