Factors
4 Megatrends
Changes in the biosphere
The biosphere encompasses the entire space (land, water, air) of planet Earth in which living organisms occur. Depending on the respective environmental conditions, biodiversity varies across the different zones and regions of the biosphere.
The biosphere is subject not only to exogenous influences, for example from humans (keyword: climate change), but also to endogenous changes that arise from within itself.
This makes it an independent factor that escapes human control, yet has a decisive influence on human life and the life of all organisms.
Over the course of Earth's history, conditions within the biosphere have changed again and again, with considerable effects on evolution and biodiversity.
Through the interaction of feedback processes, even initially small changes can have major effects. Dynamic processes that influence the complex biosphere system include, for example, Earth's rotation, the Earth's magnetic field, continental drift, volcanism, ocean currents, jet streams, etc.
Human
It is the fundamental motives of human beings that drive them to develop ideas, technologies and tools, to engage in economic activity, and to organise themselves in communities and societies.
Human needs as such do not fundamentally change, only their social and individual prioritisation does. The actual expression of these needs is determined by the culture in which a person operates and by their opportunities, both financial and otherwise. Accordingly, demand for products and services that address these needs can also shift.
The existence of fundamental motives and their genetically rooted pursuit in everyday life qualify them as driving forces of future change.
There are different models and classification systems for basic human needs. In principle, they can be divided into physical, psychological and social needs.
Increase in basic knowledge
Knowledge is the only resource that grows through use. As a result, the knowledge available worldwide is doubling at ever shorter intervals. More than ninety percent of the scientists who have ever researched and thought in human history are alive in the present age.
The causes of this 'knowledge explosion' are the ever greater degree of specialisation in all fields, the global networking of different knowledge institutions, digitisation and internetisation, as well as ever easier access to information and educational content.
Progress in science is increasingly taking place at the interfaces between disciplines, in other words, interdisciplinarily.
While the amount of knowledge is exploding, its content is at the same time becoming outdated ever more quickly.
In many cases, the acquisition of knowledge can no longer keep pace with development. Lifelong learning and knowing the right knowledge at the right time are becoming even more critical competitive factors.
Advances in key technologies
Key technologies make it possible to open up new fields of technology. They are 'enablers' for further technologies as well as for future products, solutions and applications across a wide range of disciplines and industries.
Unlike basic technologies, their growth and transformation potential has not yet been exhausted, meaning they hold potentially high market volume for many sectors of the economy and are the drivers of numerous innovations.
These include biotechnology, nanotechnology and optical technologies, among others.
The division of biotechnology, for example, into 'red', 'green' and 'white' illustrates the broad range of applications that characterises key technologies.
Key technologies give companies the opportunity to position themselves as technology leaders. Countries and regions can increase their competitiveness by promoting key technologies.
Biosphere
3 Megatrends
Climate change
Each of the past three decades has been warmer than all previous decades since 1850.
Experts mainly attribute global warming to carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. They are opposed by a small number of sceptics who deny any human influence on climate change.
Whether caused solely by humans or also by natural factors: global climate change, especially the warming of the Earth's atmosphere, is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.
Rising temperatures, sea level rise, the warming of the oceans, and the increase in extreme weather events and natural disasters could trigger humanitarian crises on an unprecedented scale.
The consequences of climate change threaten to place a heavy burden on economic growth and prosperity for decades. Climate protection and climate policy will continue to grow in importance.
Environmental pollution
Environmental pollution is one of humanity’s greatest problems, and tackling it is among the central challenges of the 21st century.
Key drivers of increasing environmental strain are the growing world population, urbanisation, rising energy demand, agriculture, ever-increasing traffic volumes, and industrial production.
The growing burden on the environment from waste and pollutants not only has catastrophic effects on the entire ecosystem and the survival of humanity, it also causes immense economic damage.
Health threats, political risks, and environmental litigation caused by the struggle for increasingly scarce resources will increase.
Stricter environmental legislation at national and supranational level is to be expected.
Scarcity of natural resources
The consumption of natural resources is increasing as the world population continues to grow and prosperity levels rise.
At the same time, important habitats for plants and animals are being destroyed: biodiversity, a potentially inexhaustible reservoir of resources, is declining.
Rising demand for food, energy and consumer goods, combined with the scarcity, inaccessibility or finiteness of reserves, could soon lead to bottlenecks or price spikes for some resources, for example crude oil or high-tech metals.
The scarcity of drinking water and food will increase the risk of distribution conflicts over land and water in some regions.
Raw material efficiency, alternatives and innovations are becoming more important.
Technologies
14 Megatrends
Digitalisation
The number of internet users worldwide is growing rapidly. The internet and digital media now play a decisive role in shaping the way we communicate and inform ourselves.
Increasingly powerful devices and faster data transmission systems remain the drivers of economic performance in many nations.
In future, more and more objects will be equipped with 'intelligence'. The internet of things will not only shape our private lives and working environments, but also trigger the fourth industrial revolution.
Digitalisation forms the basis for numerous disruptive technologies and innovative business models.
To ensure that Moore's law, according to which the number of circuit components on a computer chip doubles every 18 months, continues to hold true in future, scientists around the world are already working on the technologies for the post-silicon era.
Intelligentisation
Technological innovations are making devices, machines and systems increasingly intelligent. Everything is becoming smart – from the factory and the car to the home.
This requires advances in the field of artificial intelligence and sensor technology. While AI is, in a sense, the brain of intelligent systems, sensors take on machine-based sensory functions.
Such systems are able to recognise patterns and discover connections, draw independent conclusions from them, act autonomously and continue learning continuously.
Increasingly, they can also recognise, interpret and process human emotions and respond to them appropriately with 'digital empathy'.
Truth technologies use artificial intelligence to verify the authenticity of information and detect manipulation or deepfakes.
Artificially intelligent machines can already do everything better than humans today, or soon will. This leads to greater efficiency as well as increased safety and comfort.
For companies in almost all industries, this holds numerous opportunities. The world of work, however, faces major challenges.
Additive manufacturing
In additive manufacturing processes, an object is created by adding material, usually on the basis of a 3D CAD file. Additive manufacturing (also known as generative manufacturing) is becoming increasingly important. Additive manufacturing includes not only 3D printing (material extrusion), but also, for example, laser beam melting, in which a powdered material is melted layer by layer into a specific shape.
Today, these manufacturing processes are used primarily in areas where low quantities, complex geometry and a high degree of customisation are required. Areas of application include the automotive industry, toolmaking, medical technology, and aerospace.
Material and process innovations, as well as falling costs, are leading additive manufacturing to increasingly develop into a standard even in series production.
In the long term, intelligent software and mass-market 3D printers will make it possible for everyone to design and produce products themselves at home.
4D printing will take time into account as the fourth dimension, meaning that the printed objects can still change their shape after completion when triggered.
Energy Technologies
The growing global consumption of increasingly scarce fossil fuels and the associated ecological and geopolitical problems – 65 percent of the world’s oil reserves are located in the Middle East – make the search for alternative energy sources ever more necessary.
The most important alternative energy sources include solar, bioenergy, wind and hydropower, as well as geothermal energy. Favourably located countries will specialise in renewable energy.
Energy harvesting systems open up new potential, making it possible to generate energy from everyday sources such as differences in temperature and pressure, air flows, mechanical movements or vibrations.
The targeted use of energy-saving technologies will become an increasingly important instrument for conserving resources and protecting the environment.
Smart grids enable greater cost-effectiveness, sustainability and grid stability.
With the help of new and more powerful energy storage systems, fluctuations in renewable and decentralised energy generation will be better balanced in the future.
Automation
Automation technologies are transforming work and living environments, with far-reaching consequences for the organisation of companies, employment levels in industry, and everyday life. More and more critical or monotonous processes are being automated.
Sensors and actuators (adaptronics), together with digitalisation, enable and simplify the control and management of almost all processes. Through machine-to-machine communication, different technical devices can automatically exchange data with one another.
The share of jobs that require a medium to high level of qualification is increasing.
Automation solutions are also becoming increasingly important in the service sector.
More and more people are concerned about the future of work. There is uncertainty about the balance between jobs eliminated by automation technologies and new jobs being created.
Robotisation
Robotisation is advancing. Today, industrial robots perform monotonous work processes faster and far more precisely than a human being and can replace them in more and more areas. Manufacturing is becoming less expensive.
Increasingly, technological progress also enables robots to carry out complex manual tasks.
Cobots are opening up entirely new forms of collaboration. Unlike traditional industrial robots, they are designed to work with people in teams and learn independently, for example through imitation.
By contrast, the market for service robots is only just beginning. In future, household robots will make everyday life easier for us. They will look more human-like and respond more intelligently.
Other important fields of application are the use of robot technology in space, in medicine and care, or for military purposes.
Life and Health Technologies
Life and health technologies are among the largest and most significant fields of research of our time. Technological innovations not only make it possible to detect illnesses ever earlier and treat them more effectively, but also to prevent them from arising in the first place through prevention. The ergonomic design of living and working environments is becoming increasingly important.
Neurosciences as well as bio- and genetic technology have enormous development potential and open the door to better and personalised medicine. Information and communication technologies (e-health) also enable improvements in quality.
Advances in medicine will not only help ensure that in future we will live significantly healthier lives even at an advanced age, but, given major breakthroughs, they could drastically increase our life expectancy.
At the same time, in future people will increasingly want to use technology not only for what is medically necessary, but also to maintain or optimise their own performance.
Environmental Technologies
Environmental technologies
Environmental protection has long since established itself as an important economic factor. Environmental technologies have a major future ahead of them. The sector is characterised by high R&D intensity.
Environmental protection aspects are increasingly being incorporated into the development of products and processes. Throughout the entire product life cycle, natural resources are used efficiently and harmful environmental impacts are minimised. The aim is to decouple economic growth from the use of natural resources.
While numerous industries are gradually becoming greener through technological innovation, environmental technologies in the narrower sense refer to processes that directly solve an environmental problem.
Examples include water-saving and water treatment technologies, innovative disposal concepts and recycling processes (circular economy), as well as emissions technologies that pave the way for a lower-carbon or even carbon-free economic model (decarbonisation).
Environmental technology innovations open up numerous opportunities for companies. The 'Green Economy' is a rapidly growing future market. The number of jobs in environmentally relevant markets will continue to rise.
Material innovations
New materials are important drivers of innovation in almost all industries.
Their development is based, among other things, on bio- and nanotechnological processes. Bionics also has a significant influence.
Artificial intelligence accelerates the development process of new materials and enables precise predictions of their properties.
Demand for innovative materials is high. For example, lightweight materials are increasingly being used in automotive engineering, while in the construction industry insulation materials improve the energy efficiency of buildings.
New materials will become more durable, harder, more flexible, biocompatible, biodegradable, intelligent, self-cleaning, self-healing, etc. In short: they will exhibit every conceivable and desirable property.
As the need for material resources continues to grow, the circular use of materials is becoming increasingly important. Innovations in materials science provide the foundation for this.
Spatial Internet
The Spatial Internet refers to a computer atmosphere that exists in a 3D space, meaning a combination of real and digital or virtual realities.
The foundation for the Spatial Internet is formed by billions of devices and sensors connected to a high-performance internet and networked with one another, making it possible to digitally capture or enhance reality in real time.
This makes it possible, on the one hand, to build a twin of physical reality in a virtual space and, on the other, to bring the digital world into the real one.
AI, IoT, blockchain, sensor technology, smart glasses, edge computing, robotics and 5G are key technologies driving the convergence of the internet with reality.
Objects gain an additional dimension. Products can therefore be linked with new kinds of services.
The Spatial Internet will become the operating system of life.
Human Enhancement
Interacting with machines, computers and other technical devices is now part of everyday life. Generations X, Y and Z in particular are familiar with operating and applying new technologies.
At the same time, the requirements profile of these devices is constantly changing. The decisive market advantages lie with those devices that offer high usability. Intuitive operation and the minimisation of sources of error at the human-machine interface increase user acceptance.
In the medium to long term, humans and machines could merge. New findings are emerging, for example, from computer science, neuroscience, cognitive research and psychology.
But it will not only be machines and interfaces that help people repeatedly overcome performance limits and redefine what is possible. Numerous technologies have the potential to expand and improve human physical and mental capabilities.
Increasingly powerful intervention options are becoming available: in the 21st century, humans could make the greatest evolutionary leap in their history – and programme that upgrade themselves.
Agricultural and Food Technologies
Agricultural and food technology focuses on new methods of producing, processing and distributing food based on scientific, technical, economic, ecological and social insights.
A major challenge of the 21st century is how to ensure an adequate food supply for the continually growing world population.
As urbanisation advances, valuable agricultural land is being destroyed worldwide. In future, however, cities in particular offer potential for agricultural innovation.
At the same time, climate change, water scarcity and energy issues are confronting agriculture and food production with new problems that require innovative solutions, for example in the field of bio- and genetic technology or in intelligent automation processes in agriculture.
In industrialised nations, keeping food fresh and quality assurance will also play an increasingly important role in future.
New technologies and changing consumer preferences are continuously driving food innovation.
Virtualisation
Virtualisation makes it possible to create artificial, immaterial environments.
These are not physical, but they do exist in their impact or functionality.
Consumer spending on entertainment and media content will continue to shift from the physical world to the digital one.
Virtual forms of collaboration will continue to gain importance.
Key drivers of this development are growing computing power, internetisation and more powerful data transmission systems.
Augmented and virtual reality applications could, within a few years, become as commonplace in private, industrial and commercial settings as the internet is today.
In future, the Metaverse could develop into a central space for living and working.
Mobility Technologies
Mobility will continue to increase significantly worldwide over the coming decades.
Alongside changing leisure and travel needs, globalisation, increasing flexibility and sustained economic growth in the emerging economies are the key drivers of this development.
At the same time, growing passenger and freight traffic will pose major challenges for logistics and transport infrastructures.
Intelligent, alternative and ecologically sustainable transport systems and vehicle technologies are becoming increasingly important. Electromobility, for example, will grow strongly over the next one to two decades. New and more powerful batteries, along with falling prices, are making electric vehicles ever more attractive. Even today, innovative driver assistance systems are paving the way for automated driving.
A shift is taking place, especially in major cities, away from owning a private vehicle and towards using different mobility services.
Society
10 Megatrends
Growth of the global population
Demography, as a scientific discipline, uses statistics to record, among other things, birth rates, mortality rates and migration flows. All of these parameters affect population growth.
Because of different cultural, political and economic influences, at least one of these values usually varies: regional, national and international population structures are subject to continuous change. Target groups need to be redefined and market volumes recalculated.
While many developed countries are seeing a decline in births and their societies are ageing, moderate to rapid population growth can be observed in developing countries.
Growth also differs within countries or regions; for example, the trend towards urbanisation can lead to regional population decline in rural areas.
Overall, the continuing growth of the population presents the global community with major challenges, for example in ensuring secure access to water, food, energy, etc. in the future.
Ageing
Life expectancy is rising continuously in most regions of the world. Accordingly, the proportion of older population groups is increasing.
This applies in particular to the industrialised countries, which are facing historically unprecedented ageing. The population pyramid is turning upside down and becoming spindle-shaped.
In Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, as well as the Middle East and North Africa, the proportion of the older population will also increase sharply.
The old-age dependency ratio (the ratio of employed people to retirees) will decline worldwide from 6:1 today to 4:1 in 2050, a development that poses major challenges for many societies. Working lives and retirement ages will rise.
Societal perceptions of age are changing. The needs of seniors are becoming an increasingly important market of the future – and are also gaining significance in politics.
Polarised societies
Over the past 25 years, the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen by around one billion worldwide. Although around 700 million people still live in extreme poverty today, in the coming decades some of them will also move up into the global middle class.
While poverty is declining worldwide and some emerging economies are catching up with the more affluent industrialised nations, the gap between rich and poor is widening within most countries.
The wealth of the rich is growing, and the wages of higher earners are rising at an above-average rate. At the same time, the income situation of many workers at the lower end of the middle class is deteriorating, while the low-skilled are increasingly threatened by unemployment.
Political culture, too, is increasingly shaped by polarisation. Ideological camps – ranging from radical 'political correctness' on the one hand to positions outside democratic values on the other – are increasingly narrowing the horizon of questions and carry the potential for social conflict.
Shift of generations
The baby boomers are retiring, Generations X and Y dominate the labour market, and Generation Z is only just entering working life.
Each (successive) generation was raised and socialised differently, grew up with different media (analogue and/or digital), and brings its own values, worldviews, and aspirations, which manifest in different lifestyles as well as expectations of society, politics, companies, and employers.
Where older generations were primarily driven by the desire to improve their material circumstances, younger generations above all want to optimise themselves and make the world a better place. Environmental, peace, and human rights activism are seeing growing support.
Naturally, there are also differences in values within generations.
The shift of generations also carries potential for conflict, as the concerns of younger people in ageing societies often fail to command a majority. Areas of conflict include reforming the pension system, the climate crisis and energy transition, as well as cultural diversity and sexual identity.
Urbanisation
In 1950, less than a third of the world’s population lived in cities; today, it is more than half. By 2050, two thirds of the global population will live in cities.
The vast majority of consumption growth will take place in cities.
Megacities will also grow rapidly – in number, size and density. They are the fiercely contested arenas of globalisation.
High levels of investment are needed to manage the high population density and rising traffic volumes. Otherwise, many cities face collapse.
Advancing urbanisation will further intensify many ecological and social problems. Urban development guided by ecological and social sustainability criteria is becoming significantly more important.
Cities will be exposed to a greater variety of risks, including natural disasters, terrorism and rapidly evolving cyber threats in the course of the transformation into 'Smart Cities'.
Migration pressure
Migration is shaped by economic, political, demographic and other factors.
Over the past two decades, the number of international migrants has increased in every region of the world. Around one in ten migrants is a refugee.
One factor likely to further increase migration pressure in the coming years and decades is climate change. Droughts, floods and other consequences of global warming could cause the share of climate refugees to soar.
For wealthier countries in particular, flight and migration are becoming a growing challenge – politically and socially. Two thirds of all migrants live in just 20 countries. The leading destinations are the USA and Germany, which account for almost a quarter of all migrants.
For the EU, migration flows are becoming a stress test, as willingness to take in migrants varies greatly between member states. As a result, rising migration is also leading to tensions between states and polarisation within societies: welcoming culture vs. isolation.
Increasing complexity
The complexity created by the interaction of many trends and factors has itself become a powerful future factor.
Complexity is the result of the interaction of dynamic and open sociological and ecological systems.
Assessing matters in which individuals are not experts themselves is becoming more difficult. In such areas, the need for professional advice is increasing.
Artificial intelligence will increasingly support people in future in decision-making and in solving complex problems.
As complexity increases, so does the longing for simplicity, stability and clarity. Slow living, mindfulness and spiritualisation are accordingly gaining importance as countertrends.
Products and services that are quick and easy to understand can often offer a competitive advantage.
Individualisation
Since the Enlightenment, an individualistic view of humanity has been part of the normative self-conception of Western societies.
Over the course of recent decades, individualisation has intensified further, as the importance of duty- and acceptance-oriented values has declined, while that of self-actualisation values has grown.
Expressions of individualisation include the unbroken trend towards single-person households in cities and high divorce rates.
Individualistic lifestyles will continue to diversify. Freedom and self-realisation will remain important personal and social guiding principles in the future.
In the 'I-society', the individual has the need to be able to draw on products and services that are as tailor-made and individual as possible. Digital self-presentation and self-staging, especially on social media, is increasingly complementing individual lifestyle design in real life.
Despite the constant search for the exceptional, individuals do not want to lose touch with the mainstream in certain areas.
Pluralisation
In the second half of the 20th century, a process of social differentiation began in the western democracies that continues to this day.
Free opportunities for self-development and the coexistence of different interests and lifestyles are an essential feature of pluralistic societies.
Alongside the modern nuclear family, which has replaced the traditional extended family, a wide variety of family forms exist today, for example patchwork families, intercultural families and same-sex partnerships.
As a result of women’s emancipation, the classic division of roles between men and women has lost importance, a development that will continue with the growing participation of women in working life.
Interculturalisation has a major influence on the pluralisation of societies. Globalisation and labour migration will further intensify this trend.
Growing health orientation
The pressure on individuals to adapt and change is high today. The growing variety of options, the explosion of information and knowledge, increasing complexity, and the trend towards acceleration in working life and everyday life are challenging and overwhelming more and more people.
This often leads to dissatisfaction, stress, and burnout. A subjectively perceived lack of time results in poor and excessive nutrition as well as a lack of exercise. Lifestyle diseases such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease are on the rise, as are mental illnesses.
Accordingly, interest in health-promoting ways of living and behaviour is growing. People are increasingly shaping their living environment, diet, mindset, and habits in healthier ways, following knowledge about being healthy.
Salutogenesis provides the necessary knowledge about being healthy. It is the opposite of disease-oriented conventional medicine, pathogenesis, and asks about the causes of good health.
Politics
4 Megatrends
Globalisation and Fragmentation
The liberalisation of global trade and technological progress have led to an enormous increase and acceleration in the movement of goods, international mobility and communication around the globe.
More and more emerging economies are being integrated into the global economy. Societies are becoming more open and multicultural, even as in some regions there is a growing return to national identities and movements critical of migration.
In all regions of the world, the integration of national economies into higher-level structures can be observed.
Globalisation and integration processes are mutually reinforcing, yet in some cases they also display paradoxical interactions. Integration processes can therefore be shaped both as drivers of globalisation and as a response to it and in opposition to it.
The division of the global economy into regional or national blocs, often along geopolitical lines, leads to a fragmentation of globalisation.
Protectionism, regionalisation, friendshoring and the development of new and alternative supply chains are the consequence.
Multipolar world
The term 'multipolar world' refers to a new world order shaped no longer by one or two global powers, but by several centres of power.
While the United States of America is losing power and influence in relative terms, the economic and political significance of other states grew and continues to grow in the course of globalisation.
China is not only in the process of establishing itself as the leading economic nation of the 21st century, but is also gaining increasing (geo-)political influence.
A system rivalry between the USA and China is becoming ever more apparent. Europe and Russia are losing significance by comparison, but remain influential forces.
India, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, is gaining increasing global influence. Other future heavyweights are Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia.
The balancing of the new power relations, as a process of upheaval, entails opportunities and risks. Strengthening international law and international institutions is becoming more important.
Democratisation and the crisis of democracy
While the 20th century was shaped by a strong process of democratisation, which gained significant momentum once again particularly with the end of the Cold War, this process gradually began to stall at the start of the 21st century.
By now, a reversal of this process can even be observed, meaning that the tendency towards autocratic systems is increasing. These are governed by individual rulers or elites who are not legitimised through free elections and who grant themselves power and legal authority.
Fewer than half of the world’s states are democratic. The majority consists of autocratic systems or hybrid forms.
Democracy is in crisis. While citizens in some autocratic systems are demanding democratic rights and taking to the streets in protest, more and more people in Western states no longer feel sufficiently represented by the existing democratic structures and regard them as deficient or at least in need of reform.
Right-wing and left-wing populism are experiencing a renaissance.
Crisis of social systems
Most states have been living beyond their means for decades, meaning they spend more money than they take in.
The latest economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a sharp rise in the debt levels of many states. In around one third of them, public debt now exceeds 60 percent of GDP.
To remain capable of acting, many states are responding by privatising state-owned assets and public responsibilities.
Maintaining social security systems is becoming a challenge, especially for industrialised nations affected by ageing and/or population decline.
Private forms of provision are becoming more important.
Economics
13 Megatrends
Global prosperity growth
Capitalism has established itself at the global level as the central economic and social order and has led to significant increases in economic output and productivity.
This development has made a major contribution to the fact that, despite the sharply growing world population, prosperity and quality of life have increased for many people.
More and more formerly poor countries are being integrated into the global economy, even if globalisation and trade are now changing more significantly and taking on a more regional shape. Market opening, technological progress and international cooperation nevertheless remain important drivers of growth.
For now, it seems that — despite intense debates — the absolute limits to growth have not yet been reached. At the same time, steadily increasing global mobility, growing energy demand, and the requirements of climate protection and sustainability make new solutions necessary in order to enable future growth.
It is thanks to human innovative power that challenges are addressed, problems are solved, and limits are repeatedly redefined.
New world of work
The acceleration and increasing complexity of the working world confront individuals with new stress tests. At the same time, technical innovations offer new opportunities to meet changing requirements.
While the internet generation already brings a strong affinity for technology, it tends to be a greater challenge for older employees to familiarise themselves with new tools and technical devices.
Constant accessibility via mobile communications and the internet is increasingly blurring the boundaries between life and work and is often already part of everyday business life. At the same time, new working time models offer a greater degree of flexibility and an improved work-life balance.
Work organisation is also undergoing change. Employees are increasingly taking on entrepreneurial risks and becoming entrepreneurs within the company.
The hallmarks of today’s knowledge society are a high degree of specialisation alongside a simultaneous tendency towards interdisciplinarity. More and more companies are cooperating in order to meet the increasingly complex requirements of their customers. The network economy forms the basis for this.
Work crisis
Skills shortages, automation and the growing threat of unemployment for low-skilled workers will shape the labour market in the coming years.
While the fourth industrial revolution is enabling the next wave of automation for manufacturing companies and numerous jobs are being replaced by robots, there is at the same time a looming shortage of qualified workers, particularly in STEM professions.
In the automotive industry, the structural shift towards electric mobility and autonomous cars will require a significant number of jobs to be cut.
Services and retail are also experiencing a surge in automation and virtualisation, i.e. humanless processes, recently further accelerated by Covid-19.
The use of algorithms and artificial intelligence is also making it possible to automate more and more tasks in knowledge work.
Technical knowledge (especially in the field of future technologies), social skills and emotional intelligence are becoming more important.
New Learning
Knowledge and expertise, and increasingly their export, are a key guarantee of economic growth, especially for industrialised countries. As demand for education rises worldwide, states are increasingly faced with the challenge of mobilising the necessary resources. This increasingly opens up opportunities for private providers as well.
Digitalisation makes an important contribution here: the integration of the internet into all areas of education will fundamentally change – and improve – the way education works.
In public education and in the private sector, E-learning solutions are being used more and more. At the same time, the use of modern information and communication technologies is causing an explosion in the volume of both newly created knowledge and redundant or worthless information.
Semantic technologies and knowledge systems used for analysis and filtering, and for the creation, processing, structuring and storage of knowledge, continue to grow in importance.
Artificial intelligence will play a decisive role in revolutionising these processes by enabling personalised learning, automating knowledge management and driving innovation in education.
Crisis of the financial and monetary system
After the global financial crisis of 2007/08, governments and central banks implemented extensive reforms to make the financial and monetary system more stable and more resilient to crises.
Even so, there is no all-clear: global debt among governments, companies and private households has continued to rise and was significantly accelerated in particular by the coronavirus pandemic.
The European monetary system remains under structural pressure. Fiscal divergences, differing economic capacities and institutional conflicts of objectives repeatedly put the stability of the eurozone and Europe’s cohesion to the test.
The expansionary monetary policy of recent years has secured stability in the short term, but in the long term it has created new risks. Inflation, rising interest rates and high debt burdens are increasing the financial system’s vulnerability to shocks.
It is uncertain how the international monetary system will continue to develop. The dominance of the US dollar is increasingly being questioned, while at the same time a more fragmented, multipolar monetary order is emerging.
Alongside existing fiat currencies, new approaches are gaining importance, including central bank digital currencies and alternative settlement and payment systems that could complement or change the existing financial system.
Digital economy
The impact of digitalisation on the economy and economic growth continues to increase steadily.
Over the past two decades, the internet economy has produced numerous companies and innovative business models. E-business and online retail are booming, and platforms and social networks have gained major importance.
At the same time, Artificial Intelligence has optimised business processes, automated decisions and opened up new forms of digital value creation.
With the spread of the Internet of Things, the economy is experiencing a new surge in digitalisation. The networking of billions of devices, machines and vehicles will open up new opportunities for companies.
The digital economy promotes cooperation and strategic alliances, including across industries. In many areas, digital platforms and data-based business models are emerging.
Networking, data analysis and monitoring are driving the paradigm shift away from product sales towards “as-a-service” models.
Disruptive technologies are leading to the partial or complete displacement of products and services.
New market structures
Over recent decades, the western industrialised nations have undergone a profound structural shift towards service and knowledge economies. Value creation is increasingly generated not only through material goods, but through intangible services, data, services and knowledge.
This development is characterised by a high degree of specialisation alongside growing interdisciplinarity. To meet rising demands for complexity, companies are increasingly cooperating in networks and ecosystems.
Tertiarisation and quaternisation go hand in hand with a stronger differentiation of lifestyles and demand preferences. Markets are responding with increasing specialisation; digital platforms in particular are enabling new niche markets for highly individual needs.
At the same time, competition is intensifying. In many sectors, markets are largely saturated, price pressure is increasing, and sustainable market success is becoming more difficult. This particularly favours highly efficient and clearly differentiated providers.
Knowledge, know-how, and the ability to continuously innovate services and business models are therefore becoming central sources of competitive advantage and will remain decisive success factors in the future.
Environmentally sustainable business
Environmental protection has evolved from a marginal topic into a global necessity.
Through national and international regulations, ecological sustainability is increasingly being codified as a binding standard. Companies, investors and the financial markets in general are giving greater weight to 'ecological' decision-making criteria.
Environmentally sustainable business aims to shape a company's impact on the environment in such a way that future generations are not burdened and, ideally, can even live better lives. It is about safeguarding and improving the foundations of life worldwide.
Governments and international organisations are promoting and demanding, for example, alternative energy sources, energy savings, environmental protection and the conservation of resources.
The move away from fossil fuels and the establishment of a circular economy will fundamentally change industries and business models over the coming years and decades.
The ecological image of companies and the offering of environmentally sustainable products and services are becoming increasingly important.
Socially sustainable business
The still-growing awareness of social issues is making sustainable business an established standard of conduct for companies.
Social sustainability means shaping a company’s impact on society in such a way that social disruptions are avoided or reduced.
Key aspects of social sustainability include securing basic needs, combating poverty through fair access to education and opportunities, and a fair distribution of resources.
Social sustainability must be considered from both an internal societal and a global perspective.
More than 90 percent of the world’s 250 largest companies now report on their sustainable business practices.
Socially conscious action and companies’ commitment to society are becoming an increasingly important factor in the competition for qualified employees.
Changing consumer behaviour
Purchasing behaviour – and therefore retail as well – is undergoing enormous change.
As digitalisation continues to advance, more and more products are being bought online. Consumers are better informed, more demanding and less loyal than before because prices can be compared and because of product reviews from other customers.
In an increasingly complex and fast-moving world, demand for convenience products is rising. At the same time, people are looking for what is lasting and familiar and are deliberately buying products from their region.
More and more customers are aligning their consumer behaviour with the principles of social and ecological sustainability. Organic and fairly traded products are booming. The boycott of certain goods and companies, the use of products and services from the sharing economy, as well as conscious consumer restraint, are also an expression of this shift in values.
The importance of a health-promoting lifestyle is increasing. Products and services related to health and wellbeing are a market of the future.
New market horizons
With the help of new technologies, people are becoming increasingly capable of extending the boundaries of their activity. Areas that were previously barely accessible and of interest only to science are increasingly being considered as potential economic spaces.
With the development of the oceans and outer space, new market horizons are opening up that offer enormous economic potential, for example in the field of energy generation or the use of new sources of raw materials.
One day, manganese nodules could be mined in the deep sea, containing valuable metals for industry, while in outer space gigantic photovoltaic satellites could use the more intense solar radiation for energy generation and 'beam' the electricity to Earth.
The Arctic is also opening up new market horizons as a result of climate change. As sea ice recedes and permafrost soils thaw, competition is flaring up between the neighbouring states for valuable natural resources.
Asianisation
The economic, political and cultural centre of gravity of the world is shifting towards Asia. The 21st century will be the Asian century.
Asia is experiencing strong population and economic growth. China and India alone will account for almost 30 percent of global GDP by 2030. Poverty is declining. Education levels and per capita income are rising: a new middle class with strong purchasing power is emerging, bringing one to two billion new customers.
Most university graduates come from Asian countries, especially in STEM subjects that are crucial for economic advantage: mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and engineering.
The capacity for innovation is increasing rapidly, driven by a consistent development strategy and enormous investment in key technologies and infrastructure.
Above all, China’s determined and aggressive transformation from the world’s workshop into a leading high-tech player, as well as the entire ASEAN economic bloc, is confronting Western countries with growing challenges.
Growth in Africa
Although Africa is still by far the least developed region in the world, it is regarded as a continent of growth.
Between 2025 and 2040, the population in Africa will grow by more than 600 million to more than two billion people.
Not only is the population growing, economic output is growing as well. High growth rates are expected, particularly in the countries south of the Sahara. By 2050, Africa could achieve a significantly larger share of global economic output. New and broader consumer markets are emerging as the middle class expands.
With the help of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), intra-African trade is to be promoted, Africa’s regional and continental integration expanded, and the industrial and manufacturing sector of the African economy further developed.
Agriculture, the financial sector, infrastructure projects, as well as the extraction and processing of raw materials promise strong growth potential.
More and more African governments are promoting entrepreneurship. A vibrant start-up scene is developing, particularly in the megacities, both online and offline.