Words like “disruption” and “game-changer” have recently become part of standard management vocabulary. From financial services to farming, energy to entertainment, communications to computing, we read stories everyday of “game-changing” events and companies. So often these are presented with great wisdom in hindsight, whereas what practicing executives need is better competitive foresight – the ability to see and analyze game-changing signals in advance, figure out their consequences, and decide what to do about them. In this wide ranging session, Gordon Hewitt will argue that disruption is the inevitable result of markets now evolving as dynamic, complex adaptive systems. The challenge requires executives to acquire a new world view of what competition, strategy, organizations and leadership are all about in a disruptive world, and to develop a high “DQ” (disruptive quotient) score.
Professor Gordon Hewitt is one of the original and foremost thinkers in this area, and is recognized as a worldwide authority by senior executives, CEOs and Boards. In a keynote speech to a recent global business conference he argued, “the phenomenon of disruption is like waking up slowly and painfully from a bad dream and discovering that the competitive map deeply embedded in your brain has evaporated. The conventional market definition, structure and boundaries are no longer clear; market share is no longer a reliable measure of market influence; your long-standing business model is being replaced; novel ways of accessing and retaining customers have demolished outdated distribution systems. Worse, unconventional competitors who don’t have a fraction of your “industry knowledge” have suddenly parked their tanks on your front lawn.”
