Disruptive Technologies and Innovation in Business

This article discusses the concept of disruptive technologies and their impact on innovation in business. It explores examples of companies like Starbucks, Tesla, and Amazon that are leveraging disruptive technologies such as self-driving cars, blockchain, and AI. The article also explains the difference between technology-push and market-pull innovation and highlights the importance of staying ahead of technological advancements in order to remain competitive in the market.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT 0
IS strategy, MANAGEMENT and acquisition

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1) Innovation is the process of developing and executing a new idea and convert it into
useful products, services and methods of operations. Innovation possesses importance
for both established and new enterprises in extent with dynamic and changing
environment (Teece, 2010). It is easier for an established to pursue innovation as they
have adequate capital to invest into Research and Development department, however,
considering start-ups, they are required to come up with new and creative idea in the
market to ensure their growth in the future. In respect to significance of innovation, it
is vital in workplace as it offers a company an edge to penetrate the market faster and
also provides a better connection to the developing markets especially into developed
countries (Dahlander and Gann, 2010).
When it comes to innovation, Starbucks is well-known brand doing constant
operations in both emerging and developed markets. However, for Starbucks,
innovation is only a temporary advantage through as innovation is not rare in the
contemporary day coffee industry. Many of the rivals of Starbucks are innovative
such as Dunkin Donuts has started offering lunch pockets so that new market
segments can be captured. Starbucks Card presents a great gift as well as giving
customer convenience. Starbucks keeps up with the technology-driven world and thus
offering free music and app downloads every week.
Starbucks product innovation also includes their commitments to sustainability that
focuses forward to reduce the impact on the environment in extent with leadership
efforts and sustainable sourcing (Foster, 2018).
It can be said that Starbucks innovation benefits the company in several ways such as
grabbing more customers and market share, helping to stand out from the competitors,
meeting customer needs before realization and attracting the best talent.
2) The way to conduct the business is changed with the combination of business and
technological innovation and such combination is referred as disruptive technologies.
Mostly, disruptive technologies are considered as substitute products which habitually
replaces an existing process or technology. In addition, disruptive technologies can
expand the market considering a product having less cost and functionality (Latzer,
2009). One of the best examples could be birth of personal computer market.
For any organisation, disruptive technology can help to stay on edge of the market
and developing new products and market which match the demand of future
customers. Hence, if a business firm is cannot effectively offer what an upcoming

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consumer will demand, they will surely fall in the competitive market landscape. The
changes in technology in extent with disruptive technologies possess two
characteristics. At first, these changes bring out different set of performance attributes
that are not presently of any value to the consumers. Secondly, these changes arise so
rapidly that the organisation in the same industry found it difficult to match their
management practices according to contemporary trends (Heger and Rohrbeck, 2012).
The pace of innovation is incredibly fast and some of the most disruptive technology
includes Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, Blockchain
technology and advanced virtual reality.
When talking about disruptive innovation, Tesla comes first as a powerful new form
of energy. The company takes the quest for next level technology and sustainability to
another level (Mangram, 2012). Other than manufacturing electric cars in the world,
the company are pushing boundaries to a next level of what vehicles can do by
literally, sending them into space. Another company includes Smarter, which is the
first renowned organisation that brings the industry innovation of “IoT” to the
customer marketplace. With their disruptive innovation, the business has grown with
a simple idea without any sources of outside funding. Another disruptive brand
example can be taken out with Airbnb that offers an opportunity for various
homeowners to rent out their apartments and homes to the travellers at low prices.
The company have done this innovation back in 2008, where the brand acted as a
marketplace for universal adventure.
The brand having disruptive innovation and technology has never looked to be fit in
industry-current space rather than they found ways to stand out, instead.
3) The disruptive technologies are being used by various contemporary organisations in
extent with improving the quality of life of people, economy and business models of
organisations (Williams et al, 2009). Using the case study of Amazon, one of the
biggest e-commerce giant, it will be explained how the organisation is using
disruptive technology to raise customer expectations of the market. Earlier, Amazon
was only reactive to the demands of the customers but nowadays, the company is
trying to predict the customer demand by using the data generated over the internet
(Marr, 2018). Sometimes, they try to ship goods even before the customer come to a
final decision to buy the product and all it is related to predictive big data analytics.

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Amazon also utilizes Big Data to track and secure its billions of products in the retail
stores that are present in its distribution centres around the globe (Marr, 2018). The
web administration interface of Amazon i.e. S3, all item list is being stored which can
be utilized at any place from the internet. It is much powerful as it can compose, erase
and read objects up to 5TB of each information.
Disruptive brands are different from ordinary brands as they get people engaged and
immersed in the brand’s equity.
4) In technology push innovation, research and development or a technology
breakthrough drive the launch of a new product. It focuses on technical issues and
problems and thus develops an innovative, technical solution to offer in the
marketplace (Horbach, Rammer and Rennings, 2012). Example of technology-push
innovation can be – Apple Newton PDA in 1993 or the Samsung Galaxy with
touchscreen in 2012. Technology push innovation usually not involves market
research and it tends to start with an organisation developing innovative technology
and applying it to a product. Afterwards, the company then markets the products.
In terms of market pull innovation, the market demand for a solution to a problem or
need in the marketplace triggers the development of a new product (Brem and Voigt,
2009). In market pull approach, needs of external market have recognised that trigger
a search for scientific and technical knowledge. It leads innovative offerings in the
marketplace. Example of market-pull innovation can be – miniaturization of digital
cameras and photo editing software.
Market pull usually results in incremental innovation whereas technology push is
more likely to involve radical innovation. In market pull innovation, a product or
range of products is developed to resolve the original needs and here focus groups are
often central while testing a concept design or existing products.
5) One of the keys to any successful business is being able to come up with new ideas
and the process of bringing those ideas to reality is called innovation. However,
disruptive innovation is one step further where the new products or services start out
at the bottom of the marketplace however, end up displacing their competitor.
One of the disruptive technology is introduced by Tesla in the market place in form of
self-driving cars or driverless cars (Greenblatt, 2016). Other than Tesla, various
companies are now working on developing vehicles that are capable of navigating

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themselves through traffic conditions on all roads. As per current phase in the market,
Major trend is the electric vehicles, however, the autonomous industry views
driverless cars as the evolution of cars with computers and in the same way, computer
industry views driverless cars as computer with wheels.
Tesla is on constant edge of innovation and their self-driving electric vehicles are also
called as their source of competitive advantage for the company. The disruptive
innovation in respect to self-driving cars is huge and to the car industry (Konig and
Neumayr, 2017). From perspective of any automobile manufacturer, it would be
beneficial for the organisation to invest in the production of driverless cars. This type
of innovation could be disruptive and even radical to some contributors to the
automobile industry as it allows the organisation to still be the main competitor. All
organisations want to be successful but because of disruptive innovation, many
companies found difficulty in survival for a long period of time. Taking example of
Kodak which is one of the most popular company and also comes in Forbes top 100
list. However, the company is not able to maintain its position for long enough time,
when cheap smartphones disrupt the whole market.
6) Technology is evolving at a full pace. Various innovative product and capabilities are
coming in to commonplace realities and the rate at which technology develops only
seems to be getting exponentially faster. Various advancement in technology have
significantly influenced the business and consumer expectations from past several
years and now different types of technological change are disrupting the market in
extent with innovation. Some of these are outlined below,
 Self-driving cars – These cars are the intersection of personal transportation and
technology giving personalised experience with self-driving cars along with
accident avoidance with and with major artificial amendments in the whole car
industry.
 Voice Interface technology – It is AI-based command formula that changed user
experience in extending with their daily lives as well as corporate practices. This
technology is helping users to complete their simple and basic task with a drastic
shift of new experiences. Some of the companies are adopting this technology
such as Google, Apple, Amazon and so on. For instance, Amazon is using Alexa
in their various devices such as Echo, a personal voice assistant.

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 Block chain technology – This technology underlying Bitcoin and provides a
network that enables various stakeholders to transact with trust, security and
anonymity (Nofer et al, 2017).
 3-D printers – This technology are capable of generating countless three-
dimensional objects. These objects include but are not limited to medical
implants, jewellery, football boots designed and customised mobile phones.
Moreover, it also provides new solutions to health problems and also allows
engineers and doctors to partner to rebuild limbs faster and cheaper especially for
the children’s.
 Artificial Intelligence – It is one of the biggest revolution in technology over last
five years. AI drive the customer data and learn and execute considering various
dimensions. It is also termed a legacy digital assets that enhance customer
experience with more tailored information.
 RFID Tags – RFID stand to radio frequency identification tags that store
information and transfer it to a nearby reader with the help of radio frequency
electromagnetic fields. In every industry, there are multiple applications used by
the organisation from offshore drilling to retail (Zhu, Mukhopadhyay and Kurata,
2012).

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