The Value Disciplines of Serial Innovators: Integrating Customer Intimacy, Operational Excellence, and Product Leadership

This work investigates the validity of the "Value Disciplines Framework", developed by Treacy and Wiersema in 1993. They define the three strategies of market leaders, namely: operational excellence, customer intimacy and product leadership (Treacy and Wiersema, 1993). In the light of recent market and technology related changes, that put in evidence the necessity for firms of being constant innovators (Bessant, Tidd, 2007) the present work aims to investigate whether this assumption is still valid, or whether it is now necessary to pursue simultaneously more Value Disciplines. We face also a second research about how radical innovators manage the integration of more value disciplines. Case study has been chosen as the main research methodology. Four cases in innovative companies leading their industries has been conducted, data were gathered from direct interviews and secondary sources. In order to increase the validity of findings, a panel of experts in the fields has been interviewed. Preliminary results suggest that radical innovators pursue different strategies, and they pursue simultaneously at least two Value Disciplines. To assure the alignment between the efforts in the different directions, a unifying logic that guides each decisions is applied in companies. This research aims to validate an existing framework in the light of market and environment changes. It shows empirically the emergence of “Master of Two Value Disciplines” and suggests how to integrate the different value disciplines.