The purpose of this course is to help individuals and organizations survive when confronted with disruptive technologies that threaten their current way of life. We will look at a general model of survival and use it to analyze companies and industries that have failed or are close to failing. Examples of companies that have not survived include Kodak, a firm over 100 years old, Blockbuster and Borders. It is likely that each of us has done business with all of these firms, and today Kodak and Blockbuster are in bankruptcy and Borders has been liquidated. Disruptions are impacting industries like education; Coursera and others offering these massive open online courses are a challenge for Universities. In addition to firms that have failed, we will look at some that have survived and are doing well. What are their strategies for survival? By highlighting the reasons for the decline of firms and industries, participants can begin to understand how to keep the same thing from happening to them. Through the study of successful organizations, we will try to tease out approaches to disruptions that actually work. Our ultimate objective is to develop a strategy for survival in a world confronting one disruptive technology after another.
9.2 Summary I
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Suggestions for how to respond to a disruptive technology
Impartido por:
Hank C. Lucas
Robert H. Smith Professor of Information Systems
Here we are Frankie, the end of the course.
It's hard to believe that seven weeks have gone by so quickly.
I've had a lot of fun doing this. I hope you have too.
You have been a great TA, just as you always are.
So let me invite you to relax and listen to the summary.
On some of the things that we've talked about and the major take a ways.
I hope everyone that's been watching and doing the work in, in the course will,
will take away with them and think about in the future.
So the question here at the end is how do you survive.
These are some examples that we looked at.
I've called them the good, the bad and the ugly.
Certainly Apple, IBM and Verizon did very well.
While, our three examples earlier in the course of Kodak, Blockbuster and Borders
did not have such a happy outcome. In fact, they ended up[SOUND].
Bankrupt, OK? UPS and FedEx doing well.
USPS in a downward spiral. Internet news and information is good for
us but it's not so great on the political scene in terms of getting people's,
getting information to people in an unbiased way.
We've seen some great applications out there of the technology, we also see that
that has a downside, when we discuss risky business.
Things like flash crashes, on the stock exchanges.
And so, the key here is disruptive technology, and we, we've labeled that
under the good. Because, it leads to progress.
The bad and the ugly of this, is when an organization fails to respond, and then
ends up, like some of the examples here. What will be disruptive?
Well that's a tough question. You want to scan for new technologies.
And where do you do that? 'Kay.
You can look for analyst opinions on the web.
You can hire technology consultants. You can read widely.
I find out a lot of things from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal.
MIT has a magazine called Technology Review.
The IEEE Spectrum has articles about new and coming technology.
But it's really difficult to do that. I had the opportunity to speak some
people, to some people in industry a few weeks ago, and one of the gentlemen there
was from the energy industry, and he said you know, we did studies, we commissioned
a large study a few years ago. all of the major players in this watched
the technology and we were all completely surprised by hydralic fracking.
The fact that energy for costs, based on, eh, natural gas have dropped so
dramatically, they changed the whole picture.
And this all came about because of some small companies who developed the
technology. And so even these professionals, these
organizations, that are used to looking for, for new and disruptive technologies,
were surprised. So it's not an easy task to do this, but
certainly you want to take some time to think about and discuss new technologies
to, to see if others are viewing them the same way you are or if there is something
that's going to be innovative or disruptive for your organization.
One of the things that I think is helpful here is to do scenario planning.
A scenario is something like the short description we had of the student at the
University of Maryland in the future who came to school, went to went to some
classes, then went home and studied online And you can develop multiple
scenarios of what might happen to kind of bracket the possibilities when you're
confronted with a new and potentially disruptive technology.
You can develop strategic plans for the most likely scenario.
From our model, the factors we know are going to cause trouble or denial, History
that can constrain your thinking. The resistance to change that everybody
including me seems to experience. Mindset on the status quo.
And a brand, which is both an asset and a liability.
It's an asset in that it's probably been great for you as an organization, but
it's a liability when it constrains your thinking.
Remember that sunk costs are things that should be ignored.
Profitability is a great asset. But, you may not be profitable in the
future, just because you're profitable now.
And finally, a lack of imagination really hurts.
Let's stop now before we look at these lessons.
And ask you to answer some questions about the discussion so far.
So I think the first lesson here is to understand your business.
Kodak really had trouble with this. They thought they were making film, and
they didn't realize they were capturing images and that film was just one way to
do that. Past history is no guarantee for the
future. We've emphasized that over and over
again. Current market dominance, if you have it,
may not last. A well-known name doesn't mean very much
to people on the internet. There's not a brand loyalty on the
internet. People go from one site to another.
You need to spend time assessing future technologies.
I hope that has come through in our discussions.
Investing in current operations to stall change.
Only buys time. You're not going to stop a new
technology, disruptive technology, by, by buttressing what you're doing now.
You have to think in, in new ways about how to incorporate the technology into
your business model. And this is a really hard thing to do.
To abandon a existing model quickly when it's clear that its days are numbered.
That it's just not going to survive. You know in some instances you may want
to look for a merger. And in others you may want to take a
risk, and and be innovative in terms of introducing a new product or service even
at the risk of cannibalizing yourself, because somebody else out there is trying
to do it. Do you think that social media can be
helpful to you? That it can help build support for what
you are doing? Resistance to change is going to be every
place in the organization. I have to ask if there isn't something
more than just these factors. And we'll answer this question in our
last video for the course.
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