Will disruptive technologies be better weathered by the hi-tech giants or small specialist firms?

Take 3D printing for example – from building whole concrete homes in just 24 hours to providing artificial limbs to patients, this technology is undoubtedly changing lives all over the world. The technology works by three dimensional printing of virtually any material into a range of shapes, sizes and objects at a fraction of the manufacturing cost – clothes, toys, aircraft parts and even bio printing of human skin! The Internet of Things is the next generation of connectivity across the globe, giving our objects, products and devices access to the internet, making our lives more like The Jetsons than ever before. From coffee makers that can keep track of when the milk is out, smart parking-space management to internet-managed assembly lines, it is fast changing the landscape of manufacturing and technology as we know it. A recent McKinsey Global Institute report, predicts the IoT could generate as much as $6.2trillion in new global economic value annually by 2025, with 80 to 100% of all manufacturers using IoT applications by then. What this means for the technology industry is that smaller companies who previously couldn't compete on a global level can now utilise such technologies, democratise innovation, unleash human creativity and compete with the biggest players. One feature of small tech start ups is the ability to be responsive, offer specialist expertise and help develop a solution to fit problems. By accessing these new technologies, will smaller, specialist UK firms be able to put themselves on the map and compete internationally? Businesses can utilise this technology to personalise products, making them unique and specialist, and most importantly – automated. An example given at the conference was multinational photography company Kodak, which had employed 13,000 people to manage its photography and images business – something that Instagram did with 13 people! Are we about to see these specialist firms overtake the larger multinationals because they are more flexible and responsive to their markets? And if so what does this mean for labour disruptions? After all it's predicted that by 2020 most skilled professionals career paths will be disrupted by smart machine technology, which is capable of 'absorbing millions of middle-class jobs'. Are smaller, more agile and specialist technologies about to emerge as industry leaders or do the bigger players still dominate? In its prime, Kodak's photography business was an international leader.They invented the core technology which is used in current digital cameras, but failed to embrace the importance of digital to the industry. Kodak struggled to compete, and had to file for bankruptcy in 2012. In less than a year, however, the company restructured the business, sold off various arms and emerged from bankruptcy with a narrower focus on commercial imaging and graphics, and digital printing solutions. For a company to fall so far and not be bought put by a competitor is rare. Had this been a smaller company would they have been able to bounce back? Despite the uncertainty, the brand is still highly recognised around the world. Is this something that plays in multinational corporations favour over smaller national companies which would have withered and disappeared unnoticed? A very similar story is Apple, which almost went under in the PC market before reinventing itself as a leader in the music industry with iTunes software and then again in the mobile market with the iPhone. IBM is another tech turnaround success story, which was struggling to survive in the early 90's. By restructuring its focus towards technology services, cutting jobs and selling off assets, IBM is now one of the world's most profitable software companies. Forbes magazine argues that the most successful tech turnarounds need to continually re-invent themselves in order to survive. The number of large tech companies that have managed to turn themselves around is actually very small – take Blackberry and Nokia who, despite their size, are still struggling to regain their former foothold on the mobile market. If companies need to be entrepreneurial and agile, to seize new market opportunities in order to survive, is this more feasible in smaller companies where there is less risk or in larger companies where there is more security and resilience to bounce back from the brink of bankruptcy? Will disruptive technologies be better weathered by the hi-tech giants or small specialist firms? Let us know your thoughts…Follow @New_Electronics on Twitter and join the conversation. Anndeep Sandhu is a marketing executive with Enigma People Solutions.