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