The European Business Review - July-August 2019

http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com 29

combustion engine experts to that with electric and
programming experts – the same kind who build
computers, mobile games, and handheld devices.
In contrast to personally owned, gasoline-pow-
ered, human-driven vehicles that dominated the
last century, carmakers realise that they have to
transition to mobility services based on self-driving
electric vehicles that will be paid for by the trip,
by the mile, through a monthly subscription, or
through a combination of all three.
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nies that stay ahead of their competitors is that
they leap: they jump across knowledge disciplines
to leverage and create new knowledge about how a
product is made or a service is delivered. The best
companies leap repeatedly. Absent such efforts,
latecomers will catch up.
In a similar vein, in consumer banking, it’s a
shift from operating a traditional retail branch
with knowledgeable staff who provide investment
advice to running data analytics and interacting with
consumers the same way an e-commerce retailer
does. Leap is everywhere, although the pace of
change may differ between industries.
And so at the IMD business school, we track how
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edge discipline in its effort to prepare for the future.
This IMD ranking measures companies in each
industry sector using hard market data – data that
is publicly available and has objective rules – rather
than relying on soft data, such as polls or subjec-
tive judgments of raters. We measure fundamental
drivers that fuel innovation, such as the health of
a company’s current business, the diversity of its
workforce, its governance structure, the invest-
ments it has made against its competitors, the speed
of its product launches, and so on. Using an objec-
tive composite index that accounts for these drivers,
table 1 measures the readiness of each of the listed

MASTERCARD

VISAINC.

GOLDMANSACHSGROUP,INC.

PAYPALHOLDINGS,INC.

SQUARE

WELLSFARGO&COMPANY

BANKofAMERICACORPORATION

CITIGROUPINC.

CREDITSUISSEAG

JPMORGANCHASE&CO.

HSBCHOLDINGSPLC

UBSAG

BNPPARIBAS

SWISSLIFEAG

PRUDENTIALPLC

BARCLAYSBANKPLC

PINGANINSURANCE(GROUP)COMPANYofCHINALTD.

ALLIANZSE

BBVA(BANCOBILBAOVIZCAYAARGENTARIA)

AXASA

PRUDENTIALFINANCIALINC.

CNPASSURANCES

ZURICHINSURANCEGROUPAG

CHINAMERCHANTSBANKCOLTD.

DBSBANK

CHINALIFEINSURANCECO.LTD.

MUNICHRE

BANCOSANTANDERSA

CREDITAGRICOLESA

METLIFEINC.

BANKOFCHINALTD.

DEUTSCHEBANKAG

OCBCBANK

AMERICANEXPRESSCO.

STANDARDCHARTEREDPLC

INGGROEPNV

CHINAPACIFICINSURANCE(GROUP)CO.,LTD.

ASSICURAZIONIGENERALISPA

CHINACONSTRUCTIONBANK

INDUSTRIAL&COMMERCIALBANKOFCHINA(THE)– ICBC

SOCIETEGENERALESA

UNICREDITSPA

AMERICANINTERNATIONALGROUPINC.

AGRICULTURALBANKOFCHINALIMITED

Company names Score

100.000

93.982

75.491

69.026

63.410

61.866

61.478

61.251

56.056

52.282

51.662

50.424

49.543

49.329

46.725

46.608

44.179

41.921

40.578

39.223

37.932

36.964

35.783

35.237

34.303

33.404

28.864

28.504

28.315

28.163

27.741

25.047

24.883

24.339

24.277

23.089

22.019

19.585

19.364

16.560

14.795

13.233

9.089

0.000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

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37

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44

Rank

Automakers are on the cusp of making a

major leap in their know-how from mechanical

engineering with combustion engine experts

to that with electric and programming experts

• the same kind who build computers,

mobile games, and handheld devices.

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cryptocurrency and blockchain, mobile banking and

mobile payment, corporate venture and application

programming interfaces (APIs).

Unsurprisingly, the leap readiness index in table

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this year, and Square, which processes credit card

payments for street stalls, coffee stands, and fancy

farmers’ markets, both sit on top of the ranking.

More surprising are the incumbents, who are able

to grow just as fast. None are retail banks, who

supposedly enjoy the advantage of “being close