Some of the world's most successful companies: Amazon, Netflix, PayPal, Easyjet and AirBnB, to name but a few, have disrupted their respective industries by unbundling the packaged product on offer from larger incumbents and initially competing on the basis of one part of the package.
Disruptors can have an easier time where incumbent and monolithic companies fail to recognise the mood music of the market and rely on their hard-won legacy. It's not that these innovators and disruptors are producing new goods and services - before Amazon there were shops, before Netflix, the cinema, before PayPal, banks...
Readers of this blog will know, already, that I am really talking about Universities.
The thing is that others, and not always Universities, are providing learning and even getting paid for it. They are disruptors because they focus on one aspect of the University experience - rather than trying to replicate the whole thing, the campus, the gowns, the qualifications...Instead, they focus on timely, self-paced, flexible and accessible learning. The disruptors undercut prices (not difficult), use teaching staff in a gig economy way, enable delivery in areas and use technologies that traditional Universities do not.
Wake up and smell the virtual coffee?
Disruptors can have an easier time where incumbent and monolithic companies fail to recognise the mood music of the market and rely on their hard-won legacy. It's not that these innovators and disruptors are producing new goods and services - before Amazon there were shops, before Netflix, the cinema, before PayPal, banks...
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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY
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Readers of this blog will know, already, that I am really talking about Universities.
The thing is that others, and not always Universities, are providing learning and even getting paid for it. They are disruptors because they focus on one aspect of the University experience - rather than trying to replicate the whole thing, the campus, the gowns, the qualifications...Instead, they focus on timely, self-paced, flexible and accessible learning. The disruptors undercut prices (not difficult), use teaching staff in a gig economy way, enable delivery in areas and use technologies that traditional Universities do not.
Wake up and smell the virtual coffee?
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