The 2021 Innovation Issue

DISRUPTION. It can come suddenly, in the form of a pandemic or a pipeline hack. Or it can creep up, as a startup changes the nature of a traditional industry. But it’s always coming. In this year’s Innovation Issue, we explore how to be the disrupter, what to do when facing disruption and what to learn from the process.

Sponsored by:

Disruptive innovation

Here to stay?

Some COVID changes might linger long after virus. Read more

COVID disruption

  • Telehealth is disrupting traditional care model

    For decades, one industry—health care—has largely clung to its traditional model of person-to-person visits in brick-and-mortar buildings, even as other industries have gone virtual. It took a pandemic to disrupt everything, almost overnight. Read more

  • KAR Global wants to be the disruptor, not the disrupted

    When the pandemic hit last spring, KAR Global had little choice but to shut down its in-person, wholesale auto auctions, which had been the publicly traded company’s backbone for years. But within two weeks, the Carmel-based company was back up and running—with 100% remote auctions. So how did KAR make it happen? Read more

  • Creating the post-pandemic workplace

    Just as happened at the beginning of the outbreak, managers and employees are once again navigating terra incognita, feeling their way toward a new workplace normal. Read more

Diversity in focus

Supply chain disruption

  • When the chips are down, manufacturers scramble

    A global semiconductor shortage, driven in large part by pandemic-related factors, is forcing many central Indiana manufacturers and distributors to broaden their supply base and forecast their needs longer term, along with hoping for federal aid from the president’s infrastructure proposal. Read more

  • Supply chains remain a challenge across industries

    Even as U.S. COVID-19 cases have declined, supply-chain problems have persisted. For a variety of reasons—from shifts in consumer behavior to a plummet in available airline flights to congestion at ocean ports—the pandemic has scrambled everything across a wide swath of industries. Read more