MORE THEMES TO WORK ON_The Global Risks That Most Worry World Economic Forum Experts

The following themes, fifty no less, were first brought to our attention via Scientific American posted on the leading professional contact platform Linkedin

An executive summary and full report is freely available on the WEF-World Economic Forum's web site-reports.

There is certainly much food for thought and more for action in this lengthy, in-depth report, well documented  graphically.

eg. Urgent: Likelihood of occurence 

CHANGE

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2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index from Deloitte, 16 November 2012

Although the Index title, 

"2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index: 

CEOs see emerging nations surge 

as U.S., Germany and Japan face changing game"

is hardly a SCOOP, the press-release-summary is a quick way to pick up the essentials obtained from an in-depth analysis of survey responses from more than 550 chief executive officers (CEOs) and senior leaders at manufacturing companies around the world.

One factor which I strongly believe to be under played by Gov. Admin and CEOs is the necessity to push Global Warming GW-CC issue to the top of the agenda. following the special report from NEW SCIENTIST SPECIAL EDITION ON CLIMATE-5YEARS ON! cf quote from NS"Five years ago, we were warned that the climate change outlook was bad. In this week's cover feature, read the seven reasons why it's even worse that we thought.  and their plea for a strong commited US lead

Obama should fulfil his 2008 climate promises 

since 

                                                                    "Extreme events caused by warming are happening much sooner than we though they would. It's time for Obama to act"

The more courageous will read the full report but I have seen more readable materials. But for a starter I recommend the summary below:

"Talent continues to be key driver of manufacturing competitiveness

Washington D.C., 16 November 2012 — Over the next five years, 20th-century manufacturing stalwarts like the United States, Germany and Japan will be challenged to maintain their competitive edge to emerging nations such as China, India and Brazil, according to the 2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index report from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited’s (DTTL) Global Manufacturing Industry group and the U.S. Council on Competitiveness.

The report confirms that the landscape for competitive manufacturing is in the midst of a massive power shift – based on an in-depth analysis of survey responses from more than 550 chief executive officers (CEOs) and senior leaders at manufacturing companies around the world.

The 2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index once again ranks China as the most competitive manufacturing nation in the world both today, and five years from now. Germany and the United States round out the top three competitive manufacturing nations, but, according to the survey, both fall five years from now, with Germany ranking fourth and the United States ranking fifth, only slightly ahead of the Republic of Korea. The two other developed nations currently in the top 10 are also expected to be less competitive in five years: Canada slides from seventh to eighth place and Japan drops out of the top 10 entirely, falling to 12th place.

Further, the Index finds that Germany’s slide in competitiveness holds true for several other European nations, including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland and the Czech Republic, which are all expected to experience a dramatic decrease in their ability to compete. Poland, for example, drops from 14th to 18th place on the Index, while the United Kingdom drops from 15th to 19th place.

“America and Europe have continued to watch emerging markets mature and become formidable competitors over the past decade,” said Craig Giffi, vice chairman, Deloitte United States (Deloitte LLP) and consumer and industrial products industry leader, who co-authored the report and led the research-team

Giffi points out that in five years key emerging nations are expected to vault forward in the Index: Brazil jumps from its current eight place slot to third place and India jumps from fourth to second place. China remains firmly in first place.

“While the Americas region will continue to show significant manufacturing prowess – with the United States, Brazil, Canada and Mexico all in the top 15 most competitive nations five years from now – many advantages are tilting toward Asia, which will have 10 of the top 15 most competitive nations within the decade,” Giffi said.

“Frontier markets in Asia such as Vietnam and Indonesia are on the rise,” comments Tim Hanley, DTTL Global Leader, Manufacturing. “The global CEO survey results echo the view that while China and India are still prominent in discussions, manufacturers are turning their focus to these frontier markets for growth to capture both the growing local consumer demand and to serve as strategic manufacturing hubs in the global value chain.”

Deborah L. Wince-Smith, president and CEO of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, views the perceived decline of America and developed nations as an alarming trend requiring immediate action.

“We need to better understand the highly complex forces driving the future of manufacturing and many of the structural changes reshaping the global economy. Emerging nations are growing fast and strong. Wise policies and practices could unleash American strengths, turbo-charge our manufacturing engines, and raise technology commercialization to new heights, driving U.S. economic growth and job creation,” she said.

Talent leads the way
The report found that access to talented workers is the top indicator of a country’s competitiveness – followed by a country’s trade, financial and tax system, and then the cost of labor and materials.

“Nothing was more important to CEOs than the quality, availability and productivity of a nation’s workforce to help them drive their innovation agendas,” said Giffi. “Enhancing and growing an effective talent base remains core to competitiveness among the traditional manufacturing leaders – and increasingly among emerging market challengers as well.”

The report reveals several schisms in competitiveness between established manufacturing players and their emerging counterparts, most notably:

• 1. Traditional manufacturing stalwarts are perceived to have an advantage with respect to talent-driven innovation. More than 85 percent of global executives “strongly agree” or “agree” that the availability of quality skilled talent needed for advanced manufacturing in the United States, Germany and Japan makes those nations highly competitive – while just 58 percent say the same about China and 40 percent say it about India.
• 2. Established manufacturing nations scored far better than emerging manufacturing nations when it came to local economic, trade, financial and tax systems. More than seven in 10 global business leaders “strongly agree” or “agree” that Germany and the United States have an extreme competitiveness advantage based on this criterion, but only 43 percent say the same about India.
• 3. Superior healthcare systems will likely give established manufacturing nations a distinct advantage over emerging players, thanks to their access to quality care and regulatory policies for public health. More than seven in 10 business leaders believe that the healthcare systems in the United States, Germany and Japan make them extremely competitive, but no more than three in 10 say that about China, India and Brazil.
• 4. When looking at labour costs and availability, stalwart manufacturing nations find themselves squarely on the defensive. Almost nine in 10 global executive believe China and India are extremely competitive with respect to the local cost and availability of labor, but fewer than four in 10 believe the same about the United States, Germany and Japan.
• 5. The newest of the emerging superpowers have a long way to go when it comes to supplier networks. Five in 10 executives or fewer “strongly agree” or “agree” that India and Brazil are extremely competitive relative to their supply networks, compared to the eight in 10 or more who say the same thing about the United States, Germany and Japan.
• 6. Emerging manufacturing nations will likely struggle to be competitive in regards to their legal systems. Fewer than four in 10 global business leaders “strongly agree” or “agree” that China, India and Brazil are extremely competitive relative to their legal systems, compared to the more than eight in 10 who feel that way about the United States, Germany and Japan.
• 7. Newer manufacturing players face an uphill battle when it comes to physical infrastructure competitiveness. Fewer than a quarter of business executives “strongly agree” or “agree” that India’s infrastructure makes it extremely competitive, but almost nine in 10 say the United States, Germany and Japan have a strong infrastructure advantage.

“The emerging superpowers in manufacturing will focus on building the advanced manufacturing capabilities and economic and political infrastructures that drive rapid growth and high value jobs for their citizens, forcing 20th century manufacturing powerhouses to fend off the growing strength of more focused global competitors,” Giffi said.

Still, Giffi points out that:
 “manufacturing still matters a great deal for the economic prosperity of 20th century powerhouses – and these nations continue to have enough going for them to stay in the game and even thrive.”

The 2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index full report LINK

About the Study

The 2013 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index is an initiative led by The U.S. Council on Competitiveness and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited designed to determine how CEOs view the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry in different countries around the world. A global CEO survey, which generated responses from 552 CEOs and senior executives, offers perspectives on the most important factors that drive manufacturing industry competitiveness. The global survey results also helped to create a unique Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index ranking the relative manufacturing industry competiveness of countries and reflect how executives perceive this may change over the next five years. The in-depth study seeks to define excellence in manufacturing and draw out the implications for manufacturers in terms of the competencies required to develop and sustain an edge in a new competitive landscape. Participants were also asked to provide their views of the global economic conditions and government actions that can bolster competitiveness in the manufacturing industry. To learn more, visit Global Competitiveness.

About the U.S. Council on Competitiveness

The Council on Competitiveness is a leadership organization comprised of CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders committed to ensuring that the United States remains the world leader. The Council has one goal: to strengthen America’s competitive advantage by acting as a catalyst for innovative public policy solutions. For more information, please visit . U.S. Council on Competitiveness 

DTTL Global Manufacturing Industry group

The DTTL Global Manufacturing Industry group is comprised of around 2,000 member firm partners and over 13,000 industry professionals in over 45 countries. The group’s deep industry knowledge, service line experience, and thought leadership allows them to solve complex business issues with member firm clients in every corner of the globe. Deloitte member firms attract, develop, and retain the very best professionals and instill a set of shared values centered on integrity, value to clients, and commitment to each other and strength from diversity. Deloitte member firms provide professional services to 80 percent of the manufacturing industry companies on the Fortune Global 500®. For more information about the Global Manufacturing Industry group, please visit  www.deloitte.com/manufacturing."

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Sustainable Materials_with both eyes open_Free to download and read or to buy as hard cover_

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Sustainable Materials_with both eyes open_Free to download and read or to buy as hard cover_

Rich Citizens poor state _Food for thought in current times

Food for thought 

Apologies for not being able to produce more data.

Reference

The Economist "A German movement argues that the debt crisis could be solved if governments taxed private wealth more heavily" econ.st/S24Ntk

Mea Culpa_Maximizing performance, minimizing waste RightScale takes much of the risk out of choosing a cloud

It is all well criticising as in one of  my earlier posts today entitled "Setting the Example_Still a long way to go judging by the Top Cloud Computing Proponents"

Mea Culpa:
Well I was busy loging-off and closing my tabs when I discovered that the issues rightly raised by Greenpeace and echoed by Scientific American are being addressed by the innovating companies RightScale and Technology Pioneer Enphase Energy.

The reference entitled Maximizing performance, minimizing waste

RightScale takes much of the risk out of choosing a cloud computing system by offering a free edition of its myCloud platform for developing and testing private cloud infrastructures.
The open-source model is almost as revolutionary as the technology. The company makes its profit from services, once the cloud is up and running. Its specialty is fine-tuning servers to handle different types of data seamlessly while providing strategies that create as little downtime as possible.
Also
Solar power systems are not without risks too. One big problem (I trust this is not hype-seems obvious) is the “Christmas light effect”, in which a single bad light knocks out an entire string of perfectly good lights. In a similar fashion, most solar systems are connected in series to an inverter that changes the power generated into electricity in a form that can be used. When a cell loses power, it reduces the output from other cells to the lowest common denominator. Technology Pioneer Enphase Energy gets around this drawback by assigning a small micro inverter to each cell individually. The arrangement makes it possible to connect the cells in parallel and it also considerably reduces system weight and makes installing systems much easier.

Enphase’s approach draws the maximum output from each cell, and uses a computer relying on a wide area network (WAN) to coordinate the output.

This and many more innovations and innovating companies at the ref. link below:

Reference:

Technology Pioneers 2013 from The World Economic Forum (WEF) [pdf]

Why CFOs Are Skeptical About Sustainability? - Answer: They don't know about Factor 10 Institute

"To a great extent — and unfortunately — “sustainability” is a quality that exists in the mind of the beholder is the opener for David M. Katz  article in CFO webzine. David is editor-in-chief of CFO Online/Mobile.

While the complete aruement may be read in the references 1.  CFO's  I shall choose a few excerpts for the sake of argument.

"While any good finance executive will focus first on the costs and revenue opportunities in proposed energy-saving plants, the risks and benefits to company employees and external society will be squarely on his or her radar, because they potentially affect the company’s brand reputation. 

But doing good deeds is and should be the gravy (not the meat") in this discussion. The corporation, by its very nature, needs to benefit from any sustainability effort to go ahead with it and be motivated to succeed at it. Self-interest needs to be the prime driver, and the extent of self-interest needs to be benchmarked.

Of course, there are sweet spots where what’s good for the planet melds seamlessly with what’s good for the bottom line." he concedes.  For example, he mentions one company which by changing its energy consumption helped cut its costs. (He doesn't tell us what type of change -mean of him don't you feel? or is it a trade secret to strive to lower the energy bill, and let me add to increase material savings - The Material Productivity )

He rightly concludes (with some ignorance that all activity can be described in terms of Carbon Footprint which admittedly may be a far too global metric to put into practise and monetary value savings and gains.

  

"The reason for this is that for corporations, metrics for sustainability — in particular the environmental kind — amount to just so much greenwash. There are few environmentally based metrics to match the financial metrics most corporations run on.

For example, while measuring a company’s “carbon footprint” may be a good way to prove how good a corporate citizen it is, it addresses finance only tangentially — perhaps by increasing sales among environmentalists, or making it less a target of lawsuits. But really, what does a carbon footprint have to do with an income statement, balance sheet, or cash-flow statement?

The challenge of sustainability at the corporate level is to find a way to answer that question in hard, numeric, provable ways that take into account the self-interest so basic to our free-enterprise system. Then, if the metrics are there, the incentives needed for productive action will be too."

REF 1. Full Article CFO.com (http://s.tt/1jQsf) 

An  this is where Factor 10 Institute comes in 

The Factor10 Institute 2008

The Factor 10 Institute has been created to provide practical support for achieving significant advances in resource productivity in the production and consumption sectors through:

• The design of eco-efficient logistic systems, processes, and services;
• The development of dematerialized products, services, buildings, and infrastructures with high resource productivity;
• Appropriate marketing strategies, maintenance, recycling and disposal of goods;
• Enhancing consumer information on the environmental quality of products and services;
• The creation and performance of research and development plans;
• Offering seminars for firms, politicians and other interested people, giving practical advice for implementing the Factor 10 and the MIPS-concepts at home, in the public domain, in firms, and in governments;
• Small scale seminars for political and business leaders to identify long-term sustainable economic options;
• Forging coalitions among international initiatives for practical approaches toward sustainability, such as The Natural Step, Sweden, the Zero Emission Forum, Japan, The Environmental Footprint, USA, and the Dutch Sustainable Technology Program.

The Factor 10 Institute takes particular interest in questions relating to the increase in employment and the sustainable financing of governments. It also provides services to the international Factor 10 Club.

REFERENCE

2. The Factor 10 Institute

cf also

 Factor 10_Position Paper 08/01: “FUTURE - BEYOND CLIMATIC CHANGE” (pdf)