Deck 7: Search Strategies for Innovation

Question 1

Which of the following is the discontinuous innovation?

A)Moving from four to six cylinder car engines
B)Moving from CD to DVD music and entertainment systems
C)Moving from small shops to self-service supermarkets
D)Moving from sugar to artificial sweeteners in food products

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Which of the following statements would you NOT expect to hear people saying in an organization which is well-prepared to deal with discontinuous innovation?

A)Molar mass
B)The melting point
C)The correct formula
D)A periodic table to find the atomic weight of each element

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Discontinuous innovations always come from outside the firm because of the difficulty of making them fit with the mainstream.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Within the transitional phase in Abernathy and Utterback's model, the predominant type of innovation is in major process innovations required by rising volume.

Question 5

A dominant design is one imposed by the largest firm in a sector on the rest of that industry.

Question 6

Which of these innovations would not qualify as a dominant design?

A)The two wheeled diamond frame bicycle
B)Direct online insurance via the Internet
C)The petrol driven internal combustion engine
D)The 5 string bass guitar

Question 7

The problem for the firms which found their marketplace disrupted in the computer disk drive industry wasn't that they didn't listen to customers but rather that they listened too well - to the wrong customers.

Question 8

The fluid phase of innovation is a common term used to describe catalytic cracking in the oil industry.

Question 9

The use of tungsten filaments instead of carbon was a discontinuous innovation in the lighting industry.

Question 10

The growing success of low cost airlines in the travel market is an example of disruptive innovation.

Question 11

Which of the following would NOT qualify as a discontinuous innovation?

A)Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) telephony
B)Gene therapies for cancer treatment
C)Flat bed sleeping in business class airline cabins
D)The Internet

Question 12

Discontinuous innovations are always associated with radical technological breakthroughs.

Question 13

Which of the following is NOT a strategy for picking up weak signals about discontinuities?

A)Market research across existing customer groups
B)Probe and learn/ prototyping
C)Competitor analysis and benchmarking of their products
D)Use futures techniques - scenarios, forecasting, etc.

Question 14

Discontinuous shifts in technology always favour newcomer firms and established firms inevitably fail to take advantage of them.

Question 15

The 'fluid' pattern in Abernathy and Utterback's model is characterised by incremental product and process innovation.

Question 16

Which of the following statements would you NOT expect to hear people to say in an organization which is well-prepared to deal with discontinuous innovation?

A)We have alternative and parallel mechanisms for implementing and developing radical innovation projects which sit outside the 'normal' rules and procedures
B)We have mechanisms to bring in fresh perspectives - for example, recruiting from outside the industry
C)We have the largest R&D building in the country
D)We have mechanisms for managing ideas that don't fit our current business - for example we license them out or spin them off