The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is one of the best books on innovation in the last 20 years. I read it in 2000 and still refer to it. Christensen’s core insight/argument is that businesses fight shy of developing innovations that will 1: produce limit profits initially; 2: cannibalise core, high cashflow/profit lines. But that what look like niche technologies – Winchester drives, hydraulic backhoes, etc – improve in capability, reliability and reduce in price to the point that they entirely cannibalise the existing market, leaving the established players high and dry, with no new product lines. (In a way he is reposing the falling rate of profit thesis.) He suggests some rather less convincing solutions in the book, and expounded further in The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. I would argue that Apple presents an interesting solution to this challenge, with its creation of new product lines that complement and build on – but, largely, don’t cannibalise – its existing product lines.
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