Dr. Gjoko Muratovski is the Chief Innovation Officer at the ICONA Design Group.
For most of the last century, understanding where the automotive industry was heading meant looking at engines, materials and design language. Today, I would suggest looking somewhere else first: at a shipping lane, a tariff schedule, a lithium supply chain or a demographic chart.
I have spent much of my career working at the intersection of design, technology, research and organizational strategy. In my current role as Chief Innovation Officer at ICONA, I see this more clearly than ever. The forces shaping mobility are no longer confined to the automotive industry. They are connected to geopolitics, energy, economics, demographics, regulation and technological development.
That changes how leaders need to approach innovation.
External Factors Are Reshaping Your Industry
Geopolitics has reentered an industry that spent decades treating global trade as a relatively stable backdrop. Wars and political tensions can disrupt supply chains, energy markets and manufacturing networks. Export controls, tariffs and industrial policy can influence where a vehicle is designed, manufactured and sold almost as much as engineering constraints.
Energy security presents another challenge. Petrol shortages may once have been regarded primarily as an operational or economic problem. The transition toward electrification introduces a different set of dependencies, including access to lithium and other critical minerals, battery technologies, energy infrastructure and the supply chains required to support them.
Demographics are reshaping demand at the same time. Some established markets are ageing and shrinking, while others are experiencing population growth and the expansion of a mobility-hungry middle class.
None of these forces is, on its own, about cars. Together, they help determine which products get built, by whom, for which markets and on what timeline.
This is why I increasingly see the future of mobility as a question of systems rather than individual technologies.
More Technology Is Not A Strategy
Technology can expand what is possible. It cannot determine what is worth pursuing, for whom, under what circumstances or at what cost.
Artificial intelligence makes this distinction particularly relevant. AI is now significantly more integrated into the work we do, particularly in streamlining technical and repetitive tasks and supporting parts of the development process. Used appropriately, it can improve efficiency and let teams focus on more complex work.
It does not, however, remove the need for leadership judgment or executive assessment.
A model can identify patterns and generate options. It cannot take responsibility for determining whether an option is strategically relevant, technically appropriate or aligned with an organization’s objectives.
That responsibility remains with the people leading the organization.
Research Is A Leadership Capability
Research is often treated as something that happens before the “real work” of strategy, design or product development begins. I see it differently.
For intelligence gathering, research is part of strategy itself.
Without it, decisions are inevitably shaped by assumptions, inherited beliefs or whatever information happens to be most visible at the time. This allows leaders to understand not only what is changing, but why it is changing and what those changes might mean for their organization.
Consider a mobility company exploring autonomous vehicles. The question is not simply whether the technology works. It also involves regulation, infrastructure, insurance, consumer behavior, energy systems, data, manufacturing and potentially new business models.
In my work at ICONA, this means examining geopolitics, economics, demographics, government policy, technology and market behavior, and then considering how these forces intersect with a particular organization.
For organizations facing repeated disruption, looking at the big picture matters.