Scott Anthony on Disruptive Innovation

An interesting interview with Scott Anthony, president of Innosight, on disruptive innovation.

"Disruptive innovation is a particular type of innovation that occurs when an innovator brings to a market an innovation that is simple, convenient, accessible, and affordable; changing the game"

"Disruptive innovation will result in major changes but they don't often rely on technical innovation, in fact many times the technology is quite trivial, it's the business model, the way a company organizes and acts that drives disruption"

Questions to identify opportunities for disruptive innovation:

1. "Look for markets where there is some kind of constrains that inhibits consumptions, where is there something that makes it difficult for people to solve problems in their life. Sometimes they don't have skills, money, access to the solution and sometimes it just takes too long."
2. "Try to identify where people have important unsatisfied jobs to be done, where there is a problem that the customer can’t adequately solve today. If you can find that frustrated customer and ease their pain, you often times have the ticket to disruptive innovation."

"After you have looked for constraints consumptions and you have targeted that job to be done, think about how you can play the innovation game differently. Remember is not about doing it better, it’s about making it simpler, cheaper, more accessible, and more affordable, that's what disruption is all about"

"Think about the markets that you are going to analyze, looking not necessarily at the most demanding customer today, but thinking about people who are relatively undemanding, or people who are not consuming anything at all"

"Focus groups can be a simple way to begin a conversation with customers. Customer observation can be really powerful, because sometimes the customer simple can't tell you what you want. Sometimes you got to give customers something, a very early prototype and let them co-develop the product or service with you. Sometimes you got to do more detailed quantitative research to really pinpoint what are the points of frustration in the market and where are opportunities to do things differently"

"Take a simple first step. Invest a little, learn a lot. Don't spend huge money upfront because the only thing you can be sure of is that your first strategy is wrong, so if you invest too much too soon, you are looking into a path that is fatally flawed"

More videos on disruptive innovation:

Clayton Christensen on jobs needing to get done