Unpredictability

Four drivers of unpredictability

    i) the number of change vectors (more than just market factors are involved, as can include environmental, safety, political, sociological, financial, technology, etc)

    ii) connection among change vectors (many vectors are interconnected and interrelated, ie a change in one area impacts changes in others; these interconnections greatly multiply the number of variables that must be accounted for, eg if 1variable impacts another 8, which impact another 8, etc; there are at least 64 possibilities)

    iii) forecasts from steady-state (incorrect forecasting based on old mindsets, eg
"...In the early 1980s one of the world's largest telecom companies concluded that cellphones would remain a novelty: handsets were absolutely heavy, battery lives were short, coverage was spotty and the cost per minute was high. Forecasting that the global market would be a mere 900,000 units by 2020, the company pulled out..."
Michael Mankins et al, 2022

Yet there are now billions of cell phones!!!!!

Furthermore,
"...Trying to pick a single, best estimate is more likely to make you wrong than right..."
Michael Mankins et al, 2022

    iv) the anticipated time until steady-state will be reached (forecasts about adoption rates are very difficult, eg
"..it took 18 years for 50 million people to trust ATMs, whereas WeChat had 50 million users in less than a year..."
Michael Mankins et al, 2022

NB Need to have strategic flexibility which can be linked with technology.