Disruptive Innovation Examples

This section will introduce the core theory in this thesis. Disruptive innovation is the basic theory to discuss the application of virtual reality technology in the medical eld. Based on the review of the literature, this section will analyze the de nition, characteristics, basic patterns and impact of disruptive innovations. Some cases study will be shown to help better understand what disruptive innovation is.
2.3.1 The de nition of disruptive innovation
The terms "disruptive technology" and "disruptive innovation" are well known in the book "The Innovator’s Dilemma" published by Clayton Christensen in 1997 [68]. Disruptive innovation refers to the innovation of a product or service through technology and science. Disruptive innovation

Second, the target market of disruptive innovation is small. Low gross margin means that the target market is also quite small, it is not enough for incumbents consider high pro ts. Third, disruptive innovation o ers simple products and services at rst. As mentioned above, disruptive innovation usually integrates products or services using existing components. There are certain types of customers, who do not have the high demand for products or services, as long as the product meets their basic needs and the price is reasonable, they will buy that

First, disruptive innovation has relativity character. Disruption is relative to the current mainstream technologies, customers, and businesses. Once this disruption has a speci c trajectory of improvement, it will develop into sustaining innovation, followed by another new disruptive innovation. Some disruptive inno- vations aim to disrupt one eld but result in a disruption to another eld. Second, disruption is a process. The speed of technological improvements always exceeds the speed of customer needs. Therefore, with the continuous improvement of disruptive innovation products, the new properties will meet the needs of mainstream users, attract more customers and cause damage to incumbents. For example, compared to the xed-line telephone, the mobile phone is a disruptive innovation. Although the rst generation mobile phone has drawbacks such as high price and poor signal, the portability of mobile phone is good. So in the beginning, the mobile phone does not shake the mainstream telephone market. However, as the mobile phone technology continues to improve, more and more mainstream market turns to use the mobile phone. It is important to point out that the de nition of disruptive innovation does not include the need for one product to replace another. So after so many years, the xed-line telephone still has its certain demand in the speci c market. Third, even