The CEO enters the wood paneled boardroom and greets her executive team “good morning everyone on this fine, fresh, spring day. I wanted to talk to you about our business model and how prepared we are to meet the changes that are coming at us faster, each and every day. Anybody hear a freight train coming!

OK, now the moment of truth. Show of hands — How many of you believe we have the maturity and capability to execute our strategy with our existing business model and the rapid pace of information technology change?

Well, that was a resounding, Clang! of a bell tolling.

Just as I thought. I visited with the folks down in production, rode the routes with our sales force, listened to calls in our customer service operations and heard from our investors. All are proud of what we have accomplished, but many conveyed in their own way, that we must be better prepared to create and preserve value than we are today.

The old recipes and cooks are no longer enough.

I know we have spent time recently with an enterprise risk management (ERM) effort to help us better understand our risks associated with the uncertainty of events. This has been helpful, but the industry analysts and our major institutional shareholders now believe this approach to value preservation is a given and we should have the risk oversight and monitoring systems already in place. And, they are not just talking about SOX.

But the marketplace, our employees and our investors are also building to a scream that we need to better understand our capabilities for innovation, change and agility. If we are to create value for our shareholders and stakeholders we must be prepared to navigate the convergence of the ” Three Rivers “ our strategy, business and information technology. Otherwise, we will not be able to navigate this convergence and move downstream to new challenges. And, we may end up like the likes of MF Global, Kodak, Blockbuster or RIM, up the creek without a paddle.

OK, perhaps a bit much about white water rapids and navigating. Let’s commit to investing in looking deeply at our capabilities and leading the development of blueprints to lay the foundation for the changes necessary. Through this understanding, we can build the capabilities to continuously deliver for our shareholders and stakeholders.

Show of hands on who is in. Now that’s more like it.”