Insurgence

Insurgence is designed to help business leaders apply new methods to the most important

business problem they face in the world today: namely, how to overcome their incumbent mentality to

maintain relevance and discover new sources of growth. At the convergence of lean, business

model innovation, agile, and design thinking, insurgence is a methodology and

business philosophy that will help leaders in incumbent businesses rediscover how to operate like

small and nimble insurgents whilst maintaining many of their incumbent advantages.

Incumbent businesses, often having enjoyed a long period of relative historical market stability, are

increasingly unprepared for nimble insurgents coming on to the field of play and applying different

assumptions and business models at speed and scale. These incumbent businesses find that the

business models that fuelled their success are no longer robust to the change

surrounding their business, and they are becoming increasingly obsolete, weighed

down by a high degree of internal focus, inflexible internal controls, and an inability to

innovate. Meanwhile, nimble insurgents strike at the heart of these weaknesses by formulating

alternative core assumptions, building adaptive business models, and innovating in close

proximity to customers and market needs.

This book enables business leaders to characterise the difference between incumbents and

insurgents, develop new ways of thinking about how to compete in this age of

accelerating change, and provide a new framework for strategy and innovation that helps

leaders to discover the essence of insurgence for their businesses. It uses rich case

studies that illustrate both successful and unsuccessful efforts to help leaders move

from theory to action at speed and at scale.