While news like this instantly shines the spotlight on Netflix, it is the historical decisions made by the company to continuously disrupt that have ensured its success where others have failed.

In this article we look at the role of digital disruption across industries.

While disruption is often spoken about as large scale change undertaken at a specific point in time, the most significant disruption occurs through continuous change. When companies are able to understand an industry’s value chain and then continuously reinvent it piece by piece through digital technologies, this is when large scale digital disruption is possible.

Digital Disruption Spreads Through Value Chains

Take the airline industry as an example.  Disruption took hold at one place in a value chain, and then spread to adjacent steps.

The game changed when customers began booking flights online.  This occurred at the start of the value chain, at the moment of Purchase.  Then came online check-in and self-serve kiosks at airports. Now digital disruption is happening in the flight cabin itself, with WIFI, on-demand tablet entertainment, in-seat connectivity, and exploration of virtual reality for travelers.²

Virgin America is recognised as a leader in the industry and has drawn upon its agility in digital to connect many of these innovations for customers.  Beyond digital, it has also tied digital innovation to support wider customer experiences, including great music when you board the flight and entertaining safety videos.  In this way digital is just one aspect of Virgin America’s personality.

Of course no one company is immune from change within a value chain.  And just as airlines have innovated, so too they have had to deal with disruption further up the value chain.  Now at the Pre-Purchasing step, customers use services like Expedia and Adioso to compare a wide variety of prices and offers across airlines – all enabled via digital technologies.

In isolation, many of these developments feel like incremental innovations.  But taken in totality, with the period of the last decade compressed, the entire experience of flying is dramatically different due to these changes.

Leverage and Evolution as the New Platforms for Competition

Netflix used leverage to grow its business.  Netflix had amassed 4.2 million subscribers to its online DVD ordering business in 2005, before it launched its movie streaming business in 2007. Later in 2011 it begin to acquire original content, with series like House of Cards.  In so doing it used its streaming business and subscriber base as leverage to evolve further up the value chain, from distribution into content creation.³

Netflix didn’t quit there.  It continued to spot opportunities to make the experience of watching content even better for customers.

Through continuous digital evolution it introduced innovations such as support for multiple viewing profiles, a sophisticated recommendation engine for subscribers (so that its film-picks have the best possible match-rate for viewer preferences) and new forms of application development to ensure Netflix will play smoothly over thousands of device types.⁴

Incredibly, Netflix’s 65 million members can all watch high quality content closely fitting their expectations, sourced and recommended by Netflix, at home or on the move, advertisement-free and for a fraction of the price of the competition. This is disruption of every step of the value chain.

Winning Brands Are Those That Tie Digital Innovation with an Ongoing Promise of Experience

When we read mission statement examples from the world’s leading companies, many of these are deeply connected to digital disruption.

Digital innovation is enough to capture the attention of customers, but is it enough to keep it?

We’ve seen hundreds of examples of companies that launch a new mobile app, or a new website. For a short time these innovations ignite imaginations and attract customers.

But why do some customers stay when others leave?

What makes customers stay connected is where the company can connect further digital innovation with a consistent experience.

When Uber launched its first service in San Francisco it was the new kid on the block.  And after a time it became a brand unto itself, with its own loyal base of fans.

Uber’s customers told the story of how easy it was to use the service, how incredible it was pinpoint the exact location of their driver. If Uber was not able to sustain this promise when it launched other products, it would have fractured its brand.

Source: Mark Warner “Uber…” www.flickr.com/photos/senatormarkwarner/19588717540/

UberX succeeded because it maintained Uber’s ‘experience promise’ with customers.  It brought all the convenience of the premium Uber service, less some of the frills, and fulfilled expectations at a lower price tag.  It did this in close rapport with the brand that Uber had become.

UberX didn’t feel like we were getting a completely new product, but rather the innovation of an existing product we had come to love.⁵

Even when Uber launched a completely different type of service in the form of UberRush, it preserved its brand. UberRush gives customers a simple way to order a courier service and full knowledge of when their parcel will be collected, just as Uber does for drivers.

What is interesting is that Uber has drawn on its unique competencies (in branding, mapping and moving people) to create services that jump across industries entirely, from providing competition for taxis to couriers.⁶

This is the next wave of digital disruption that will occur, where innovations hop between industries and value chains to bring new services to customers.

Some of these changes are captured in this slide.

References

1. http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/NFLX/454272674x0x839404/C3CE9EE2-C8F3-40A1-AC9A-FFE0AFA20B21/FINAL_Q2_15_Letter_to_Shareholders_With_Tables_.pdf
2. http://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-samsung-unveil-industry-first-virtual-reality-experience-for-travellers
3. https://pr.netflix.com/WebClient/loginPageSalesNetWorksAction.do?contentGroupId=10477
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix#Original_programming
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_(company)
6. http://blog.uber.com/RUSH

The post Digital Disruption: How Continuous Evolution is Reshaping Industries and Brands appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

At the time, companies like ODesk (now called Upwork) and eLance were leading the way for outsourcing services. These companies connected suppliers with companies and individuals, making it possible to outsource specific tasks through to entire website builds.

There is no question the digital economy has fueled the outsourcing revolution. What I’ve found surprising is the recent trend toward Personal Outsourcing (the concept of shifting discreet chunks of work that we would usually do as individuals, to others).

In this post we take a look at a few start-ups making headway in the Personal Outsourcing revolution.

Wonder

Wonder helps people get their questions answered through effective research. Using the service is simple….just pose a question via the site, and Wonder will assign a researcher to research and respond to the question.

Pricing for Wonder is based on the number of questions you want to be solved – $39.99 a month will get you 5 responses, $99.99 will get you 15, and the bulk package is $299.99 for 50 requests a month.

Wonder even has an option to ask a first question for free.  Give it a try here.

It looks like the service is receiving high demand, because it took me several days for me to receive a response to my trial question. I was very happy though with what I received!

Jarvis

Jarvis was founded in July 2013 as an “assistant to your virtual life”. Jarvis is a tech-enabled person that helps coordinate people’s lives through completing tasks and errands via SMS requests.

Jarvis will help you do everything from booking restaurants to finding a gift for your best friend’s b’day.

Jarvis runs on a subscription revenue model. The company offers a 7-day free trial. After that, it’s $99 per month for the starter package, $199 for the executive package and $599 for the jetsetter package.

Magic

Magic was founded in February, 2015. I first read about Magic and its co-founder Mike Chen (@mikechen) through Wired, and was impressed how a simple idea had suddenly gone so viral it was struggling to keep up with demand.

It is similar to Jarvis and has trained operators available day and night to answer customers’ requests, also via SMS. They order what you need when you want it, using ancillary services like Instacart and Postmates.

It’s free to chat with Magic, but users are charged per request. Their total price is confirmed and then billed and the tip is included.

Magic charges per transaction, making their revenue model a basic sales model.

Alfred

Alfred, founded in September, 2013, is a different concept than Jarvis and Magic. Alfred has raised $12m in capital and provides customers with a way to do weekly errands without lifting a finger. The company setup Hello Alfred this year, which is a portal that allows customers to access the company’s services on-demand.  The service pairs busy career people with personal assistants who will pick up dry cleaning, get groceries, do laundry and other household-related tasks. This is leaning towards a traditional personal assistant role, versus more of a virtual assistant.

Their pricing model is subscription-based, charging weekly. The Alfred Tidy-Up is $15 per week, Alfred Basics is $22 per week, and the Alfred Service is $42 per week. The company also offers ‘a la carte’ (per transaction) pricing.

A final note

What is so interesting about some of these services, is that they depart from the purely digital world, to the offline world also. This reflects just how much attitudes are changing.

A decade ago many of us shunned the concept of buying clothes online. It seemed to be a great risk compared to going in-store. But of course now online retailers are among the fasted growing eCommerce businesses of any industry.

Undoubtedly, many of us have similar reservations about booking help with ‘home duties’ through a service like Alfred. But one has to wonder – in this world of increasing automation and home connectivity – whether these concerns will one day be overcome in the same way they were for online retailing.

The post 4 Hot New Starts Ups In The Personal Outsourcing Revolution appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.