What protects against disruption?

Globalization and digitization are drivers that are currently causing high pressure for change in many established companies. The spectre of disruption is looming. Young, wild start-ups, often enough from California, are causing entire industries to reinvent and reposition themselves. But what is the real danger of companies like Kettler, Kodak and Loewe going under?

“Disruption always occurs when old systems become sluggish, self-righteous and future-blind,” says Mathias Horx of the Zukunftsinstitut. In addition, there are often organizational structures that make it difficult to react to changing market conditions.

However, many companies can also hold their own under the current market conditions and are vital, adaptive and innovative. The key to success here often lies in the corporate culture: customer centrification, a functioning idea management and the willingness to constantly optimise products and processes enable continuous evolution and protect against extinction.

Many of the “agile working methods” propagated today are based on these success factors:

· knowledge of customer needs
· willingness to try something new
· ability to iteratively – i.e. step by step – to optimise
· self-determination of employees

And if the right interior is added, then you are not the hunted but the designers of change.