Are Dotcoms VUCA Ready with a Foresight?

Abstract

Dotcom start-ups have braved their existence, maneuvering their existence, sailing through rough waters, in the jargon of turbulence i.e. volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous termed as VUCA (Bennet & Lemoine, 2014; Abidi & Joshi, 2015). They have been constantly challenged with ‘the innovators dilemma (Christensen, 2000), attempting to create ‘the anticipatory organisation’ (Burrus, 2017), with ‘deep simplicity’ (Gribbon, 2004) and a ‘20/20 foresight’ (Courtney, 2001). To supplement the theoretical basis, the idea of ‘entrepreneur-manager’ (Chauhan et al., 2018) was also conceived. The purpose of this study, which has been qualitatively administered with an exploratory research designed approach, is to discover the VUCA challenges that the dotcom firms have undergone in the last one decade, keeping in mind the ontological and epistemological perspectives. Secondly, it attempts to illustrate the anticipatory framework, and the foresightedness necessitated for survival in chaos. A powerful, story-telling methodology has been adopted to bring complex understanding of the subject to simplicity. To understand the phenomenology, authors incorporated methodological pluralism, involving brainstorming, open dialogue and collaboration with likeminded researchers. The discussions recommended to demonstrate the purpose with a case study. An influential case selection technique was administered, where one case was selected that influenced the identified findings among a set of similar cases (Seawright & Gerring, 2008). Book My Show (BMS), as the incumbent entrepreneurial firm, from the dotcom space was chosen for the study. This study reflects, that in ‘the age of turbulence’ (Keegan, 2008), dotcom-based start-ups (or entrepreneurial firms) must ‘think like a futurist’ (Sommers, 2012; Hines & Bishop, 2015), engaging ‘foresight and innovation’ (2013), while moving swiftly acquiring a ‘strategic foresight’ (Lustig, 2017).