Through Industry 5.0, Indian manufacturers to focus on sustainability, target profitability: PwC

NEW DELHI: At least 93% of Indian manufacturers are embracing Industry 5.0 to drive sustainable practices and boost revenues, according to a PwC report released on Friday.

More than 50% of Indian manufacturers are prioritising investments in sustainable practices this year. These investments are aimed at leveraging digital technologies to adopt renewable energy sources and enhance energy efficiency, among other things, said the report, “Decoding the Fifth Industrial Revolution: Marching Towards a Resilient, Sustainable and Human-Centric Future”, which has gathered inputs from 118 companies across six industries in India.

“More than 93% of the CXOs have said that they would like to be known for driving sustainability in the organisation, along with an increase in their revenue. They’re saying that these two goals, the goals of sustainability and financial goals, are not disparate from each other but are intertwined,” said Sudipta Ghosh, Partner and Industrial Products Leader at PwC India.

The report also showed that 52% of top executives at leading manufacturing companies are also allocating investments this year towards building a culture of lifelong learning.

Industry 5.0 represents a defining moment for the manufacturing sector — one that creates a symbiotic relationship between humans and advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and the internet of things (IoT), said Ghosh. In the past, it was more about machines and algorithms trying to see if things can be done in a way in which humans may not be required.

“But that is an unrealistic kind of understanding, in our opinion. We feel we need human involvement and a symbiotic relationship between human and technology. The latter needs to be involved to improve effectiveness, to perform repetitive and boring parts of nature, or even hazardous ones. Machines need to help humans by taking away that burden and the human is helping the machine by getting it to train better and make better decisions over a period of time. So that’s the reason we are calling it a symbiotic relationship,” he said. PwC’s study also found that most manufacturers stand to improve both their financial and operational performance by embracing Industry 5.0. With Industry 5.0 adoption, Indian manufacturers will be able to increase their revenues by 6.42% over the next two years, building momentum towards greater sustainability and resilience. According to the research, manufacturers estimate that their companies are likely to have foregone 4.37% of their FY24 revenues due to lower maturity in Industry 5.0 capabilities.The report revealed that some sectors have been more proactive with their investments than others. In the cement and industrial goods sectors, for instance, 95% of manufacturers are prioritising investments in real-time inventory tracking this year and the next.

PwC’s study included insights from C-suite executives and senior leaders across the automotive, cement, chemicals, industrial goods, metals and textiles industries.

According to the report, as training becomes more substantive and on-the-job, the workforce would start experiencing the potential of machines to complement as well as supplement their skills, helping them do their work faster and better. This would alleviate apprehensions around machines such as robots and digital technologies leading to job losses — a concern highlighted by nearly half of the executives surveyed from the automotive and cement industries.

“Historically, machine and technology integration on the shopfloors and operations has happened with a top-down perspective. However, in the context of GenAI, the story would differ slightly. In this case, the bottom-up innovation focus will need guidance through adequate top-down guardrails. Yet, the inability to provide secure access to GenAI and similar technologies to enhance workforce productivity has bubbled up to be a challenge for many executives across industries such as automotive, cement, chemicals, and textiles and clothing,” added Ghosh.

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