Disruption survey reveals attitudes of businesses

Analysis of the latest research on how business views technology disruption conducted by Futurum has been analyzed by a company called Savoy Stewart, and the results are interesting.

Technology disruption is defined as ‘technology that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or creates a completely new industry’. It was discovered that 1 in 4 businesses still struggle to keep up with the times and thrive from digital disruption. Despite this, whilst weighing up the opportunity vs. threat of technological disruption, 39.6% of businesses feel that it provides them with new opportunities to improve and grow as a company. 

Savoy Stewart determined that it all comes down to the companies approach to technology adaption, with 24.4% surprisingly, admitting to having no approach. 50.4% of businesses reported having a proactive ‘opportunity-minded’ approach, ensuring they remain competitive and up to date. 25.1% of businesses seemingly adopted a passive ‘wait and see’ approach.

Another unsurprising fact was that 30.7% of companies felt the impact of technological change over the past three years has made them less competitive. 

23.4% are a little concerned about their ability to adapt over the next three years, indicating their company is adaptable but passive in their approach, which is close in correlation to the number of businesses that rated themselves to be pure ‘Digital Followers’, at 22%. 

12% of businesses stated they are very worried about their ability to adapt to technological change. 

There is currently a high-stakes global game of digital disruption, fuelled by the latest wave of technological advances spurred by A.I and data analytics. As a result, business models within industry sectors are inevitably changing. Despite the fact 19.3% of companies feel that the pace of technological change has made them significantly more competitive in the past three years, a large majority of companies are still struggling to keep up with this change. 

The window of opportunity to gain competitive advantage generally falls inside a window of three years. It is, therefore, critical for business leaders to understand the value of technologically proactive leadership and operational agility. The faster a company can use technology disruption to their advantage, the more likely it is to surge ahead of its competitors.