“Disruptive” innovation
Condensed into a book is the origin and evolution of disruptive innovation
Getting there before others. Being faster. Managing to conquer the market first, which will subsequently be the winning one. There is no use denying it, these are some of the goals which companies must set themselves. Because, beside the engagements of social responsibility and awareness of their own role in the territory where the factory resides, a company must also aim for the best possible balance sheet.
“Disruptive innovation: economia e cultura dell’era delle start-up” (Disruptive innovation: economy and culture in the start-up era) by Fabio Meneghini, which has just been published in digital format, analyses and explains the story of one of the theoretical bases which support this type of behaviour: the concept of disruptive technology coined in 1995 by Clayton M. Christensen in his article entitled Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave. Christensen taught at Harvard University and, probably without expecting it, with that article he gave rise to a sort of “school” of business management based on the idea that in markets the winners are those who manage to destroy their adversary, in other words, those who manage better to identify the most suitable path to reach the most important destination through the use of technologies which “disrupt” their offensive abilities. That article became a mantra for the Internet pioneering generation, from Steve Jobs to Jeff Bezos and Larry Page. So much so that disruptive technology often overlaps with digital technologies and the Internet.
Today Meneghini – an economist, manager, expert in corporate strategies -, goes back and analyses this intervention and combines it with the developments in corporate culture which it has caused and with the debate it has generated. The author therefore tells of the change incurred in managing a company, the changes in the markets, the onset of what is referred to as the digital economy, the significance of the Internet for companies, the relationship between new companies and manufacturing, all of this while following the evolution of the interpretations of the concept of disruptive technology. And that’s not all. Indeed, Meneghini completes his book with another essay by the same Christensen and with the text written by Jill Lepore, a Harvard colleague of Christensen, which counters the thesis of the 1995 article.
The author writes: “(…) Christensen’s work has the benefit of providing, also for Europe, a key to reading the radical transformation processes which are affecting the majority of industrial sectors and services of the entire world, including our continent”; and then: “(…) thanks also to the debate that has developed around this theory, we can now benefit from many suggestions and assessments which doubtless help us reflect upon the transformations which the economy and companies have undergone over the last twenty years and whose disruptive effects seem to have far from died down”.
Meneghini’s books is not always easy to read. You need to pay attention in order to follow its reasoning. But it is a good mental exercise, valid for any entrepreneur and manager wanting to realise from up close what they have inherited.
Disruptive innovation: economia e cultura dell’era delle start-up (Disruptive innovation: economy and culture in the start-up era)
Fabio Meneghini
goWare, 2016
Condensed into a book is the origin and evolution of disruptive innovation
Getting there before others. Being faster. Managing to conquer the market first, which will subsequently be the winning one. There is no use denying it, these are some of the goals which companies must set themselves. Because, beside the engagements of social responsibility and awareness of their own role in the territory where the factory resides, a company must also aim for the best possible balance sheet.
“Disruptive innovation: economia e cultura dell’era delle start-up” (Disruptive innovation: economy and culture in the start-up era) by Fabio Meneghini, which has just been published in digital format, analyses and explains the story of one of the theoretical bases which support this type of behaviour: the concept of disruptive technology coined in 1995 by Clayton M. Christensen in his article entitled Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave. Christensen taught at Harvard University and, probably without expecting it, with that article he gave rise to a sort of “school” of business management based on the idea that in markets the winners are those who manage to destroy their adversary, in other words, those who manage better to identify the most suitable path to reach the most important destination through the use of technologies which “disrupt” their offensive abilities. That article became a mantra for the Internet pioneering generation, from Steve Jobs to Jeff Bezos and Larry Page. So much so that disruptive technology often overlaps with digital technologies and the Internet.
Today Meneghini – an economist, manager, expert in corporate strategies -, goes back and analyses this intervention and combines it with the developments in corporate culture which it has caused and with the debate it has generated. The author therefore tells of the change incurred in managing a company, the changes in the markets, the onset of what is referred to as the digital economy, the significance of the Internet for companies, the relationship between new companies and manufacturing, all of this while following the evolution of the interpretations of the concept of disruptive technology. And that’s not all. Indeed, Meneghini completes his book with another essay by the same Christensen and with the text written by Jill Lepore, a Harvard colleague of Christensen, which counters the thesis of the 1995 article.
The author writes: “(…) Christensen’s work has the benefit of providing, also for Europe, a key to reading the radical transformation processes which are affecting the majority of industrial sectors and services of the entire world, including our continent”; and then: “(…) thanks also to the debate that has developed around this theory, we can now benefit from many suggestions and assessments which doubtless help us reflect upon the transformations which the economy and companies have undergone over the last twenty years and whose disruptive effects seem to have far from died down”.
Meneghini’s books is not always easy to read. You need to pay attention in order to follow its reasoning. But it is a good mental exercise, valid for any entrepreneur and manager wanting to realise from up close what they have inherited.
Disruptive innovation: economia e cultura dell’era delle start-up (Disruptive innovation: economy and culture in the start-up era)
Fabio Meneghini
goWare, 2016