Industrial OEM Priorities for 2022 and beyond

As Industrial OEMs brace to usher in 2022 & leave the uncertainty of the pandemic years behind, their priorities are moving beyond survival and towards the long-term. To gauge where the industry was headed, we conducted a survey of Industrial OEM priorities. The survey ran from June 2021 to Sep 2021 and was intentionally designed to be anonymous & run across multiple channels – email, telephonic, social media, and IndustryNext events. A total sample size of 348 respondents across 104 companies, and representing 15+ machinery sub-sectors provided a diverse view into what Industrials are prioritizing for 2022 & beyond. The survey itself was straightforward & comprised of one specific multi-choice question which would act as an indicator into the respondent’s view on what was considered a priority in their organization.

Some salient features of the responses stood out to us. They are listed below in no specific order of priority –

1. For the major part, the priorities of Industrials remain the same as before the pandemic. They are still focused on traditional areas of interest such as aftermarket growth, logistics, supply chain, pricing, production planning, amongst others.
2. There are a few non-traditional priorities that showed up in this survey that could be attributed specifically to the pandemic. IoT & eCommerce were always ‘on the horizon’ but never prioritized before 2020. But that seemed to change drastically in the last 18 months due to social distancing and lockdowns imposed across nations forcing sales, aftermarket & service to be remotely conducted/managed.
3. The top priorities of organizations with billion-dollar revenues & above remain identical with those below a billion dollars in revenue. However, beyond the top 2 spots, the priorities start to differ reflecting the nature of challenges organizations typically faces after reaching mass. The smaller organizations are focused on production planning, and inventory management but the larger organizations don’t share those priorities as they tend to focus on logistics and supply chain.
4. There is a marked difference in the priorities of respondents based on their role in the organization. This is the normal variance that can be attributed to the responsibilities that the individual respondent carries within their organization.

We hope you find the survey meaningful and derive insights from it.
Team Entytle