The global disruption caused by the pandemic, climate change, technology, and new customer expectations is unparalleled. Overnight, entire economies, education systems, and social infrastructures came to a grinding halt. Nowadays, many companies, organizations, business leaders, and entrepreneurs face the test of redefining their strategy in a short time frame. As widespread crisis lurks as our ever-present reality, the question arises of how to develop new systems and societies that possess the resilience needed to thrive under uncertain conditions.
As we know, creativity doesnât always arrive like a lightbulb switching on in our heads. It requires a better understanding of the problem you want to solve and all elements involved. Unsettled Disruption provides a systematic process to consider external factors, your industryâs chances of disruption, and the pillars that would help you build your strategy. It is a practical guide that combines the concepts, tools, and dozens of proven business cases and stories from the authorâs experience.
The global disruption caused by the pandemic, climate change, technology, and new customer expectations is unparalleled. Overnight, entire economies, education systems, and social infrastructures came to a grinding halt. Nowadays, many companies, organizations, business leaders, and entrepreneurs face the test of redefining their strategy in a short time frame. As widespread crisis lurks as our ever-present reality, the question arises of how to develop new systems and societies that possess the resilience needed to thrive under uncertain conditions.
As we know, creativity doesnât always arrive like a lightbulb switching on in our heads. It requires a better understanding of the problem you want to solve and all elements involved. Unsettled Disruption provides a systematic process to consider external factors, your industryâs chances of disruption, and the pillars that would help you build your strategy. It is a practical guide that combines the concepts, tools, and dozens of proven business cases and stories from the authorâs experience.
LETâS START WITH A question: Why do some companies not see disruption coming while others harnessed the power of disruptive innovation?
It was the end of 2017, and I was reading about the Toys-R-Us bankruptcy [1]. I remember my first visit to a Toys-R-Us store back in the â90s, with their impressive product endcaps, massive inventory, and spectrum of merchandise. In the end, nostalgia couldnât save them. The once-mighty retailer struggled to keep up with changing consumer trends, environment, and technology.
Like Toys-R-Us, Blockbuster, and Borders Bookstores, and many other entrepreneurs, we see more companies missing the disruptive innovation opportunity while others thrive in an environment of Unsettled Disruption.
Most recently, and just a few days after the first pandemic lockdown, I got a call from Mark. He was frustrated as he worked for the last year to develop his startup project to improve farmersâ production by leveraging internet of things technology to help them save time and money. He just launched in January 2020, but everything was suddenly stopped.
There was a touch of mixed feelings as Mark was also thankful to be safe at home with his family in these uncertain times. During the first two weeks of the lockdown, Mark was dumbstruck. As a founder, he felt very lonely and worried about finances as he had invested almost all his savings in this new venture.
Then after two months of lockdown, he took time to reflect and look into the future. He sounds like a different person, learning and accepting that it will be a while before things get back to normal. But this was an excellent opportunity for his company when he realized that digitalization would be a significant milestone in the coming months. He decided to adapt and reinvent his business. âJuana, this is not going to be easy, but I need to do something and work my way out of this crisis to make it happen,â he beamed from the other side of our online meeting.
As intra- or entrepreneurs, we are always worried about innovation, scaling up, reframing our business model, and getting new customers. I have been working with several entrepreneurs, organizations, and companies struggling and even facing an existential business crisis. They wonder if their idea is still relevant in the current scenario and will they be able to linger on if the situation continues for an unforeseeable future. This new situation caught us off guard.
The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is incomparable. Overnight, entire businesses, education systems, and health infrastructures came to a knockout of our worldâs interconnectedness and the vulnerability that comes with it. Many sectors, such as fashion, sports, tourism, and brick-and-mortar retailers, faced unprecedented mass closures and witnessed monumental layoffs. Even âunicornsâ like Airbnb fired more than 1,900 people in one month [2], and the airline industry encounters the same fate with massive layoffs over 2020 [3].
As far-reaching physical lockdowns across the world as an ever-present reality, the question arises of developing new systems and economies that possess the resilience needed to thrive under uncertain conditions. We canât predict how businesses will evolve. Still, we know that most organizations focus on identifying and capitalizing on new opportunities created by the changing landscape.
According to the McKinsey Global Innovation survey, more than 84 percent [4] agree that innovation is important to growth strategy. Today, they are looking for new, innovative ideas to sustain or scale their business, as they cannot operate as they have in the past.
Nowadays, entrepreneurs, innovators, and companies face the test of redefining their strategy in a short time frame. They are under immense pressure to innovate and transform their business models, operations, and products more compelling and competitive in the challenging marketplace.
In 2020 and more than ever, we learned that what made a company successful historically may no longer be possible during or after a global crisis.
WHY IS DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION CRITICAL?
Itâs not just about the rapid changes occurring worldwide, but also the new way we do and understand business. Those changes are going to, continue to speed up. Thatâs why itâs being coined âthe exponential ageâ [5] because commerce and innovation will get exponentially faster.
Several transformation projects and business digitalization catapulted from years of hesitation into mere weeks of implementation during the pandemic. Video conferencing company Zoomâs daily users increased thirty times in just four months, with daily meeting users reaching upwards of 300 million in April 2020 [6]. Zoom is now worth more than the seven largest airline companies. [7]
In April 2020, educational institutions closed in 195 countries, affecting more than 1.3 billion students and counting [8]. Millions of students shifted from in-person classes to virtual online classrooms, and EdTech became a priority for investors. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, claims that human life on other planets is a critical step in the evolution of humanity. He is planning to expand the earthâs reach to other planets in our solar system, anticipating 2026 to see our first travel to Mars [9].
While there are thousands of these examples available, a TikTok executive said it best during a 2020 web summit [10], âYou will get disrupted if you donât disrupt.â Many companies are looking to what next, but overall how to get to what next.
HOW DO YOU APPROACH DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION?
Many organizations and innovators struggle to survive and tend to forget that looking ahead is better than simply studying the past. A new strategic approach is the only solution to this economic pressure and consumerâs rapid speed. These days, we speak about âdisruptive innovationâ and discuss success stories and failures, but you may still wonder how do I start? Where do I find disruptive ideas?
If the definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. If you want Unsettled Disruption, you need to change the paradigm. Creativity doesnât always switch on like a lightbulb in our heads. It requires a better understanding of the problem you want to solve and the factors that create the problem.
It requires a framework and the vision to define the next steps to advance towards the future. There is no magic formula for the coming years. Still, there is evidence through experience that a systematic process helps you to connect the dots and create your disruptive innovation strategy.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN FROM THIS BOOK?
The motivation of this book comes from a desire to give you the means to Unsettled Disruption. This is a step-by-step framework to define your strategy of becoming a disrupter and/or learning how to avoid being disrupted.
This practical guide combines the concepts, tools, examples, and proven business stories to ensure that you can distinguish between developments that will last and drive change versus those that will fade away from our evolving world. The process developed and supporting examples that follow will help you to unfold disruption strategies and understand the mechanisms that made disruption happen.
Unsettled Disruption will help you uncover why companies are being disrupted, how to identify the disruption potential in your industry, and how disruptors find innovative ideas to serve unattended customers.
In the first part of this book, we explain what disruptive innovation is, and why you need to get disruptive innovation right.
The second part reflects on the mechanisms that make a disruption possible at three levels:
Externalâthe external factors and chances of disruption in the industry;
The Coreâfour pillars that make disruption happenâincluding the job-to-be-done, the value chain, the business model innovation and technology; and finally,
Strategic Purposeâelements of your mission that provide the strategic orientation of your business.
Readers will learn from proven experience how incumbents came out stronger through self-disruption; you will understand the new wave of disruptors, and learn from companies that failed to handle disruption as well as from disruptors that flourished during the 2020 pandemic.
To get the most relevant and practical information, we included stories from my personal experiences and my research of companies like Netflix, Dollar Shave Club, Airbnb, Sony, Ferrero, Starbucks, Western Union, Kodak, Dell, IKEA, Getaround, Twitter, Spotify, Alibaba, Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Google, Atari, Mars, Hilti, Easy Bank, eBay, Skype, Wikipedia, Microsoft, Lego, Disney, Warby Parker, Canva, Blockbuster, Nokia, Toys-R-Us, Borders, Seventh Generation, Patagonia, Tala, Ben & Jerryâs, Zoom, TikTok, Slack and Vigga
WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR?
This book is for those who are looking for new ideas, who seek to create long-lasting success, and believe that change requires othersâ collaboration. For those who want to harness disruptive innovation to create a new and purposeful future, Unsettled Disruption offers you a path to harness the power of disruptive innovation.
Unsettled Disruption is written for passionate innovators working inside large organizations, medium-sized companies, as well as entrepreneurs looking for new opportunities. It is for those who understand the why, but still, need guidance with the what and the how.
If you are a business leader, C-Suite, and the high-level executive responsible for driving innovation, this book will give you the strategic guidance and inspiration to drive your team to start their disruptive innovation journey.
My mission is to inspire you to unlock the full potential of your own disruption. I want to give you the tools and techniques to face the years ahead with a clear purpose of making a better world because you have more power than you realize.
WHO IS THE AUTHOR?
During the last twenty years, I have been actively helping entrepreneurs and organizations harness disruptive innovationâs power. I went deep into my research and had the opportunity to join the Stanford GSB LEAD community, where I found the missing pieces of the puzzle.
My professional experience has allowed me to understand the urgency of providing a framework that helps innovators identify different opportunities. I started this journey with a plethora of questions, such as:
1. How do disruptors keep track of new trends and demands?
2. What are the ways to identify disruption potential in an industry?
3. How do businesses identify what customer requirements are
unfulfilled today?
4. Which is the most unsatisfied customer segment of the industry?
5. How do disruptors find innovative ideas to serve the unattended
customer segment better than incumbents?
6. How do they deliver this new value?
7. How do they define their innovative business models?
By answering these questions, I have identified a path to help you to start your own Unsettled Disruption journey.
LETâS START THIS JOURNEY
Clayton Christensen, the father of disruptive innovation, is one of the principal sources of inspiration for this book. Thanks to his fantastic work, we experienced a better understanding of this concept.
Charles Darwin noted, âIt is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.â Author Andy Grove said, âThere are two options: adapt or die.â And many other bright minds remind us of the need to change and evolve.
Hence, weâre living in changing times, and those companies that lag behind will become as extinct as the dinosaurs. To those who have an open mind, who wish to discover the road to innovation, and believe that a process will help you drive these great ideas, I offer you a path.
Letâs walk together and start harnessing the power of disruptive innovation and build towards a purpose-driven future.
The old world is fading fast and there is an urgent need to evolve and become disruptors, someone who can substantially change the working models of an industry. Unsettled Disruption: Step-by-Step Guide for Harnessing the Evolving Path of Purpose-Driven Innovation by Juana- Catalina Rodriguez is a guidebook on how to recognize and deal with unanticipated changes in the business landscape. It tells us how to discard old business models and create substantial answers to the challenges of an emerging new world. The author cites examples of how some well-known companies like Netflix, Warby Parker, and Airbnb were able to disrupt the working model of their industries and emerge on the flip side as forerunners. There are massive opportunities in a changing world. This book provides us a framework on how to assess the risks, how to keep up with new trends, how to deliver more value and recognize unfulfilled sectors, and most of all, how to take collective action to have a better, sustainably prosperous world.
I noticed that the way it was written could still be condensed for more impact and readability. I was looking for more examples of disruptors in a more recent context. Airbnb could have been cited as a disruptor that got disrupted in the year of the pandemic. Nonetheless, the content is vital, insightful and with a clear purpose of helping entrepreneurs foresee imminent shifts in the way business will be conducted in the future.
This book is for entrepreneurs who want to become leaders in their business segment. It is for business owners who are interested to learn how to predict chances of future disruptions and how to combine emerging opportunities in the value chain with a new business model and technology. It is for people who are starting new businesses so that they know what segment they can enter for better chances of success. As Charles Darwin taught us: "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.â