Proximity

How coming breakthroughs in just-in-time transform business, society, and daily life

“The implications of Proximity will be felt for years to come. Opportunity awaits.”

Philip Kotler

Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management

About the book

What if you could have whatever you want, produced and provided immediately and affordably no matter how customized―with minimal environmental impact? Products, services, and experiences on demand. Just-in-time anything, anywhere, anytime. This radical change is underway, as digital technologies push the production and provision of value ever closer to the moment of demand.

Robert C. Wolcott and Kaihan Krippendorff provide an indispensable guide to the Proximity revolution, showing how it’s transforming every industry―and our lives. Offering unparalleled foresight for leaders and innovators, they reveal how pervasive this trend will be. Proximity represents an entirely new way to serve customers, with critical implications for corporate strategy, investing, public policy, supply chain resilience, and sustainability. Incremental changes to existing business models won’t suffice.

Proximity offers a playbook for business leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs to win this rapidly emerging game―and for each of us to consider the implications for our careers, families, communities, and lives.

Praise from the Industry

“Proximity is one of those concepts that, once you’ve read about it, changes your perspective forever. This wonderful book takes us on a rollicking ride through the future that is just beginning to emerge―but will be here before we know it. No business leader should miss its lessons.”

Rita McGrath

Columbia Business School, author of Seeing Around Corners
and The End of Competitive Advantage

“Proximity is GPS for the future. The concept will become indispensable for navigating technology change, global supply chain disruptions, national security, and even geopolitics. Every corporate leader, investor, policymaker, and geopolitical strategist needs this book”

Admiral James Stavridis, USN (ret.)

Vice Chair & Partner, Carlyle Group;
Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (2009 - 2013)

“Unexpected and un-put-downable. One of the most prescient, insightful views of the future I've ever seen. Visionary and intensely practical. As Wolcott and Krippendorff advise, technology allows us to serve customers by "doing things we could never have done before." If your company doesn't do it, someone else surely will. Every global corporation must consider the implications of Proximity. ”

Mamatha Chamarthi

Chief Digital Officer, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

“Disruption" described how companies fail. Proximity shows how to win. Wolcott and Krippendorff have written The Innovator’s Dilemma for the coming decades.”

Mohan Sawhney

McCormick Foundation Professor of Technology Director, Center for Research in Technology & Innovation Northwestern Kellogg School of Management

“Inspiring, compelling and practical. Proximity will fundamentally change the way you envision, invest and compete. Value-driven leaders will discover tremendous opportunities through Proximity.”

Harry M. Jansen Kraemer, Jr

Clinical Professor of Leadership, Kellogg School of Management Executive Partner, Madison Dearborn Partners Former CEO, Baxter International

“PROXIMITY reveals the inner workings, the nerves and sinews, of technology now ravishing outmoded ways and thinking, conspiring and calling us to a seductive, brave new world. Both terrified and mesmerized, I’m sending copies to everyone close to me. For your own good, read the damn thing and tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.”

Brian Collins

Co-Founder & Designer COLLINS