Companies in every industry are confronting an imagination gap between the established and safe - but rapidly aging - way of doing business and the opportunities and challenges of the technologies emerging today.
For example, computers are no longer relegated to desks. They can be found in pockets and purses, and are increasingly embedded into every aspect of daily life. A growing number of buildings, automobiles, enterprises and communities are becoming computers themselves, controlled in shared fashion (and not always consciously) by the people inside them. People increasingly use technological devices to gain unprecedented kinds of control over and engagement with their personal and work lives, actively managing appliances, transportation, entertainment choices, homes, shopping forays, manufacturing processes, and equipment maintenance, among many other activities. This new machine age is affecting virtually every industry - B2B and B2C - by producing a multiplicity of purchasing and behavioral pathways for individuals and firmly shifting the balance of power to consumers. End-users, not upstream companies, increasingly dictate the bespoke shape of the products and services they are offered, as well as the price they pay, their suppliers, their deadlines, and the channels they use.
