In the fall of 2014, an investor euphemistically questioned Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School. Christensen is known for his subversive innovation theory, which describes how companies can innovate from the bottom up, from the initial introduction of basic products, plans to improve products until the product meets the needs of most customers, and the price becomes cheaper. until.
The investor is a shareholder of the electric car company Tesla, and his implication is that Tesla founder Elon Musk is creating a new form of disruptive innovation: creating high-end products first. And then subvert the market from top to bottom. In the 10 years of the company's development, Tesla only produced 59,500 cars, with an average cost of more than $100,000. But the company plans to launch a $700,000 model in 2015 and a $35,000 model in 2017. Musk is blunt about his goal: to make low-cost electric cars that can be mass-produced, to replace cars.
Christensen loves this challenging problem, and he believes that the best way to improve a theory is to study exceptions. He commissioned research assistant Tom Bartman and colleagues at the Harvard Business School's Growth and Innovation Forum to conduct an in-depth study of Tesla to determine whether Tesla was a top-down subversive pioneer, and they also studied Other companies that may disrupt the global automotive market.
At the moment, the time to test this issue is ripe. 2015 is the 20th anniversary of the emergence of disruptive innovation theory. Since the introduction of the theory in the first article of the Harvard Business Review in 1995, “subversive innovation†has gained more and more recognition, and it has become a fashionable new term, so that it has been misused to the name. The situation on the head of the real company. In an interview with Bloomberg last year, Christensen responded to New Yorker's criticism of his work: "From entrepreneurs to college students, disruptive innovation has now been widely abused."
To investigate, Batman's team released five questions to evaluate disruptive innovation. First, is the product targeted at “over-service†customers (lower prices but lower performance), or is it creating new markets (targeting customers who cannot afford existing products)? Second, does the product create an “asymmetric motiveâ€, meaning that over time, when subversives have the incentive to enter a better-performing segment, do existing players in the market have the incentive to compete with the subversive? Third, whether the product can quickly improve performance, while maintaining customer expectations, continue to maintain low prices. Fourth, has the product created a new value network, including sales channels? Fifth, does the product subvert all existing products, or is there anyone in the existing audience who can find the same opportunities?
Bartman examines Tesla on the basis of these questions. Obviously, Tesla is not a subversive, but a typical “continuous innovation†defined by Christensen, a product that continuously delivers better performance at a higher price. The Tesla electric car is not a basic product, and its pricing is the same as that of BMW and Mercedes.
Tesla's positioning problem is important for existing car companies, car suppliers and investors. "If Tesla follows a subversive innovation strategy, according to theory, there will be no fierce competition with Tesla in the future," Batman said. "But because Tesla is a continuous innovation, according to theoretical speculation, Tesla There will be competitors. Our analysis shows that only when Tesla's customer base expands beyond the current niche market, more people prefer to choose electric cars instead of gasoline cars. Once Tesla starts operating more With a variety of styles (such as SUV) and cheaper electric vehicles, the competition will become increasingly fierce."
Imagine that in 2014, only 119,710 of the 16.5 million vehicles in the United States were electric vehicles, with a market share of only 0.7%. The reason why existing car companies have not focused on electric vehicles is not because they do not understand electric vehicles, but because the demand for electric vehicles is too small. Tesla hopes that people will change their electric cars. If the balance is tilted from a petrol car to an electric car, Batman believes that Volkswagen, Toyota and other car companies will switch to electric cars relatively quickly. But this does not mean that Tesla can not continue to profit in the niche market. Batman said: "Tesla is a great car." Although adjusting the low cost is a big challenge, Tesla is still likely to expand to the low price market. However, if Tesla's goal is to occupy the electric vehicle market or to subvert the existing global auto giants, "it will be very difficult to follow the current strategy." Batman said.
If Tesla is not subverting the auto industry, who else? Batman’s research points to “neighborhood electric vehicle†– a vehicle that resembles an enhanced low-speed golf cart. NEV's uses include security patrols on university campuses, short-haul transportation between retired communities, and intercity logistics. NEV is cheap, only a few thousand dollars, and it is easy to operate and parking is very convenient. NEV manufacturers have added other features based on traditional products. "The essence of subversive theory is that subversives can better meet the needs of old users and then improve them at any time," Bartman said.
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