Reading Time: 4 min
Topics
- Innovation
- Leadership
- Strategy
- Disruption
- Innovation Strategy
- Culture
- Organizational Behavior
subscribe-icon Subscribe
Since Digital Equipment Corp. founder (and MIT alumnus)Ken Olsen diedearlier this monthat 84, much has been written about him and the computer company he cofounded.
The story of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC)was one of adramatic rise and fall: DEC was an entrepreneurialcomputer company that grew to$14 billion in sales and employedan estimated 130,000people worldwide at one point.ButDigitalfailed toadapt successfully after the personal computer eroded its minicomputer market.
Ken Olsen
Eventually, Compaq Computer bought DEC in 1998, and then Hewlett-Packard later acquired Compaq.
Whathave welearned fromDigital Equipment Corp.’s experience? Here are threemanagementlessons from DEC’s rise and fall:
1. Watch out for disruptive innovations. DEC’s troubleshelped inspire Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensento develop his now well-known ideas about disruptive innovation.According toanarticle in Strategy+Business, watching the problemsof Digital and other minicomputer companies inthe late 1980sgot Christensen thinking about disruptive technology.
Today, Christensen’s ideas are well-known –and managers in established companies as a result have a much better awareness of the potential for disruptive innovation to affect their businesses. Here’s how Christensenput itin a 2009 interviewin MIT Sloan Management Review:
“Every disruption has three components to it: a technological enabler, a business model innovation and a new commercial ecosystem. In computing, the technological enabler of disruption in computing was the microprocessor. It so simplified the design of a computer that Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs could just slap one together in a garage. It transformed the industry’s fundamental technological problem—the design of a computer—from a problem that took hundreds of people several years to solve into one that was much simpler.
Then that simplifying technology had to be married with a business model that could take the technology into the market in a cost-effective and convenient way. Digital Equipment Corp. had microprocessor technology, but its business model could not profitably sell a computer for less than $50,000. The technology trapped in a high-cost business model had no impact on the world, and in fact, the world ultimately killed Digital. But IBM Corp., with the very same processors at its disposal, set up a different business model in Florida that could make money at a $2,000 price point and 20% gross margins—and changed the world.
Topics
- Innovation
- Leadership
- Strategy
- Disruption
- Innovation Strategy
- Culture
- Organizational Behavior
Tags:
Corporate Culture Disruptive Innovation Entrepreneurship High-Tech Entrepreneurs Organizational Culture
Add a comment
You must sign in to post a comment.
First time here? Sign up for a free account: Comment on articles and get access to many more articles.
Comments (6)
On Software Project Management, Part 2 | Frances Advincula
[...] 4. Dec is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of the Digital Equipment Corporation For now, a review and insights [...]
On Software Project Management, Part 2 « Frances Marie
[...] 4. Dec is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of the Digital Equipment Corporation For now, a review and insights [...]
Avoiding the Mistakes of Fallen Executives » Denise Brouillette
[...] What could be going on with the leaders at RIM? Before I answer that, I’ll revisit what happened to CEO Ken Olsen and the once dominant Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of Maynard, MA. [...]
Tim Cook and Apple’s Tricky Next Steps | EOS Worldwide
[...] shows it isn’t easy. Wang [4]did not survive the departure of An Wang; Digital Equipment never flew high again after Ken Olsen.[5] Untold numbers of firms that hadn’t attained such heights when they lost their founders [...]
HP and the Challenge of Change | Mike's Place in Cyberspace
[...] file format. Digital Equipment Corporation, at one time the second largest computer manufacturer, failed to adapt to the changing market and was purchased by Compaq in the [...]
Dewita Soeharjono
Great reading. I bet not too many Fortune 500 cos. employees remember their bosses. Let alone their CEOs, unless CEO's name is the name of the product, like Dell, etc. It's so true that disruptive innovations will change who'll be the next market leader - if the current leaders don't pay attention to trends. Consumer trends. Social commerce trends. Population growth. Etc. It will be interesting to watch how these things going to unravel throughout 2011 and on..
