Why does a manufacturer that has been around for 20 years fail or succeed in the next year? Why does ERP, which supported the business at first, now need to be replaced? Why does your customer decide to buy your product today vs. last year or next year?
At its core, the answer is change. How we move from a current steady state to success or failure is a result of how we respond to change in a way that impacts our fit with the environment.
Competition Drives Change. Exponential Change In Technology Fuels It.
Companies compete vigorously. Change represents an opportunity and a risk to redefine the market. Competitors exploit change in an effort to gain competitive advantage. Nowhere is change more apparent than in technology. Exponential change in key technologies is fertile ground for the creative destruction we see occurring in the economy. Key technologies driving this include: artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), additive manufacturing, biological technologies, and nanotechnology. As companies experiment and adopt innovations enabled by the rapid change in these technologies, they can alter the way consumers use products and the types of solutions they demand.
The exponential nature of the growth in technology is often overlooked. It took seven years to sequence the first 1 percent of the human genome. Linear thinking would suggest that it would take 700 years in total to complete the genome. But if you look at it in terms of exponential growth, 100 percent is less than seven doublings of 1 percent. As a process exhibiting exponential growth, the full genome was sequenced seven years later. The sequencing of the genome has created new areas of opportunity for pharmaceutical and medical diagnostic manufacturers willing to embrace change.