Building to win

Download publication

The global retail and consumer sectors face, at best, an uncertain outlook in 2009. Most of the developed world is in recession and despite some glimmers of hope — mainly in the form of slowing rates of decline in key indicators — real economic recovery is likely some distance away. Now, emerging markets, on which many companies in the retail and consumer sectors — and indeed, many other sectors — have been pinning their hopes for growth, are also being dragged down into the mire. The depth and length of the emerging-market troubles are of great concern to senior executives in the retail and consumer products sectors. They have made large-scale investments in these countries in recent years based on expectations of significant growth. Operations in emerging markets will be under intense pressure to deliver on these growth targets despite the sombre outlook. With the economies of many developed markets still in freefall, the financial returns from emerging markets are needed to shore up global profits as well as to justify the investments made over the past decade.