• Strategy & Business, Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:54 AM

Six of the twelve industries in Booz & Company's annual reflection of the year past and projection of what's ahead are said to be "in search of survival" and three of those six, in a report edited by Karen Henrie, are probably of interest to many of our readers: consumer packaged goods, technology and retail banking.

The growing power of emerging markets is helping to redefine the technology sector and companies in the developing world are becoming more sophisticated, write Barry H. Jaruzelski, Gregor Harter, and Kenny Kurtzman. "Ultimately, these firms will begin to go well beyond manufacturing goods for other companies to brand, and create their own brands at highly competitive price points," they say.

Retail banks face a weakening of consumer demand for the foreseeable future, Paul Hyde, Amit Gupta, and Ashish Jain believe, as well as faltering commercial real estate and tighter regulation. One priority for bankers must be attracting the Internet-savvy Gen Y, which will make up the largest segment of the U.S. workforce by 2014 and 60% to 70% of the employed population by 2025.

Consumer packaged goods companies, meanwhile, need to overhaul their supply chains to make them leaner, greener, and more tailored to manage increasing fragmentation and complexity in the marketplace. "Shifts in consumer behavior taking place across markets are making it harder to satisfy an increasingly fragmented customer base without reengineering the supply chain," write Edward Landry, Luis Quintiliano, and Kolinjuwa Shriram.

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