VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. It is an acronym often used in management literature to describe the challenges that companies and organizations face in a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment.

Simply put, VUCA means that the world today is highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. The individual terms can be described as follows

• Volatility: describes the intensity of unpredictable fluctuations that lead to rapid changes in internal and external conditions and challenges.
• Uncertainty: Expresses the unpredictable and uncertain development of markets, technologies and customer needs.
• Complexity: Describes the interconnected nature of today's challenges and issues. These can only be solved if different perspectives are creatively included.
• Ambiguity: means that in today's world, situations or information can have more than one meaning. Often they represent opportunity and risk at the same time.

In this new reality of life, it is extremely difficult to make predictions about the future or to ensure that one is prepared for all eventualities. To be competitive and successful in a VUCA environment in the long term, companies must be aware of the framework of the VUCA world and act accordingly.

In VUCA times, flexibility and agility are not only desired characteristics of organizations and companies, but rather basic requirements in order to be able to survive at all!

Glossary