MBA Discourse - Customers or Opportunity

🚧 Don’t let customer centricity 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞 your competitiveness 🚧

In the late 1980s, IBM dismissed personal computers because mainframes satisfied its biggest clients.

𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭: Microsoft and Apple walked in.

Kodak invented digital photography. Their customers loved film margins, so Kodak buried the project.

𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭: They lost in the long run.

Seagate Technology delayed launching 3.5-inch drives, waiting for big buyers to validate it.

𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭: A $700M miss.

The pattern? Companies use the same KPIs - revenue, current customer feedback, and performance benchmarks to judge both sustaining and disruptive products. That kills innovation before it has a chance.

𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:

👉 For sustaining products (cash cows), revenue and efficiency matter.

👉 For disruptive bets, the metric should be: 𝐶𝑎𝑛 𝑤𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛 𝑓𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑦?

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞?

1. Restructure firm so “change projects/POCs” count in performance reviews.

2. Align Sales & Marketing differently: revenue focus for sustaining tech, adoption focus for disruptive tech.

As an MBA student, I’ve realized (probably while avoiding an assignment) that chasing the perfect grade is just sustaining innovation. The real disruptive growth often comes from people, projects, and experiences. Suddenly, that B doesn’t look so bad anymore.

𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲: Is Apple’s slow play on Gen AI a strategic delay or the same mistake IBM, Kodak, and Seagate once made?