April 26, 2013

The
Decorative Plumbing and Hardware Association’s 2013 Annual Conference, taking place October 9-12, will be held in Chandler, Ariz. The theme of this year’s DPHA conference is “Thriving on Disruption.”

“Disruptive innovations are like missiles launched at your business,” wrote Clayton Christenson and Maxwell Wessel in the Harvard Business Review. The disruptive innovation launched at DPHA member showrooms is considered to be the internet.

Disruptions that stem from technological or business model advantages can scale as disruptive businesses move upmarket in search of more demanding customers. The other key component of dealing with disruption is to recognize that most businesses don’t sell products or services. They perform jobs for their customers. A disrupter captures market share from established businesses by doing jobs more easily, conveniently or affordably.

DPHA will present case histories of the different jobs that showrooms perform for their customers. They will identify, based on actual showroom experiences, the key disruptive challenges that showrooms face and actions that can be taken to counteract these new challenges.

Following the case histories, DPHA members will break into roundtable workshop groups to further identify the various jobs that each showroom performs for their customers. Groups will also identify the jobs that disrupters perform that are equal to or better than showrooms and discuss together the barriers disrupters need to overcome to take away the advantages showrooms have. The final component of the roundtable workshop is to brainstorm ideas that each showroom can use to help identify what DPHA members can do better than traditional rivals and the Internet and leverage those advantages to make their businesses more valuable to their customers.

For additional information, contact jbabbitt@dpha.net.