The Four Stages of Disruption

by Steven Sinofsky

If we’re so aware of disruption then why do great product or business keep getting disrupted?
Disruption is described as a disturbance or problem that interrupts an event, activity or process. However, the disruption could also be problem-solving process.
Four stages of Disruption
1)Disruption of Incumbent:
When a new product, service or technology becomes available, a moment of disruption occurs. Incumbent’s attitudes towards technology disruption should range from New technologies are inferior. New products do not do all the things existing products do, or are inefficient. New services fail to address existing needs as well as what is already in place
2)Rapid Linear Evolution:
The product creators are still disruptors, innovating along the trajectory they set for themselves, with a strong focus on early-adopter customers, themselves disruptors. The disruptors are following their vision and continue to innovate. The incumbents continue to compare the products along their existing and successful path.
3)Appealing Convergence
The market begins to call for the replacement of the incumbent technology with the new technology of disruptors. In this phase, the entire market begins to adopt capabilities of the new product. Whereas the customer base of the incumbents start upside down as they are not battling with new changes coming up in market.
4)Complete Reimagination
Technology disruption is when a category or technology is reimagined from the ground up. The disruption has reached a point when companies have no choice but to accept reality, the industry has fundamentally changed. For incumbents they find themselves poorly positioned to take a strong market position.
There are many examples of this path to disruption in technology businesses,
People are using more of smart phone cameras instead of professional camera like Kodak, Nikon they were the leaders at their time.
Netflix is disruptive for cinema theatres and for Television channel. It has a low cost strategy and subscription based model.
Music apps like itunes and spotify are much cheaper and handy as compared to mp3, Ipods.
Being incumbent, one should look what is happening in today new world and try to innovate their products or services at most superior so that the changes in new world cannot create a hinderance in your path.
Being disruptor, the new changes or innovation made in new product gets more attracted towards customers. So now you become incumbent and another business try to take your competition. For everyone, timing is everything when to enter the market.
Actions of many parties create unique circumstances each and every time. There is no guarantee that new technologies and products will disrupt incumbents, just as there is no certainty that existing companies must be disrupted. Instead, product leaders look to patterns, and model their choices in an effort to create a new path.
Source,
https://a16z.com/2014/01/14/the-four-stages-of-disruption/