I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “Where there is a will there is a way”. Did you realize it can be applied to business transformations and intelligent enterprise?

If we look at how some companies transformed themselves, you quickly realize that a ‘willingness to change and adapt’ was the cornerstone of effective value creation. Like human beings, companies are unique in their ability to want to change, but it’s the willingness to change that stimulates them to take home the big prize.

Unfortunately, the business world is saddled with real stories of how well-known companies fell apart and faded into oblivion (for some examples, read my blog: Urgency is the Name of the Game) during the process. Interestingly, these companies were often ‘forced to change’, meaning they allowed themselves to become vulnerable to market forces and had change forced upon them. It’s not that they didn’t know what was coming; their reluctance to change kept them from adapting and surviving. However, the nimble-footed companies that put their ‘will to change’ in the driver’s seat rode the new technological wave to better days – and better business models, greater efficiencies and increased revenues.

From machines to machine learning and beyond
Historically, the advent of the second industrial revolution in the 19th century brought increased productivity and higher growth, which in turn led to world-wide economic development. That was the first time that machines replaced manual labor, resulting in accelerated production, transportation and communication.

Today, we have come a long way from the ‘Age of Machines’ to the ‘Age of Machine Learning.’ Now cutting-edge technologies like machine learning, IoT, Blockchain and AI, promise the next major leap by partially or fully removing the human factor from low-skill and high-frequency tasks, which would in turn enable companies to grow at a faster rate than ever before.