Traditionally, most innovation programs have focused on either incremental or disruptive innovation: Incremental innovation to achieve near-term, quick wins and disruptive innovation to pursue longer-term big bets and game-changers. In most organizations, the split in terms of the percentage of resources and investment on each area, is typically 80/20 incremental versus disruptive.
The challenge with this binary approach is that both of these pursuits have their challenges and drawbacks. Incremental innovation tends to produce mere features and functions leading to the classic innovator’s dilemma in which large industry incumbents optimize their existing cash cow product lines by adding bells and whistles to produce sustaining innovation and miss entirely new disruptive opportunities in their market for better, faster, cheaper alternatives offering a new, good enough approach for the market. This is often described as catering to customers’ current needs as opposed to their future needs. Classic examples of companies who been impacted by the innovator’s dilemma include Blockbuster (vs. Netflix), Barnes & Noble (vs. Amazon), Kodak (vs. digital photography), and so on.
To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
Read More from This Article: Consequential innovation: 4 tips for unlocking hidden growth opportunities
Source: News