QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

School of Information Systems

Faculty of Science and Engineering

IFN 502 IT Innovation and Disruption

Assessment Item 2

Individual Report: Disruptive Innovation Case Study

Semester Two 2018

Summary

Description

In this assignment you will report on an ICT-enabled disruptive innovation case study. Disruptive innovation as defined by Clayton Christensen describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors.

You are to choose and describe an example of disruptive innovation. Your choice must be:

• A specific technology/product or service/process (Note: analysis may become easier if that product or service is related to a specific organisation or brand). We ‘suggest’ that you choose a product/technology type of innovation, as it could help you to provide more specific answers in part 2 of the assessment. You may decide to choose a service type of innovation, if you believe you can provide better and more specific answers.
• A real example that exists and has been publically reported
• ICT-enabled meaning: the ‘information’ element should exist and this information can be shared among individuals or groups via a communication network. Therefore, a specific brand of laptop, tablet, smartphone, a specific social media, a specific brand of digital camera (if it can connect to a computer and share information/photo via a network such as internet) are examples of ICT-enabled technologies.

Your ICT-enabled disruptive innovation case/selection should be found through conducting a well-structured literature review. You may identify any ICT enabled disruptive innovation that has been reported in the press, in trade journals & magazines, and in academic journals.

To find sources for such ICT-enabled innovation cases, you can examine magazines such as Wired, Harvard Business Review, consulting firm web sites, as well as journals on innovation. Some sample sources are in Appendix 1, however, you are not limited to these sources and should seek more.

You are also to produce an infographic illustrating the innovation, the component parts, and how they communicate with each other.

Distribution of marks

This assessment is worth 30% of your final grade for this unit and is broken into two parts detailed below.

Part 1: The Report (85% of Assignment 2)

The purpose of this report is to describe and analyse a specific disruptive innovation using the knowledge that you have gained from the lectures, workshops and readings. You also need to review literature and cite relevant studies to support your description, analysis and recommendations. Your main audience is the chief executive of an organization within your selected context, or a venture capital investor who funded the innovation idea. The language used should be appropriate for senior staff who are not ICT literate. They are particularly interested in the analysis and impact of the innovation.

Your report is a maximum of six pages in length, not including title page, executive summary, bibliography  and appendices. You will use APA reference style in the bibliography and also for in-text citation style in the report and its appendices. Also, visual layout of the report is a critical component. Submissions are checked for plagiarism and academic integrity. Also, the information should be presented professionally. See below for the report format that you must follow.

Your sentence and paragraph structures must be appropriate. There should be no spelling mistakes or errors in grammar that make the meaning unclear. Word selection is critical. Ensure that appropriate words are selected and avoid the use of jargon or acronyms. Also, when you are using a table or figure, always introduce it prior to the figure or table, then present the figure or table, then discuss/explain the figure or table to ensure its relevance and importance to that section is highlighted. Do not forget that if you are using an existing table or figure, you need to provide in-text citation for it.

Report Format

See below for the report format that you must follow.

Title page: Give an appropriate title, your name, assignment title, date, etc.

Executive Summary: Be succinct and specific. State the key points, purpose, business/social value, results and consequences. (1 page maximum)

Table of contents

1. Describing the selected innovation: Having selected a specific “technology/product type” of disruptive innovation which is “ICT-enabled” and is in the “voluntary use” context. Introduce in the following way:

1.1 Introduction to the Innovation: Introduce the innovation and use what you learned from Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation to explain why this is a disruptive innovation. [2 paragraphs]

1.2 Exploration of Adoption Categories: For this innovation, who are the five categories of innovation adopters? For each of these adopter categories:

• Name the adopter category
• Describe the typical type of person likely to be in this category
• Relate this category to Roger’s 5 innovation characteristics by:
  • Selecting and introducing the three most relevant innovation characteristics for this category of adopter
  • Present in order of priority and provide an explanation (2-3 sentences sufficient) justifying your decisions.

Note that this activity is similar to what you did in the workshop in week 5 using the table.

2. Retrospective Analysis of the selected innovation

2.1 Evaluation of their Design: Put yourself in the shoes of the designers of the innovation. What methods of evaluation do you recommend for the Ex Ante and for the Ex Post phases of evaluation? Introduce two methods for each of these two phases, and explain why they are appropriate. [3 paragraphs]. Assume that there are no significant time and resources constraints.

2.2 Evaluation of original Entrepreneurship and Start-Up Potential: IT start-ups are usually under resource (e.g. budget, technology and human resources) //constraints. Assume that you were the company about to introduce this disruptive innovation. Consider the strategies that you learnt in lecture 7 (“innovation and entrepreneurship”). What strategies do you think are most applicable? (Describe the relevancy of three specific strategies to your start-up and why) [1 paragraph for each recommendation: 3 paragraphs]

2.3 Evaluation of their Application of Business Analytics: In your opinion, how can the organisation that innovated your selected innovation benefit from business analytics in:

• (a) designing the innovation   [1 paragraph overall], and
• (b) supporting the efficient management of the innovation (you should cover three related issues, such as efficient customer relationship management and customer service).  [3 paragraphs overall]

Conclusion [1-2 paragraph]

Bibliography

Appendix 1: Infographic: illustrating the innovation, the component parts, and how they communicate with each other.

Appendix 2:  … (if and as needed)

Notes:

• The report should be a maximum of 6 pages.
• Font is Georgia, size 10.
• Section headers are also in font Georgia, size 12 and bold.
• Ensure that your pages are numbered, lower right hand corner.
• Only sections 1-2 and the conclusion section should have page numbers and are included in the page count. The Title page, Executive summary, Table of contents, Bibliography, and Appendices should not be numbered and are not included in the page count.
• Ensure that you include all of the numbered sections as requested.
• Appendices should be numbered. Material in appendices also need appropriate in-text citations and these references are to be included in the bibliography.
• Ensure that you use the APA style for the bibliography and for in-text citation. See QUT Cite Write for details.
• Set your margins to 1.7 cm for top and bottom margins, and 1.5 cm for left and right margins.
• Make sure that you appropriately label all graphics and tables and refer to them in the main text. Figures and tables also appear in the Table of Contents.

Part 2: An Infographic illustrating the innovation (15% of Assignment 2)

Create an infographic depicting or explaining the innovation, the technologies and the context. This Infographic should be included in the appendices of Part 1. An infographic is a visual representation of information or data that translates into insights and understanding.  See an example here. The example we have given is rather long in format, you may wish to ensure that your infographic fits well and is readable on an A4 page in your document.

Creating your Infographic:

You may create your Infographic using any tool that you like. You might decide to use Microsoft Powerpoint but there are also a range of free online tools that you can use that can be found by searching with Google. You might be interested in looking at www.canva.com or www.piktochart.com.

Guiding Questions:

Consider the following questions whilst designing your Infographic:

• What are the most important aspects of the innovation?
• What information is critical to convey to understand the innovation?
• What are the component parts and how to they communicate with each other?
• What is the context of the innovation (business or social setting)?
• What are the technologies used in this innovation?
• What is the business or social value of the innovation?
• How was the innovation disruptive?
• What were the results and consequences of the innovation?

Submission details

Submission details are listed in the assessment section on Blackboard

How you will be marked

You will be marked using the following criteria.

Appendix 1: Sample Innovation Case Study Sources

Innovation journals can be found through the library or searching for the term innovation journal in Google. Some titles include:

• International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change
• Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship – a SpringerOpen journal
• International Journal of Innovation Management (World Scientific)
• Industry and Innovation – Taylor & Francis Online
• The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal
• International Journal of Innovation (IJI Journal)

Other sources include:

• Case Studies on Open Innovation in ICT (PDF Download Available)
• Creativity is Not Enough: ICT Enabled Strategic Innovation
• You may decide to investigate some of the disruptive innovations that the companies listed in the week 4 reading task mentioned (see table “Sample of 77 Disruptive Innovations” on page 78).

Document Revision