The Effects of Disruptive Technologies - Essay Example

The Effects of Disruptive Technologies The Effects of Disruptive Technologies Disruptive technologies are innovations that create new markets and applications by replacing already established ones. In business, disruptive technologies have profound impacts over the long run. As a result, it is worth researching these impacts in an effort to determine the nature of these technologies. In addition, these impacts help in determining the future of business practices and ways organizations can prepare for these practices and models today. First, disruptive technologies cause businesses to transform as “big data” grow past particular vertical markets (Manyika, Chui, Bughin, Dobbs, Bisson, and Marrs, 2013). In several sectors, multitudes of data produced inside corporations will have the potential to turn into an individual, unique commodity. For instance, when the EU made access to information regarding public transport open to everyone, it supported the stimulation of a small sector of app designers that offer data services like train-planning apps. Such disruptive innovations arise to help other companies deal with data overload and extract better customer information. Some organizations have been very successful in developing the efficiency of their ongoing business data models. Secondly, disruptive technologies lower barriers to entry into some industries and markets or economies (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2012). Since a number of sectors are more difficult to disrupt than other industries, new competitors can enter them easily. For instance, some new competitors went into the vehicle sector with hopes of setting in motion a new series of electric cars over the past ten years. However, some organizations need a great deal of physical substructure such as a vehicle plant, a medication plant, or extraction sites that do not endure much change. With disruptive technologies, the immense sums of capital needed to take off in such sectors no longer become a barrier for entry. Developments in cooperation amongst organizations cause more change the manner in which they practice business because of disruptive technologies (Manyika et al., 2013). These developments restructure organizations through cooperation solutions that cause numerous businesses to be smaller. These solutions make it more effective to address professional external partners for a variety of unimportant roles. However, disruptive innovations such as the internet have decreased external expenses so that businesses can shrink. The internet has digitized business functions such as bookkeeping, marketing, and clerical work over the past fifteen years, causing managers to tend to these new functions. A fourth effect of disruptive technologies is diminishing middle management. Disruptive technologies have caused businesses to revise the organizational chart by removing middle management (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2012). Disruptive innovations are the new profound, overall managers because they facilitate increased self-management amongst work groups. This revision is part of an overall levelling of pecking orders within organizations. Individual employees have become more and more empowered to make decisions because of disruptive innovations such as mobile technology and innovative analytics inside a system established by executive management. Clearly, disruptive technologies have allowed an all-inclusive devolution of business administration to the edge. Fifthly, disruptive technologies have caused all businesses to compete in a worldwide employment market. Disruptive technologies hastened globalization trends during the early 1990s with innovations such as the internet peaking the trend during the early 2000s (Manyika et al., 2013). From an employment point of view, disruptive technologies have presented businesses with the challenge of forming a staff that is more adjusted to a purely digital business. This challenge brings about another issue of increased longevity, which is longer workdays issued by more businesses today under fixed contracts. This causes many professionals using disruptive innovations to become freelance workers. Professionals are increasingly becoming entrepreneurs outsourcing their skills to big businesses. Disruptive innovations continue causing decentralization and businesses embrace them because of cost tensions. Lastly, businesses’ abilities to tackle overload individually is another impact of disruptive innovations (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2012). Disruptive innovations have freed employees from their fixed workplaces, enabling them to work more openly. At the same time, it is harder than ever to disconnect in a business world that is always on because of innovations such as the internet, wireless communication grids, and the internet of things. Fulltime employees seem to be engaged in work at all times. Disruptive technologies are facilitating a 24/7 culture as a vital social and business change where home is not a sanctuary anymore. A similar effect is working in a surrounding that is disrupted continuously by emails and immense flows of data that make it hard to carry out cognitive practices. Disruptive Technologies in the Publishing Sector Digital self-publishing will be the major disruptive technology for the publishing industry. Digital self-publishing is forming an influential new position in digital literature that is threatening the conventional sector. The publishing world considered digital self-publishing a vanity title but have today already began flourishing by dodging the publishing institution (Fowler and Trachtenberg, 2010). This technology is the leading periphery of an innovative disruption that is easing the traditional publisher’s dominance on the literature market. The way blogs challenged news houses and YouTube did conventional television entertainment is similar to how digital self-publishing threatens the publishing sector today. Another likely disruptive technology in the publishing field is eBooks. Even though eBooks have already taken off in today’s literature market, they are bound to do more harm to future publishers (Moss, 2014). Arguably, many publishers in the west are still blind to the impending momentous growth of eBooks and the immense harm it may do to their businesses and practice. These publishers still see their ability to team up great writers as a barrier against eBooks. In the future, such publishers will clash head-on with huge eBook retailers such as Amazon or Apple in an effort to channel electronic distribution of their works to avid readers across the world. Other disruptive innovations that may occur in the field of publishing include online teaching, data analytics, print-on-demand business paradigms, and freelance blogging or authorship (Fowler and Trachtenberg, 2010). In conclusion, disruptive technologies are essentially innovations that form new markets by replacing the old ones. Such innovations have had various impacts on business practices over the past two decades. The effects are transformation of businesses as “big data” grows past particular vertical markets, lowering barriers to entry into some industries and markets or economies, advancements in cooperation amongst organizations, diminishing middle management, increased competition in a worldwide employment market, and tackling work overload individually. In the publishing sector, two possibly major disruptive technologies are digital self-publishing and eBooks. References Economist Intelligence Unit. (2012). Agent of Change: The future of technology disruption in business. The economist, technology frontiers, 50 pages. Fowler, G. A. and Trachtenberg, J. A. (2010). Vanity Press Goes Digital. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704912004575253132121412028 Manyika, J., Chui, M., Bughin, J., Dobbs, R., Bisson, P., and Marrs, A. (2013). Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy. Mckinsey&Company. Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/disruptive_technologies Moss, R. (2014). Disruptive Technology And The Publishing Industry: A Look Backward. Optimity Advisors. Retrieved from http://blog.optimityadvisors.com/?p=750 Read More