Digital disruption: What to watch out for?

Tsunami: Digital Disruption

If you are in the music, travel, newspapers, retail, or telecommunications industry, you are being hit by the Tsunami of digital disruption.

What to watch out for to see if your industry is next?

We’ve all witnessed the triumphal, agile and fast arrival of Airbnb, Uber, Tinder, Netflix, drones and their impact on many industries and processes.

Annet Aris made a very interesting analogy between digital disruption and snakes. Be sure to link the story to your industry. One minute a reptile is calmly enjoying the sun, the next moment it lunges forward. Before you know it, you have received the deadly bite and if you do not administer the antidote as quickly as possible, you are finished.

Will your industry be next?

It would be simple to assume that this predictive exercise is easy and straightforward. I attended few presentations by startups in Toronto, San Francisco and Madrid and each time I was inspired by the drive and the ideas being worked on. These companies are targeting various areas and industries where opportunities and challenges exist.  

However, there are common factors to consider in our exercise to see if your industry will be hit soon by the Tsunami of Digital Disruption:

1. Your position in the value chain: The closer you are to the customer, the more vulnerable you are.
2. The amount of waste in your industry: The lean methodology talks about seven types of wastes (extra capacity, cars used on average 30 min/day, etc.)
3. The complexities in your industry: This includes processes that are manual such as data entry, data validation, transfer of data and documentations.
4. The power of you as producer over the customer: If you are forcing clients into straight jackets because it better suits your production processes, then be prepared to face the tsunami that will arrive sooner or later with new companies offering your customers more convenient, complete transparent and tailor-made products.
5. Regulation: The more protected your industry is, the more time you have. You aren’t protected forever but you have time to prepare for the digital disruption.

How can we help?

We at 360 Business Ventures aim to help customers prepare and embark on a digital transformation, mainly in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Smart Data Capture.

Our areas of expertise include:

• Smart Data Capture to automate and enhance data entry in various industries: Finance, Insurance, Logistics, Health Care and Accounting
• Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

It’s clear that sooner or later every single company will have to bite the digital bullet. History has shown us that it’s prudent to prepare for the snake bite rather than scrambling with short time to find an antidote.