Alternative thinking: Supporting the UK’s innovation-led recovery Start-ups – the essential precursor to ‘scale-ups’ – will provide the platform for an economic resurgence in the UK In the future, most companies will likely need to be a technology company at the core – and the events of 2020 mean ‘the future’ is now. As such, companies that do not embrace technology effectively will be left behind. To offer just one illustration of the pace of change, a recent McKinsey study found the average lifespan of an S&P500 company fell from 61 years in 1958 to under 18 years by 2017. It went on to predict that, by 2027, 75% of the companies in the S&P500 will be replaced.