In each previous period of revolution, companies that wished to remain competitive in the marketplace had little choice but to embrace the march of technology and leverage the same revolutionary tools employed by their competitors. In the late 18th or early 19th Century, when Jim’s Widget Factory down the street bought a steam engine to power his production processes, how could you hope to keep your widget factory afloat?
No clever re-organization of your business processes or motivated personnel could ever hope to compete with a steam engine. The reality is you had to get one too. The same holds true when you move into the next period of revolution (Industry 2.0), marked by the introduction of the moving assembly line and electrically-powered production.