Technology accelerates change and complexity

While businesses and markets have always been a world of constant change and innovation, technology has dramatically accelerated the pace and scale of change in business. Business models are rapidly evolving to match pace with the rapid growth and normalization of technological change—be it internet access, mobile devices, cloud services, AI, digitization of processes and capabilities; the list goes on. As an illustration, modifying a website or mobile app today can change how every customer interacts with an organization in a matter of hours—reaching thousands, millions, or billions of people.

A changing business model drives changes in people, processes, and the underlying technology. It may also instantly invalidate generations of institutional knowledge. Business model changes often result in new threats and an extreme need for organizational agility to capture the opportunity before it passes. Time and money are usually...