After 10 years of unicorns disrupting long standing industries with innovative platform-driven business models, their prices are going up while losing their competitive edge. Consumers are noticing the increasing costs on platform businesses such as Uber and Airbnb. And, many are moving back to public transport and hotels that often have better amenities.

At the same time, corporate veterans such as General Motors have learned how to become agile. After a week of lockdown, they switched one manufacturing plant from non-essential cars to high demand ventilators. A trend of big brands reselling their own products second hand was emerging before 2020. Through 2020, more established brands such as Levi’s have joined in and have maintained customers during economic uncertainty.

The adage “disrupt or be disrupted” has never been more true, and businesses of all sizes will need to be proactive at anticipating and adapting to any form of disruption - even their own. As climate change concerns ramp up, employment concerns will also increase. And, SMEs are expected to dominate the solutions for both.

Strategic foresight and agile methodologies will help organizations achieve or maintain industry leadership. However, they need to be adopted into the culture of the organization at every level to optimize their effectiveness. Contact us at Shaping Tomorrow for more information.