Everybody gets that digital disruption is radically changing the landscape of every economic sector, public or private. There is scarcely a board of directors or management council that is not pounding the table for digital transformation. We all know we need to get going. The question is, where to?

You can’t transform yourself if you don’t have a clear idea of who or what you need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the only role models established enterprises have today are the very digital disruptors that are putting their franchises at risk. But the disruptors simply cannot be good role models for you. If you copy them, you are taking a me-too approach to a game that they themselves invented. How dumb is that?

What you need, what we all need, is a crystal ball to look into the future and see what it might look like for us to play a valuable and vibrant role, one that leverages our unique heritage and assets. In other words, we need to stop focusing on the present threat of them and start focusing on the future potential for us.

And that is precisely what Goliath’s Revenge sets out to help you do. Todd Hewlin and Scott Snyder have been working with established companies at the cutting edge of the digital revolution for more than a decade. I have had the privilege of working alongside them on multiple projects, and I can personally vouch for their experience and their acumen. Both share the extraordinary abilities to extrapolate beyond present circumstances, to envision a variety of possible future states, and to guide their clients in sifting through a raft of possible scenarios and help them home in on their most promising paths forward.

Goliath’s Revenge capitalizes on these abilities. It presents a set of scenarios across multiple industries, each with its own Goliath, each facing a daunting attack from a dangerously agile David. Some of these contests are unfolding right now and provide insightful lessons about what to do and not do in pushing back against digital disruption. Others are just over the horizon and represent the early warning signals that established companies need to be alert for now.

In other words, regardless of the disruption’s time horizon in your industry, Goliath’s Revenge will provide you with valuable case studies to reference. In each one, the insights and principles that Todd and Scott extract are not only fascinating, they are directly applicable to the challenges your company is, or soon will be, facing.

As leaders in the private and public sector, it is imperative that we galvanize our established institutions—the ones that operate at scale today, the ones that have already earned the trust of millions and millions of people—to play an active role in shaping the future of our society as it absorbs the shock of digital transformation.

There is not enough time or money to rebuild everything from scratch. We need instead to refresh the incredible legacy of assets we have been gifted with so that they can in turn be passed on to the next generation. This requires not only courage and intelligence, but creativity and imagination as well. We are fortunate to have books like this one to help us envision the possibilities.

—Geoffrey A. Moore

Author, Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win