When your industry's in flux, the best bet is to put out a few feelers. One day, like Gregor, you will awake to find your business utterly transformed - alive but unrecognizable. Gregor never learned what caused his metamorphosis, and the shock left him depressed and disgusted. If, on the other hand, you understand how your own change has taken place, you might even begin to see the advantages of your new form. Cockroaches have been around a lot longer than people, after all, and will likely be here well after we are gone.
Information technology is the cause of metamorphosis in business.
People who have spent their careers in financial services, media or even manufacturing will tell you how little the structure and operation of those industries resemble what they were when they were young. They'll probably also tell you it was information technology that broke down the old structures and built them back up into something new. And the more honest of them will add that the process was clear only in hindsight. Back in the 1980s, inventory control applications had the modest goal of making production more efficient by giving companies a better idea of what raw materials they had on hand. At first, that's exactly what they did.