Living in the age of disruption

Disruption has been going on for ages in human history and experts in the field have been trying to understand what causes it.

Pick any industry: Be it the invention of wheel to Thomas Edison’s light bulb moment, you will find individuals taking the path less traveled,transforming, disrupting and innovating on the way.

However, living through 21st century and specially in the last decade or so ( 2007 is the year in my opinion), our planet’s three largest forces namely Technology, Globalization & Mother Nature, having all accelerated at once.

As the changes happen at accelerated pace, it changes the world we live in, work and play.

Coming from technology standpoint, i see every industry been impacted by digital disruption except for the technology industry, causing or supporting it.

The exponential growth in digital technologies ever since 2007 has seen the human race struggle in keeping pace with it.

In this complex and fast-evolving world of work, no one organisation has all the answers.Businesses don’t always know what direction to evolve in and customers don’t always know exactly what they want.

C-suite are struggling to understand the impact that disruptive start-ups and powerful emergent technologies are having on their business.I have seen businesses first hand struggle with the very term ” Digital” itself meanwhile trying to demystify its meaning and value.

With a few exceptions, businesses, small and large, are trying their hands on digitization of disconnected business processes and usage of digital and analytical platforms, thinking technology alone is the answer to digital transformation, only to be disrupted by events such as COVID 19.

Businesses need to Reflect, Accelerate, Innovate and Anchor. They need to question the relevance of their existence.They underpins the value of Co-Creation,, infinite mindset, cultural shift,  business process overhauls, User Experience Design, celebrating uncertainty and chaos necessary for innovation, prototyping and answering questions(what is, what if, what vows and what works) on the way have gone mainstream.

In this context,only enterprise geared for business agility will respond to emerging customer needs and adapt to rapid changes in the marketplace and environment in productive and cost effective ways.