Ballet dancers and sumo wrestlers

There is always a lot of discussion on the Net about "disruptive innovation strategies," a term first coined by Clayton Christensen, co-author of The Innovator's Solution and author of The Innovator's Dilemma.

Within this broad discussion on disruptive innovation strategies, there seems to be a lot of conflicting views as to what a disruptive innovation actually is. There is also confusion between disruptive innovation and radical innovation. Here's my attempt to contribute to the discussion:

Clayton Christensen distinguishes between disruptive innovation strategies and sustaining innovation strategies. A firm pursuing a sustaining innovation strategy along a performance (technological) trajectory can introduce an incremental ("small") or radical ("large") innovation as a means of satisfying its most demanding/high-margin customers, as dictated by its cost structure. So a sustaining innovation strategy involves both inremental and radical innovations. Looking at it this way, a disruptive innovation is not the same as a radical innovation.

In contrast to a sustaining innovation strategy, a disruptive innovation strategy involves dimensions of a product offering that encumbent firms' customers don't particularly value. Encumbent firms are therefore not interested in shifting their attention to this area. Most of the time firms' staff ignore it, even if they realize the innovation's potential. They're constrained by their firms' cost structure, reward mechanism and pressures to meet targets.

In other words, the firm will struggle to be an excellent sumo wrestler and a world-class ballet dancer at the same time.

Robert Burgelman, author of Strategy is Destiny, discusses disruptive technology (not strategy) in his discussion on Intel.





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