Foreword

It gives me great pleasure to write the foreword for this book. The book comes at an opportune time. The world is just shaking off the effects of one of the most devastating financial crisis in living memory. Companies that were decades old have vanished in the wink of an eye.

It is in times like these that one often wonders if enterprise is sustainable. Will the companies we know today be around tomorrow? Using in-depth research and case studies from organisations small and large, young and old (even over a hundred years old), the team have put together a truly integrated approach to the question of business sustainability and its challenges. The learning is at once relevant and applicable to businesses everywhere.

Here you will find hypotheses to important questions that keep some of us awake at nights. How can a business remain sustainable? Can businesses prosper for long periods of time? Is it possible to measure and predict sustainability of organisations? How can a business stay relevant? What does a sustainable future look like? And most importantly, are any lessons being learnt by organisations?

The team have taken a complex subject and researched it in a manner that is easy to understand and a pleasure to read. The mantra of the new decade will surely be ‘SOS’ (Succeed or Sink)!