The companies that will truly distinguish themselves as leaders, and which will reap the benefits of that leadership, in the next 20 years or so, will be those companies which begin today to embrace the democratisation of their economic and political influence. It will be those corporations that will successfully avoid the confrontation between the masses and the elites that will inevitably play out in the market.
They must begin now to accept the notion that their customers have a right to expect representation when the lobbyists of companies to whom they are loyal, approach governments with lists of policy demands. Companies must reorganise their relationships with customers, and need to begin considering any investment in the causes their customers care about as an investment in their own success.