More On Disruptive Innovation
More framework for the friction between Barnett and Robb – link to concept –
By doing what good companies are supposed to do – cater to their most profitable customers and focus investments where profit margins are most attractive – established industry leaders are on a path of Sustaining Innovations and leave themselves open for disruptive technologies to bury them. This happens because the resource allocation processes of established companies are designed to maximize profits through sustaining innovations, which essentially involve designing better and better mousetraps for existing customers or proven market segments.
Players with a vested interest in sustaining innovations have inherintly ungrounded OODA loops (they’re operating on providing efficiency – development in a box if you will – rather than reacting to the shifting environment). This is where I accuse Barnett of operating from a bubble perspective. He thinks we’ll just have to get better at doing Iraq.
Disruptive innovators (Al Qaeda, not Robb – who provides framework to their actions) are nimble and rapidly adapt to the changing environment (their constraints force them to). Which equates to both being inside the enemy’s loop and being firmly grounded in the environment. They zoom to success while the original players are inappropriately focusing on making their processes better – all of which equates to the doom loop.
-Shlok
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