Agora Media Group Innovation Blog

How to spot and where to look at when it comes to disruptive innovations, that is what the video clearly explains by an Harvard Business Publishing interview with Scott Anthony, President of Innosight.
Before giving the key points from the video, a brief comparison between disruptive- and sustaining innovations.

The counterpart of disruptive innovations are sustaining innovations, the two are layed out and discussed in Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor’s book The Innovator’s Solution.
Sustaining innovations take what exists and make it better, companies can sell products for higher margins to their best target group(s) (segments). There’s a high gain for present competitors to battle each other on sustaining innovations.
Becasuse they’re established organizations, there are resources to support.

Be it sustaining- vs. disruptive- or incrementa-l vs. radical innovations, the topic is important for two reasons:
The first is by what Peter Drucker said:

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

The second one is business-strategic wise.
Agora Media focusses on media convergence like Social TV and IPTV, new technologies like Augmented Reality and fields as Internet Marketing, Social Media, ePublishing, innovations are ball games that can be played within these fields that are yet not fully defined, that are evolving, growing and morphing.
An understanding in the concept of innovation is important to build and maintain a clear overview of the landscape, how relationships establish, from whom and why products are build and so on.
This overview counts for any business, for both internal and external reasons and understanding.

Disruptive innovation is about overcoming a marketing myopia, entering a new stage within the market cycle, how does it relate to Creative Destruction?

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How to Spot Disruptive Innovation Opportunities + key take aways

Key take aways from the HBP video:

* Disruptive innovation is a type of innovation that create accesible, simple, convenient, affordable products. Products that are changing the game.
Sustaining innovation on the other hand is an innovation that takes what exists and make it better (see aforementioned comment on sustaining innovations).

* The disruptive innovator transforms existing markets and creates new ones by playing innovation game in fundamental different way.

* It’s the business model that drives disruption, not the technology, which often is trivial.

* Who’s responsible for disruptive innovation: everyone, but senior management must lead and create space for disruption.

* Identify opportunities for disruptive innovations:

1. Look for markets where there’s a kind of constraint that inhibits consumption (skills, money, time). Find Barriers that prevent consumption and try to solve them.
2. Identify people’s important unsatisfied job(s) to be done. Easing the pain is a ticket to disruptive innovation.
3. Play the innovation game different. Not better, but simpler, cheaper, more accessible, more affordable.
The Wii is given as an example, the Wii does not aim to the core-gamers but the large group of people who don’t identify themselves as gamers. The console has made gaming easier and more accesible.

* Often customers don’t clearly articulate their needs, the innovative company should trust on intuition as well when needs are not (well-) identified.

* Think of markets which you’re going to analyse, not necessarily the most demanding markets, but relatively the undemanding markets. Explore these for disruption.

* Key is putting the customer and the problem at the center of the innovation equation.

* Disruptive innovation doesn’t have to be expensive: Invest a little, learn a lot!