A Perspective of Christensen’s Innovation...

7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences

“ASEAN 2015: Challenges and Opportunities” (Proceedings)

Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University, June 5-6, 2015 297

Mapping Innovation Model for Military:

A Perspective of Christensen’s Innovation Model

1. Wong Wai Loong,National Defence University of Malaysia, Sungai Besi Camp,

57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

Presently, many organizations around the world have adopted the concept of

innovation to improve their process, service and strategy to stay competitive with their

competitors. Innovation can be defined as “the search for and the discovery,

experimentation, development, imitation and adoption of new products, new processes

and new organizational set ups. It is the process that transforms ideas into commercial

value”. Hence, organizations such as the military must have the capability to shift focus

on innovation to overcome future challenges and generate better service to the nation.

The concept of innovation has become more complex and it does not just depend on a

new product innovation to remain successful, but to include the ability to quickly

embrace innovations produced externally that can benefit the organisation. Therefore, it

is crucial for a military organisation to be able to uphold process, product and strategy

innovation despite the pressing need for change. The Clayton Christensen’s model of

innovation is significant in current practice for organisations and industries. According

to Christensen, innovation can be divided to sustaining and disruptive innovation.

Sustaining innovations can be characterised as incremental improvements while

disruptive innovations are destructive and discontinuous. In this paper, a qualitative

research approach was used to provide an overview on United State Department of

Defence (DoD) innovation examples and how well Christensen’s innovation model can

be mapped by military organisation. Hence, a few examples of military innovation used

by the United States will be discussed to illustrate the disruptive and sustaining

innovation. Based on this paper, it is observed that the Christensen’s model of

innovation could be mapped for innovation in military.

Keywords: Innovation, sustaining, disruptive, incremental, destructive




Introduction

According to John Kao, he mentioned that “innovation emerges when different

bodies of knowledge, perspectives, and disciplines are brought together. He describes

the process as a blending of the intuitive and the practical, of the optimistic and the

pragmatic” (John, 2007). The concept of innovation has become more complex and it

does not just depend on a new product innovation to remain successful, but to include

the ability to quickly embrace innovations produced externally that can benefit the

organisations (Kathryn, 2002). Therefore, it is crucial for military organisation to be

able to uphold process, product and strategy innovation despite the pressing need for

change. The type of innovation which includes process, product and strategy innovation

can be summarised in Table 1.

Table 1: The Type of Innovation.

Type of Innovation

Description

1. Process Innovation

The rise of the quality, continuous improvement, change management and knowledge management has become important for process innovation.

2. Product Innovation

a. Incremental product innovation is oriented toward improving the features and functionality of existing products and services. b. Radical product innovation is oriented towards creating wholly new products or services.

3. Strategy Innovation

The continuous revolution of basic organisational strategy will ensure organisational success. This will require : a. Radically reconceiving products and services, not just developing new products and services. b. Redefining market space. c. Redrawing industry boundaries.

Source : Kathryn A. Baker, 2002, Innovation [online]

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/doe/benchmark/ch14.pdf [accessed on 1 September 2012]

The Clayton Christensen’s model of innovation is significant in current practice for

organisations and industries. According to Christensen, innovation can be divided to

sustaining and disruptive innovation. In the current situation, military organisation

around the world are undergoing modernisation to remain superior in the global

defence landscape and to overcome new emerging threats. In most modernisation

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/doe/benchmark/ch14.pdf




programme, it involves innovation with changes in organisation, doctrine, equipment

and concept of operations (Richard, 2012). Military organisations are gaining

supremacy over its adversaries through the process of innovation. Inventions and state-

to-art technologies are combined to produce more effective equipment with improved

fighting capabilities (Richard, 2007).

The Framework of Innovation in Military

The revolution in military affairs (RMA) had shaped militaries around the world

to innovate actively to cope with the rapid technology changes. In addition, the global

arm race and global security uncertainty had made many military organisations

enhancing its fighting capabilities through innovation to cope with the future challenges

(Mary, 1991). Due to this, military planners around the world had shift focus to

innovation for the improvement of doctrines, equipment and organisation. The

modernisation and transformation programmes were launched to strategically develop

military capability to support future warfighting concepts (Peter and Neville, 2004).

Both modernisation and transformation requires hardware and software innovation.

Hardware consists of technology and platforms while software includes doctrine and

organisation. According to Vincent Davis, he mentioned innovation in military uses new

technologies to improve existing missions by not radically changing it (Vincent, 1967).

On the other hand, a new way of war is created by combining old and new technologies

with new operational concept (Stephen, 1991). These innovations requires disruptive

compared to sustaining innovation. Innovation in the military consists of three

components which are technology, doctrine and organisation (Andrew, 2010). This can

be illustrated in Figure 1.




Technology

DoctrineOrganisation

Figure 1: The Components of Military Innovation

Source: Andrew L. Ross, 2010, On Military Innovation: Toward an Analytical Framework [online] http://igcc.ucsd.edu/assets/001/500866.pdf

[accessed on 7 September 2012] The description on each component of military innovation is shown in Table 2.

Table 2: The Components of Innovation. Component Description

1. Technology The new technologies must be developed into practical military systems to achieve leaps in relative military effectiveness. Technological advances are usually a requisite for an innovation.

2. Doctrine To fully exploit the potential of new systems, operational concepts incorporating and integrating the new technologies must be developed into coherent doctrines.

3. Organisation The most profound changes require significant bureaucratic acceptance and institutional change. The success of innovation required not only the technology and a coherent doctrine of warfare, but also substantial organisational and even cultural changes which are reflected in the new product or system.

. Source: James R. Fitzsimonds and Jan M. Vantol, 1994, Revolution in Military Affairs

[online] http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/jfq0604.pdf [accessed on 1 September 2012]

http://igcc.ucsd.edu/assets/001/500866.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/jfq0604.pdf




Military innovation can be divided into the quadrants of matrix as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Military Innovation Matrix.

Source: Andrew L. Ross, 2010, On Military Innovation: Toward an Analytical Framework [online] http://igcc.ucsd.edu/assets/001/500866.pdf

[accessed on 1 September 2012]

In Figure 2, innovation is characterized as either incremental or discontinuous.

Sustaining innovations are incremental and evolutionary improvements because it

provides new and better method to use existing technologies (Richard, 2012). On the

other hand, disruptive innovations are discontinuous and destructive (revolution)

because it radically changes the technology by providing new solution that is radically

different and the existing technologies cannot be adapted (Dewar and Dutton, 1986).

According to Mark and Barbara, they mentioned that breakthrough is “to create

something new or satisfy a previously undiscovered need and enable us to do

something that we didn’t know was possible. Breakthrough may be unintended and it

can cause revolution or even displacement of existing practices” (Mark and Barbara,

2004). Technological breakthrough consist of discontinuous weapons, platforms and

systems change. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), robotic systems and tanks are

examples of discontinuous technological breakthroughs (Andrew, 2010). As for

architectural breakthrough, the changes involve technologies, doctrines and

organisations. Technology is used in developing new doctrines and new organisations





that had not been used before. In architectural innovation, it will cause major changes to

integration of hardware and software. The concept of joint warfare and manoeuvre

warfare are examples of architectural innovation (Andrew, 2010).

The innovation in military can be look at in two different ways. Firstly, in terms

of trajectory performance that is valued by the military planners and secondly in terms

of parts consisting components and linkages. Sustaining innovation will provide

improvement to the existing concept and method of operations along the confirmed

trajectory that is currently being valued by the war fighters (Terry, 2004). These

innovations are being created by military planners to replace the current components

but they do not change the linkages between the components. Secondly, innovations are

created by emphasizing on maintaining existing linkages among components (Terry,

2004). Disruptive innovation will provide improved performance along a trajectory

path that traditionally has not been valued by war fighters and in this innovation,

military planners changes the linkages of components in different ways while the core

design concepts of technology are left intact (Terry, 2004).

Military organisation cannot proceed with innovation without the participation

and involvement from the private industry. The private industry must be capable to

translate and support the innovation required by military planners in terms of

technology and facilities.

Christensen’s Model of Innovation

Clayton Christensen developed the idea for evaluating innovation and he divided

it into sustaining and disruptive innovations. The elaboration is as below:

Sustaining Innovation

According to Christensen, sustaining innovation is defined as “changes that build

on and reinforce the applicability of existing technology. These changes strengthen the

value of existing technology and the products that use them by making the products

more reliable, simpler to use, lower in cost, or accessible to a larger customer base”

(Christensen, 1992). Sustaining innovations provide performance improvement along

an established trajectory that is common to traditional customers. This innovation does

not generate new markets or value networks but improving existing




ones with better performance and value. This condition can provide opportunity among

companies to compete against each other's to produce sustaining improvement for

products or services (Christensen, 1997).

Disruptive Innovation

Christensen defines disruptive innovation as “innovations were technologically

straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product

architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches. They offered less of what

customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed

there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets

remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream” (Christensen, 1997). A disruptive

innovation will initially establish a new market and value network. Subsequently, this

will disrupt the existing market and value network over a period of time by ousting an

earlier technology. According to Christensen, disruptive innovation is capable to harm

well established companies because these companies are most likely to disregard the

markets that are inclined to disruptive innovations due to low profit margin and does

not provide growth opportunity to the companies (Christensen, 1997). The established

companies are interested to serve its regular customers because of the good

relationship and understanding the market well. These companies will turn to focus on

sustaining innovation and ignore disruptive innovation for improvements and profit

gaining. This situation can lead to new competitors taking the opportunity to develop

disruptive innovation for mainstream customers. The emergence of these new

competitors adopting the disruptive innovation can cause the downfall of well

established companies (Christensen, 1997).

In addition, Christensen also defined disruptive innovations as a “strategy

whereby a competitor aggressively leverages simple, ingenious ways to overtake a more

dominant organisation” (Christensen, 1997). According to him whenever leaders and

managers of the organisation do not recognise the forces allowing their business

opponent to surpass them, this will caused them failure to defeat disruptive innovation

(Christensen, 1997). Christensen’s five principles of disruptive innovation are as follow:

“a. Companies depend on customers and investors for resources. Customers drive internal decision making because companies are resource-dependent.

b. Small markets don’t solve the growth needs of large companies. Large companies are not interested in small emerging markets, and they wait too long.




c. Markets that don’t exist cannot be analyzed. d. An organization’s capabilities define its disabilities. e. Technology supply may not equal market demand ”.

(Christensen, 1997) Low End Disruption and New Market Disruption

In Christensen’s model of disruptive innovation, he differentiated low-end

disruption and new market disruption. He mentioned that “low-end disruptions

introduce products or services that are cheaper and of lower quality than existing

products but that offer no other performance improvement. It targets customers who

do not need the full performance valued by customers at the high end of the market”

(Christensen, 2003). This low end disruption is the contribution from the condition

when rate of customer’s adoption of new performance is lower than the rate of products

improvement. The progress of low-end disruptive innovation is illustrated in Figure 3.

Time

Pe

rfo

rma

nce

Performance demanded at

the high-end of the market

Market disruption opportunity

Progress due to sustaining technologies

Performance demanded at

the low-end of the market

Progress due to disruptive technologies

Figure 3: Progress of Low-End Disruptive Innovation. Source: Christensen, Clayton, 1997, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies

Cause Great Firms to Fail, Boston : Harvard Business School Press.

Based on Figure 3, the customer’s needs vary from product performance demanded at

the low end of the market to the level of high end of the market. The entrepreneurs will

continue to create products to meet customers demand. These new innovations will




expand in density to attain customers in the high end market once successful. The red

line in Figure 3 marked as progress due to sustaining technologies signifies the

establishment of the first industry leaders in a particular field (Christensen, 1997). The

demands for the products will increase when the customer’s need are met. Until a

certain point, the performance of the product will overrun the needs of certain

customers and this will provide avenue for disruptive innovation to enter the market.

Through this disruptive innovation, a lower performance product is produced

compared to the existing one which surpasses the requirement of certain customers

(Christensen, 2003). This situation will allow the new product to gain entrance into the

market. Once it had entered the market, the producer of this new product will start to

improve its revenue through enhancement and innovation on quality of the product.

This will steer the progress due to disruptive technologies as shown by the green line in

Figure 3 (Christensen, 1997). On the other hand, the company producing the existing

product will move up the market to focus on more important customers rather than

holding on to other customers that provide less profit to them. Subsequently, this will

reduced the market opening for the company and it will cease from the market when

the disruptive innovation had successfully met the requirement for majority of the

customers (Christensen, 2003). As for new market disruption, Christensen states that

“this will occur when a product fits a new or emerging market segment that is not being

served by existing incumbents in the industry” (Christensen, 2003). The new market

disruptions provide improved performance that the current customers do not critically

value.

Applying Christensen’s Innovation Model

In this part of the paper, the examples of innovation used by the United States

Department of Defence (DoD) by adopting Christensen’s model of innovation will be

illustrated to provide an overview on how best the United States military forces utilised

this innovation model to their advantage.

Military Training Simulation

The United States Department of Defence (DoD), defines military simulation as “a

method for implementing a model over time. It is the process of conducting experiments

with a model for the purpose of understanding the behaviour of the system modelled




under selected conditions or of evaluating various strategies for the operation of the

system within the limits imposed by developmental or operational criteria” (The United

States Department of Defence, 1998). In the 1980s, the United States (US) Department

of Defence (DOD) established Simulation Networking (SIMNET) which uses computer

technology on networked combat simulators for military training system (Miller and

Thope, 1995). The introduction of SIMNET had shaped the development of networked

devices when all important simulation system was integrated as a large network to

create a broad illustration of the battle space. According to Miller and Thope, SIMNET

provided “a low-cost, standardized platform that could be duplicated and networked to

allow larger team training to occur” (Miller and Thope, 1995). Hence, SIMNET created a

strong establishment for virtual training industry. During the 1990s, the usage of

SIMNET was to meet the low end needs of the army and used to train the army tank

team. The elaboration at the section below will illustrate how sustaining and disruptive

innovation took place in the SIMNET.

Sustaining Innovation

During its introduction, SIMNET was not meeting the needs of the army because

it did not imitate the feel of real tanks. Nevertheless, innovation applied on SIMNET

managed to replicate the environment of a platoon of tank working together as what is

in the real world (Roger, 2006). This improvement provided a better value to the user.

Due to this, the army perception towards SIMNET changed when it could signify the

battle environment instead of just the feel for vehicle. SIMNET improvement

successfully extended its technology to include other vehicles. SIMNET emerged as

model for all future virtual training equipment and it successfully led the market for

around 15 years (Roger, 2006). Apparently, the Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT)

which had technological improvement in networking capabilities and visual display was

created using the SIMNET framework. The Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT) is

regarded as a sustaining innovation from SIMNET (Roger, 2006). As a result from

sustaining innovation, more simulators were produced from the SIMNET’s origin that

could integrate and compatible with each other over a network. The investment on

SIMNET by improving its original design was able to produce enhanced training

equipment in the virtual training industry (Miller and Thope, 1995).




Disruptive Innovation

Other innovators in the industry developed new devices to match the technology

currently dominated by the SIMNET. (Miller and Thope, 1995). Certain devices was

built on the foundation of computer game technology which is regarded more of a game

and play thing. As time evolved, computer game technology was rapidly rising. The rise

was until a stage when computer game technology was possible to offer training on an

ordinary personal computer for military user (Miller and Thope, 1995). For example,

the Spearhead computer game could give the user of the SIMNET and CCTT experience

on a desktop computer. It had the basis of military simulators. Spearhead demonstrated

that it can offer features of the SIMNET and CCTT with a lower cost (Lenoir, 2003). After

a period of time, the military organisation was confident that computer game such as

Spearhead was able to provide effective training (Roger, 2006). Hence, computer game

technology starts to become the disruptive innovation in virtual training industry. It had

given a deep impact to the SIMNET technology.

Observation

From the above discussions, it describe that military training simulation -

SIMNET had gone through sustaining innovation at the initial part and was disrupted by

the computer games technology at the later stage. The military training simulation had

the characteristic of Christensen’s progress of low-end disruptive innovation as shown

in Figure 4.

Time

Perf

orm

ance

High-end demand

Sustaining innovation – Virtual Trainer

Low-end demand

Disruptive innovation – Computer games

SIMNET

CCTT

Spearhead

Figure 4 : Progress of Low-End Disruptive Innovation for SIMNET.




Source : Modified by author, 2012. Adapted from Christensen, Clayton, 1997, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail,

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press.

Based on Figure 4, the Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT) is the sustaining

innovation from SIMNET. After a period of time, computer game technology starts to

become the disruptive innovation in virtual training industry. Computer game such as

Spearhead provided disruption to CCTT. The disruption of military training simulation

by games technology will continue because it meets the needs of customers within all of

the military services. The disruption from computer games technology compliments

Christensen’s disruptive innovation when computer games importance increased

through technology improvement and it provided the required performance with a

lower cost. The number of customer who does not need the full performance valued by

customer at the high-end of the market will increase (Christensen, 2003). When the

high-end customers drive the technology higher, it will cause the operational cost to

increase. This situation will provide opportunity for small companies to introduce

computer games technology at the lower-end and gain entrance into the market.

Subsequently, these companies will be more successful and profitable while the

established companies will slowly exit from the market due to reduced market opening.

Fundamentally, this example matches with Christensen’s disruptive innovation since

technological improvement created computer games which are simpler and cheaper

than the existing SIMNET. Even though computer games technology is not immediately

attractive to mainstream customers, nevertheless it was able to secure a foothold in the

low end of the market or through new customers. Subsequently, this innovation was

successful to interrupt the mainstream needs.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

Presently, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is playing a gradually important role

in military operations and for civilian use. The United States Department of Defence

(DOD) defines UAV as “powered, aerial vehicles that do not carry a human operator, use

aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely,

can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or non-lethal payload” (United

States Congress, 2001). The UAVs are changing the landscape of modern warfare until

the point of being deployed for operation normally tasked for manned aircraft. The UAV




is a military innovation used for the purpose to conduct surveillance and

reconnaissance task.

During the 1980s, the capability of UAV was identified during Israel’s

demonstration of its Scout UAV over the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon (Rajiv, 2006). As UAV

technology evolves and unmanned platforms become more mainstreams, many

potential functions are being explored. This potential is being looked upon by military

organisation when they invested in the unmanned technology and eventually created

UAV for military operation (Rajiv, 2006). As example, the capabilities of UAVs in the US

military are rapidly expanding due to technology improvement to suit the required

concept of operations and new emerging threats. The US created the GNAT 750 UAV in

the 1980s which was manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. This

UAV performed the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance task (Stephen, 1995).

In 1994, the Predator UAV was launched and its design was an improvement from the

GNAT 750. It had the enhanced capability for long endurance and medium-altitude

unmanned system for surveillance and reconnaissance task. In 1995, the US Air Force

deployed the Predators in its operations in Bosnia (Airforce Technology, 2012). In 2006,

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc launched the Reaper UAV which was an

improved version of Predator. Reaper was designed for long endurance and high

altitude surveillance (Defence Update, 2009). It had the capabilities to be deployed in

most weather condition and could cover a larger area compared to Predator. Reaper

became operational for US Air Force and was deployed for combat missions in

Afghanistan in 2007 (Airforce Technology, 2012). The Avenger UAV is the most updated

UAV released by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. Avenger is the improved

version of Predator. It has the enhanced capabilities such as jet powered engine,

weapons bay and ability to carry extra fuel tanks (Airforce Times, 2009). The progress

of the US military’s UAVs improvement is shown in Figure 5.




Time

Pe

rfo

rma

nce

GNAT 750

1980 20102000 20201990

Predator

Reaper

Avenger

Long endurance and high altitude surveillance

Jet powered engine

Long endurance and medium-altitude surveillance

Surveillance and reconnaissance

Figure 5: Progress of the US Military UAVs Improvement. Source : Modified by author. Adapted from Disruptive Innovation Case study:

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), 2012 [online] www.deloitte.com/.../Dcom...DefenseUAV_DI_CaseStudy2012.pdf

[accessed on 1 September 2012]

The progress of the UAV capabilities had demonstrated the characteristic of sustaining

innovation. The improvement in the UAVs capabilities are built on the existing

technology of GNAT 750. These improvements were important to ensure the UAVs are

more reliable in military operations. In addition, the UAVs can be operated in hostile

environment posed to military pilots. This UAVs innovation matches Christensen’s

sustaining innovation which he defines as “changes that build on and reinforce the

applicability of existing technology. These changes strengthen the value of existing

technology and the products that use them by making the products more reliable,

simpler to use, lower in cost, or accessible to a larger customer base” (Christensen,

1992). On the other hand, this unmanned innovation does exert the disruptive nature

towards the organisation and industry. For example, US increased its acquisition of

UAVs while holding back on the development of the manned F-22 aircraft had indirectly

impacted on the future job specification of military fighter pilots (Disruptive Innovation

Case Study, 2012). As in the industry, the traditional mainstream aerospace companies

such as Boeing and Goodrich were not the main manufacturer of UAVs. The early UAVs

were produced by companies that were not mainstream aerospace prime supplier

(James, 2007). The UAV market is still largely serviced by enterprise companies and

non-aerospace major established companies. According to Teal Group’s market study on

UAVs, it was found that “smaller companies have been extremely competitive in UAVs,

http://www.deloitte.com/.../Dcom...DefenseUAV_DI_CaseStudy2012.pdf




enabling them to build up position as prime contractors that they would be unable to

attain in other more established sectors of the industry” (Homeland Security News

Wire, 2009). The contributing factor from civilian sector which offers opportunities for

a wide range of applications opened up the unmanned market. With technology

continue to evolve swiftly, the force of demand

drives more UAV application in niche applications for civilian market. This had opened

up the market and initiated the existence of new innovators producing UAVs that are

being sought by mainstream and civilian customers (Homeland Security News Wire,

2009). The civilian market will in the long run provide more opportunities than the

defence sector. This will allow enterprise companies to gain entry into the market in

niche areas with low-cost systems (Tim Willbond, 2007). These enterprise companies

involved in UAVs supply chain by providing components and configurations to the

prime contractor. For example, in the Predator’s programme, the prime contractor is

the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems together with other enterprise companies.

Those companies consist of the following:

“a. Wescam for the electro-optical. b. Northrop Grumman for the synthetic aperture radar. c. L3 Communication for the wideband satellite communications link. d. Boeing for the intelligence workstation and mission planning system”.

(Airforce Technology, 2012).

In the Predator’s programme, these enterprise companies developed product which

captures a part of the market. According to Frost and Sullivan, this situation will enable

enterprise companies to “successfully achieves the critical mass, allowing it to build on

its own success” (Frost and Sullivan, 2007). Therefore, based on the above disruption

scenario of the US UAVs innovation towards the industrial sector, it matches with the

disruptive innovation model developed by Christensen on the following basis:

“a. Initial UAVs products invariably came from companies that were not mainstream aerospace prime contractors. b. The unmanned market is still largely monopolised by enterprise companies and non-aerospace primes. c. New competitor companies are delivering UAVs that are being sought by mainstream customers”.

(Tim Willbond, 2007)




Aircraft Bombing Technique

Most main war fought during World War 2 (WW2) depends on aircraft bombing

to destroy adversary’s high value targets such as military installations and naval assets.

The United States military was in dire needs of finding an effective method to destroy

Japanese naval ship after the fall in 1942 (John, 1990). During that period, the

traditional technique of bombing Japanese ships from high altitudes where not effective

when most of the bombs missed their targets. General George Kenny from the Fifth Air

Force noticed this situation and he subsequently innovated the method of skip bombing

from a lower altitude to levels where there was a high possibility of hitting the

identified targets (Herman, 2002). According to United States Department of Defence,

skip bombing is defined as “a method of aerial bombing in which a bomb is released

from such a low altitude that it slides or glances along the surface of the water or

ground and strikes the target at or above water level or ground level” (United States

Military, 2012). General George Kenny first tested the technique of skip bombing on

land target but it was unsuccessful due to unpredictable trajectories. Nevertheless, he

re-test the bombing on water-borne targets and it proved to be successful when bombs

skip off the surface of the water in a predictable

way (Herman, 2002). The innovation of skip bombing proved to be devastating to

Japanese ship during the battle of Bismarck Sea in March, 1943 (Lex, 1991).

The above example on skip bombing is a depiction of a disruptive innovation in

military. From this example, it is observed that it matches with Christensen’s model of

disruptive innovation. This is supported by his definition which mentioned that

“disruptive innovation is strategy whereby a competitor aggressively leverages simple,

ingenious ways to overtake a more dominant organisation” (Christensen, 1997). In this

definition, he stressed that organisational leaders can sneak the competitive advantage

by utilising disruptive thought against adversaries before they aware and consequently

offset the disruption (Christensen, 1997).

Conclusion

Innovation plays an important factor in maintaining the rhythm of

modernisation and transformation of military organisations around the world. The

rapid technology evolvement and changes in operational requirement due to new

emerging threats have stimulated the innovation concept. The Christensen’s model of




sustaining and disruptive innovation has had relevancy to innovation in military. The

military planners and its industry partners can produce sustaining innovations to

improve military capabilities and performance of its equipment by adopting this model.

Most military organisations are moving into the new solutions to gain military

superiority and change the global balance of power. On the other hand, the existence of

disruptive innovation remains in military when disruptive innovations provide an

improved value proposition to the customers. Apart from that, the military customers

are shifting to new products or system that meets their minimum requirement and cost

saving. This situation changes the market balance in the defence industry. Subsequently,

this can cause the market landscape to transform into meeting the demand of the

highest number of customers. In addition, the evolvement of technologies are ousting

the established companies through high performance system or product with a lower

cost and improved performance.

Hence, by observing the military innovation practiced by the United States we

could find the existence of Christensen’s innovation model characteristic in it.

Therefore, it can be mentioned that the Christensen’s model of sustaining and

disruptive innovation can be mapped and extended to military around the world for

their innovation strategy to face future challenges in the defence and security landscape.

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