Integral Forms Alliance With Harvard Expert On "Disruptive" Technology Strategy

Business Wire, July 26, 1999

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 26, 1999--

Six questions can help companies identify

vulnerability to "stealth attacks" of new technology,

Clayton Christensen says

Integral, Inc., an international consulting firm that specializes in growth strategies, has formed an alliance with Dr. Clayton M. Christensen, professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School and author of The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. He will serve as an affiliate of the firm, collaborating with Integral to advise clients and develop new consulting approaches.

Christensen's research focuses on managing technological innovation--developing organizational capabilities and identifying markets for new technologies. He will apply his expertise to Integral's "Disruptive Technology Strategies" practice, advising clients on how to effectively respond and maximize opportunities presented by potentially disruptive technologies.

"We are delighted to work closely with Dr. Christensen, as well as our other leading academic affiliates, who represent the latest and best thinking in business strategy and new product and service development," said Jeffrey Elton, Ph.D., Integral's Managing Principal.

"Integral was founded with the goal of transforming academia's latest research into useful and practical tools for managing innovation," Elton said. "Dr. Christensen's work in disruptive technology builds upon this framework--offering executives a new way to think about market forces and competitive strategy."

According to Integral, executives should ask the following six questions to determine whether their organizations are vulnerable to "stealth attacks" of new technology:

- Has your company lost relatively low-value customers in small

market niches or low-end market segments?

- Does your organization wait to target new opportunities until

they are "big enough to be interesting?"

- Does it appear that greater and greater improvements in your

products or services seem to be valued less and less by your

mainstream customers?

- Do you systematically reject ideas for new products or services

if your most profitable customers cannot use them?

- Have new entrants exploited opportunities where uncertainty over

market size and customer needs resulted in inaction by your

company?

If the answer to any one of these questions is yes, the company could be a prime target for disruption, Christensen said. He cites how a fatal threat to market share can begin as a low-quality, low-margin product that customers do not want or cannot use yet. But companies that ignore these disruptive technologies may find they grow in capability to meet mainstream needs.

"A disruptive technology can quickly develop into a competitive threat, dramatically transforming the marketplace," claims Christensen. "And no industry is immune, particularly in today's wired environment."

Prior to joining the Harvard Business School Faculty, Christensen served as chairman and president of Ceramics Process Systems Corporation, a firm he co-founded with several MIT professors. He also was a White House Fellow and former assistant to U.S. Transportation Secretaries Drew Lewis and Elizabeth Dole.

Christensen holds a B.A. in economics from Brigham Young University and a M.Phil. in economics from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail won the 1997 Global Business Book Award.

Founded in 1988 by Kim Clark, Ph.D. and Steven Wheelwright, Ph.D. of Harvard Business School and by economist Bruce Stangle, Ph.D., Integral helps clients identify and respond effectively to disruptive technologies. Experts in innovation management, Integral combines leading edge methodologies with deep market and industry knowledge to craft strategies that will succeed in the face of disruptions--turning threats into opportunities.