High-Tech
This industry is dominated by, with the exception of the United States, countries from the Asia Pacific region.
Industry Trends & Challenges
High-tech companies face a number of opportunities and threats to their businesses. The companies best placed to deal with a challenge will consider it as an opportunity, whilst those poorly prepared will face the challenge as a threat.
Before the COVID-19 crisis, there were several trends that chemical companies were responding to. As the industry recovers from the pandemic some of those trends remain, and some new challenges have emerged. Those include:
- growth of IoT and supporting infrastructure
- emergence of new business models
- focus on sustainability
- supply chain disruption
- cybersecurity concerns
Rapid technological progress means that products often have a relatively short life – around one to three years from market introduction to the peak in sales revenues. Consequently, high-tech companies must be adaptable and responsive to both changes and advancements in technology, and also changes in consumer demands and requirements.
To stay relevant and competitive, high-tech firms must:
- adopt a constant stream of technological advances
- reduce manufacturing and distribution costs
- speed up the time it takes to make and deliver their products.
What is the current position of the high-tech industry?
In 2023 cloud computing and artificial intelligence will continue to dominate the high-tech industry, but edge computing will likely grow in importance. Many companies are motivated to move to cloud computing because it can reduce costs, optimise processes, and enhance flexibility.
Edge computing and 5G connectivity create a reusable and versatile platform that supports the full potential of connectivity and computing capabilities for advanced technologies such as AI. This has the capability to deliver value for cases that demand low latency and effective use of limited bandwidth, including:
- autonomous vehicles
- offshore oil rigs
- security and assembly line cameras
The industry is currently in a period of high investment in infrastructure in 2023 following the semiconductor shortages induced by the pandemic. However, high-tech plants are extraordinarily expensive and require many years to build and reach peak manufacturing capacity.
Solving this supply issue will be a key goal for 2023, given the growing influence of software in not just high-tech, but a whole host of other global industries such as:
- Automotive
- Consumer goods
- Healthcare
- Machinery
E-learning course
- Self-paced e-learning
- CPE/CPD-approved
- Designed for customer-facing professionals
Objectives
- Identify differences between the major chemicals sectors.
- Apply knowledge of the structure of the chemicals sector and identify how companies interact within the supply chain.
- Recognize the role of various business functions within a typical chemical manufacturing company.
- Recall key metrics used to measure business performance.
- Answer questions regarding industry trends and business initiatives.


High-Tech Industry Insights
Cambashi High-Tech Industry Insights offers tactical industry intelligence updated by industry experts, that provides the latest information from across the globe:
- Tactical industry intelligence updated in real-time by industry experts
- The latest trends & challenges, business drivers, products & services, and technology
- Business strategies and initiatives
- Key players and consumer perspective
- Industry terminology and metrics
- Deeper knowledge across a variety of industry subjects
Technology
In such a technology-driven industry the success or failure of high-tech companies relies to a large extent on their IT infrastructure and software applications. High-tech companies are often early adopters of new IT technologies, gaining technological, process, and commercial advantage.
High-tech IT investment aims to:
- improve innovation and efficiency in design, manufacturing – across the whole supply chain
- reduce costs across the whole business
- speed up time-to-market.
Factory automation, the use of robots, flexible production lines, just-in-time production systems, and quality management are core technologies essential to manufacturing performance. The industry has also been instrumental in advancing information technologies which support business processes across the value network including Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Lifecycle Management (PLM).
Here we can see the relative sizes of the Computer-Aided Technologies (Mechanical CAD, Mechanical CAE, CAM) and PLM software sectors in the global high-tech market. The total is worth over $US 2.8 billion annually. Note how MCAD and MCAE are the largest technology segments, which highlights the importance of design, analysis, and simulation in the high-tech sector.
Learn more about our market data for the engineering software

Design/Engineering/Manufacturing Software Market Share – High-Tech Industry
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