Survey of U.S. Manufacturing C-Suite Execs Reveals Growing Concerns about Recovery

With economies shut down and supply chains on hold, the manufacturing industry has certainly been struggling. According to the latest study from West Monroe (a national biz/tech consultancy), manufacturers’ concerns significantly grew as we got deeper into the shutdown, with 30% of manufacturing execs now predicting business won’t stabilize until 2021. 

These growing concerns may explain why, in order to turn things around, automotive factories in Michigan and other plants across the globe are working to restore operations and employment opportunities as soon as next week.

West Monroe twice surveyed (March and April 2020)150 c-suite execs (a majority of whom are from companies with $1 billion in revenue), including manufacturing execs, about their business concerns around the shutdown and how operations have changed.

Breaking down by industry, here are the top insights for manufacturing:

• When asked what is most concerning to their business right now, 40% were concern about burning through cash reserves (8% in March)

• Many predicted we’d experience a short-lived recession due to the pandemic and manufacturing execs are hopeful too, 50% expect a shorter recovery than the 2008 recession (68% in March). Yet, 30% of manufacturing execs don’t expect business to stabilize until 2021

• 56% believe that increased agility and speed of work will be the greatest lasting impact the pandemic will have on the US economy