Volatility, Scale & Complexity

The business world is changing from the activities of the preceding 200 years – beginning with the Industrial Revolution, before which GDPs hardly changed – that are largely responsible for today’s global wealth. IT has increased this growth in the last three decades, now that all parts of the world can reach each other in seconds. This leads to the fourth DRIVE aspect – Volatility, Scale and Complexity

The factors of traditional production are less important, land use reducing in importance, and capital increasing. Added to this is the rise of the Middle East and China as

the centres of global economics. Meanwhile, diversification is diminishing in importance, as our highly connected world means that assets across the world share the same systemic risk.

These new dynamics create a new globalisation of increased opportunities and unexpected volatility, and make the future situation difficult to predict using traditional forecasting models. Our ability to measure volatility is out of sync with reality, as we tend to see it in statistical terms of likelihood.