Melissa Maker, owner of Toronto-based Clean My Space Inc., launched an app for her company in 2016 to deal head on with digital disruption in her industry.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Melissa Maker has feared for the future of her boutique cleaning company twice in its 13 years in business; first during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and again in 2014 when a number of competing apps hit the market. These apps offered to connect service workers, including maids, with customers at the touch of a button.
“It was terrifying,” Ms. Maker, owner of Toronto-based Clean My Space Inc., says of how the apps threatened to disrupt the cleaning industry by cutting out the need for companies like hers.
“It just didn’t feel right. I spent all of this time building this business, for this to happen.”
But Ms. Maker was determined to do what so many other industries facing the challenge of disruption have done before her: adopt an “if you can’t beat’em, join 'em” attitude to turn potential upheaval into an opportunity.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was painful at times,” Ms. Maker says. “But I didn’t see it as ‘oh god we have to overhaul the whole business,’ because it was kind of exciting.”
She copied her disruptors’ playbooks by launching an app for her company in 2016, two years after she saw the first rivals spring up. It was an approach not unlike the one undertaken by banks, law firms and taxi services, which have held onto their businesses by cribbing strategies from recent disruptors shaking up their industries with automation, artificial intelligence and ride-sharing apps.
After all, the last thing these industries wanted was to end up like Blockbuster LLC or Eastman Kodak Company, which failed to evolve fast enough when faced with tech-savvy rivals and ultimately paid the price when their market share was decimated.
Ms. Maker’s app attracted some new clients and gave existing ones a suite of new options, including the ability to book and cancel cleanings, access invoices and rate specialists that service their home.
“If they have to make a change on the go or a quick update and can’t be bothered to call or email, they can do it here,” Ms. Maker says. “The point is it’s simple and another way for clients to stay in touch.”
Elaine Kunda, the managing partner at tech-based and women-focused venture capital fund Disruption Ventures, says for a lot of companies, disruption winds up being a good thing, even though it might not seem like it at first.
Letting a disruptor change the industry first enables a company facing widespread change to benefit from someone else working out the kinks and devising a road map to market, she says.
“You learn from what’s already been done,” Ms. Kunda says.
Facing disruption once also makes you more prepared for and resilient the next time your industry is challenged.
“They realize now that you can't stop the train from moving. It's going to happen. It's just a matter of when,” Ms. Kunda says.
“Companies used to have a lifespan of 100 years of being the top brand, and in this new economy, 15 years is a long time to be at the top, and even companies like Google will have to be creative about innovating.”
Ms. Kunda has watched as the internet and social networking have challenged media companies. She’s seen brick-and-mortar travel agencies roll out apps and work with AI after grappling with web- and app-based services, and witnessed high-end apparel brands evolving to cope with fast-fashion disruptors by creating both luxury and affordable lines.
The ability of companies in these sectors to move fast and match competitors resembles a battle playing out among Canadian grocery stores.
For decades, stocking the fridge meant consumers had to haul themselves to the grocery store, but businesses including Instacart, Cartly, Grocery Gateway and Inabuggy changed that by delivering supermarket favourites straight to shoppers’ doors.
Amazon.com Inc. further threatened the traditional grocery model with its ability to quickly ship food to homes. Uber Technologies Inc., which is currently devising a grocery business based in Toronto, may bring about further upheaval.
Some grocery chains took a while, but eventually introduced their own delivery options.
Loblaw Companies Ltd., for example, partnered with California-based Instacart to launch home delivery in a handful of Canadian cities in 2017. It has since expanded the service to more markets.
Loblaw declined to make a spokesperson available to discuss the entrance of those rivals and what it learned from watching others go first, but a spokesperson said in an e-mail that it has found retail to be “highly competitive, evolutionary and disrupted.”
“Loblaw has always been about innovation and customer-centricity – not only listening to what our customers tell us they’re looking for, but actively anticipating their needs and developing products and services to support them,” states the e-mail from Garry Senecal, chief customer officer at Loblaw. “We evolve in the ways that let us compete best – in ways that others can’t.”
Ms. Kunda considers the grocery industry’s disruption “a much bigger and challenging problem to solve than other industries'.”
“Companies are going to have to test and evolve to get it right, so sadly the first movers, though they had good intentions and were right in theory, had too many kinks to work out in the model,” she says. “Sometimes first-mover advantage is key, sometimes you want to let people make mistakes around you then figure out the best practices and run.”