Why Agile Investing?
The Four Forces that Drive the World are Changing
Growing workforce
Demographics
Shrinking workforce
Passing tipping point globally
Birth rates are declining across both developed and developing countries. Fewer people are entering the workforce, shrinking the labour base that supports retirees and broader economic activity.
Inter-generational challenges
Younger generations face asset inflation, job insecurity, and rising tax burdens, while older generations hold wealth and political power—exacerbating societal division.
Geo-political tension
Shifting demographics and rising youth unemployment in some regions, versus ageing populations in others, are stoking regional rivalries and nationalist sentiment.
Industrialisation of Emerging Markets
The global economy benefitted enormously from the industrialisation of populous countries like China and India, which brought hundreds of millions into the formal workforce, providing a surge in global labour supply.
Increasing size of middle class
Rising incomes and urbanisation led to the birth of a global middle class, driving growth in housing, education, services, and consumer goods.
Rising consumption
A larger, younger, and increasingly urban global population drove aggregate demand higher for everything from food to technology, fuelling global GDP growth.
Post-Cold War peace dividend
Post-Cold War peace dividend
The collapse of the Soviet Union created a unipolar world where military spending was deprioritised in favour of economic cooperation and expansion.
Comparative advantage and supply chains
Countries focused on producing what they did best, leading to efficient global supply chains and lower costs—benefitting consumers and businesses worldwide.
Exporting intellectual capital
Developed markets leveraged their technological and financial know-how globally, profiting from licensing, services, and investment flows into new markets.
Security
Fragmentation
Re-shoring of supply chains
Countries are prioritising resilience over efficiency, reversing decades of globalisation. This raises costs and reduces the productivity gains that once flowed from global trade.
Military realities
The return of great power conflict (Ukraine, Taiwan tensions) is forcing renewed investment in defence and breaking apart previously cooperative geopolitical structures.
Protection of intellectual capital
The free flow of ideas and technologies is under threat. Nations are putting up firewalls—literal and figurative—to protect strategic industries and data.
Externalities were free
Local issues, not global
Environmental degradation was seen as a localised issue—air in Beijing, water in Flint—not a shared global crisis. This allowed business as usual.
Abundance of natural resources
Resources were viewed as inexhaustible. There was confidence that supply would meet demand, and new frontiers (like offshore drilling or fracking) kept energy cheap and accessible.
Limited regulation
Environmental oversight was minimal or unevenly enforced, especially in developing countries, keeping production costs low and global trade flowing.
Environment
Externalities are not free
Adapting to a world of scarce resources and unlimited wants
Climate change, water stress, and biodiversity loss are turning environmental costs into economic ones—via regulation, supply constraints, and extreme weather events.
Digitisation
Transition from an analogue world
The move from paper to digital dramatically boosted productivity across industries—communications, finance, healthcare, logistics.
Rise of internet, personal computing and mobile technologies
These advances created entirely new industries, scaled existing ones, and fuelled consumer access to goods, services, and information like never before.
New business models
Platforms, subscription services, gig economy models and digital marketplaces emerged, creating powerful new revenue streams and disrupting incumbents.
Technology
Assimilation
The full incorporation of digital data into everyday lives
We're reaching saturation in digital penetration—everyone is online. The low-hanging fruit of productivity gains is gone, and the social costs of tech addiction, misinformation, and job displacement are rising.
Why Agile Investing Matters
In a world where the tailwinds that once propelled global growth are becoming headwinds, investment strategies must be agile enough to adapt and capitalize on these profound shifts.
Last 30 Years
Environment favoured broad, inflexible investing
Next 30 Years
Navigating markets will now require agility