Digital revolution began in the middle of the last century, approximately in mid 1950s, and it embarked on the journey of moving towards digital systems and electronics from mechanical and analogue systems and technology. This was facilitated by advancement in Physics especially in the discipline of electronics and communication where communication technology embraced digital mediums. This was followed by the advent of personal computers, information management systems and subsequently business application processing systems.
One of the key noticeable moments of the digital revolution came in next thirty to forty years when music started becoming available in compact disc formats replacing the main analogue format – cassette tape. This was a marked shift as compact disc was easy to use and it lasted for a longer time without any playing or operating issues. The cassette tapes used to get stuck if not played for a long time or with too much playing or otherwise. With compact disc it was also possible to switch between the songs seamlessly whereas with the cassette tapes one had to move the tape forward or backward to listen to the same song again or to the desired song. Since music is cherished and enjoyed across generations and across countries and geographies, this revolution was much visible and had a marked influence on the market and its players.
In the case of music industry, this was disruption for the businesses who were manufacturing the cassette tapes, the wholesalers and retailers who were selling the cassette tapes, the recording companies and studios and also the people who were playing these cassettes. Manufacturers had to switch their production to compact discs to remain competitive in the market; sooner the better. The retailers had to sell their existing cassette inventories at the market price or even at a lower price to clear off their shelves. Otherwise, a delay might mean no buyers at all. The recording studies would have to change their recording systems to accommodate for new digital means. The end user though had the choice to stick to the cassette tapes for a longer period but this would have also meant that any new music label would have come in a compact disc version more often than not and that would have eventually led them to shift towards the compact discs. To the end user – the customer – this would have led to the buying of the compact disc players in place of existing tape recorders.
So, the digitally recorded music, that is, the change from analogue to digitally recording music, not only changed the medium but the instrument or device that played the music. Compact disc (CD) player – a new device bought into the market and in supply chain. A change in the entire recording system. It also changed the way music was getting recorded in the studios and also at the retailer shops where previously customers were having the custom music recorded as per their choice on cassettes and now, they would have to do that on compact discs. So, an entire ecosystem of the music industry and its listeners was impacted by this change; the change had financially and social impact. A parallel change was also in the motion pictures where VHS tapes were replaced by DVDs.
This is a vivid example of disruption of a successful product in a market which didn’t became obsolete because a better or improved version of the product came into existence that would have been built by any competing company but the new technology altogether replaced the product across globe; in some geographies sooner in some later but eventually the use of cassette in mainstream music industry was wiped out, if we can say so. People still listen to vinyl records more as a vintage or classic identification rather than norm and so would to cassette tapes.
There are many similar examples and industries where we can see the impact of digital revolution where entire existing product line has been replaced.
This was one of the earlier examples of the digital disruption brought by digital revolution. Digital disruption may not necessarily be initiated by the digital change; that is, it only is a shift from analogue to digital may not be the case. Sometimes, a change or shift may be within the digital space; from a less advanced stage to more advanced stage. One of the key examples would be the smartphones. The mobile phones in early 2000s were mostly digitally enabled devices, had many features but the advent of smart phones changed the whole mobile industry. The impact was far reaching beyond the mobile industry alone. Smartphones also disrupted the existing digital camera industry with many of the top digital camera companies forced to either close or reduce their digital camera production. Adding the photo and video feature in the smartphones made it convenient for the customers to utilize those features; snap and video capture. This feature was added to the smartphones more from user experience and salability preceptive and not for disrupting the digital camera industry. Initially, the spec quality of the built-in cameras was not very good but with the technological advancements, the quality of the built-in cameras in the smart phones grew tremendously. Further, with the advent of mobile applications, again a product of digitalization, smartphone now had many applications; users could take pictures and videos and share them instantaneously with their friends or on social platforms utilizing the functionality of these mobile applications. Even in businesses, the camera functionality of the smartphone is being utilized quite frequently; for example, to take a snap of the ‘minutes of meeting’ or discussion outcomes or ideas that has been written on a whiteboarding during the meeting though more like an informal procedure or taking a picture of, say a pallet label, where pallet was damaged and circulating the picture among the relevant shop-floor or warehousing group to remedy that issue. All these have left very little room for the digital cameras to thrive unless they really present a special feature or provide benefit that cannot be realized or achieved by smartphones. Even if it comes with some quality trade-offs most of the users may prefer to use smartphones than digital cameras just for the ease of use. As of today, we see that SLR or DSLR cameras have sustained their position in the market as niche cameras for taking specialized pictures and frames, from far off angles and in different light intensities with varied focal lengths which is not yet in the realm of smartphone cameras but that day may not be far when SLRs may have to fear for their survival as well.
Even when mobile phones were initially launched, they were very big and bulky and had quite a few features. Within a short span of time their size reduced and capabilities increased. These are few of the examples that are very much visible and we can find similar examples in each industry and sector. If there has been one thing that has been constant in last few decades it has been ‘Change.’
Digital disruption has been used more like an umbrella term in today’s time by many organizations and governing bodies. And this may be true in the context that most of the disruptions today are driven by technology and more specifically these technologies are being central to digital ecosystem essentially involving internet as the main medium or the platform where these technologies operate and not like silos of independent systems. Still one has to be cautious enough to include a change or disruption in digital arena.
