Protect Your Company from the Threat of Disruptive Technologies

Challenge your organization. Ask your staff if there is a faster, cheaper, or more efficient way to serve your customers and be open to creative solutions that may not fit with your traditional way

The best way of insulating yourself from an upset is by constantly improving your product and leaving little room in the market for someone to step in and fill a void. Disruptive technologies often overturn traditional technology by being less expensive, but that often comes with a price — lowered performance. If you evolve your product to a higher performance and price level, it probably won't be competing for the same customer base as a lower-priced, pared-down version.

Of course, not all disruptive technologies are cheaper and less developed than existing solutions. Sometimes they offer new capabilities or deliver traditional services in a new way. There's no way to prepare for these innovations, but you can control how you react to them. If a disruptive technology offers something unique to consumers, you might want to think about adding this capability to your product line or partnering with the innovators. If the new technology directly competes with your offering, you may look for ways to improve your product and build onto the new capabilities that are being offered by disruptive players.