Rich Karlgaard writes in Forbes about how the world is moving in the direction of the cheap revolution, and Christensen’s suggestions on how to escape it:
Improve your product offering faster than anybody else can. This tactic works, generally, only for market leaders with a good brand name, a greased distribution channel and financial might. (Think Intel.) And it works only as long as the market wants the added functionality and is willing to pay for it. Sell fast custom solutions that answer a customer’s needs. Xilinx, with its programmable logic chips, does this. So does IBM, despite its size. IBM’s trick has been to go modular and bring into its Big Blue tent an army of third-party solutions providers. The old, highly integrated IBM would never have been able to react quickly enough to customers’ needs. Find an unserved market and serve it cheaply. This is the way of the disrupter, says Christensen. The product or service should be so cheap, in fact, that the industry’s old guard thinks there’s no money to be made and walks away.
Cheap Revolution+T
