The_Innovators_Dilemma__Clayton

Clearly, as will be discussed below, it will be crucial for electric vehicle innovators to find markets that
value the attributes of the technology as it currently is capable, rather than waiting until the technology
improves to the point that it can be used in the mainstream market.
6. This statement was made by John R. Wallace, Director of Electric Vehicle Programs, Ford Motor
Company, at the CARB Workshop on Electric Vehicle Consumer Marketability held at El Monte,
California, on June 28, 1995.
7. It is remarkable how instinctively and consistently good companies try to force innovations toward
their existing base of customers, regardless of whether they are sustaining or disruptive in character.
We have seen this several times in this book: for example, in mechanical excavators, where Bucyrus
Erie tried with its “Hydrohoe” to make hydraulic excavation technology work for mainstream
excavation contractors; in motorcycles, where Harley-Davidson tried to launch low-end brand name
bikes through its dealer network; and in the electric vehicle case described here, in which Chrysler
packed nearly a ton of batteries into a minivan. Charles Ferguson and Charles Morris, in their book
Computer Wars, recount a similar story about IBM’s efforts to commercialize Reduced Instruction Set
Computing (RISC) microprocessor technology. RISC was invented at IBM, and its inventors built
computers with RISC chips that were “screamingly fast.” IBM subsequently spent massive amounts of
time, money, and manpower trying to make the RISC chip work in its main line of minicomputers. This
required so many design compromises, however, that the program was never successful. Several key
members of IBM’s RISC team left in frustration, subsequently playing key roles in establishing the
RISC chipmaker MIPS and Hewlett-Packard’s RISC chip business. These efforts were successful
because, having accepted the attributes of the product for what they were, they found a market, in
engineering workstations, that valued those attributes. IBM failed because it tried to force the
technology into a market it had already found. Interestingly, IBM ultimately built a successful business
around a RISC-architecture chip when it launched its own engineering workstation. See Charles
Ferguson and Charles Morris, Computer Wars (New York: Time Books, 1994).
8. The notion that non-existent markets are best researched through action, rather than through passive
observation, is explored in Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad, “Corporate Imagination and Expeditionary
Marketing,” Harvard Business Review, July–August, 1991, 81–92.
9. The concept that business plans dealing with disruptive innovations should be plans for learning
rather than plans for executing a preconceived strategy is taught clearly by Rita G. McGrath and Ian
MacMillan in “Discovery-Driven Planning,” Harvard Business Review, July–August, 1995, 44–54.
10. Jeffrey Thoresen Severts, “Managing Innovation: Electric Vehicle Development at Chrysler,”
Harvard Business School MBA student paper, 1996. A copy of this paper is available on request from
Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School.
11. Glaub’s remarks were made in the context of the California Air Resources Board mandate that by
1998 all companies selling gasoline-powered vehicles in the state must, in order to sell any cars at all,
sell enough electric-powered vehicles to constitute 2 percent of their total vehicle unit sales in the state.
As already noted, the state government, in 1996, delayed implementation of that requirement until
2002.
12. This statement was made by William Glaub, General Sales Manager, Field Sales Operations,
Chrysler Corporation, at the CARB Workshop on Electric Vehicle Consumer Marketability held in El
Monte, California, on June 28, 1995; see p. 5 of the company’s press release about the workshop.
13. Ibid.
14. It is important to note that these statistics for Chrysler’s offering were determined by Chrysler’s
efforts to commercialize the disruptive technology; they are not intrinsic to electrically powered
vehicles per se. Electric vehicles designed for different, lighter-duty applications, such as one by
General Motors, have driving ranges of up to 100 miles. (See Jeffrey Thoresen Severts, “Managing
Innovation: Electric Vehicle Development at Chrysler,” Harvard Business School student paper, 1996.)
15. See, for example, Gabriella Stern and Rebecca Blumenstein, “GM Is Expected to Back Proposal for
Midsize Version of Saturn Car,” The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 1996, B4.
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