We Need Breakthrough Business Models, Not Breakthrough Technology
Technology doesn’t transform markets, business models do
By John Elkington and Richard Johnson
When humanity encounters a shiny new technology and senses its potential, we usually glibly assume that the world will instantaneously jump aboard and surf the resulting wave of change.
Anyone who has experienced at least one of these wave peaks knows what typically happens next: We crash into the “Trough of Disillusionment.” More than a couple of times over the decades, we have turned up at the doors of once-unstoppable businesses to find their founders sitting among the smoldering debris.
It may seem an idiotic question, but why, time and again, is the Gartner Hype Cycle–a theory of technology adoption developed by advisory firm Gartner–correct? The answer, of course, is that our species keeps falling into the same trap.
Why do we keep getting this wrong? The answer seems clear. We favor technologies over business models, imbibing the Kool-Aid a long time before the hard slog to turn the concept into something customers will actually…
