The Disruptive change is talk of the town since early 2020. However, it has been around for the last few decades. The only difference is that in this VUCA world, the disruption is frequently happening, which gives organizations less time to manage the change.

Disruptive change occurs because of:

• innovation in industries
• change in the company’s structure, or 
• transformation in business models. 

These basic changes disrupt the way an organization manage business.

Handling the apprehensions caused by the disruptive change could be troublesome for any leader. Therefore, leaders and other collaborators must understand the capacity they have for the change initiatives. Based on these abilities’ leaders must plan not only to manage the change but also to overcome the challenges that come with it.

Let’s look at some innovations, little closer to understand disruption. Let’s take examples of Amazon, Apple and Google:

Amazon’s “Customer-focused small-scale” experiments

Amazon started small experiments to sell books online.  It was a standardized product and could be sold/marketed online easily. But I remember the discussion back then when people were saying, ‘yes you can sell books online, but you can’t sell clothing online because of the size issues + look and feel; However, now, it is proven wrong. Clothes can be sold/marketed online! 

 How did Amazon get to that path of selling clothing online; although many felt this is not going to work? This is possible; with small-scale experiment, which Amazon did it successfully. You start selling books, then you start selling CDs, you start selling something else, and you experiment yourself into this market.

Amazon is continuing to do the same…

Apple’s Fully integrated innovations

Apple’s innovation is different. It’s an integration of several things, seeing innovative ideas or objects in a different context, by acknowledging their inherent potential to be used in a previously unconnected way. These integration leads to something new. When you think about the iPod, it’s not just the device but a “complete innovative experience of previously unconnected things”, which is user friendly.

Google: Serial acquisitions

Google started as a search engine; it is still the most used search engine in the world. However, they do all sorts of things. How do they do all kinds of things? They make silly money with the search engine, and they use that money in different ways of acquiring new technologies in those fields, which they believe might change markets. 

 For example, Google’s first acquisition was the Usenet company Deja News, and its services became Google Groups. Similarly, Google acquired Dodgeball, a social networking service company, eventually replaced it with Google Latitude etc…

These are some examples of companies who changed the world. 

Companies that do not predict change adequately and adapt accordingly are more likely to fail, as every competitive advantage has a limited lifespan. 

Example: 

• Kodak: did not predict the substantial rise of digital photography but focused on core products instead. They were struck by “Razor & Blade” syndrome, and they kept fighting the wrong competition. 
• Nokia: Even though they were an early innovator in that entire business of mobile phones, they failed to focus on smartphones. Did they see it? They probably saw it. Did they consider it a disruption? Maybe not.

Understand your Organisations Dynamic Capabilities 

Dynamic capabilities are in general organisational capabilities, that enable a firm to adapt to changing environments. 

These companies can sense an opportunity; they can seize the opportunity and can use this to reconfigure the processes in the right way.

How do they do that?

All we need to do that is to hone our leadership skills for disruptive change.  

Follow us for more content in our Managing Disruptive Change Workshops to get a big picture and tools for managing disruptive change.