• Agenda
  • Initiatives
  • Reports
  • Events
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Leadership and Governance
    • Our Members and Partners
    • Communities
    • History
    • Klaus Schwab
    • Media
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • World Economic Forum USA
    • Privacy and Terms of Use
  • EN ES FR 日本語 中文
  • Login to TopLink

We use cookies to improve your experience on our website. By using our website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our updated Cookie Notice.

I accept
    Hamburger
  • World Economic Forum Logo
  • Agenda
  • Initiatives
  • Reports
  • Events
  • About
  • TopLink
  • Search Cancel

Report Home

<Previous Next>
  • Preface
  • About the Project
  • Hypergrowth Playbook
    • Agility
    • Business Models
    • Markets and Clients
    • Regulation
    • Scalability
    • Stakeholder Management
    • Talent
    • Technology
  • Hypergrowth Profiles
    • Adapting to Uncertainty
    • Agility at a Pivotal Stage
    • Building Trust and Reputation
    • Business Model Simplicity
    • Reinventing the Company
    • Scaling Through Diversification
  • Infographics
  • Related Articles
  • Contributors and Acknowledgements
  • Downloads
Mastering Hypergrowth   Technology
Home Previous Next
Mastering Hypergrowth   Technology
Home Previous Next
Mastering Hypergrowth Home Previous Next
  • Report Home
  • Preface
  • About the Project
  • Hypergrowth Playbook
    • Agility
    • Business Models
    • Markets and Clients
    • Regulation
    • Scalability
    • Stakeholder Management
    • Talent
    • Technology
  • Hypergrowth Profiles
    • Adapting to Uncertainty
    • Agility at a Pivotal Stage
    • Building Trust and Reputation
    • Business Model Simplicity
    • Reinventing the Company
    • Scaling Through Diversification
  • Infographics
  • Related Articles
  • Contributors and Acknowledgements
  • Downloads
  • Best Practices

Technology

Share

Harnessing Infrastructures and Connecting Markets

At the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, hypergrowth companies are deeply indebted to the enabling attributes of technology’s central role in the global economy. Through technological innovation and investment in developing infrastructures, companies are given a new frontier to explore in terms of creating and disseminating value to other businesses and customers.

Hypergrowth companies often have an innovative approach to the employment of technology, even if they are not creating something new. Harnessing technology to realize undeveloped opportunities is a hallmark of hypergrowth. This approach leads to the now quite familiar phenomenon of disruptive innovation. Straightforward disruptions were understood and identified first, such as the move of web to mobile, but more complex disruptions are just emerging, transforming industries. Hypergrowth companies match existing technology to new applications and new technology to existing application areas. In some cases, this blurs the lines of industries altogether and challenges regulatory frameworks.

One essential element for hypergrowth companies is employing existing and recently developed infrastructures for growth. Building new technological infrastructure is usually too slow for hypergrowth firms unless they have a long-term vision and enough funding to build the service and the market in unison. Current examples would suggest that huge market opportunities lie in ongoing and recent technology shifts, industry transformations, demographic and societal changes. Research indicates that hypergrowth companies are highly data-driven and that data is enabled to adjust the fit between the technology, the business and its offerings.

Connecting new markets through technological platforms is another visible trend in which many hypergrowth firms are engaged. Enabling business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-business communication, collecting essential data for strategic decision-making, and value development are just some of the ways technology and markets are becoming integrated. Creating double-sided markets and facing hard to solve supply-and-demand balances are examples of how technology is being utilized, resulting in hypergrowth opportunities for intrepid businesses.

Technology, solution examples

Title

Key Growth challenge

Solution

Solution example

8.1 Even the best technological solutions require the right timing

Right-paced innovation cycle to introduce new solutions to the market

Focus on timing decisions in order to improve product-market fit

Technology, Asia, CEO

“Unique solutions are born through innovation: often uniquely combining existing technologies in a new manner – and innovating something new on top of it. When doing something completely new, the first-mover position is difficult because it takes time and others will have time to follow. If anyone introduces the innovation or new infrastructures too early to the market, that usually burns too much money for hypergrowth. On the other hand, if you spend too much time on planning and protecting IPR, time-to-market might take too long. But once competition is getting near, it is too late to start thinking about these issues. Mastering timing is today’s key solution to technology.”

8.2 Keeping the edge

Maintaining the edge and utilizing the best available new technologies

Leadership involvement in technological decisions and apply critical and objective approach

Unicorn, Silicon Valley, Co-Founder

“When we founded the firm, we wanted to make everything simpler. We challenged our competition and after hard work proved that common technology standards could be changed. And we did it successfully and fast. Usually there is a lot of talk about past successes from the financial perspective: how hard it is to change early enough if the company has been successful. When any developer creates something new and it is a success, the mindset narrows for exploring new. This starts to happen very quickly – both with in-house and best-in-the market technologies. Leading a hypergrowth tech firm is about keeping the edge in the technological choices. Our solution is to objectively analyse best possible options and that might mean that we need to regularly throw away also good solutions and options created by our engineers. And as the co-founder, I need to continue to ensure that we do not fall in love with our own creations.”

8.3 No one can change the external factors

Technological disruption of the company

Utilize lean start-up tools for transformation, create and communicate hypothesis for future success and start testing them

Hypergrowth Company, Asia, CEO
“It is relatively easy to observe the business environment and identify the disruptions around. It is also quite easy to blame external factors for poor performance. The external factors are not always supporting and then it is up to agility. We had to transform our business from technology and services to a much more scalable IP company. The transition is always difficult, but agility and transformation require the right structures. As leader, my solution has been a very proactive approach. That is done by creating hypothesis and testing them together with the team. Some were proven right and some wrong. But eventually our company has been transformed. And by taking the journey, we have extended our understanding of the external, rapidly changing environment to our advantage.”


<< Back to Hypergrowth Playbook

  • Best Practices
Back to Top
Subscribe for updates
A weekly update of what’s on the Global Agenda
Follow Us
About
Our Mission
Leadership and Governance
Our Members and Partners
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Communities
History
Klaus Schwab
Our Impact
Media
Pictures
A Global Platform for Geostrategic Collaboration
Careers
Open Forum
Contact Us
Mapping Global Transformations
Code of Conduct
World Economic Forum LLC
Sustainability
World Economic Forum Privacy Policy
Media
News
Accreditation
Subscribe to our news
Members & Partners
Member login to TopLink
Strategic Partners' area
Partner Institutes' area
Global sites
Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Open Forum
Global Shapers
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
EN ES FR 日本語 中文
© 2022 World Economic Forum
Privacy Policy & Terms of Service