What are the big issues and risks confronting business today?

Hard to go past an excellent summary of the 25 forces in this piece The Big Issues from my good friend David James.

So what are some of the issues?

David lists and analyzes them in great and hard-edged detail: convergence of products and industries; the rising cost of capital; the end of low inflation; rising raw material costs; the growth of the finance economy; globalisation's transformation of trade; water; terrorism and its impact on the nation state; the rise of China and India; education; Japan, Europe and the US; energy; asymmetric capital markets; the end of managerial capitalism; biotechnology; nanotechnology; governance; the over-supply of materials and products; ageing; climate; networks; the growing importance of intangibles; materialism and its discontents; reflexivity and volatility.

Certainly I would have added a few others. Like for example consolidation, reputation management and corporate social responsibility.

Still, what we have here is an important prism for viewing the challenges confronting business and its managers today. Check it out!