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Many make the mistake of ignoring customers' needs and rely on past success to the extent that they become overconfident. Others just seem to lack foresight.

In the car industry specifically, I have seen a variety of market forecasts and technology roadmaps – generated by both companies and industry associations – and been struck by some common themes.

To begin with, those exercises in futurology are often linear – inevitably predicting that the speed, features and performance of cars will all gradually improve over time. But technological innovations often appear in leaps and bounds. And implementing them depends on vast networks of suppliers. The need to assemble those networks makes development complex.

Forecasts also frequently show a surprising neglect for customers' desires and fears – and budgets. The price of new cars has increased dramatically over the past two decades, outpacing growth in salaries. Yet many companies, such as Jaguar and Tesla, appear to be focused only on“premium vehicles” for wealthy customers, and will eventually end up competing for a small market.

Car companies also suffer, as do big firms in other sectors (think Blackberry or Nokia ), where there is often a clear lack of humility and awareness from many senior executives. As studies have shown, bosses who see their organisations as innovative and flexible are often at odds with more junior employees who view them as stale and slow.

For the high jump?

The need for industry-wide change reminds me of how athletes competing in the high jump evolved over the years. Many techniques were tried and tested, including the“scissors,” the“straddle” and the Fosbury flop, which was eventually deemed the most effective.

Some established car companies are desperately trying to hang onto their equivalent of the straddle jump (petrol and diesel cars), and avoiding a commitment to learning the Fosbury flop (developing electric vehicles).

Because of this, the days of established car companies leading the way seem to be over. Hoping to make decent profits from old models and creating electric vehicles only for the wealthy is a delusional strategy.

So what could established carmakers do?

Dick Fosbury clears the high jump bar using the 'Fosbury flop,' mid-1960s. Photo: Oregon State University

One option is to change the way they work with suppliers. The usual approach here is transactional and price based, with a carmaker buying components (seats or mirrors, for example) from a supplier but switching if it finds a cheaper deal. The problem is that innovation (and indeed supply chain resilience, as the microchip shortage shows) would require supplier and buyer to jointly invest in future developments. The transactional approach does not allow for this.