At its 53rd General Assembly, Cigref unveiled the 2023 edition of its Strategic Orientation Report, ‘10 ruptures à l’horizon 2030-2040’.
This Strategic Orientation Report (SOR) responds to the concerns and need for anticipation and preparation for crises expressed by Cigref’s members, and opens a new cycle of forward thinking. It is structured around ten disruptive hypotheses concerning the digital domain up to 2030-2040.
Wild cards are defined as events or phenomena likely to bring about profound changes in the natural, political, economic or social environment of a society or organisation.
Without seeking to be exhaustive, or to present the state of the art on each of the subjects covered, this report aims to establish a monitoring radar for Cigref’s member organisations and all readers, to help them navigate uncertainty, prepare for tomorrow’s crises and disruptions and investigate the causes and consequences of the situations envisaged, in the digital field and mainly on a European scale. Throughout this document, we draw on a range of factual information, drawn from our analyses and interviews with experts, to consider the potential causes and consequences of the disruptive situations identified. For the sake of brevity, we present only those elements that appear to be the most significant and useful for anticipating or preparing for the scenarios described.
These ten hypotheses were identified by Cigref’s permanent team and Futuribles, on the basis of the monitoring carried out over the last three years as part of the SOR (Strategic Orientation Report), and then prioritised by the Strategic Orientation Council (SOC). We have ensured that all these wild cards reflect the five major issues or ‘fields’ identified by Cigref for 2020 in the digital domain.
Download the executive summary.
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Foreword by Jean-Claude Laroche, President of Cigref
The digitisation of all human activities continues in a world that is changing at lightning speed, marked by upheavals that we generally did not anticipate, and whose scale never ceases to amaze us. The upheavals we are witnessing are the hallmark of our times, characterised by unexpected events and profound changes.
The last five years have been marked by crises that have tested our resilience and our ability to adapt. The global pandemic, of unprecedented magnitude, has had a major impact on every aspect of our lives, including our relationship with digital technology. Confinement and restrictions have accelerated the adoption of new technologies, transforming the way we work, communicate and consume, while leaving a significant proportion of our fellow citizens by the wayside. This experience has been a real wake-up call in terms of the need to anticipate the consequences of such events.
In addition, geopolitical instability, with rising tensions and conflicts on Europe’s borders, has also had an impact on the digital sector. Economic barriers and protectionist measures have disrupted international trade, forcing companies to rethink their strategies and adapt to a constantly changing environment.
At the same time, we have experienced inflation that we have not seen for decades, calling into question established economic and financial balances. This rise in prices has also had repercussions for the digital sector, which has had to face up to the challenges of managing costs, optimising resources and finding new opportunities for growth. It has also raised the question of windfall effects for some economic players, and margin transfers within the digital ecosystem.
One of the most surprising developments has been the sudden arrival of generative artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, on the mass market. These technological advances have opened up new prospects, but have also raised ethical and societal questions about the impact of AI on employment, training, privacy and trust in automated systems.
And in mentioning these changes, I’m not even touching on the ecological issues that are intensifying, posing a global challenge to humanity on an unprecedented scale, and re-examining the place and role of digital technology, or even the acceleration we are witnessing in the field of quantum computing, which could soon offer tools of almost unimaginable power.
Faced with these rapid changes, we are faced with a major challenge: how can we remain relevant and in step with a constantly (r)evolving environment?
The accelerating pace of change in our environment, and of innovation, means that we need to adopt a stance that enables us to predict and anticipate future developments.
So, despite the uncertain context, it’s imperative to take a step back and explore possible futures in the digital field. This year, after an initial three-year cycle during which we published a set of three reports, we have reaffirmed our commitment by continuing our strategic foresight work. Our aim has been to identify the major disruptions that could impact the digital world in the coming years.
With this in mind, we have produced this report, which explores the ten main disruptions we have identified as plausible over the next ten to fifteen years. Each of these disruptions is analysed in detail, highlighting the consequences it could have for our society, our economy and our businesses.
To enrich our thinking and get a fresh perspective on our work, we adopted an innovative approach this year. Alongside our Strategic Orientation Council, made up of experienced professionals, we created a « Young Strategic Orientation Council » made up of more than 70 young talents from Cigref’s member companies and public administrations. Their bold vision and understanding of emerging trends have enabled us to explore the future of digital technology from a different angle, opening up new perspectives and stimulating our thinking.
We are convinced that the wealth of ideas contained in this report will captivate your interest and fuel your own analyses of future developments in the digital sector. Our aim is to provide you with a document that combines expertise, foresight and innovative visions, to help you make strategic decisions.
Now, more than ever, we need to embrace the idea of disruption, actively prepare for it and seize the opportunities it presents. That’s why at Cigref we like to test, weigh and probe the technologies that are coming at us at an ever-increasing pace, to find out how to make the most of them. By way of illustration, I entrusted the drafting of this introduction to a generative artificial intelligence, based on our guiding ideas; obviously, it had to be given precise instructions (a number of them), then reread and checked (precisely), and finally amended (quite a lot!) this text; but this is just one example of the constant exploration and questioning necessary to methodically understand the world we have entered, and to seek in innovation everything that serves human beings – while protecting us from the rest. Because for us, building a better world by promoting a sustainable, responsible and trusted digital environment is one of the keys to the progress to which we are deeply committed.