I recently viewed on the Harvard Business Press a bit old but not less interesting interview of Scott Anthony, former president of Innosight and writer of the Harvard Business review Innovation blog, on disruptive innovation, here is a transcript of the interview:
What is Disruptive innovation?
“Disruptive innovation is a particular type of innovation that occurs when an innovator brings to a market an innovation that is simple, convenient, accessible, and affordable; changing the game. Contrast this to sustaining innovation that takes what exists and makes it better.
A disruptive innovator transforms an existing market and creates a new one by playing the innovation game in a fundamentally different way”
A disruptive innovator transforms an existing market and creates a new one by playing the innovation game in a fundamentally different way”
Does Disruptive innovation have to be big? What is it about? Is it a new technology?
“Disruptive innovation will result in major changes but they don't often rely on technical innovation, in fact many times the technology is quite trivial, it's the business model, the way a company organizes and acts that
drives disruption; Take Wal-Mart for example, when it opened its first shop, it didn’t have better products than the established competition, it just changed the way it acts to deliver the products to the customers at a lower price points. It’s often times not the technology, it’s the business model. Another interesting case of disruptive innovation example is Nintendo Wii.” See Nintendo case study in detail in my blog here
“Disruptive innovation will result in major changes but they don't often rely on technical innovation, in fact many times the technology is quite trivial, it's the business model, the way a company organizes and acts that
drives disruption; Take Wal-Mart for example, when it opened its first shop, it didn’t have better products than the established competition, it just changed the way it acts to deliver the products to the customers at a lower price points. It’s often times not the technology, it’s the business model. Another interesting case of disruptive innovation example is Nintendo Wii.” See Nintendo case study in detail in my blog here
How can firms generate disruptive innovations? Do they need to have a disruptive innovation department?
“Everyone within organizations has the ability to come up with disruptive ideas. Senior management must have to lead and create appropriate organization space for disruptive innovations to flourish. It is imperative to create a separate organization with own processes to support disruptive innovation. Otherwise any disruptive innovation will not survive the internal organization processes.
How to spot disruptive innovation opportunities?
“Look for markets where there is some kind of constraints that inhibits consumptions, where is there something that makes it difficult for people to solve problems in their life. Sometimes they don't have skills, money, access the solution and sometimes it just takes too long. Find one of those barriers to consumption and see how you can obliterate it”
“Try to identify where people have important unsatisfied jobs to be done, where there is a problem that the customer can’t adequately solve today. If you can find that frustrated customer and ease their pain, you often times have the ticket to disruptive innovation.”
“After you have looked for constraints consumptions and you have targeted that job to be done, think about how you can play the innovation game differently. Remember is not about doing it better, it’s about making it simpler, cheaper, more accessible, and more affordable, that's what disruption is all about”
Do you always to create or satisfy a need? How to you proceed?
“The customer can very rarely articulate the specific things they want or need”
"Think about the markets that you are going to analyze, looking not necessarily at the most demanding customer today, but thinking about people who are relatively undemanding, or people who are not consuming anything at all"
"Think about the markets that you are going to analyze, looking not necessarily at the most demanding customer today, but thinking about people who are relatively undemanding, or people who are not consuming anything at all"
“Focus groups can be a simple way to begin a conversation with customers. Customer observation can be really powerful, because sometimes the customer simple can't tell you what you want. Sometimes you got to
give customers something, a very early prototype and let them co-develop the product or service with you.Sometimes you got to do more detailed quantitative research to really pinpoint what are the points of frustration in the market and where are opportunities to do things differently”
give customers something, a very early prototype and let them co-develop the product or service with you.Sometimes you got to do more detailed quantitative research to really pinpoint what are the points of frustration in the market and where are opportunities to do things differently”
Do organizations need to invest a lot?
“Take a simple first step. Invest a little, learn a lot. Don't spend huge money upfront because the only thing you can be sure of is that your first strategy is wrong, so if you invest too much too soon, you are looking into a path that is fatally flawed”
“Take a simple first step. Invest a little, learn a lot. Don't spend huge money upfront because the only thing you can be sure of is that your first strategy is wrong, so if you invest too much too soon, you are looking into a path that is fatally flawed”
Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete/Olaf