Disruption – Disruptive Innovation and the Evolution of Competitive Relationships

This chapter presents the key concept definition of disruptive innovation, and shows the impact on the market through relevant examples. Clayton Christensen, who introduced the framework in a seminal article dated 1995, distinguished between sustaining and disruptive innovation. Disruptive technologies underperform established products from a technological point of view in mainstream markets, but they also have other features that a different market segment value most. A disruptive innovation replaces a product that historically was so expensive and complex that only the high-end market could buy it, with a product that is affordable and accessible to a larger population. Because disruptive products are often commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets, leading companies to follow what their best and most profitable customers want and ask for, they are rarely able to invest in disruptive technologies until it is too late.