Accelerating Growth in Technology

...and why the cost of not-innovating is higher than ever before.

Not long ago, innovation followed a predictable rhythm. Progress moved in steps, each decade bringing a new tool, a new idea, a new standard.

But that rhythm has collapsed.

From the printing press to the telephone: 420 years. From the telephone to the internet: 100 years. From the internet to AI: 15 years. From AI to ChatGPT in your pocket? Just 3 years.

What once took centuries now takes years. And what took years now happens in quarters. Between AI leaps, new hardware platforms, and shifting consumer behaviors, it's not just that things are moving faster — the pace of acceleration itself is accelerating. And with that, the cost of standing still is rising. In the coming years, the speed and volume of innovation won’t just create new tools — it will reshape entire industries. Those who are ready will gain an edge. Those who aren’t may find themselves locked out of the next cycle of growth.

That pace prompts a more valuable question — not in hindsight, but in foresight:

What would your organization look like if you started building it today?

Would you still choose the same tools, the same architecture, the same assumptions about stability, scale and speed?

In exponential environments, architecture becomes strategy.

The faster your market moves, the more your infrastructure shapes your ability to respond. Adaptability, flexibility, and scalability increasingly define whether that response leads to progress — or just delay. It’s not only about what your tools can do out of the box — but what you can connect, extend, and evolve around them.

Because when flexibility isn’t built in from the start, every integration becomes a detour. Every experiment becomes a workaround. And strategy turns into stagnation.

Let’s not forget: innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. Your ecosystem evolves, too.

In live events, for example, ticketing journeys aren’t isolated transactions anymore. They’ve become multi-layered experiences: mobile apps, exclusive content, loyalty programs, payment flows, and partner integrations. Every touchpoint is connected. And every new feature, campaign, or integration introduces another layer of complexity.

And when the tools around you evolve — your system has to evolve with them. If it can’t, you don’t just slow down. You stall.

Rigidity — it could cost you everything.

As we've seen, innovation has picked up speed — but not all systems are built to keep up.

Infrastructures with tight dependencies and limited flexibility don’t fail overnight. They slow down everything around them. Releases get delayed. Integrations become painful. Even simple updates require long coordination loops. What should be a quick adjustment becomes a blocker for your entire roadmap.

And when your system can’t move, neither can your strategy.

Just look at Blackberry. It didn’t vanish because of a single bad product decision — it lost relevance by sticking to a system that couldn’t evolve with market expectations.

In a world where everything around you is evolving — customer expectations, partner tools, platform capabilities — your system has to move too. Otherwise, you're not just at risk of missing the next opportunity. You’re putting your entire competitive position at risk.

How can you tell whether your systems are actually keeping pace?

It often doesn’t take a technical audit — just a few honest reflections:

• How easily can a new idea go from whiteboard to live test?
• What happens when you need to integrate a new tool or partner — is it a sprint or a bottleneck?
• When customer expectations shift, how quickly can your experience shift with them?

If those answers take time — or feel more difficult than they should — it may be worth asking whether the limitations are operational — or structural.

So how do you stay agile enough to respond — and ready enough to lead?

This is where API-first architecture moves from technical preference to strategic foundation.

Not because it sounds good in a product pitch. But because it’s the only way to stay flexible without rebuilding from scratch every six months.

"API-first" doesn’t mean having APIs. It means your entire system is designed with change in mind. It means modularity is designed into the foundation, not retrofitted later. It means your platform isn’t just a destination, but a starting point.

And with the right foundation, every change becomes an opportunity — not a disruption.

That’s the difference between staying in the game and shaping how the game moves forward. Because the real point is to build something flexible enough to keep evolving — no matter what’s ahead. In the 1980s, missing a trend wasn’t fatal. Innovation moved slowly. Today, it can set you aside. But with the right foundation, you’re not just reacting to what’s changing — you’re ready to turn change into advantage.

The risk of non-innovation is real. But so is the upside of being prepared.