Digital disruption is much more than an abstract concept promoted by analysts and vendors; it is now a reality for most organizations.

More than one-third of executives in a recent Forbes Insights/Treasure Data survey say they are being directly affected by competition from digital and data-savvy players in their markets.

What does it take to embark on a data-driven disruption journey? Here are some ways to get started:

1. Creating new markets or leveraging the power of information to offer solutions in new ways.

2. Be the disruptor.
The best way to fend off disruptors is to become the disruptor. Shift their business models using data-driven products and services, or by linking up with digital-savvy players.

3. Surface your data assets.
With the influx of data that an increasingly digital world creates about customers, access to clearly organized, consolidated data is crucial. Think of ways to create entirely new products or services through new channels.

The most likely form of disruption is through the actual monetizing of information technology.

​The disruption that is radically reshaping today’s markets, as well as creating new ones, is driven by data, with the goal of enriching the customer experience, and delivering goods and services on demand without so much as a hiccup in supply chains or response systems. To accomplish this, data needs to move fast, seamlessly and be accessible.

As Holger Hürtgen and Niko Mohr, of McKinsey, recently put it:

Those organizations leading the way and digitally disrupting their markets have learned to employ customer data in new and innovative ways not simply to be disruptors, but to provide superior customer experiences.

​Source: Forbes Insights (click on image to read more)

He is more popular on social media than Madonna or Oprah Winfrey, but you might never have heard of him. Kai-Fu Lee has become the face of Chinese tech, his name synonymous with a country itching to take on the world.
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Lee spent his formative years helping charter a path of innovation for companies such as Microsoft and Apple, but it was when he spearheaded a failed attempt to bring Google to China that everything changed for him. Lee left Google in 2009, to set up his own venture capital fund, Sinovation Ventures.

Lee's new book, AI Super Powers, was published in September.

Here is a good summary of the future of AI according to Lee:

In his first internal management strategy speech since being named Jack Ma's successor, Alibaba Group Holding chief executive Daniel Zhang Yong reminded managers in the company that key performance indicators (KPI) should never be the sole reason to do something.

Zhang reminded employees that the company's dream is to create value for the customers they serve.

He also exhorted employees to do their best to meet their own expectations, instead of caring what others think, and not give up when they meet resistance or obstacles – especially when it came to new business models and innovative projects that have not been tried before.
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“Many of our businesses have been the same for over 10 years, and if we keep doing things the same way today, or five years later, then Alibaba won't have a future,” Zhang said, adding that his greatest fear was that Alibaba would become like a “robot on loop”.