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J
ust as human beings are
organisms that grow,
change, and adapt, so do
successful businesses. In 1970, the
US futurist Alvin Toffler published
Future Shock, a book that predicted
the coming phenomenon of “a
perception of too much change
in too short a period of time.” The
pace of change, he said, would also
spread to the world of business, as
companies were forced to adapt
their products and processes to
maintain advantage in an
increasingly competitive market.
Toffler’s ideas of the effects of
rapid technological change were
viewed at the time as far-fetched,
but with the invention of computers
and the Internet, change has
accelerated even more rapidly than
he predicted. Toffler presciently
claimed that we would live in a
state of “high transience,” in which
we would give ideas, organizations,
and even relationships an ever-
shorter amount of our time. Social
media websites are witness to this
idea in action, providing a platform
for the new ways we have begun
relating to one another; they also
demonstrate new ways of starting,
growing, and building businesses.In 1989, US computer scientist
Alan Kay claimed that it took 10
years for an innovation to go from
the laboratory to everyday life, but
by 2006 Twitter had managed to
cut this down to just four years.
Products can now be bought online
from anywhere in the world, and
customer feedback is instant and
global. The challenge for companies
to adapt and reinvent is huge.Products and processes
The personal and business
landscape has changed so radically
since the 1960s that no industry or
corporation has proved immune toREINVENTING AND ADAPTING
Markets are never static—
change is inevitable
and continuous.Businesses must respond
to change through
innovation......in thinking, product,
and process.This flexibility allows
companies to respond to the
market and gives them
a competitive edge.Adaptation
and reinvention
are necessary
for business
survival.IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
Process and productKEY DATES
1962 US professor Everett
Rogers writes Diffusion of
Innovations, showing how
innovation moves through
social systems.1983 US business consultant
Julien Phillips publishes the
first change-management
model in the journal Human
Resource Management.1985 In Innovation and
Entrepreneurship, Peter
Drucker describes the best
approach to managing change
as one that “always searches
for change, responds to it,
and exploits it.”1993 US change expert Daryl
Conner uses the metaphor of
“the burning platform” to
describe the high cost of a
business that stays the same.The reinvention of daily life
means marching off the
edge of our maps.
Bob Black
US activist (1951–)