These questions lie at the heart of The Consumer Goods
Forum’s Emerging Trends Strategic Pillar. The pillar is a think
tank designed to gain a deeper understanding of emerging
trends and to subsequently translate this into concrete actions.
Emerging trends are defined as those changes gaining a
greater long-term prominence, set to continue over the next
five to 20 years, and those that concern major issues with a
significant effect on, and relevance for, the industry.
To answer the questions posed here, The Consumer
Goods Forum (CGF) enlisted the assistance of more than
200 consumer goods and retail executives, together with
Capgemini and Roland Berger. The Emerging Trends/Future
Value Chain group engaged in an exhaustive process that
consisted of desk research, an online survey, a crowd sourcing
exercise and a facilitated workshop.
Desk research: The process began with extensive desk
research. To develop an initial list of relevant, long-term trends
Roland Berger studied more than 200 trends reports from
leading research institutes, NGOs and think tanks, including
the previous “Future Value Chain” reports of The Consumer
Goods Forum.
Online survey: To prioritize the trends, CEOs and their
strategic teams from both consumer goods manufacturers
and retailers provided their views via an online survey that
considered both trend relevance and business impact for
the industry.
Crowd sourcing: To dig deeper into the trends and capture
additional ideas, Capgemini and CGF reached out to
industry executives and experts as part of an online social
crowd sourcing exercise.
Workshop: Following the crowd sourcing, Capgemini
conducted a facilitated workshop with industry executives to
qualify the ideas, validate them against existing CGF activities,
translate them into initiatives for collaborative action and build
high-level action plans.