Mexico Workshop Explores Consumer Value Chain Trends for the Coming Decade

Recently, the Consumer Goods Forum, along with Capgemini, HP and Microsoft, published the third in a series of Future Value Chain Reports, entitled 2020 Future Value Chain: Building Strategies for the New Decade, which lays out the trends that will most impact the consumer goods industry over the next 10 years. It presents the strategic objectives that will help the industry collectively to continue to meet the needs of ever-changing shoppers, consumers and communities. And it demonstrates how the programs under way in the Consumer Goods Forum can help to achieve those objectives.

On a connected and complimentary platform, the sponsoring organizations have held a series of local, regional and global workshops with participants from the consumer goods and retail industry, under the banner: A Global Program with Local Relevance. The following excerpts from the 2020 Future Chain Report focus on the workshops and most significantly, the one held in Mexico City last year.

During the course of the 2020 Future Value Chain project, a series of workshops was held, including a global session, a pan-European workshop and country-specific workshops in Australia, France, Mexico, the Netherlands and the United States. These markets were selected to provide a broad cross-section of the industry. The objective of these country workshops was to examine the most relevant trends from a local perspective, and from there to define and develop initiatives that could help address these trends.

All workshops used the same Future Value Chain framework and globally identified trends as the starting point, but each country workshop had its own speci fic focus, depending on the market. For example, in Australia the group chose to focus on developing a sustainable supply chain with a goal of helping to shape the overall sustainability agenda. In the U.S. the team determined that creating a sustainable value chain and engaging with technology-enabled consumers were particularly relevant in their market. In Mexico the group focused not only on trends like technological developments and product safety, but also on crime and national security.

The 2020 Future Value Chain workshop, which took place in Mexico City, with 30 Mexican representatives of retailers and manufacturers, was divided into four modules: Scan the trends, Predict scenarios, Pitch for Collaboration Initiatives and Create a Future Action Plan.

In the scan the trends module, four trend areas were selected for analysis:

1. Impact on Society: the group focused on key demographic trends such as the population growth rate and the relatively low education levels in the country.
2. Technological Development: A number of technology trends that will impact the country including the growth in the mobile market, the production of services in the local market, the rise of Mexico as a global IT destination, the lack of integrated logistics and security transportation service providers, and the steady growth of e-commerce.
3. Product Safety and the Environment: Increased spending by Mexican consumers on functional/fortified products, low-fat/low-sugar foods, and nutraceuticals and organics that can be attributed to an aging population and increased concern about health among the general population.
4. National Security: Crime and national security is a critical issue in Mexico due to a number of factors, including an increase in organized crime activity, low prosecution rates, a rising murder rate and the need to train local police forces and support their activities with the proper technological infrastructure and equipment.

From this analysis, the group identified four subtrends they thought would have the greatest impact on the industry in the next decade: e-commerce, and regulations and politics (in the technological development area), safer and healthier products (product safety and the environment area), and the use of IT as a tool (national security area).

The participants then modeled potential future scenarios to address these subtrends and developed three collaboration initiatives to support the scenarios:

"For a Healthy Mexico": In this initiative, the focus is on standardization and signaling in production; aligning the government with the initiative; communication at the point-of-sale; reaching consumers through thought leaders; and delivering messages regarding healthy enterprises". Benefits from this initiative include helping Mexicans become more health conscious, promotion of healthier products, greater transparency of information, cost savings from synergies, and a greater capacity to influence the government.

EPC Implementation -Information Chips: The group identified key steps toward implementation. These include the creation of a business case for change, content alignment/standards adoption, selection (product/material), development of certified providers and the establishment of pilots. Potential benefits include improved traceability, control of inventory, reduction of loss, more effective distribution networks, and improved ability of the government to track stolen merchandise.

90% of Mexicans Buy and Pay from Mobile Devices: Focusing on the issue of security, the group identified an opportunity to take advantage of the mobile system to link all phone, banking, accounts and payment information, with cell phones as a universal electronic monetary depository. Benefits of such a system include improved mobility, simplicity, greater efficiency and safety in the use of money, and improved fiscal processes. For each collaboration initiative a future action plan was developed that identified initiative leaders and specific action steps to be taken.

If you would like more information about the 2020 Future Chain report or previous reports in the series, please go to: www.futurevaluechain.com.

For more information about the Mexico City workshop, please contact Maria Teresa Aguilar at: mariateresa.aguilar@capgemini.com