Disruption starts at the margins – is management looking at the right metrics?

When a market reorganises, the first signs often appear in the way customers behave, in small new competitors and in the changing logic of networks. Management’s task is to see these signs before they reach the income statement. Susanna Takkunen from Accenture Finland and Santtu Elsinen from Alma Media discuss in Alma’s Accelerator of Sustainable Growth video podcast how companies succeed when markets reorganise. The first discussion focuses on the earliest signals of disruption.

Customer behaviour shows the first signs

A company’s figures can look stable at the same time as customers’ needs and decision-making habits are already changing. According to Susanna Takkunen, Managing Director of Accenture Finland, the first signal is often found when customers start solving the same need in a new way. The change may appear as a small usage pattern, a new expectation or a service that initially seems too narrow from the perspective of an established company.

At this point, small operators often enter the market. Their size can be misleading: today’s marginal solution may reveal where customer attention and value are moving. This is why management should look beyond market share and ask which needs are now being met in a way that the company’s own offering does not cover.

“The metrics do not necessarily show when a customer changes their behaviour. Hidden signals can still reveal that different needs are starting to be met in a new way,” Takkunen describes.

“A company does everything right. The strategy is sound and the numbers look good. At some point, however, it becomes clear that the market already belongs to someone else,” Director of Alma Marketplaces Santtu Elsinen summarises the challenge of recognising change.

The economic logic of the network also changes

Disruption is not visible only in customers and competitors. Ecosystem partners may change role, services are bought in a different way, and value starts to accumulate in a new part of the network. In such a situation, the old industry definition no longer describes competition sufficiently.

Media, analysts and conferences help to make sense of the change, but Elsinen notes that they are often behind the curve. Earlier signs may be found in research groups, universities, the solutions of new companies and customers’ everyday behaviour. Following these sources is not a separate foresight exercise, but part of commercial management.

AI changes both observation and choice

AI can help identify weak signals in data that would previously have been difficult to connect. Simply adopting a tool is not enough, however. A company needs people who can frame the questions, assess the significance of the observations and turn findings into experiments.

At the same time, AI is changing customer decision-making. Consumers may delegate the search for and comparison of alternatives to an AI service that recommends a solution based on its own criteria. Strong awareness does not then guarantee a place in consideration. A company must understand what information, availability and trust make it discoverable in a customer path mediated by machines.

Trust becomes a stronger competitive factor

As machines take on a larger share of comparison, the counterbalance is a need for personal contact and verifiable information. Customers want ease, but they also want certainty about what they can trust.

For management, this leads to a practical choice: digital transactions must be made smoother, while still preserving the situations in which the customer needs a person, someone to take responsibility, or clear evidence of the origin of information. Market change therefore does not remove the role of brand. It changes its basis from awareness to a combination of discoverability, verifiability and trust.

This article is based on a discussion in Alma Media’s Accelerator of Sustainable Growth video podcast, where Susanna Takkunen, Managing Director of Accenture Finland, and Santtu Elsinen, Director of Alma Marketplaces, examine market reorganisation and companies’ ability to renew themselves. Watch all the episodes here (in Finnish).

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