Q: What do you anticipate will be the key business drivers shaping the markets over the next five to 10 years? You have talked a lot about business transformation, agility, and flexibility. Do you see these things continuing or do you see something new on the horizon that may cause us to rethink how we do things?
A: No, because we have never said that agility is replacing things. I think if you follow our message, it's always been about adding capabilities. So, we came from efficiency and compliance and added flexibility, and finally we said agility is also the link between strategy and execution. If you look at what's happening these days, you'll see how important that is. ... You have to anticipate in a networked world that the crisis we're having today will happen more. It's the nature of those complex systems. That means you have to make or be able to make radical transformations and changes without going out of business, to put it very bluntly.
Q: Will business be able to continually move faster or will there be a disconnect between what systems can do and what people can do?
A: That's a good question. We wrote a book some time ago about business models in 2010, and we said that IT can help to amplify intelligence. In business, you have the organizational intelligence, which is more or less the processes, the brain of the people, the DNA of the organization. We felt IT cannot replace it but can more or less amplify it to get information quicker. You can get better information, even exceptional information. ... I still believe that, but I would agree if we come to this fast-moving world with no buffers, no inventory any longer, we as human beings have to adjust our behavior a little bit to such a system, which I think is missing. So I would not say it's the speed of our brains and thinking. It more might be cultural and behavior aspects.