2002-Foundations for Growth: How To Identify and Build Disruptive New Businesses增长的基础:如何识别和建立颠覆性的新业务

Christensen C M, Johnson M W, Rigby D K. Foundations for growth: How to identify and build disruptive new businesses[J]. MIT Sloan Management Review, 2002.

Christensen, C. M., Johnson, M. W., & Rigby, D. K. (2002). Foundations for growth: How to identify and build disruptive new businesses. MIT Sloan Management Review.

 

Many companies proudly think of themselves as innovative. The great majority of them, however, are adept at producing only sustaining innovations — products or services that meet the demands of existing customers in established markets. Few companies have introduced genuinely disruptive innovations, the kind that result in the creation of entirely new markets and business models. And yet the motivation to pursue such innovations should be urgent. In almost any industry you care to examine, the most dramatic stories of growth and success were launched from a platform of disruptive innovation.

许多公司自豪地认为自己具有创新性。然而，他们中的绝大多数都擅长于只提供持续性创新——即满足现有市场中现有客户需求的产品或服务。很少有公司推出了真正的颠覆性创新，这种创新会创造出全新的市场和商业模式。然而，追求这种创新的动力应该是迫切的。在你仔细研究的几乎所有行业中，最引人注目的增长和成功故事都是从颠覆性创新的平台上推出的.

Most managers understand that significant, new, sustainable growth comes from creating new markets and ways of competing. But few of them make such investments. Why? Because when times are good and core businesses are growing robustly, starting new generations of growth ventures seems unnecessary; when times are bad and mature businesses are under attack, investments to create new growth businesses can't send enough profit to the bottom line quickly enough to satisfy investor pressure for a fast turnaround.

大多数管理者都明白，重要的、新的、可持续的增长来自于创造新的市场和竞争方式。但很少有人会进行这样的投资。为什么?因为当形势好、核心业务增长强劲时，创办新一代的成长型企业似乎没有必要;当时局不好，成熟业务受到冲击时，投资创建新的成长型业务无法足够快地将足够的利润送到底线，以满足投资者要求快速扭亏为盈的压力。

The second problem is virtually insurmountable, so senior managers must rethink their reluctance to start new ventures in good times. After all, business units that are growing robustly today will become mature, and thus vulnerable, in the future. The only way a corporation can maintain its growth is by launching new growth businesses when the core units are strong. Our research indicates that if senior managers pursue this path — and if the growth businesses they start or acquire are truly disruptive — companies will find it less difficult and risky than many have supposed to create wave after wave of new growth.

第二个问题实际上是无法克服的，所以管理人员必须重新考虑在经济繁荣时期他们不愿创办新企业的问题。毕竟，业务部门在增长，今天强劲的业务将在未来变得成熟，从而变得脆弱。未来，公司保持增长的唯一方法是在核心业务强劲的时候推出新的增长型业务。我们的研究表明，如果高级管理人员走这条路——如果他们创办或收购的成长型业务真正具有颠覆性——公司会发现，创造一波又一波新增长的难度和风险，比许多人想象的要小。

For more than a decade, we have studied innovative successes and failures at large and small companies. (To have a truer sense of whether a disruptive strategy may work in the future, it's at least as important to understand what hasn't worked as what has.) We studied some ventures through the lens of history while tracking other initiatives in real time. As a result, we have devised two sets of litmus tests that senior managers can use to shape business plans to improve their chances of success. Our research suggests that any proposal must pass at least one set of tests if project investments are to have a chance of paying off.

十多年来，我们研究了大大小小的公司在创新方面的成功和失败。(要想更真实地了解一种颠覆性战略在未来是否可行，至少了解哪些策略行不通与哪些策略奏效同样重要。)我们研究了一些项目是通过历史的视角来研究的，同时实时跟踪其他项目。因此，我们设计了两套试金石，供高级管理人员用来制定商业计划，以提高成功的几率。我们的研究表明，如果项目投资有机会获得回报，任何提案都必须至少通过一套测试。

Following an exploration of the litmus tests, we test ourideas in a detailed example that asks whether Xerox could dis-rupt Hewlett-Packard's ink-jet printer business. We conclude by outlining the process any company will need to institute if itwants to create an engine capable of building new disruptivebusinesses over and over again. Although the task is far from simple, it can be done. The key is to think through the issues rigorously and with a clear view of the obstacles and opportunities.

在探索石蕊测试之后，我们用一个详细的例子来测试我们的想法，这个例子询问施乐是否可以破坏惠普的喷墨打印机业务。最后，我们概述了任何一家公司如果想要创造一个能够不断建立新的颠覆性业务的引擎，都需要制定的流程。尽管这一任务远非易事，但它是可以完成的。关键是要认真思考问题，对障碍和机遇有清晰的认识。

Distinguishing Sustaining From Disruptive Innovations区分持续性创新和破坏性创新The dichotomy between sustaining and disruptive innovations has been discussed in various contexts since Clayton Christensen first wrote about it in 1993. For the purposes of this article, it's important to bear in mind the following essential elements of the theory:

自克莱顿·克里斯滕森(ClaytonChristensen)于1993年首次撰文以来，持续创新和颠覆性创新之间的二分法已经在各种背景下得到了讨论。为了本文的目的，重要的是要记住该理论的以下基本要素:

1.The pace of technological progress in almost every industry outstrips the ability of customers in any given tier of the market to make effective use of the improved versions of a product. Technologies that aren't good enough to address customers' needs at one point typically improve to provide more than enough performance for those same customers at a later point.

1. 几乎每个行业的技术进步速度都超过了市场上任何特定层次的消费者有效利用产品改进版本的能力。在某一时刻不足以满足客户需求的技术，通常会在以后的某个时刻为这些客户提供足够多的性能。

2. Companies earn attractive profit margins when they stretch their products upmarket, targeting customers in a more demanding tier who are not yet satisfied by existing offerings. A down-market move toward customers who are already satisfied by available products yields profit margins that aren't nearly as attractive. As a result, powerful “asymmetries of motivation” grow out of disruptive technological change. Whenever entrants are motivated to attack less profitable customers in less attractive tiers of the market, established businesses will always be motivated to move toward more profitable customers.

 2. 当企业将产品推向高端市场，瞄准需求更高、对现有产品还不满意的客户群体时，它们就能获得可观的利润率。面向已经对现有产品感到满意的客户的低端市场则会产生利润利润率远没有那么吸引人。因此，强大的“动机不对称”产生于颠覆性的技术变革。每当进入者被激励去攻击市场吸引力较低层次中利润较低的客户时，老牌企业总是会被激励去争取利润更高的客户。

3.Innovations that help incumbent companies earn higher margins by selling better products to their best customers are sustaining, not disruptive. Sustaining innovations comprise both simple, incremental engineering improvements as well as breakthrough leaps up the trajectory of performance improvement.

3. 通过向最佳客户销售更好的产品来帮助现有公司赚取更高利润的创新是可持续的，而不是破坏性的。持续性创新既包括简单的渐进式工程改进，也包括业绩改善轨迹上的突破性飞跃。

4. Industry incumbents aren't always the first to market with a sustaining innovation, but they almost always end up on top.They have more resources and more at stake than new entrants, a powerful combination whenever the incumbents are motivated to win.

 4. 行业现有者并不总是第一个以持续创新进入市场，但他们几乎总是领先。与新进入者相比，他们拥有更多的资源和更多的利害关系，这是一个强大的组合，只要现有者有获胜的动力。

5. In contrast to sustaining innovations, disruptive innovations appeal to customers who are unattractive to the incum bents. Although disruptive innovations typically involve simple adaptations of known technologies, entrants almost always beat incumbents at this game because established companies lack the motivation to win. In the day-to-day internal competition for resources and attention within large companies, projects that target large, obvious markets invariably get priority over disruptive ones. And yet every major, attractive market that exists today was at its inception small and poorly defined — just as the major growth markets of tomorrow are small and poorly defined today.

5. 与持续创新相反，颠覆性创新吸引的是对现有企业没有吸引力的客户。虽然颠覆性创新通常涉及对已知技术的简单改造，但在这场游戏中，新进入者几乎总是能击败在位者，因为老牌公司缺乏获胜的动力。在大公司内部对资源和注意力的日常内部竞争中，以大而明显的市场为目标的项目总是优先于颠覆性的项目。然而，今天存在的每一个主要的、有吸引力的市场在其开始时都是小而不明确的——就像明天的主要增长市场今天是小而不明确的一样。

6. Companies that want to create new growth businesses should therefore seek disruptive opportunities because industry leaders will not be motivated to pursue them. This approach applies to venture-backed startups, cash-rich giants and everything in between. According to our research, the probability of creating a successful, new growth business is 10 times greater if the innovators pursue a disruptive strategy rather than a sustaining one.

6. 因此，想要创造新的增长型业务的公司应该寻求颠覆性的机会，因为行业领导者没有动力去追求这些机会。这种方法适用于风投支持的初创公司、现金充裕的巨头以及介于两者之间的所有公司。根据我们的研究，如果创新者采用颠覆性战略，而不是持续性战略，那么创建成功的新增长型业务的可能性要高出10倍

Two Strategies for Creating New Disruptive Growth Businesses

创建新的颠覆性增长业务的两种策略

All ideas for new products and businesses emerge from innovators' minds only partially formed. Middle managers then oversee the shaping of these ideas into full-fledged business plans in an effort to obtain funding from senior management. They typically hesitate to throw their weight behind new product concepts whose market is not assured, fearing that their reputation for good judgment may be compromised. As a consequence, the normal corporate process for shaping and funding ideas turns them into sustaining innovations that target large, obvious markets.

所有关于新产品和新业务的想法都来自创新者的头脑，只是部分形成。然后中层管理人员监督这些想法形成成熟的商业计划，以努力从高级管理人员那里获得资金。他们通常会犹豫是否要在市场没有把握的新产品概念上投入自己的力量，因为他们担心自己良好判断力的声誉可能会受到损害。其结果是，形成和资助创意的正常企业流程将其转化为针对巨大而明显的市场的持续创新。

Many of the ideas that end up as sustaining innovations could just as readily have been shaped into disruptive business plans, given a distinctly different process and managers who understood how to use it. To that end, we have developed two general strategies for turning ideas into plans for disruptive growth businesses. The first requires the creation of a new market that can serve as a base for disruption; the second is based on disruption of the prevailing business model from the low end. The success of each strategy is predicated on managers' ability to shape ideas that conform to a set of litmus tests.

许多最终成为持续创新的想法，如果有一个截然不同的流程和懂得如何使用它的管理者，也可以很容易地被塑造成颠覆性的商业计划。为此，我们制定了两种将创意转化为颠覆性增长业务计划的一般策略。第一种需要创造一个新市场，作为颠覆性增长的基础;第二种是基于从低端对主流商业模式的颠覆。每一种战略的成功都取决于管理者是否有能力塑造符合一套石蕊试金石的想法。

Creating a New Market as a Base for Disruption

创造一个新市场，作为颠覆的基础

Companies seeking to create disruptive growth should first search for ways to compete against nonconsumption: people's inability to use available products or services because they aretoo expensive or too complicated. It's much easier to target potential customers who aren't buying at all than to steal customers from an entrenched competitor. Strategies that disrupt by creating new market applications for entirely new customers should meet the following three litmus tests.

寻求破坏性增长的公司应该首先寻找与非消费竞争的方法:人们无法使用现有的产品或服务，因为它们太贵或太复杂。瞄准那些根本不消费的潜在客户要比从一个根深蒂固的竞争对手那里抢走客户容易得多。通过为全新的客户创造新的市场应用来颠覆市场的战略应该满足以下三个试金石。

Test #1: Does the innovation target customers who in the past haven't been able to “do it themselves” for lack of money or skills?

测试1:创新的目标客户是否在过去因为缺乏资金或技能而无法“自己动手”?

Many of the most successful disruptive growth businesses have given people direct access to products or services that had been too expensive or too complex for the mainstream. For example, until the late 1970s computer jobs had to be processed by specialists in the corporate mainframe-computer center. Today, ordinary people with PCs can handle problems that are far more complex than the ones mainframes used to solve. Disruption pulled new users into the computer market by the millions, as the PC allowed people to compute conveniently for themselves.

许多最成功的颠覆性增长企业，都是让人们直接接触到那些对主流企业来说过于昂贵或过于复杂的产品或服务。例如，直到20世纪70年代末，计算机工作还必须由公司大型计算机中心的专家来处理。今天，拥有个人电脑的普通人可以处理比大型机过去解决的问题复杂得多的问题。随着个人电脑让人们可以方便地自己计算，颠覆性的变革将数以百万计的新用户拉进了电脑市场。

If an idea can't be shaped to pass this litmus test, the chances for creating a new growth business diminish considerably. The innovation may succeed in satisfying some customers, but it won't create significant new growth. Take online retail banking. There just isn't a large population of nonconsumers who can be pulled into the market for bank accounts by Internet banking. Most low-income customers, and even most teenagers, have bank accounts that offer easy access to basic services. Because it can't meet this litmus test, online banking can be only a sustaining innovation that helps retail banks serve a segment of their existing customer base a bit more profitably and effectively. New entrants are unlikely to be able to use the technology to disrupt established banks (unless they can conceive a strategy that passes the second set of litmus tests).

如果一个想法不能通过这个试金石测试，那么创造一个新的增长型业务的机会就会大大减少。创新可能会成功地满足一些客户，但它不会创造显著的新增长。以网上零售银行为例。没有多少非消费者可以被网上银行吸引到银行账户市场。大多数低收入客户，甚至大多数青少年，都有银行账户，可以方便地获得基本服务。因为它无法满足这一试金石，网上银行只能作为一种维持创新，帮助零售银行为一部分现有客户群提供更有利可图、更有效的服务。新进入者不太可能利用这项技术颠覆老牌银行(除非他们能构想出一种通过第二套石蕊测试的战略)。

In contrast, online retail stock brokers such as E*Trade and Charles Schwab did have the potential to create a new disruptive growth market because they could enable a new set of customers — day traders — to speculate; in addition, they made trading so simple and inexpensive that people of relatively low net worth could begin to manage their own portfolios without the help of professionals. Because these companies were initially competing against nonconsumption rather than Merrill Lynch, they could create a new wave of disruptive growth. Online retail banks, in contrast, could attract new accounts only by competing against established banks.

相比之下，E*Trade和嘉信理财(Charles Schwab)等在线零售股票经纪公司确实有潜力创造一个新的颠覆性增长市场，因为它们可以让一批新客户(即日交易员)进行投机;此外，它们使交易变得如此简单和廉价，以至于净值相对较低的人可以在没有专业人士帮助的情况下开始管理自己的投资组合。因为这些公司最初的竞争对手是非消费类公司，而不是美林证券，所以它们可以创造一波新的颠覆性增长。相比之下，网上零售银行只能通过与老牌银行竞争来吸引新账户。

Test #2: Is the innovation aimed at customers who will welcome a simple product?

测试2:创新是否针对那些欢迎简单产品的客户?

If the innovation enables a new population of customers to consume for themselves, it can more easily be shaped to pass the second litmus test: The disruptive product must be technologically straightforward, targeted at customers who will be happy with a simple product.

如果创新能让新的消费者群体为自己消费，它就能更容易地被塑造成通过第二个试金石:颠覆性产品在技术上必须是直截了当的，针对的是那些喜欢简单产品的客户。

Established companies almost always trip up on this test. Because corporate funding processes compel disruptive innovators to quantify the magnitude and certitude of the opportunity, potential disruptions are force-fit into obvious, measurable, existing market applications. That leads corporate managers to hope for growth from improbable sources; more seriously, it pits innovators' disruptive technology against a sustaining technology already in use by entrenched competitors. The disruptive product's performance must then surpass technologies on the sustaining trajectory, which is equivalent to killing off the product. Cramming disruptions into established markets is very expensive and always fails.

老牌公司几乎总是会在这个测试中出错。由于企业融资流程迫使颠覆性创新者量化机会的大小和确定性，潜在的颠覆性被强行融入明显的、可衡量的、现有的市场应用中。这导致企业管理者希望从不太可能的来源获得增长；更严重的是，它让创新者的颠覆性技术与根深蒂固的竞争对手已经在使用的持续性技术对立起来。颠覆性技术产品的性能必须在持续发展的轨道上超越技术，这相当于杀死了产品。把颠覆性的东西塞进成熟的市场是非常昂贵的，而且总是会失败。

Successful disruptive innovators always target customers who welcome simple products. Apple marketed its Apple II as a toy for children, while Xerox was misguidedly determined to use the same technology to automate the office. Palm's Pilot was a simple organizer, whereas Apple (having become the industry incumbent) positioned its Newton as a handheld computer. Today, NTT DoCoMo and its Japanese competitors have signed up 40 million profitable subscribers for their wireless Internet-access systems by making it easy for teenagers to download ring tones and wallpaper and by providing simple games to help young commuters kill time. Their European and American counterparts, in contrast, are struggling to provide the bandwidth and screen size that will enable existing customers to do the same things on a phone that they do today on a computer; and because wireless access isn't as good as wireline access for these applications, they have no profitable customers.4 Similarly, voice recognition technology is taking off in applications involving simple phrases, but IBM's ViaVoice product is designed to replace keyboard word processing and leaves users deeply dissatisfied.

成功的颠覆性创新者总是瞄准那些喜欢简单产品的客户。苹果公司将Apple II定位为儿童玩具，而施乐公司则错误地决定使用同样的技术来实现办公室的自动化。Palm的Pilot是一个简单的组织者，而苹果(已经成为业界的主导者)将其Newton定位为掌上电脑。如今，NTT DoCoMo及其日本竞争对手已经为他们的无线互联网接入系统签下了4000万有利可图的用户，他们让青少年可以轻松下载铃声和壁纸，并提供简单的游戏来帮助年轻的通勤者消磨时间。相比之下，他们的欧洲和美国同行正在努力提供宽带和屏幕尺寸，使现有客户可以在手机上做他们今天在电脑上做的事情；而且由于这些应用的无线接入不如有线接入好，他们也没有盈利的客户。同样，语音识别技术在涉及简单短语的应用中正在起飞，但IBM的ViaVoice产品旨在取代键盘文字处理，这让用户深感不满。

 It is important to note that in each of those cases, the targeted application, product and customer set were not foreordained by the technology. The divergent targets resulted from differences in the idea-shaping processes used by established companies and new entrants.

需要注意的是，在上述每一种情况下，目标应用、产品和客户群都不是技术预先设定好的。不同的目标是由成熟公司和新进入者所使用的想法形成过程的差异造成的。

Test #3: Will the innovation help customers do more easily and effectively what they are already trying to do?

测试3:创新是否能帮助客户更容易、更有效地完成他们已经在尝试做的事情?

This test requires innovators to keep in mind one essential fact: At a fundamental level, the things that people want to accomplish in their lives don't change quickly. Because of this stability, if an idea for a new growth business is predicated on customers wanting to do something that hadn't been a priority in the past, it stands little chance of success.

这个测试要求创新者记住一个基本事实：从根本上说，人们想要在生活中完成的事情不会很快改变。由于这种稳定性，如果一个新的增长业务的想法是建立在客户想要做一些过去并不优先考虑的事情的基础上的，那么它几乎没有成功的机会。

Let's illustrate this test by exploring the potential for digital imaging to disrupt the market for photographic film. How do most people use photographic film? When they've finished shooting a roll, they drop off the film at the developer's, frequently ordering double prints so that copies of the best shots will be readily available to send to friends or relatives. When the prints are ready, people bring them home, flip through them, put them back into the envelope, and put the envelope into a box or drawer. Less than 5% of all images are viewed more than once, and people rarely go back to mount the best photos into an album.

让我们通过探索数字成像颠覆摄影胶片市场的潜力来说明这个测试。大多数人是如何使用摄影胶片的?当他们用完拍完一卷胶卷后，他们把胶卷送到冲洗店，经常订购两份影印，以便随时可以把最好的照片寄给朋友或亲戚。等到影印好了，人们就把影印带回家，翻看一下，放回信封里，再把信封放进盒子或抽屉里。只有不到5%的照片会被浏览一次以上，而且人们很少会回去把最好的照片装进相册。

The digital-imaging companies approached amateur photographers with interesting propositions: “If you'll just take the time to learn how to use this software, you can edit out the redeye in all those flash pictures” and “You can now keep all your pictures neatly arranged in online photo albums.” But the vast majority of digital camera owners do neither of these things. They weren't priorities before, and they aren't now. Digital camera users do send more images to more people over the Internet — the new technology lets people do more easily what they were trying to do in ordering double prints from film. And the recipients of the images typically view them once, close the box and put the pictures into an envelope on the hard drive.

数码成像公司向业余摄影师提出了一些有趣的建议:“如果你愿意花时间学习如何使用这个软件，你就可以把所有闪光照片中的红眼编辑掉”，“你现在可以把所有的照片整齐地放在在线相册里了。”但绝大多数数码相机用户都不会做这两件事。它们以前不是优先考虑的事情，现在也不是。数码相机时代的用户确实通过互联网向更多的人发送了更多的照片——新技术让人们更容易地完成他们以前试图从胶卷中订购双倍照片的工作。接收照片的人通常只看一次，然后合上盒子，把照片放进硬盘上的信封里。

Despite its disruptive potential, digital imaging hasn't created the major wave of new growth that digital film and camera companies so desperately need. The reason is that those companies have violated the first two litmus tests. They've concentrated on making products that can deliver images as sharp as those caught on photographic film. This has led them to violate test #2 by making devices that are not technologically simple. Because the technology they are using to capture sharper images is expensive, they have also violated test #1: The equipment isn't cheap enough to appeal to existing camera owners, most of whom are satisfied with the pictures they get from photographic film. These companies have, in other words, spent billions of dollars searching for growth in the wrong place. Had they instead built their cameras with cheap sensors, whose sharpness is more than adequate for images viewed on computer screens, they could have hit price points low enough to have competed against nonconsumption — selling “fun,” not cameras, to teenagers and children, who use the Internet with extraordinary creativity.

尽管数字成像具有颠覆性的潜力，但它并没有创造出数字胶片和相机时代公司迫切需要的新增长的主要浪潮。原因在于，这些公司违反了前两项试金石。他们一直专注于制造能够像胶片一样清晰地呈现图像的产品。这导致他们通过制造技术上不简单的设备来违反测试2。因为他们用来捕捉的技术更锐利，虽然相机价格昂贵，但它们也违反了测试1:设备不够便宜，无法吸引现有的相机用户，他们中的大多数人都对从摄影胶片中获得的照片感到满意。换句话说，这些公司花了数十亿美元在错误的地方寻找增长。如果他们用廉价的传感器制造相机，其清晰度足以在电脑屏幕上观看图像，他们就能把价格降到足够低的水平吗与，非消费性产品竞争——向青少年和儿童销售“乐趣”，而不是相机，而青少年和儿童在使用互联网时具有非凡的创造力。

Digital cameras ultimately will displace photographic film. Whether that happens after a brutal, feature-for-feature fight involving sustaining technology — or after a huge new growth market is created among a new set of customers who have found new ways and reasons for “consuming” images — depends on whether the companies in this space shape their strategies to create disruptive growth or allow the default settings of sustaining strategy to determine their targets.

数码相机最终将取代照相胶片。不管这是在一场涉及可持续技术的残酷的、以特色换特色的战斗之后发生的，还是在一群找到了“消费”图像的新方式和理由的新客户中创造了一个巨大的新增长市场之后发生的取决于这个领域的公司是塑造自己的战略来创造颠覆性的增长，还是允许持续战略的默认设置来确定自己的目标。

Disrupting the Business Model From the Low End

从低端开始颠覆商业模式

Some ideas for innovative products simply can't be shaped to pass the first set of tests. That doesn't mean they should automatically be ruled out as the basis for new growth businesses. A quite different strategy — disrupting the industry leader's business model — also harnesses the power of asymmetric motivation.

有些创新产品的想法根本无法通过第一套测试。这并不意味着它们应该自动被排除在新增长业务的基础之外。另一种完全不同的策略——颠覆行业领导者的商业模式——也利用了不对称动机的力量。

A proposal that cannot compete against nonconsumption necessarily aims at the same markets dominated by industry leaders. To succeed, this second strategy must meet two litmus tests. First, it must target the least-demanding tiers of a market in which prevailing products are so good they “overserve” customers. In other words, there must be less demanding customers who would happily buy a good-enough product that is cheaper than those currently available. Second, the product must be made and marketed within a disruptive business model, one that enables the entrant to compete profitably while pricing at deep discounts. Managers who shape a strategy to conform to these litmus tests can successfully create a new growth business within an existing market.

一项无法与非消费竞争的提案，必然会瞄准由行业领导者主导的同一市场。要想成功，第二种策略必须通过两项试金石。首先，它必须瞄准市场中要求最低的阶层，在这些市场中，主流产品非常好，以至于“过度服务”了客户。换句话说，必须有要求较低的客户，他们会很高兴地购买比现有产品更便宜的足够好的产品。其次，产品必须在颠覆性的商业模式下生产和销售，这种模式使进入者能够在定价大幅折扣的情况下进行盈利竞争。制定符合这些试金石标准的战略的管理者可以在现有市场中成功地创造出新的增长型业务。

Test #1: Are prevailing products more than good enough?

测试一:主流产品是否已经足够好了? 

If available products aren't yet good enough, a disruptive innovation whose performance is even lower will not gain any traction in the market. Mobile telephone networks probably fall into the category of “not yet good enough” to be disrupted with this strategy; many pharmaceutical products also fit this description. For example, synthetic insulin that is free of impurities couldn't disrupt the market for insulin made from a pig's pancreas (which contains some impurities) because neither is effective enough to counteract the long-term effects of Type 2 diabetes.

如果现有的产品还不够好，那么一个性能更差的颠覆性创新在市场上就不会获得任何牵引力。移动电话网络很可能属于“还不够好”的范畴，无法被这种策略颠覆;许多医药产品也符合这一描述。例如，不含杂质的合成胰岛素无法扰乱由猪胰腺制成的胰岛素的市场(其中含有一些杂质)因为这两种方法都不足以有效地抵消2型糖尿病的长期影响。

Managers who are shaping a disruptive strategy can determine when a product's performance has overshot what customers can use by examining rigorously, market tier by market tier, the extent to which customers are willing to pay premium prices for further improvements in the functionality, reliability or convenience of a product or service. If companies can sustain price increases in a given tier when they introduce an improvement in one of these areas, customers are not yet overserved and that tier cannot be disrupted. Online commodity exchanges illustrate the point. In the late 1990s, hundreds of millions of dollars were invested to create exchanges for commodities such as steel; their objective was to disrupt traditional distribution enterprises. The vast majority of the world's steel, however, is not purchased at the lowest price the buyer can find. Steel buyers quite consistently pay premium prices to be assured of reliable supplies from their distributors. The prevalence of the price premiums indicates that buyers are not yet overserved on the dimension of reliability and thus the market could not be disrupted by the online exchanges.

正在制定颠覆性战略的管理者可以通过逐层严格检查客户愿意为产品或服务的功能、可靠性或便利性的进一步改进支付高价的程度，来确定产品的性能何时超过了客户的使用能力。如果企业在某一特定层次推出改进措施时，能够维持价格上涨，那么客户还没有被过度服务，该层次也就不会被打乱。网上商品交易说明了这一点。上世纪90年代末，人们投资了数亿美元，创建了钢铁等大宗商品的交易所;他们的目标是颠覆传统的分销企业。然而，世界上绝大多数的钢铁并不是以买家能找到的最低价格购买的。钢铁买家一直支付溢价，以确保从经销商那里获得可靠的供应。价格溢价的普遍存在表明买方在可靠性方面还没有被过分服务，因此市场不会被网上交易扰乱。

Test #2: Can you create a different business model?

测试2:你能创造一种不同的商业模式吗?

If the low end of a market is overserved and thus open to disruption, the second test requires managers to craft a new business model; the business must be able to earn attractive returns at prices that can steal business at the low end. A disruptive business model consists of a cost structure, operating processes and a distribution system in which profit margins are thinner but net asset turns are higher. It creates the asymmetric motivation needed for disruptive success.

如果低端市场被过度服务，因此容易被颠覆，那么第二项测试要求管理者设计一种新的商业模式;企业必须能够以能够抢走低端业务的价格获得有吸引力的回报。颠覆性的商业模式由成本结构、运营流程和分销系统组成，其中利润率较低，但净资产周转率较高。它创造了颠覆性成功所需的不对称动机。

Business model disruption has occurred several times in retailing. For example, full-service department stores had a model that enabled them to turn inventories three times per year with gross margins of 40%. They therefore earned 40% three times each year, for a 120% annual return on capital invested in inventory (ROCII). Discount retailers such as WalMart and Kmart attacked the low end of the market — nationally branded hard goods such as paint, hardware, kitchen utensils, toys and sporting goods that were so commonplace they could sell themselves. The low end of this market was overserved by department stores; customers did not need welltrained salespeople to help them get what they needed. The discounters' business model enabled them to make money at gross margins of about 23%. Their stocking policies and operating processes enabled them to turn inventories more than five times annually, so that they also earned close to 120% annual ROCII. They did not accept lower levels of profitability; they just earned acceptable profit through a different formula.

商业模式的颠覆在零售业已经发生了好几次。例如，提供全方位服务的百货公司有一种模式，使他们能够每年三次周转库存，毛利率为40%。因此，他们每年三次获得40%的利润，每年投资于库存的资本回报率(ROCII)为120%。沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)和凯马特(Kmart)等折扣零售商攻击的是低端市场——全国品牌的硬商品，如油漆、五金、厨具、玩具和体育用品，这些商品太普通了，它们自己就能卖出去。低端市场则被百货公司过度服务;顾客不需要训练有素的销售人员来帮助他们得到他们需要的东西。折扣店的商业模式使他们能够以23%左右的毛利率赚钱。他们的库存政策和操作流程使他们能够每年周转库存五次以上，因此他们也获得了接近120%的年ROCII。他们不接受较低的盈利水平;他们只是通过不同的公式获得了可接受的利润。

For good reasons, full-service retailers ceded the low end of the market to the discounters. Here's why: The critical resourceallocation decision that retailing managers make is assignment of floor space. At the time discount retailers attacked the low end of their merchandise mix, managers of full-service stores could have defended the branded hard-goods businesses, which the discounters were attacking with prices that were 20% below those of department stores. But competing against the discounters by matching their prices would have sent margins plummeting to 23%, and, given the three-times-per-year inventory turns inherent in their business model, ROCII would have dropped to about 70%. Their other option was to allocate more floor space to higher-margin cosmetics and high-fashion apparel, where gross margins easily could exceed 50% and ROCII would be 150%. Clearly, it made sense for the full-service department stores to get out of the tiers of the market that the discounters were motivated to enter. Discount retailers subsequently were motivated to move further upmarket into the lowestmargin tiers of clothing, home furnishings and cosmetics. As they did so, the full-service stores' formula for profit maximization continued to motivate them to run away from rather than fight the discounters.

有充分的理由，全方位服务的零售商将低端市场拱手让给了折扣店。原因如下:零售经理所做的关键资源分配决策是店面面积的分配。当折扣零售商攻击其商品组合的低端时，全方位服务商店的经理本可以捍卫品牌硬货业务，因为折扣零售商正在以比百货公司低20%的价格攻击硬货业务。但如果通过与折扣店比价来竞争，利润率将暴跌至23%，而且考虑到它们的商业模式固有的每年三次的库存周转，ROCII将降至70%左右。他们的另一个选择是将更多的面积分配给利润率更高的化妆品和高级时装，这些产品的毛利率很容易超过50%，ROCII将达到150%。显然，对于提供全方位服务的百货公司来说，退出折扣店有动力进入的市场层次是有道理的。折扣零售商随后有动力进一步向高端市场进军，进入服装、家居和化妆品等利润率最低的市场。当他们这样做的时候，全方位服务商店利润最大化的公式继续激励他们逃离折扣店，而不是与之抗争。

This is the sort of asymmetry of motivation that managers need to create if they hope to build a successful new growth business within the same market served by industry leaders. To do that, managers must start by asking: How much lower does our price need to be to penetrate the lowest tier of the market? What do our costs need to be to generate profits at that price level? How could we change our asset turns and operating processes to achieve attractive returns?

如果管理者希望在行业领导者所服务的同一市场中建立成功的新增长业务，就需要创造这种不对称的动机。要做到这一点，管理者必须首先问自己:我们的价格需要降低多少，才能渗透到市场的最底层?要在那个价格水平上产生利润，我们的成本需要是多少?我们怎样才能改变我们的资产周转和运营流程来获得有吸引力的回报?

If a hopeful entrant can't define a business model with highenough asset turns to earn attractive returns on low margins, it won't be able to attract the repeated capital investments required to sustain the upmarket march inherent in building a business. As we have reviewed business plans requesting corporate funds for new product development, we have been dismayed to see how few of the plans' developers have devised business models that can sustain a disruptive enterprise. Most seem content to wrap their plans in their existing business structure, countenancing the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars under the flag of disruption. That's not disruption — it's bad business!

如果一个充满希望的进入者不能定义一个足够高的资产周转率的商业模式，以低利润率获得有吸引力的回报，它将无法吸引持续的资本投资，以维持建立企业所固有的高端进军。当我们审查了要求企业为新产品开发提供资金的商业计划时，我们沮丧地发现，计划的制定者中很少有人设计出能够维持颠覆性企业的商业模式。大多数人似乎满足于将他们的计划包装在现有的业务结构中，在颠覆性的旗帜下计算数亿美元的损失。这不是颠覆——这是糟糕的业务!

The strategy of business-model disruption isn't as common as the strategy of competing against nonconsumption, but it can be very effective, as it has been repeatedly in retailing. Steel minimills such as Nucor have used this strategy to beat the integrated steel companies like Bethlehem, and online travel agencies are using it to disrupt full-service agencies.

商业模式颠覆的策略不像与非消费竞争的策略那么普遍，但它可以非常有效，就像它在零售业中反复出现的那样。纽柯(Nucor)这样的小型钢铁公司就利用这种策略击败了伯利恒(Bethlehem)这样的综合型钢铁公司，在线旅行社也在利用这种策略颠覆全方位服务的旅行社。

Executives who are shaping a low-end disruptive businessmodel strategy need to be sure it is unattractive to every powerful incumbent. The failure of online drug retailers such as PlanetRx.com to do this reconnaissance led to their demise. Their online business models probably were disruptive in relation to drugstore chains. But to the giant mail-order pharmacy Merck-Medco, the Internet was a sustaining technology. The Internet helped Medco make more money in the way it was already structured to make money; and because Medco had far more resources to throw at the opportunity than startups did, it outdistanced the startups and drove them from the market.

正在塑造低端颠覆性商业模式战略的高管们，需要确保这种战略对每一个有权有势的在位企业都没有吸引力。PlanetRx.com等在线药品零售商未能做到这一点，导致了它们的灭亡。与连锁药店相比，他们的在线商业模式可能具有颠覆性。但对于邮购制药巨头默克-美可公司(Merck-Medco)来说，互联网是一项可持续发展的技术。互联网帮助美可公司以其原有的盈利模式赚到了更多的钱;由于美可公司比初创公司拥有更多的资源来抓住这个机会，它把初创公司甩在了后面，把它们赶出了市场。

Using the Litmus Tests To Shape a Disruptive Strategy: Xerox Versus Hewlett-Packard

 运用石蕊试金石塑造颠覆性战略:施乐vs惠普

To get a sense of how managers might use the litmus tests to shape an idea into a disruptive business plan, let's examine whether Xerox could disrupt Hewlett-Packard's ink-jet printing business. We don't actually know if Xerox has considered this possibility, and we use the companies' names only to make the example more vivid. We've based it solely on information from public sources.

为了了解管理者如何利用石蕊测试将一个想法变成颠覆性的商业计划，让我们来看看施乐是否会颠覆惠普的喷墨打印业务。我们不知道施乐公司是否考虑过这种可能性，我们使用这些公司的名字只是为了让这个例子更生动。我们完全基于来自公共资源的信息。

Xerox reportedly has developed outstanding ink-jet printing technology. What can the company do with it? It could attempt to leapfrog ahead of Hewlett-Packard by producing the best ink-jet printer on the market. In taking that approach, Xerox would be fighting a battle of sustaining technology against a company with superior resources and more at stake. H-P would win that fight. Could Xerox craft a disruptive strategy for this technology? We'll use the litmus tests for the disruptive business model strategy first.

据报道，施乐公司开发了出色的喷墨打印技术。该公司能用它做什么呢?它可以尝试超越惠普，生产市场上最好的喷墨打印机。如果采用这种方法，施乐将与一家拥有更优越资源和更多利害关系的公司进行一场技术持久战。H-P将赢得这场战斗。施乐能否为这项技术制定一项颠覆性的战略?我们将首先使用颠覆性商业模式战略的试金石。

To assess whether a low-end strategy is viable, Xerox's managers should examine whether customers in each tier of the market are willing to pay price premiums for improvements in performance — faster printers that produce sharper images. At the highest tiers, the answer is yes. It appears, however, that consumers in less demanding tiers are increasingly indifferent to improvements. So the first litmus test is met: It does seem that a set of customers would be willing to buy a “good enough” printer that is cheaper than prevailing products.

为了评估低端战略是否可行，施乐公司的经理们应该考察各个层次的客户是否有足够的需求市场愿意为性能上的改进支付更高的价格——更快的打印机能产生更清晰的图像。对于最高级别的打印机，答案是肯定的。然而，在要求较低的层次，消费者似乎对改进越来越漠不关心。因此，第一个试金石测试得到了满足:似乎确实有一批客户愿意购买比主流产品更便宜的“足够好”的打印机。

The next litmus test is whether Xerox could define a business model that would generate attractive returns at the discounted prices required to win business at the low end. The possibilities don't look good. H-P and other printer companies already outsource the fabrication and assembly of components to the lowestcost sources in the world. They make all their money selling ink cartridges. Xerox could enter the market by selling ink cartridges at lower prices, but unless it could define processes that would allow it to do so profitably, any lead it gained initially would be unsustainable. A disruptive business-model strategy that attacks the low end probably can't succeed in this space. The managers would have to evaluate the potential for competing against nonconsumption instead.

下一个试金石是，施乐能否确定一种商业模式，以赢得低端市场所需的折扣价创造有吸引力的回报。这种可能性看起来并不乐观。H-P和其他打印机公司已经将零部件的制造和组装外包给了世界上成本最低的地方。它们的全部收入都来自于销售墨盒。施乐公司可以通过以更低的价格销售墨盒来进入市场，但除非它能制定出能让它盈利的流程，否则它最初获得的任何领先优势都将是不可持续的。攻击低端市场的颠覆性商业模式战略可能无法在这个领域取得成功。管理者将不得不评估与非消费类产品竞争的潜力。

Is there a large, untapped population of computer users who don't have the skills to operate current printers or the money to buy one? Probably not. Hewlett-Packard and its competitors already competed successfully against nonconsumption when they launched their easy-to-use, inexpensive ink-jet printers to disrupt expensive laser printers. It might be possible, however, to entice existing printer owners to buy more printers by enabling consumption in a new context. This is where it gets interesting.

是否有大量未开发的计算机用户不具备操作现有打印机的技能或没有钱购买打印机?可能不会。当惠普及其竞争对手推出易于使用、价格低廉的喷墨打印机，以取代昂贵的激光打印机时，他们已经在非消费类产品领域取得了成功。然而，通过在新的环境中实现消费，有可能吸引现有的打印机所有者购买更多的打印机。这就是有趣之处。

Could Xerox use its technology to help customers do something more easily that they are already trying to do? Is there a low-performance product that people would happily buy? Quite possibly. Documents created on notebook computers are not easy to print. Notebook users have to find a stationary printer and either hook its cable to the computer or transfer the file to a desktop PC via floppy disk in order to get paper copies. If Xerox incorporated a simple, inexpensive printer into the base or back of a notebook computer so that users on the go could get hard copies when they needed them, where they needed them, the company could probably win customers even if the printer wasn't as good as a stationary ink jet. Only Xerox's engineers could determine whether the idea is technologically feasible, but as a strategy, it would pass the litmus test.

施乐公司能否利用其技术帮助客户更轻松地完成他们已经在尝试做的事情?是否存在一种人们乐于购买的低性能产品?很有可能。在笔记本电脑上创建的文件不容易打印。笔记本电脑用户必须找到一台固定的打印机，要么将其电缆连接到电脑上，要么通过软盘将文件传输到台式电脑上，才能得到纸质副本。如果施乐公司在笔记本电脑的底座或背面安装了一台简单、廉价的打印机，这样用户在需要的时候、在需要的地方都能得到硬拷贝，那么这家公司可能会赢得客户，即使这台打印机不如固定喷墨打印机好。只有施乐的工程师才能确定这个想法在技术上是否可行，但作为一项战略，它将通过试金石。

A key, again, is asymmetry of motivation. In this case, we would expect H-P to ignore the notebook-printer opportunity at the outset because of the other options competing for resources within H-P's huge printer business, which needs large chunks of new revenue to sustain its growth. To create as much asymmetry as possible, Xerox would also want to develop a business model that was attractive to Xerox but unattractive to H-P. This might entail pricing ink cartridges for embedded notebook printers at levels that would send H-P scurrying upmarket, in search of the larger profits generated by higherperformance stationary printers. In that scenario, Xerox would retain the motivation to go after H-P's business, while H-P would be less motivated to fight back.

关键还是在于动机的不对称。在这种情况下，我们预计H-P一开始就会忽略笔记本打印机的机会，因为在H-P庞大的打印机业务中，还有其他选择在争夺资源。打印机业务需要大量的新收入来维持增长。为了创造尽可能多的不对称，施乐还希望开发对施乐有吸引力但对H-P没有吸引力的商业模式。这可能需要为嵌入式笔记本打印机的墨盒定价，使H-P匆忙进入高端市场，寻找性能更高的固定打印机带来的更大利润。在这种情况下，施乐将保留收购H-P业务的动力，而H-P反击的动力则会减弱。

Making the Disruptive Strategy Work

颠覆性战略奏效

Once a viable disruptive growth strategy has been defined, it needs nourishment to survive in the corporate environment. Three classes of factors that affect what a company like Xerox can do with the printer opportunity — its resources, processes and values — need to be managed carefully.6 The meaning of the first two terms is straightforward. In this context, we use the term “values” to mean the criteria that people employ when making both big and small decisions — when giving priority to one set of activities over another. Managers need to determine which resources, processes and values to leverage to help the new business succeed.

一旦确定了可行的颠覆性增长战略，它就需要滋养才能在企业环境中生存。影响像施乐这样的公司如何利用打印机机会的因素有三种，即资源、流程和价值观，需要谨慎管理前两个术语的含义很明确。在这种情况下，我们使用“价值观”一词来表示人们在做出或大或小的决定时所采用的标准——在优先考虑一组活动而不是另一组活动时。管理者需要决定利用哪些资源、流程和价值观来帮助新业务取得成功。

Resources In addition to the technology, the key resources for Xerox's printer business would be management talent and cash. Who should take the reins of the new venture? In situations like this, corporate executives often tap managers who have strong records of success in the mainstream business. Such choices can be the kiss of death, however, because the kinds of challenges that will confront managers in building a new disruptive enterprise are radically different from those that most would have grappled with in the core business. The counterintuitive point is that managers whom corporate leaders have learned to trust because of their success in the mainstream business probably cannot be counted on to lead a radical new venture.

除了技术之外，施乐打印机业务的关键资源将是管理人才和现金。谁来执掌这家新公司呢?在这种情况下，企业高管通常会选择那些在主流业务中有良好成功记录的经理。然而，这样的选择可能是死亡之吻，因为管理者在建立一个新的颠覆性企业时将面临的各种挑战，与大多数人在核心业务中所面临的挑战截然不同。违反直觉的一点是，那些因为在主流业务中取得成功而被企业领导者学会信任的管理者，可能不能指望他们领导一个激进的新企业。

To choose the right managers to lead a new venture, it's useful to construct a three-column chart. In the left column, list the challenges that the managers will confront as they build the new venture. In the middle column, list the experiences the managers should already have had, to be certain they have the perspective to succeed. In the right column, list the backgrounds of candidates.

为了选择合适的管理者来领导一个新的企业，构建一个三柱图是很有用的。在左栏中，列出管理者在建立新企业时将面临的挑战。在中间一栏，列出经理们应该已经拥有的经验，以确保他们拥有成功的视角。在右边一栏，列出候选人的背景。

Thus in the left column, Xerox's managers might note that customers for the built-in printer probably would not know at the outset what features they'd need or when or how they would actually use the product. In the middle column, they would specify a manager who had successfully and unsuccessfully introduced new products in a fluid, emerging market. In the right column, they might evaluate the résumé of a product manager from Palm because some features of Palm's products have been warmly embraced, while others have bombed.

因此，在左栏中，施乐的管理人员可能会注意到，内置打印机的客户可能一开始并不知道他们需要什么功能，也不知道他们何时或如何实际使用该产品。在中间一栏，他们会指定一位经理，他曾成功或失败地在一个流动的新兴市场推出新产品。在右边一栏，他们可能会评估一位来自Palm的产品经理的业绩，因为Palm产品的一些功能受到了热烈欢迎，而另一些功能则遭到了猛烈抨击。

The other important resource, cash, must be managed in a way that avoids two common misconceptions. The first is that access to deep corporate pockets is an advantage to a new growth business. It is not. Too much cash allows those running a new venture to follow a flawed strategy for too long. Having barely enough forces the venture's managers to flounder around with actual customers, rather than in the corporate treasury, for ways to get money. The right strategy for a disruptive business is never clear at the outset. Tight purse strings force managers to uncover a viable strategy quickly — if one exists.

另一个重要的资源，现金，必须以一种方式避免两个常见的误解。第一种是，获得雄厚的企业资金是新增长业务的优势。事实并非如此。太多的现金会让那些经营新企业的人在太长时间内遵循一个有缺陷的战略。资金不足迫使合资企业的经理们在实际客户中挣扎，而不是在公司的资金库里寻找资金来源。颠覆性业务的正确战略从一开始就不清楚。紧绷的钱袋迫使经理们迅速找出一个可行的战略——如果有的话。

The second misconception is that the corporation needs to be patient — that it should be prepared to accept large losses for sustained periods in order to reap the huge upside that eventually comes from disruptive innovation. Let's be clear: Senior managers should be patient about the new venture's size but impatient for profits. The requirement to get very big very fast is lethal to new ventures. It takes time for new markets to emerge: Customers have to discover where, when and why they are using a new product, and the new venture has to define a profitable business model. All new ventures lose money for a time at the outset, but corporate executives should expect the managers of a new business to find a way to make profit within a couple of years. Small but profitable ventures need to be given time to establish the new market and grow to a substantial size.

第二个误解是，公司需要有耐心——它应该准备好接受长期的巨额亏损，以便最终收获来自颠覆性创新的巨大的收益。我们要明确一点:高层管理人员应该对新合资企业的规模保持耐心，但对利润没有耐心。对新企业来说，快速做大的要求是致命的。新市场的出现需要时间:客户必须发现他们在何时何地以及为什么使用新产品，而新企业必须定义一个有利可图的商业模式。所有的新企业一开始都有一段时间是亏损的，但企业高管应该期望新业务的经理们在几年内找到盈利的方法。小型但有利可图的企业需要时间来建立新的市场并发展到相当大的规模。

The only way to guard against such impatience is by launching new growth ventures when the corporation doesn't actually need them. When companies wait until they need huge waves of growth in a hurry, their haste triggers a sequence of behaviors that paradoxically make it impossible to grow.

防止这种缺乏耐心的唯一方法是在公司实际上不需要的时候启动新的成长型企业。当公司等到他们急着需要巨大的增长浪潮时，他们的匆忙引发了一系列自相矛盾的行为，使公司不可能增长。

Processes and Values In any company, mainstream processes and criteria for setting priorities (values) have been honed to sustain the core business. Typically, key processes that work well in the core (such as strategic planning and product development) actually impede what needs to be done in an emerging business. And the criteria for setting priorities and making decisions that are inherent to the business model of the new enterprise often must be very different from those that are useful in the mainstream. That is why disruptive enterprises often need to be managed as independent business units.

流程和价值观在任何一家公司中，为了维持核心业务，设定优先级(价值观)的主流流程和标准都经过了磨练。通常，在核心业务中运作良好的关键流程(如战略规划和产品开发)实际上会阻碍新兴业务中需要完成的工作。而且，新企业商业模式固有的设定优先级和决策标准，往往必须与主流企业中有用的标准大不相同。这就是为什么颠覆性企业往往需要作为独立的业务单元来管理。

A key to nurturing a new growth business is recognizing when to leverage the parent corporation's resources, processes and values, and when to create new ones. In our experience, the CEO has to make this judgment because there are no simple rules to follow. There is strong evidence that without the CEO's intervention, the power of habitual ways of doing things will direct new ventures into the sustaining mode — and the core business must be sustained, after all, even as the new one is nurtured. Whether the CEO is willing or able to make such judgment calls is another crucial litmus test of success.

培育新的成长型业务的关键在于认识到何时利用母公司的资源、流程和价值观，以及何时创造新的资源、流程和价值观。根据我们的经验，CEO必须做出这样的判断，因为没有简单的规则可循。有强有力的证据表明，如果没有CEO的干预，习惯性做事方式的力量将引导新企业进入持续模式——毕竟，即使新企业得到培育，核心业务也必须持续下去。CEO是否愿意或能够做出这样的判断，是衡量成功与否的另一个关键试金石。

For this hypothetical business, Xerox's CEO might want to emulate the former CEO of Teradyne, Alexander d'Arbeloff.Teradyne makes sophisticated integrated-circuit testing equipment. In the mid-1990s, d'Arbeloff sensed that competitors were considering a scaled-down tester that would rely on inexpensive semiconductor chips and off-the-shelf software. Such a product could test simple circuits at the low end of the market, at a quarter of the multimillion dollar cost of Teradyne's machines.

对于这个假想的业务，施乐的CEO可能会效仿Teradyne的前CEO亚历山大•达贝洛夫。Teradyne制造精密的集成电路测试设备。上世纪90年代中期，达贝洛夫察觉到，竞争对手正在考虑一种小型化的测试设备，这种设备将依赖于廉价的半导体芯片和现成的软件。这种产品可以在低端市场上测试简单的电路，成本只有Teradyne机器的四分之一。

D'Arbeloff decided to get there first and set up a separate business unit to disrupt the market — and Teradyne itself. One of the keys to the development of what became the successful Integra tester business was flexibility to create appropriate processes for annual budgets, sales projections and strategic planning, compared with the standards that would have been imposed if the project had been part of a mainstream division. The venture was, however, kept to very tight cost controls. Moreover, d'Arbeloff kept the values guiding the project clear: The product was to be simple and low-cost. The team developing it had to find a market that would welcome an inexpensive tester with limited functionality. That focus paid off, as the venture reached $150 million in annualized sales within 18 months of its release in 1998.

达贝洛夫决定抢先一步，成立了一个独立的业务部门来扰乱Teradyne本身的市场。Integra测试仪业务发展成功的关键之一，是灵活地为年度预算、销售预测和战略规划制定适当的流程，而如果该项目是主流部门的一部分，则会被强加标准。然而，这家合资企业的成本控制非常严格。此外，达贝洛夫明确了指导项目的价值观:产品要简单，成本要低。开发它的团队必须找到一个市场，这个市场会欢迎功能有限的廉价测试器。这种专注得到了回报，在1998年发布后的18个月内，该公司的年销售额达到了1.5亿美元。

Building an Innovation Engine 

打造创新引擎

Ironically, successful disrupters often fall prey to disruption themselves. Digital Equipment was overtaken, literally, by Compaq, which is being overtaken by Dell. Oracle disrupted IBM and Cullinet but is now being disrupted by Microsoft. Many observers assume that an absence of good ideas is the reason for the fall of once-disruptive companies, and they try to focus their own companies on generating new ideas. But in our interviews with managers of companies that failed to capitalize on disruptive opportunities, not once did anyone say, “We just never thought of it.” In fact, the executives had actively considered and usually experimented with the disruptions that eventually displaced them. A lack of good ideas is not the problem. The problem is the absence of a robust, repeatable process for creating and nurturing new growth businesses. We have suggested how executives might shape and implement a strategy to create a single new disruptive growth business. To establish an organizational capability to do it over and over again, senior executives should build the components that go into an innovation engine.

讽刺的是，成功的颠覆者往往成为颠覆的牺牲品。从字面上看，数字设备被康柏超越，而康柏正在被戴尔超越。甲骨文颠覆了IBM和Cullinet，但现在正被微软颠覆。许多观察人士认为，缺乏好点子是因为曾经颠覆性的公司倒闭，他们试图让自己的公司专注于产生新的想法。但在我们采访的那些未能利用颠覆性机会的公司经理中，没有一个人说:“我们只是从来没有想过这个问题。”事实上，高管们曾积极考虑过，通常也会尝试过最终取代他们的颠覆性机遇。问题不在于缺乏好点子。问题在于缺乏一个稳健的、可重复的流程来创造和培育新的成长型企业。我们建议高管们如何制定和实施一项战略，以创建一个新的颠覆性增长业务。为了建立一种反复进行创新的组织能力，高管们应该构建一个创新引擎的组成部分。

Start Before You Need To The best time to invest for growth is, in fact, when the company is growing. To build what will be a respectable portfolio of growth businesses in five years, start now — and add to the portfolio every year. Companies that build while they are growing can shield their nascent high-potential businesses from Wall Street pressure, giving each one the time it needs to iterate toward a viable strategy and then to take off.

事实上，投资成长性的最佳时机是在公司成长的时候。要想在五年内建立一个值得尊敬的成长型企业投资组合，现在就开始，每年都增加投资组合。在成长过程中进行建设的公司可以保护其新生的高潜力业务免受华尔街的压力，让每个业务都有时间迭代一个可行的战略，然后起飞。

Establish an Aggregate Project Plan An aggregate project plan is a system to allocate resources toward strategic objectives. The plan must be established before managers have considered the merits of specific product proposals; it then can be used to help company leaders systematically distribute resources to new growth businesses. To determine what percentage of available resources they should allocate to disruptive new ventures, executives must decide in advance the number of such businesses the company needs to start or acquire each year in order to have robustly growing businesses five and 10 years down the road, when growth of the core business has slowed.11 By creating an aggregate plan, companies can keep sustaining proposals from competing with disruptive ideas for funding. Propositions for new growth businesses compete only for the planned number of disruptive slots in the plan in a given year, and sustaining ideas are matched against other sustaining possibilities.

建立总体项目计划总体项目计划是一个为战略目标分配资源的系统。该计划必须在管理者考虑具体产品建议的优点之前建立;然后，它可以用来帮助公司领导人系统地将资源分配给新的成长型业务。为了确定他们应该将多少可用资源分配给颠覆性的新企业，高管们必须提前决定公司每年需要启动或收购的此类业务的数量，以便在未来5年和10年，当核心业务的增长放缓时，保持业务的强劲增长通过制定总体计划，公司可以避免持续性的建议与颠覆性的想法争夺资金。新增长型业务的提案只会在给定年份竞争计划中计划的颠覆性插槽数量，而可持续性的想法会与其他可持续性的可能性相匹配。

Train People To Distinguish Between Disruptive and Sustaining Ideas 

训练人们区分破坏性和持续性的想法

In all companies, the processes that shape ideas into investment propositions have a predictable result: In order to pass the hurdles required to get funded, all ideas must be transformed into proposals that sustain the mainstream business. These processes are extremely valuable in keeping the mainstream business healthy, but they are not capable of shaping ideas into disruptive business plans. As a result, companies need to create different processes for evaluating and shaping disruptive ideas.

在所有公司中，将创意转化为投资主张的过程都有一个可预见的结果:为了通过获得资金所需的障碍，所有创意都必须转化为能够维持主流业务的提案。这些流程在保持主流业务健康发展方面极具价值，但它们无法将想法塑造成颠覆性的商业计划。因此，公司需要创建不同的流程来评估和塑造颠覆性的想法。

The process starts with training. Sales, marketing and engineering employees have the great ideas in most companies. They should be trained in the language of sustaining and disruptive innovation and understand the litmus tests so that they know what kinds of ideas they should channel into sustaining processes — and what kinds they should direct into disruptive channels. Capturing ideas for new growth businesses from people in direct contact with markets and technologies is far more productive than relying on analyst-laden business-development departments. Front-line employees are also well positioned to scout for small acquisitions with disruptive potential. If the price is reasonable, it is often better to acquire a company whose strategy passes the litmus tests than to start from scratch internally.

这个过程从培训开始。在大多数公司，销售、营销和工程员工都有很好的想法。他们应该接受持续创新和颠覆性创新的语言培训，并了解石蕊试金石，以便他们知道应该将哪种想法引入持续流程，以及应该将哪种想法引入颠覆性渠道。从与市场和技术有直接接触的人那里获取新增长业务的想法，远比依赖分析人员众多的业务发展部门要有效得多。一线员工在寻找具有颠覆性潜力的小型收购方面也处于有利地位。如果价格合理，收购一家战略通过石蕊试金石测试的公司，往往比在内部从零开始要好。

Create Processes for Shaping Disruptive Business Plans Ideas with disruptive potential need a destination. Senior management should therefore create a team at the corporate level that is responsible for collecting disruptive-innovation ideas and molding them into propositions that fit the litmus tests. The members of this team have to understand the litmus tests at a deep level and use them repeatedly. Such experience will help the team develop a collective intuition about how to shape disruptive business plans. We use the word intuition deliberately here. While the process that molds ideas into sustaining innovations can be deliberate, data-driven and analytical, the process for shaping disruptive businesses must be driven by intuitive understanding of the possibilities.

具有颠覆性潜力的想法需要一个目的地。因此，高级管理层应该在公司层面建立一个团队，负责收集颠覆性创新的想法，并将其塑造成符合石蕊试金石的命题。这个团队的成员必须深入了解这些石蕊测试，并反复使用它们。这样的经验会帮助团队在如何制定颠覆性商业计划方面形成集体直觉。我们在这里特意使用了“直觉”这个词。虽然将想法塑造成持续创新的过程可以是深思熟虑的、数据驱动的和分析性的，但塑造颠覆性企业的过程必须由对可能性的直觉理解驱动。

The only company in history we know of that has successfully launched a series of disruptive growth businesses is Sony. Between 1950 and 1980 Sony introduced 12 disruptions that created huge new growth markets and helped the company topple competitors that had been the leaders in the electronics industry. But the company's last successful disruption was its Walkman, launched in 1979. Between 1980 and 1997, Sony continued to be technologically innovative, but every innovation during this period was sustaining. Sony's PlayStation and Vaio notebook computers, for example, are great products, but they were late entrants targeted at well-established markets. How did the company's ability to develop sustaining innovations come to squeeze out its ability to continue generating disruptive ones?

据我们所知，历史上唯一一家成功推出一系列颠覆性增长业务的公司是索尼。从1950年到1980年，索尼推出了12次颠覆，创造了巨大的新增长市场，并帮助公司超越了曾经是电子行业领导者的竞争对手。但该公司最近一次成功的颠覆是1979年推出的随身听。1980年至1997年间，索尼继续进行技术创新，但这一时期的每一项创新都是可持续的。例如，索尼的PlayStation和Vaio笔记本电脑都是很棒的产品，但它们进入市场较晚，瞄准的是成熟的市场。索尼开发持续性创新的能力是如何挤掉了它继续创造颠覆性创新的能力的?

Before 1980, Sony founder Akio Morita and a small group of trusted associates made every new product-launch decision. As a policy, they never did any market research — if a market did not exist, they believed, it could not be analyzed. The group developed an intuitive but practiced process for shaping and launching disruptive businesses. In the early 1980s, Morita withdrew from active involvement in the company in order to focus on political activities. The company began beefing up its marketing functions with M.B.A.s who favored the use of data-driven, analytical processes to assess market needs. Such processes can only identify and shape sustaining innovations — and as a consequence, Sony lost its ability to continue launching disruptive businesses.

1980年之前，索尼的创始人森田昭夫和一小群值得信赖的同事做出了每一个新产品发布的决定。作为一项政策，他们从不做任何市场调查——他们认为，如果一个市场不存在，就无法对其进行分析。该集团制定了一套直观但实践的流程，以塑造和推出颠覆性的业务。在20世纪80年代初，森田退出了对公司的积极参与，以便专注于政治活动。公司开始加强营销职能mba们倾向于使用数据驱动的分析流程来评估市场需求。这样的流程只能识别和塑造可持续的创新——结果，索尼失去了继续推出颠覆性业务的能力。

Because all corporations that hope to sustain growth need streams of sustaining innovations within business units and disruptive innovations in new units, we advocate the creation of a Sony-like group at the corporate level that develops a similar practiced intuition about disruptive ventures. It's not just the shaping processes that need to be different. The process for selecting managers needs to employ very different criteria from those used to promote managers within established businesses. The team should coach each new venture's management on techniques like discovery-driven planning that can speed the emergence of a winning strategy.

因为所有希望保持增长的公司都需要业务部门内部的持续创新流和新部门的颠覆性创新流，我们主张在公司层面建立一个类似索尼的小组，培养类似的实践直觉。不仅仅是塑造过程需要有所不同。选拔管理者的过程需要采用与在成熟企业中提拔管理者的标准截然不同的标准。团队应该对每个新企业的管理层进行技术培训，比如发现驱动型规划，这可以加速制胜战略的出现。

The team must also be the visible and vocal advocate of new growth businesses. It should define and articulate throughout the company the technology or market scope governing disruptive business plans. Twice a year or so, team members should hold refresher training sessions with sales, marketing and engineering people in each operating unit. The purpose of these sessions is to provide updates on how previous ideas had been shaped into plans for high-potential growth businesses and to describe why other ideas could not pass the litmus tests. Such updates are critical because they can help innovators within the corporation refine their ability to recognize disruptive innovations when they encounter them.

团队还必须是新增长业务的明显倡导者和直言不讳的倡导者。它应该在整个公司内定义和阐明控制颠覆性商业计划的技术或市场范围。每年两次左右，团队成员应该与每个运营部门的销售、营销和工程人员一起进行进修培训。这些会议的目的是提供关于之前的想法如何形成高潜力增长业务计划的最新信息，并描述为什么其他想法无法通过石蕊试金石。这种更新是至关重要的，因为它们可以帮助公司内部的创新者提高他们在遇到破坏性创新时识别创新的能力。

Processes are not created in PowerPoint presentations; they are defined only when a group of people does something over and over again. And every process needs a home. This is why intuitive processes for creating disruptive growth businesses need to be honed in a dedicated group. 流程不是在PowerPoint演示文稿中创建的;只有当一群人反复做某件事时，流程才会被定义。而每一个过程都需要一个家。这就是为什么创造颠覆性增长业务的直观流程需要在一个专门的团队中磨练。

Not Just a Lucky Bet

不只是一个幸运的赌注

The structure of our proposed innovation engine is quite different from a conventionally managed corporate venture-capital organization. The fundamental premise of venture capital is that creating new businesses is intrinsically unpredictable; thus many bets must be placed in order to get a few that pay off. We are proposing that starting successful growth businesses isn't as random and failure-fraught as it has appeared. It is complicated, to be sure. But it only appears random, we believe, because managers haven't understood the factors that lead to success or cause failure. Spending too much on the wrong strategy in an attempt to get big fast; putting people with inappropriate experience in charge; violating the litmus tests; and launching growth initiatives in an ad hoc manner when it is already too late — these reasons for failure can be managed and avoided. Executives who understand the potential pitfalls and work to make the creation of disruptive new businesses a corporate process — an organizational capability that is constantly practiced — can start laying the groundwork for a company future blessed by continuous healthy growth.

我们提出的创新引擎的结构与传统管理的企业风险投资组织有很大不同。风险投资的基本前提是，创造新业务在本质上是不可预测的;因此，必须下很多赌注，才能得到一些有回报的赌注。我们的建议是，成功的成长型企业并不像看起来那样随机和充满失败。当然，这很复杂。但我们相信，它看起来只是随机的，因为管理者还不了解导致成功或导致失败的因素。为了快速壮大，在错误的战略上花费过多;让经验不合适的人负责;Vio-lating石蕊测试;以及在已经太晚的时候临时启动增长计划——这些失败的原因是可以管理和避免的。了解潜在的陷阱并努力使破坏性新业务的创建成为公司流程的高管——一种不断实践的组织能力——可以开始为公司未来的持续健康增长奠定基础。

个人思考：

阅读和分析这篇文献后，我从中获得了几个重要的观点和启发，这不仅加深了我对创新和企业增长的理解，也为我未来的研究提供了新的视角和方向。

这篇文献区分了持续性创新与颠覆性创新，文章强调了持续性创新和颠覆性创新之间的区别，指出大多数企业更倾向于前者，即改进现有产品和服务以满足现有客户的需求。而真正的颠覆性创新则是指那些能够创造全新市场和商业模式的创新。这一观点启示我在研究企业创新策略时，应更加关注那些具有潜在颠覆性的创新项目，这些项目虽然风险较高，但一旦成功，将为企业带来巨大的增长潜力。

通过阅读该篇文献，我了解到了市场空白的重要性。文章提到，寻求颠覆性增长的企业应该首先寻找与非消费竞争的方法，即目标是那些由于成本过高或技术复杂而无法使用现有产品或服务的潜在客户。这提示我，以后在研究市场机会时，不应仅仅局限于现有市场的细分领域，而应更加关注那些未被充分开发或完全未开发的市场空白区域，这些区域往往蕴含着巨大的创新和增长机会。

通过阅读本篇文献，我还认识到了企业内部管理与创新的关系。文章还探讨了企业在管理和文化层面对于创新的影响，尤其是如何克服内部阻力，鼓励和支持员工提出并实施新的创新想法。这一点让我意识到了，除了外部市场环境和技术条件外，企业的内部管理和文化也是影响创新能否成功的关键因素之一。

通过阅读本篇文献，我还了解了案例分析的价值。文章通过具体案例（如施乐与惠普的喷墨打印机业务）来阐述理论观点，这种方法不仅使理论更加生动具体，而且有助于读者更好地理解和应用这些理论。这也启发我在未来的学术研究中，更加注重案例分析的应用，通过具体的实例来验证理论假设，增强研究的实用性和说服力。

综上所述，该篇文献不仅为我提供了关于企业创新和增长的重要理论知识，同时也激发了我对于如何将这些理论应用于实际研究的兴趣和思考。未来，我希望能够结合这些理论，探索更多有关创新管理和企业持续增长的有效路径。