Disruptive innovation

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps cre-ate a new market and value network, and eventually dis-rupts an existing market and value network (over a fewyears or decades), displacing an earlier technology. Theterm is used in business and technology literature to de-scribe innovations that improve a product or service inways that the market does not expect, typically first bydesigning for a different set of consumers in a new mar-ket and later by lowering prices in the existing market.In contrast to disruptive innovation, a sustaining inno-vation does not create new markets or value networksbut rather only evolves existing ones with better value,allowing the firms within to compete against each other’ssustaining improvements. Sustaining innovations may beeither “discontinuous”[1] (i.e. “transformational” or “rev-olutionary”) or “continuous” (i.e. “evolutionary”).Sustaining innovations are typically innovations in tech-nology, whereas disruptive innovations cause changes tomarkets. For example, the automobile was a revolution-ary technological innovation, but it was not a disrup-tive innovation, because early automobiles were expen-sive luxury items that did not disrupt themarket for horse-drawn vehicles. The market for transportation essentiallyremained intact until the debut of the lower priced FordModel T in 1908.[2] Themass-produced automobile was adisruptive innovation, because it changed the transporta-tion market. The automobile, by itself, was not.The current theoretical understanding of disruptive in-novation is different from what might be expected bydefault, an idea that Clayton M. Christensen called the“technology mudslide hypothesis”. This is the simplis-tic idea that an established firm fails because it doesnot “keep up technologically” with other firms. In thishypothesis, firms are like climbers scrambling upwardon crumbling footing, where it takes constant upward-climbing effort just to stay still, and any break from theeffort (such as complacency born of profitability) causesa rapid downhill slide. Christensen and colleagues haveshown that this simplistic hypothesis is wrong; it does notmodel reality. What they have shown is that good firmsare usually aware of the innovations, but their businessenvironment does not allow them to pursue them whenthey first arise, because they are not profitable enough atfirst and because their development can take scarce re-sources away from that of sustaining innovations (whichare needed to compete against current competition). InChristensen’s terms, a firm’s existing value networks placeinsufficient value on the disruptive innovation to allow itspursuit by that firm. Meanwhile, start-up firms inhabit

different value networks, at least until the day that theirdisruptive innovation is able to invade the older value net-work. At that time, the established firm in that networkcan at best only fend off the market share attack with ame-too entry, for which survival (not thriving) is the onlyreward.[3]

The work of Christensen and others during the 2000s hasaddressed the question of what firms can do to avoid dis-placement brought on by technological disruption.

1 History and usage of the term

The term disruptive technologieswas coined by ClaytonM. Christensen and introduced in his 1995 article Dis-ruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave,[4] which he co-wrote with Joseph Bower. The article is aimed at man-aging executives who make the funding/purchasing de-cisions in companies rather than the research commu-nity. He describes the term further in his book The In-novator’s Dilemma.[5] Innovator’s Dilemma explored thecases of the disk drive industry (which, with its rapid gen-erational change, is to the study of business what fruitflies are to the study of genetics, as Christensen was ad-vised in the 1990s[6]) and the excavating equipment in-dustry (where hydraulic actuation slowly displaced cable-actuated movement). In his sequel with Michael ERaynor, The Innovator’s Solution,[7] Christensen replacedthe term disruptive technology with disruptive innovationbecause he recognized that few technologies are intrinsi-cally disruptive or sustaining in character; rather, it is thebusiness model that the technology enables that createsthe disruptive impact. However, Christensen’s evolutionfrom a technological focus to a business modelling fo-cus is central to understanding the evolution of businessat the market or industry level. Christensen and MarkW. Johnson, who co-founded the management consult-ing firm Innosight, described the dynamics of “businessmodel innovation” in the 2008 Harvard Business Reviewarticle “Reinventing Your Business Model”.[8] The con-cept of disruptive technology continues a long traditionof the identification of radical technical change in thestudy of innovation by economists, and the developmentof tools for its management at a firm or policy level.In the late 1990s, the automotive sector began to embracea perspective of “constructive disruptive technology” byworking with a consultant David E. O’Ryan, wherebythe use of current off-the-shelf technology was integratedwith newer innovation to create what he called “an unfair

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2 2 THE THEORY

advantage”. The process or technology change as a wholehad to be “constructive” in improving the current methodof manufacturing, yet disruptively impact the whole ofthe business case model, resulting in a significant reduc-tion of waste, energy, materials, labor or legacy costs tothe user.In keeping with the insight that what matters economi-cally is the business model, not the technological sophis-tication itself, Christensen’s theory explains why manydisruptive innovations are not “advanced technologies”,which the technologymudslide hypothesis would lead oneto expect. Rather, they are often novel combinations ofexisting off-the-shelf components, applied cleverly to asmall, fledgling value network.

2 The theory

Christensen defines a disruptive innovation as a productor service designed for a new set of customers.

“Generally, disruptive innovations weretechnologically straightforward, consisting ofoff-the-shelf components put together in aproduct architecture that was often simplerthan prior approaches. They offered less ofwhat customers in established markets wantedand so could rarely be initially employed there.They offered a different package of attributesvalued only in emerging markets remote from,and unimportant to, the mainstream.”[9]

Christensen argues that disruptive innovations can hurtsuccessful, well managed companies that are responsiveto their customers and have excellent research and de-velopment. These companies tend to ignore the marketsmost susceptible to disruptive innovations, because themarkets have very tight profit margins and are too smallto provide a good growth rate to an established (sizable)firm.[10] Thus, disruptive technology provides an exam-ple of when the common business-world advice to "focuson the customer" (“stay close to the customer,” “listen tothe customer”) can sometimes be strategically counter-productive.While Christensen argued that disruptive innovations canhurt successful, well managed companies, O’Ryan coun-tered that “constructive” integration of existing, new, andforward thinking innovation could improve the economicbenefits of these same well managed companies, once de-cision making management understood the systemic ben-efits as a whole.Christensen distinguishes between “low-end disruption"which targets customers who do not need the full perfor-mance valued by customers at the high end of the mar-ket and “new-market disruption” which targets customerswho have needs that were previously unserved by existingincumbents.[11]

How low-end disruption occurs over time.

“Low-end disruption” occurs when the rate at whichproducts improve exceeds the rate at which customers canadopt the new performance. Therefore, at some point theperformance of the product overshoots the needs of cer-tain customer segments. At this point, a disruptive tech-nology may enter the market and provide a product whichhas lower performance than the incumbent but which ex-ceeds the requirements of certain segments, thereby gain-ing a foothold in the market.In low-end disruption, the disruptor is focused initially onserving the least profitable customer, who is happy with agood enough product. This type of customer is not willingto pay premium for enhancements in product functional-ity. Once the disruptor has gained a foothold in this cus-tomer segment, it seeks to improve its profit margin. Toget higher profit margins, the disruptor needs to enter thesegment where the customer is willing to pay a little morefor higher quality. To ensure this quality in its product,the disruptor needs to innovate. The incumbent will notdo much to retain its share in a not so profitable segment,and will move up-market and focus on its more attrac-tive customers. After a number of such encounters, theincumbent is squeezed into smaller markets than it waspreviously serving. And then finally the disruptive tech-nology meets the demands of the most profitable segmentand drives the established company out of the market.“Newmarket disruption” occurs when a product fits a newor emerging market segment that is not being served byexisting incumbents in the industry.The extrapolation of the theory to all aspects of life hasbeen challenged,[12] as has the methodology of relying onselected case studies as the principal form of evidence.[12]Jill Lepore points out that some companies identified bythe theory as victims of disruption a decade or more ago,rather than being defunct, remain dominant in their in-dustries today (including Seagate Technology, U.S. Steel,and Bucyrus).[12] Lepore questions whether the theoryhas been oversold and misapplied, as if it were able toexplain everything in every sphere of life, including notjust business but education and public institutions.[12]

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3 Disruptive technology

In 2009, Milan Zeleny described the high technology asdisruptive technology and raised the question what is be-ing disrupted during this process. The answer, accordingto Zeleny, is the support network of high technology.[13]For example, introducing electric cars disrupts the sup-port network for gasoline cars (network of gas and servicestations). Such disruption is fully expected and thereforeeffectively resisted by support net owners. In the long run,high (disruptive) technology either bypasses, upgrades orreplaces the outdated support network.Technology, being a form of social relationship, alwaysevolves. No technology remains fixed. Technology starts,develops, persists, mutates, stagnates and declines – justlike living organisms.[14] The evolutionary life-cycle oc-curs in the use and development of any technology. Anew high technology core emerges and challenges ex-isting Technology Support Nets which are thus forcedto co-evolve with it. New versions of the core are be-ing designed and fitted into an increasingly appropriateTSN, with smaller and smaller high-technology effects.High technology becomes just regular technology, withmore efficient versions fitting the same support net. Fi-nally, even the efficiency gains diminish, emphasis shiftsto product tertiary attributes (appearance, style) and tech-nology becomes TSN-preserving appropriate technology.This technological equilibrium state becomes establishedand fixated, resisting being interrupted by a technologicalmutation – new high technology appears and the cycle isrepeated.Regarding this evolving process of technology,Christensen said:

“The technological changes that damageestablished companies are usually not radicallynew or difficult from a technological point ofview. They do, however, have two importantcharacteristics: First, they typically present adifferent package of performance attributes—ones that, at least at the outset, are not val-ued by existing customers. Second, the per-formance attributes that existing customers dovalue improve at such a rapid rate that the newtechnology can later invade those establishedmarkets.”[15]

Joseph Bower[16] explained the process of how disruptivetechnology, through its requisite support net, dramaticallytransforms a certain industry.

“When the technology that has the poten-tial for revolutionizing an industry emerges,established companies typically see it asunattractive: it’s not something their main-stream customers want, and its projected profitmargins aren’t sufficient to cover big-company

cost structure. As a result, the new technol-ogy tends to get ignored in favor of what’s cur-rently popular with the best customers. Butthen another company steps in to bring the in-novation to a new market. Once the disruptivetechnology becomes established there, smaller-scale innovation rapidly raise the technology’sperformance on attributes that mainstream cus-tomers’ value.”[17]

The automobile was high technology with respect to thehorse carriage; however, it evolved into technology and fi-nally into appropriate technology with a stable, unchang-ing TSN. Main high-technology advance in the offing issome form of electric car – whether the energy source isthe sun, hydrogen, water, air pressure or traditional charg-ing outlet. Electric cars preceded the gasoline automobileby many decades and now it returns to people’s life to re-place the traditional gasoline automobile.Milan Zeleny described the above phenomenon.[18] Healso wrote that:

“Implementing high technology is often re-sisted. This resistance is well understood onthe part of active participants in the requisiteTSN. The electric car will be resisted by gas-station operators in the same way automatedteller machines (ATMs) were resisted by banktellers and automobiles by horsewhip makers.Technology does not qualitatively restructurethe TSN and therefore will not be resisted andnever has been resisted. Middle managementresists business process reengineering becauseBPR represents a direct assault on the sup-port net (coordinative hierarchy) they thriveon. Teamwork and multi-functionality is re-sisted by those whose TSN provides the com-fort of narrow specialization and command-driven work.”[19]

4 High-technology effects

High technology is a technology core that changes thevery architecture (structure and organization) of the com-ponents of the technology support net. High technol-ogy therefore transforms the qualitative nature of tasks ofTSN and their relations, as well as their requisite physi-cal, energy and information flows. It also affects the skillsrequired, the roles played, the styles of management andcoordination – the organizational culture itself.This kind of technology core is different from regulartechnology core, which preserves the qualitative natureof flows and the structure of the support and only al-lows users to perform the same tasks in the same way,but faster, more reliably, in larger quantities, or more ef-ficiently. It is also different from appropriate technol-

4 8 NOTES

ogy core, which preserves the TSN itself with the pur-pose of technology implementation and allows users todo the same thing in the same way at comparable lev-els of efficiency, instead of improving the efficiency ofperformance.[20]

Based on the framework, modern information andknowledge-based technologies currently tend to be hightechnologies with high-technology effects. They inte-grate task, labor and knowledge, transcend classical sep-aration of mental and manual work, enhance systemsaspects, and promote self-reliance, self-service, innova-tion and creativity.[21] In comparison, the “low” technolo-gies, no matter how new, complex or advanced, are thosewhich still require the dividing and splintering of task, la-bor and knowledge, increase specialization, promote di-vision and dependency, sustain intermediaries and dimin-ish initiative.As for the difference between high technology and lowtechnology, Milan Zeleny once said:

" The effects of high technology alwaysbreaks the direct comparability by changingthe system itself, therefore requiring new mea-sures and new assessments of its productivity.High technology cannot be compared and eval-uated with the existing technology purely onthe basis of cost, net present value or returnon investment. Only within an unchanging andrelatively stable TSN would such direct finan-cial comparability be meaningful. For exam-ple, you can directly compare a manual type-writer with an electric typewriter, but not atypewriter with a word processor. Therein laysthe management challenge of high technology."[22]

However, not all modern technologies are high technolo-gies. They have to be used as high technologies, functionas such, and be embedded in their requisite TSNs. Theyhave to empower the individual because only through theindividual can they empower knowledge. Not all infor-mation technologies have integrative effects. Some in-formation systems are still designed to improve the tra-ditional hierarchy of command and thus preserve andentrench the existing TSN. The administrative model ofmanagement, for instance, further aggravates division oftask and labor, further specializes knowledge, and sepa-rates management from workers and concentrates infor-mation and knowledge in centers.As knowledge surpasses capital, labor and raw materi-als as the dominant economic resource, technologies arealso starting to reflect this shift. Technologies are rapidlyshifting from centralized hierarchies to distributed net-works. Nowadays knowledge is not residing in a super-mind, super-book or super-database, but a complex re-lational pattern of networks brought forth to coordinatehuman action.

5 Practical example of disruption

In the practical world, the popularization of personalcomputers illustrates how the knowledge contributes tothe ongoing technology innovation. The original cen-tralized concept (one computer, many persons) is aknowledge-defying idea of the computing prehistory andits inadequacies and failures have become clearly ap-parent. The era of personal computing brought power-ful computers “on every desk” (one person, one com-puter). This short and transitional period was necessaryfor getting used to the new computing environment, butwas inadequate from the knowledge-producing vantagepoint. Adequate knowledge creation and managementcome mainly from networking and distributed comput-ing: one person, many computers. Each person’s com-puter must form an access to the entire computing land-scape or ecology through the Internet of other comput-ers, databases, mainframes, as well as production, dis-tribution and retailing facilities, etc. For the first timeour technology empowers individuals rather than exter-nal hierarchies. It transfers influence and power where itoptimally belongs: at the loci of the useful knowledge.Even though hierarchies and bureaucracies do not inno-vate, free and empowered individuals do; knowledge, in-novation, spontaneity and self-reliance are becoming in-creasingly valued and promoted.[23]

6 Examples of disruptive innova-tions

7 See also• Blue Ocean Strategy

• Creative destruction

• Killer application

• Leapfrogging

• List of emerging technologies

• Obsolescence

• Paradigm shift

• Technology strategy

8 Notes[1] Christensen 1997, p. xviii. Christensen describes as “rev-

olutionary” innovations as “discontinuous” “sustaining in-novations”.

[2] Christensen 2003, p. 49.

[3] Christensen 1997, p. 47.

5

[4] Bower, Joseph L. & Christensen, Clayton M. (1995).However the concept of new technologies leading towholesale economic change is not a new idea since JosephSchumpeter adapted the idea of creative destruction fromKarl Marx. Schumpeter (1949) in one of his examplesused “the railroadization of the Middle West as it was ini-tiated by the Illinois Central”. He wrote, “The IllinoisCentral not only meant very good business whilst it wasbuilt and whilst new cities were built around it and landwas cultivated, but it spelled the death sentence for the[old] agriculture of the West."["Disruptive Technologies:Catching the Wave” Harvard Business Review, January–February 1995

[5] Christensen 1997.

[6] Christensen 1997, p. 3.

[7] Christensen 2003.

[8] Johnson, Mark, Christensen, Clayton, et al., 2008, “Rein-venting Your Business Model, Harvard Business Review,December 2008.

[9] Christensen 1997, p. 15.

[10] Christensen 1997, p. i-iii.

[11] Christensen 2003, p. 23-45.

[12] Lepore, Jill (2014-06-23), “Annals of enterprise: Thedisruption machine: What the gospel of innovation getswrong.”, The New Yorker. Published online 2014-06-17under the headline 'What the Theory of “Disruptive Inno-vation” Gets Wrong'.

[13] Zeleny, Milan. “High Technology and Barriers to Innova-tion: From Globalization to Localization”. InternationalJournal of Information Technology & Decision Making(World Scientific) 11: P 441.

[14] Oliver, Gassmann (May 2006). “Opening up the innova-tion process: towards an agenda”. R&D Management 36(03): P 223–366. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9310.2006.00437.

[15] Christensen, Clayton (January 1995). “Disruptive Tech-nologies Catching the Wave”. Harvard Business Review:P 3.

[16] “HBS Faculty & Research”.

[17] Bower, Joseph (May 2002). “Disruptive Change”. Har-vard Business Review 80 (05): P 95–101.

[18] Zeleny, Milan (January 2009). “Technology and HighTechnology: Support Net and Barriers to Innovation”.Advanced Management Systems 01 (01): P 8–21.

[19] Zeleny, Milan (September 2009). “Technology and HighTechnology: Support Net and Barriers to Innovation”.Acta Mechanica Slovaca 36 (01): P 6–19.

[20] Masaaki, Kotabe; Scott Swan (January 2007). “Therole of strategic alliances in high-technology new prod-uct development”. Strategic Management Journal 16 (08).doi:10.1002/smj.4250160804.

[21] Manyika, James (May 2013). “Disruptive technologies:Advances that will transform life, business, and the globaleconomy”. McKinsey Global Institute.

[22] Zeleny, Milan (2006). “Knowledge-information autopoi-etic cycle: towards the wisdom systems”. InternationalJournal of Management and Decision Making 7 (1): P 3–18. doi:10.1504/IJMDM.2006.008168.

[23] Brown, Brad (March 2014). “Views from the front linesof the data-analytics revolution”. McKinsey Quarterly.

[24] Bosman, Julie (13 March 2012). “After 244 Years, En-cyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses”. The New YorkTimes. Retrieved 1 April 2012.

[25] Tartakoff, Joseph. “Victim Of Wikipedia: Microsoft ToShut Down Encarta”. paidContent. Retrieved 1 April2012.

[26] Sandström, Christian G. (2010). “A revised perspectiveon Disruptive Innovation – Exploring Value, Networksand Business models (Theisis submitted to Chalmers Uni-versity of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden)" (PDF). Re-trieved 2010-11-22.

[27] Christensen 1997, p. 3-28.

[28] Christensen 1997, pp. 61–76.

[29] Christensen 2003, pp. 37–39.

[30] Christensen 2003, p. 64.

[31] Knopper, Steve (2009). Appetite for self-destruction : thespectacular crash of the record industry in the digital age.New York: Free Press. ISBN 1-4165-5215-4.

[32] “Concorde grounded for good”. BBC News, 10 April2003. 10 April 2003. Retrieved 4 May 2012.

9 References

• Anthony, Scott D.; Johnson, Mark W.; Sinfield,Joseph V.; Altman, Elizabeth J. (2008). Innovator’sGuide to Growth - Putting Disruptive Innovation toWork. Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 978-1-59139-846-2.

• How to Identify and Build Disruptive New Busi-nesses,MIT Sloan Management Review Spring 2002

• Christensen, Clayton M. (1997), The innovator’sdilemma: when new technologies cause great firmsto fail, Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard Busi-ness School Press, ISBN 978-0-87584-585-2. (edit)

• Christensen, Clayton M. & Overdorf, Michael.(2000). “Meeting the Challenge of DisruptiveChange” Harvard Business Review, March–April2000.

6 11 EXTERNAL LINKS

• Christensen, Clayton M., Bohmer, Richard, &Kenagy, John. (2000). “Will Disruptive Innova-tions Cure Health Care?" Harvard Business Review,September 2000.

• Christensen, Clayton M. (2003). The innovator’ssolution : creating and sustaining successful growth.Harvard Business Press. ISBN 978-1-57851-852-4.

• Christensen, Clayton M.; Anthony, Scott D.; Roth,Erik A. (2004). Seeing What’s Next. Harvard Busi-ness School Press. ISBN 978-1-59139-185-2.

• Christensen, Clayton M., Baumann, Heiner, Rug-gles, Rudy, & Sadtler, Thomas M. (2006). “Disrup-tive Innovation for Social Change”Harvard BusinessReview, December 2006.

• Mountain, Darryl R., Could New TechnologiesCause Great Law Firms to Fail?

• Mountain, Darryl R. (2006). Disrupting conven-tional law firm business models using document as-sembly, International Journal of Law and Informa-tion Technology 2006; doi:10.1093/ijlit/eal019

• Tushman, M.L.; Anderson, P. (1986). “Techno-logical Discontinuities and Organizational Environ-ments”. Administrative Science Quarterly 31: 439–465. doi:10.2307/2392832.

• Eric Chaniot (2007). “The Red Pill of TechnologyInnovation” Red Pill, October 2007.

10 Further reading

• Danneels, Erwin (2004). “Disruptive TechnologyReconsidered: A Critique and Research Agenda”(PDF). Journal of Product Innovation Manage-ment 21 (4): 246–258. doi:10.1111/j.0737-6782.2004.00076.x.

• Danneels, Erwin (2006). “From the Guest Edi-tor: Dialogue on The Effects of Disruptive Tech-nology on Firms and Industries”. Journal ofProduct Innovation Management 23 (1): 2–4.doi:10.1111/j.1540-5885.2005.00174.x.

• Roy, Raja (2014). “Exploring the Boundary Condi-tions of Disruption: Large Firms and New ProductIntroduction With a Potentially Disruptive Technol-ogy in the Industrial Robotics Industry,” Engineer-ing Management, IEEE Transactions on, vol.61,no.1, pp. 90,100. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6578147

11 External links• Peer-reviewed chapter on Disruptive Innovation byClayton Christensen with public commentaries bynotable designers like Donald Norman

• The Myth of Disruptive Technologies. Note thatDvorák’s definition of disruptive technology de-scribes the low cost disruption model, above. Hereveals the overuse of the term and shows howmanydisruptive technologies are not truly disruptive.

• “The Disruptive Potential of Game Technolo-gies: Lessons Learned from its Impact on theMilitary Simulation Industry”, by Roger Smithin Research Technology Management (Septem-ber/October 2006)

• Disruptive Innovation Theory

• Bibliography of Christensen’s “Theory of DisruptiveInnovation” as it relates to higher education

• Disruptive Technology Portfolio by Information-Week and Credit Suisse

• Diffusion of Innovations, Strategy and Innova-tions The D.S.I Framework by Francisco RodriguesGomes, Academia.edu share research

• CREATING THE FUTURE: Building Tomorrow’sWorld

• Lecture (video), VoIP as an example of disruptivetechnology

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