Digital Disruption

We are living in an era of technological disruption and have seen disruption hitting the core of many companies, and if we do not go hand in hand with this disruption then at some point we might be forced to restart our careers. Technology disruption is one of the most powerful global forces that is really bringing change everywhere. It is an innovation that significantly changes the way the industries or businesses or even customers operate, changing the ways how we buy, how we sell, how we make payments or how we interact with our customers. It comes up with an all new idea of doing something that was done with a different approach earlier. Some of us might think that it is nothing new, we have already been witnessing it since the Industrial Revolution but the difference is the speed at which new technologies are invented, the speed at which they are acquiring the market, the speed at which they replace the already existing policies and this is speed is increasing exponentially.

       Let's take examples of some of the tech giants to understand this speed factor:

Facebook took three and a half year to acquire fifty million customers. WhatsApp took fifteen months to acquire the same and Angry Birds took just fifteen days.

 

Let us look at some of the industries that have been disrupted:

1. Banking Sector: It has been estimated that by 2025 approx two and a half million people will have their bank accounts on their phone and more than 75% will not even step into a bank branch for any transaction or anything. It has also been estimated that the Financial Technology companies at a point will be able to compete with the banks, today the prime focus of these FinTech companies are lending but in due course of time these companies will also be able to lend money that will completely disrupt the banking sector. Now the thing to get concerned is that if so happens then what will happen to the bank structures.

2. Education Sector: It is a sector that has been experiencing technology disruption on a wide scale. We already have heard about the MOOC platforms, that provide free access to many online courses, like coursera, NPTEL, EDx, etc. Take an example of EDx it has been providing free online courses from 2012 and you only have to pay if you want to get certified in those courses and that costs just 50 to 100 $, which could have caused a 500-1000$ years back. Edx was able to get seven million students in just four years. We need to think that where we will be in 10 years of time, where people will be educated? 

3. Healthcare Sector: The healthcare industry has been dominant over the last few decades to all the technological advancements, but is now seriously  disrupted by technologies. Let us take a very simple example to understand this and this is the Smart Wristband that we wear which is very attractive and affordable. About hundred million people are already wearing it toady This wristband is changing the way we manage our own health , this wearable gets us data on our health like our heartbeat, pace and a lot of data metrics and even can give us a warning  if we are going to get a heart attack. And this way we can have our doctor assistant with us at all the  times which will be providing continuous data throughout the year.  

Conclusion:

Now at this time we need to think where we are heading towards, in what business we are and how we can get affected by the disruptive technologies. We need to change our prospective on what has been happening because tomorrow a better idea might come and replace us. We need to keep learning new things instead of going on the ways we have been going in the last ten years.

We need to change our mindset and think exponentially, looking at what we can do radically different that can help us leap forward. You can also partner with people who can help you because not everyone is an expert of everything. 

At this point of time we need to set up a two sped organization, where we can have our heritage organisation at one place and our startup on the other and probably with course of time the one will overtake the other and then you will be at the right place you should.