Traditionally, good corporate risk management has meant lots of study, careful analysis, and the flawless execution of well-honed implementation plans. A heavy focus on business optimization and continuous improvement was eminently sensible. Until it wasn’t.
Why Playing It Safe Is the Riskiest Strategic Choice
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In the current era of digital disruption, the pace of change has dramatically accelerated, leaving traditional risk management wisdom lacking. Across a variety of industries, technology-enabled disruptors have changed the rules. Many brands that moved cautiously have dramatically increased their risk of irrelevance or set themselves on a path to extinction. The author thus argues that playing it safe is in fact the riskiest choice. He illustrates this with the example of traditional brick-and-mortar retail companies that chose a “timid transformation” — as well as those that effectively pivoted and avoided that fate. Moving faster doesn’t mean being reckless or endless moonshots, but cultivating a culture of experimentation and finding ways to “shrink the change” so that companies can better deliver value to customers.
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