Clayton Christensen (1952- )
Harvard Business school professor and expert on innovation (pictured right) .
Key books
The Innovator’s Dilemma
(1997)
(see for more detail The Innovator’s Dilemma in
the Business Books section)
Successful, innovative companies face a problem (the innovator’s dilemma), caused by “disruptive
innovation”.
What is disruptive innovation?
It involves competitors providing simpler, cheaper products (to customers who don’t need the over-sophistication
of existing products) and then moving up market.
For example, mobile phones, digital cameras and discount retailers stole business from ordinary phones/cameras
and department stores.
Faced by competition from these disruptive technologies, companies will eventually
fail, even though they adopt strategies associated with organizational excellence like:
- innovation and customer focus.
- total quality management.
To benefit from disruptive innovation, an organization must be:
1. Opportunistic
The difficulty is that disruptive innovation requires being first in a market that you know least about with
(initially) small markets and low profit margins.
2. Prepared to ignore customers
Existing customers will have to be ignored, because they can tell you nothing about markets that don’t exist
yet.
So don't be totally dependent on market research.
3. Flexible
An organization’s values and processes must change and adapt to new markets.
The innovator’s job is to take advantage of disruptive innovation without sacrificing existing
customers.
The best way to do this is to set up a separate business unit for radically new products.
Key quote on
customers
There are times at which it is right not to
listen to customers
The Innovator’s Solution (2003),
written with Michael Raynor (pictured right below)
There are two types of disruptive innovation:
1. Low-end disruption
Providing simpler, cheaper products to existing customers.
2. New-market disruption
Selling to new customers who are attracted by the new product’s simplicity and convenience.
Successful disruptive innovation depends on:
1. Battles with competitors
Established companies are much more likely to succeed with improvements to existing products than with
disruptive innovation (usually carried out by new entrants).
2. Effective market segmentation
Aim new products at market segments that are based on jobs that customers are trying to get done.
3. Successful strategy
- go for high growth, disruptive innovation when business is booming, so that money is available from
reinvested profits.
- be patient for growth and impatient for profit.
4. Effective leadership
Disruptive innovations are risky, so managers must be able to cope with this risk and the greater likelihood of
failure
Leaders must seek profit from new products as quickly as possible.
Key quotes on innovation and business
success
Disruption does not guarantee success but it sure helps.
Disrupting Class
(2008), written with Michael Horn (pictured right
above) and Curtis Johnson (pictured right below)
To be successful and to provide world-class talent for businesses, schools must be
“customer-centric”
i.e. they must motivate their students by customizing their learning to their individual
requirements through computer software.
Disruptive innovation should be applied to schools i.e. making student learning easier, less complicated and
more convenient and affordable.
Key quote on innovation and
learning
Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation. The same is true for learning.
The Innovator’s Prescription
(2009), written with Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang
(pictured right below)
Health care can be improved (with lower costs and better quality) through:
- creating value for patients.
- providing the solutions patients need.
Information technology and the Internet should also be used to:
- diagnose health problems and provide remedies without the need for
hospitalization.
- improve administrative efficiency and co-ordination between all
health care providers.
- get patients involved in their own health care.
- enable doctors, nurses and patients to help each other.
- allow nurses to provide patient care without the need for a doctor.
Key quote on
health
Health care is a terminal illness for America’s governments and businesses.
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