From Rhino to Unicorn

Book excerpt: All over the world, corporate executives are under increasing pressure to resist a new breed of competitors: the digital innovators disrupting long-established business models and capturing markets as a result. The old world is made up of enormous and incumbent market-leading companies known as "rhinos" while the new world is ruled by digitally native, innovative and disruptive companies known as "unicorns." And the success of the unicorns doesn't always make sense if you're going by the old rules.In the face of widespread "digital transformation" in virtually every industry, the question becomes: how can incumbent companies and executives keep their edge against their new competitors? In From Rhino to Unicorn, Victor Orlovski and Vladimir Korovkin combine their personal experience with analyses of more than 40 case studies to answer that question.Drawing on their combined decades of experience in both business and academia, Orlovski and Korovkin break down:-The eight key areas where unicorns have an advantage over rhino companies-Why most rhinos' attempts at digital transformation fail-The strategies successful companies use to navigate digital transformation-The seven most common mental "traps" companies fall into when trying to transform-The proven roadmap for rhino-to-unicorn transitions (used by major corporations like Sberbank)And much more.While many business books discuss innovation and disruption, few can match the depth of academic and economic analysis offered by From Rhino to Unicorn-and even fewer can offer actual strategies for established companies to thrive in the brave new world of digital transformation.