Clayton Christensen Explains How Disruption Will Occur in Higher Education
9th January 2014
Read it. And watch the video.
Specifically, according to Christensen, here is the recurring dynamic: the new entrants siphon off work from the bottom-end — work that the high-end says it does not want anyway. The cycle repeats itself a few times until, much to the incumbents’ surprise, the bottom-end becomes more economically relevant and powerful. Why does top-end let this happen? Because the incumbents have come to view success as elite status and high margins, which is an unrealistically high long-term bar unless you are continuously innovating. Eventually, the so-called high-margin niche becomes insufficient to sustain the enterprise, and giants fall — see the automotive industry, steel, computer hardware, televisions, consumer electronics, etc.