Companies thriving in the new world have moved towards technology as a core competency. How do they achieve such agility and reliability?

Over the past few years, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Yelp, and many other industry trendsetters have adopted a new paradigm for developing micro services. The velocity that micro services is giving these trendsetters is raising software architecture to board agendas.

More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Decades into the computer revolution, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at a global scale.

Today’s largest video service by number of subscribers is a software company: Netflix. How Netflix eviscerated Blockbuster is an old story, but now other traditional entertainment providers are facing the same threat. The bottomline is, no matter how old or large or robust your business is, it is time to change the way to the new way. It is time to leverage the digital era.

The best new movie production company in many decades, Pixar, was a software company. Disney—Disney! — had to buy Pixar, a software company, to remain relevant in animated movies.

The largest direct marketing platform – Google – is a software company. Now it’s joined by Groupon, Living Social, Foursquare and others, which are using software to eat the retail marketing industry.

Even in our cars, software runs the engines, controls safety features, entertains passengers, guides drivers to destinations and connects each car to mobile, satellite and GPS networks.

Practically every financial transaction, from someone buying a cup of coffee to someone trading a trillion dollars, is done in software.

Companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming.

Old and new companies need to prove their worth. They need to build strong products or services, ceaselessly delight their customers, be cutting edge and dynamic. And with programs that offer software as a service to businesses, it makes the game easier to play.

Instead of constantly questioning the change, let’s seek to understand how the new generation of technology companies are doing what they do and what the broader consequences are for businesses. Investing in a software that suits your business is an opportunity these days. Know where you are putting your money.