Question

What is your opinion on disruptive innovation? Pick a good example which may fit the concept of disruptive innovation. Briefly describe why you think so based on your own understanding about disruptive innovation

Answer 1

Disruptive innovation is a path breaking innovative change which disrupts the existing structure of market and the value networks, by creating an entirely new, more value adding system for the customers and replacing the existing well established players from the marketplace. One of the most striking example of disruptive innovation is internet of things, which has enabled the customers to do a number of tasks on his /her fingertips, which took hours or in some cases, days to accomplish. Take an example of a smartphone which enables a person to click pictures, talk to a friend, watch movies, listen to songs, pay his bills, book a train ticket or purchase a shirt for him or order a burger from the nearby outlet. Earlier hese tasks needed several individual expensive machines ( a camera, TV, telephone, music system) and frequent visits to the railhead, electricity office, supermarket or a fast food joint, which took much of his time and money, not speaking of effort and inconvenience.

This is a disruptive innovation as it affected the existing markets of the tools and equipments, created new entities like e commerce, food delivery and app based taxi service to name a few, which add to the comfort, conveneince and cost effectiveness of the customers and changed the way they lived.