2025 Most Disruptive Industry Trends: Indian Women Leaders Speak

By: WE Staff

Manjula Girish, Business Head, EV Charging & Photovoltaic Inverter Division, Delta Electronics India

Manjula Girish, with over 20 years of experience in the energy and electronics sectors, combines technical expertise and business strategy.

2025’s Most Disruptive Trend in Manufacturing: Breakdown of Linear, Predictable Manufacturing Models

The most disruptive shift has been the breakdown of linear, predictable manufacturing models. Global supply disruptions, geopolitical uncertainty, and demand volatility exposed the fragility of centralized production and just-in-time systems. Manufacturers were forced to prioritize localization, flexibility, and risk mitigation alongside cost efficiency. This accelerated investment in domestic manufacturing, modular capacity, and supplier diversification. The disruption changed boardroom priorities, with resilience, speed of response, and operational continuity becoming as critical as scale and margins in manufacturing strategy.

Outlook 2026: Focus on Reliability, Efficiency & Lifecycle Performance

By 2026, manufacturing will be defined by the integration of infrastructure, digital systems, and service-led operations into a single, outcome-driven model. Energy, automation, and asset management will no longer operate in silos but as an intelligent backbone supporting uptime, cost predictability, and compliance.

Digital monitoring, predictive maintenance, and data-led decision-making will become standard expectations. Customers will increasingly prioritize reliability, efficiency, and lifecycle performance over standalone equipment. Manufacturers that invest early in scalable, future-ready operating models will set new benchmarks for productivity, resilience, and competitiveness across industries.