NEW MARKETS

"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse" : Henry Ford

Competing in uncontested market space is what separates the leaders from the followers. You have to make the market.

Technology companies continue to play a leading role in blurring industry lines. 

And the most profitable businesses aren't usually competing on price...

Apple leapfrogs its competitors and creates new markets for its products. Products that customers didn't know they wanted (iPods, iPads, iPhones etc). Who would have said Apple would be in these markets 20 years ago...?

Apple's ecosystem (user base & scale) is a significant barrier to competitors i.e. product/service imitation alone isn't enough.

Amazon under Jeff Bezos continuously disrupted & entered new markets grabbing market share with low cost entry strategies in multiple sectors. Amazon Web Services has become a leader in the IT space, with its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Cloud offerings. The grocery sector is next.

Crucially, Amazon has adopted much longer time horizons than competitors to assess returns on its investments in new markets.

SpaceX continues to disrupt the market after its initial launch with low prices e.g. for communications satellites.

Tesla, the luxury electric car maker, announced plans in early 2015, to enter the US home energy market. A huge manufacturing facility is under construction, as it scales into this adjacent market. Musk believes automation is the future, and he has pivoted strategically towards autonomous driving, AI and robotics,

Tesla (à la Apple) is relying on loyal customers to drive demand in the channels for its differentiated products in this new market.

Powerful ecosystems are nothing new, Oracle, Microsoft, Google and Cisco have built huge scale and market dominance on the back of them.

But building unparalleled customer loyalty (e.g. Apple & Tesla), well that is something else...! 

So is your strategy to follow or lead ? And what is your plan to deal with industry disruption ?