Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
ChatGPT, an “intelligent” chatbot, represents a major breakthrough. One would have expected that Google, the leader in search engines for the last twenty years, which has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence, would have been at the origin of it, but it is not the case. Is Google the new victim of the innovator’s dilemma, a syndrome often observed when a leader is overtaken by a new entrant?
(more…)Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, was identified by Alois Alzheimer in 1906. Despite this length of time, there has been little progress in treatment. Why is this?
(more…)[Version in French here]
Unless you’ve been living on Mars for the past few weeks, you couldn’t escape news about ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence tool that answers all your questions: summarizing an article, informing you about the economic crisis, writing a poem, etc. As with any new technology, it is presented as revolutionary by some and futile, useless, or even dangerous by others. While it will take time for the dust to settle, we can nevertheless avoid some of the pitfalls, and above all, the clear-cut positions, by relying on the history of innovation, which offers at least seven lessons for a more nuanced approach to the debate.
(more…)Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is doing badly. The weakness of Facebook, its legacy business, and doubts about the relevance of the colossal investment made in the metaverse, a system for creating a virtual world, call into question the company’s strategy. The combination of the weakness of the legacy business and the difficulty of launching a new business is not unlike that of Kodak twenty years ago. A look at the history of major bets made by companies to launch or renew themselves is useful to better understand the issues facing meta and to avoid rash judgments.
(more…)In the field of innovation, the distinction between exploration and exploitation is universal. It is clear, it seems obvious, and it has become gospel in the world of innovation. Yet it is counter-productive, as it rests on questionable assumptions. It illustrates how the way we formulate a problem, i.e. our mental model, determines our ability to solve it. The wrong mental model locks us in, while the right one opens up possibilities. It’s time to let go the exploration/exploitation distinction.
(more…)That innovation units created within large organizations have a difficult life is not new. Most of them disappear after three years on average, because after the euphoric start, they fail to become part of the life of the organization. But those that survive are not out of the woods yet, because they are caught between a top management that demands “more disruption” and an organization that, through its budgetary and control processes, removes any chance for a disruptive project to see the light of day. Getting out of this difficult situation requires being very clear about what “disruptive” means, and understanding the real nature of innovation.
(more…)Clayton Christensen, the man behind the work on the concept of disruption, died of cancer on January 23, 2020 at the age of 67. He was a great management theorist, like giants such as Peter Drucker or Michael Porter, and his work is more relevant than ever at a time when large companies continue to struggle to respond to the multiple disruptions in their environment. In what follows, I propose a synthesis of his work to show how it can be very useful.
(more…)GE has just dismissed its CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, who has been in office for sixteen years. Despite considerable work in transforming the business, an ambitious innovation drive, and a big push on some hot topics such as the Internet of Things and sustainable “eco” development, which together seemed to represent the ideal transformation strategy, the results have been disappointing, and the company is now in the hands of activist investors who may soon be dismantling it. If GE has done what looks on paper like the ideal transformation program, and yet fails in the end, what lessons can we draw from its story for innovation and management in times of disruption in general?
The transformation of a business is a very complex operation, but it is even more difficult when it involves a change of business model. Let’s look at why, with a simple example, that of Microsoft Office for its transition from a model of license sale to a model of selling subscriptions.
We live in a world of uncertainty and disruptions. To survive in this world, organizations should be agile. The word Agility is now everywhere. This would be the miracle solution to lack of innovation as it emerges every six months. But this is not the case. Agility is not what your organization needs for innovation. Let’s see why.