Is “disruption” a threat or an opportunity? What can we learn from the disruption in the Contact lenses industry?

“Disruptive innovation” was first defined and analyzed by Professor Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School in 1995. It has been called “the most influential business idea of the early 21st century”. I read and studied the theory of disruption during my MBA at Marylhurst University in 2011, and later during my Doctorate, I had the chance to be among the first cohort of the “Disruptive Strategy” course that Harvard Business School provided online. That was in 2015, and I had plenty of time between 2011 and 2015 to think about disruption in the optical business and come out with insights about its threats and opportunities.
Disruption is certainly a threat for those who don’t know how it works. However, it is an opportunity for those who understand the theory. A theory is a statement of causality that shows us what causes what to happen and why. The theory of disruption shows us what causes great companies to stumble and die. Disruption appears to come at the bottom of the market with a product more simple than the product of the incumbent and forces the incumbent to go upmarket creating and developing better products that they can serve to better customers at better prices and higher profit margin. While the incumbent is going upmarket the disruptor fills the lower tier of the market and with a completely different profit formula and a completely different business model the disruptor manages to grow six times faster to kill the incumbent only if he can find a new market that the incumbent was not serving. And in this case, Professor Clay called it non-consumption or new market. And later when he developed the “jobs to be done theory” he explained that untapped markets have jobs to be done that rise at any moment and those who understand those jobs and are organized around the job to be done are the ones to get hired.
In the contact lenses industry disruption occurred with the development of disposable contact lenses and daily disposables. And as Professor Clay was used to saying, “you may hate gravity by gravity doesn’t care”, especially when the nature of the product -contact lenses- which used to be interdependent from the skills of the optometrist has become modular.
According to the Modularity theory also known as the Theory of Interdependence and Modularity, a product (contact lens vision) is interdependent when the making and delivering of one part (contact lenses) of the product depends on the way other parts are made and delivered (fitting and assessment tests). A product is modular (contact lens vision) when more and more elements in the design of its parts become predictable and standardized (disposable contact lenses). Profitability in the interdependence phase depends on the number of steps that can be integrated into the making of the product whereas profitability when the product becomes modular depends on the speed of the distribution channel to get the product to the market.
When the nature of contact lenses changed it became obvious that disruption will occur. It started with online platforms selling disposable contact lenses. And the incumbent’s first reaction was to go upmarket focusing on complex cases. Recently those platforms started doing online refraction and eye test as well.
On March 15, 2018, I was at Vision Expo East in New York and I attended “The global contact lens forum”. I remember panelist Doctor Clarke Newman saying “be an expert at what you do” and “fully understand what it is you do and understand the disruptors”. And the discussion continued to CPT codes associated with the technologies added to the practice of contact lenses. The emphasis was on the role the optometrist has as a primary eye care practitioner who can deliberately provide a better service but also who can adapt and respond to the emergent needs and jobs to be done in the market like no other provider.
On October 17, 2018, I came across an interesting article by Dr. Antonio Chirumbolo at eyesoneyecare.com; in a video interview with Dr. Matt Geller, recently graduate Dr. Fayiz Mahgoub gives remarkably interesting thoughts on “entrepreneurship”. The interview got my attention and it wasn’t until exactly a year later on October 17, 2019, when I was flying from Alabama to Chicago that I listened to his podcast “Disruption in Eyecare with Dr. Jeffrey Sonsino and Mr. Andy Barrow” and I saw how the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.
I invite everyone to listen to the podcast today because it was and still is a hot topic. And the way Dr. Mahgoub and his guests frame the problem reveals the solution. As I always said if we frame the problem as a lack of innovation and entrepreneurship the solution is expected to be found in innovation and entrepreneurship and not from regulations or other ways. Andy Barrow’s value proposition of a new contact lens is based around the job to be done that rises by the Optometrist and the contact lens wearer who wants his contact lenses delivered at ten in the evening. When all other ways are failing innovation is helping both the Optometrist and the Patient get their job done.