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Title: The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen ISBN: 0-06-052199-6 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (124 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Value Network Tool for forward thinking Market Leaders
Comment: The Innovator's Dilemma is one book in a series of many which needs to be taken in its intentional perspective to present one aspect of a delicate balancing act to effectively utilize resources and achieve a "reasonable" consistency between change and tradition. I SEE THIS BOOK AS ONE APPROACH OF SEVERAL TO COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES FOR MARKET OWNERSHIP.
The Innovator's Dilemma is founded on the premise that a Market Leader has developed preferred/reliable technology for a predefined market place, has taken a "customer-first" attitude, is using and implementing good, or better, management practices, and has a plan to facilitate growth of resources, technology and processes. The competitive nature of most leaders is to disrupt the control of complacent elements to improve their own position. When the Market Leader narrowly focuses financial return to microscopic time windows the value of investing in disruptive technologies is lost, and market dominance begins to deteriorate.
Typical corporate managers want to move up not down, and in the market cycle this leaves a vacuum for disruptive technologies. However, leaders are in many places, and it is all about balancing resource with opprtunity. The problem occurs when Market Leaders misread the size of the opportunity and fail to adjust the necessary resources.
Christensen has a wonderful way of presenting a "survival" package; but, real leaders do not seem to perceive disruptive technologies as survival. They see them as what they are, rare moments of great opportunity to gain advantages to obtain control from those who failed to calculate the true size of the opportunity. Like looking for a lost treasure, the arrival of a true leader on the scene of opportunity spells disaster for complacency and tradition. The HUNGRY are looking for the fat man's lunch. As I understand the elements presented in this book, I can see clearly several disruptive technologies: e-business disrupting the distribution channel of goods and services; wireless communications disrupting the market of electronic packaging (I.e., backplanes, hardwired networks, fiber optics, etc.); network independent protocols (I.e, IEEE 1451) disrupting automation and communication network-based markets; build-to-order integrated enterprise systems disrupting mass produced, full valued generic products; and more. Missing from this book, in my opinion, was a discussion on high volume niche markets to materialize competitive technologies that can be expanded by sustainable technologies into the general market place and displace the Market Leader. .
Rating: 4
Summary: What is the Innovator's Dilemma?
Comment: In The Innovator's dilemma, Clayton Christensen describes the dynamics by which some of the largest, most successful companies in America fail due to "good" management. In his analysis, firms that dedicate themselves to listening to and serving their customers the best, place themselves most at risk for future failures as they are overtaken by smaller upstart competitors with innovative technologies.
The Innovator's Dilemma makes a compelling argument based on the author's study of the computer disk drive industry. Disk drive manufacturing was chosen for its frequent turnover of technology and competitors in a relatively short timespan.
Cristensen places technological innovations in two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining innovations are those that help sustain an organization's existing customer base by improving the performance, capacity, reliability, or value of an existing product technology. Disruptive innovations produce products that are technologically inferior from the perspective of a firm's existing customer base. Disruptive products, however, may include improvements that, while unimportant to the existing market, hold potential for new and emerging markets. Christensen uses the example of the introduction of small 50cc Honda motorcycles in the late 1950's. From the perspective of the existing motorcycle market at the time, the Honda was inferior compared to larger, more powerful motorcycles such as Harley Davidson and BMW. Honda found a niche, however, as a dirt bike - an emerging market that had not been explored by other manufacturers but was ideally suited for a small, inexpensive motorcycle.
Once a market is established for a disruptive technology, it can then evolve into the mainstream and become technologically improved to the point of competing with and eventually overtaking existing mainstream technologies. In the case of Honda, once a market was established, small motorcycles were technologically improved to the point of appealing to a mass market rather than just dirt bike enthusiasts.
Organizations overlook disruptive technologies for a variety of reasons. Often, larger organizations listen to their existing customers and what is important to them, overlooking small, emerging markets. The innovator's dilemma is that at the time disruptive technologies are introduced, mainstream companies are often wildly successful marketing their sustaining technology to existing customers. Investing in disruptive technology necessitates a diversion of resources away from the organization's most profitable activities that its customers are asking for, toward an unproven technology with a small, uncertain market. Disruptive technologies are often not as cost effective to manufacture or sell when they are viewed from the perspective of existing markets. Small 3.5 inch disk drives, for example, initially cost more per megabyte of capacity compared to larger 5.25 inch drives while, and they had less overall capacity Although they were not attractive to desktop computer manufactures, they represented a cost effective solution to the needs of the emerging mobile computer market where size was more important than large capacity.
Citing examples from a number of industries, Christensen makes the point that traditional business planning works well for established markets and sustaining technologies. In the case of disruptive technologies, however, he argues that strategy should be based on discovery of new opportunities and that individuals working on the development and marketing of disruptive technologies should be organizationally separate.
Overall, the Innovator's Dilemma is a concise, well written book in which the author is able to effectively convey a technically complex study on a technically complex industry. Overall, the Innovator's Dilemma should be required reading for anyone in an business planning role.
Rating: 4
Summary: Driven by disks
Comment: Clay Christensen combines the science of empirical research with the art of organizational behavior in his best-selling "The Innovator's Dilemma." The book provides tangible advice on how to foster innovation within a corporate environment. His case studies draw from the successes and failures of American companies within numerous industries (disk drives, excavators, motorcycles, software). Christensen's strong points include a creative presentation of data, lucid writing and frank admission that the advice in his book is not a one-size-fits-all panacea for management challenges. But a heads-up to readers: perhaps 50% of the book centers on the disk-drive manufacturing industry. Although the lessons learned in hard drives are interesting, a more balanced approach would have been welcome. "The Innovators Dilemma" is a well written management how-to, in the same league as classics by Peters or Hammer. The book seems to be written for managers in large organizations, but entrepreneurs will probably find the material just as beneficial.
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Title: The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor ISBN: 1578518520 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore ISBN: 0060517123 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 20 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Harvard Business Review on Innovation by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael Overdorf, Macmillsn Ian, Rita McGrath, Stefan Thomke, Ian MacMillan ISBN: 1578516145 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: 15 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation by James M. Utterback ISBN: 0875847404 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Inside the Tornado : Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley's Cutting Edge by Geoffrey A. Moore ISBN: 0887308244 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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