The Innovator's Dilemma ^{2nd Ed.}

In this revolutionary bestseller, Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen says outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership — or worse, disappear completely. And he not only proves what he says, he tells others how to avoid a similar fate.

Focusing on "disruptive technology" — the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example — Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, The Innovator's Dilemma presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

Find out:

• When it is right not to listen to customers.
• When to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins.
• When to pursue small markets at the expense of seemingly larger and more lucrative ones.

Sharp, cogent, and provocative, The Innovator's Dilemma is one of the most talked-about books of our time — and one no savvy manager or entrepreneur should be without.

• Part One: Why Great Companies Can Fail
1. How Can Great Firms Fail? Insights from the Hard Disk Drive Industry
2. Value Networks and the Impetus to Innovate
3. Disruptive Technological Change in the Mechanical Excavator Industry
4. What Goes Up, Can't Go Down
• Part Two: Managing Disruptive Technological Change
5. Give Responsibility for Disruptive Technology to Organizations Whose Customers Need Them
6. Match the Size of the Organization to the Size of the Market
7. Discovering New and Emerging Markets
8. How to Appraise Your Organization's Capabilities and Disabilities
9. Performance Provided, Market Demand, and the Product Life Cycle
10. Managing Disruptive Technological Change: A Case Study
11. The Dilemmas of Innovation: A Summary

Excellent book, even though you have to think a lot…

The author has a very important message, but tends to repeat himself a bit. Unfortunately, he just poses the questions and mostly fails to deliver any suggested remedies, but I expect that to come out of his next book…

Anyway, this should be recommended reading for any aspiring businessman or manager, as he has a very import message, that is seldom voiced. The message being: "use your brain, and this is why!".

Christensen has suddenly become one of my favorite authors, together with Pfeffer, Sutton, Davenport, Mintzberg and Drucker.