Unit V Discussion Board

Please make sure that it is your own work and not copy and paste. Watch out for Spelling errors and grammar errors. Please use the APA 6th & 7th edition because the teacher will take off for that. Please read the study guide.

Book Reference:  McKeen, J. D., & Smith, H. A. (2019). IT strategy & innovation (4th ed.). Prospect Press. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/ 9781943153435 

 Can you think of a company that you have worked for or read about in the news that experimented with a technology that initially failed but later succeeded? What do you think about companies that are currently experimenting? 

DBA 8671, Technology and Innovation Management 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit V

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

3. Evaluate the role of portfolio management in governing the innovation management process.
3.1 Evaluate governance in regard to portfolio management.

6. Synthesize communication methods, leadership skills, and business acumen in the development of a

new technology strategy.
6.1 Assess the role of internal collaboration between technology and business functions.

Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

3.1
Unit Lesson
Unit V Annotated Bibliography

6.1

Unit Lesson
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Unit V Annotated Bibliography

Reading Assignment

Chapter 11: Developing Thought Leaders in IT

Chapter 12: Managing Disruption in IT

Chapter 13: IT’s Role in a Culture of Experimentation

Unit Lesson

Thought Leaders—Who Needs Them?

Technology thought leaders in the industry today are both loved and hated. They tend to be passionate and
brilliant individuals who bring a unique perspective to an organization. They often have insight about the
underlying technologies and how they all fit together to add value. This strategic insight is frequently
demonstrated when the thought leader observes an opportunity that others do not see. In a high-tech
company, the thought leader may have quite a large internal following where employees seek to work
alongside the thought leader in hopes that some of that “know-how” can rub off. This type of following extends
to the industry where the customer base, competitors, and organizations, such as a standards body, look to
the thought leader for ideas and advice. The thought leader is often observed to use this platform to advance
ideas and promote the interest of the company through the publication of journal articles and white papers,
through conference presentations, and through technological proposals to a standards body. It is not
uncommon for an industry as well as its customers to struggle to understand the often abstract and leading-
edge ideas; eventually, however, they do understand, and the industry moves forward as a result. These are
some of the many reasons for companies and industries to love and appreciate the thought leader. However,
the good that the thought leader brings to the table is not without some negatives.

The fact that the thought leader has both an internal and external following is a significant source of power
held by the thought leader. Senior managers and executives are often hesitant to provide direction, feedback

UNIT V STUDY GUIDE

Thought Leadership, Disruption,
and Experimentation

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or criticism to the thought leader in fear of losing the thought leader to another company. Some thought
leaders, in turn, may recognize this and, at times, behave in a way that is highly disruptive to the organization.
The thought leader may be resistant to a given policy or strategy and build a political faction that pushes back
against the company leadership.

Another form of disruption involves the reliance on the individual thought leader to spark important initiatives.
Although creativity and new ideas are good things, a sign of maturity in successful companies can be seen
through a reliance on internal processes rather than the actions of individuals. Companies who are over-
reliant on specific individuals are only successful if the individual remains in place. Finally, generally disruptive
behavior can be a common characteristic of a thought leader. Thought leaders are observed to argue with
colleagues, exhibit a less-than-collegial attitude, and may display arrogance at times. These characteristics
could perhaps be expected among individuals who are creative, have an above-average intelligence, and
have made themselves indispensable to the company (and perhaps the industry). Thought leaders are,
therefore, both admired as well as resented.

Disruption Is About Details

The thought leader (or leaders) in an organization may be the one who says, “Have we thought about doing it
this way rather than that way?” Although this may seem like a simple question, it bears remembering that
some of the most innovative products, services, and business models came about by rearranging existing
technologies to offer them or use them in a completely new way. A classic example of such disruption is the
Semi-Automated Business Research Environment (SABRE) information system employed by American
Airlines in the 1960s (Sabre Corporation, n.d.). What began as an effort to make reservations and ticketing
more efficient led to an important but minor detail—offering access to reservations and ticketing directly to
customers (and thereby bypassing the travel agent). Today, we find endless airline reservation and discount
consolidation websites, such as Expedia (www.expedia.com), Priceline (www.priceline.com), and Booking
(www.booking.com), where people regularly go to make flight reservations. It is much less common to book a
flight through a travel agent because of this apparently minor detail that transformed an industry.

Industry disruption also tends to arise via the preferential compatibility with a given company’s technology or
architecture. For example, recall the period in which the Apple iPod was prominent as a means for listening to
music. The market for audio equipment was then disrupted when most speaker systems required iPod
interfaces—licensed by Apple—to be appealing in the marketplace. A final example of doing something in a
new way and creating preferential compatibility and disruption can be found in the story of Ericsson and the
company’s development of a system that minimized wired connections for peripherals. The technology
became labelled Bluetooth and is now a near universal system for connecting peripherals, including audio
equipment for music streaming. Apple’s iPod interface disruption was unseated by yet another technological
advancement that we experience today.

Telecommunications provides many examples of disruption by doing things in a new way. A classic example
of this involves wireless nationwide paging networks, as they existed from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. A
common approach for transmitter manufacturers was to match wireless transmitters to control systems and
then advocate for open systems. An open interface would allow any transmitter or control system
manufacturer to make products that attached to any given switch, control, or network system. However,
consider one company with a significant installed base of switches that had initially considered the open
interface route but began to think about the market in a new way. Since all wireless transmission systems
included switches, control networks, and transmitters, the company with the installed base asked the
question, “Why do we need to join the open interface movement? Let’s make our transmitters and control
networks preferentially compatible with our installed base of switches.” Existing developments were halted,
and the new direction was set. As a result, the industry was disrupted as it consolidated around the
proprietary standard. Major competitors, such as Motorola, left the business due to the shrinking market share
that resulted from the strategic moves of the competitor.

Experimentation

There is an old saying that states the importance of getting it right the first time. When it comes to innovation,
this is not always the case. In fact, getting it right the second or third time may be much more common. One
reason that examples of such experimentation are often forgotten is because later successes tend to obscure
them in collective memories. Apple, for example, is thought to be an innovative company that always got it

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right the first time. However, those who think of Apple in this way forget a failed experiment that was
significant—the Apple Newton. The Newton was introduced before its time in the late 1980s. It was a small,
wireless personal digital assistant that featured handwriting recognition. Given the state of technology at the
time, it did not work well. However, it did spark innovative thinking that led to the development of the personal
digital assistant industry with major players, such as Palm and Handspring. As cellphones grew more
powerful, they gradually adopted the common features of the personal digital assistant. This disrupted the
relatively new market for small digital handhelds, as smartphones became the primary mobile device. Later,
Apple returned to this industry with the iPhone, and this time, they got it right. The iPhone did not offer the
innovation of handwriting recognition in this case, but they did take the idea of the personal digital assistant
further with the touchscreen, web browsing, and 3G and 4G data connectivity. Furthermore, although the
iPhone does interface with a number of different personal applications, such as Microsoft and Google, its
preferential compatibility with the iTunes and Mac ecosystem makes it a powerful competitor to Android. What
is observed in today’s wireless market by major players may seem like the result of a carefully crafted and
well planned execution plan; however, constant experimentation lies at its heart.

Today’s wireless market takes for granted other examples of experimentation. There is an example that is
hidden in plain sight, but smartphone owners use it daily. This is the camera found on every smartphone
today. This is an industry disruptor that nearly happened by accident. At the dawn of the smartphone era,
wireless operators were concerned about how to grow. Market penetration of cellphones had increased to
levels approaching saturation, and most people used the phones to speak to each other. Text messaging was
on the rise but was a rather small component of the overall wireless service portfolio. Wireless operators,
therefore, were seeking ways to grow in a stagnant phone market, and growing the use of smartphones to
transmit data appeared to be the only way to do this. Yet, how could wireless operators shift end users to
switch from thinking of the phone as merely a phone to thinking of the phone as a way to transmit data as
well? Putting a camera on a phone was one of many ideas for enabling data transmission. The end user did
not need to consciously think about transmitting data; they only needed to take and send pictures. The
experimentation with putting cameras on smartphones took off as wireless bandwidth increased and
applications for storing and sharing photos became more widely available. The camera phone experiment
worked. It solved the problem of how to sell more airtime when people are already talking on phones all of the
time. In addition, the camera phone became the norm and consolidated the photography industry in many
ways. This simple experiment led to the decline of film companies, such as Kodak, and even caused the
digital photography market to decline. What is the lesson for technology managers? Do not be afraid to
experiment. You may not get it right the first time, but you may find that something apparently small
transforms entire industries.

Implications of Disruption and Experimentation on Governance

Governance in the context of managing technology is all about determining what the company will and will not
invest in to maximize the potential of future business. Governance processes and policies also consider
development efforts currently in progress to determine their ongoing relevance to the business. When
markets are disrupted by novel technologies, it becomes increasingly challenging to make decisions
regarding existing and new development efforts. This may spur experimental initiatives within the company,
and these prove challenging to evaluate due to the high uncertainty. Disruption and experimentation, often led
by thought leaders, may lead to the development of special evaluation criteria for a certain percentage of new
projects. Although doing this leads to an acceptance of higher portfolio risks, it also opens the door for
technology companies to benefit from the next wave of technology.

Reference

Sabre Corporation. (2016). The Sabre story. Retrieved from https://www.sabre.com/files/Sabre-History