Why didn’t a cab driver think of Ola or Uber?
Why didn’t a Shopping Mall owner think of Flipkart?
Why didn’t a Theatre owner think of BookMyShow?
Why didn’t Airtel or Vodafone think of Paytm?
Why didn’t Taj or Marriott think of GoIbibo?
The answer to all above, and the myriad of all other companies displaced by digital disruption, is that at some point they became so busy and coupled with the ongoing need to meet or exceed the quarterly numbers, that they forgot to look far enough outside of their business to see the disruption ahead. A quite convincing reason why so many companies fail to face the disruption is that when someone from the outside uses digital disruption to disrupt you, the strategy most often invoked is to protect and defend the status quo. It is amazing how much time and money organizations spend protecting and defending their current ‘cash cows’. In the past this was a valid strategy that did produce good results. But digital disruption is different. Because it tends to be game-changing with a very low cost of entry, it is not hard for a small startup to quickly disrupt not only a big business, but even an entire industry.
Digital disruption is nothing but the change that occurs when new digital technologies and business models affect the value proposition of existing goods and services. Consider how fast the mobile web has changed how we all live, work, and play. The sudden instant, massive connectivity of the smartphones & internet enabled the ‘service economy’. Transformation is far reaching, and it is happening at lightning speed. Technologies and gadgets that are omnipresent today didn't even exist a few years ago. Gone are the days of SMS, it’s all WhatsApp now. Telcos are defending by fighting to kill Net Neutrality. But is it the right solution? Or they need to come up with new startup ideas.
We are one of over 3 billion people connected to the internet. That’s nearly half of the people on Earth. Many of these people are shopping online or catching up with friends over social networks like Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. But some creative people are evaluating a new business idea, raising a startup, or building an app that’s going to change the world. Are you one of those creative people?
Think about other emerging digital disruptions that are coming in near future: the wearable web (smart watches, smart health monitors), the drivable web (smart semi-autonomous cars), the domestic web (smart TVs, smart homes), and so on. What does that do to your industry? If you think the answer is ‘Nothing’, I encourage you to think twice. You need to become our own disruptor, your own best competition. You should not get comfortable. You should disrupt yourself, or someone else will. In order to thrive in this era of exponential change and rapid digital disruption, you need to actively anticipate new ways to disrupt yourself, before others do it for you.
So, start thinking and think big. Who knows, you may have the next great idea:
The Next Startup Boom...
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