Amid persistent upheaval, leading companies are using some disruptions to transform how they operate and gain a competitive edge.
The 2020s have been the decade of disruption. The pandemic set the tone at the start, followed by one major upheaval after another: supply chain meltdowns, inflation, geopolitical instability, macroeconomic swings, cybersecurity threats, fast-moving new technologies, and more.
So as the decade reaches the halfway mark, the reality that some new disruption is right around the corner has become a consistent business concern for most companies today.
Disruption has regularly featured as a top focus for executives across a wide range of industries in our KPMG surveys. For example, disruption from generative AI (GenAI) was the top concern for CEOs in a recent survey,1 and 8 in 10 companies worried about their ability to keep up with the rapid pace of technology change in another report.2
Increasingly, though, leading companies are also viewing disruption as both a risk and an opportunity. Disruptions still present challenges that need to be carefully navigated. But with a thoughtful approach and strategy, some of these disruptions can also be harnessed to transform how the business operates and create new competitive advantages.
To understand more about this interplay between disruption’s risks and opportunities, we recently surveyed more than 600 leaders from US-based companies for their insights on these dynamics in today’s ever-changing business landscape.
As our Disruption Decoded report details, companies that are moving ahead with confidence exhibit greater agility, robust risk management, and adaptive long-term planning to assure resilience amid the seemingly permanent challenge of macro disruptions. This helps companies thrive amid the rapid change, and it increases their optimism about growth—and their ability to harness disruptions to drive that growth.
Among the key findings from our new report:
86%
Optimism about growth abounds—86 percent of respondents are bullish about prospects in the next 18 months, and 87 percent feel confident about growth over the next three years.
90%
Nine in ten companies view themselves as disruptors, and that approach is helping them create new value and capture market share. Of note: More than half rate their disruptor advantage as either “strong” (36 percent) or “game-changing” (17 percent).
72%
Nearly three in four companies say they are properly positioned and capitalized to leverage disruption and drive growth.
As one example of this dynamic in action, consider supply chains. Supply chain risks ranked as the top geopolitical concern in our survey, cited by 52 percent of the companies. But leveraging AI’s disruptive new innovations to optimize the supply chain and mitigate the risks was identified as a top opportunity by 58 percent of the respondents.
Turning disruption into opportunity is not a simple business tactic, of course.
In our experience and work with clients, companies that are best positioned to effectively leverage disrupters like GenAI and data virtualization to create new value are set up for success from the start. They have a holistic, enterprise-wide performance management vision that empowers the entire organization to move more quickly, deliver more value, and drive better business outcomes from new opportunities.
It’s an approach that KPMG calls Intelligent Performance, and it features several key capabilities that are reflected in the organization’s DNA:
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With these capabilities in place, companies that operate with Intelligent Performance are better positioned to navigate disruptions and, in many cases, turn them into competitive advantages. Indeed, tangible results that we have seen from Intelligent Performance companies have included:
Turn insight into opportunity with unique perspectives and actionable insights addressing the burning issues atop the C-suite agenda. Delivered monthly.
In this decade of destruction, leading companies are finding success by playing both defense and offense.
Make no mistake: Disruptions still present significant strategic and operational challenges—and the continuing sense that another shoe can drop at any moment. But it’s also clear that companies that are able to move quickly and rapidly adapt to disruptions are better positioned to do some disrupting of their own.
To learn more, download the full Disruption Decoded report, and check out our paper on how to maximize enterprise growth with Intelligent Performance.
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