Travelocity Founder Terry Jones Tackles Disruption in New Book

Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity.com and co-founder of Kayak.com, was instrumental in disrupting the travel industry.

Now, in his new book Disruption OFF: The Technological Disruption Coming for Your Company and What to Do About It (http://www.tbjones.com), Jones shares his insights on how all companies are at risk of being disrupted right out of business if they don’t adapt to changing times and changing technology.

Terry Jones, Author of “Disruption OFF: The Technological Disruption Coming for Your Company and What to Do About It”

The book’s subtitle might make “disruption” sound foreboding – and rightly so – but Jones says within every disruption exists a silver lining of opportunity.

“You call it disruption, I call it innovation,” he says.

In other words, Jones argues in the book, those competitors who upend the business landscape do so by being innovators and risk takers, something that becomes anathema for too many large corporations that choose caution over exposing themselves to potential loss.

But caution, Jones writes, can be the riskiest business move of all.

“You may be afraid to disrupt your organization because you’re afraid it will fail,” he writes. “The irony is, your organization will fail if you do not disrupt it.”

Indeed, there exists a mounting casualty rate of once profitable companies that saw their market share dwindle as daring, savvy and previously unheard of competitors emerged to claim their thrones.

“It’s unlikely your largest competitors will be your undoing,” Jones writes. “The problem is those 5,000 to 6,000 new startups per year that are attacking the traditional world. You need to put their ideas to work and become a disrupter yourself.”

But in Disruption OFF, Jones also points out that not every corporate juggernaut ends up tossed on the business ash heap.

“There are a surprising number of 100-year-old companies out there,” Jones writes. “And most of the ones I’ve talked to seem to have mastered the ability to shed their old skin and renew themselves when required, often quite painfully.”

One such company Jones mentions in Disruption OFF is American Express, founded in 1850 not as a financial services company but as an express shipping business. For more than a century and a half, the company has proven itself open to change and innovation.

“Your company may currently be strong and it may be run by intelligent executives,” Jones writes. “But the question is: Are you adaptable enough to change? Even more importantly, are you proactively preparing for change? If so, you and your company are more likely to survive and maybe even thrive.”