Cape Town - Looking at what uber has done to the taxi industry and at how Air Bnb has shaken up the hotel business, companies would be wise not to dismiss Dion Chang too quickly when he warns: “If your industry has not yet been disrupted, it is only a matter of time!”
The leading South African innovator and trend analyst, speaking at the opening session at the 8th SA Innovation Summit in Cape Town on Wednesday, fast forwarded through very convincing analysis with impressive examples to a not-too-distant future of “transhumanism”, where humans start to converge with machines. Again people would be well advised not to dismiss this too quickly.
South Africans were very quick to dismiss hyper modern innovations, says Chang, they will say, “Oh but that couldn’t happen here.” But, he adds, giving examples of ingestible technology that could make the healthiest person’s head spin, it is on its way. Care data is already being collected and used for health purposes in the form of wearable tech.
We are at what Chang describes as “a very interesting time in history”. The often predicted collapse of capitalism is already under way, he says, and we are moving from a post-industrial age to a knowledge, technology and metadata era. This change is already underway although we have not yet framed it in a meaningful way. This, he says, explains the confusion and disorder around the world.
Today’s fastest growing businesses have indeed torn up the old scripts, both capitalist and socialist. They are powering ahead without any struggles about the ownership of things: uber doesn’t own any cars; Air bnb has no rooms, or beds even. This collapse of value chains results in mass disruption of traditional businesses.
Mega-trends such as digitisation and social media as well as non-tech disruptions such as recession continue to change the social and business landscape faster than the experts can name the new trends and eras. Authorities are also well behind the innovation curve in terms of new legislation and regulation. This adds to the confusion and disorder we feel in society.
The happily disrupted consumers, however, wait for nothing. They are able to access more of what they want more easily, faster and at a lower price. Chang says a business has only three seconds, five if they are lucky, to stop a customer swiping their message off the screen. This is where business needs to sit up and take notice.
Other challenges created in this wave of disruption is that a company’s rivals are no longer others in the same industry or sector. It is also no longer a fight of big versus small. Competition can come from anywhere as outsiders shake sectors up, and speed and agility often wins out over size.
Chang is also quick to point out that one person’s idea of a threat looks like an opportunity to someone else, especially if that person is an innovator and their business is agile. Change is opportunity for Chang, whose company Flux Trends specialises in analysing trends and guiding companies through new and changing landscapes.
Something that we are very good at in Africa, says Chang, is solution-based innovation. This, he says, is a fairly reliable route to success. “Solve a problem and you have hit gold.”
ANA