Big Bang, the universal
phenomenon billions of years ago, the accidental discovery and control of fire
a million year back, then comes wheel, and printing.. umm let me fast forward
it..Google, Facebook, AirBnB.. get the idea? Disruption has always been the
means of evolution which has been driving the course of history and changing human
lives. Look around and you can now see how Digital is taking it into a different
trajectory all together and at a much steeper curve which shows that these are
just a tip of the iceberg of innovations.
Technology is trending more than
ever now as a catalyst which is turning the business models, existing and new,
all types and their strategies around.
Be it the developer next door
whose App you are downloading next to transfer the virtual money to your friend
or a Banking giant with trillion dollars AUM, the winner is the one which
captures the attention of a crazily small attention-span and convenience freak
Gen like us. The big banks who could have never imagined this before are now
facing the threats of new entrants as Technology has literally removed the
Barriers to Entry which the Banking Industry never worried about. I can easily
split my dining out bills and transact with my friends just through the Apps on
my mobile phone without any Bank involved. The same now applies to any other
traditional industry.
So what exactly is driving these
changes?
- The exponential increase in connectivity around has been changing the game as it is providing a massive path for business to connect to its customers both internal and external.
- Technology has most importantly also bridged the infrastructure constraints by converting your Capex to Opex model with most SaaS based offerings. Business today are already leveraging on the cost benefits
An idea which is usually
associated with disruption is when there are new market footholds as is
described in a HBR
article. Like how originally XEROX which had started with high prices and
catering to big enterprise gradually introduced itself to personal copiers with
more affordable solutions. When you see around yourself, Uber with its
increasing global presence is the best example when it comes to converting the
non-customers to customers in a similar fashion.
Size and scope of an organization
hardly matters. This is an era where the 50 Engineers team from WhatsApp are
changing the lifestyle of over 900Mn users (and growing). Or where an idea from
Baba Ramdev is already giving some tough times to the Consumer Good Industry.
iPhone has always been my favorite and a perfect example of how a superior
product with the right business model can create synergies to revolutionize the
industry as it did for the smartphones.
What’s next is anybody’s guess
but it’s definitely a win-win phase for the customers as well as the innovators
and creators in us!