Overview
In the highly competitive automotive market, it is critical to keep up with
current technology to stay in or get ahead in the marketplace. To remain
competitive, companies must innovate and integrate new technologies
within their product lines and services.
Scenario
You work as a middle manager for one of the top U.S. producers of luxury
and mass-market automobiles and trucks.
The chief technology officer (CTO) of the company from the course
scenario has been monitoring new technology developments that the
company could integrate into its vehicles to enhance the usefulness of and
improve access to the data acquired by the many digital sensors integrated
into vehicle subsystems over the past 20 to 30 years. The technology trend
of particular interest is the internet of things (IoT)—the interconnection of
embedded devices, such as sensors and computers, over the internet. By
taking advantage of this trend, the CTO believes the company can seize an
opportunity to provide better service and predictive maintenance to its
customers, improving customer satisfaction and adding additional revenue
streams.
Based on briefings by the CTO and your Module One memo, senior
management has decided to implement IoT into its product line. Your CTO
has asked you to lead a cross-functional team to take this initiative forward.
Your first task is to create a presentation that will include your
recommendation for how the company should approach this business
problem: should you use incremental or discontinuous innovation?
Specifically, should the company:
A. Design a completely new product line, based on the new technology
(discontinuous innovation)
or
