Product Description

The author presents a compelling look at how innovation transforms industries, raising the fortunes of some firms while destroying others. The book draws on the rich history of innovation by inventors and entrepreneurs--ranging from the birth of typewriters to the emergence of personal computers, gas lamps to fluorescent lighting, George Eastman's amateur photography to electronic imaging--to develop a practical model for how innovation enters an industry, how mainstream firms typically respond, and how--over time--new and old players wrestle for dominance. Utterback asserts that existing organizations must consistently abandon past success and embrace innovation--even when it undermines their traditional strengths. He sets forth a strategy to do so, and identifies the responsibilities of managers to lead and focus that effort. Also available in hardcover; ISBN 0875843425, $32.50.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #314173 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Since 1984, Harvard Business School Press has been dedicated to publishing the most contemporary management thinking, written by authors and practitioners who are leading the way. Whether readers are seeking big-picture strategic thinking or tactical problem solving, advice in managing global corporations or for developing personal careers, HBS Press helps fuel the fire of innovative thought. HBS Press has earned a reputation as the springboard of thought for both established and emerging business leaders.

Customer Reviews

A compelling account of technology revolutions
This is a fascinating and chilling account of technological innovation. It belongs on the recommended list of technology managers and staff alike. Utterback marshals compelling case histories that provide the objective foundations for more popular accounts of technology formation such as Geoffrey Moore's CROSSING THE CHASM (1). We gain insight into why it's so crowded at the bottom. Reasons exist in abundance why firms that epresent established technology are the least likely to perceive the threat represented by radical innovation. It is a slight exaggeration to say Utterback makes current management sound like the last Czar of Russia praising the happiness of the serfs. Yes, perhaps the serfs were happy; but the Bolsheviks weren't. In short, the technological discontinuity is not going to come from established competitors. All the electric typewriter manufacturer's were "taken down" by the Word Processor. But how then to recognize the radical innovation? The key to Utterback's argument is the idea of a "dominant design" of a technology It forms the center of a network of system features, user habits, collateral assets such as brand image, market channel and customer switching costs. By definition, the dominant design wins the market. It is the pattern to which both competitors and incremental innovators must adhere to if they aim at significant following in the current market. It is what radical innovation over-throws. Many case histories are provided. Each of the chapters illuminates an aspect of the dynamics of innovation by drilling down into a specific example. Thomas Edison came late to the race to produce a commercial electric lamp. He succeeded through ingenuity and systematic thinking. From the start, he planned for scalability, aiming to deliver electricity through the very illuminating gas conduits that formed his major competitors' delivery system. He also laid down a network of patents as he worked; and legally pursued those who tried to steal his mechanisms. Utterback's other examples include the Qwerty typewriter key board (an example as powerful as it is elegant and simple), the BM-compatible PC, the Cray computer, the INTEL-based massively parallel computer, the ball-point pen, the float process of making plate glass, celluloid (Kodak) film, the incandescent light bulb, the INTEL x86 chip, and a dozen other engaging from the history of economics. A fascinating account of cutting natural ice from the Lakes of New England in the mid 1800s should have a sobering - I almost wrote chilling -- effect on the complacent technology manager. Here radical innovation means one thing: refrigeration. Paradoxically, the ice industry, which efficiently transported harvested ice as far away as India, was unable to envision refrigeration. Industry outsiders were the ones. Why? According to Utterback, industry insiders have a heavy investment, both technological and emotional, in the existing system of infrastructure, distribution, and production. "...From a practical point of view, their managerial attention is encumbered by the system they have - just maintaining and marginally improving their existing systems is a full-time occupation." They are ripe for the process which the economist Schumpeter described (2) as "creative destruction." (Utterback's book exemplifies how Schumpeter is reborn as the intellectual god-father among the Silicon Valley - ideas-as-economic-drivers -- mind set.) Thus, innovation shows up as a game of chutes and ladders. A new technology represents a ladder to get off the slope of incremental progress and jump to another level. The chute is the path by which managers dedicated to the customers of the about-to-be obsolete technology follow it into oblivion and obscurity. This is a grim prospect, and, according to Utterback's cases, one that occurs about 70% of the time. In the case of David and Goliath, history is on the side of the sling shot. How do the lucky few reinvent themselves? This possibility is appreciated by Utterback, who provides the examples of HP and Motorola. But the examples of what doesn't work are legion. Discounted cash flow will rarely (never) fund risky, radically innovative projects. Compromises like DEC's simultaneous pursuit of VAX and MIPS chips, with one foot on each side of the chasm, helps to explain how DEC ended up its bottom. Assigning the new technology initiative to the establishment department is like asking the Philistine Goliath to be little David's mentor. If a state-of-the-art lab is established, then you may end up with XEROX PARC, which invented modern computing without benefiting XEROX. Of course, you may end up with Edison's Menlo Park work shop or Bell Labs. So this approach - though risky - is a gamble with pay-off prospects. A diversified portfolio of R&D projects is part of the equation. But equally important are top management's commitment, patience, and persistence. The enterprise-wide nurturing of core competencies in marketing and distribution, as well as product design and implementation, are on the critical path to firm-wide renewal. Finally, reading Utterback's text itself would be useful step for technology managers in understanding how to cross, instead of ending up at the bottom of, the chasm of technological discontinuity and innovation. (1) Moore, Geoffrey. CROSSING THE CHASM. New York: Harper/Collins, 1995. (2) Schumpeter, Joseph. BUSINESS CYCLES. New York: McGraw Hill, 1939. --excerpt from my review in COMPUTING REVIEWS, November 1997