HBR's 10 Must Reads on Technology and Strategy Collection (7 Books)

The Transformative Business Model

by Stelios Kavadias, Kostas Ladas, and Christoph Loch

WE USUALLY ASSOCIATE an industry’s transformation with the adoption of a new technology. But although new technologies are often major factors, they have never transformed an industry on their own. What does achieve such a tranformation is a business model that can link a new technology to an emerging market need.

MP3 technology is a classic case in point. Early MP3 devices represented an order-of-magnitude increase in capacity over magnetic tapes and CDs: Users could carry thousands of songs on a small device. But MP3 players revolutionized the audio devices market only after Apple coupled the iPod with iTunes in a new business model, swiftly moving music-recording ...