group of paper airplanes in one direction and one person may point differently , [+]
How can business leaders adapt their business models to a world of constant disruptions? originally appeared Quora: A place to acquire and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and understand the world better.
answer By Kian Gohar, Founder & CEO GeolabFeather Quora,
It starts with asking a simple question: “What business are we really in?” Do you define your business by the products and services you currently sell, or the value you create for your customers? For example, railroad companies of the early 20th century thought they were in the railroad business, not the wider transportation business. So they focused only on railroads, and did not invest in new forms of transportation, such as airplanes, and long-distance buses and trucks. If they had thought broadly about what value their business creates for customers, they could have entered these new segments that customers loved. Instead, they stuck to their guns and old mindset, and eventually went out of business.
So ask yourself, “What business am I really in?” Then consider the many inputs that could disrupt your current industry. What technologies are being developed and deployed that could undermine your business? How are broader socio-economic changes changing consumer demand for your services? What external factors, such as policies or regulations, are creating new obstacles and opportunities?
The goal is to draw conclusions from these variables, and project what you think your industry might look like over the medium term, such as 5-10 years. And then work backwards from this vision, to do short-term experiments (less than a year) that can lead you to this long-term vision. You’ll need to identify some of the major new technologies that are rapidly shifting your industry, and incorporate them into your experiments to see how you can benefit from their development.
In another transportation example, a major airliner recently assessed how new technologies could disrupt its existing passenger business, and decided to prioritize virtual reality technology as a key component of the firm’s long-term vision. Why? Because they understood that consumers could now “travel” to distant places using virtual reality, and this had the potential to undermine their core business of transporting passengers from one place to another. So instead of linking the market position to a new unknown technology, he chose to incorporate it into his business.
Business leaders can’t rest on their laurels, or what works in the past, unless they have a monopoly on an industry like railroads, and yet we see how it turned out for them. The truth is that business leaders have to constantly scan the external environment using some of the methods above, and constantly need to identify new opportunities and try out new experiments that can grow their business before it gets disrupted. Huh.
this question originally appeared Quora – A place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and understand the world better.
