An assessment framework for disruptive innovation

Although the disruptive innovation (DI) theory of Christensen has nowadays been accepted by academics and practitioners as a powerful innovation strategy, many have only viewed it from a particular perspective such as market development that is not sufficient to judge confidently if an early stage DI case has a good chance to succeed. In this paper, we shall present an assessment framework that captures the essential characteristics and holistic success factors for DI - they are grouped under market positioning, technology and other favorable drivers. Three well-known cases, namely the steel minimill of Nucor, the 3.5 inch disk drive of Conner/Seagate, and the limited mobile phone system/product of UTStarcom, are then presented to illustrate the use of this systematic framework in assessing the success potential of these cases of DI in either the low-end or new markets. A fourth example of Google´s web-based office applications would then illustrate how the framework may be used to study the disruptive potential of a new product. The framework has the potential to be further developed into a systematic tool for answering the question of whether the DI Theory could indeed be used to provide ex ante prediction of the success of a new DI.