Infographic: 7 Arenas for Engineering Competition

Not all industries are created equal. Some may provide steady employment for workers and dependable profits for owners, but don’t offer much in the way of growth or innovation. Others, especially those enjoying the fruits of technological breakthroughs, not only have the potential to make the winners in those spaces very rich, but also could transform the economy in ways that send ripples throughout the business landscape. Smartphones, for example, didn’t just change the way we talk to each other, but have transformed retail, media, and even dating.
 
Recently, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the research arm of McKinsey & Co., released a report called, “The Next Big Arenas of Competition,” which identified 18 industries that are on the precipice of making a splash similar to (if not on the same scale as) smartphones. What’s more, the identified industries are still dynamic enough that the ultimate handful of winners has yet to be decided. 
 
While many of these industries or product lines are not engineering-related, several of them feature key contributions from mechanical engineers. Here are the competitive engineering industries MGI identified.