Is Your Business Ready For Digital Disruption?

‘Digital Disruption’ has been the hot topic for CIOs across many sectors over the last six months.

This phrase has become synonymous with innovative new businesses that are quickly transforming products and services for their customers.

Every tech blogger uses the example of Uber’s rapid rise to success thanks to their transformation of the taxi industry across the globe.

Larger well-established companies are now examining these advancements and asking themselves very pressing questions about how they can disrupt and improve their own traditional operations.

Just to clarify, what is ‘Disruptive Innovation’?

‘Disruptive Innovation’ is a theory coined by Clayton Christensen, the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

On his website he defines the theory as: “A process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors.”

‘Digital Disruption’ refers to innovative companies that have used technology to simplify overly complex products or services to make experiences better and/or easier for their customers.

Steve Jobs was reported to have been “deeply influenced” by Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Dilemma, and embraced the philosophy that technology could be used to derail established markets and better meet consumer wants and needs. Looking back in 2016, we can now appreciate how the iPod, and subsequently the iPhone, has completely transformed the western world.

Is my company ready for digital disruption?

Digital disruption has become a much celebrated theory for many organisations. However, not every organisation is ready for it. Digital disruption needs to occur in a smart calculated controlled manor if large traditional companies with complex hierarchies, services, and systems are to reap the benefits.

If you’re a CIO and you’re considering how to digitally disrupt your organisation, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do we have a defined vision of what digital means to our business? You need to ask yourself whether your organisation has a clear ENTERPRISE-WIDE understanding of digital disruption and whether it would be embraced and adopted by your entire workforce.
2. Do you we have a strong digital team in place? You will need an extremely skilled IT team to bring about digital transformation. Crimson’s IT recruitment consultants have been working with a number of organisations to help them appoint innovative CIOs, and working to set-up training schemes to help companies to nurture new digital talent.
3. Have we digitised our core internal processes, eliminating inefficiencies and streamlining though automation? Before you can begin disrupting the markets in which you operate, you need to get your house in order. Your company needs to have digitised its internal processes and customised your omni-channel approach for each of your customer segments.
4. Have we implemented an agile cloud infrastructure that allows us to scale quickly when required? If you want to stay in one step ahead of your competitors you need to be agile. Legacy infrastructure can be complex and very rigid. To disrupt a sector you need to be able to expand capacity at a moment’s notice and solve problems at speed.
5. Do we support innovative ideas and manage risk well? Rigid company rules and legislation can limit company innovation. Similarly, you need to adopt a balanced approach to risk. CIOs need to ensure standards and mindful governance when innovating, whilst remaining open to ideas and spotting potential risks early in the creative process.

If you would like a FREE workshop to discover whether your company is ready for disruption  call 01675 466 477.

Crimson is an IT consultancy, an IT solutions provider, an IT recruitment agency, and a Microsoft Gold Partner with offices in Birmingham and the City of London.