While the author is speaking of municipalities, the problem applies equally to Banks and large companies.

TheStar.com – Three sectors to watch

Where is Toronto going to find the billions of dollars necessary to update its sewer, water and transit systems? How is North America going to move toward a hydrogen economy after becoming so dependent on fuelling infrastructure for gasoline? Deteriorating legacy infrastructure keeps so-called developed nations and corporate giants doing constant band-aid maintenance. It takes resources away from the overhauls required to stay competitive.

“They see the new technology coming and whap! They get blindsided by this thing right in front of them,” Craig Mundie, chief technical officer of Microsoft Corp., once told me. “How does it always happen? Because they’re too focused on incrementally improving what they already do.”