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The Great Disruption: How Business is Coping with Turbulent Times
The Great Disruption is a collection drawn from Adrian Wooldridge's influential Schumpeter columns in The Economist addressing the causes and profound consequences of the unprecedented disruption of business over the past five years.
The Great Disruption has many causes. The internet is spreading faster than any previous technology. Emerging markets are challenging the west's dominance of innovation as well as manufacturing. Clever management techniques such as “frugal innovation” are forcing companies to rethink pricing. Robots are advancing from the factory floor into the service sector. But these developments are all combining together to shake business life—and indeed life in general—to its foundations.
The Great Disruption is producing a new class of winners, many of whom are still unfamiliar: Asian has more female billionaires and CEOs than Europe, for example. It is also producing a growing class of losers: old-fashioned universities that want to continue to operate in the world of talk and chalk; companies that refuse to acknowledge that competition is now at warp speed; and business people who think that we still live in the world of company man. It is forcing everybody to adapt or die: workers realise that they will have to jump from job to job—and indeed from career to career—and institutions realise that they need to remain adaptable and flexible.
The Great Disruption is all the more testing because it coincides with the Great Stagnation. The financial crisis has not only reduced most people's living standards in the west. It has also revealed that the boom years of 2000-20007 were built on credit: individuals and governments were borrowing money to pay for lifestyles that no longer had any real justification. Employees are having to cope with unprecedented change at a time when they are also seeing their incomes flat or declining. Companies are having to respond to revolutionary innovations even as they are seeing their overall markets contract. We are all having to run faster in order to stay in the same place.
This book begins with a long introduction explaining the thesis of the book and setting it in a broad historical context. It will also introduce readers to Joseph Schumpeter and explain why his ideas about creative destruction are particularly valuable today.
The Great Disruption has many causes. The internet is spreading faster than any previous technology. Emerging markets are challenging the west's dominance of innovation as well as manufacturing. Clever management techniques such as “frugal innovation” are forcing companies to rethink pricing. Robots are advancing from the factory floor into the service sector. But these developments are all combining together to shake business life—and indeed life in general—to its foundations.
The Great Disruption is producing a new class of winners, many of whom are still unfamiliar: Asian has more female billionaires and CEOs than Europe, for example. It is also producing a growing class of losers: old-fashioned universities that want to continue to operate in the world of talk and chalk; companies that refuse to acknowledge that competition is now at warp speed; and business people who think that we still live in the world of company man. It is forcing everybody to adapt or die: workers realise that they will have to jump from job to job—and indeed from career to career—and institutions realise that they need to remain adaptable and flexible.
The Great Disruption is all the more testing because it coincides with the Great Stagnation. The financial crisis has not only reduced most people's living standards in the west. It has also revealed that the boom years of 2000-20007 were built on credit: individuals and governments were borrowing money to pay for lifestyles that no longer had any real justification. Employees are having to cope with unprecedented change at a time when they are also seeing their incomes flat or declining. Companies are having to respond to revolutionary innovations even as they are seeing their overall markets contract. We are all having to run faster in order to stay in the same place.
This book begins with a long introduction explaining the thesis of the book and setting it in a broad historical context. It will also introduce readers to Joseph Schumpeter and explain why his ideas about creative destruction are particularly valuable today.
304 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 2015
9 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Adrian Wooldridge
24 books72 followersAdrian Wooldridge (born November 11, 1959) is the Management Editor and, since 1 April 2017, the 'Bagehot' columnist for The Economist newspaper. He was formerly the 'Schumpeter' columnist. Until July 2009 he was The Economist's Washington Bureau Chief and the 'Lexington' columnist.
Wooldridge was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied modern history, and was awarded a fellowship at All Souls College, also at Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in philosophy in 1985. From 1984 to 1985 he was also a Harkness Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.
Wooldridge was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied modern history, and was awarded a fellowship at All Souls College, also at Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in philosophy in 1985. From 1984 to 1985 he was also a Harkness Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 6, 2015
I'm not a regular reader of The Economist and therefore the Schumpeter column so this was new and thought-provoking reading for me. I really liked how all of these columns were grouped into themes and it made an excellent commuting companion, whether on my regular tube commute (I could read 4-5 in my 30min journey) or a quick single column dip whilst waiting for a flight to board, take off or land (you know, when you can't use your laptop). The book became a bit dog-eared from being carted around in my backpack for a couple of months but it will definitely stay on my bookshelf for re-reading.
September 21, 2020
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An interesting collection of one columnist's work in The Economist that covers quite a range of topics. Easy to dip in-and-out of, it is a good read for those new to Business and Economics, and those who have devoted years to it.
Elisa, Book Grocer
An interesting collection of one columnist's work in The Economist that covers quite a range of topics. Easy to dip in-and-out of, it is a good read for those new to Business and Economics, and those who have devoted years to it.
Elisa, Book Grocer
July 28, 2020
Snippets of ideas, articles, covering a broad range of sectors with a business tinge. The disruption aspect is not well articulated, the turbulence is vague...
January 24, 2016
Wooldridge states that critics dismiss TED talks as Starbucks for intellectuals. I would offer that The Great Disruption is a 200 plus page TED talk desperately seeking an unenlightened audience.
Nothing new or terribly interesting here. This book is so 1.0.
TD
Nothing new or terribly interesting here. This book is so 1.0.
TD
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews