Another factor favoring the success of disruptive innovation is that incumbent firms
often are slow to change. Incumbent firms tend to listen closely to their current customers
and respond by continuing to invest in the existing technology and in incremental
changes to the existing products. When a newer technology matures and proves to be
a better solution, those same customers will switch over. At that time, however, the
incumbent firm does not yet have a competitive product ready that is based on the disruptive
technology. Although customer-oriented mission statements are more likely to
guard against firm obsolescence than product-oriented ones (see Chapter 2), they are
no guarantee that a firm can hold out in the face of disruptive innovation. One of the
counterintuitive findings that Clayton Christensen unearthed in his studies is that it can
hurt incumbents to listen (too closely) only to their existing customers. Apple is famous
for not soliciting customer feedback because it believes it knows what customers need
before they even realize it. Although these examples show that disruptive innovations are a serious threat for incumbent firms, some have devised strategic initiatives to counter them: