June 9, 2008
Getting downright disruptive means getting disruptive down right
“Disruption” has become a popular business term, especially in the innovation realm. My company is working with a lot of corporate clients to help them identify disruptive opportunities and disruptive threats. I also enjoy passing that disruptive potential on to our clients who are startups and lone inventors.
So what is Disruptive Innovation?
Disruptive innovation requires looking beyond technology and new products to understand the barriers that are leaving the often unrecognized or unexpressed needs of nonusers and low-end users unfulfilled. It typically provides new levels of convenience, access, and cost effectiveness to people – often at the expense of some high-end feature. Companies often overlook the needs of many people who would welcome a “worse” product that made some aspect of life better for them.
You’re probably asking, “how can this be? No one would want a product that is worse, would they?” In fact they do! And that’s disruptive.
Kleenex® facial tissue and the Swiffer® mop are great examples of what Clayton Christensen of the Harvard School of Business has called “disruptive innovation:” an innovation that may be initially worse in terms of standard metrics of established products and customers, but which appeals to non-users or low-end users by offering improved convenience, lower cost, or other benefits not previously viewed as the basis for competition.
When the facial tissues were first available in the 1920s, many women used them to remove makeup and cold cream. Marketers at Kimberly-Clark responded, repositioning the product in the early 1930s as “the handkerchiefs you can throw away.” Women used them as a convenient replacement for the handkerchief, even though they weren’t as strong or washable, and that forever changed the handkerchief industry.
The disposable Swiffer mop also offers a “worse” performance relative to the durability and cleaning power of conventional dry and wet mops, but would convert many non-moppers and infrequent moppers into frequent floor cleaners!
The key here is that it’s all about the business model –not the technology itself—that determines whether the opportunity is disruptive or not. A given technology can be launched as a sustaining innovation aimed at mainstream users in a head-to-head battle with the previous incumbents in the market, or it can be launched in a way that draws in non-users and low-end users while motivating the incumbents to largely ignore your efforts since they aren’t feeling pain - until it’s too late.
That’s the kind of disruptive advantage that motivates the long-established giants to flee rather than fight, giving the market entrant a precious foothold from which to grow with further “sustaining” innovation.


The game-consoles market is one of the fastest-growing in consumer electronics, with more than 60 million sold and 14 percent growth last year, according to Datamonitor. Now the Greenpeace organization is releasing the results of a new investigation that shows these consoles not only contain hazardous chemicals, but also contribute to the fastest-growing type of waste — “e-waste.”
The days of loose coupon clippings may be coming to an end, as the coupons we used to clip and carry are just about to go mobile. McDonald, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Kimberly-Clark, Clorox and Del Monte and others are all posed to send their customers mobile coupons, either via text messages (with their permission), directing the user to the company’s mobile coupon site or promoting the product through barcode technology where retailers scan the barcodes right from your cell phone as you stand in the checkout line!
A start-up called
Other mobile coupon providers include
“Green is he new black!” That’s a slogan on a T-shirt that stores like Wal-Mart are selling, and I’ve seen quite a few of them around today. Green has indeed become quite a fashion statement that transcends Earth Day.
Disposable diapers have become a roughly $5.7 billion business, but cloth diapering is making a comeback. Here is an interesting diaper product that is not only fashionable, but environmentally friendly. They’re called gDiapers, and consist of a washable, cotton outer pant and a plastic free flushable refill. They are made of breathable material just like sports clothing, and that is what keeps the skin from getting diaper rash.
I’ve had a great time meeting with packaging industry leaders this week at the 
Did you know that innovator Henry Ford designed cars to run on biofuels?
