Week 1

Well, i'm back to school! Yeah. Taking another tech-business module after entreprenuership minor! I have heard a lot of times about disruptive technology but the true understandings of that theory only after the class (I hope I get it right this time round.). Disruptive technology: An innovation that overturns the existing dominant technology in the market and most of the time, the disruptive technology might not be anything better in term of quality as compared to the existing dominant technology. In fact, I feel that it is more like business strategies that create the 'disruptive' impact as disruptive technology is like filling up the holes in the value chain of the market that are previously not filled by the big players. The diagram below shows the capability of a disrupter, who initially supplies the low-end consumers, increasing their profit margin to meet the demand of the high-end consumers.



In the lecture, Prof Gilbert has mentioned 5 key disruptions in the network industry (e-commerce).
1. Digitalization
2. Globalization
3. personalization
4. Mobility
5. Convergence

Personally, i think most people agree that digitalisation and globalisation have changed the way people gather and process information. Today, we talk about global industry, we are actually referring to the information-based or knowledge-based industry. We need information/knowledge to help us make critical business decision. People are searching information over the web because the information are not restricted by physical location (there is no need for you to go to National Library to borrow the book) and they are always there for you to access (no need to worry that the library book you want is being borrowed by someone else). A very good example to illustrate the 2 phenomenon is Amazon.com.

I see the last 3 disruptions as the recent trends that are happening in our today information economy. Nowadays, telcom providers can actually detect the location of you based on the signal that is transmitted by your mobile phones. This form of information is essential as it is about to tell the customer’s income pattern by the place they frequently go or their residential areas. From there on, businesses can actually customize their products or services to suit the needs of the consumers rather than standardizing their products to meet the general public. This is what we call personalization. This form of business behavior has ever become more prominent especially the rise of Internet.

Mobility is another big disruption in the technology market. Today, mobile phone is used as a standard for distant verbal communication rather then a fixed line phone. I call my mum through her mobile not through the home line. This is because the one I called is my mum (not my home!). As observed, fixed-line phone industry is greatly affected by the shift of consumer preference.

Lastly, we talk about convergence. A very good example is the use of wireless technology. Mobile phone today has many build-in features. I use my phone as an organizer, MP3 player and checking emails. These are some convergences happen in the mobile industry. The reading on Fixed Mobile Convergence (StarHub) has made me understand more on technology convergence and the necessary management reshuffling to meet the demand of such convergence.

In my own point of view, the disruptions that we talked about in the lecture suggest that all 5 of them are inter-linked with one another and by putting all 5 of them together, it suggests that e-commerce today is highly interactive i.e. a system of immediate two-way communication rather than a system of one-way communication in a schedule basis. This brings to the next big thing in the e-commerce: Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is a concept of delivering highly-personalized web application to the end-user. Blogs and wikis are some of the Web 2.0 tools. To put it simply, Web 2.0 is all about YOU! The end-user! From my own point of view, the true potential is the capability of executing computing application using internet browser. Example: Meebo.com, a company that collates many instant messengers such as MSN and Yahoo! Messenger into one website. In another words, there is no need to download any messenger software to do instant messaging. I believe this will pose possible disruption in software industry.

Join 2nd Life!!