No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends

Our intuition about how the world works may be wrong. We are surprised when new competitors appear, or when businesses protected by large moats have their defenses breached, or when vast new markets emerge from nothing. Trend lines resemble saw-tooth mountain ridges. The world not only feels different; the data show that it is different. Based on years of research by the directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends is a timely and important analysis of how we need to reset our intuition in light of four forces colliding and transforming the global economy: the rise of emerging markets, the accelerating impact of technology on market competition, an aging world population, and accelerating flows of trade, capital, and people. Our intuitions formed during a uniquely benign period for the world economy—often termed the Great Moderation. Asset prices were rising, the cost of capital was falling, labor and resources were abundant, and generations were growing up more prosperous than their parents. But the Great Moderation has ended. The cost of capital may rise. The price of everything—from grain to steel—may become more volatile. The world's labor force could shrink. Individuals, particularly those with low job skills, are at risk of growing up poorer than their parents. What sets No Ordinary Disruption apart is the depth of analysis combined with lively writing and surprising, memorable insights that enable readers to quickly grasp the disruptive forces at work. For evidence of the shift to emerging markets, consider the claim that by 2025, a single regional city in China—Tianjin—will have a GDP equal to that of Sweden. In the decades ahead, half of the world's economic growth will come from about 440 cities including Kumasi in Ghana or Santa Catarina in Brazil, cities that many executives today would be hard-pressed to locate on a map. What we are now seeing is no ordinary disruption but the new facts of business life—facts that require executives and leaders at all levels to reset their operating assumptions and management intuition.