In the 1980’s, Nigeria’s universities were known for their leading research in agriculture and tropical health, but as demand for greater access forced the system to expand faster than it was capable, the quality of education offered took a sharp decline. 

Senior researcher Efosa Ojomo joins this episode of the Disruptive Voice to discuss the opportunity for innovation in Nigeria’s higher education system; looks to Taiwan (Formosa Plastics/Ming Chi University), Korea (POSCO/POSTECH), and Vietnam for inspiration; and highlights the work of entrepreneur Gossy Ukanwoke with Beni American University.

Theories mentioned in this episode: Jobs-to-be-done, disruption theory (nonconsumption), RPP’s (resources, processes, and priorities)

04 | Higher education in Nigeria today — for the lucky few, often only with marginal upside

"What is one man's trash is another man's treasure." 
In 1988, Nigeria was under military rule and an incredibly poor country by almost every measure -- GDP, access to clean water, and life expectancy to name just a few. Haresh Aswani of Indonesian conglomerate Tolaram was undeterred, however, and in the "trash," saw an opportunity to build what has become by all measures an incredibly successful business that today manufactures and distributes instant noodles that sell for $0.17 USD a package. 
In this podcast, Tolaram Africa CEO Deepak Singhal talks about the challenges and opportunities of entering what may look to many like an uncertain market.

05 | Instant noodles in Nigeria: a market creating innovation with Toloram Africa CEO

In post-independence India in the 1950’s, the paint industry was close to non-existent; at the low end, localized regional players provided whitewash for walls while the elite imported paint from Britain such as Goodlass Walls and British Paints. Asian Paints entered the market as an economy brand, creating a market for paints in semi-urban India and built a formidable distribution network. Today, Asian Paints owns nearly twice the market share of their next biggest competitor.

In this podcast, two students of the BSSE course, Aishwarya Ramakrishnan and Neha Rambhia, talk about how Asian Paints was able to grow and sustain their success, and what theory would predict about the company’s ambitious plans to move into the whole home décor industry — watch out, Home Depot!

06 | BSSE Research Paper: Asian Paints - Aishwarya Ramakrishnan, Neha Rambhia (MBA 2016)

Nigerian law mandates that students must attend school for nine years, but almost one out of every three primary age children is out of school, and roughly one out of four junior secondary age children is out of school. The reasons for this range widely — from economic reasons (though education is free, books/uniforms are not; families often need child labor) to supply issues (schools are prohibitively far; often inadequately staffed) — but the effect is the same: in the language of disruption theory, over 10M primary and secondary students are left as nonconsumers of education. 
Michael Horn, education expert and long-time collaborator with Clay Christensen joins Efosa Ojomo and I in this episode to frame this mass nonconsumption of education as an opportunity to innovate a legacy, educational system to better serve the needs of all Nigerians in today’s day and age.

07 | Rethinking primary and secondary education in Nigeria with Michael Horn

Square has been called the operating system for small businesses. Launched at the end 2009 to bring payment processing to small businesses previously unserved by the incumbents, five years into its journey, Square began to offer ancillary services via Square Capital to offer loans to these 2M small businesses, using their proprietary data both to gauge the quality of the loan as well as guarantee their repayment.

Professor Derek van Bever is joined by second year HBS students Caroline Anastasi and Lyndsey Billings to talk about what theory would suggest about Square's latest move, and how the theories of BSSE (Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise) gave them a new perspective on how this company grew to be a unicorn, and what they are doing to sustain their early success.

08 | BSSE Research Paper: Square Capital -  Caroline Anastasi, Lyndsey Billings (MBA 2016)

Moringa is recognized as a miracle tree across the tropics worldwide for its nutritional, healing, and economic value, but farmers in Ghana lacked the processing capability to capitalize on this treasure. Enter MoringaConnect: co-founders Emily Cunningham and Kwami Williams have come together to build a portfolio of companies designed to help smallholder farmers realize their full potential. Minga Foods turns superfood moringa into tea or a powder supplement. True Moringa harnesses the natural oils in moringa seeds to create superior cosmetic products.
In this episode, Cunningham and Williams talk about how they are unknowingly using the theories of disruptive innovation to build a company that we hope and believe will help smallholder farmers across Williams’ native Ghana rise out of poverty. Theories mentioned in this episode: interdependence and modularity, good money/bad money, RPPs


09 | On launching MoringaConnect with co-founders Emily Cunningham and Kwami Williams

The value of and necessity for an organization to innovate its business model is rarely disputed in discussions of how to best survive in today’s rapidly changing economy, yet in an odd paradox, there is no standard definition in management thinking of what a business model is (or—as our research has taught us is equally if not more important—isn’t). In this episode of the Disruptive Voice, senior researcher Tom Bartman shares with us a number of insights that can be gained about an organization and its potential to successfully innovate its business model by applying Professor Christensen’s framework to the organization’s assets and activities.

11 | Business Model Innovation with Tom Bartman

Founded in 1988, BlackRock (BLK) has grown from being a provider of fixed income investment products into the preeminent global asset manager that it is today. Unlike its major competitors, BlackRock insisted on being an integrated platform and employed an acquisition strategy that we would call LBM (leverage my business model) to become a leading one-stop-shop for investment products. It would seem only natural, then, that BlackRock would likely employ a similar LBM-type integration in its recent acquisition of robo-advisory firm FutureAdvisor, but as 2016 MBA graduates Greg Duggan and Ravi Umarji studied this transaction through the lens of the theories of our course, BSSE, they came up with a different recommendation for the management team.

12 | BlackRock: Gregory Duggan and Ravi Umarji (MBA 2016) - BSSE research paper

The Disruptive Voice explores the theories of disruptive innovation across a broad set of industries and circumstances with academics, researchers, and practitioners who have been inspired and taught by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen, the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration and one of the world’s top experts on growth and innovation. 
For more information, email fgi [at] hbs [dot] edu.
BSSE = Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise, Professor Clayton M. Christensen's signature course at the Harvard Business School and a breeding ground for many of the ideas shared in this podcast.
New episodes are typically released on Tuesdays on SoundCloud and iTunes.

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