Terms

Martecs Law

Martec's law states that technology changes exponentially, but organizations change much more slowly (logarithmically). This leaves a huge gap

  • Technology progresses very rapidly (See Moore's Law)
  • Organizations are slow to change (they change logarithmically)
  • The gap between these two grows large over time
    • This leaves room for new innovative entrants to rapidly overtake and change an industry using new technology
    • This poses a serious risk for existing firms

Example 1 - MP3 Players

  • Sony was  huge player in personal audio devices in the 80s-early 2000s (cd players, Walkman, etc)
  • Sony missed the boat on moving to digital MP3 players (to apple) and lost almost all market share