Couldn't one country's CEO be unreasonably bullish or bearish on their country's capabilities relative to others? Do they really know how far along foreign manufacturing schemes are evolving? Nobody is sitting on their hands here; "Made in China 2025" and Germany's "Industrie 4.0" are pretty strong desires to push into advanced production using IoT, smarter automation, and all that jazz. Anecdotally, in a factory visit near Shenzhen, the manager claimed that moving to an automated production line has been pretty easy. Some areas are kept manual only because the worker is cheaper, for now.
Outcomes from competition are hard to predict. It's interesting that Deloitte predicts Germany "holds strong and steady at the number three position" in 2020 when their own survey has them jumping between 2nd and 8th within a couple of years.
Outcomes from competition are hard to predict. It's interesting that Deloitte predicts Germany "holds strong and steady at the number three position" in 2020 when their own survey has them jumping between 2nd and 8th within a couple of years.