It is a popular fallacy that in a deregulated
context, industries naturally adopt the most profitable production
techniques available. In reality, profitable industries tend to
maintain the status quo until external circumstances force them
to change. It is less the opportunity to increase benefits than
the experience of losses, which lead industries to adopt improved
technologies. The result is a massive gap in most of the industries,
between the actual production reality and the technical optimum.
Narrowing this gap requires an active external push, accompanied
by investment and efforts not only in physical renewal and adjustments
of the industrial process and supply but also in overcoming the
industry’s natural internal inertia towards change and innovation.
Dissemination Patterns by Everett Rogers (Diffusion
of Innovation)
Within the process of industrial change, Everett
Rogers has emphasised that a chasm exists for discontinuous innovations
between the different market segments:
Innovators love
to be the first ones to adopt an innovation even if the ‘teething
problems’ have not yet been resolved.
Early adopters
are open-minded people who are interested in new opportunities
and they are first movers committed to succeeding. However, they
would not be prepared –or capable – of solving ‘teething problems’
on their own.
An early majority
consist of the mainstream entrepreneurs which are delaying the
adoption until they may be forced by external circumstances. They
are not taking successful “innovators”, as a role model but rather
say: “yes, he is succeeding, but he is different from us”. They
may change as soon as another early adopter has some success.
The late majorities
would be all the followers of the early majority, but they would
never move before the key entrepreneurs have been convinced or
forced to change.
Laggards will
be those that will wait until there is no other solution whatsoever.
