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Global forces: An introduction | McKinsey

For much of the past year, a team at McKinsey has revisited and retested our assumptions about the key global trends that will define the coming era. We have identified five forces, or crucibles, where the stresses and tensions will be greatest and thus offer the richest opportunities for companies to innovate and change:

• The great rebalancing. The coming decade will be the first in 200 years when emerging-market countries contribute more growth than the developed ones. This growth will not only create a wave of new middle-class consumers but also drive profound innovations in product design, market infrastructure, and value chains.
• The productivity imperative. Developed-world economies will need to generate pronounced gains in productivity to power continued economic growth. The most dramatic innovations in the Western world are likely to be those that accelerate economic productivity.
• The global grid. The global economy is growing ever more connected. Complex flows of capital, goods, information, and people are creating an interlinked network that spans geographies, social groups, and economies in ways that permit large-scale interactions at any moment. This expanding grid is seeding new business models and accelerating the pace of innovation. It also makes destabilizing cycles of volatility more likely.
• Pricing the planet. A collision is shaping up among the rising demand for resources, constrained supplies, and changing social attitudes toward environmental protection. The next decade will see an increased focus on resource productivity, the emergence of substantial clean-tech industries, and regulatory initiatives.
• The market state. The often contradictory demands of driving economic growth and providing the necessary safety nets to maintain social stability have put governments under extraordinary pressure. Globalization applies additional heat: how will distinctly national entities govern in an increasingly globalized world?

Global Forces website

“It occupies too much territory already covered by smartphones, PCs, laptops and traditional media”, says the report, concluding that most consumers are unable “to find enough rational argument to justify taking the plunge.”

But over time that could change.

Part of the problem, the report notes, is that the amount of hype that the iPad garnered before and at launch doesn’t match up with expectations. Mainstream users were expecting a revolution when all they see is incremental change.

A second group, however, described as the “impulsive minority” say they don’t need it but simply have to have it. For them “it’s not about function, compatibility or improvement but about raw appeal, its sheer magic.”

The report quite rightly concedes that these early adopters may well show the way, and that over time the iPad could make more sense to mainstream users.