克里斯坦森：Uber并非颠覆式创新，Netflix才是

优步（Uber）并不是真正的颠覆式创业企业。至少，哈佛商学院教授克莱顿•克里斯坦森是这样认为的。“颠覆式创新”这个术语，正是他在1997年的著作《创新者的窘境》中首创的，此后便风靡全球商界。

近期，克莱顿•克里斯坦森发表了最新文章《什么才是颠覆式创新？》，对人们肆意乱用“颠覆式创新”进行拨乱反正。他以优步作为例子分析，表示许多评论者理解有误，从而太过宽泛地应用这一术语。

克里斯坦森写道，一家企业要具有颠覆性，要么必须在一个被忽略的低端市场站稳脚跟，以获得更多有助于盈利的顾客，要么必须创立一个全新的市场，让非顾客变成顾客。优步不符合其中任何一项，它针对的是已经使用出租车服务的用户，也没有提供特别低端（或者说特别便宜）的体验。

在他看来，所谓“颠覆”，是指一个仅有有限资源的新生公司逐渐具有向占据优势的大企业挑战实力的过程。更具体说来，优势企业注重那些最为苛刻（同时也是带来最大利润的）客户群体，忽视了另一些群体的需求。而那些后来被认可为“颠覆”企业的新生军，往往一开始就是针对这些被忽视的群体，通过提供更合适的、并且经常是更便宜的服务来站稳脚跟。

优势企业忙于追求核心客户群体带来的更高利润，往往不会采取及时有效的反击战略。新生企业借此得以更进一步，满足那些优势企业的主流客户的需要，同时仍然保有给他们带来早期成功的优势。当优势企业原先的主流客户也开始广泛接受新生企业的产品和服务时，“颠覆”就水到渠成了。

克里斯坦森表示，优步不符合颠覆者的第二个特质，其原因在于，真正的颠覆式创业企业都是以低质量服务起家，随后通过提高服务质量抢占主流市场。

相比之下，这位管理学教授把Netflix看作是“经典”的颠覆式创业企业：其最初的服务根本无法吸引DVD租赁公司Blockbuster的主流用户，因为这些人希望在选择电影时获得即时满足。随着服务质量的提升，Netflix对Blockbuster用户的吸引力有所提升。最终，相当一部分用户抛弃了Blockbuster，才导致该公司在2010年破产。

克里斯坦森表示，在某种程度上，颠覆式创新理论也成为了自身大范围普及的牺牲品。他写道：“尽管这一理论得到了广泛传播，但它的核心概念却被许多人误解，其基本原则也常被误用。”

而在过去20年里，对这一理论的必要改良也往往淹没在最初版本的超高人气之中。这让该理论一些本已得到完善的缺点，有时仍然受到抨击。

还有另外一点令人不安：根据克里斯坦森的经验，有太多谈论“颠覆性”的人，根本没有阅读过相关主题的严肃著作或文章。很多时候，他们用这个术语随意地形容创新的概念，以支持自己的任何理论。许多研究者、作者和顾问都用“颠覆式创新”来描述一切有关行业重组、此前成功的企业陷于困境等情形。但这个用法太宽泛了。

许多人将颠覆式创新与任何改变行业竞争模式的突破混为一谈。其问题在于，不同的创新需要不同的战略方针。也就是说，人们从颠覆式创新者（或阻止颠覆式创新者）身上学习到的成功经验，并不适用于不断变化的市场上的每一家公司。如果我们草率地乱贴标签，或是没能将后续研究和经验得出的见解与原始理论整合起来，那么领导者也许就会使用错误的工具来分析自家企业的情况，从而降低了成功的几率。随着时间的推移，这个理论的适用性就会随之减弱。(财富中文网)

译者：严匡正

审校：任文科

Uber is not genuinely disruptive. At least, so says Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor who coined the term disruptive innovation in his 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma.

In an article for the Harvard Business Review, Christensen corrects the record on what he defines as true innovative disruption, using Uber as an example of where many commentators go wrong, applying the term too broadly.

In order for a business to be disruptive, it must gain a foothold in a low-end market that had been ignored by the incumbent in favor of more profitable customers, Christensen writes. Otherwise, the disruptor must create an entirely new market, turning non-customers into customers. Uber doesn’t fit into either of those boxes: it targets people who already use taxi services, and it doesn’t provide a particularly lower-end or cheap experience.

In his opinion，“disruption” describes a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses. Specifically, as incumbents focus on improving their products and services for their most demanding (and usually most profitable) customers, they exceed the needs of some segments and ignore the needs of others.

Entrants that prove disruptive begin by successfully targeting those overlooked segments, gaining a foothold by delivering more suitable functionality frequently at a lower price. Incumbents, chasing higher profitability in more demanding segments, tend not to respond vigorously. Entrants then move upmarket, delivering the performance that incumbents’mainstream customers require, while preserving the advantages that drove their early success.When mainstream customers start adopting the entrants’offerings in volume, disruption has occurred.

The second quality of a disruptor where Uber falls short, according to Christensen, is that a truly disruptive business begins with low-quality offerings, then eventually captures the mainstream market by improving quality.

In comparison, the author presents Netflix as a “classically” disruptive model: its initial service wasn’t terribly appealing to Blockbuster’s mainstream customers, who wanted instant gratification when choosing movies. As its quality improved, so did its appeal to Blockbuster’s customers, who eventually peeled off in high enough numbers to force the incumbent business into bankruptcy in 2010.

In some ways, the theory of disruptive innovation hasfallen victim to its own popularity, Christensen writes: “Despite broad dissemination, the theory’s core concepts have been widely misunderstood and its basic tenets frequently misapplied.”

Furthermore, essential refinements in the theory over the past 20 years appear to have been overshadowed by the popularity of the initial formulation. As a result, the theory is sometimes criticized for shortcomings that have already been addressed.

There’s another troubling concern: In Christensen's experience, too many people who speak of “disruption” have not read a serious book or article on the subject. Too frequently, they use the term loosely to invoke the concept of innovation in support of whatever it is they wish to do. Many researchers, writers, and consultants use “disruptive innovation” to describe any situation in which an industry is shaken up and previously successful incumbents stumble. But that’s much too broad a usage.

Christensen stressed, the problem with conflating a disruptive innovation with any breakthrough that changes an industry’s competitive patterns is that different types of innovation require different strategic approaches. To put it another way, the lessons we’ve learned about succeeding as a disruptive innovator (or defending against a disruptive challenger) will not apply to every company in a shifting market. If we get sloppy with our labels or fail to integrate insights from subsequent research and experience into the original theory, then managers may end up using the wrong tools for their context, reducing their chances of success. Over time, the theory’s usefulness will be undermined.