Disruptive innovation has become something of a cliché used in marketing materials. But it is a term with real meaning and impact for business.
A disruptor is someone with a new product, service, or firm who shakes up an industry, challenging and sometimes replacing existing companies. They unsettle the status quo.
As well as giving consumers a new and different choice, a disruptive innovation puts pressure on existing businesses. They must change what they do and how they do it to compete with the new kid on the block.
Those firms that fail to adapt or recognise the need for innovation risk serious negative impacts.
What is Disruptive Innovation?
A perfect example of disruptive innovation is digital photography.
Until a few years ago, photography relied on film in cameras and businesses which developed that film into print. Then came digital cameras.
The demand for the services of companies that produced camera film or developed prints plummeted. Familiar names disappeared, unable or unwilling to adapt to the new photography market.
To young people today, the concept of taking a photograph, hoping it went well, then waiting days, or longer, to see it is entirely foreign.
An entire industry was changed forever by disruptive innovation.
How to Stay Ahead
While innovation can be destructive, it also provides incredible opportunities for those with the right ideas and those willing to adapt and move with the times.
But you need to understand how to leverage disruptive innovation for your business. Here’s how:
Be Open to Adaptive Planning
To lead disruptive innovation and capitalise on it, you must be able to manage high levels of uncertainty. Therefore, you must embrace adaptable planning.
Adaptive planning is a strategy that employs repeated corrective action to achieve a specific set of desired outcomes. Using this method, you will learn from the variable factors in each action stage and adjust your assumptions and approaches to achieve the desired results.
Enjoy The Surprises
Unexpected technological advancements, customer feedback, competitive moves, political and regulatory policy shifts, and other unforeseen events surrounding strategic involvement are all part of the disruptive innovation process.
Most companies believe that all of these surprises should be avoided. However, equip your management team with leaders who understand that surprises are an unavoidable part of doing business.
Be a Step Ahead of Disruptive Innovation
Initially, disruptive innovation theory was simply a statement about the relationship between market forces. “Incumbents outperformed entrants only in a sustaining innovation context, but they significantly underperformed in disruptive innovation contexts,” according to empirical findings on how to innovate.
Smart disruptors not only improve their products and services; they also drive market growth.
The interests of your customers, who are the providers of the resources your business requires, strongly influence your company’s propensity for strategic change.
You must strike a balance to overcome the limitation of only listening to existing customers, which means you can only focus on sustaining innovations.
These same forces drive disruptors to disrupt and dramatically change the market eventually.
Evaluate New Technological Advancement
You must stay ahead of new technological advancements, even if they are not directly related to or improved in your industry.
To capitalise on disruptive innovations, don’t put off learning about new technologies until it’s too late. Being proactive about new technologies gives you an advantage when those advancements cause significant changes in your industry.
Watch Your Competitors
Observing your competitors is the most effective way to learn how to achieve disruptive innovation in your industry. When it comes to competitors, you should be prepared to match and even overtake actions aimed at disruptive innovation.
Conclusion
Taking advantage of disruptive innovation necessitates a high level of adaptability. If you are not proactively disrupting as a leader, you will have to respond to it at some point.
Whether you are the causative agent or an incumbent protecting a brand for your product or service, you must be prepared to capitalise on disruption in your industry.
Accept a life of constant uncertainty and ambiguity as you navigate through disruptive changes and create breakthroughs that have far-reaching implications for business practices.
