Look at the advent of Uber - the social ridesharing app just starting to gain traction in New Zealand. Already it has disrupted the market for taxi drivers internationally, cutting red tape and regulation in order to slash prices, and it looks set to replicate that success here.
Dr. Geoff Perry, Dean of AUT University's Business and Law faculties explains "disruption enables organisations and individuals with opportunity to create new ideas that challenge existing businesses and business models.
"Research indicates industries or business sectors that are ripe for disruption tend to be those which have complex business models, high legal or other barriers to entry, where trust has been lost and where there are many intermediaries between the consumer and obtaining the product or service."
The contemporary effects of disruption are perhaps no better illustrated than the changes apparent in news media. Social media and - more broadly - the internet, have transformed the way we receive news.
The internet has enabled lower-cost journalism to capture mainstream attention. Traditional media outlets are diversifying their offerings and morphing into digital companies.
No better is that illustrated by the integration of APN (NZ), TRN and Grabone into NZME. in an effort to combine efficiencies and maximise the company's potential as an amalgamated digital media entity.
"NZME. is uniquely positioned to deliver relevant and vertically integrated content. We can provide the innovation and solutions our advertisers need to connect with our audiences so they can better market their brands, products and services. This is another important step in our exciting journey," says NZME. chief executive Jane Hastings.
Elsewhere in the communications market, competition is savaging the margins on broadband and forcing companies to adapt and innovate to remain relevant.
Simon Moutter, chief executive at Spark explains "disruptive forces in our industry escalated with the rise and ubiquity of mobile and internet, particularly in the late 1990's. Serious disruption started when software apps started to substitute existing or legacy telecommunications products and services, for example Skype replacing voice calls.
"Our realisation that we needed to make the transformative shift from infrastructure based telco to competitive digital services company has been the big idea that has underpinned the last two years of change."
In a time when smartphone penetration is at an all-time high and continuing to grow, it would be easy to assume mobile providers would be reaping the rewards on all fronts. Instead, the capabilities of smartphones are completely disrupting providers and how they monetise services.
In-phone services and apps have mitigated the need for traditional telecommunications services as they increasingly become providers focused on mobile internet. Vodafone's Craig Jones explained. "We are no longer in the business of selling minutes or messages but in the business of selling the quality of connection."
Banking is also facing the real prospect of having to adapt to compete in a disrupted landscape, as everything from payments through to lending continues to evolve.
Earlier this year, the New Zealand Government approved and opened the door to social lending and crowd funding. At the same time contactless payment technology and online systems such as PayPal are become increasingly prevalent.
ASB Bank CEO Barbara Chapman says: "Disruption in our sector is more accelerated than we've seen for a while. I don't think of it as anything other than exciting - it creates real opportunities to innovate and do things differently.
"It's important that as a bank, we don't just look at banks, we look at where disruption is going on in the sectors around us and how that might potentially impact on us."
Perhaps the innovation with the most potential to disrupt the banking industry is virtual currency, the most prominent of which thus far has been the controversial bitcoin.
"There are some very smart people thinking about the protocols of an internet currency. That will be disruptive and it raises issues like is there going to be an NZD/bitcoin cross? Which bank will lead that? How do banks make sure they remain relevant in the face of this disruption?" asks Chapman.
Bank of America has already tipped the anonymous, decentralised currency to become a major means of payment for e-commerce and has talked up its potential to emerge as a serious competitor to traditional money transfer providers.
Air travel has undergone a number of step-changes in the past few decades, as low-cost carriers have undercut established airlines while the proliferation of online shopping has added new levels of price transparency. The risk now facing the industry, says Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon, is that airline travel will become completely differentiable.
"The reality for us is that our industry could get commoditised - it's a price, a logo, a destination. The one thing we're going to have to own is the customer.
"We need to move to a more sophisticated retail model rather than an airline model. That means we own the customer journey, we own the relationship with the customer and we commercialise it that way."
Charles Darwin said, "it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
