The Age of Disruptions

Understanding the Need for Liquidity: The Age of Disruptions

We are in an era of unprecedented change, and our research suggests that we are in an age of disruptions. First, traditional firms sought scale, but scale reduces the speed and flexibility of firms. Since most competitors had the same scale, disruptions were rare. In the last two decades, global connectivity and digital technologies allowed firms to both have scale and speed, enhancing competitive disruptions. Firms such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Uber emerged, which devastated industries such as newspapers, advertising, retail, malls, and car rental firms.

Second, environmental disruptions driven by health, financial, and security crises have disrupted industries. In addition, the global connectivity of people and markets has amplified local issues to global issues and introduced disruptions at an unprecedented scale. The latest disruption is the Covid-19 pandemic that has crippled global economies.

In seeking to understand disruptions, we have developed a framework that explains disruptions and the dramatic effects of non-linear and digital disruptions. Non-linear disruptions typically emerge from the environment and rapidly change customer and market environments. Digital disruptions emerge from technology as it shifts how customers purchase and firms conduct business. To read the details of our framework, please click on the download buttons to access the latest white paper on disruptions.