Disruptive Opportunities

During spring this year, I attended the face-to-face Disruptive Innovation course in Paris. Regarding the buzzword of "disruptive innovation," I was very excited about the benefits the course could offer for my daily work experience. And the three days of the course turned out to be very stimulating for me! I appreciated the diversity of the course participants in Paris. So much diversity allows for plenty of interesting discussions during the workshops, lunchtime, or at dinner. Perhaps disruptive ideas can even flourish along the way.

During the course, I gained a lot of insight into the theory and core concepts of disruptive innovation. Mainly, its limitations and potential evolution in the digital age. For example, disruptive innovation as a counterpart of sustainable innovation transforms complicated and expensive products into affordable and accessible ones. This is done by the application of new technologies, paired with recently developed business models. You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this. The reason is simple. The final research paper for the disruptive innovation course required a description of the feasibility of a disruptive innovation opportunity or business model that a company may pursue.

My thoughts were that this would be an interesting research task for the final paper. I also thought that it could directly help me in my current business circumstances. For me, it is important that I can link the research activities I undertake in my coursework directly to my daily business, thereby enabling me to make better decisions. Because of this, I discussed the following topic with ISM's management board, the possibility of searching for a feasible disruptive innovation opportunity or business model that the case company may be pursuing. After receiving positive feedback from the board, I started to work part-time on my final research paper. I used the tools and theory learned during class to frame the feasibility study in a theoretical framework, and explained what could be the possible contribution of a value proposition to the competitiveness of the case company's performance and growth.

The interesting thing about this story is that I mainly participate in courses for continuous learning, or to gain insights into a specific term or buzzword (for example, "disruptive innovation"). But ISM's course framework makes it possible for me to apply what I have learned into practical business environments directly. From my point of view, this part-time study helps me with combining work and a lifelong learning approach.