Disruptive Technologies, Innovation and Global Redesign

Top

Abstract

Innovations from disruptive technologies drive new opportunities through provision of higher-valued products and services. They create new markets and reshape established ones, enabling changes across industries, and consequently impact the competitive landscape through formation of new business models. Disruptive innovations have recently been applied to a wide variety of sectors such as consumer electronics, micro-lending, mobile banking, portable water filters, and cell phones, which continue to capture market share in the global telecommunication industry. Data shows that innovation correlates with better quality of life when it diffuses into societies and economies. The rich nations see it as a way to stave off poverty while the poor ones are depending on it to accelerate economic growth. Indeed, it is the gun-powder of the knowledge world, at firm, nation, and regional levels. This chapter explains how it grasps the demand of a non-mainstream market, survey the unknown market, and over time, lead the whole market, resulting in cultural, social, and economic changes. A closer examination of the five habits, usually associated with the purveyors of innovation, using the gaming industry, the fastest-growing mass media and entertainment industry, is provided.