Evolution of Industries

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

Societal Trends:
Ageing populations, a declining birth rate so fewer workers available, growth in home healthcare sector
Exploding populations, more workers so less automation and productivity stagnation

Technology trends:
Speed of technology adoption is increasing

Industry trends:
Automation
3D printing and additive manufacturing

Economic, political, and environmental trends:
Climate change rapidly accelerating
Economy disruptions such as Brexit
Covid-19, blocking the Suez Canal

Question 2

Evolution

Answer 2

Era of disruption- dominant design standards- incremental innovation- maturity

Products tend to evolve into one dominant design gradually
Modularisation: specialist part suppliers
Complementary assets dominate: manufacturing, brand images
Maturity can be defined in a few different ways:
Base: essential to the business, widespread, little competetive impact
Key: In use in product, basis of competetive differentiation
Paving: Potential ‘game changer’,
Emerging: early research
Sustaining:
improving the performance of existing products
Disruptive Technologies
May perform initially worse but presents a new value proposition

Question 3

Why is the Evolution of Markets Hard to Predict

Answer 3

Supply
Supply and demand do not move in synch - any stage of the adoption cycle may be prolonged or abbreviated – including the tail
Improvement of competing technology is unpredictable
New business models reach users in unexpected ways
Technology standards wars may be engaged in by producers are unpredictable
Supply needs investment - volatile sentiment around uncertain future demand and value of technology and its vector

Demand
Feedback loops between users influencing each other’s choices are unpredictable
Demand for interactive products especially unpredictable because of the demand side inter-user effects which can result in tipping of market
Users may face switching and learning costs
Demographics lead to ‘surprises’