Disruption is here to stay, so make friends with it and get to know it better.
Disruption is not about the future, it is about the now. It is about changing your mindset from accepting how your business is run, to looking for ways to do things better.
If your business has not changed and kept up with the external environment there will be a gap. This can be closed with a disruptive mindset.
Disruption in a business context is defined as “a radical change in an industry, business strategy, etc., especially involving the introduction of a new product or service that creates a new market”.
Disruption leads to the creation of new markets but also challenges your current practices and notions. It can force you to innovate the way your business operates and plan it’s future.
Adopting this mindset leads to updating the modus operandi of your business to give it relevance in the information age.
Disruption is not just about technology, it is about how your resources are allocated, how your people and customers are engaged and where your market position and opportunities lie.
The current economic climate has created a hype around ‘smart practice’ or doing more with less. Is this the right way of doing business?
I believe it is a waste of time, effort and resources that could be better applied. Being mean and lean will not always give you a competitive advantage.
In fact, it can restrict your ability to diversify and seek new opportunities and explore new ways of conducting your business.
The new battleground is agility, how well your business can keep up and adapt to market demands and expectations. If you have no redundancy fat, you are at risk of being unable to act in the face of an unplanned event.
As a simple exercise, choose one part of your business, look at it with a bird’s eye view and challenge how and why you do things. You will start to see opportunities and absurdities everywhere.
An area of business that I believe has seen the slowest rate of change is Human Resources. If you are like 90% of companies your employee rewards and benefits schemes will be a redundant list of benefits that is no longer aligned to the motivations of your employees and has been pegged to timeframes that no longer reflects their behaviour.
Look at your long service entitlements and talent planning. You will find they are not aligned with the needs and motivations of the modern workforce. If you know that the average period of employment of your staff is four years, there is not point pegging leave entitlements to a decade of service.
yGeneralist examines different areas of business where disruption opportunities exist and what businesses can do to become adaptable and disrupters in your field.
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