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Will You Be The Dinosaur or The Disruptor?

Will You Be The Dinosaur or The Disruptor?

The world’s biggest businesses are transforming the way they do business. We watch and observe as the digital disruptors shake their industries through innovation.

The challenge now lies in dinosaur brands living in the past as disruptor companies strive to become agile enough to keep up with fast-paced dynamics of the current world.

Traditional, brick and mortar businesses are on the verge of becoming digital dinosaurs. In a bid to avoid becoming one, they are seeing the need to digitize operations in order to prevent their extinction. These contemporary businesses find themselves weighed down by limitations of their current IT infrastructure systems together with the absence of effective collaboration methods between teams.

The key for dinosaur enterprises is a path to transformational innovation in a similar pattern that disruptors are taking through a more personalized or customized service.

Here, we quickly discuss the three types of companies. Which one are you?

The Dinosaurs

These are “cold blooded” businesses struggling to effect change as fast-changing technologies are disrupting their rather outdated delivery models and fixed cost structures. While they are enjoying significant revenues thanks to their established reputation and solid customer base, their lifespans are getting shorter. Case in point: the newspaper publishing industry. These dinosaurs became prone to extinction as they failed to react to changes coming – the effect and price of which they are still paying for.

The Innovators

This group includes businesses who are leveraging their digital powers to their advantage by blending new technologies into their current business model and operational, strategic management. In doing so, they are successfully transforming and preparing themselves for the new digital age. These companies have a dedicated in-house or outsourced digital team who takes the lead in a continuous cycle of change and implementation. The goal is for them to learn from the disruptors, to use their own internal strength to protect their current market share, and to adapt and be resilient to changes as they come.

The Disruptors

And here comes the fast-evolving disruptors whose agility enables them to scale their plans and ambitions for their companies by courageously taking advantage of technologies to innovate and restructure their processes and value chain. In the process of doing so, they are driving the dinosaurs away. On their hands lie big opportunities to grab a hold of the market share currently owned by the established companies in an industry. The challenge that disruptors have is their way of anticipating the reactions such as increased barriers by the dinosaurs.

Digital disruption is not simply about the technology being used. After all, technology is just an enabler of these changes we are facing as part of the wider value chain. In service of the goal of a successful disruption strategy, disruptors and dinosaurs both need to consider personalization by offering unique experiences as they take a holistic approach to join the dots of the whole customer journey through innovating in their cloud architecture.

The Age of Innovation in the 2020s

A trendspotting review by Forbes revealed that 68% of consumers report that the Covid-19 pandemic has increased their expectations on the digital capabilities of several brands2. In support of this, a pulse survey conducted by the Harvard Business Review, 59% of innovation leaders have increased the speed of customer or end-user innovation during the pandemic3. These figures tell us that the road to innovation entails utilizing a three-track approach that understands the people, the process, and the technology within the organization.

In an effort to encourage traditional companies to modernize or innovate to keep up with consumer demands and competitive advantage, Apper outlined its three-track approach through Engage, Manage, and Coach. Engage addresses the technology aspect by modernising and building an existing platform; manage answers the process part by delegating day-to-day management of existing cloud resources and infrastructure to its team; and coach focuses on honing the skills as well as mindset of the people who will drive the innovation.

Digital transformation is every bit challenging. We understand that large businesses across the globe are finding it rather difficult to innovate and deliver a different experience to their customers. Which is why the time has come for digital dinosaurs to scale and level up their innovation practices.

Business and tech leaders will also have to contextualize by delivering more relevant and tailored information to their target market. This added agile digital layer to their infrastructure will enable business units and employees to efficiently respond to the opportunities and challenges to their business.

In this quick discussion, questions still linger: what can be the options for the leaders of disruptive businesses to keep looking up and ahead with the opportunities and risks? How can digital transformation and innovation be implemented smoothly? Faced with a choice, will most businesses be a dinosaur or a disruptor?

References:

1 Bizagi.com (2020) Enterprise Transformation: From Digital Dinosaur to Digital Disruptor
https://www.bizagi.com/en/blog/digital-transformation-strategy/enterprise-transformation-from-digital-dinosaur-to-digital-disruptor

2 Hall, J. (2021) 5 Trends In Digital Brand Management To Watch Out For In 2021
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2021/05/23/5-trends-in-digital-brand-management-to-watch-out-for-in-2021/

3 Harvard Business Review (2021) Delivering Customer-Focused Innovation
https://hbr.org/sponsored/2020/11/delivering-customer-focused-innovation

Isabel Pablo, Contributing Writer

Isabel Pablo

Contributing Writer

There is a tune in her head that only in writing can she dance to. Bound by clarity and purpose, Isabel is a storyteller by profession. She dare asks, What is your story? How can it be told?

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