Archive | September, 2009

Learning from IBM

by admin on 11. Sep, 2009 in Tech companies

Image via Wikipedia I’ve spent a lot of time this week digging up the history of Lou Gerstner‘s turnaround at IBM. The move from mainframe to PC is pretty much the definitive technical disruption – and the fact that IBM exists at all is pretty remarkable if you consier the state it was in back [...]

Read full story • Comments { 1 }

HMV buys 50% of 7digital – surviving disruption nicely (so far)

by admin on 03. Sep, 2009 in Companies

HMV Group is one of the businesses I’m focussing on in the book. A few years ago, I thought there were destined for nothing but failure, a traditional business that had simply failed to make the leap into the 21st century. They faced a perfect storm of Amazon; Apple; illegal downloading; and supermarkets selling books, [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Blockbuster vs Netflix vs Redbox

by admin on 01. Sep, 2009 in Tech companies

Image via Wikipedia If there is one lesson to be learned from the DVD rental market – it is to be very careful about your predictions. Way back in 2001 when I was briefly at INSEAD, Blockbuster was already a case history in how a sector will be disrupted. The narrative, of course, was that [...]

Read full story • Comments { 2 }