How to be disruptive?

  There are some milestone books in life. These are with the "aha" effect; they put the puzzle together which was bothering you for long time. For me the Innovators Dilemma by Clayton M Christensen is such a book.

   Companies often find difficult to implement new technology in their services or products. What makes it peculiar that the very same companies expect their IT to "follow trends" or be innovative which is good. However when it comes to realisation then unexpected problems may arise. Seems to be strange but is in fact natural. New technologies - are new - that's they usually have a lot of maturity problems, customers - especially the well established good paying customers don't want them. What's more the entire company is build around process to serve the current market and current customers. New technology is willingly accepted if it reinforces the position of the company; the same process, the same customer but better, cheaper, faster .. thats is OK.

   Real new technology is disruptive. It has different characteristics and doesn't server well the current customer base - at least at beginning. (E.g. minicomputer customers didn't want to buy PCs in the first years because they capabilities were far inferior, however that changed fast and DEC doesn't exists any longer).

   The result may be that successful and mature companies serve a limited (or even) decreasing number of customer giving them better and better service maybe event a service they don't need. That opens the door for innovative competition. 

   So what is the receipt for avoid the business being disrupted:

• Acquire innovation

         This is a simple way. However the acquired company may have different processes. Integration - if not done carefully - can destroy the value of the new unit.

• Push innovation

          Management can push new products through the organisation. This is takes a lot of effort and will meet resistance, because employees have a different culture and also business results to deliver.

• Make an internal unit for new products

          The new unit can leverage the knowledge of the company while be independent and go after it's own goals. 

   I think IT has an opportunity here. Innovations often have technological background (think of the opportunities provided by the Internet) and to manage them requires some IT knowledge. IT has not direct business expectations and it's processes are also different and flexible. It also has to plan for longer time than the next fiscal quarter. So IT has to a chance to a be a "labour" of new methods or even products.  If IT is able to provide an acceptable business case upper management can see it as a new source of income and provide support.