It's
almost been a year since I have moved to the United States from India to pursue
my higher education. No doubt last one year has been one hell of a roller
coaster ride. Some very sweet experiences, some not so sweet. One of the things
that I noticed about myself, is that for the first few months I was in awe of
this place like a lot of people who come to this country are. Slowly as the
feeling started to sink in, I began asking myself a question, 'What is it that
has made this place what it is?'
You
know that show, where in the hosts gives you a word and you have to name it's
closest association, if I was given a word, 'America!', pat would I say
'Innovation!'. Man, this place has it. If I just sat back in my room and took a
look around, more than half the things in my room were invented in this
country. And guess what, they don't just invent it, they sell it quite
beautifully. Who would have thought, a basket of fried chicken with tomato
ketchup on the side would create a multi-billion dollar establishment?
Although, I'm afraid to call spiced fried chicken an innovation and some would
argue that all this is because of the solid marketing muscle that's been put
behind it, one would have to give it to the fact that someone, somewhere did
set the ball rolling. As I was thinking about all of this, like any proud
Indian, an ego began to errupt and the defense mechanism started kicking in.
'My country is not bad at innovation. I belong to a land that gave the world,
zero, a mathematical basis of several generations of innovation'. But then I
said to myself, as much of a fact as it is that India is a developing country,
it is not a fair comparison to compare it with America. It has to be taken into
consideration that it is a young country. Just a few days ago we celebrated
India's 69th Independence Day and it has'nt been long enough since the famous
Shashi Tharoor speech 'Britain owes reparations' at Oxford was all over the
social media. Anyways, I divulge.
In
the quest to find an answer to my original question, 'What is it that has made
this place what it is?', I began researching on the series of break-through
innovations that have taken place on this land. As I reached my answers,
a debate arose between Sustainability and Innovation. The fact of
the matter is that when it comes to the 'Sustainability VS Innovation' debate,
one can't help but think about a fact that both belong to their respective
environments. Innovation is inherently risky. It needs an environment to
nurture, nourish and encourage it. In a society, where getting by tomorrow is a
challenge, innovation has a very small place. Some, talented, courageous and
hard-working enough to seize that place make their way through, others, are
forced to settle with what they have. Countries like America which are blessed
with the abundance of resources in all forms tend to develop a culture of asking
a question at the age of 18, ‘What is it that I love to do?’ as opposed to
asking a question, ‘What will get me my first paycheck?’.
Silicon
Valley in California is the Mecca of Disruptive Innovation. Most of the
game-changing products of the recent times have originated here. Does this mean
that Silicon Valley is the only place in the world where game-changing ideas
are born? No. Definitely not. However, the environment in Silicon Valley is
conducive for such ideas. By environment, I mean factors like buyer-potential,
proportion of early adopters. A similar idea might be born in a village near
the Congo River basin but there are chances that it dies out before reaching
the market. Such disruption then gives rise to sustainability which flourishes
the economy which in turn allows more disruption. A sort of positive cycle that
a few countries like the United States enjoy.
Sustainable
technology allows a company to take its product from level A to level A+. It
involves an incremental improvement in product that allows its customers to use
a better, improved and most often a more expensive product. On the other hand a
disruptive technology makes a foray into completely alienated markets or often
ends up creating its own market. The goal of some of the most successful
disruptive innovations the world has seen, has often been, to make the
hallowed, most expensive products accessible to the large masses. That is
perhaps why we can hear innovators like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and the
others re-iterating the phrase ‘Change the world’ or ‘Game-changers’. One
commonality that is observed amongst all the disruptive innovators and there
teams, is that they are really good at catching extremely complex problems,
building solutions to these problems and then very importantly pulling these
solutions down to a price point that’s affordable to one and all. In essence a sustainable
technology is bent towards driving the price of the product upwards where as a
disruptive technology works towards driving the price of the product downwards.
As
Harvard Business School professor, Clay Christensen pointed out in his book,
‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’, disruptive innovation is noticeably different from
breakthrough innovation. A breakthrough innovation drives change but often that
change is not market-related which is often, not the case in disruptive
innovation. To clarify, landing on moon was a break-through innovation.
Something that had never been done before, something that led to a whole new
spectrum of possibilities. However, it had nothing to do with affecting the
lives of a common citizen. On the other hand the invention of a personal
computer changed banking, education, agriculture, bureaucracy, entertainment
and almost every other industry forever. It affected the common citizen at the
grass-root level.
Disruptive
innovation often gives way to sustainable innovations. Companies are born out
of disruptive innovation but grow based on sustainable innovation. For example,
Apple - I was a disruptive innovation but the more improved Apple – II was a
sustainable innovation. Sustainability often caches in financially on the execution
of the disruptive idea. Also, apparently it is difficult for the companies to
carry out disruption as they go on growing larger in size. Disruption is
relatively easy to carry out at the start-up level where the employee head
count is low.
In
my personal opinion Disruptive Innovation can act as a vital tool in developing
the economy of a country which can then allow sustainability to build on the
platform that has already been laid.
