Disruptive innovation

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Is disruptive innovation the best approach for company growth?

Innovation Strategy Development
Company Branding
Breakthrough Innovation
Andrei Blasko, PhD, FRSC
66 months ago

4 answers

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Short answer: no.

Longer answer: Many companies (including Apple) do just fine with sustaining (or incremental) innovation. It depends upon your category, its customers, your competitors and the pace and substance of change within the category.

Michael Fruhling
66 months ago
Well said Michael. - John 66 months ago
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No, it is but one of a triad of approaches to use and is often not the best choice. .

Disruptive Innovation is very hard to do and few companies do it well.
Often it requires obsoleting existing products and capital infrastructure to bring disruptive innovations to the market.

The drug industry has found disruptive innovation very profitable by being first to market with new drugs and exclusivity through granted patents.

Even in this example we see the drug companies bring forth incremental innovations on this base with different dosages and 'time release' versions.

The R&D investment to do this is a major barrier for many companies.
regards,
John

John Molander, PE
66 months ago
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I think the question should be one related to the market dynamics exerting pressure upon a company in their chosen market. Trends and external disruptions cause companies to either respond to market dynamics or perish. So by looking for the most disruptive technologies it would seem that companies need to assess and evaluate and make decisions on just how to handle those disruptions through a modification of their path to sustainability. Growth is merely an indication of their sustainability in the face of such disruption brought on by innovation.

I agree with John that few established companies are capable of rolling with the punches causes by disruptive innovation. Starting with the observation that few manage the ideation of disruption innovation well enough to be successful in their own transformation. Consider that disruptions caused by a breakthrough that can impact broader markets carries with it even greater pressures for companies to adopt, transform, or perish, decisions that must be made. Consider CRISPR gene engineering as one profoundly large impact upon the entire healthcare industry. It has the potential to transform drug companies, eliminate surgeries and many other diagnostics and treatments, and of course transform the need for medical insurance. Curing cancer eliminates the need for surgery. Curing diabetes eliminates the need for a lifetime of medications. And yet every company in the path of disruption must figure out how to accommodate it and transform itself to the new model or face extinction. The progression will be interesting to watch from a business perspective over the years.

Sandy Waters
66 months ago
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Innovation is too often seen as inventing banana peel fuelled rocket ships that can fly to Mars and back on a single banana. In other words: great, big swooping new inventions. And it that case - yes, disruptive is probably the way to go.

But innovation is also continuous improvement of the status quo. And here disruption is something to stay away from. Step change multiplied by large numbers (we can save 0.5 cents on each unit, we make 100,000 a day) can still be a very nice victory. And buys you a lot of bananas.

Bart Groenewoud
66 months ago

Have some input?