DECODING, DIGITAL, DISRUPTION – OPPORTUNITIES &
CHALLENGES
INTRODUCTION
Disruption, as such, is something that can be considered a hurdle in achieving your goal or
completing your tasks.
A Digital Disruption is digital, that comes up to threaten your personal and business goals. The
above were examples of simple disruptions. They are not digital disruptions. This post aims to
give you a clear meaning of Digital Disruption and provides some examples of
DigitalDisruption. There is an additional section on Digital Disruption vs Disruptive
Technologies as many people mix up both the terms.
DIGITAL DISRUPTION
Digital Disruption – Definition and Meaning
For it to be a digital disruption, it has to meet the following qualities:
1.It has to be a disruption – that is, a threat to your personal or business goals in short or long
term
2.It has to be something digital – for example, something related to Internet of Things, some
mobile app, a new technology, or anything related to the evergreen digital evolution
A digital evolution that arises in due course of daily life that threatens to delay, obstruct or
destroy your personal or business goals is called a digital disruption.
What does disruptive technology?
Disruptive technology is an innovation that uproots an established technology, or a revolutionary
product or service that spawns a new industry.
Disruptive technologies are sometimes described as being simultaneously destructive and
creative because they make old products — and sometimes even entire industries — obsolete,
creating new ones in their place. Disruptive technologies have the power to change the way we
work, live, think and behave.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
(A NEW INNOVATION)
Digital Transformation is the use of new, fast and frequently changing digital technology to
solve problems often utilizing cloud computing, reducing reliance on user owned hardware but
increasing reliance on subscription based cloud services. Some of these digital solutions enhance
capabilities of traditional software products (e.g. Microsoft Office compared to Office 365)
whilst others are entirely cloud based (e.g. Google Docs).
One aspect of digital transformation is the concept of 'going paperless' or reaching a 'digital
business maturity'affecting both individual businessesand whole segments of society, such as
government, mass communications, art, medicineand science.
Digital transformation is already underway, but is not proceeding at the same pace everywhere.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute's 2016 Industry Digitization Index, Europe is
currently operating at 12% of its digital potential, while the United States is operating at 18%.
Within Europe, Germany operates at 10% of its digital potential, while the United Kingdom is
almost on par with the United States at 17%.
HOW COMPANIES CAN NAVIGATE A WORLD OF CONSTANT
CHANGE?
In life and in business, change is a constant. Some changes happen unexpectedly, others we can
anticipate, and still others we enact ourselves. No matter what kind of change you're facing, if
you have the right mindset, I believe you can leverage change to innovate and grow. Here are
some thoughts I have on how to not only embrace change, but to use it to propel your team and
your company forward:
Let Go of Expectations: The writer William Faulkner once said about the writing
process, "You have to learn to kill your darlings". Meaning: sometimes you have to
completely reinvent or abandon an idea or approach that you are strongly attached to. It's
easy to become personally invested in an idea
Double Down: If something isn't working, it means one of two things... you need to
eliminate it completely, or double down. Sometimes you need to just go further with
something. As Sheryl Sandberg said, instead of leaving the table, lean in. We see an
example of this in Microsoft. Microsoft wasn't focusing enough on new technology and
innovation, so they doubled down.
Invest in an Adaptable Team: A key to leveraging change to your advantage is
surrounding yourself with people who are not only adaptable to change, but thirsty for it.
Some people associate change with loss, and will try to resist or even block change in
your company. grit, you will be equipped with a team that can thrive in times of
uncertainty and change. After all, when nothing is certain, anything is possible.
Keep Moving: Change creates movement. And movement can lead to new ideas,
discoveries and opportunities. Newton's first law informs us that a moving object is likely
to keep moving; an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon.
Flow, Don't Harden: When change is happening, you might feel the natural instinct to
tighten up, harden, and put up your guard. But change is best navigated with a more flid
approach. We see this in nature. If you are rafting down a river, it's easier to navigate a
turbulent current when you're moving with it, not against it. Those who resisted, were
ultimately eroded by it. Be like water, not like rock. Flow, don't harden.
Keep Your End Goal in Mind: When you have a positive goal, it's like finding your
North Star. It will direct you to the right path or course of action no matter what the
present circumstance is. That's why it's important to keep your eye on your star. In
transitional periods, it will feel more comfortable to retract back to old habits and
strategies you've always relied on. But instead of grasping onto old ways of thinking,
hold true to your vision.
DIGITAL DISRUPTION IMPACT ON BUSINESS
With technology rapidly changing, it has created an enormous impact on the way businesses
operate and the way in which businesses interact with their audiences. It has influenced the value
of existing products and services offered by them.
The question is – are you ready to embrace it or fear it??
We must understand the emergence of new digital technology and the incredible potential it
brings. This will help to perceive the significance of it for re-evaluation and the re-shaping of
businesses.
Let’s talk about Uber.
It is the world’s largest provider of personal transport. Today, Uber has extensive media
coverage and is present in over 60 countries and more than 300 cities.
What makes Uber so successful?
It uses responsive websites and apps which also features GPS positioning. It’s because Uber is
connecting people who offer a service to people who have a need.
Digital disruption is an uncontrolled and an unstoppable force which requires you to embrace it
if you are to be successful. It is absolutely essential to keep up to date with changes that are
happening both in the market place and globally. Consider the following:
I.Customer behavior
II.Change in technology
III.New methods of distribution
IV.Competitors’ analysis
The availability of free digital tools and many digital platforms are unleashing a disruptive force
that completely alters the business model. Businesses are required to understand the mindset and
behaviour of digital disruptors.
Starting a Digital disruption can cause many changes to businesses that affects the value of
goods and services. Let’s look at a few points:
1. Difficult to follow-up
Technology used in businesses keep changing within a short space of time. Its increasingly
difficult to keep track of the many changes that occur. While offering a new service to your
customers, always ensure that the front-end functionality and the back-end technology are
coordinated.
2. Uneven distribution of data
It is not a big deal to collect data regarding the transformation, but the distribution of data and
proper analysis is vital. The collected information is useful only if you are able to derive real
insights about your customers and market needs.
3. Every company is a technology company
Technology is entirely disrupting every sector in business. Be it education, medical, glamour or a
service business, all are affected by the disruption caused by it.
4. Absence of focus
Digitalization and disruption go hand in hand. It’s not that you have to go with the latest
innovation or technology but be mindful whether the disruptions add value to your business or
not. Focus on what’s needed rather.
5. Monopolies
Companies embracing the disruptions can take on the economy which creates a monopoly in the
market. Small businesses mainly will be influenced as they are less likely to embrace the
changes. The growth and viability of such businesses can come to an end.
ROLE OF INNOVATION IN COMPANIES
Despite massive investments of management time and money, innovation remains a frustrating
pursuit in many companies. Innovation initiatives frequently fail, and successful innovators have
a hard time sustaining their performance—as Polaroid, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo,
Hewlett-Packard, and countless others have found. Why is it so hard to build and maintain the
capacity to innovate? The reasons go much deeper than the commonly cited cause: a failure to
execute. The problem with innovation improvement efforts is rooted in the lack of an innovation
strategy.
A strategy is nothing more than a commitment to a set of coherent, mutually reinforcing policies
or behaviors aimed at achieving a specific competitive goal. Good strategies promote alignment
among diverse groups within an organization, clarify objectives and priorities, and help focus
efforts around them. Companies regularly define their overall business strategy (their scope and
positioning) and specify how various functions—such as marketing, operations, finance, and
R&D—will support it. But during my more than two decades studying and consulting for
companies in a broad range of industries, I have found that firms rarely articulate strategies to
align their innovation efforts with their business strategies.
Without an innovation strategy, innovation improvement efforts can easily become a grab bag of
much-touted best practices: dividing R&D into decentralized autonomous teams, spawning
internal entrepreneurial ventures, setting up corporate venture-capital arms, pursuing external
alliances, embracing open innovation and crowdsourcing, collaborating with customers, and
implementing rapid prototyping, to name just a few. There is nothing wrong with any of those
practices per se. The problem is that an organization’s capacity for innovation stems from an
innovation system: a coherent set of interdependent processes and structures that dictates how
the company searches for novel problems and solutions, synthesizes ideas into a business
concept and product designs, and selects which projects get funded. Individual best practices
involve trade-offs. And adopting a specific practice generally requires a host of complementary
changes to the rest of the organization’s innovation system. A company without an innovation
strategy won’t be able to make trade-off decisions and choose all the elements of the innovation
system
EXAMPLES OF HIGH PROFESSIONALS
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
Emerging technology trends signal a future with screenless interactions between businesses and
consumers, with voice, augmented and virtual reality, wearable devices, and artificial
intelligence slowly but surely removing the traditional graphic user interface (GUI) from the
equation.
1. Gartner predicts that 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality by 2020. It also
predicts that 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human by that time.
2. A PwC study of 2,500 U.S. consumers and business decision makers found that business
leaders, specifically, believe AI is going to be fundamental in the future. In fact, 72% termed it a
“business advantage.”
3. PwC also found that in the immediate future, execs are looking for AI to alleviate repetitive,
menial tasks, such as paperwork (82%), scheduling (79%), and timesheets (78%).
4. PwC asked which AI-powered solutions digital executives imagine having the largest impact
on their business. The majority, 31%, said virtual personal assistants.
5. In May 2016, Google reported that 20% of its mobile queries were voice searches.
6. 500 million VR headsets will be sold by 2025. That could be good news for first movers such
as Facebook and Samsung with their respective Oculus Rift and Gear VR offerings.
7. 37% of consumers use Siri, 23% use Microsoft’s Cortana AI, and 19% use Amazon’s Alexa
AI at least monthly.
8. Niantic’s Pokemon Go, which greatly boosted mainstream awareness of AR apps, hit a peak
of 45 million daily active users last July.
9. Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa could bring the U.S. e-commerce giant $10 billion of
revenues by 2020 and be a “mega-hit.”
10. Marketers’ lack of understanding of AI-driven marketing might be influencing the rate of its
adoption. To wit, more than 40% of participants said they thought they had already adopted AI-
driven marketing, reflecting a belief that their targeting capabilities and automation meant that
AI was operating behind the scenes.
11. According to research by Adobe Digital Insights (ADI), the impact of automation and robots
are top-of-mind, but contrary to popular belief, most people are talking about how robots are
helping them do their work, rather than taking away jobs.
12. Predictive analytics software will be a big early-growth category for machine-learning
applications. It’s expected to reach $6.5 billion worldwide in 2019, up from $2 billion in 2012.
13. In 2008, there were already more “things” connected to the Internet than people. By 2020,
the amount of Internet-connected things will reach 50 billion, with $19 trillion in profits and cost
savings coming from IoT over the next decade.
14. By 2020, it’s estimated that 90% of cars will be connected to the Internet as compared to
10% in 2012.
