Industry Transformation via Channel Disruption

Abstract

We are living in an era of disruption. Massive changes are affecting businesses and these changes are impacting traditional channels of distribution. Industries are evolving with many reaching maturity and searching for ways to create growth. Although incumbents seek to survive, this new era has created vast opportunities for startups to shake-up the status quo. This shake-up is appearing in the exchange occurring between customers and companies with the exchange facilitated by the channel of distribution. The intent of this article is to describe rapid changes occurring in a small number of industries (i.e., financial services, real estate, healthcare, and transportation) in the hopes of creating excitement for future scholarly exploration related to channels of distribution in the sharing economy.

Keywords:

• disruption
• incumbent
• innovation
• sharing economy
• startup
• transaction platform

Notes

1 Series A investments in general refer to early stage venture capital funding for growth business. Although a full discussion is outside of the scope of this article, for additional information see http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/102015/