World-renowned business advisor and author Ram Charan spoke for an hour-plus in his opening keynote at Constellation's Connected Enterprise 2015, explaining how companies can go on offense in order to deal with uncertainty, spot upcoming disruptions and ultimately take advantage. 

While Charan's talk went into considerable detail, he also delivered a series of concise take-home messages for the audience, which are recounted below.

On Accountability: “Companies don’t die. Leaders let them die.”

Contemplating the Ivory Tower: “How far away are CEOs from themselves and their customers?”

How Complacency Has No Place In Business: “'If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?' It’s the opposite. You need to break it.”

Straight Talk, Not Spin: “When you go to the CEO, do not use your jargon. Use your common sense. Common sense is very uncommon.”

Recognizing Reality: “Anything that can be digitized, will be digitized.” 

Prioritizing Personalization: "Every customer is unique going forward. The old days of batch [processing] are over.”