Disruptive technology: A jeopardy or a long lasting opportunity?

By Maria Saflagioura. Msc International Marketing student (University of West London).

@MSaflagioura

According to the Swedish professor M.Christensen of Harvard business school new technology is separated into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology while disruptive lacks refinement with performance problems and an appeal to a specific target audience.

A clear example of disruptive technology is the diachronic invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell, alias the electric speech machine.

So, how beneficial is a disruptive trend for an organization offering an improved and optimized value for customers? Business development ventures are often motivated by this emerging model. Social media, cloud computing, big data and mobile technology constitute a clear example in terms of the technological advancement. Personal computer displaced the typewriter, the window’s operating system combined an affordability and a friendly interface developing, the so-called “personal computing”. E-mail and cell phones displace letter-writing as well as a wide range of other devices such as laptops, smartphones, mp3 players and GPS devices.

As a result, antiquate business models are replaced by new ones and this driving force has created progressively an enormous market growth. However, there is a forthcoming risk of the “third platform”. Rise of unemployment and automated machines or a positive influence of artificial intelligence? Martin Ford wrote on his book “The rise of the robots” that this abrupt change could revolutionize a business, a society and a whole economy. Personally, elaborating the idea of a frightening future due to unexpected implications relevant to the disruptive trends i think it is time to balance between an economy which explodes inwardly and a radical reassessment of a more functional economic model.