Chapter 642 Self-subversion

What is disruptive innovation?

According to some economists, it can be summarized into several aspects.

The first is non-competitiveness, that is, not competing with the current mainstream market for users. Clayton Christensen, a famous Harvard Business School professor and the creator of the theory of disruptive innovation, said that a very important feature of disruptive innovation is to lock in customer groups that are not served by existing products, thereby creating new markets.

This is what Ye Qiu once mentioned, starting from the marginal market.

This is also the second aspect, low-end, starting from the bottom market ignored by the mainstream market, and then through bottom-up penetration, eventually replacing the existing mainstream market.

Another point, which is also the most important point, is simplicity. Through simplicity, the product price is lower, so that more people can afford it, and at the same time, the potential customer market is more extensive. This is also the most important aspect of disruptive innovation, and it is also an aspect that many innovators ignore.

Now almost all enterprises, regardless of size, are emphasizing innovation. Christensen believes that enterprise innovation is generally divided into two aspects. One is disruptive innovation, which can increase employment and is a positive energy for society, while the other is efficiency innovation. Its emergence will reduce corporate pressure, but it also reduces employment and is a negative energy for society.

Christensen also believes that although many companies are shouting slogans on the surface that they will perish if they do not innovate, and they are shouting for innovation and revolution, on the other hand, they realize that innovation is very risky and difficult, and it is a huge damage to the existing corporate system. Therefore, while they are shouting for innovation, they are also trying their best to avoid those threats to corporate stability.

From this theory, those companies with the best management are often the ones that lack innovation the most. Even if they seem to have a reasonable and efficient corporate structure, they have lost the source of innovation.

Clayton Christensen is most famous not because he put forward a slogan and then let it go. That is the practice of experts. He not only put forward slogans and put forward the theory of disruptive innovation, but also put forward a new corporate management thinking. He believes that good corporate managers should do two things at the same time.

That is, while ensuring the healthy operation of the enterprise, more resources should be mobilized to focus on those breakthrough technologies that may eventually lead to the decline of the enterprise, but the latter should be the creation of a new independent organization around disruptive technologies.

Ye Qiu reads a lot of books, including coach development systems, paper books in reality, and even e-books on the Internet. He has read a lot, but basically he never blindly believes what is said in these books. He will read, but at the same time he will also think about whether it is really like this?

He highly respects Christensen's remarks, so he is determined to make major reforms to Leaf Technology and Tottenham Hotspur, especially Leaf Technology. The courage required to reform Leaf Technology is really not ordinary. If you are not careful, it may even cause the company to collapse completely.

The same is true for Tottenham Hotspur. Ye Qiu plans to reorganize the team's entire midfield. You must know that in the past few seasons, Ye Qiu has sold the most front-court attacking players or back-court defenders. The midfield has always remained in a relatively stable framework.

But this time, he is not only determined to move, but also to make a big move, and directly make a reform that hurts the bones.

According to some of Ye Qiu's own ideas from reading books, the so-called disruptive innovation is that you have to try things that make you feel uncomfortable, especially those that make you want to go crazy.

Leaving Tottenham Hotspur aside, Leaf Technology is basically taking two steps now. One is to maintain the existing business structure, that is, to continue the concept of the smart ecosystem that Leaf Technology has formulated from the beginning, and continue to move forward, and further improve its product chain through various continuous innovations.

For example, the next generation of Zeus mobile phones will add fingerprint recognition, but this is only a minor innovation. The real big innovation is that it is still being studied internally, applying the 3D sensing technology to mobile phones, so that mobile phones can intelligently sense the surrounding three-dimensional environment.

There is no doubt that if successful, this will undoubtedly push the intelligence of mobile phones further forward.

In addition to mobile phones, Leaf Technology's smart ecosystem layout is also moving forward steadily, which has also led to more and more research projects and R\u0026D personnel for Leaf Technology. For example, not long ago, it sponsored a robot challenge competition of the US Department of Defense, and after the competition, it poached a large number of engineers from various participating teams.

Not only that, Leaf Technology also reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense to poach talents, and directly poached Regina Dugan, the head of an important research institute of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for this robot challenge, to Leaf Technology, and let her take full charge of Leaf Technology's disruptive innovation department, X!

And Regina Dugan also returned the favor, using her own connections to poach a group of high-level professional talents and acquisitions for Leaf Technology. One of the acquisitions played a key role in the future development of Leaf Technology, that is, the Disney Research Laboratory in Pittsburgh.

Don't get me wrong, this is not Disney's industry. It is a startup company called Disney Research. They have developed a touch technology based on blind reading equipment that can turn the surface of any object into a touch screen, recognize finger touches, and respond similarly to a mobile phone touch screen.

From the perspective of research and development, this technology has just begun, but its future development potential is very large, especially for the concept of Leaf Technology's smart ecosystem, which can almost be said to be a huge boost. More importantly, this laboratory also has another patented technology, which is that they can provide a touch similar to that of a physical button for the touch screen.

Both technologies are based on blind equipment, but if they are only used in blind equipment, it is undoubtedly a waste of talent, so Leaf Technology directly packaged this Disney Research Laboratory and recruited three researchers into Leaf Technology to let them continue to study this project.

Regina Dugan's vision is undoubtedly very good. This 48-year-old middle-aged woman is a typical technology pioneer and a very important technical talent in the US Department of Defense. After joining Leaf Technology, she has brought great changes to Leaf Technology.

For example, Ye Qiu once heard Eliza Moon's report that when Regina Dugan came to the X department, which was located in an independent office building away from the Leaf Technology headquarters, the first thing she did was to ask Leaf Technology to provide a list of the largest and most difficult projects, and then select a project from it as her first step after entering Leaf Technology.

At the same time, she also adjusted her team and changed the company's management model, almost completely breaking up the original framework structure, leaving the entire department with almost no management.

But she knew very well that it would be difficult to be efficient without management, so she created tension and motivated her employees through various means and methods, such as asking them to find out from the Leaf Technology project list those projects that made Leaf Technology feel very uncomfortable, and then study these aspects themselves.

The day after Regina Dugan came to Leaf Technology, this Italian woman proposed an acquisition to Eliza, purchasing the mobile phone patent of the mobile phone manufacturer MODU from Israel for 4 million euros, and the patented technology of this mobile phone manufacturer is modularization.

As we all know, Zeus mobile phones are famous for their rigorous and efficient systems, rigorous mobile phone systems, integrated bodies, non-removable batteries, non-expandable storage capacity, and even mobile phone accessories are specially customized, which can be said to be extremely authoritarian.

After acquiring MODU's mobile phone patents, Regina Dugan put forward her own ideas at an internal high-level meeting. She wanted to completely overturn the existing model of mobile phones and make mobile phones similar to computer DIY, so that users can change their mobile phone parts and configurations at will according to their own choices.

This was immediately criticized by most of the management of Leaf Technology at the time, believing that this would be a major blow to Leaf Technology, because once the mobile phone can be modularized and allowed to be DIY by users, then Zeus mobile phones will lose a large part of users.

Of course, many people think that Regina Dugan's research is a pipe dream, because in the current era of increasingly highly integrated mobile phone products, if you want to achieve modularization, it is almost like wanting to rebuild the mobile phone into a brick, similar to a big brother.

But this Italian woman was also very strong. Facing all the doubts at the meeting, she just smiled with satisfaction and said, "Very good. The more nervous and angry you are, the more it proves that my choice is right!"

The next day, Eliza's desk was filled with a lot of anger and accusations from various departments, but there were also some insightful department heads who remained silent and fully cooperated with Department X. This department also quickly completed an acquisition. They acquired an NK laboratory from Massachusetts and were constantly recruiting and poaching.

"When we encounter difficult technical problems, you help me find the best people in the world to solve this problem!"

This was Regina Dugan's request to Eliza, and the latter helped her very quickly. In the past six months, Leaf Technology has recruited more than a hundred professionals in various fields. They come from thirty different companies, six universities and five countries. It can be said that they are unrestrained and untraceable.

But just half a year later, they not only made a detailed plan for the entire project, but also formulated a set of standard specifications for modular mobile phones, which were formulated according to three standards: small size, medium size and large size, and the size was determined by the aluminum frame.

At present, the entire project team is actively engaged in relevant research, and will build a prototype in the shortest time and further improve this set of standards. At the same time, they have also applied for corresponding patent technologies.

Ye Qiu came to the Leaf Technology headquarters in Silicon Valley. In addition to inspecting and visiting various departments, he also focused on the X department. It not only subverted Leaf Technology in hardware, but also planned to attack in software. However, after all, it has only been half a year, and the effect cannot be seen for the time being.

However, from the overall point of view, Leaf Technology is indeed in awe of this mysterious department directly under the jurisdiction of Ye Qiu, Eliza Moon and Sheryl Sandberg. At the same time, there are also many unfavorable voices, such as believing that their modular mobile phone is impossible, at least no manufacturer is willing to provide such standardized hardware.

For such remarks, Ye Qiu can only laugh, after all, their pattern is too small.

As Ye Qiu, Eliza Moon, and Regina Dugan said during the conversation, if a modular mobile phone is really launched, it will not only revolutionize Leaf Technology, but also the entire mobile phone industry chain, from the highest end to the lowest end, even including retail terminals, it will be a thorough reshuffle and reorganization.

After the reorganization, the standards of the entire industry will be set by Leaf Technology!

Of course, the future model may be the same as the current PC computer, with both Lenovo, HP, Dell and other brands, as well as DIY manufacturers, and the two will compete and coexist, and consumers will take what they need and choose freely.

But the standards are unified!

…………

…………

As Leaf Technology grows in size, especially with more and more best-selling products, the nominal boss Ye Qiu has less and less to manage. Not only him, but also Eliza Moon is relaxed. She goes back to London almost every week to rest for a day or two, and then comes back.

After all, at their level, they are more focused on the strategic level, and there are people responsible for specific things.

After inspecting various departments, Ye Qiu, Eliza Moon, Shirley Sandberg, and a group of senior executives of the company held a meeting in the conference room. One of the focuses of this meeting was Leaf Technology's acquisition of Nokia!

"Nokia has basically agreed to the price we offered, and they have basically agreed. According to our acquisition plan, including Nokia's headquarters campus, mobile phone and equipment business, map business, patents and advanced technology research and development departments, we will form a professional team to go to Finland for investigation and negotiation. After each item is negotiated, we will sign the final contract."

You know, this is an acquisition that will shock the whole world, and it is also the largest acquisition case since the establishment of Leaf Technology. Once it is negotiated, according to the estimate of the financial department, the entire acquisition price is expected to exceed 15 billion US dollars.

Moreover, in the entire acquisition, agreements on patents, trademarks, mobile phone business, map business, etc. were covered. For example, Nokia required to continue to use Nokia trademarks and brands in its own network communication company, and they also had the right to use some patents, etc., all of which required repeated negotiations.

"Can it be negotiated before September?" Ye Qiu certainly knew that this could not be completed in a short period of time.

It is about to enter June, and there are still three months until September. It would be considered fast if it can be completed.

"It should be no problem!" Sandberg was very confident about this.

But everyone knows that after the acquisition is completed and the two parties sign, this is just the beginning, because it will face antitrust investigations from the European Union, the United States and even all over the world. Although Ye Technology has made sufficient preparations in this regard, and has taken a lot of lobbying and public relations, and has spent a lot of money, it is always a hidden danger.

There is something more important next, that is, business integration.

The map business is easy to say, and the problem with patents is not big, but the integration of the mobile phone business is more troublesome, which requires the cooperation of various departments, and it is also a time-consuming project. Even in the next year, whether Nokia can be fully understood is still a question.

"We all think that we should continue to maintain Nokia and Lumia and other mobile phone brands, and then reorganize the business. Nokia will go the low-end and mid-end route in the future, while our Zeus mobile phone will focus on the high-end. As for other Android system partners, we will promise to treat them equally, which is also our practice in the past."

Ye Qiu does not have much say in the company's entire product line and brand strategy. After all, Leaf Technology has professionals in this field, and they are basically top figures in this field. Therefore, how they deal with Nokia's business after the acquisition, Ye Qiu does not need to participate too much.

But anyone can clearly realize that once Leaf Technology completes the acquisition of Nokia, this company will completely become the patent leader in the high-tech field, and even in the field of patents related to mobile devices, it will far exceed RIM, because the latter's patents in the field of mobile devices are similar to Nokia, much higher than Motorola, Microsoft, and Qualcomm.

This brings us to the time when Ye Qiu purchased Nortel Networks' patents for $800 million. Looking back now, we can see that this was a deal that was so cheap that it was almost given away for free. Based on the five dollars that Ye Qiu paid for patent licensing to companies like HTC and Samsung, the company made a huge profit from it every year.

Even Intel, which provides chips for Leaf Technology's ultrabooks, needs to use Leaf Technology's patents in many key technologies of mobile devices, and Qualcomm also needs to pay part of the patent fees from Nortel Networks. Therefore, Leaf Technology is no longer just a mobile phone manufacturer and producer, but a truly leading mobile device company. If it had not been listed, its market value would be unknown.

However, as the saying goes, a big tree attracts the wind. As Leaf Technology grows in size, there are more attacks on Leaf Technology.

For example, many newspapers and media have disclosed that Leaf Technology looks more like a Chinese company because it uses American talents, equipment, and innovation capabilities to make money from Americans and the world, but helps China develop high-end industries such as semiconductors.

With the independent research and development and manufacturing of chips and many sensors for products such as Zeus mobile phones and tablets, Leaf Technology has become a world-renowned semiconductor company, and it has established the largest semiconductor factory and R\u0026D center in China, directly helping China's semiconductor technology to advance and improve rapidly.

However, Leaf Technology has always denied all kinds of accusations from the outside world, saying that everything is for profit considerations, and consciously guides many accusations, making people think that it is because Ye Qiu is Chinese that there is such prejudice, which is obviously different from the usual style of the United States.

Leaf Technology is also spending a lot of money to hire lobbying companies at the foot of Capitol Hill to carry out various government public relations and lobbying, at least to ensure that neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party will target Leaf Technology.

In fact, there is a saying that is right.

Troubles that can be solved with money are never troubles!