Five years after its founding, the Global Lighthouse Network, a World Economic Forum initiative in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, is no longer a vision but a proven reality. Network-designated Lighthouses can now be found across the globe. They represent every manufacturing sector and span more than 140 use cases and 130 member sites.
Global Lighthouse Network members have shaped the story up to this point, and their experience provides the foundation for the next chapter. What will it look like? To find out, we took a pulse check of both Lighthouses and non-Lighthouses to understand their experiences and priorities. Analysis of data drawn from the survey responses of leaders of 36 companies across the globe that represent a range of manufacturing industries has provided powerful insights.
Scaling waypoints: Ready for others to follow
The experiences of Global Lighthouse Network companies have left waypoints to scaling Fourth Industrial Revolution tech in place. Non-Lighthouses now have a choice. They can do their own pathfinding, replicating the trials and errors already overcome by the Lighthouses. Or they can use the “smart follower” strategy, learning from leading companies’ use cases and methodologies to accelerate their progress and using the scaling waypoints that the Lighthouses have put in place.
