It is hard now to recall that someone as wise as Clayton Christensen said at the time of its release that the iPhone “wasn’t truly disruptive.”
It was “a product that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat,” and that “its probability of success is going to be limited.”
What Christensen missed was that Apple had created not just an industrial-era product, but a digital ecosystem, in which developers kept producing fresh innovations—known as apps—that customers would love so much they would hesitate to quit for anything less.
It was a multi-function device that devastated a whole array of products and services.
In this new game, innovation can transform almost any product and disrupt the dynamic of industrial-era competition.
In the digital age, a car can shift from being a static mechanical transportation device to a dynamic entertainment and business center on wheels that continues to evolve, long after the original purchase, as software updates are streamed to the user over many years.
Domino’s chance of being one of the long-term winners in the digital era will depend on besting firms like DoorDash.
The digital era has emerged through combination of new technology, particularly computers and the Internet, and different kind of management.
The digital era came of age once firms figured out the principles of business agility, with an obsessional focus on customer value, and doing work in teams as part of a network of competence.