Is success the thing stopping Aussie retailers from preparing for Amazon?

Every business owner knows failure can sneak up on you, but for some businesses, the better things appear to be, the faster they hurtle towards the brink of collapse.

Writing for The Washington Post, academic and author of innovation tome Big Bang Disruption Larry Downes lays out the key stages in which big retailers have fallen on their swords in the wake of competitors like Amazon.

The problem for these businesses is not just that a new entrant is causing disruption, Downes argues.