Disruptive
innovation
Occasionally, a product or service resets expectations by changing the game. Think of the first microchips, cloud computing and using AI to design drugs. We hunt for companies that can harness such disruptive innovations and deliver long-term growth to you.
Shaping the future
Many of today’s biggest and fastest-growing companies got that way by forging new paths rather than incrementally improving things. That’s how Alphabet and Meta disrupted advertising, how Netflix and Spotify shook up entertainment, how Tesla and NIO changed the car industry and how Moderna and BioNTech’s mRNA vaccines tackled a global pandemic.
We believe many world-altering innovations still await, and we’re dedicated to seeking out companies that can provide enduring returns by pioneering the way. Discover how in the articles below.
Disruption Week videos
Explore our library of recordings from past Disruption Week webinars and read the transcripts.
A brief history...
What is disruptive innovation? Business school professor Clayton Christensen coined the term in 1995 to describe his theory of how new companies displaced incumbents by targeting less profitable parts of the market that the older, better-resourced companies had ignored. As an example, he gave Canon’s introduction of small low-cost tabletop photocopiers, which took market share from Xerox’s more fully featured and costly machines.
However, today the phrase is more widely used to refer to new products or processes that shake up the status quo. They do so by providing a much better experience, increasing access or offering superior pricing. Companies that develop such innovations or that succeed in taking advantage of them can gain a competitive advantage, either leapfrogging rivals or strengthening their own market position.
Investing in firms shaping the world of tomorrow
At Baillie Gifford, we don’t focus on the present. We focus on what the world could look like in 15 or 20 years. We consider how our needs and expectations are evolving and what they might look like in the future. We explore the industries in which disruption and innovation are creating change, and we dedicate ourselves to finding the companies that will gain advantage. Watch this animation to find out more.