How are most established big businesses today staying competitive?
By acting like startups.
With “disruption” and “innovation” arguably the biggest catchwords of the past decade, even the most stalwart companies are under pressure to evolve.
McKinsey cites four avenues to business-building that large companies must adopt if they’re to stay relevant:
- CEOs that advocate for change and keep the pressure on to reach new customers in new ways
- Taking advantage of the resources that “incumbents” have: funding, customers, data, intellectual property, technology
- Risk-management to balance out the risk-taking — taking the time and having the mindset to test assumptions
- Building out a team exclusively devoted to building new business
For companies both established and starting up, the above list pretty much applies to any organization trying to disrupt, or at least innovate.