The Innovator's Dilema Review

The Innovator's Dilema

by Clayton M. Christensen

The Innovator's Dilema is a book about businesses that did all the right things, became prominent, and still found themselves being pushed out of competition/business. The primary focus confronts an alternative approach that "the right thing to do, isn't always the right thing to do".....according to business plans. When these companies began, they followed ideal & correct business plans. They found a product or need in a given market and filled it. These companies focused all their money and efforts on improving their existing products to satisfy their existing customer needs. While this does have sound logic, they lost sight of future growth due to technology. Instead of placing time & money into R&D of future products, they chose to improve the current product to its utmost. Although once that product reaches its peak (and often before), other smaller and often entry level companies began producing a product to replace it. Once the larger company sees the change in the market, it's often too late for the large company to refocus and stay competitive. The book is a two part examination. The first part shows how Disruptive technology and the logical business choices spell eventual failure for companies.
The first part looks at the causation of established firms/companies to fail when faced with “Disruptive Technology” (new technology goods or services). There are several reasons for this to occur, technology advances, manager's choices, customer need/demand, and large scale company growth expectations.
Technology in itself is always advancing. They key for companies are to evolve their product to its utmost potential while ensuring the product is meeting the needs of its customer base. An S curve show the life trends of new and old technology. When the life cycle of new and old technology intersect, then it clearly shows when it is time to adopt the new technology. Companies eventually fail when...