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Publications
  • 2014
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Peter Jamieson
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:14
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Abstract

While the Internet's first wave of disruption was marked by the unbundling of digital content, the second wave, decoupling, promises to generate more casualties in an even broader array of industries. Digital start-ups are disrupting traditional businesses by inserting themselves at every juncture in the customer's consumption chain. By decoupling—the act of separating activities that people are used to co-consuming—new digital businesses are disrupting retailing, telecom and other industries. Decoupling allows consumers to benefit from the value created at a lower cost or effort compared to what is delivered by traditional businesses. For those companies, the only solutions are to either recouple activities or rebalance to create and capture value (i.e., revenues) from both activities separately. Here, digital technologies can be seen as an instrument that will both disrupt traditional business models and potentially preserve them.

Keywords

Disruptive Innovation; Information Technology

Citation

Teixeira, Thales S., and Peter Jamieson. "The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-031, October 2014.
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More from the Authors

    • December 2019
    • Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)

    The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

    By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira
    • June 2019
    • Faculty Research

    Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers

    By: Thales S. Teixeira
    • February 2019 (Revised June 2019)
    • Faculty Research

    Where to Grow Next at Online Marketplace OLX

    By: Thales Teixeira, Leandro A. Guissoni and Samy Dana
More from the Authors
  • The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira
  • Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers By: Thales S. Teixeira
  • Where to Grow Next at Online Marketplace OLX By: Thales Teixeira, Leandro A. Guissoni and Samy Dana
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