Spanish Industrial Companies accelerate their growth

For industrial companies, the pandemic and unprecedented supply shortfalls in raw materials and inputs created a vulnerability in the global supply chain, making the outlook for economic recovery uncertain.

Despite this, this seems to have changed. Projections in many key industries indicate that a trend towards accelerated growth has already begun. Still, there is room for improvement. This is how Accenture explores it, in its research “Accelerating the industrial sector”, on the different activities of industrial companies, encompassed in six “growth practices”.

“In general, the conclusions of the recent Accenture report “Accelerating the industrial sector” indicate that industrial companies need to develop growth strategies that have a holistic view of internal and external growth factors”, explains Gustavo Samayoa, managing director of Accenture Industry and Mobility in Spain, Portugal and Israel.

6 growth practices for Spanish Industrial Companies

The six research growth practices have identified four groups (Leaders, Aspirants, Standards, and Laggards) based on ranking and performance in each:

• Focus: The way companies approach significant challenges and opportunities.
• Lead: The way companies balance and adjust to their projects.
• Create: How companies trigger the launch of new smart products and services.
• Lead: the extent to which organizations establish a clear strategy and objectives.
• Enable: How business teams manage talent, technology and ecosystems.
• Be: The extent to which companies foster a culture that drives growth through supportive mindsets, behaviors, and ways of working.

Taking this classification and the performance of Spanish industrial companies into account, the following conclusions can be drawn:

• Spanish industrial companies, above the average in profitability and growth. The percentage of Spanish companies located within the ‘Leaders’ group is 50% above the global average. In addition, in the last five years, its revenue grew faster than in the rest of the countries, even 30% faster than the revenue of the global Leaders. In terms of profitability, Spanish industrial companies are above the Aspirants, reaching the global Leaders.

Spanish Industrial Companies, leaders in accelerating their growth

• Spanish industrial companies lead the practices of ‘Create’, ‘Lead’ and ‘Be’, with points for improvement. As for the set of six growth practices, the Spanish are performing above the Standard level. They stand out in the performance of practices related to ‘Create’, ‘Lead’ and ‘Be’. Even so, there is room for improvement in practices such as scaling new initiatives more quickly and actively collaborating with customers. Spanish industrial companies are better than the average of global ‘Leaders’ in prioritizing decisions to meet their growth objectives, but they must develop a much clearer strategy and know how to communicate it more effectively. Finally, they must encourage their professionals to train and adapt their skills to new technologies, and they must improve internal collaboration between functions and divisions.
• Worst grade in the practices of ‘Focus’, ‘Direct’ and ‘Enable’. Finally, Spanish industrial companies have to improve in the practices related to ‘Focus’, ‘Lead’ and ‘Enable’ where they must catch up as soon as possible to improve their long-term vision – they score half that of the Global Leaders (35 % vs. 70%)-, and in the clear search for strategic alliances (43% vs. 56%). Furthermore, Spanish companies lag behind in the dynamic allocation of investments in innovation (40% vs. 56%) and in encouraging long-term growth (40% vs. 55%). Also, extremely importantly, they need to become more attractive to talent if they want to innovate successfully, especially for software engineers, IT and strategy.