DECEMBER 2018 / NO. 2
TAGS: LIFE EXPECTANCY COMPANY, CYCLES

Is your company already leveling out?

In the late 1990s Arie de Geus, former Director Strategic Planning at Shell, published his famous book ‘The Living Company’ about the life expectancy of Fortune 500 companies: 50 years. Do we have new insights?

— Joseph H.A.M. Rodenberg
Yes, we have new insights about the life expectancy of companies. It is based on the S&P Dow Jones Indices of the 500 leading companies in the USA. Here are the key figures about life expectancy of companies (source Innosight/FD, December 2018) :
  • 1964 : 34 years
  • 2015 : 24 years
  • 2027 : 12 years
This is a dramatic foresight about the average life expectancy of companies towards 2027! There are three drivers to overcome this: innovation, maneuverability and competitive strategies.
Do you have the answers on the following five questions?
  1. Do you know what your customers want in 3 years?
  2. Does your company have a reason for existing 5 years from now?
  3. Imagine your company is closed today. Can you name three things your customers would seriously miss?
  4. Do you see how the world could be different in 5 years?
  5. Do you spend a major part of your time on external rather than internal issues?
How to get the new insights and foresight beyond next year’s budget? Do you rely on risk managers, big data analysts, market researchers, marketers, strategists, compliance or external auditors? Who is able to pull this all together? Who in the end is accountable? Nobody is.

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