Future Business Strategies in the Face of Uncertain Futures and Major Challenges

Today, businesses operate in an uncertain future characterized by major challenges related to climate and sustainability, health, inclusion, digital transformation, and security. These challenges transcend organizational and national boundaries. They are complex, interconnected, and evolving. They demand coordinated responses from public, private, and citizen stakeholders, combining governance, innovation, and the creation of shared value (George et al., 2016). Consequently, businesses struggle to structure problems and find definitive solutions (Wang et al., 2025). Their governance requires agility, rapid learning, flexible resource reallocation, and the creation of adaptive teams rather than a fixed plan (Ooi & Husted, 2025). In this context, digital technology introduces both additional opportunities and constraints. Platforms and data enable large-scale coordination, the arbitration of tensions, and a better allocation of the value created, provided that transparency, accountability, and governance of contributions are adopted (Nambisan & George, 2024).

In this regard, the literature on "big challenges" shows that effective action relies on cooperative architectures and mechanisms for collective action capable of aligning heterogeneous interests with future horizons (Adomako et al., 2024; Chuah et al., 2025; Wang et al., 2025; Ooi & Husted, 2025). It emphasizes the need to define priorities and support stakeholder engagement (Drori et al., 2025). At the organizational level, addressing "big challenges" can be facilitated by AI, cybersecurity, supply chain resilience, and infrastructure sustainability (Karwowski et al., 2025).

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