The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business

Attention all future game-changers: If you’re looking to change the world, you can’t follow the world’s rules. This book gives you a blueprint for action. The Innovator’s Dilemma explains how excellent companies with excellent managers with excellent teams and excellent strategies can do everything right and still fail. The Innovator’s Dilemma also explains how innovators with “disruptive” technologies on the fringes of the mainstream cannot follow the same rules as existing firms. In driving toward market leadership, existing and disruptive firms must follow separate and distinct paths. Christensen shows that successful innovation is not unpredictable. This comes with the recognition, however, that “data only exist about the past” and hence what is working in the present for leading firms need not apply to disruptive firms of the future. This paradigm necessarily applies to all companies and is not exclusive to technological ones. The core value of this book is that it gives specific, actionable strategies on when listening to consumers is dead wrong, when “what has worked before” should be abandoned, and when cost-ineffective strategies should be pursued as opposed to more profitable ones. All of the author’s conclusions are supported by extensive research and thorough market analysis. Part I is called “Why Great Companies Fail” and its aim is self-explanatory. Part II, the larger chunk of the book, is called “Managing Disruptive Technology Change” and gives practical and real-life advice on how to adapt to innovation and changing market landscapes. The entire book is grounded in historical and contemporary examples so each point that the author makes is illustrated with a case study. Another benefit of this book is that it is repetitive and the author frequently pauses to recount what has already been said and where he is going. This makes reading isolated sections of the book very easy without having to rely on other parts for clarity. Also, although the book is aimed at those in the business world, it is extremely easy to read and understandable from a non-business perspective. Furthermore, in order to get the “main idea” one could just read the Preface and Chapter 11 (Summary) to extract the essential points of the text. In the end, The Innovator’s Dilemma is a business classic for a reason, and no entrepreneur, founder of a startup, innovator, businessperson—or anyone who thinks there is a better way to do things—should be without it.

We are all familiar with the story of the innovative and nimble startup surpassing the corporate leader with a disruptive technology that the larger corporation was blind to. Why this happens is the subject of Clayton Christensen's thoughtful Innovator's Dilemma. Although originally published in 1997, it's a highly relevant and useful read today. Christensen was interested in how the market leaders missed the disruptive innovations. At the time, most thought the corporate leaders were just too arrogant or too bureaucratic to see the disruption coming. Could there be more structural forces at play? Turns out, there are. The first half of the book follows the development of the disk drive and the hydraulic excavator to understand and make clear these forces. First, the author distinguishes between sustaining technologies and disruptive technologies. Market leaders, it turns out, are capable of innovation but those innovations typically occur as incremental evolutionary changes to existing products - sustaining innovations. Where they get tripped up is the development of disruptive technologies which fundamentally transform the existing product. In many cases the market leader also developed early forms of the disruptive technology or were at least aware of the development of the technology. Christensen, a professor at the Harvard Business School, makes the case that in ignoring the disruptive technology, the market leader was acting quite rationally. They were following their customers' and corporation's best interests. Christensen discovered that the disruptive technology yields a product that is inferior as measured by the traditional metrics for product quality. In the case of the disk drive it was price/unit storage. For the excavators, it was reach. For the disk drives, the disruption was the introduction of smaller and smaller drives. At each step of the way, these products were costlier than the existing larger drives in terms of price/unit storage. However, their advantages, in terms of other characteristics such as size, weight, and power consumption outweighed nominal improvement in the price/unit storage ratio provided by sustaining technologies. Eventually, price catches up and the disruptive products are better in both sets of characteristics. For the excavator (a big digger), the existing machines used cables to extend and control the basket. The overriding measure of performance was reach and capacity - how far out could the basket reach and grab a bucket of dirt. When hydraulic excavators appeared, their reach was very limited because of the physics of the hydraulic cylinders needed to control the baskets. Even today, a cable excavator will give you a longer reach. However, the hydraulic excavators had advantages of safety (no cable breaks) and had significantly lower maintenance costs. Eventually, as manufacturing of hydraulic excavators grew in practice, reach extended and for many uses such as building foundation excavation and utility pipe laying, as soon as the reach was sufficient for the task, the improvement in safety and the reduced maintenance costs made the hydraulic excavators superior. This book will change the way you think about innovation and the structures needed not only to spark the ideas, but get them built into new product lines.

Il libro offre spunti di riflessione veramente profondi sui meccanismi che ostacolano l'innovazione nelle grandi aziende. Assolutamente da non perdere.

Christensen est un génie et il suffit de lire l'introduction de ce livre pour s'en convaincre : c'est pertinent, brillant, surprenant, fluide et limpide. A chaque page, on se sent devenir un peu plus intelligent ! Le modèle de l'innovation disruptive qu'il a élaboré est un des plus intéressants qu'il m'ait été donné de découvrir, dans le domaine de la stratégie. On peut, à certains égards, le rapprocher du concept plus récent de "Stratégie Océan Bleu", même si les deux ne sont pas exactement identiques. Attention, ce n'est pas un bouquin sur les techniques d'innovation, mais un ouvrage de stratégie. L'introduction et la conclusion justifient à elles seules l'achat du livre. Le développement y est parfois un peu aride, mais les exemples sont souvent très intéressants.

Yes it is the classic. A bit too classic because it deduce from disk industry 20 years ago but this still gave me lots of insights.

Very interesting book. It is of highest interest for everyone working in the field of innovationmanagement. The Thesises in this book are not only helping by understanding often discussed phenomena but also by creating new strategic approaches towards innovation. I can highly recommend this book and i will also read other publications of the author!

Si siempre has querido saber porque han tenido exito los emprendedores que innovan necesitas este libro , y tambien si te gusta la direccion estrategica es muy recomendable . Coges muy buenas ideas para luego crear algo que sea una revolucion en el mercado .