The consumer goods industry continues to grow, but the old logic no longer works. The Horváth CxO Priorities Study shows that competitiveness increasingly depends on lower complexity, sharper portfolio focus, effective pricing, trust, and AI embedded in corporate steering.
The 7th Horváth CxO Priorities Study examines the issues shaping executives’ strategic decisions. More than 1,000 executives from 32 countries and 16 industries took part. The findings show how companies set growth, performance, and investment targets and which factors determine their competitiveness:
For the consumer goods industry, the findings reveal a contradiction: growth remains possible, but it is becoming harder to translate that growth into profitable performance. The consumer goods companies surveyed expect revenue to grow by around 7.0 percent in 2026 and 6.7 percent in 2027. Workforce growth, however, will remain much lower at around 1.4 percent in 2026 and only around 0.5 percent in 2027. This fundamentally changes the growth equation: additional revenue will depend less on added capacity and more on better steering, simpler structures, and more productive processes.
Over the years, many companies have built up broad portfolios, numerous variants, and complex structures. High commercial spending and insufficient transparency on actual value contribution add further pressure. The expected EBIT margin for 2026 is around 8.1 percent, below the previous year’s 8.6 percent. At the same time, the SG&A margin remains high at around 20.6 percent. Companies improve performance when they reduce complexity and strengthen their ability to steer the business.
The study shows that pricing and revenue models do not rank among the top priorities, although they can significantly affect revenue and margin. Trust and transparency are also becoming more important. Both strengthen loyalty and expand pricing power. Profitability therefore depends on more than efficiency. Companies must also manage brand relationships credibly and commercially.
Portfolio decisions extend beyond marketing and product assortment. They determine how competitive companies remain. The CxO study identifies cost and profit improvement, AI and digital transformation, innovation and R&D as key priorities. To implement them, companies must align their portfolios, technology, and commercial steering. Managing brands, products, variants, and channels by value contribution creates room for investment, faster decisions and better customer experiences.
Another key insight from the study: demand is increasingly influenced by platforms, retail partners and algorithms. This creates a new management task for manufacturers. They must connect visibility, customer access, and commercial steering systematically. Strong products and efficient production alone are no longer enough. Companies that do not actively steer demand lose influence in external ecosystems.
AI is no longer a future topic in consumer goods. Companies must now turn it into measurable value. According to the study, the main hurdles are process integration, the data foundation, end-to-end integration, data security, and organizational capabilities. Many applications remain at early or intermediate maturity levels. Companies therefore need to embed AI directly in corporate steering. AI creates economic value when it improves planning, forecasting, portfolio decisions, and commercial decisions. The number of individual use cases matters less than their contribution to better decisions.
The global footprint also requires greater clarity. Consumer goods companies need to direct resources more deliberately toward growth areas. They should also align location, investment and workforce decisions more closely with a clear operating-model target picture. This helps them avoid new complexity and strengthen resilience.
The logic of competitiveness is changing. Companies can no longer manage growth, profitability, resilience, trust, pricing, and technology separately. Successful consumer goods companies therefore connect portfolio focus, operating model, AI, and execution. This enables them to shape their competitiveness instead of merely reacting to pressure.
Horváth supports consumer goods companies in embedding this new steering logic effectively – from sharpening the strategic target picture to portfolio, pricing and operating-model design, and through to implementation with clear steering mechanisms, robust data structures, and AI-supported decision processes. Would you like to discuss the study findings or their implications for your company? Please contact us.
Neugebauer, A.
