Cannibalize yourself - or you will be cannibalized!

The motto "We'd rather cannibalize ourselves than be cannibalized by others" has a lot to do with understanding digital transformation, disruptive innovations, and a targeted culture of innovation. Originally, in economics, "cannibalization" referred to increasing the sales of a product at the expense of a usually higher-priced product from the same provider. The provider runs the risk of losing market share for their established, more expensive product with the introduction of another, cheaper solution. In essence, they are cannibalizing themselves. Today, however, cannibalization is understood as a newer product displacing an established one. It is no longer about price advantages, but about disruptive innovations with groundbreaking, radical changes. This also aligns with Clayton Christensen's well-known definition of disruption from 1993, as it renders a previous solution (product, service, process, market, or business model) obsolete. Drivers of this effect, already described by Schumpeter in 1942 as creative destruction, include the incubators of digital transformation in the form of increased networking and system compatibility, cost degression of technologies and IT systems, and the establishment of new technologies (such as artificial intelligence or additive manufacturing / 3D printing). However, more important than technological leaps are the new business models established by competitors. And this is where the motto of this article, "Cannibalize Yourself," gains enormous significance: it is not new technologies that bring about disruptions (the so-called Technology Push), but new business models (the so-called Market Pull). Years before Skype, there was peer-to-peer technology, before AirBnB, the internet, or before the current hype, podcast technology. Disruptions are not primarily about (modern) technologies, but first and foremost about new business models. More important than the technology is the willingness to fundamentally question established solutions and consistently and successfully implement new ideas. It is about a corporate culture in which continuous self-examination and cannibalization with disruptive solutions are allowed. But do we have the right employees at all? Do they have the necessary professional and social skills to continuously question themselves and their performance? Do they even have the necessary organizational freedoms to openly challenge the familiar? And do we have the right management that not only talks about agility and ambidexterity but genuinely embodies these principles? Here, however, I become skeptical because many talk about changes, but they don't really want them or only in others. They are trapped in old thought patterns, selfishness prevails, or there is simply fear of the unknown. The motto "We'd rather cannibalize ourselves than be cannibalized by others" serves as a call to self-initiative, to agility, to a spirit of adventure, and to individual responsibility for the future.