Every once in a while, we need to clean house, especially make room for new business files. After over 30 years in the consulting business, I have accumulated much stuff. I have been discarding old client files, read over some project reports of clients and wondered if they are still in business, noted how unsophisticated I was in my early work, and marveled that I am still in the business. By the way, it feels good to clean out the really old stuff.
As I was recycling magazines, I spotted a name I recognized and began reading the article. Disruptive Innovation for Social Change, by Clayton M. Christensen, et. al. was a Harvard Business Review article of December 2006 that caught my eye.
Christensen's message is relevant for me now because I have been working on a new service idea and was wondering how best to enter the competition. The article pointed out a type of thinking that, I believe, will give me excellent ideas for the new effort. What Christensen said was that competition requires a fundamentally different approach -- a disruptive innovative approach. Disruptive innovation (DI) challenges the status quo. DI solutions are typically simpler, more convenient, and less expensive. For example, mini-health clinics found inside drug stores provide inexpensive, convenient, and good enough care for basic needs. Such clinics are disruptive to traditional medical clinics with their large overhead costs. Here are Christensen's key points regarding catalytic innovations, a subset of DI. Catalytic Innovations (CI) have five qualities: 1) They create systemic social change through scaling and replication; 2) They meet a need that is either overserved or not served at all; 3) They offer products and services simpler and less costly than existing alternatives, but users consider them to be good enough; 4) They generate resources, such as donations, grants, volunteers, or intellectual capital; and 5) They are often ignored, disparaged, or even encouraged by existing players for whom the business model is unprofitable or othewise unattractive. How might I use this concept? My first inclination is to use the five qualities of CI to define our new service idea. If we are successful in aligning with CI to define our new service, then we can determine how best to implement the solution. I believe that this approach will work.
I know. I can't stop to read each item if I want to get the cleaning done. But oh, I really hate to discard those pithy magazines ... but must!
© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com
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