It is helpful and innovative book.

The book is just continuation of The Innovator's Dilemma. Like an update on the previous book with changes in industry. And how the theory proposed in Innovator's dilemma should be used by managers to progress the growth path for their organization. Practically things are so dynamic that theory and reality are very different. Book is a good advisor to managers but i still don't see its that useful other than to be used as a good reads for B-schools.

There are great chapters on {good}money and policy for innovation in this book. The chapter 9 is extremely useful.

The sequel to Innovator's Dilemma.

While Innovator's Dilemma spoke to us on why should we innovate, innovator's solution taught us how to.

These are timeless advice since technology changes will always happen - From Railway to Electricity to Microprocessing to internet which allows building of new business models, but require breaking down the existing models - This is why companies are unable to do it, because management's job is to prioritize the existing customers.

If you ask my customers what they want, they would say they wanted a faster horse - Ford

Examples were a bit outdated. Enjoyed the part describing how Blackberry / RIM was on the right track and camera phones were unlikely to take off.

I’ve come to appreciate this book more and more over the years. Great insights for thinking through strategy. I still think we use the word “disruption” too much and it’s good going back and reminding myself of its original meaning.

Innovator's Solution is a very good effort by business school academics at understanding what especially larger corporations need to keep in mind if they want their companies to keep innovating. In trying to provide such guidance to the larger corporations, the authors (Christensen and Raynor) also provide great guidance to smaller companies seeking to succeed in innovation--and especially "disruption".

"Disruptive innovation" is possibly an overused term. Some might think "disruption" is bad in and of itself, and others may think it is good. More generally, as the authors use the term, it is innovation which improves either the value/performance of a product or service addressing either what seems to be something treated as an uninteresting commodity or something which at present is not being addressed (especially in communities formerly unable to afford the solutions to the particular need to be addressed.)

The authors show, for example, how when a company has successfully addressed the demands of one market, it often seeks to move up to higher value add/higher margin markets. Its investment decisions will tend to be biased towards projects/new products with higher gross margins than the market it has originally satisfied, and which often has drawn in more competitors as "me too" and which--at least at the technological value/performance points of the original solution--will tend to exhibit lower margins. At that stage, a company offering the product/service in a new way so as to substantially improve the value/performance points for that market will succeed--whether a new company or the original company--but only if it seeks such "new" way of satisfying that market.

For larger corporations, there is a whole lot of advice about how separate teams and separate processes will be needed to avoid coopting or fears of cannibalization. In reading this, one gets a feeling of how difficult it is for a successful company to continue to innovate once it gets big. It is possible but...as the authors show, not many have succeeded.

The book's greater utility, accordingly, is for smaller companies seeking to succeed with a "disruptive" innovation. Summarizing their strategy, they should look for customers who are relatively speaking ignored by the larger guys, or those who heretofore have been excluded altogether. By focusing first on customers not important to the big guys, it may be possible for innovative companies even to "service" these customers of larger companies no longer so interested in serving them, and whose overall margins can be increased by the innovative company contracting to take over these less important customers. The book is extremely helpful to understand these dynamics, even if it is a little rich in "MBA jargon".

Among some of the best insights:

"Financial results measure how healthy the business was, not how healthy the business is."

"Competing [disruptive businesses] to project big numbers forces them to declare a strategy that confidently crams the innovation into a large, existing and obvious market whose size can be statistically substantiated. This means competing against noncompetition."

"...companies that have excelled in the race to make the best possible products fund themselves making products that are too good."--in other words, they will be vulnerable to limited functionality products or services that are cheaper (customer pays only for what he wants).

To an extent, disruptive businesses need to find a toehold in the market--usually where the big guys are less interested, and then build superior cost, convenience, or experience in those markets before trying to move up (or expand out).

Finally, the authors also point to the fact that innovation will typically be learning while doing esp if attacking a market which is not yet "consuming" the product or service offered. This requires focusing on profitability early on as the business focuses on what the target market will value enough to pay for it, and then to scale and go up market featuring what the innovation was that led to entry on to the market.

There are many other insights in this valuable book--but still with all its benefits, one cannot but help yearn for more analysis using real live businesses, and especially dedicated businesses without all of the corporate bureaucracy these Harvard professors are focusing on. 4.3 starts

A theory that describes how does a manager escape the Innovator's Dilemma.
The Innovator's Solution is a Christenson book that expands on The Innovator's Dilemma and posits several theories about paths to escape the dilemma.

Listend to the audiobook and it was great!

The jobs to be done idea and the thought processes it conveys are super interesting.

"Disruption" is one of the most misunderstood terms — it implies not only a technological advancement, but a specific kind of innovation that — while un-interesting at first— is poised to become a real breakthrough.

There are two types of disruptive innovation: ones is low-end disruption (i.e. something that costs less than the main thing and performs worse for a while, until it gets better but still costs less), the other is new-market disruption (i.e. a product whose main consumer is someone that was until then a non-consumer). This book explains how to recognize disruption, how to prepare for it, and how to embrace it. It's really well written and in my opinion a required reading for those planning to start our manage a business, our for those that like to know his stuff works and how to recognize patterns.

Practical
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Scientific/empirical
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Novel idea
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Engaging
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Overall
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Who should read the book - Anyone in marketing or technology

This is the first book I have rated five stars across all dimensions. I highly recommend Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen to anyone interested in innovation and sustained growth in enterprises. The book provides valuable insights on how to create growth that beats market expectations by oscillating between creating specialized offerings and integrated offerings. It also claims that breaking out of a company's business-as-usual mode requires someone at the top, particularly a CEO founder. The author advocates targeting the market segments that are currently not using the product, as incumbents are happy to let new entrants target these as the margins for these segments are low.

One of the most valuable takeaways from the book is the importance of mid-level managers in identifying and nurturing good ideas. This is particularly relevant for Product Management. Product Managers will also appreciate the way Job To Be Done (JTBD) is covered and the thoughts also covered in the seminal book Innovator’s Dilemma.

I appreciated that the author is that it is very realistic. He doesn't close his eyes to the way businesses work in the real world. The book acknowledges the politics involved in real-world businesses and suggests ways for navigating these challenges. He also provides several real-world examples and predictions, many of which have come true.

Overall, Innovator's Solution is a must-read for anyone looking to create sustained growth and innovation in their organization. The book's insights are practical and applicable to a wide range of businesses and industries, and the author's predictions and examples provide a clear understanding of the concepts discussed in the book.

The 1st business book I’ve read as recommended by the company that I’m working for. Not sure what to expect but the languages can be more succinct I guess ;)