Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption

by Thales S. Teixeira

Traditional companies in these industries have enabled customers to conduct most if not all consumption activities in partnership with them as customers go about acquiring goods and services. These companies bind together as a single “chain” all the steps that consumers undertake in order to acquire products and services. In today’s new wave of disruption, upstart firms are breaking apart these chains, offering customers the chance to fulfill just one or a few activities with them, and leaving incumbents to fulfill the rest. I call this process of breaking apart the chain of consumption “decoupling.” Startups decouple to gain a foothold in the market, and they grow by offering to fill a specific activity for customers—what I call “coupling.” Both the initial decoupling and the subsequent coupling allow startups to quickly steal a substantial amount of market share at incumbents’ expense. In short, the startups become disruptors.*1