Disruption. A buzzword unlikely to age well but one that is also a largely misrepresented theory of how companies innovate.
There is, however, value in applying this concept from the world of business to explain events unfolding in the Middle East. Using business, or corporate, strategy to explain what happens on the battlefield is an inversion of the usual approach. Modern corporate strategy has borrowed heavily from military concepts, and many business schools, for instance, recommend Sun Tzu’s fifth century BC treatise.
The Art of War is essential reading. The close relationship between business and war is apparent in even the most basic corporate language: Chief executive “officers” make decisions in “headquarters” as corporates “fight” for market share and “deploy” resources.
The rise of ISIL and its approach to warfare and governance has prompted headlines calling the group “the internet’s biggest disrupter” and “the world’s deadliest tech start-up”, among other things. As we near the third anniversary of ISIL capturing Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, there is an opportunity to review the application of disruption theory to the extremist group’s methods, and the wars waged against it.
Boston, Massachusetts may be an improbable starting point to understand how ISIL took Mosul after just six days of battle and how it disrupted traditional military and political structures in both the city and the region at large. But Boston is where Harvard Business School professor Clayton M Christensen developed disruption theory, after in-depth research into corporate innovations that challenged established businesses.
The idea of disruption is commonly used to describe companies that earn market share or create new markets using technology. True disruption, according to Christensen’s original article in Harvard Business Review, happens when a smaller company with “fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbents”, often because the incumbents “focus on improving services for the most demanding segments” in the market.
“The smaller company that proves disruptive begins by successfully targeting overlooked segments”, gaining a foothold by delivering a functional, but, initially, a lower quality product – frequently at a lower price, too. “Disruptive entrants then move upmarket while preserving the advantages that drove their early success,” according to Christensen.
Even a quick assessment of ISIL in Iraq highlights the power of disruption theory to explain the group’s tactics. A few thousand ISIL fighters defeated tens of thousands of Iraqi army and federal police in the 2014 battle for Mosul. This fits closely with Christensen’s claim that disruption happens in business when a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbents. ISIL’s ultra-violent approach to its battle for supremacy against Al Qaeda in Syria in 2013-14 could also be considered disruptive – indeed, ISIL’s tactics were so brutal that even Al Qaeda distanced itself from the group.
ISIL also gained a foothold in Anbar, a province where residents felt marginalised by the central government. This was a move straight out of the disruption textbook: gain market control of overlooked segments and use that as a fulcrum to make further gains. Like many disrupters in the corporate sphere, ISIL found ways to provide services – including general technologies such as electricity – which have value to people.
While ISIL set out its stall as a disruptive actor, “the US administration and its allies acted as classic incumbents”, wrote Bhaskar Chakravorti in Fortune magazine.
Just as Blockbuster, for example, failed to anticipate the challenge posed by Netflix (a good example of a disrupter), so too the United States and others failed to understand how ISIL’s digital presence and, indeed, branding, could challenge the status quo. Although the power of the internet was not part of Christensen’s initial theory, published in 1995, an array of disruptive businesses have harnessed the world wide web. ISIL is no different. Social media has allowed it to ship its message of evil and violence to all corners of the globe, at little cost.
It is worth noting that the disruption theory itself is value-neutral, though it can be applied in a manner for good (a cheap video streaming service such as Netflix) or it can be used for more nefarious purposes. There is no singular way in which incumbent businesses deal with the competition, or threat, posed by disrupters.
There are, however, some lessons. Disrupters, once they gain market share, or in ISIL’s case territory and power, may face the same challenges that traditional incumbents face, such as losing what they had gained. Even as ISIL loses territory in the Middle East, its ideology continues to inspire violence elsewhere in the world.
The extremist group’s disruptive approach to branding and marketing are difficult to counter, especially if its enemies are nation states operating as incumbents.
Bullets and bombs are, therefore, only one element to combating disruptive actors such as ISIL in this complex and dangerous new world.
Yet each new attack in the region or beyond is a reminder that incumbents are not equipped to handle this disrupter, and perhaps others in the future. Although a complete solution will not be found in Boston, it may be a good place to start.
Richard Ferraris is a writer who works for The Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi
