This is another Masterpiece from Clayton Christensen, one of the acknowledged opinion leader on Innovation. This 2nd book is a MUST READ for those who have read his first book, "Innovator's Dilemma". This 2nd book provides several good case studies and information on how business growth can be and should be sustained and how to create the necessary growth potential. Once you are done with this book, continue to to read on another of Clayton's book known as Seeing What's Next. Steven Lim (RSTN) Singapore.

It took awhile for the book to get here, but it arrived in good condition. I would use this supplier again.

This is turning common marketing and product development wisdom on its head. The basic idea is that you should not follow the masses, go with the flow or to look at previous successes to define your future products and services. Instead look at how people use products and services in their every day life and develop something that will do it better (cheaper, faster, more pleasant).

I loved the airport example about the smart phone...for years we're sold that we need to bring all the office applications onto the berries and PDAs (think Word, Excel, PowerPoint)...your office away from office for all these road warriors. Well it turns out, people don't really care to do office work while on the road. When they have 5-10 minutes to kill at the airport people (when not talking on the phone) like to read the paper, play games, browse through magazines, check sports and stocks online and watch TV. So your competition is not the desktop applications but the newspapers, TV and the entertainment. Voila, need to figure out how to bring that onto the berries/PDA instead of how to cram rich SW apps on the screen.

Another great example was the smoothie cafe. The owners tried all the usual marketing techniques (discounts, different flavors, names) to increase sales to no success. Then they analyzed for a whole week how people use their product. They find out in the morning most people bought a smoothie as a better on-the-go breakfast alternative (coffee was not fulfilling, bananas were messy, doughnuts were less healthy, sandwiches hard to maneuver while driving etc). In the afternoon moms with kids were most of the customers. They bought a smoothie to give a healthier, more fulfilling and cheaper snack to the kids. So the owners adjusted the product to these 2 main uses instead of one universal change across the board.

The book teaches you a new way to look at competition and what you need to innovate against:

Stop looking at your direct competitors to think about innovation (if we had that feature as they did, if we had more widgets, more colors, more sizes...) instead ask yourself if people are not buying this kind of product / service, then what are they doing today to fulfill the need? And so that is your real competition. Sometimes they do nothing in which case you have a virgin territory to explore.

The book warns the change is not easy and in fact is susceptible to lot of push back. There are suggestions and practical examples on how to start implementing this new thinking in the organization.

If anything the book it's a very refreshing look on the strategic planning required to building new products and services. Definitely a great discussion point.

The book took a couple of weeks to get to Portugal, but it was in good condition!

For some reason I read the original Innovator's dilemma, skipped this book, and then read Seeing What's Next. That was a mistake, as this is the best of the trio as it provides guidelines to help you structure what you think you should do. Whether you're the incumbant attempting to protect your turf, or the new-kid trying to disrupt, this book will help you understand where the strengths and weaknesses for both lie. If you're in high tech product development, this is a very relevant book.