Startups are exploiting big companies’ inability to respond to today’s digital world. Once they find a few weaknesses, it’s only a matter of time before their industry disruption begins to impact balance sheets in a meaningful way.

Corporate leaders know this, too, and that’s why the best leaders are trying to make their companies more agile. True leaders embrace the market fight and look for solutions from other industries. They know smart people are solving their current and future challenges … today.

Agility is an imperfect combination of balance, speed, threat recognition and strategic response. Businesses must identify potential threats as early as possible and have the agility to react quickly. If they can learn to be agile and play unconventionally, their company is much less vulnerable to emerging competition.

This trend is why technology has finally risen in the ranks of managerial importance to its current position as one of a company’s most important strategic executive levers.

Industry leaders understand that disruption and innovation create the path to agility, and they know technology is the vehicle.

Indiana’s recent success as an incubator for digital marketing firms reinforces this reality. The majority of business-customer connections are secured and cultivated digitally. Long gone are the days of cold calling to create general awareness.

It’s all about relevance and immediate value.

In business, agility is almost always inversely related to size, which is understandable. The larger a company gets, the harder it is to create and implement meaningful change, not to mention the extended time it takes for massive operations to go through that process.

But the game is changing, especially here in Indiana.

Companies were once forced to travel thousands of miles for access to innovation, racking up huge expenses for teams to spend time within incubators on the east and west coasts.

As the force driving Central Indiana’s recent economic growth, we in the tech community must take advantage of this opportunity to show how far we’ve come. Corporate access to disruption, innovation and, most importantly, agility is now just a short drive away for any Hoosier company.

Artificial intelligence, blockchain, automation, digital transformation. It’s all here. This is the technology driving future commerce, and it can mean the difference between success and irrelevance.

Modern IT leaders understand the need to adapt, and they have the ears of CEOs (and the CEOs’ advisers in the boardroom) now more than ever.

Learn more about Mark’s work with Virtusa and how Virtusa is developing strong strategic partnerships to plan for future client needs.