Links Between Technology Disruption and Innovation
Technology is reducing the traditional barriers of entry into the industries, like fintech in the finance industry. However,
"...innovation is not just technology, a business can innovate in how it is structured, and how it thinks..."
Andy Vesey as quoted by James Dunn, 2017
"...businesses have traditionally been designed around the most efficient processing......of the organisations and its resources - but this architecture is outdated. Success for businesses of tomorrow are organised around information. In this environment, the companies that win are those who get the best data and process it quickest, so as to gain insights and to act on them will quickly, for a better customer outcome. It's a totally different way of thinking about your business......traditionally......corporate power was held in the organisation by controlling information, and the companies did that by 'siloing' departments, which were feeding information up the hierarchy. In today's world that is a recipe for disaster, and successful managers and leaders must know how to break down those barriers and silos, and make sure the information is flowing to where it can be acted on, to generate insights......the only way you can be in business these days is to have the silos broken down, people free to communicate and team up and problem solve, working together......there's a lot of innovation that still has to happen in terms of organisational design, industrial structure and in the cultures of organisations, to support those kinds of strategies. Technology is the easy part..."
Andy Vesey as quoted by James Dunn, 2017
Organisations need to be innovative and constantly changing. One of the preferred organisational structures is 'flat' that empowers employees to collaborate; encourages spontaneous conversations to find new solutions and people to work across the organisation horizontally rather than vertically. The skills required in this environment are
"...An agile mindset, a growth mindset, the ability to influence, to communicate well, and to collaborate..."
Lyn Cobley as quoted by James Dunn, 2017
Disruption
Disruption is 2-edged sword, ie it can create as well as destroy at the same time
"...disruption displaces an existing market, industry or technology, and produces something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative..."
James Dunn, 2017a
Innovation
"...great innovation starts not with a product idea, but with a problem customers have that needs to be solved..."
David Lindberg as quoted by James Dunn, 2017a
Despite the future being unknown and uncertain, to survive organisations will still have to satisfy customers' needs. One challenge is to identify their customers' needs, now and in future.
Having diversity of thought in your organisation increases the chance of a greater range of solutions to select from, to satisfy customers' needs.
Generally trying to clone somebody else's idea does not work.
How do you become an 'overnight success'?
Answer: by years of hard work and innovation plus a bit of luck, ie you are in the right place at the right time!!!!!
It rarely happens that somebody has become immediately successful. It normally takes years of hard work. Malcolm Gladwell (2008) has summarised this as 10,000 hours or 10 years of background work for success to happen. For example, even the Beatles were performing in the clubs, pubs, etc for around 10 years before they became successful.
Other factors required include having the necessary skills & capability (production, sales, marketing, regulation, R&D, management, organisational, etc) plus being agile and nimble so that you out-compete your competitors by responding better to meet changing market demands, ie satisfy customers' expectations.
"...markets move fast - you need to be able to respond to changes..."
Juhani von Hellens as quoted by Jonathan Porter, 2017