The Innovator's Dilemma

Rating:
Summary: Good companion for "Crossing the Chasm"
Review: Clayton Christensen breaks technology developments into two groups. "Sustaining" technology improvements are those which seem to be in line with the needs of the current customers. The "Disruptive" technology developments are those which don't immediately seem to meet the established customer's demands. The basic problem is that often the large companies get blindsided by disruptive technology, and they either don't react, or react too late. Normally someone will figure out a slightly new market for the disruptive technology, improve the basic process, drive down the costs, and then go after the more established markets.

Clayton shows how this model applies to a number of different industries over the last hundred years. He has a lot of hard data from the Disk Drive industry, but he mentions a number of other industries which underwent fundamental changes, and shows how the old companies were not able to adapt to the changes.

"The Innovator's Dilemma" and "Crossing the Chasm" go well together. They are addressing many of the same issues from different perspectives. Clayton Christensen is looking at changes in the market place from the point of view of the large established companies, while Geoffrey A. Moore is coming from the other direction, that of a small startup company with some new cool technology. Clayton is more concerned with technology, while Geoffrey is focused on more on marketing issues.

This is a very well written book, good for anyone in business. It reads well, and I found it very thought provoking. There are a lot of good ideas here.

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Summary: Rethink how you handle your current and future products
Review: What more can be said about this book that hasn't already? Even an individual contributing developer like myself in a non-management role benefits from it, as there are great examples of how new products move from niche to mainstream and upset their competitors. After reading it, you should understand why it's so dangerous to keep your head down and *only* listen to your current and up-market growth customers.

The only downside to the book is the lack of practical advice on how to avoid being out-innovated, and Christensen's follow-on book, _The Innovator's Solution_, nicely addresses even that.

Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: Well written. Extensive examples illustrated using the harddisk drive industry. Focus, start small, think big - this is what I got out from the book. I will certainly read this again and again.

Rating:
Summary: a great book for managers
Review: Today, traditional, well-known and well-respected companies are faced with a marketplace that is suffering from the impact of geopolitical issues of war and terrorism, regional and worldwide economic difficulties, and the extended global reach of formerly regional players. If that were not enough to keep a manager up at night, many are also facing disruptions from rapidly changing technologies. In his book entitled, The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen tackles the concept of disruptive technologies - what they are, how they are nurtured, and how they have the potential to turn previously successful companies into the roadkill of capitalism. This book is well written and insightful, bringing the concepts to life with a variety of real-life examples. I highly recommend this book for business executives, both those who are living the experience today and those who think they are immune. For me, it is on to the just published sequel, The Innovator's Solution.

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Summary: Management Thinking at its best
Review: When it comes to pathbreaking management thoughts, I refer to this book as the best I have read in the last few years. We see change around us all the time, but never accept it. This book shows why we neglect change and what are its implications.
A must read for all budding entrepreneurs, leaders, managers, students...

Rating:
Summary: Incumbents are sitting ducks
Review: This is one of the most insightful books on business that I have ever read. It explains a very important concept - how radically new (disruptive) technologies can dislodge existing well-established (sustaining) technologies and in the process beat market leaders at their own game. First a brief explanation of the nature of disruptive technologies and how different they are from sustaining technologies. Then comes the inability of established firms to pursue these technologies due to "resource dependence". Excellent managers fail miserably when confronted by these disruptive forces. The conventional processes of being extremely customer focussed, profit driven and rational decision making for technology selection are the soft spots that eventually lead to the demise of these firms when attacked by disruptive products.

Disruptive technologies initially offer products that perform slightly lower on a given parameter but are typically smaller, have lower unit costs and more convenient to use. Mainstream users initially reject these products due to lower performance. Hence disruptive products soon find small niches for themselves in totally new markets (value networks) where they are appropriate for use. Due to this adoption and growth in volumes in these segments the technology trajectory begins to move upwards intersecting and invading the territory of the conventional market from below. Incumbents ignore the threat even at this stage and before they realize their folly, they are soon filing for Chapter 11.

Large companies ignore small markets (markets for disruptive technologies are initially small) and look for growth in established markets (markets for disruptive technologies are not initially known at all). Executives of large companies are reluctant to take on challenges in small and unknown terrain since they are always trained to "think big".

The hypothesis is explained very clearly using the disk drive industry (I would like to use the term " high clock speed" industry) and extended to industries as diverse as steel, escavators, retail and pharmaceuticals.

The case study on automobile industry is frightening for those serving the sustaining gasoline segment. Yesterday evening I was struggling through the chaotic New Year eve traffic at 6: 30 PM in Bangalore, India to reach home early in my 1.3 liter mid segment petrol engine car. While I was virtually trapped in the chaos, I observed a cute small battery powered car navigate effortlessly through the gaps and finally was far ahead of the crowd. What next?. I decided to revisit this book.

Highly recommended for managers in all industries.

Rating:
Summary: Why Do Good Companies Fail?
Review: You see every week in the IT Industry, companies that were once industry darlings announcing major problems just a year or two after they were at the pinnacle of success. In this book, Clayon Christensen explains why seemingly good companies fail to embrace disruptive technologies. This book is exhaustively researched, and highlights many once successful high tech companies that failed to adapt to new trends and markets. An interesting read for anyone who seeks to prevent this from happening to their company or small business.

Rating:
Summary: Raw insight, but starting to age
Review: This is a book that packs academic research around a key insight driving disruptive change. The authors cite ample research in the hard disk and other industries to track why most companies fail to anticipate the key changes in their markets.

The very counterintuitive insight presented is that market leaders get trapped into listening to their current customers too much. Current customers relatively satisfied with current products tend not to drive price/performance leaps. The distruptions come from new companies that target ways of reaching low end customers that are considered too small for major players. When the low end technology reaches a certain maturity, it winds up capturing the entire market. Seems simple, but very few companies anticipate this. The book walks through the research supporting this, as well as suggestions for how companies can cope.

The one knock... The business climate is changing from a "Let's topple the market" to "Let's refine our business". In the short term, we'll see less market making moves, and that will diminish the relevance of this book. If the idea sticks to the next upwards trend, then Christiansen will have his place among the great gurus.

Do read the book. I wish there was a 4.5 star rating to give. You make the call.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent examples, actionable recommendations
Review: I actually read this a year or two ago, and I have found myself regularly referring to lessons presented in Clayton's excellent book, without having to reference or photocopy anything.

Of particular value was the examples used to illustrate the book's core points. Examples were great because I have been able to easily recall them when explaining why the path I recommend is probably the right one, in a way that never fails to impress the point upon the listening audience.

Case in point: the book uses the hard drive industry a great deal as an example of how companies easily overlook the potential of what the author calls "disruptive technologies."

In this case, technology advancements enabled hard drives to get smaller, and the sales/marketing forces within the respective manufacturers' repeatedly failed to see the use or value in a product that begins as simpler, cheaper, and easier to use.

You can almost hear the objections: "Our drives have X storage space. No one is going to buy one with half the storage capacity, even if it is smaller and cheaper." No one gets excited about small sales when they are facing big ones with their current product line.

So the technology's strategic value is overlooked, and the innovation ends up being capitalized upon by smaller competitors who can plant and grow an emerging market because they get excited about smaller volume sales. They have the energy and drive to find markets that don't necessarily need the rich feature set associated with the current product.

Inevitably, of course, these smaller sales dwarf the originating technology and its associated marketing and sales efforts, by cannibalizing the market and becoming the mainstream product.

Clayton's book outlines excellent strategies for companies seeking to capitalize upon disruptive technologies developed within their walls. They make sense, and are easy to grasp.

In all, one of the better books I've read, in terms of short and long term impact to my ability to present solution. Well worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: A must read for any big company
Review: Clayton Christensen finds an answer that many people have been looking for. Why is it that big companies always seem to miss the wave for the next big thing in their business? Why did IBM miss the minicomputer invasion? Why did DEC miss the PC wave? His answer seems simple but yet rings true. The correct way for companies to handle sustaining technologies will cause them to fail when they meet what he calls disruptive technologies. The right way to conduct business will cause them to miss the wave. The author gives many empirical examples to justify his theory and then gives ideas for how to avoid the trap. He also gives examples of companies who followed his advice and survived.
The only question I was left with was how to determine if a new technology is disruptive or worthless? Christensen describes how to behave once you have identified a disruptive technology but not how to identify it. Still, this book is a must read for anyone who works at a big company.