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Elements of a Successful Disruptive Strategy

By Andrew Rudin, CEO, Outside Technologies, Inc.

What relationship do product innovation, market demand and marketing strategy have with market disruption?

What relationship do product innovation, market demand and marketing strategy have with market disruption? Do products that have potential to create market disruption have unique characteristics that require specialized strategies and tactics? See the Elements of a Successful Disruptive Strategy below for the answers:

An understanding of the economics of the product innovation in the context of the prevailing competitive economics. Companies that have created market disruption have exhibited a keen understanding of the laws of supply and demand. Their executives understand the connections among costs, pricing, adoption rates, and market growth.
Leadership for facilitating change. Displacement of entrenched competitors - whether they are loved, reviled or something in between - requires the displacing organization to lead change. Leading change requires appeals at multiple levels: emotional, factual and symbolic. In the book, Changing Minds (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), Howard Gardner outlines seven levers of change: reason, research, resonance, representational re-descriptions, resources and rewards, real world events and resistances. These seven levers relate to different ways visions and ideas can be communicated, so people are inspired, motivated and moved to action.
Business processes that are empathetic to the customer's perspective. Effective disruptive strategies are based on an outside-in view of the innovator's organization, which means that sales processes are created from the perspective of how customers buy - not how sellers sell.
Providing purchase motivators. Those motivators are based on managing two product attributes: reduced price compared to current offerings and an expectation of increased benefits - or a combination of the two.
Reducing adoption barriers. Similar to purchase motivators, reducing adoption barriers has two components: minimizing switching costs and ensuring availability (synchronizing supply with demand, for those who like buzzwords) - or a combination of the two. Many companies formulate compelling purchase motivators but fail to consider the huge impact that adoption costs have on purchase decisions. Many great products have failed in markets because adoption economics have favored the status quo or because the new product simply wasn't available when needed.
Demonstrable thought leadership. Thought leadership involves being a champion for the change you wish to see in the world, however that might be defined. It's easier to be known as the market leader because you've said so from the beginning, rather than reminding customers of that fact when the market is saturated. Innovators who seize an early opportunity to become thought leaders can dominate the industry buzz for their product or service; elevate the value their prospects perceive for their product or service; and solidify their role as the innovation pioneer.

Andy Rudin is the CEO of Outside Technologies, a sales mangement consultantcy. His company helps clients generate more revenue through outsourced sales . For more information on the services offered visit http://www.outsidetechnologies.com. Andy can be reached at 703.371.1242 or info@outsidetechnologies.com

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