From market leader to market follower
Posted: Tue May 27, 2025 5:00 am
Nike, Apple and Netflix are good at playing into disruptive innovation. For example, Nike could choose to launch a line of new leather shoes and green laces. This would be an extension of the current business strategy, and also in line with the innovator's dilemma. But Nike chooses to introduce Nike+ fuelband. With this, they are approaching a market that is completely different from the current market in which they operate.
TomTom and Google Maps
When Google was still in its experimental phase of Google Maps, TomTom was already well on its way to list to data conquering the navigation market. Google Maps only existed for desktop and did not have GPS technology, with a link from satellite to up-to-date road maps, as TomTom already had. TomTom focused on many different types of navigation boxes. Boxes that can be easily installed in the car at low cost. Every car was modernized within a few steps, and at a low rate.
With the rise of the smartphone, a host of new possibilities for TomTom. A world that, in terms of potential reach, is beyond cars. But TomTom saw it too late. Google pulled its Maps project out of the beta phase and threw itself fully into the revolution of mobile telephony. TomTom went from market leader to market follower. Too late and thoughtless.
The TomTom application was offered for 80 euros in the Appstore and never reached the numbers they had hoped for. An early partnership with Apple, in which a license is taken out for a free pre-installed version of the TomTom maps app, could have saved the dominant role of the navigation giant. Now these plans are being made again, but just a little too late. TomTom is not alone in this, Garmin is also missing the boat in the rapid rise of mobile as a new ecosystem within the media landscape. Garmin saw the mobile phone as a regular business that you would rather not have anything to do with.
TomTom and Google Maps
When Google was still in its experimental phase of Google Maps, TomTom was already well on its way to list to data conquering the navigation market. Google Maps only existed for desktop and did not have GPS technology, with a link from satellite to up-to-date road maps, as TomTom already had. TomTom focused on many different types of navigation boxes. Boxes that can be easily installed in the car at low cost. Every car was modernized within a few steps, and at a low rate.
With the rise of the smartphone, a host of new possibilities for TomTom. A world that, in terms of potential reach, is beyond cars. But TomTom saw it too late. Google pulled its Maps project out of the beta phase and threw itself fully into the revolution of mobile telephony. TomTom went from market leader to market follower. Too late and thoughtless.
The TomTom application was offered for 80 euros in the Appstore and never reached the numbers they had hoped for. An early partnership with Apple, in which a license is taken out for a free pre-installed version of the TomTom maps app, could have saved the dominant role of the navigation giant. Now these plans are being made again, but just a little too late. TomTom is not alone in this, Garmin is also missing the boat in the rapid rise of mobile as a new ecosystem within the media landscape. Garmin saw the mobile phone as a regular business that you would rather not have anything to do with.