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2024 Mid-Year Trends Report
We’re looking back on our 2024 predictions with analysis and commentary from credentialed Catalant Experts and data from our platform, all of which tells a story of the strategic priorities of the world’s leading companies.
Prediction: Growth
Is 2024 going to be a “year of growth?”
With interest rates rising and the cost of capital spiking throughout 2022 and 2023, priorities shifted away from “growth at all costs” to a focus on the bottom line. In early 2024, we started to see a cautious return to growth, as indicated by Catalant’s Growth Trend Index. By mid-year, we saw greater evidence to suggest companies are investing in growth-oriented work.
Does the Catalant Expert agree? This 20+ year leader in commercial excellence and strategy grades us a B- on this prediction and says while we were aligned with what many expected, he does not believe we’ll see full recovery this year.
Read the full report to hear his commentary and reason for the rating.
Prediction: Supply Chain
Have enterprises shifted from supply chain defense to supply chain offense?
We predicted that companies would go from a defensive position – focusing on fixing their existing inventory management problems, to an offensive position – a focus on optimization, digitization, and innovation, while remaining operationally efficient. Does the Catalant Expert agree?
Ketul Patel, a supply chain practitioner for over 20 years, gave us a B- on this one. 2024 is proving to be a transition year, where companies want to adopt offensive positions, but aren’t fully realizing the expected impact of those investments.
Read the full report to hear his commentary and reason for the rating.
Prediction: Investment Activity
Is 2024 going to be the “year of the IPO?”
In January, we said that 2024 would be another slow year of IPO activity, predicting that companies would continue to ride out market uncertainty and high interest rates and 2024 would not be a “year of IPO.” The data demonstrates that’s the case, and as Jay Grob, Catalant Expert with 20 years of experience in private markets points out, a forecasted economic “soft landing” would ensure investor confidence, but current instability may make that difficult to achieve.
Read all of our predictions and Expert reactions in the full report.
With additional predictions on M&A activity, AI implementation, and the impact of influencers on brands, this Mid-Year Trends Report has it all.
Download the report now to read the complete analysis.
