IDC Manufacturing Insights: Worldwide Circular Economy Strategies

IDC Manufacturing Insights: Worldwide Circular Economy Strategies is a continuous intelligence service covering the life cycle of manufactured products (closed-loop R&D, production, supply chain, and logistics, services, reverse logistics, remanufacturing, and recycling). It provides framework-based guidance on how manufacturers can develop and deploy circular principles in their operations to create a purpose-driven environment and enable profitable growth.

This advisory service develops unique analysis and comprehensive data through IDC Manufacturing Insights' proprietary research projects, along with exclusive interviews and ongoing communications with industry experts, sustainability management professionals, manufacturing executives and practitioners, and product or service vendors. To ensure relevance, our analysts work with clients to identify and prioritize topics to be covered in research reports. Our analysts are also available to provide individualized advice for manufacturing executives and vendors to help them make better-informed decisions.

Throughout the year, this service will address the following topics:

• Digital technology and related processes relevant to circular economy principles in manufacturing environments, including waste optimization, raw material, and water and energy management
• Requirements specific to manufacturers with, or planning to open, remanufacturing facilities/business units (e.g., specific software for operations planning, management, and logistics)
• Regulatory and market requirements impacting manufacturers' technology investment decisions in the context of new circular economy-based business models and/or waste optimization
• Implications of waste optimization and remanufacturing strategies for end users — consumption of raw materials and energy, CO2 emissions, and costs for the consumer
• Manufacturers' future circular economy-driven digital business models, including analysis and thought leadership related to potential monetization models (e.g., new pricing approaches, digital sales channels, and ecosystem partners).
• Future digital business operating models, including analysis and thought leadership related to future supply chains/networks, factory operations, new ways of working/future work experiences, customer engagements/experience, and sustainability (ESG)

Our research addresses the following issues that are critical to your success:

1. How should manufacturers manage their operations to operationalize their circular economy targets?
2. What technologies, people, processes, and organizations are needed to set up a waste-optimal manufacturing environment?
3. What technologies, people, and processes do manufacturers need to significantly benefit from the circular economy?
4. What technology trends will shape the future of the circular economy and waste-optimal manufacturing?
5. How can digital technologies best be leveraged to create a transparent and sustainable end-to-end value chain, including specific use cases?

IDC Manufacturing Insights: Worldwide Circular Economy Strategies advisory service is ideally suited for line-of-business managers responsible for engineering, logistics, and operations management methodologies, processes, and systems; for IT executives who support these activities; and for supply chain executives, operations directors, sustainability managers, and plant directors and managers. This service is valuable in gaining additional insight into the needs and investment trends in plant floor and beyond related to the operationalization of circular economy principles through the product’s lifecycle.