Seeing What's Next

Will a hot new start-up succeed or fail? Which emerging technologies are consumers likely to embrace? Does an entrant pose a legitimate threat to a leading incumbent? How will government regulation affect competitive battles? Are a company's managers making wise or myopic decisions? Which firms will come out on top?

Whether you are an investor, an analyst, or an executive, your success is directly tied to your ability to accurately answer such questions. In this groundbreaking book, internationally renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen and his research partners Scott D. Anthony and Erik A. Roth present a reliable method for doing exactly that.

Seeing What's Next is based on the proven theories outlined in Christensen's landmark books The Innovator's Dilemma, which explained why successful companies are often unseated by disruptive innovations, and The Innovator's Solution, which outlined a predictable process would-be innovators can use to successfully launch such disruptions. In this book, Christensen, Anthony, and Roth argue that even those without proprietary information can use these theories to develop powerful insights into how the future will unfold in a given industry and to make wiser choices based on those insights.

Using in-depth case studies of five industries — aviation, education, semiconductor, health care, and telecommunications — Seeing What's Next outlines an analytical model and provides actionable diagnostics and tools that will enable decision makers to

• Spot industry-changing firms or business models long before markets and experts recognize that change is afoot
• Predict winners and losers in head-to-head competitive battles
• Evaluate whether a specific firm's choices will increase or decrease it's chances of success

With its unique perspective on industry change, Seeing What's Next will help everyone with a stake in a firm's success see the future more clearly and apply the predictive power of innovation theory in their own work.

• Part I: How to Use Theory to Analyze
1. The Signals of Change
   Where Are the Opportunities?
2. Competitive Battles
   How to Size Up Competitors?
3. Strategic Choices
   Identifying Which Choices Matter
4. How Nonmarket Factors Affect Innovation
• Part II: Illustrations of Theory-Based Analysis
5. Disruptive Diplomas
   The Future of Educationa
6. Disruption Spreads Its Wings
   The Future of Aviation
7. Whither Moore's Law?
   The Future of Semiconductors
8. Healing the 800-Pound Gorilla
   The Future of Health Care
9. Innovation Overseas
   Using Theory to Assess Corporate and Country Strategies
10. Breaking the Wire
    The Future of Telecommunications
• Conclusion: What's Next?
• Appendix: Summary of Key Concepts

After two excellent books, Christensen decides to try and write a third one (with new co-authors). Like the first two, it is a very interesting journey we embark upon (reader and authors alike), but this time, the fresheness isn't as pronounced, and the endless repetitions combined with the snails pace, makes it a nearly painful experience to go through.

Misunderstand me right, this is still a very good book, but after having gone through the two former books, this feels like preaching to the converted.

If you haven't read anything from Christensen, this could be a introduction, even though it is extremely boring. If you have read his other two books in the series, you can read the first two chapters and get the gist about what he will come to for conclusions easily.