Disruption

Embracing change, protecting values

A disruptor is a person, company, or thing that changes the traditional way an industry operates…  Companies like Uber or Netflix have replaced older business models with new, efficient ones. These are the ‘market shakers’ and then there are the ‘change makers’ – leaders who break traditional corporate rules to drive fast progress and collaboration.

Just about every business is going through some kind of transformation. The best leadership teams understand that what works today won’t necessarily work tomorrow; they are highly aware of the potential threats facing their business and know that some disruption to the organisational status quo will be needed if they are to stay in front of the competition.

In Bowens case – and we are a very traditional type of business – our ‘values’ are very important to us. Our people values, our wish and our efforts to retain good people remain fundamental to our thinking going forward. I believe we are ethical and honest in our dealings with both staff and customers. What concerns me is that the ‘disruptors’ will continue to challenge business and industry leaders who have built everything around proprietary processes.

“Our people values, our wish and our efforts to retain good people remain fundamental to our thinking going forward.”

I read an article recently headed “Should we be afraid of Elon Musk?” If ever there was a disruptor, he is one! His record of being right about technology in fields such as electric cars, rockets and satellite communications has confounded other engineers and entrepreneurs. He understands that Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) poses a double challenge to the human mind. Not only will the most advanced models soon be able to think better than people, but AI has consequences for humanity which are so uncertain, so potentially vast and approaching at such a rapid pace that even the brave (Musk) flinch!

Elon Musk is one of a handful of men who are pioneering AI and who thereby have an outside influence on its trajectory. In his first paradox, the powerful Musk expects to become powerless because he believes that nobody can stop the thinking capacity of AI from exceeding that of humanity within five years and dwarfing it within ten. Just as AIs will dominate the digital realm, so legions of AI-powered robots will dominate the physical world, he predicts. At the same time, he wants to join with AI pioneers from America and China and do what they can do to vet each other’s models – their collective task he believes would be to make AI benign by imbuing them with a love of the truth and a desire for humanity to prosper. Governments, he thinks, should provide the muscle by agreeing to step in if any pioneer defies the oligarchy.

I have blatantly plagiarised with this bulletin of mine, but I do so because I don’t have the knowledge of AI yet fear that AI is changing our world and will affect the business of Bowens/ Timbertruss.  John and Andy Bowen and a very competent team from our Information Technology Department are fully ‘into’ how AI can be used to make our company more efficient and cost-effective without disrupting the principles that have carried us through 132 years of operating.

We want to be disruptors ourselves through innovative use of technology and business models that challenge the status quo within the building supplies industry – in all its forms. The Rethink Building Hub at Hastings (and promoted at our Expo) is exactly about innovation that, while short of being a disruptor, will at least alert our builders to thinking and acting in a way that will sustain and grow the industry we all depend on.

“We want to be disruptors ourselves through innovative use of technology and business models that challenge the status quo”

And further to that, it is our customers who may transform and force us into disruptive action by dictating a demand-driven relationship. In this age of instant information, better-informed, less loyal customers may be willing and able to go elsewhere for what they want. Harnessing this disruptive power by anticipating what customers want is a skill in itself. With every prospective innovation, we must look for the early signals of new customer habits. The way people embrace or reject innovation, and the logic underlying their response, will tell us a great deal about whether it’s the next ‘thing’. 

Another area of ‘disruption’ is more concerning in many ways and that is cyber criminality. The recent attack on the Nick Scali Furniture network was frightening and a reminder to our company that we need to strengthen and protect all customer and staff information that could be used by a hacker towards a ransom demand (as happened with Scali’s).

Technology will continue to be both a source of disruption and an important way of turning disruption into opportunity. The challenge for all, including Bowens, will be how to spot, track, develop, build, acquire and implement the ‘right’ winning technologies.

Human judgement will remain central, while AI extends the reach, speed and precision of every interaction. The next generation of customer relationships will be about technology amplifying creativity, trust remaining the defining currency, and marketing becoming more human.