From The Author

“…radical innovation concerns the development of new businesses or product lines – based on new ideas or technologies or substantial cost reductions – that transform the economies of a business. . . Thus a radical innovation is a product, process or service with either unprecedented performance features or familiar features that offer potential for significant improvements in performance or cost” (O’Connor et al., 1).

The Invention

• Element Change – 0 or 5
• A radical innovation can take place on either the invention side or the commercialization side. This means that it can be either a radical invention or have a radical impact on the commercialization end. In that case the elements of the invention will be either be a dramatic leap forward or like a disruptive innovation, be technologically straightforward.
• Systems Change - 5
• This can be either be a totally new system, a real breakthrough over the current systems or be a novel way to integrate existing technologies.
• Performance - 5
• It may offer unprecedented performance.
• Benefit - 5
• It may have familiar features that offer significant benefits.

Commercialization

• Target Customers – 0 or 5
• A radical innovation can target underserved and well served customers with a radical invention. For example a new light bulb that could produce the same lumens at a tenth of the energy consumption, would be a radical invention that targets the same customers who currently use light bulbs. However, a radical innovation may target non-consumers or over-served customers. For example a light bulb that produced one fourth the lumens at the a 10th of the current energy consumption, and produced no heat would not be of interest to the current light bulb consumer but might be of interest to non-consumers or over served consumers.
• Need Creation – 0 or 5
• If targeting underserved or well served customers, then the needs are being fully addressed. If targeting non-consumers or over-served customers, then the needs of the current customer are not being addressed.
• Value Network/Industry Shakeup - 5
• “…radical innovations create such a dramatic change in products, processes, or services that they transform existing markets or industries, or create new ones” (O’Connor et al., 1).
• Market Size & Growth - 5
• Radical innovations are high growth opportunities. Initially the market size tends to be small and then explodes as innovation reaches main stream customers.

1 O’Connor, Leifer, McDermott, Peters, Rice and Veryzer, Radical Innovation, Harvard Business School Press, p5, 2000

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