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Those organizations that are leading change in their industries are winning. Those that are “reacting” to the forces of change are losing.

During a recent speech at the UK Marketing Society’s annual conference in London, I thought it would be funny to loosely recite Charles Dickens:

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness. It is the season of light, it is the season of darkness. We have everything before us, we have nothing before us. We are all going direct to heaven, we are all going direct the other way.

A few laughed, but most didn’t. I would learn later that most saw it as confirmation that these days are indeed the worst of times.

The life cycle from monopoly to commodity used to take decades. Today, because of the internet, it’s often measured in less than a year. The consequence is acceleration of Joseph Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction—organizations that don’t innovate are destroyed by those that have embraced a mindset of never-ending, continuous innovation.

The new reality was made clear following the recession of 2008, when the marketplace didn’t bounce back like it had in the past. The good news, from my perspective, is that the world as we knew it is NEVER coming back. The world has changed, rewarding those who innovate and destroying the profitability of those who don’t.

In 2011 we conducted a survey of CEOs for the US Department of Commerce, the results of which quantified the gap between those who innovate and those who don’t. The survey found that those who had an innovation mindset following the recession realized significantly better business results three years after the recession of 2008.

SALES GROWTH: +84% for innovators versus +4% for noninnovators

PROFIT GROWTH: +96% for innovators versus +13% for noninnovators

EMPLOYEE GROWTH: +64% for innovators versus +1% for noninnovators

A similar study with CEOs of companies in Ireland found nearly identical results. I’ve found similar patterns in qualitative interviews in Korea, Vietnam, Turkey, Mexico, Spain, and Italy. Today, we live in a global economy. And, no matter where you live, if you’re not meaningfully unique, you’d better be cheap.

The root cause for the differences in results was that, when the recession hit, those who embraced innovation quickly pivoted. They changed their offerings, realizing nearly double the percentage of company sales in products or services that they didn’t offer three years before (37% versus 19%). They also went after new customers, nearly doubling the percentage of sales from new customers (domestic and export) versus three years before (43% versus 23%).