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Your reinvention race
A leader’s playbook for seizing new sources of growth in a shifting economy.
Canadian companies can no longer wait to make their next move. Tariff pressures, AI-led disruption, and productivity challenges are reshaping entire industries right now.
This isn’t just another business cycle. It’s a call to action for Canadian businesses to reinvent how and where they compete.
Some leaders will see this as their opportunity to redefine how they create, deliver, and capture value. Those who wait could find themselves scrambling to keep pace—wondering how they let this moment pass them by.
Reinventing to capture value in motion
New markets are forming. We call them domains of growth—collaborative business ecosystems meeting fundamental human needs. Like how we feed and care for ourselves, move, make, and build things, and how we fuel and power it all. Our Value in motion analysis shows these domains could be worth up to $3.65 trillion in Canadian economic activity by 2035.
To better grasp how companies are reinventing to participate in these domains, consider the implications of changes in how we move. The automotive industry once had distinct boundaries—parts manufacturers, assembly plants, dealers, gas stations, and banks providing financing. Then electric vehicles arrived. Parts suppliers must now master battery technology alongside aluminum and steel. Some auto manufacturers now sell direct to customers and provide their own financing. Gas stations also face a new reality. Charging takes 20 minutes—not the two minutes it takes to fill a gas tank. That creates new retail opportunities but also brings competitors as utility companies offer energy directly from homes and workplaces. These changes accelerated quickly, creating new competitive dynamics across entire industries.
This is value in motion. And capturing it requires bold action. Canadian companies that move quickly to capture these opportunities will gain significant advantage. Those that wait risk watching competitors—both domestic and international—claim their share of these emerging value pools. The window for strategic positioning is narrowing.
While some companies refine existing approaches, others are reinventing entirely. Organizations that choose incremental improvements over decisive action risk falling further behind. It’s time to find growth in new places—reinventing how you make money and serve customers.
What is reinvention?
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What do we mean by reinvention? It’s radically changing how you create, deliver, and capture value by systematically redesigning your business model to build on your unique strengths, generate new revenue streams, and expand beyond your core business.
Developing innovative products or services. Targeting new customers. Collaborating with other organizations. Implementing new pricing models. These reinvention actions are already paying off for businesses. Our 28th Annual Global CEO Survey found organizations taking more of these actions also reported higher net profit margins.
We’re seeing companies across industries put these reinvention actions into practice. For example, Canadian insurers are taking greater control of managing customer outcomes through vertical integration. Facing changing customer expectations and competitive pressures, multiple insurers have launched digital health and benefits ecosystems for group and individual customers—shifting from purely paying claims to becoming hybrid payer-providers. This pivot requires new capabilities, frequently acquired through acquisitions in telemedicine, mental health, and pharmacy services, as well as redesigned operating models to manage the integration across providers and their claims teams. What’s emerged across the industry are fundamentally different business models that create value for customers in new ways.
The road to reinvention: Start with your customers
How can you gain competitive advantage through reinvention? Begin by looking at your customers’ future needs—and the external forces reshaping them. Using AI to analyze customer data provides deeper insights into evolving customer behaviour and emerging opportunities. What needs are going unmet? And how will your customers expect those needs to be met?
Technology and retail companies have redefined these expectations, setting new standards for personalized, omnichannel experiences that customers now demand from every business. For example, our 2025 Canadian Holiday Outlook survey found that 71% of Canadian consumers plan to use digital services while holiday shopping. The same expectations affect how consumers and business customers alike evaluate all organizations.
Consider how Canadian telcos and retailers are reshaping health care by enhancing patient accessibility and personalization. Telcos are using 5G networks to support telemedicine, remote monitoring, and health-related Internet of Things devices. At the same time, retailers are bringing health care closer to consumers through in-store clinics and health-related services. By collaborating with health-care providers and technology vendors, these companies are creating integrated digital health platforms—creating new care delivery models, improving diagnostics, and enhancing operational efficiency in ways that can lead to better patient outcomes and reduced costs. These reinvention actions are helping telcos and retailers expand beyond their traditional industry boundaries and enter a new domain of growth centred on fundamental health-care needs.
AI is further reshaping what’s possible—fuelling entirely new business models by allowing organizations to create customer value with less constraint from production costs and operational complexity. AI is also a powerful internal tool for initiating and executing your reinvention. For example, we’ve used dedicated reinvention AI agents to help organizations assess external pressures, ideate creative solutions, and think through their customers’ needs. The result: faster identification of strategic opportunities and more targeted reinvention strategies.
To systematically assess the external forces reshaping industries, we developed six key indicators: industry performance, attractiveness, innovations, regulatory changes, global shocks, and the intensity of reinvention already underway. We combined these indicators into a Reinvention Pressure Index and applied it to 17 Canadian sectors. What did we find? The pressure to reinvent is at or approaching all-time highs in virtually every case—revealing widespread opportunities for those companies ready to act.
How urgent is your need to reinvent?
Plot your business on our Reinvention Pressure Index to understand the forces reshaping your industry.
Next, turn your focus inward
Now that you've identified external forces reshaping your industry, the next step is to look inward. What are your unique strengths? What capabilities do you already have that could be applied in new ways?
Consider Canadian exporters facing trade pressures. By examining their core capabilities, they can find new opportunities to participate in Canada’s growing defence sector. A mining company can supply critical minerals needed for military-grade electronics and components. An automotive manufacturer can pivot to supplying parts for armoured vehicles or drones. This isn’t about starting from scratch; it's about reinventing existing strengths to create new sources of value.
Looking inward extends beyond your physical assets. It's also about fully recognizing the collective skills of your workforce. Leading organizations are shifting from thinking about rigid job roles to viewing their organization as a skills-based enterprise—helping them deploy the right talent to emerging opportunities, regardless of an employee’s formal title.
Understanding your workforce skills through this lens reveals two critical insights. First, your people may have talents that can power you in new directions. Second, it also helps pinpoint gaps—including AI skills.
Workplace skill requirements are evolving at an accelerating pace: skills sought by employers are changing 66% faster in jobs most exposed to AI versus those least exposed, according to our 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer. And Canadian workers are already feeling this pressure. Two-thirds expect technological change to impact their jobs over the next three years, yet only 51% say they’ve learned career-advancing skills at work in the past year, according to our Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2025. This opens the door for companies ready to invest in their people’s capabilities as part of their reinvention strategy. For workers, the motivation to develop these skills is similarly compelling—those with AI skills command a 56% wage premium on average, our AI Jobs Barometer shows.
When both employees and employers prioritize skills development, organizations gain a critical advantage. A skills-based approach creates workforce agility—helping organizations identify talent with needed skills, close critical gaps, and respond quickly when markets shift or new opportunities arise.
We don’t just bring tech. We bring results.
Learn how PwC’s agent OS helps enterprises orchestrate AI at scale.
How to power your reinvention
After looking outward at customer needs and market forces, and inward at your capabilities, you’re ready to develop your reinvention strategy. This means defining what you’ll offer, to whom, how you’ll deliver it, and how you’ll make money. But strategy is just one—albeit important—step in your journey.
Successful reinvention requires dynamic resource reallocation. Yet most Canadian organizations lack this agility. More than half of Canadian CEOs tell us that they reallocate 10% or less of financial and human resources from year to year. Digging deeper into our Global CEO Survey data, we found a strong link between higher reallocation levels and revenue from new businesses—underlining that reinvention and dynamic resource reallocation go hand in hand.
One key area where companies are reallocating resources is advanced technology capabilities. AI—and AI agents in particular—is becoming a powerful component of companies’ digital capabilities and their broader reinvention. Unlike traditional automation that enhances single tasks, linking multiple AI agents allows organizations to assign complex outcomes and let the agents determine the best processes. Through our technology alliances, we’ve seen companies achieve breakthrough results by accessing these advanced capabilities they couldn’t develop internally.
Creating sustained value from your reinvention initiatives requires managing new operational complexities—enhanced cybersecurity requirements, evolving tax compliance obligations, and risk management challenges that didn’t exist in your previous business model. The scope of these complexities can be significant. Minimizing unexpected tax exposure is predicted to be the second-biggest governance and risk management challenge facing Canadian tax functions, according to our 2025 Global Reframing Tax Survey. Similarly, 24% of Canadian respondents to our 2026 Global Digital Trust Insights survey said new business initiatives and priority shifts are influencing their cyber spend priorities.
Organizations are responding by looking beyond their internal teams, including through the use of managed services. The same surveys found 75% of Canadian organizations plan to increase their use of external support for tax compliance and reporting in the next three years. And 22% are prioritizing cyber managed services in their cyber budgets in the next 12 months. Turning to a trusted partner to run and evolve your operations frees up resources to focus on strategic priorities. It also continuously improves your operations, accelerating your reinvention momentum.
We manage. You accelerate.
Create strategic advantage with PwC Canada’s managed services.
Your next move
Value is shifting across industries, creating generational opportunities for Canadian leaders bold enough to act. Companies that assess external pressures, understand their capabilities, and execute with the right partnerships will shape their industries’ future. This moment demands the courage to take calculated risks and the wisdom to move with speed. The opportunity is here—and it belongs to leaders ready to reinvent how they compete.
As you plot your next move, consider the following questions:
- What’s your strategy?
- What will customers want?
- What do you need to grow?
- What's the tax impact?
- What are the risks?
What’s your strategy?
Strategic planning helps you make informed decisions about long-term objectives. This includes growth strategy, technology strategy, business model redesign, and workforce planning.
What will customers want?
AI-powered insights can revolutionize how you analyze customer behaviour, predict needs, and deliver personalized experiences that enhance growth and loyalty.
What do you need to grow?
Deals can help you acquire new capabilities faster than it would take to develop them on your own. Additionally, a deal can help you fund your reinvention by, for example, divesting certain parts of your business that don’t contribute to your new model.
What's the tax impact?
Integrating tax considerations into your reinvention strategy helps you pinpoint potential tax risks and opportunities.
What are the risks?
The right insights help you act decisively rather than delay, creating confidence to make bold moves while mitigating risks as you execute—letting you move with speed when it matters.
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Partner, Financial Services Workforce of the Future Consulting, PwC Canada
Tel: +1 416 814 5893