As that great American philosopher Yogi Berra once mused, “it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Nonetheless, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) recently named 18 “arenas of competition” that could transform the business landscape over the next 15 years.
Arenas of competition are defined as industries with fast-growing revenues and market cap and high dynamism (as measured by the turnover of companies at the top). To identify the list of 18, MGI assessed which industries are seeing the kind of technology and business model breakthroughs that have characterized arenas historically. The list includes some of the 12 arenas that emerged between 2005 and 2020, but many are new. The 18 cover a wide range of sectors (cybersecurity, nuclear fission); of goods (electric vehicles, obesity drugs) and of activity (video games, air mobility). They touch on everything from individual homes (modular construction) to the universe (space).
