Innovative disruption: Utilising brand to manage and drive change

Abstract

Professor Clayton M. Christensen has narrowly defined Disruptive Innovation.1 We agree that it is wise to maintain a specific definition for the sake of academic purity to examine how it evolves over time. As marketing practitioners we must also consider the fact that there are many types of disruption that impact business. From the perspective of the disrupting or disrupted participants, it is more important to understand where you are in what the professor describes as the disruptive process rather than just where or how you enter the process. Continuous quantitative measurement of your brand in the context of your industry is one of the best early warning systems against disruption and provides a dashboard of where you are in the process. Customer experience management is one of the best tools to protect your brand against disruptive intrusions.