NASA pressure-relieving foam technology is keeping the leading innerspring mattress firms awake at night

The over $6 billion US wholesale mattress market is driven mostly by metal innerspring technology originally innovated by blacksmiths in the 1800s. New bedding market entrant Tempur-Pedic continues to enjoy phenomenal growth and the industry's best profit margins founded on viscoelastic foam technology innovated by NASA. Visco mattress innovations are clearly disrupting the mattress industry as evidenced by several management, market, and financial metrics. However, visco mattress innovations cannot be classified as a disruptive innovation (DI) because the popularized term as commonly accepted and practiced requires that a DI cannot be used by mainstream users. Visco mattress innovations can be used by mainstream mattress users. Technology management researchers and practitioners may miss significant opportunities by rejecting potential innovations that would disrupt incumbent competitors and markets because they do not fit their current conceptual requirements for DIs such as that they cannot be used by mainstream users. Therefore, for this essay, a visco mattress innovation is characterized as a radical-disruptive innovation (RDI) with most characteristics of both radical and disruptive innovations in that it: (1) uniquely delivers new customer-demanded benefits useful even to mainstream users, (2) requires new organizational core competencies relative to the incumbent firms, and (3) disrupts the business models and markets of incumbent firms. This essay explores some of the management/organizational behaviors and market dynamics associated with the continuing disruption of the mattress industry by visco foam mattress RDIs. In addition, this essay briefly explores the managerial and financial constraints that LBO owners place on their firms that: help to allow a new firm with an RDI to enter the incumbent market and successfully compete, as well as mitigate the success of the new market entrant, both as the result of low organizational/financial slack. In conclusion, it is expected that Tempur-Pedic will continue to outperform innerspring incumbents by executing their current successful business model based on viscoelastic foam RDIs, albeit at slower rates. Also, it is expected that visco foam RDIs will become ubiquitous in the bedding and other industries, particularly in the high margin healthcare and sports industries, which is beneficial to all.