Surviving Disruption
We discussed extensively in class about what disruptive innovation is and provided examples of disruptive innovation. We did not cover as much on how to survive disruptive innovation.
In the article that I’ve linked, Wessel and Christensen suggest that incumbents assess three factors to determine if they can survive the disruptive innovation:
1. Identify the strengths of your disrupter’s business model
Are there disadvantages in the disrupter’s business model that offsets their advantage? This will help determine the types of customers the disrupter will and won’t attract so the incumbent can figure if those customers are worth retaining.
2. Identify your own relative advantages
An incumbent must know its own business when a disrupter begins to disrupt so that it can determine how best to compete with them.
3. Evaluate the conditions that would help or hinder the disrupter from co-opting your current advantages in the future
So how can the incumbent better serve its customers to make the disrupter less attractive, thereby creating barriers for the customer to switch.
Do you think these three are the best factors to determine how an incumbent may be able to survive a disrupter? Do you think there are other factors that the article does not cover?
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