"The Innovator's Dilemma: How New Technologies Can Lead to the Downfall of Successful Companies" by Clayton M. Christensen

F. Laxton: OK, the book itself is great. But I was very shocked and disappointed that there is no whispersync between the Kindle book and Audible audiobook. So I read a few chapters, and then switched to the audiobook. Starts at the beginning, what?

So I switch between Kindle & Audiobook or vice versa in the middle of a chapter, and it is a lot of work to try to figure out where I am.

I would give it 5 stars otherwise, but this is just inexcusable.

I bought BOTH versions, people! You surely could put in the effort to set up whispersync!

So by the publisher not putting in the work to set up whispersync, I have to manually do the guesswork each time I switch between Kindle and Audible. And no, it is not as easy as switching on a chapter - they are quite long.

Attention to details - it is important.

United States on Nov 18, 2023

Amazing book: Best book i read in recent times

India on Sep 04, 2023

Alberto Rodriguez: Must read book

Germany on Jul 15, 2023

LA in Dallas: ** Mild spoilers for the movie /Glass Onion/ follow **

I read The Innovator's Dilemma when I was in biz school, so around 2000. We studied Christensen's ideas in one of my classes, Marketing, I think. We were not assigned his book to read, but, being a reader, I got it and read it, anyway. It's an OK book and has some valuable ideas in it, but it is not, in my opinion, the groundbreaking work it is usually presented as. One of the most useful things I learned in biz school is that business management is a field that is frequent riven by new management fads. These fads spread like infections, with consulting firms as some of the main vectors. Most of these ideas are stupid blizzards of almost meaningless buzzwords backed up by very little evidence.

Christensen rode the fashion tornado. His ideas about disruptive innovations were all the rage for a short time. They are actually among the better of management fads, in that Christensen has some valuable ideas, and he actually based them on hard data. Perhaps as a consequence "disruptive innovation" is a thing people are still talking about. (Almost all the talk is nonsense and bears no relationship to Christensen's...

United States on Nov 28, 2022

Brent: An excellent insight and paradigm to look through on the topic of innovative breakthrough and how disruptive it can be to well seated leaders of industry. A bit of a tough read though complex sentences. Be ready to reread some passages to grasp the meaning.

Canada on Mar 01, 2019

Kilt_monster: In his business career Christensen was fascinated by the question "Why do otherwise well functioning companies fail?"; that is; why when companies are innovating they nonetheless miss the boat in the innovation that goes on to dominate the present era of a market. To answer this he studied and analysed the disk-drive industry; sifting lots of data to come up with common patterns and interviewing prior executives, innovators etc.. This book is the sum of his research.

As with his other book "How will you value your life" the lessons here are quite simple, but behind them is much research consideration and insight. He pitches what he calls 'The theory of disruption' which explains how many new technologies manage to knock established ones off their perch. The book is a bit dated now and a reader in 2017 might think 'hmm, well that's a bit obvious' *but* bear in mind at the time this was written this was the *only* manual on this topic! The knowledge is still applicable; it can explain how PCs became laptops, laptops became smart phones, became tablets, became smart-watches...

A worthwhile read to challenge the way you think about business and innovation.

United Kingdom on Oct 21, 2017

Athan: The subject of this classic is disruptive technology.

With the help of many examples from industry (disk-drives being his main workhorse) the author explains what technologies are likely to disrupt, who is likely to be disrupted, why they are likely to be disrupted and what the choices are that the established players have when presented with disruption.

The most important point is that disruption generally comes from the practice of repackaging and marketing already existing, straightforward technology at a lower price point to a new customer base that is not economically viable for the established players.

For example, QuickBooks was marketed to mom-and-pop stores who could not afford to pay an accountant and it was the el-cheapo version of Quicken. It is of no use to a proper corporation. JC Bamford got started with hydraulic backhoes that were good enough for small contractors looking to dig a small ditch but wholly inadequate for the purposes of a miner. 5.25 inch disk drives were marketed to the nascent market for personal computers and were of no use to minicomputer manufacturers.

Disruptive technology is cheaper per unit, but its price /...

United Kingdom on Sep 05, 2017

Amazon Customer: The Innovator’s Dilemma is an interesting work written by Clayton M. Christensen in 1997. The book seeks to explain why certain businesses are successful in their ventures and why other firms fail in response to new technologies. Christensen tries to explain throughout the book why some firms, when new technologies enter the market, fail either because they adapt the new technology or not. The author initially believes that new technologies are constantly emerging and all businesses must continually adapt to stay relevant. However, this proves to be false as in his studies not all firms that ignored the new technology failed while not all firms that adapted the new technology succeeded. This is the fundamental dilemma in the book, and Christensen’s main purpose is to figure out a recipe for managers to follow to stay successful when disruptive technologies enter the market. Most of the book revolves around the study of the disk drive market since they were first developed in the 1950’s. The disk drive industry was important because technology was rapidly advancing and smaller drives were being released within a few years of each other. Many of the established firms often...

United States on Apr 28, 2017