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 enlarge | Authors: Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Category: Book
List Price: $32.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 5841
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 1578518520
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4063
EAN: 9781578518524
ASIN: 1578518520
Publication Date: September 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Interesting theory for big company innovations February 23, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a well researched and informative book that I read after reading "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Christensen. This book answers the questions raised in the first book. I therefore strongly recommend reading the "The Innovator's Dilemma". The books are complementary and outstanding. Christensen and Raynor explains so eloquently and compellingly, the problem of managing and sustaining growth as large companies suffer from the problem of "stalling" since innovations that address small markets get eliminated in the resource allocation process. Conventional market research methodologies are often unable to reveal the potential for markets that do not exist. Disruptive innovations are targeted at exploiting the markets of products that are "good enough" or are competing against "non consumption".
The book provides solution frameworks for design, manufacturing, distribution, organizing and financing of successful strategies of disruption. This book identifies the processes that create winning innovations and the strategies that can be applied in your own project. References at the end of each chapter provide you with useful and insightful sources for further reading should you wish to pursue this subject further. The researcher made good use of these references in piecing together their theories. The authors reinforce their arguments, claims and solutions with real-life examples from many different companies including IBM, Sony, AT&T, Microsoft, and others.
This book focuses on new product ideas at big enterprises and how they should be effectively pursued. When there is no current market for these innovative products and hence no customer base, these technologies are called disruptive. The authors explain how innovation can be a predictable process that can result in sustainable and lucrative growth. They identify the factors that result in poor judgment by managers and present their ideas and a new framework to help product developers to timely create viable and profitable disrupting-technology that meets the needs of the market.
I recommend this book to managers who are interested in cutting edge innovative solutions. This book should be helpful to define a strategy to form the idea into a commercially viable product or service. This book is excellent reading if you wish to understand the forces that can drive or hinder a firm's growth with numerous real-life examples throughout the book.
Excellent Insights and Ideas February 20, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A key point in "The Innovator's Solution" is that financial markets relentlessly pressure companies to grow, and to keep growing faster and faster. Yet, considerable evidence exists that once a company's core business has matured, the pursuit of new platforms for growth entails daunting risk - roughly only 10% succeed over more than a few years - thus providing an above average increase in shareholder returns, and often the effort causes the entire corporation to crash. (Twenty-eight percent of those that stall lose 78% of their market capitalization; most of the rest also incur significant, though lesser, losses.)
AT&T is used as an example of what can go wrong. After the '84 mandated divestiture of local phone services, its first attempt at growth was based on the widely shared view that computer systems and phone networks were going to converge. AT&T first tried building its own computer division, achieving at best, losses of at least $200 million/year. It then acquired NCR, but sold it in '96 for a loss of over $6 billion alone, and $10 billion for the total computer venture. AT&T then tried wireless (lost another $5 billion), and broadband (lost another $40 billion).
Incremental innovations are likely to be used by established, leading firms to reinforce their dominance. In computers, G.E., Honeywell, RCA, and AT&T could not muscle in on IBM - that required the disruptive innovation of PCs brought by others. Likewise, IBM and Kodak couldn't beat Xerox at copying - Canon did that via its disruptive table-top.
In disruptive circumstances, the entrants are likely to defeat the incumbents because industry leaders are always motivated to go up-market and almost never motivated to defend small new/low-end markets that new entrants find attractive.
"The Innovator's Solution" uses minimills to illustrate the point. Minimills worked their way up from rebar in several cycles (angle iron, structural steel, sheet steel) that each ended with price/profit collapse after the last integrated producer left the market. The integrated mills were motivated to flee, and the minimills were forced to go up-market to escape their own fierce competition. Toyota et al vs. G.M., Ford, and Chrysler provides another example.
Finally, Christensen and Raynor offer organizational suggestions for nurturing successful disruptive technology development within large firms.
An excellent and insightful book.
 Good Read to get a Framework on Growing Your Company January 5, 2007
This book was used as additional reading for Technology MBA Course. This book was very insightful and valuable. All important things to consider as one looks at properly growing your company.
Radical theory!! October 5, 2006
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Whether you are a manager or CEO of an established company, an enterpreneur or graduates/MBAs, you will find radical insights in this book.
Mr Clayton M. Christensen has provided revolutionary theory to explain the various phenomena for the rise and falls of great businesses in the past decades. He has explained why some companies with great disruptive ideas failed and how focus approach could incubate innovative disruptive ideas.
In essence, Mr Clayton M. Christensen provides hope for managers and CEOs who are frowning on what is the right strategy for their companies. "There is no right strategy but the management of emergent strategy".
excelling value - makes you think September 29, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book goes right along with its predecessors in demonstrating how to predict what various members of an industry are driven to do. This book inspired great ideas I had never realized were true; it is much more practical and applied than the previous two books, but you really need to read all 3 to gain the most from what this book offers.
I can't wait to see what the author writes next.
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