Product Description

In the worldwide bestseller The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen exposed a crushing paradox behind the failure of many industry leaders. By doing what good companies were supposed to do-focus on pleasing their most profitable customers-leaders were paving the way for their own demise. How? By ignoring "disruptive technologies"-new, cheaper innovations that initially target small customer segments but evolve to displace the reigning product.

Now, Christensen and coauthor Michael E. Raynor cut the Gordian knot of the "innovator's dilemma" with The Innovator's Solution. This groundbreaking book reveals that innovation is not as unpredictable as most managers have come to believe. While the outcomes of past innovations seem random, the process by which innovations are packaged and shaped within companies is very predictable. By understanding and managing the forces that influence this process, companies can shape high-octane business plans that create truly disruptive growth.

Drawing on years of in-depth research and using new theories tested in hundreds of companies across many industries, the authors identify the processes that create successful innovations, and show managers how to tailor their strategies to the changing circumstances of a dynamic world.

Comprehensive yet practical, The Innovator's Solution is an actionable prescription for innovation-driven, profitable growth.

"A good business book makes managers stop and think. A great business book teaches managers how to stop and think. This is a great book. It is hard to imagine an executive team that would not benefit from devoting an entire day to discussing it."

-Geoffrey Moore, Chairman and Founder, TCG Advisors, and author, Crossing the Chasm and Living on the Fault Line

"In The Innovator's Solution, Christensen and Raynor address the holy grail of all organizations: how to generate growth and sustain it over long periods. Avoiding the temptation to provide simplistic formulas, they guide the reader through carefully constructed frameworks that teach how to think about the issues that limit-and provide-growth to organizations."

-Dr. Andrew S. Grove, Chairman of the Board, Intel

"Christensen and Raynor have done a superb job of creating a framework for helping to understand the industry dynamics and for planning your own growth alternatives."

-Pekka Ala-Pietilä, President, Nokia Corporation

"Singapore, as a small nation, needs to be innovative and sensitive to disruptive changes more than other countries. Christensen and Raynor have provided an excellent framework to reduce the randomness of the innovation process. This framework will help in our effort to nurture an environment conducive for enterprises to create and capitalize on disruptive innovations."

-Teo Ming Kian, Chairman, Singapore Economic Development Board

"The Innovator's Solution goes directly to the heart of why large companies have failed to sustain innovation. Christensen and Raynor have a deep insight into the challenges that innovative companies face, and they propose practical, realistic solutions to the dilemmas of innovation. This book will be extremely useful to all managers who are committed to using innovation to sustain their growth."

-Bill George, former Chairman and CEO, Medtronic, Inc.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141535 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Fast Company, September 2003
"...valuable tool for every aspiring upstart--whether you're inside a billion-dollar company or have a billion-dollar glimer in your eye."

Financial Times, October 3, 2003
"...nothing less than a handbook for managers who would rather disrupt than be disrupted."

New York Times, October 19, 2003
"…an absorbing new book…" "…a graceful tour of contemporary management thought."

Customer Reviews

In Praise of a Disruptive Innovation Theory
The Innovator's Solution builds on Professor Christensen's landmark book, The Innovator's Dilemma, and explains how managers can overcome the bias he described in the earlier book toward being blindsided by new entrants bringing disruptive technology and products to bear.

Let me attempt to give you an overview. The authors point out, based on the studies of others, that few large companies are able to grow faster than average. Worse still for managers, they point out that studies of those few which have grown faster are often contradictory in their findings. The authors go on to create a generalized theory of what needs to be done in every situation that a company may face in creating and responding to disruptive technologies and products.

Appreciating Figure 2-3 on page 44 is worth the price of the book alone. The authors have created a graphic to explain how markets develop in growth and competitive characteristics. No one who ever sees this graphic depiction will ever think about competitive and development strategies in the same way again.

Although the authors use examples from many different industries, the most detailed and compelling examples come from technology based companies and industries. I found the Sony examples particularly interesting for their repeated creation of new markets and business models.

The book beautifully elaborates on the thinking processes that companies use to lose competitive advantage . . . and should help many leaders counter these wrong-headed thoughts and instincts.

Why does the book have so much theory? As the authors candidly point out at the end, there are few models for what they are proposing. Only with experience can we tell how good this theory is. But it's worth understanding and considering.

Don't be put off by the authors' emphasis on theory. They are trying to help make you more practical . . . not more abstract. Think of their theory as being like an operating manual for a new product. You may get better results by having clear instructions rather than relying totally on trial and error.

I was extremely impressed by the gracious and thorough acknowledgments in the book of the thinking and research of others. Even when the authors point out the extreme weaknesses and limitations of a particular piece of work, they praise the positive aspects of that work in kind and thoughtful ways. I cannot remember the last time I read an academic book that took such a considerate approach.

The book's main weakness is that the authors seem to have missed the bulk of the examples of companies that have made continuing business model innovations in the last decade.

After you finish this book, I suggest that you think through how you can inexpensively create a better and more effective balance between creating the industries of the future and optimizing the businesses of today. Your stakeholders will thank you.

Finding Growth
Christensen and Raynor argue that growth is not only to be found in sustaining innovation strategies (i.e. incremental improvements made to existing products for a firm's current most profitable customers); but also through disruptive innovation strategies (i.e. seeking out ways of developing, often simpler products targeted at over-served customers, non-consumers, or both).

Christensen and Raynor stress that the challenges facing many CEOs today are managing the two types of innovation strategy simultaneously within the same firm; and being able to resist the forces such as resource allocation criterion that force companies to maintain sustaining innovation strategies in industries that may be displaying signs of imminent disruption.

This book is excellent if you wish to understand the forces that can drive or hinder a firm's growth with numerous real-life examples throughout the text.

iluminating the light bulb
This book is excellent, it enlightens you into the dark art of success in a very clear way. The well thought out but complex research that shows us the cause and effect of the many choices that face an Innovator, is well explained in a very accessable mannor - at the end of each chapter your left thinking, "of course" and think you are just going to cruise to the end of the book, but no, the next chapter challenges you to think about somthing new again and again. If your trying to commercialise a new innovation, then read this book, it will be the best thing you ever did.