UltraSound - Current Disruptive Innovation and Theories - Essay Example

However, disruptive technologies generally refer to mechanisms and equipment by which simpler and cheaper products are created. Disruptive technologies assist in the creation of new markets and product value networks, in the process interfering with the established or existing markets and value networks. That is, with the emergence of a disruptive technology, a given market or value of a product is changed in a manner the market does not expect (Scott et al., 2008). For instance, a disruptive technology could create a new class of customers through processes that lower product prices.

Disruptive technology thus opposes sustaining technologies, which do not create new value networks or markets. Although most disruptive technologies may be cited to relate to computers and the associated products, such as desktop publishing, microcomputers, gps, smartphones, and the social media, other industries such as education and health care are also awash with disruptive technologies, which have created new markets, value networks, and customer classes. Ultrasound as Disruptive Technology The market disrupted by the ultrasound technology is the radiography, in which the X-ray imaging technology has been disrupted.

One of the features of the disruptive technology that ultrasound has is its creation of a new market, interfering with the market advantages enjoyed by X-ray companies, which never participated in ultrasound until much later, after they acquired some major ultrasound equipment manufacturing firms (Tribikram, 2004). According to Professor Clayton Christensen of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, the emergence of ultrasound in clinical applications is a good example of disruptive technologies that address certain inefficiencies in modern health care standards.

For instance, comparatively, ultrasound is simpler, less expensive, and more convenient than other modern imaging systems. Therefore, according to Christensen, healthcare should be more disruptive, flexible, and simpler to meet the divergent needs of patients. Similar to the case of other disruptive technologies, ultrasound entered the healthcare market and immediately won a big chunk of customers who had hitherto used other technologies. Although other technologies such as CT, MRI and PET imaging earlier introduced had displaced the X-ray, ultrasound is obviously more disruptive than the CT, MRI, and PET (Christensen, 1997).

Moreover, ultrasound allows mere caregivers and technologists to take imaging to patients rather than the more expensive specialists. Interestingly, those behind the ultrasound invention and manufacture are small companies such as the Ultrasonix, which are rather new to the industry, and not the long-established healthcare multinationals. In fact, Ultrasonix designs, develops, and manufactures different diagnostic ultrasound systems that make ultrasound technology easier to apply in several areas of patient care (Christensen, 1997).

With their large monitors and image quality, these ultrasound systems are quite ideal for guiding interventional procedures. According to Adner and Snow (2010), disruptive technologies such as the ultrasound are met with skepticism from some stakeholders who, instead of embracing a new technology, would rather continue with, or