Industry standards can stay the same for decades at a time, but when a marketplace change does occur, it happens seemingly overnight.
When a new idea takes over your industry, the understood norms become antiquated in a flash. Scrambling to keep up with new practices is often a result of disruptive innovation.
Defining Disruption
Put simply, disruptive innovation is when a new business model changes an industry’s marketplace as a whole, making it necessary for companies to improve their current processes to keep up with demands from consumers.
Disruptive innovation doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does occur, you’ll have to act quickly to avoid falling too far behind from your competitors. Take Kodak, for example. The company was a camera industry titan and a household name in the eighties and early nineties, even with a well-known advertising catchphrase. When digital technology emerged, however, they couldn’t keep up with the digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) flooding the market. Today, Kodax is a shadow of what it once was.
Related Blog: 3 Disruptors that Changed Their Industries For Good
Trying to keep up with a changing industry can be expensive and distracting to your whole process. The best way to deal with disruptive innovation is not to wait for a competitor to change the game and react, but instead to ensure your business is set for success no matter the changing climate of your industry.