Author Archives: Russell Doty

In the previous article we looked at how SAP handled building a disruptive technology, HANA, into the core of some of the largest, most complex, most critical, and slowest moving systems in existence. While certainly not perfect, this is a … Continue reading →

The previous article introduced ERP and touched on some of the challenges around using the huge amounts of data that ERP requires. SAP developed a new technology called HANA. Unlike a disk based SQL database, HANA is entirely in-memory (with … Continue reading →

In a previous article we looked at delivering disruptive technologies by developing a new product to replace an existing product. We touched on the impacts of replacing an existing product with a new product. The alternative is to incorporate disruptive … Continue reading →

The previous article explored investing in disruptive technologies. How can you incorporate disruptive technologies into existing products? With much difficulty… Developing the new technology is likely to be the “easiest” part (not that it is actually easy). Actually using a … Continue reading →

Previous articles have highlighted some of the challenges in attempting to develop disruptive technologies and products in a traditional corporate environment – basically it doesn’t work. So, how can disruptive technologies and products be developed? This apparently simple question is … Continue reading →

A previous article suggested that the two ways to deal with potentially disruptive technologies are to either invest in all potentially disruptive technologies or to ignore all potentially disruptive technologies. One of the most powerful ways to go wrong is … Continue reading →

The previous article began our exploration of innovation. Clayten Christensen is very clear about understanding the markets for disruptive technologies: “Markets that do not exist cannot be analyzed: Suppliers and customers must discover them together. Not only are the market … Continue reading →

The previous article introduced the concept of product lifecycles. Examining the lifecycle model leads to the conclusion that the most profitable approach is to focus on the majority markets and largely ignore the innovators. In fact this is valid – … Continue reading →

Building a new product is hard. Building a successful new product is even harder. And building a profitable new product is the greatest challenge! To make things even more interesting, the fundamental customer requirements for a product change as the … Continue reading →