Disruptive Technology - Disruptive Innovation

Disruptive technologies by themselves are often not enough to cause a market disruption. But a set of innovations across many domains can weigh mightily on the future of an industry.

I was recently speaking with executives at an India IT company about disruptive technologies and innovations. The conversation was enlightening and prompted me to look deeper into the distinction.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “disruptive” as “to throw into disorder” and “to interrupt the normal course or unity of something.” And as we all know, Clayton Christensen of Harvard has been the one to popularize the “disruptive” conversation in business.

Christensen first began to use the term “disruptive technology” is the mid-1990s, but migrated to the term “disruptive innovation” when he realized that few technologies are disruptive in themselves; rather it is the business model that is enabled by a technology that causes the major impact.

Thus, a “disruptive technology” may require 2 or more separate kinds of innovations in order to be a truly disruptive force. For example, a disruptive technology may require a corresponding set of innovations in process productivity, talent development, business models, and customer/vendor relationships.

This example actually illustrates that there are five distinct domains of innovation, each with a different aim:

Each has a role to play in producing “disruptive innovation.”

In addition, Christensen refers to 2 kinds of disruptive innovation. “Low-end disruption” occurs when the technology actually under-performs the current market offering, giving a product to customers who need a simpler product, a result of incremental modification rather than a breakthrough in technology.

By contrast, a “new market disruption” targets customers who are not served at all by current offerings, and may be stimulated and supported by either incremental or breakthrough technologies.