![]() In this new era, strategy needs a rethink. We call these game changers “big-bang disrupters.” They don’t create dilemmas for innovators they trigger disasters. Once launched, such disruption is hard to fight. Disrupters can come out of nowhere and instantly be everywhere. But now entire product lines-whole markets-are being created or destroyed overnight. ![]() We’re accustomed to seeing mature products wiped out by new technologies and to ever-shorter product life cycles. That kind of innovation changes the rules. Consumers in every segment defected simultaneously-and in droves. And it wasn’t just the least profitable or “underserved” customers who were lured away. Users made the switch in a matter of weeks. Nor did the new technology enter at the bottom of a mature market and then follow a carefully planned march through larger customer segments. The disruption here hasn’t come from competitors in the same industry or even from companies with a remotely similar business model. And thanks to the robust platform provided by the iOS and Android operating systems, navigation apps are constantly improving, with new versions distributed automatically through the cloud. Free navigation apps, now preloaded on every smartphone, are not only cheaper but better than the stand-alone devices those companies sell. That advice hasn’t been much help to navigation-product makers like TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan. It assumes that disrupters start with a lower-priced, inferior alternative that chips away at the least profitable segments, giving an incumbent business time to start a skunkworks and develop its own next-generation products. When these disrupters appear, we’ve learned, it’s time to act quickly-either acquiring them or incubating a competing business that embraces their new technology.īut the strategic model of disruptive innovation we’ve all become comfortable with has a blind spot. Christensen’s 1995 HBR article, “Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave,” have taught businesses to be on the lookout for upstarts that offer cheap substitutes to their products, capture new, low-end customers, and then gradually move upmarket to pick off higher-end customers, too. Nearly two decades of management research, beginning with Joseph L. But in every industry, big-bang disruption will be keeping executives in a cold sweat for a long time to come.īy now any well-read executive knows the basic playbook for saving a business from disruptive innovation. Credit cards, automobiles, and education, for instance, are all experiencing early warning signs. Though technology- and information-intensive firms are most vulnerable to big bangs, mature industries face this threat, too. ![]() Diversifying into new kinds of business will protect your company. These assets will usually be intangible other kinds of assets generally lose value quickly after a big bang and must be shed quickly. Find ways to slow the disruptive innovation down and to leverage your surviving assets in another business. The authors, who’ve spent 15 years studying marketplace disruptions, offer some strategic principles to help businesses survive big bangs: Be on the watch for failed experiments that could signal that a big bang is brewing in your industry. That makes them incredibly hard to combat. Once launched, these innovations don’t adhere to conventional strategic paths or normal patterns of market adoption. Frequently, they’re developed by inventors who are just doing low-cost experiments with existing technologies to see what new products they can dream up. Look at the effect that free navigation apps, preloaded on smartphones, had on the market for devices made by TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan.īig-bang disruptions often come out of the blue from people who aren’t your traditional competitors. This kind of “big bang” disruption can devastate entire product lines virtually overnight. Instead, the innovation beats incumbents on both price and quality right from the start and quickly sweeps through every customer segment. It doesn’t follow Clayton Christensen’s classic model, entering the market as a cheap substitute to a high-end product and then gradually increasing in quality and moving up the customer chain. In recent years a new-disquieting-form of disruptive innovation has emerged. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |