'CHAOTICS' is a strategic business framework and platform for dealing with economic turbulence defined and developed in 2008 by marketing guru Philip Kotler of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and global business strategy expert John A. Caslione of GCS Business Capital, LLC. Based on the concept that the world economy has entered into a new economic era of uncertainty, 'CHAOTICS' provides methods to allow companies to live with increased risk and uncertainty in an age of heightened turbulence and its consequent chaos. This involves creating and implementing a set of new strategic behaviors defined by Kotler and Caslione as well as building an early warning system, a scenario construction system, and a quick response system to manage and market during recessions and other turbulent economic conditions.
According to Kotler and Caslione in their book with entitled, CHAOTICS: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence (AMACOM Publishing; May 2009), globalization and technology are the two main forces have created a new level of interlocking fragility in the world economy. As a result, the world economy has entered a new era marked increasingly frequent and intermittent periods of turbulence in what is termed, the new normality, a new normal condition in the global economy which one of continuous and unpredictable turbulence that is punctuated by periodic and intermittent spurts of prosperity and downturn—including extended downturns amounting to recession, or even depression. Turbulence has two major effects on business enterprises. One is vulnerability, against which companies need defensive armor. The other is opportunity, which needs to be exploited. This new period of heightened turbulence and chaos creates the need for businesses to develop a new mindset, one that takes into account intermittent and unpredictable periods of disturbance, to allow them to thrive under the constant threat of economic and business chaos.
'CHAOTICS' helps businesses and organizations to:
- detect sources of turbulence
- prepare scenarios to respond to turbulence's chaos
- predict chaos-induced vulnerabilities and opportunities
- develop responses to ensure long-term resilience and success
- avoid risk while advancing the interests of the company
- build flexibility into the balance sheet, budgets and strategy implementation and execution cycles
- price strategically and with flexibility
- adjust products to meet new, fast-changing customer values
- develop modulated strategy to adjust real-time with turbulence and the fast-changing environment
Kotler and Caslione proclaim that companies must plan now for an economy that will no longer ebb and flow like the smooth upward rising sine waves of the past, but rather will look like the choppy spikes of a heartbeat in an EKG or ECG, i.e., the new normality. The Chaotics Management System includes new Chaotics Strategic Behaviors for hedging risk and confronting uncertainty to help businesses navigate through turbulence rather than being caught up in it. 'CHAOTICS' represents a new platform-and a new set of strategic behaviors-designed to help businesses to be successful and profitable over the extended term, thus attaining and preserving Business Enterprise Sustainability regardless of the economic conditions, including turbulence and heightened turbulence.
CHAOTICS: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence, is currently distributed in 70 countries and in 34 languages.