An area that doesn’t receive a large amount of attention, but which has proven itself to have enormous potential, is domain transformation. New technologies have the ability to redefine products and services, blur industry boundaries, and foster opportunities for non-traditional competitors. This form of wholesale transformation offers incredible opportunities for businesses to create new value.
An excellent example of how domain transformation works is the case of the online retailer, Amazon, which expanded into a new market domain with the launch of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Currently, AWS is the largest cloud computing/infrastructure service provider in the world, in a sector that was previously dominated by high-profile behemoths Microsoft and IBM.
While it may not have appeared to be an obvious play by Amazon, its move into providing cloud services saw the online retailer leveraging capabilities and services it was already using. For example, it had already developed massive storage capabilities as it sought to underpin its global business while at the same time it provided key computing services to start-ups and other growing businesses that were part of the Amazon family. So all the capability was there, it just required the vision and confidence to make the move into the cloud space.
All businesses undergoing a digital transformation should be mindful of the new opportunities for domain transformation that present themselves with the incorporation of new technology.