The dawn of disruption in the PC market

On a Wednesday morning last summer, I woke up to a news story claiming that the personal computer (PC) industry is dead.

At first, I was highly disappointed at this exaggerated claim. The very next minute, something interesting came to my notice: my laptop, tablet and phone were all lying in a queue next to each other on the table.

Did one outdo the other’s need? No. Did they co-exist easily with each other? Yes. In fact, all my devices were “synced” with each other.

It then dawned upon me that the industry has not been identified and outlined properly.

A phone is synonymous with communication, a refrigerator is synonymous with storage and an AC is synonymous with cooling — what does the PC really stand for?

If feasibility is a factor, then we must know that everything we know about the personal computing is changing every second, every minute to make these machines better assistants in whatever shape, whatever form.

The PC industry, as they said is not coming close to its extinction, it is only evolving, it’s very meaning is changing.

Change, evolution, transformation are all terms which are interchangeable and they are all taking place at a very micro level, coming out only after years of toiling underground.

I can point to countless changes and paradigm shifts that led us to where we are today. From massive phones which could only make phone calls to handy touch screens which act like personal assistants, hasn’t the mobile industry witnessed a real transition? PCs, notebooks, tablets and phones are said to have disrupted each other.

My point here is, do disruptions really lead to replace a technology or business model or do they push and shake everything around them and lead them to change ?

Computing, as we know it, has always been at the centre of constant disruptions but we need to stop using the term to invoke the concept of innovation because companies are already reinventing themselves to match technological changes.

These changes are in the nature of uncertainties wherein the situation is usually unprecedented and the alternatives are not known.

Entrants that prove disruptive begin by successfully targeting those overlooked segments, and gaining a foothold by delivering more suitable functionality.

It is time to look at those ignored segments instead of focusing on pushing products.

The industry, despite having stood the test of time, is facing a serious concern, that is, it has become largely commoditised. A price war has plagued the PC makers and is leading many well-known names to disappear from the streets.

All this, only to gain more market share. The focus on price and volume has turned attention away from innovation and is leading to an oligopolistic kind of a set-up.

Most companies are trying to push what they come up with into the market, irrespective of whether there’s a real consumer benefit or not.

Instead of being supply centric, have companies done enough to transform themselves into being demand centric or customer centric?

Companies need to cater to the vast majority of mass market consumers who have very simple needs for technology. The industry needs to truly start thinking long term and try to create new categories that shape the consumer behaviour.

We need to think beyond how new PC form factors like hybrids and convertibles can alone add to the growth.

While we need to profit from the old technology, we need to adapt to the new technology and understand what the customers want through intelligent aggregation of content. We can’t expect anything to remain fixed or unchanged.

Are we reinventing to identify and stay ahead of new technology lifecycles at the right time? Or are we just following the latest tech trends/fads?

These questions, however blunt, need to be addressed immediately. Being transitory in nature, the PC industry needs to do meaningful innovation to make the category in general and their company in particular stand for something.

The key to surviving here is neither to give in early nor to stand by and let the train pass.

It is, to slowly build capabilities by identifying the change in technology and the potential threat and to combine part of the old with part of the new. Where we go from here is to a multi-screen world.

We are no longer in a world of primary computing; the screens are many, the modes are multiple and solutions are endless. We need to create an ecosystem which can connect all the gadgets together yet bring out each one’s need separately by offering unique features.

The industry needs to stop worrying about the shrinking growth and adopt radical innovation tactics that will drive more growth and stability going forward.

For instance, we are witnessing how traditional PC companies have entered the enterprise space and are offering cloud based services apart from existing hardware products.

The question is, are we willing to take the long shot in this dynamic and ever changing industry and reinvent?

The writer is senior director and consumer business head, ACER