Phil de Cristo doesn’t need to be told that companies must evolve to survive. The president of the investment division of consultancy Mercer learnt the hard way in the 1980s when he was a software developer at Data Central Corporation.

It built a series of successful products. But, de Cristo (pictured below) recalls: "It never anticipated the growth of the internet and PCs." Its market share slumped and Data Central was rescued in 1999.