The Disruptive Voice

We sat down with Bob Moesta, the President and CEO of The ReWired Group, and pioneer of the Jobs To Be Done Theory. The topic: spotting and strategizing around non-consumption. Through this lens companies can see where they can enter a market and compete against...nothing!

The value of and necessity for an organization to innovate its business model is rarely disputed in discussions of how to best survive in today’s rapidly changing economy, yet in an odd paradox, there is no standard definition in management thinking of what a business model is (or — as our research has taught us is equally if not more important — isn’t). In this episode of the Disruptive Voice, senior researcher Tom Bartman shares with us a number of insights that can be gained about an organization and its potential to successfully innovate its business model by applying Professor Christensen’s framework to the organization’s assets and activities.

Forum Director and BSSE Professor Derek van Bever talks to students about their final paper for the elective course Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise.

According to a recent study by consulting firm A.T. Kearney, robo advisors will manage over $2 trillion in the U.S. by 2020. Assets under management (AUM) are expected to increase 68% annually.

For their final essay, Krishna Kantheti and George Rudolph (both MBA 2016) drew on their experiences from working in the financial services industry along with the theories taught in the BSSE course to explain why, as a complete newcomer to the financial services industry, robo advisory company Betterment was able to experience such exceptional growth so quickly ($3B+ AUM in 5 years), how its offering is differentiated from other seemingly similar products by better-known providers, and examine where it should look next.

Many students of Clayton Christensen’s will be familiar with the US Steel case that he wrote as a graduate student in the 1990s, one that is still used today in the BSSE curriculum at Harvard Business School. The case tells the story of the minimills’ low-end disruption of US Steel, entering the market with rebar and then steadily moving up-market to bars & rods, then on to structural steel, and finally to sheet steel at the high end of the market. The incumbent, US Steel, was caught in a classic example of what Clay called “the innovator’s dilemma”, losing its position of leadership precisely because management made logical and competent decisions along the way. In this episode, we highlight another great example of a low-end disruptor, Norsk Titanium. The company successfully entered the low end of the metal manufacturing market and now, like the minimills before it, is planning its disruptive march up-market. Hosted by Katie Zandbergen, Mike Canario, CEO of Norsk Titanium, tells the story of Norsk’s humble beginnings in Norway; how it came to build the largest 3D printing factory in the world; the many benefits of its innovative and enabling technology, Rapid Plasma Deposition; and how management is looking to the minimill playbook as it charts its course to higher levels of the market. Mike offers lessons in management, innovation, and low-end disruption that we hope you’ll find inspiring and useful!

The promise of artificial intelligence is immense and companies that view AI as an enabler of corporate transformation can reap potentially enormous benefits in terms of both value creation and growth. In this panel discussion, Freddy Solis hosts his Innosight colleague and co-leader in the company’s global AI practice, Shari Parvarandeh, along with renowned thought leaders in management and information systems, and co-authors of the forthcoming book, Fusion Strategy, Vijay Govindarajan and Venkat Venkatraman, for a wide-reaching discussion on artificial intelligence and its implications for companies. Their conversation spans the genesis and current state of AI in business; its transformative impact across industries; blockers and enablers of adoption; different types of models and use cases; and when to build, buy, or partner, to cite but a few examples. Companies that stand to benefit from the vast opportunities that AI presents in virtually every industry will be those that act boldly and ahead of the curve. Listen to learn more!

Further information on Fusion Strategy can be found here: https://fusion.tuck.dartmouth.edu

Innosight’s e-book, Leading Into The Age Of AI, can be found here: https://www.innosight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Innosight_Leading-into-the-Age-of-AI.pdf