MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Digital Superpowers You Need to Thrive

On Jan. 8, 2020, when Chinese researchers announced that they had identified a new virus that had infected dozens of people across Asia, few business leaders realized that their companies were on the brink of an economic, medical, political, and cultural disruption of global magnitude. In short order, they were called upon to respond to potential illness among employees and customers, supply chain interruptions, dramatic fluctuations in demand, and extraordinarily high levels of uncertainty.

Yet, for all its grim — and ongoing — consequences, the COVID-19 pandemic is just one of many fundamental breaks in the business environment that have challenged leaders over the past 30 years or so. These disruptions come in two forms.

About the Author

Gerald C. Kane (@profkane) is a professor of information systems at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Rich Nanda (@richnanda) is the leader of Deloitte’s U.S. Monitor Deloitte practice.

Anh Nguyen Phillips (@anhphillips) is research director of Deloitte’s global CEO Program.

Jonathan Copulsky (@jcopulsky) is executive director of the Medill Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University. They are the authors of The Transformation Myth: Leading Your Organization Through Uncertain Times (MIT Press, 2021), from which this article was adapted.

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