Disruption can’t always be easy to predict, but if your customers find dealing with your industry to be a pain, then you might want to watch out, said Jim Harris, international bestselling author and journalist focusing on disruptive innovation, sustainability and energy.

“What are the classic problems that customers don’t like about dealing with your industry?” Harris asked Dave Vellante and Paul Gillin, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during IBM Insight 2015. “If there are a lot of those, then you’re ripe for disruption.”

Harris used the common example of the way Uber, Inc. fundamentally tore through the taxi industry by offering a better, cheaper and more convenient alternative.

“So many industries figure they’re immune to these forces, like the taxicab industry until Uber rolled over them,” Harris said. “On a valuation basis, Uber is worth half as much as all of the taxi companies in the world combined. They have the wakeup call now; they’re all busy getting on apps, but they’re not working cooperatively.”

Harris explained that there are many ways that businesses can improve their products and services, but he cautioned that there is no miracle solution that can solve everything.

“There is no one silver bullet; there’s silver buckshot,” Harris said. “There’s a myriad. There’s thousands of solutions that need to be implemented, and we like to think about the one big thing we need to do. No, it’s concurrent. It’s all sorts of solutions being implemented.”

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Insight 2015. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE