Some Organisations Become A Victim Of Their Own Success And Size

As their success grows, so does the size of the organisation, like Microsoft (increased staff from 57,000 a decade ago to around 127,000 in 2014; this is around 50% higher than Apple yet the latter's revenue and profit is double Microsoft's) plus the thinking changes from innovation to protecting the successful product, services, etc. Some examples include:

- smart phone on Nokia & blue-tooth technology

- impact of quartz watch on industry in Switzerland. For a long time the Swiss dominated the world's watch industry. Then in the 1970s the near-fatal crippling of the Swiss watch industry with the popularity of the cheap quartz/digital Asian watches. Yet Swiss were offered, but rejected, this technology. Their own assumptions about the nature of watch making were so strong, they were incapable of understanding the full implications of this invention. The revival of Swiss watch based on it as a fashion statement, ie cosmetic/luxury item, as well as a time piece. The next disruptive inventions could be

i) around "smart watches" using silicon's unique properties like in the smart phone. Companies like Samsung (GearS), Apple (iWatch), Google (Android Wear), Sony, Asus, LG, etc are experimenting with the technology to develop smart watches.
ii) reducing components, eg Swatch's System51 has gone from 200 to 51 components made by robots
iii) cheaper machines + computer-aided designs means that complete watches are made under one roof

- Skype with telcos. Skype (2003) was not seen as a threat to the telco industry, ie technology would not work; it did not have scale, etc

"...What Skype is doing is like a toy..."

Hossein Eslambolchi, AT&T's then chief Technology Officer as quoted by Rachel Botsman

Yet by mid 2013, it now has 30% of the long-distance phone market