Time – Change Continuum

The time-change continuum at once motivates a business to plan and prevents the planning from being effective. In a competitive marketplace, where change may be exploited for economic advantage, to sustain profitable performance over time a business must change. For the purposes of this discussion we simply recognize as axiomatic that as time continues, change at some variable pace will also continue. We can call this the time-change continuum.

A business can respond to the time-change continuum in two ways: it can anticipate the change or it can react to the change. Business writers have used the terms “proactive” and “reactive” to describe these actions. A business that is proactive plans for a perceived change and may therefore deal with the change when it occurs with more effectiveness. A business that reacts to change may not act quickly enough to sustain profitable operation.