Big-Bang Disruption
By Larry Downes and Paul F. Nunes
5/5
()
About this ebook
Big-bang disruptions often come out of the blue from people who aren’t your traditional competitors. Frequently, they’re developed by inventors who are just doing low-cost experiments with existing technologies to see what new products they can dream up. Once launched, these innovations don’t adhere to conventional strategic paths or normal patterns of market adoption. That makes them incredibly hard to combat.
Though technology- and information-intensive firms are most vulnerable to big bangs, mature industries face this threat, too. Credit cards, automobiles, and education, for instance, are all experiencing early warning signs. But in every industry, big-bang disruption will be keeping executives in a cold sweat for a long time to come.
This article, which originally appeared in Harvard Business Review, offers some strategic principles to help businesses survive big bangs.
Related to Big-Bang Disruption
Related ebooks
Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your Company's Future Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Moonshot!: Game-Changing Strategies to Build Billion-Dollar Businesses Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don’t Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Ram Charan's Rethinking Competitive Advantage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThinkers 50 Innovation: Breakthrough Thinking to Take Your Business to the Next Level Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of The Innovator's Dilemma: by Clayton M. Christensen | Includes Analysis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Companies Win: Profiting from Demand-Driven Business Models No Matter What Business You're In Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Building a Growth Factory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Do You Want to Keep Your Customers Forever? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow CEOs Can Fix Capitalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe End of Corporate Imperialism Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Strategic Intent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Struggle: Responsible Leadership in an Unforgiving World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pygmalion in Management Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Side of Innovation: The Power of People in Love with People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDigital Makeover: How L'Oreal Put People First to Build a Beauty Tech Powerhouse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCompeting for the Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Future Strategies You Need Right Now Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Insights on Leander Kahney's Jony Ive Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStrategic Alliances: Three Ways to Make Them Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Business of Consulting: The Basics and Beyond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Innovation Code: The Creative Power of Constructive Conflict Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Power of foursquare: 7 Innovative Ways to Get Your Customers to Check In Wherever They Are Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCompeting On Internet Time: Lessons From Netscape and Its Battle With Microsoft Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma, Second Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfronting Reality (Review and Analysis of Bossidy and Charan's Book) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5
Industrial Engineering For You
PLC Programming from Novice to Professional: Learn PLC Programming with Training Videos Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Machinery's Handbook Guide: A Guide to Tables, Formulas, & More in the 31st Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hammer's Blueprint Reading Basics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SolidWorks 2021 Step-By-Step Guide: 4, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMachinery's Handbook Pocket Companion: Quick Access to Basic Data & More from the 31st Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPressure Vessels: Design, Formulas, Codes, and Interview Questions & Answers Explained Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Post Weld Heat Treatment PWHT: Standards, Procedures, Applications, and Interview Q&A Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaintenance Fundamentals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Machining for Hobbyists: Getting Started Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5CNC Machining Certification Exam Guide: Setup, Operation, and Programming Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNewnes Workshop Engineer's Pocket Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Boiler Operation Engineer Exam, Interview Q&A, Terminology, and Boiler Overview Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Millwright's Guide to Motor Pump Alignment Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Engineering Problem Solving: A Classical Perspective Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1800 Mechanical Movements, Devices and Appliances Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5CNC Trade Secrets: A Guide to CNC Machine Shop Practices Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAutoCAD® Pocket Reference Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmart Bandage Technologies: Design and Application Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gas Turbine Engineering Handbook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Design for the Unexpected: From Holonic Manufacturing Systems towards a Humane Mechatronics Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInvestigating Equipment Failures Through Root Cause Failure Analysis, 9th Discipline on World Class Maintenance Management: 1, #9 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of Welding: Featuring Ryan Friedlinghaus of West Coast Customs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeneral Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Student Workbook for Programming of CNC Machines Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Went Wrong?: Case Histories of Process Plant Disasters and How They Could Have Been Avoided Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Penetrant Testing: Principles, Techniques, Applications and Interview Q&A Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCross Country Pipeline Risk Assessments and Mitigation Strategies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Big-Bang Disruption
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Big-Bang Disruption - Larry Downes
The Big Idea
Big-Bang Disruption
A new kind of innovator can wipe out incumbents in a flash.
by Larry Downes and Paul F. Nunes
March 2013. Reprint R1303B. Copyright © 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
Idea in Brief
Disruptive technological innovations have traditionally started out cheap and simple, gradually improving in quality until they challenged incumbents.
New digital platforms such as the smartphone, however, are enabling innovations that offer customers both a better experience and a much lower price, right out of the gate. (Think of free mobile apps’ superiority to dedicated GPS devices.)
These big-bang
disruptions are often unplanned and unintentional. They do not follow conventional strategic paths or normal patterns of market adoption.
To survive them, incumbents need to develop new tools to detect radical change in the offing, new strategies to slow down disrupters, new ways to leverage existing assets in other markets, and a more diversified approach to investment.
By now any well-read executive knows the basic playbook for saving a business from disruptive innovation. Nearly two decades of management research, beginning with Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen’s 1995 HBR article, Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave,
have taught businesses to be on the lookout for upstarts that offer cheap substitutes to their products, capture new, low-end customers, and then gradually move upmarket to pick off higher-end customers, too. When these disrupters appear, we’ve learned, it’s