Circling the Drain: Reinvent or Die

Is your organisation Circling the Drain? In this edition, we examine the long-term prognosis for companies relative to investment in process evolution.

Organisations must move or die; this is even more important in the days of AI disruption. Companies that proactively adapt and innovate position themselves for sustained growth, while those resistant to change risk obsolescence.

​In 2025, process evolution signifies the strategic transformation of traditional, human-centric operations by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies. This evolution involves reimagining workflows to leverage AI's capabilities, enabling machines to perform tasks that previously required human intervention.

By incorporating AI-driven automation, organizations get better, stronger, faster and more accurate. ​This shift automates routine tasks and augments human roles, allowing employees to focus on higher-value activities such as strategic planning and innovation.

The convergence of AI and Automation tech facilitates hyperautomation, where intelligent systems seamlessly manage end-to-end processes. Embracing process evolution in this manner is crucial for organizations aiming to maintain competitiveness and adapt to the rapidly changing business landscape of 2025.

Let's explore five archetypes illustrating varying attitudes toward process reinvention and their potential outcomes.​

1. Circling the Drain

Companies with incumbent market positions tend to form rigid hierarchies of power and become quite conservative. Investment in change that might undermine existing power structures is typically actively constrained, leading to low process reinvention.

This leads to new entrants chipping away and eventually destroying the larger incumbents. We’ll see this in the next five years as AI-native SaaS platforms beat out slow-moving larger companies. Paradoxically, the larger companies seem the strongest, but the rot is already setting in.

Special mention: If organisations invest heavily in process reinvention but still do not get results, then someone’s stealing. Check your invoices!

2. The Long, Slow Goodbye

These organizations engage in superficial or sporadic process improvements without a comprehensive strategy. While they may experience short-term stability, their lack of substantial innovation makes them vulnerable to competitors, gradually pushing them toward irrelevance.​

From this stage, companies can move leftward into Circling the Drain territory, or up to the right after successfully turning the tanker around. Naturally, the latter of these options is the least frequent…

3. Future Proof

Companies that heavily invest in continuous process reinvention, integrate cutting-edge technologies, and foster a culture of innovation fall into this category. They anticipate market trends and adapt proactively, ensuring long-term viability and leadership.​

Typically, organisations are born this way as it’s extremely difficult to transform more mature company cultures given intransigent power structures. Companies don’t tend to stay future-proof on a 10+ year timeline and will move down into the Competitive zone (or worse) afterwards.

4. Competing

Organizations with moderate investment in process reinvention maintain competitiveness but lack the agility of Future Proof companies. While they perform well, their somewhat conservative approach may hinder rapid adaptation to disruptive changes, posing a risk of regression over time.​

This is the realistic operational sweet spot for a company and it can travel along here for many years. The ability to adapt to new technologies like AI and Automation serves it well.

5. Tenacious Survivors

These organizations achieve remarkable results with minimal investment in process reinvention, often relying on unique market positions or exceptional leadership. However, this approach is typically unsustainable, lacking the foundation for consistent long-term success.​

This state is typically driven by individual heroes who operate primarily without senior management buy-in, or where the company is small enough to require low-investment innovations. Usually, this type of company either needs to find investment to support those heroes or will leave for one that does.

The Imperative of Process Reinvention

Embracing process reinvention is not merely an operational choice but a strategic necessity. As markets evolve and technologies advance, organizations must cultivate a culture that encourages innovation, agility, and continuous improvement to thrive in the long term.

Doing anything less will see them move ever further to the left on the chart above until eventually it’s all over.

Temrel is an AI Automation and Workflow partner. We help companies implement AI to improve outcomes, lower costs, and increase efficiency. Interested in starting a conversation?
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