Paper Example on OLED Technology

Studies have shown that most leading companies in their respective sectors often fail to sustain their top ranking when there is a change in the market or technology. One of the overarching question about the leading companies is their willingness to invest in technologies that put them at the top but fail to invest in technologies that the future customers may demand. According to Bower and Christensen (1995, p.43), some of the top contributing factors are bureaucracy, tired executive blood, arrogance, short-term investment plans, and poor planning. When managers fail to invest in technologies that meet the needs of their future customers, their rivals or start-ups may develop the technology (Bower and Christensen, 1995, p.44). Such a technology can distort the market and force out a leading company. This paper is going to cover aspects of a disruptive technology in the market. Specifically, it will focus on OLED in the digital display industry especially the use of OLED in smartphones and TVs. The first part will be a discussion of the concept of disruptive technological innovation which include three major components: definition of disruptive technology, characteristics, and its influence in the market. This will be followed by a discussion of disruptive technologies in the digital industry which include OLED. A discussion of how OLED can be a disruptive technology is also present. Further, the limitations of the OLED technology and how to overcome them will be presented. Finally, a conclusion summarizing the main points of the paper given.

Main Body (606 words)

The Concept of Disruptive Technological Innovation

Many leading companies that have failed to invest in the technologies that meet the future needs of their customers have been forced out of the market by disruptive technologies. Since the word disruptive technology was first used, it has been defined severally by different authors. Disruptive technologies often come with a new package of characteristics that are quite different from the ones the customers have valued for long, and they have one or two weakness that turn off such customers (Bower and Christensen, 1995, p.45). However, Bower and Christensen pointed out that despite their initial underperformance as compared with the established technologies, they will eventually push out of the market established technologies. From their explanation, it is evident that disruptive technology leads to the disruption of the marketplace. According to Nagy, Schuessler, and Dubinsky (2016, p.122), disruptive technology is a technology that alters the performance characteristics or customers expectations by introducing completely new functionality, new type of ownership, or new technical standards. While developing his definition of disruptive technology from previous definitions, Danneels (2004, p.249) argued that it is a technology that changes the game of competition in the market by alteration of the performance attributes which the firms often focus in their rivalry. Often, customers chose disruptive technology due to one or two features that greatly influence customers choice.

Disruptive technology has certain attributes. Initially, the current market could exhibit a low sensitivity to the disruptive innovations. While in its primary stage, disruptive technology often develop rapidly but with low quality, and highly priced. According to Danneels (2004 p.247), disruptive technology often fail to satisfy what the customers perceive as the minimum requirement in one of the performance metric which they value. Their introduction in the market, therefore, is seen by the incumbents as an inappropriate way of satisfying the customers. Disruptive technology has been largely associated with start-ups. Disruptive technologies are often found to be more reliable, cheaper, convenient, and simpler (Danneels, 2004, p.249). While these characteristics are typical, they need not be always associated with disruptive technology. Disruptive technologies usually focus on a low-margin and small segment of the market but consistently moves up the market, and finally, drive out of the market established competitors. According to Christensen (2018), attributes of disruptive businesses in their initial phases include smaller target markets, lower gross margins, and simpler services and products that may not look as appealing as the current solutions.

Disruptive technology have a strong influence on the market. At first, it distort the existing market that is followed by a change in the market landscape. Eventually, the socio-emotional system would gradually evolve aided by disruptive innovation technology. The impacts of the disruptive technology can be so devastating that it drives out the incumbents out of the business altogether (2013, p.9). Christensen and Overdorf (2000, p.67) suggested that managers who wish to deal with the challenges of disruptive technologies need to understand where the organizations capacities reside: resources, processes, and values. Since disruptive technologies are the same, Markides (2006, p.24) proposed that emerging, business-model, and technological innovations should treated distinctively since all produce different markets that demand different managerial approaches. The disruptive technology can distort the market in two ways. According to Christensen, Raynor, and McDonald, (2015, p.5), disruptive technology may start by appealing the low-end segment of the industry and advance to serve the high-end or it might start by targeting the high-end segment of the market and gradually expand to serve the low-end. Habtay and Holmen (2014, p.289) pointed out that disruptive technology causes the incumbents to respond to their threat by taking actions such as entrepreneurial orientation, acquisitions, and structural differentiation.

Disruptive Technological Innovation in the Digital Display Industry (1208 words)

Many electronics such as TVs, phones, calculators, notebooks computers, dashboards, and so forth depend on a certain type of display technology. However, previously, there were other technologies that were used for display but became obsolete when LCD was introduced in the market. Before the era of LCD, cathode ray tubes (CRT) were the most popular display units (Chiu et al., 146). However, this was gradually replaced by liquid crystal display (LCD). LCD has been popularly used in the TV and the phone industry. Unlike the CRT technology, LCD allows images to be displayed on a much thinner flat panel. Since they work on the principle of blocking rather than emitting light, LCDs have been found to consume less power (TechTarget, 2018)Due to its ability to block light, LCD has been found to consume less power (Bloom, 1997).

LCDs is used by many manufacturers in the display segment of the market although it faces stiff competition in a few niche areas. The early LCDs had many disadvantages such as poor contrast ration and high power consumption. However, the limitations were overcome and by the year 2001, it became a popular display unit with a market value reaching $20 billion (Mentley, 2002, p.456). Currently, LCD technology accounts for the largest share of the display market (Fernandez, Casanova, and Alonso, 20115, p.10858).

OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode. LED has been regarded as a breakthrough technology in the display industry. Consequently, the technology is anticipated to lead to increased profitability in the display market (Khazanchi et al., 2012, p.75). OLED is a LED film with emissive electroluminescent properties implying that it is current driven (Laaperi, 2009, p.792). The film is an organic compound that emit light upon passage of an electric current. There are two categories of OLEDs. While some are made from polymers, others are made from small molecules. An addition of ions to the OLED results in the creation of light-emitting electrochemical cell, that exhibit a slight different method of working. While OLED displays can employ either active-matrix (AMOLED) or passive-matrix (PMOLED) addressing schemes (Fernandez, Casanova, and Alonso, 20115, p.10862). Unlike LED-based screens, LCD require a backlight (Luo, Chen, and Wu, 2013, p.2629). OLED display systems, however, do not require a backlight, and therefore, they can be designed to be not only lighter but also thinner than LCDs. In a situation that is characterized by low light, OLED display screens have been proven to exhibit a higher contrast ratio as compared with LCDs.

The definition and characteristics of a disruptive technology has been described by various authors which include Christensen (2018), Nagy, Schuessler, and Dubinsky (2016, p.122), Danneels (2004, p.249), Bower and Christensen (1995, p.43), and so forth. Determining whether OLED is a disruptive technology, therefore, can be done by comparing the attributes of the two technologies. LCDs is a fairly old technology as compared with OLED, and it has witnessed rapid improvements that has made it a technology of choice among many consumers. Therefore, LCD have dominated the market for a long time. Since LCD was an improvement from the traditional CRT technology, many people are very unlikely to switch to a new technology that is different from the one they have become used to for a long time. From their wide applications in TVs, calculators, watches, computers, mobile phones, and so forth, the technology has become popular among consumers. However, OLED has been found by many manufacturers to be a new technology that is an ideal candidate for replacing the popular LCD. The manufacturers argue that OLED has superior properties as compared with LCD.

Unlike LCDs, OLED produce their own light, and therefore they do not need backlight which is a common feature in LCDs. Since a lot of power consumed by LCDs is associated with backlight, OLED have been found to consume less power since they produce own light. Since OLED do not need backlight, it suggests that their design can be made to be slightly thinner than LCDs. Investigations have revealed that OLEDs display warmer images with a higher contrast ratio implying that their image quality is superior to that of LCDs. There is also the advantage associated with the manufacturing process. OLEDs cost of manufacturing has been found to be lower than that of LCD since the screens used in LCD are manufactured from expensive transistors. However, OLEDs can be produced by applying to a substrate that has been conditioned to accept organic compounds implanted on them using a printing method that is similar to that of an inkjet printer. Therefore, mass production of OLEDs is more viable as compared with LCDs. OLED is a recent technology that is likely to become popular among consumers and manufactures true to its many advantages. OLED are advantageous due to their faster response time, energy efficiency, large viewing angle, high flexibility, durability, slimness, low cost, and eye-friendly (Khazanchi et al., 2012, p.81). All these advantages suggest that OLED is likely to become a disruptive technology.

OLED has found wider application in the telecommunication sector especially in the mobile phones. While LCD has dominated the mobile phone displays for long, the application of OLED is likely to increase in future and is going to disrupt the market due to the features that many customers will find attractive as compared with LCD. For example, the technology has a faster response time as compared with any other technology. When it comes to phone use, people would value higher response times since screen displays results in better user experience. Nobody like a phone that depletes energy faster. Therefore, the low power consumption of the technology would mean consu...