What Keeps Businesses Moving When Everything Changes?

What links the factories building electric vehicles, the farms adopting precision tools, the chipmakers racing to meet demand, and the data centres powering AI? They’re all wrestling with the same question: how to stay operationally ready when every part of their environment is changing.

You’re running a business, things feel steady, then — seemingly out of nowhere — materials take longer to arrive, costs creep up, customer expectations shift. Uncertainty over economic policy and regulation adds further complexity, forcing businesses to stay alert to shifts in the rules of the game. What was predictable yesterday becomes uncertain today.

Supply chains stretch and strain. Customer demands evolve faster than expected. Margins feel tighter with every passing quarter. These are the everyday pressures facing businesses as they work to keep operations running smoothly and stay ahead of change.

According to PwC (27th Annual Global CEO Survey - 2024), 71% of CEOs are preparing for slower growth, and many are accelerating operational improvements to protect performance. Bain & Company reports that companies investing heavily in automation are already seeing up to 17% reductions in costs, compared to those who invest less and see only marginal gains.

While we can’t control the pace of change, we can control how ready we are to respond.

When Pace Becomes Pressure

In moments like these, businesses face a common question: can we adjust quickly enough to stay ahead?

We’re seeing companies answer that challenge in real time. Automotive manufacturers, for example, are shifting into defence production. Volkswagen’s Osnabrück plant is being considered for military vehicle output, while Porsche is exploring a move into defence manufacturing, investing as much as €2 billion.

Semiconductor leaders like TSMC and NVIDIA are rethinking their manufacturing and supply chain strategies to build greater resilience. By investing in new capacity closer to their major markets, they’re reducing exposure to supply chain disruptions and ensuring they can continue to meet demand in a fast-moving global landscape.

In the energy sector, Europe’s supply challenges have forced organisations to rethink consumption, resilience, and cost management. At the same time, the explosive growth of AI and hyperscale data centres is driving unprecedented demand for capacity, placing new pressures on global infrastructure. For many businesses, improving energy efficiency has become essential to keeping operations moving reliably.

Meanwhile, in agriculture, farmers are adopting precision technologies to manage climate uncertainty and labour shortages.

In every case, businesses are rethinking how they operate to stay ahead — and service management plays a vital role in turning those plans into progress. By connecting people, processes, and technology, it keeps work flowing smoothly and helps organisations stay agile as pressures build.

When service management is working well, you see it in the flow of work across teams, the speed of decision-making, and the ability to respond to new demands without losing momentum. Whether it’s managing internal services or customer-facing experiences, service management creates the structure that supports agility.

Modern service management is evolving fast, with AI helping organisations automate routine tasks, reduce complexity, and deliver services with greater speed and relevance.

The difference between good service management and great often comes down to the ability to make decisions based on facts, not assumptions. That means having visibility into where processes are slowing down, where resources are stretched, and where improvements will make the greatest impact. With that clarity, businesses can act with confidence and focus their efforts where it matters most.

Closing the Gaps That Hold Businesses Back

Many organisations underestimate the role service management plays in keeping their business moving. Yet it’s often the difference between reacting to problems and staying ahead of them.

This is exactly where Value Adoption Services, or VAS, comes in.

VAS helps you move from recognising the need for efficiency to taking meaningful action. Through VAS, you gain clear benchmarking of your operational strengths and gaps. You receive a tailored roadmap to improve maturity and performance across your service management environment. Most importantly, you get ongoing progress tracking, so you continue to improve, not just once but continuously.

By improving service management maturity and closing operational gaps, VAS also helps organisations create the right conditions to unlock AI’s full potential. With strong foundations in place, AI can drive automation across workflows, remove unnecessary complexity, and deliver more relevant, personalised experiences at scale — all of which accelerate operational efficiency and productivity.

With VAS, operational efficiency and productivity become practical, manageable, and measurable. It shifts OEP from being a broad ambition to an actionable, day-to-day part of how your organisation works. In short, it gives you the tools to turn operational readiness into real competitive advantage.

It’s these improvements in operational efficiency and productivity that will keep you moving through the next shift in your market — and the one after that. With the right focus and support, they’re fully within reach.