Kiva the disrupter (managing business disruption and ensuring business continuity)

Citation

(2013), "Kiva the disrupter (managing business disruption and ensuring business continuity)", Strategic Direction, Vol. 29 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2013.05629eaa.007

Kiva the disrupter (managing business disruption and ensuring business continuity)

Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 29, Issue 5

Mountz M.Harvard Business Review, December 2012, Vol. 90 No. 12, No. of pages: 6

Reports the success achieved by the author, who set out to build Kiva Systems, in his attempt to disrupt long-standing incumbents in the materials handling industry where the company’s mobile robots have revolutionized the normal pick-and-pack process in online retailers’ warehouses. Explains that it was not enough to envision the novel approach, invent the required technology, and make it commercially viable, it was necessary to do much more to help customers take on the risk of buying an unprecedented solution. Reveals that the solution was to price the technology in such a way that made the company, not the customer, bear the risk. The company provides all components of the solution so that Kiva would be 100 percent responsible for its performance, and the organization had to be designed to deliver the entire customer experience, from initial marketing contact to after-sales service. Concludes that this all adds up to a daunting proposition for a new company, and begins to show why disruption is so hard to achieve when a company must defy so many of its industry’s norms to change the game. Includes the account in a special issue partly devoted to the theme: “How to manage disruption”. ISSN: 0017-8012 Article type: Viewpoint Reference: 42AB065

Keywords: Business continuity, Corporate strategy, Materials handling equipment, Organizations, Robotics, Strategic management, USA