HOW MUCH TIME DOES A DISRUPTION TAKE

Cloud computing: 10Y.

Blockchain: 10Y.

This means that nowadays there are a lot of technologies that are going to be disruptive in some years. I think it is impossible to identify which are at the early stage of the evolution, but the second stage will be a fast growing. This is what happens in a nice. When the nice become the market a lot of people start thinking that there is an opportunity to make money. Those people used to be a consultant, so they can explain either why or why not. 

An effective businessman understands the «deep why» and can see how to gain vantage from the scenario. In his book, ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’, Clayton Christensen predicted the idea of digital transformation almost a decade in advance. He analyzed some scenarios from the American computer industry of the eighties and nineties, comparing sustaining technologies, meaning the natural (organic) development of a proposition, and disruptive technologies. At first, the latter were low-performance, low-profit products, which had the potential to create new markets. However, what happened in the early 2000s made his book a reference work on the subject.

The theory behind the ‘innovator’s dilemma’ says that the most successful companies in any given technological context, are not able to perceive the threat posed by disruptive technologies’, at a structural level and, if they do, then the rigidity of their decisional processes prevents their management from changing the organization’s strategy in time.

The big companies, which understood the danger of disruptive technologies, realized that the solution was not to fight or ignore them. Instead, they saw them as an opportunity to explore new markets, and to update their own technological context. They supported their development and when they believed these technologies were mature, they were ready to integrate them. Sometimes they even created a department for them, even if it was simply to prevent their competitors from using that technology. These technologies became extensions of their own research and development departments.