Since the Federal Court's decision in Apand Pty Limited
& Ors v Kettle Chip Co Pty Limited1 20 years
ago, the world has become a more complex place. Automation, AI and
the volume of data and interconnectedness created through advances
in technology are among a myriad of factors that have fundamentally
re-shaped the ways organisations operate.
To see how well the decision in Apand stacks up in
light of today's dynamic environment, I adopted a very
un-traditional approach: systems thinking.
What is systems thinking?
Systems thinking emerged in the early 1990s and today is used by
businesses in scenario planning and developing solutions to complex
problems. Systems thinking recognises that every decision we make
has consequences: viewing our environment as a system of
constituent parts helps us anticipate and plan for the consequences
of our decisions on other parts of the system. Put another way, it
is a disciplined way of understanding dynamic relationships to
