Most of the largest creators of value in recent years, regardless of sector, have one thing in common: technology is critical to their business.

In general, companies and sectors with less tech-enabled innovation had smaller market-value gains from 2015 through 2020. The clear message is that technology isn’t just an industry. It has become the primary disruptive force across the entire global economy.

“Born tech” companies deliberately built their businesses upon technology at an early stage because they viewed it as critical to their success, even if their end product isn’t a traditional technology product or service.

But even more-traditional, often “brick-and-mortar,” businesses have recognized the outsized benefits of adopting a tech-led strategy.

This phenomenon goes beyond legacy companies’ digital transformation projects, which often focus on converting analog processes to digital ones. This is about all sectors learning how to wield technology and the tech industry’s platform and ecosystem playbook as a needle-moving competitive advantage.

As we explored in last year’s Technology Report, the massive global success of cloud technology and platform business models fueled the technology industry’s value creation over the past decade. These two trends gave rise to the tech giants, the leading cloud tools and service providers that we call “hyperscalers”.

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