{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-page-js","path":"/disruptive-strategy/","matchPath":"/disruptive-strategy/*","result":{"pageContext":{"matchPath":"/disruptive-strategy/*","data":{"id":"playlist-16--new--","seo":{"title":"Imagination Inc.","description":"When disruptive thinking rewrites industry rules","image":"https://impact.economist.com/projects/real-world-strategy/images/share16.jpg"},"link":{"id":"new--playlist16","basePath":"/disruptive-strategy/","path":"/disruptive-strategy/","type":"brand_ey_parthenon","img":{"thumb":"/images/playlists/thumb_pl_16.jpg","full":"/images/playlists/full_pl_16.jpg","alt":""},"label":"Disruptive Strategy","pretitle":"Disruptive Strategy","title":"When disruptive thinking rewrites industry rules"},"menu":[{"id":"playlist8","basePath":"/ceo-video-series/","path":"/ceo-series/","type":"brand_ey_parthenon","watermark":"ceo","img":{"thumb":"/images/playlists/thumb_pl_08.jpg","full":"/images/playlists/full_pl_08.jpg","alt":""},"pretitle":"Strategy in Action:<br/>A CEO Series","title":"Watch Now"},{"id":"playlist11","basePath":"/geostrategy/","path":"/geostrategy/1/","type":"brand_ey_parthenon","img":{"thumb":"/images/playlists/thumb_pl_11.jpg","full":"/images/playlists/full_pl_11.jpg","alt":"Winding valley with green and brown hilly terrain. Light shines on China's Zhangye Danxia colourful rainbow mountain range."},"label":"Geostrategy","pretitle":"Geostrategy","title":"How do you adapt to a new geopolitical&nbsp;era?"},{"id":"playlist10","basePath":"/esgstrategy/","path":"/esgstrategy/1/","type":"brand_ey_parthenon","img":{"thumb":"/images/playlists/thumb_pl_10.jpg","full":"/images/playlists/full_pl_10.jpg","alt":""},"label":"ESG Strategy","pretitle":"ESG Strategy","title":"How do you embed sustainability into traditional corporate strategy?"}],"content":{"brand":"brand_ey_parthenon","sidenav":[{"label":"Professional perspectives","anchor":"professionalperspectives"},{"label":"Insights","anchor":"insights"},{"label":"Case studies","anchor":"casestudies"}],"bg":{"type":"image","hideLogo":true,"addGradient":true,"desktop":{"src":"/images/static-hero/static-16.jpg"},"mobile":{"src":"/images/static-hero/static-16-m.jpg"}},"card":{"cls":"small-mobile-title new-right","showDots":false,"hideBorder":true,"forceWidth":340,"title":"Imagination Inc.","desc":"When disruptive thinking rewrites industry rules"},"sections":[{"id":"professionalperspectives","theme":"lines-bg--offset","blocks":[{"type":"CopyBlock","content":{"title":"Creative capital","paragraphs":["While some businesses react to possible futures, tomorrow’s leaders are learning to build them, shifting from defensive planning to offensive imagination."]}},{"type":"VideoBlock","content":{"id":"video","src":"https://players.brightcove.net/1153191510001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6377067257112","title":"Playlist 16"}},{"type":"CopyBlock","content":{"paragraphs":["John van Rossen, EY-Parthenon Global Strategy and Execution Leader; Abhishek Chakravarty EY-Parthenon Partner, Digital and Technology, Ernst & Young Solutions LLP and Igor Mikhalev, EY-Parthenon Europe West Head of Emerging Technologies Strategy reveal why organized speculation is fast becoming the most disruptive form of corporate planning—and how artificial intelligence is amplifying the returns on creative thinking."]}}]},{"id":"insights","theme":"lines-bg--offset-xlarge","blocks":[{"type":"CopyBlock","content":{"title":"The inflection decade"}},{"type":"TimelineBlock","content":{}},{"type":"CopyBlock","content":{"title":"Disruptors institutionalize imagination—here’s how","paragraphs":["<strong>Executives may be tempted to avoid turbulence. But the real opportunity lies in harnessing it to upend industry orthodoxies.</strong>","Whiplash over tariffs, geopolitical convulsions and economic uncertainty, along with rapid technological advances, have buffeted organizations for a decade. While some leaders lament volatility, the wisest see it as fertile ground for innovation. The path forward morphs constantly, leaving bosses with little choice but to brave the shifting elements.","One certainty is that technology continues to affect industries. Organizational spending on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) reached US$13.8bn in 2024, up from US$2.3bn the previous year. This impressive rise highlights corporations’ eagerness to use emerging technologies to underwrite disruptive strategies. However, competitiveness requires more than deploying tools. It demands “fundamentally reimagining the business model… and designing for a future that we don't know yet,” explains Abhishek Chakravarty, EY-Parthenon Partner, Digital and Technology, Ernst & Young Solutions LLP."]}},{"type":"StatImageBlock","content":{"image":{"src":"/images/t2/p-16-1-img.jpg","alt":"Engineer with safety glasses uses a tablet beside a car part on an assembly line, with a robotic arm blurred in the foreground."},"stat":{"style":"block-post","pre":"Organizations spent","main":"US$13.8bn","post":"on GenAI in 2024, up from US$2.3bn in 2023."}}},{"type":"CopyBlock","content":{"paragraphs":["This means transforming imagination from a creative indulgence into a strategic imperative that allows businesses to place big bets with the backing of AI. When machine power combines with human ingenuity, the result is innovation that neither could achieve alone. Rather than relying solely on data analytics and market forecasts, companies must develop systematic approaches to explore possibilities beyond conventional thinking and embed these practices throughout their structure. Such efforts are taking shape across the public and private sectors, where institutions are working to identify new value pools by using AI, blockchain and quantum computing as force multipliers rather than solutions.","Consider Denmark's approach to bureaucracy. Rather than implementing a simple tech upgrade, the government began to treat citizen experience as a design challenge, reimagining the model for citizen-state interactions. Its NemID (and successor MitID), Digital Post and health service apps pioneered a unified digital identity that integrates services across government, replacing paper-heavy systems with smart infrastructure that anticipates what people need before they ask for it. Today, Danes enjoy some of the world's highest citizen satisfaction with public services. So, if imagination is a discipline that can be systematized and scaled, what are the habits or conditions that embed brave thinking across firms of any size, in any region or sector? EY-Parthenon’s Harnessing the Power of ‘What Could Be’ report outlines how companies can institutionalize imagination to disrupt industries. Here, we present a snapshot of the four-stage process."]}},{"type":"NumberedListBlock","content":{"list":[{"num":"01","title":"Think in futures, not forecasts","paragraphs":["“Every organization needs to have a point of view on the next best state for that organization,” says John van Rossen, EY-Parthenon Global Strategy and Execution Leader. This includes developing an informed opinion on how their industry and the world might evolve years into the future. Using trend analysis, uncertainty mapping and scenario design, leaders can identify key inflection points to create a distinctive set of futures that are detailed enough to drive long-term strategy. The goal is to escape business-as-usual thinking and reimagine how things could work, illuminating new possibilities and their potential impacts. This step balances the art of storytelling that vividly paints future scenarios with the science of analysis to quantify implications. By doing so, we overlay a discipline onto imagination, ensuring that “what could be” is grounded in meaningful insights. Leaders in the car industry, for instance, envisioned a future where consumers purchased rides instead of cars—foresight that led their businesses to invest in car-sharing and autonomous driving technology. The move arguably created a new market segment within the industry: mobility-as-a-service."]},{"num":"02","title":"Learn to capitalize on chaos","paragraphs":["Imagination requires a fundamental shift in mindset—seizing uncertainty as raw material for innovation, rather than viewing it as a risk to be reduced. “A certain level of turbulence is good,” confirms Igor Mikhalev, EY-Parthenon Europe West Head of Emerging Technologies Strategy. This mental shift means venturing into the murkiness and becoming comfortable with ambiguity, even pursuing ideas with no initial guarantee of return on investment. Strategizing on this unknown requires a rigorous review of organizational capabilities against industry shifts to uncover emerging needs ripe for innovation."]},{"num":"03","title":"Interrogate your sacred cows","paragraphs":["This stage involves scrupulously inspecting core beliefs about how your firm operates. Raw ideas are refined into testable hypotheses, which can then be developed into new operating models. These concepts are validated through minimal viable ecosystems (MVEs)—small-scale partnerships that reduce complexity while focusing on specific goals and value creation. Teams need to be allowed to ask “What if?...” and challenge traditional industry tenets. Leaders must nurture and safeguard fledgling ideas even if those ideas don’t align with existing models. Companies skilled in this analytic storytelling create future models and use them to make strategic bets that steer the trajectory of research and development."]},{"num":"04","title":"Prepare to place big bets","paragraphs":["Articulating the new business case is the foundation of this stage. Using insights from previous trend analyses, teams identify the customer value proposition and financial viability of new business models. Pinpointing inflection points—market dynamics centered on consumer readiness and technology maturity, for example—is key to big-bet planning. Businesses that diligently identify such inflection points, realign resources and construct user-centered business cases, rather than rushing to market, can secure a better strategic advantage. At this stage, leaders will be armed with the confidence to assign resources and scale initiatives to take advantage of strategic opportunities."]}],"cta":{"label":"Read more","link":"https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/trackclk/N284201.139656THEECONOMIST/B31553931.428797603;dc_trk_aid=622164000;dc_trk_cid=241344383;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=;gdpr=${GDPR};gdpr_consent=${GDPR_CONSENT_755};ltd=;dc_tdv=1"},"postCopy":["While this work may feel audacious, it is anything but reckless. The challenge is to institutionalize imagination without stifling it. This requires two skills: convincing colleagues that blue-sky thinking is worth their time, and ensuring that a few sensible bets cover for high-risk ventures. Counterintuitively, periods of geopolitical and technological uncertainty can position organizations to become industry disruptors, with the smartest preparing—both mentally and operationally—to profit from the confusion. Imagination is serious business, and pairing it with AI tools can open up a world of surprising possibilities."]}}]},{"id":"casestudies","theme":"dark-bg","blocks":[{"type":"CaseStudyBlock","content":{"title":"More room to roam","paragraphs":["Wireless connectivity has become an increasingly essential utility, with mobile data demand growing exponentially through the expansion of IoT and 5G. Yet networks remain severely underutilized, and firms face limited options for affordable, flexible internet access. Rivada Networks is reimagining this paradigm—building an open marketplace powered by blockchain technology and a constellation of 600 satellites to turn unused capacity into cost-effective connectivity."],"video":{"src":"https://players.brightcove.net/1153191510001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6376870732112","title":"Playlist 16 case study"},"cta":{"label":"Read more","link":"https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/trackclk/N284201.139656THEECONOMIST/B31553931.428983043;dc_trk_aid=622166142;dc_trk_cid=241292110;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=;gdpr=${GDPR};gdpr_consent=${GDPR_CONSENT_755};ltd=;dc_tdv=1"}}}]}]}},"id":"new--playlist16"}}}