Change, risk and unconventional wisdom

For businesses today, change typically means exposure to new risks both globally and locally. If the risks are misjudged they can lead to missed opportunities or worse. If they are heeded, they hold the potential for new upside.

Change is a constant. It's a fact of life. For businesses today, though, change typically means exposure to new risks both globally and locally. If the risks are misjudged, ignored or simply not recognized they can lead to missed opportunities or worse: reputational and financial loss. But if they are analyzed carefully they can reveal new opportunities with potential for new upside.

Change sometimes forces companies to rethink assumptions and challenges deeply held beliefs. It can herald new ways of thinking and organizing with implications for both operations and investment. This issue of IHS Quarterly explores both new risks and challenges to conventional wisdom.

On the topic of risk we tapped thought leaders from across IHS-in aerospace, defense & security, chemicals, economics, energy, operational excellence, and technology-and asked them to share their views on some of the emerging risks they are analyzing in their respective fields of expertise.

IHS Chief Economist Nariman Behravesh leads off with a review of five risks to the fragile global economic recovery that could slow growth and impact business performance. From secular stagnation in Europe to the lack of much-needed structural change in emerging economies, global companies need to monitor these risks closely in the coming months.

Tate Nurkin looks at the implications of China's military modernization. China is emerging as both a competitor to western defense and aerospace companies and a disruptive force in the regional and potentially global balance of power. The former has immediate business implications for the defense industry while the latter has longer term implications for all global corporations.

This issue also has two articles that disrupt business perceptions. The first is Big (data) insights, by John Larson. John argues that while it's important for companies to exploit big data, the challenge they face is less about the form or volume of the data and more about asking the right questions, having the expertise to interpret the answers and the confidence to act on the evidence.

In The Future of Urban Mobility, Phil Gott looks at the steady rise in urbanization of the world's population and concludes that the second century of the global automotive industry will be very different than the first, with profound implications for all players in the automotive value chain.

Understanding risk, challenging conventional wisdom and revealing opportunities. That's what we do at IHS and it's what we offer you in the pages of this issue of IHS Quarterly.