That small companies are better able to adapt to the changes society throws at them is one of those business truisms that scarcely warrants analysis.  The standard thinking is that entrepreneurs can sweep into an industry, plundering as they go and sweep away the established order of things.

This has been the case for at least as long as Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction has been in the popular lexicon, but there are signs that things are changing, and that established players are getting better at constructing defensive bulwarks against the agile attackers.

In Goliath’s Revenge innovation experts Todd Hewlin and Scott Snyder argue that there are six main factors that underpin this newfound defensive success.

1. Deliver step-change customer outcomes – Whilst not dismissing the culture of continuous improvement that has delivered so many marginal gains for companies, they believe that the kind of change that will take your lunch is what venture capitalists call 10x customer outcomes.  It’s change of the substantial kind.
2. Pursue big I and little I innovation – This flows on from the previous factor in that they advocate pursuing ground breaking innovation at the same time as your iterative, continuous improvement style work.  Achieving this dual operating system approach is a topic that has been covered at length elsewhere.
3. Use your data as currency – What is relatively new however, at least to our current age, is the way in which data is used in a defensive way.  In large part, this is what separates the first generation of unicorns, such as Google and Facebook, from the latest wave, such as Lyft and Spotify.  This data has grown in importance due to the ability to utilize AI to derive insights from that data.
4. Accelerate through innovation networks – Open innovation is something that I’ve covered extensively on this blog over the years, so it’s perhaps no surprise to see this mentioned.  Whilst the number of organizations tapping into open networks is growing, most are merely dipping their toe in the water rather than fully immersing themselves.
5. Value talent over technology – The fifth factor aims to reinforce the importance of talent to any business.  This may seem redundant, but if your workforce is designed for old battles rather than new ones, then you may find a profound gap between the talent you need and what you have.
6. Reframe your purpose – Last, but not least, is to ensure that the purpose and strategy of your business is focused on what will matter tomorrow as much as it is on what matters today.  There are no shortage of examples of companies that focused their strategy on things that ceased to matter as the market shifted from under them.  Defending yourself from startups requires you not to make the same mistake.

“None of these new rules provides a quick fix independently of the others,” the authors say.  “For most established companies, achieving ‘Goliath’s Revenge’ is a three-to-five year journey, and even the most aggressive ‘Goliath’ is only sitting on a subset of these six rules today.”

Whilst the rules on their own should hopefully be nothing new, at least to executives who have kept at least one finger on the pulse of change in recent years, they are nonetheless useful to have in one chunk to help focus our thinking.  The book comes complete with an action plan for each rule to help guide you, whether you’re an organization or an individual, in navigating the changing times we find ourselves in.