Literary Insights

Here is a summary of the key points from the introduction to The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen:

The book examines why well-managed, successful companies can fail when confronted with disruptive technological change or innovation. It is not about poorly managed companies failing.
Many admired, well-run companies like Sears, Digital Equipment Corp, and Apple have stumbled and lost dominance in their industries, even though they were innovative and listened to customers.
Sears was praised for its management in the 1960s, yet missed the rise of discount and home center retailing, which led to its decline.
Digital Equipment dominated minicomputers but missed personal computers. Apple led user-friendly computing but lagged in portable computers.
The book aims to explain why leading companies fail when faced with disruptive innovations that don’t fit their business model, while new entrants capture those innovations and eventually displace the leaders.
It highlights the difficulties faced by established firms in harnessing disruptive innovations that serve new customers and markets, rather than their existing ones. Their organizational capabilities and processes can hinder adaption to disruptive change.

In summary, the book examines why successful, well-managed companies that do “all the right things” can still lose their leadership when disruptive technological changes emerge. It highlights the challenges such companies face in adapting to these disruptive innovations.

Many leading and well-managed companies like Xerox, Sears, Digital Equipment Corporation etc. declined or failed when confronted with disruptive changes in technology or market structure.
This seems paradoxical at first glance, since good management was a key reason for their success.
One explanation is that good management principles that lead to success can also sow the seeds of failure when conditions change. Principles like listening to customers, investing in sustaining innovations, and targeting large markets may not always be appropriate.
The book introduces the concept of “disruptive innovation” - innovations that disrupt and eventually displace established leaders and products. Leaders often ignore disruptive innovations as they promise lower margins and appeal to niche markets initially.
The book presents a framework to explain why good management leads firms to fail in the face of disruption. Key elements are differences between sustaining and disruptive innovations, pace of technological change, and customer needs.
The framework is built using examples from the disk drive and other industries. It highlights when established principles of good management should be followed versus when alternative principles are needed.
The book aims to help managers in both manufacturing and service firms in dealing with innovation, whether in rapidly or slowly changing environments. The concepts apply beyond just technology to marketing, investment and management processes.
Disruptive technologies are innovations that undermine and eventually displace established technologies and the leading companies that rely on them. Examples include personal computers disrupting mainframes and minicomputers, discount retailing disrupting department stores, and hydraulic excavators disrupting cable-actuated models.
Leading companies often fail when faced with disruptive technologies because they overshoot customer needs, disruptive technologies underperform existing solutions in mainstream markets, and disruptive innovations are initially unattractive to their most profitable customers.
This book develops and tests a framework for understanding why good management practices can actually lead firms to fail when dealing with disruptive innovations. It aims to establish the validity of the framework through detailed examinations of the disk drive industry as well as briefer looks at other industries.
While the framework reveals the difficulties of responding to disruptive innovations using conventional management wisdom, the book ultimately argues there are ways to harness principles of disruptive innovation rather than fighting them, which can lead to success. Just as understanding principles of flight enabled human flight.
The objective is to propose laws or principles of disruptive technology that, if understood and harnessed appropriately, can help managers pilot their companies through disruptive technological change storms rather than being overcome by them.
Principle 1: Companies depend on customers and investors for resources. Established firms often fail with disruptive technologies because their customers don’t want them initially. The solution is to set up an autonomous organization focused on the disruptive technology with a cost structure suited to the new low-margin market.
Principle 2: Small markets don’t solve the growth needs of large companies. Large successful firms need large new markets to maintain growth, but emerging markets are not big enough. Large firms only succeed in disruptive technologies by launching small organizations matched in size to the market.
Principle 3: Markets that don’t exist can’t be analyzed. Traditional market research fails with disruptive technologies because the markets don’t exist yet. Instead, companies should use discovery-based planning that assumes forecasts will be wrong.
Principle 4: An organization’s capabilities define its disabilities. Organizations have ingrained processes and values that define what they are capable of doing well versus incapable of doing. Managers must create new organizational capabilities to succeed with disruptive technologies.
Principle 5: Technology supply may not equal market demand. Disruptive technologies are initially inferior to established products in the mainstream market. But they can improve in performance over time to meet mainstream market needs. However, this supply trajectory lags the mainstream market’s demand trajectory. Managers must recognize this lag and the traps it creates.
The disk drive industry provides a great example for understanding why leading firms can fail. Its rapid rate of technology change makes it like “fruit flies” for business research.
Successful disk drive companies failed later because they listened to customers and invested aggressively to meet their next-generation needs. But this same strategy led them to overshoot mainstream needs and left them vulnerable to disruption.
Details of the disk drive industry’s history illustrate the dilemmas faced by innovators. Keeping close to customers is usually good advice, but can sometimes be fatal if it causes firms to overserve current customers versus emerging low-end markets.
The value of studying the disk drive industry is it reveals consistent factors behind the rise and fall of excellent firms. They succeed by satisfying customer needs through technology investment. But this same strategy results in failure later when they overshoot mainstream needs, allowing disruption.
Recognizing these patterns of innovation can help managers in other industries avoid the “innovator’s dilemma” of investing too much in what current customers want versus emerging opportunities. The disk drive case provides a framework for identifying when too much listening to customers can lead to missed disruptive threats.
The first disk drive was developed by IBM researchers in the 1950s. It was refrigerator-sized and could store 5 megabytes of data.
IBM pioneered many core disk drive technologies still used today, shaping the development of the industry.
An independent disk drive industry emerged in the 1960s-70s serving computer makers besides IBM. Many early firms failed amid intense competition.
Disk drive capacity grew exponentially - areal density improved 35% per year. Drives dramatically shrank in physical size.
Two types of innovations were identified - sustaining innovations that improved performance along an established trajectory, and disruptive innovations that introduced new trajectories.
Established firms tended to lead in sustaining innovations like new disk platter materials that increased density.
Entrant firms tended to pioneer disruptive innovations like smaller form factors that opened up new markets.
The pace of technological change did not cause established firm failures. Their capabilities were misaligned with disruptive innovations that redefined performance.
The disk drive industry has seen sustained improvements in recording density through a series of technological innovations. Three graphs show how new technologies like thin-film heads and disks allowed density to keep improving at historical rates.
These sustaining innovations were typically led by established incumbent firms, not new entrants. Even for major changes like thin-film disks and heads, the pioneering efforts took years and millions of dollars that only bigger firms could afford.
In contrast, there were some disruptive innovations like smaller disk sizes that were led by new entrants. These offered worse performance on attributes important to mainstream customers, but better fit emerging market segments.
A series of architectural innovations that shrunk disk size, from 14 to 5.25 to 3.5 inches, were disruptive and allowed new firms to enter and ultimately overtake established leaders focused on higher-end markets.
So the failure of leading firms was not because they couldn’t keep up with technology, but because disruptive innovations allowed competition from new entrants targeting overlooked segments. This was what really caused the leading firms to fail.
The capacity demanded by typical mainframe computer users grew at a 15% annual rate between 1978-1993. At the same time, the capacity of the average 14-inch hard drive introduced each year grew even faster, at 22% annually.
Between 1978-1980, new entrant firms developed smaller 8-inch hard drives initially for the minicomputer market. These drives were not useful for mainframes at first.
As 8-inch drive capacity grew over 40% annually, by the mid-1980s they could meet the needs of lower-end mainframes. Within 3-4 years, 8-inch drives began replacing 14-inch drives in lower-end mainframes.
Most leading 14-inch drive makers failed to make the transition to 8-inch drives and were driven out of the industry by the new entrants. This was not due to inferior technology, but delay in strategically committing to the 8-inch market.
A similar pattern emerged with the advent of 5.25-inch and then 3.5-inch drives. Entrants targeted new applications like desktop PCs. As capacity increased, the smaller drives were eventually able to substitute for larger drives in established markets.
Incumbents were often “held captive” by established customers and slow to enter new size markets, losing out to new entrants instead.
In the disk drive industry, disruptive innovations were often technologically straightforward - they packaged known technologies in new architectures to enable use in new applications where storage was not previously feasible.
Leading firms focused technology development on sustaining innovations to improve performance for existing customers. These were often radically new and difficult technologies, but not disruptive.
Despite capabilities in sustaining innovations, established firms consistently failed to lead disruptive innovations. Entrant firms led disruptions like the 5.25” and 3.5” drives.
Incumbents were aggressive and innovative in sustaining innovations but seemed to lack downward vision and mobility to find new applications for disruptive technologies.
Entrant firms were able to topple industry leaders each time a disruptive technology emerged, even though incumbents had the technological prowess to develop those innovations themselves.
The pattern shows established firms get “held captive” by current customers, missing opportunities to enter new markets enabled by disruptive technologies. Entrants are able to adopt disruptive innovations early.
The chapter examines why leading firms often struggle with disruptive innovations.
It introduces the concept of “value networks” - the context within which firms define and solve problems/tasks.
Leading firms are often captive to the value network of their current customers, making it difficult to adapt to disruptive innovations which usually start in emerging value networks with different needs.
The disk drive industry illustrates how disruptive innovations emerged in new value networks (originally minicomputers, then desktop PCs) while established firms remained focused on their existing customers (mainframes and mid-range computers).
When disruptive technologies underperform established ones in mainstream markets, established firms are rational to focus where profitability is higher. But this leaves them vulnerable over the long-term.
The trajectory maps of the disk drive industry illustrate how new entrants tended to thrive in each new wave of disruption as value networks emerged around new applications.
The analysis suggests that sound management practice can be a reason leading firms struggle with disruptive innovations. Their capabilities become mismatches for the new tasks/problems posed by disruptive technologies emerging in new value networks.
Two main theories have been proposed to explain why successful companies fail:

Organizational explanations - Companies’ structures and processes are optimized for their main business and products, making it difficult to adapt to radical changes.
Capabilities theory - Companies fail when new technologies make their existing capabilities and competencies irrelevant.

However, these theories don’t fully explain the disk drive industry - leaders often introduced sustaining innovations but failed at disruptive ones despite having the resources and capabilities.
A new “value network” theory helps explain this:
Value networks are the context where firms identify customer needs, solve problems, etc. A firm’s strategy and choices shape its perceptions of the value of innovations.
In established firms, expected rewards drive resource allocation. Sustaining innovations have higher expected value, so resources go there rather than disruptive innovations.
Value networks mirror product architecture. Products are nested systems, implying nested networks of suppliers. Metrics of value differ across networks.
When disruptive innovations emerge, established firms are captive to their current value network. Entrant firms locate disruptive innovations in new value networks where they are valued.
Failure results when firms get stuck in their original value network rather than moving into the new network. The value network concept explains the disk drive industry history.
Value networks exhibit different rank-orderings of important product attributes, even for the same product. For example, in disk drives, mainframe computers value capacity, speed, and reliability, while portable computers value ruggedness, low power, and small size.
Parallel value networks with different definitions of value can exist in the same industry. Firms tend to develop capabilities tailored to their network’s requirements, such as R&D costs, manufacturing volumes, product cycles, etc.
Hedonic regression analysis shows how markets value attributes differently across networks. For example, portable computing customers value size reduction highly, while mainframe customers do not value it at all.
Each value network has a characteristic cost structure. Mainframes have high R&D, low volumes, and need 50-60% margins. Portables have low R&D, high volumes, and need 15-20% margins.
Innovations are more likely to be seen as profitable if valued in a firm’s existing network or one with higher margins. Innovations valued only in lower-margin networks are less likely to get investment.
S-curves represent sustaining innovation within a single value network. Movement between curves represents more radical innovation.
Incumbents tend to lead sustaining innovations within a value network, while entrants are more likely to disrupt across networks. This is due to differences in network position rather than capabilities.
Established firms face enormous risks in committing to new technologies long before they are needed. Yet managers in the disk drive industry were remarkably agile in navigating sustaining innovations.
Disruptive innovations follow a different path, emerging in new value networks before invading established ones. They progress on their own trajectory.
Managers consistently made rational decisions that led established firms to succeed at sustaining innovations but fail with disruptive ones. Resources went to sustaining innovations for current customers, not disruptive innovations with uncertain markets.
Engineers at established firms often developed disruptive technologies first, but marketing found little interest from current customers. Market forecasts were pessimistic.
In response to current customer needs, firms invested more in sustaining innovations, which were less risky with known customers.
Seagate developed early 3.5” drives but shelved them to focus on sustaining 5.25” drives for existing customers. Other firms did the same.
Disruptive projects were starved of resources and delayed while sustaining projects took priority for established customers.

In summary, rational decisions shaped by established firms’ value networks led them to succeed with sustaining innovations but fail with disruptive ones. Good managers made decisions that made sense for their networks but missed disruptive changes.

Established disk drive manufacturers initially dismissed the disruptive potential of smaller disk drives like 3.5” models, seeing them as having unattractive margins and insufficient capacity for existing customers.
New companies formed to exploit disruptive disk drive architectures, discovering new markets through trial and error like personal computers.
Once in new markets, the entrants improved their drives’ capacity at a rapid rate, setting sights on established disk drive markets.
Established firms belatedly introduced their own smaller drives to defend their customer base against the entrants moving upmarket. But entrants had cost and design advantages, and established firms failed to gain significant share in the new markets.
Flash memory is an emerging potentially disruptive technology, and its threat depends on whether disk drive firms’ capabilities position them to adapt to integrated circuits versus mechanical drives.
The value network framework sees disruption arising when innovations enable a new value network to emerge targeting overlooked customers with a simpler product architecture.
In contrast, the capabilities viewpoint sees disruption as a failure of established firms’ skills and expertise to adapt to new technologies.
Multiple frameworks like capabilities, organizational structure, and technology S-curves provide insights into whether established firms will succeed or fail with disruptive innovations.
The value network framework asserts that these other frameworks are insufficient predictors. Even capable firms won’t invest in disruptive innovations unless they can initially be valued and deployed in their existing value networks where they make money.
Flash memory was a disruptive innovation for disk drive makers like Seagate and Quantum. Though capable of developing flash products, flash served different value networks than their core disk drive business.
As a result, Seagate and Quantum abandoned their flash efforts to focus on higher capacity disk drives in their core markets. This aligns with the value network framework’s prediction.
Value networks strongly define and limit what companies can do. Successful firms will innovate incrementally within their value network but struggle with disruptive innovations that only serve emerging networks initially.
Decisions to ignore technologies that don’t address customer needs can be fatal when two trajectories interact: the performance demanded over time in a value network, and the performance technologists can provide within a paradigm.
If the trajectories have similar slopes, the technology stays contained. If slopes differ, new technologies that initially only create value in emerging networks can migrate and attack established ones.
This happens when progress diminishes relevance of performance differences across networks. Disk drive example: size/weight important in desktop but not mainframe computing.
Entrants have an advantage in innovations that disrupt/redefine progress in a trajectory, because established firms don’t value the innovation. Attacker’s advantage is in flexibility to change strategies and commit to emerging markets.
These concepts provide new dimensions for analyzing innovation: implications for value networks, whether attributes will be valued, whether new networks must be created, whether trajectories may intersect over time.
Applies not just to advanced technologies but also more traditional industries like earthmoving equipment.

Here is a summary of the key points about disruptive technological change in the mechanical excavator industry:

Excavators are large, expensive capital equipment used by excavation contractors to move earth. The industry has faced a series of sustaining and disruptive innovations over its history.
In the early 1920s, the industry transitioned from steam to gasoline power. This was a radical, sustaining innovation - it enabled contractors to move earth faster and more reliably. The leading steam shovel manufacturers successfully led this transition.
From the 1920s to 1950s, diesel engines and electric motors were introduced as further sustaining innovations, led by established firms.
In the post-WWII period, hydraulically actuated systems emerged to replace cable-actuated systems for extending and lifting the bucket. This was a disruptive innovation - established firms initially ignored it.
The transition to hydraulics precipitated major industry disruption. Only 4 of 30 established manufacturers successfully made the transition. Entrants like Caterpillar, Komatsu, and Hitachi overran the industry with their hydraulic excavators.
Established firms ignored hydraulics because their current cable-actuated excavators satisfied the needs of their existing customers for digging trenches and foundation holes. Hydraulics initially underperformed on these key customer needs.
Hydraulics found a foothold in new applications like mining and excavating hard rock. As the technology improved, hydraulic excavators invaded and disrupted the mainstream market.
Mechanical excavators like bulldozers and loaders are used to move earth in construction projects. Their functionality is measured by reach and cubic yards lifted per scoop.
Hydraulic excavation technology emerged in the late 1940s with small backhoes mounted on tractors. Early hydraulic excavators had limited capacity and reach compared to cable-actuated excavators.
Hydraulic excavators were initially used by small contractors digging narrow trenches, a new market not served by large cable excavators. The metrics valued were maneuverability and ability to dig narrow trenches.
As hydraulic technology improved, excavator capacity and reach increased rapidly, allowing hydraulics to move upmarket into mainstream excavation applications.
Established cable excavator makers like Bucyrus Erie were aware of hydraulics but their mainstream customers had no use for the initially limited hydraulics technology. Bucyrus tried unsuccessfully to sell a hybrid cable-hydraulic excavator to its existing customers.
Hydraulic excavator entrants dominated the market until the late 1960s when cable shovel makers finally introduced hydraulic models as the technology improved enough to meet mainstream market needs.
Hydraulics technology initially emerged as a disruptive innovation in the excavator industry in the 1940s-1950s. It was not capable of meeting the needs of mainstream excavation contractors at first.
Entrant firms like Case and Koehring cultivated new market applications for early hydraulic excavators with smaller contractors. Established cable excavator firms focused on improving cable technology for their existing customers.
Once hydraulics improved enough to meet mainstream needs for bucket size and arm reach, the basis of competition shifted from basic capabilities to reliability. Hydraulics was more reliable than cable systems.
Mainstream contractors rapidly adopted hydraulic excavators in the 1960s, displacing the established cable excavator firms who had not invested in hydraulics.
Established firms failed not because of bad management, but because hydraulics didn’t make sense for their customers initially. By the time it mattered, it was too late.
This illustrates the dilemmas and patterns of success and failure that accompany sustaining versus disruptive innovations. Good management practices are effective for sustaining innovations but can fail with disruptive ones.

Here are the key points from the passage:

There is considerable upward mobility for companies to move into higher-end value networks, but downward mobility into disruptive low-end markets is very difficult. Rational managers have trouble building a case for moving downmarket.
Disk drive companies like Seagate tended to migrate upmarket over time, retreating from disruptive low-end technologies invading from below and instead focusing on higher capacity drives for markets like file servers and workstations.
This upward migration is driven by resource allocation processes that direct resources to proposals promising higher margins and larger markets, which tend to be in higher-end value networks.
Each value network has a characteristic cost structure. As disk drive makers moved upmarket, their cost structures increased, making it very difficult to profitably produce lower capacity drives demanded by newer disruptive technologies emerging in the low end.
The integrated steel mills faced a similar challenge - their cost structures prevented them from viably competing with minimills utilizing electric arc furnaces, a disruptive technology invading from the low end. The integrated mills found moving downmarket very difficult.
Successful disk drive companies became very profitable in their “home” value networks, tailoring their cost structures to meet customer needs and compete effectively. This led to characteristic gross margins in each value network.
Improving profitability was difficult by simply cutting costs while remaining in the mainstream market, as those costs were essential for competition. Moving upmarket to higher-performance, higher-margin products was a more viable path.
There was an asymmetry - moving upmarket to sell products at higher prices per megabyte was appealing, while moving downmarket to sell at lower prices was not.
Committing R&D resources to develop higher-performance products for larger, higher-margin markets above them offered greater returns and less pain. This exacerbated downward immobility.
Resource allocation tends to favor proposals for innovations targeting current customers’ explicit needs or reaching new customers in existing markets. Proposals for uncertain new markets often lose out.
Middle managers play a key invisible role in screening and packaging proposals to back projects they think will succeed. They avoid backing innovations for uncertain markets that might fail.
This screening process and incentive system makes it difficult for disruptive innovations targeting new markets to get resources and upward mobility easier.
Companies that don’t systematically target product development towards customer needs will fail. Resource allocation involves thousands of decisions daily by hundreds of people. Even if a senior manager decides to pursue a disruptive technology, employees may ignore or reluctantly cooperate if it doesn’t fit their view of success.
Employees are trained to understand what benefits the company, not to blindly follow directives. It is difficult to motivate them to persistently pursue actions they think make no sense.
An example is disk drive companies developing 1.8 inch drives but not selling any due to lack of market. But there was a $80 million low-end market that didn’t solve growth needs for the multi-billion dollar companies. Supplying prototype drives to an automaker didn’t help salespeople focused on the computer industry.
Established firms are captive to the financial structure and culture of their value network, which can block investment in disruptive technology.
Suppliers may not sense their upmarket migration if competitors and customers are also moving upmarket. Leading 8-inch drive makers missed 5.25 inch drives as their customers moved to higher performance segments.
Three factors drive the powerful impetus to move upmarket: the promise of higher margins, customers moving upmarket, and the difficulty of cutting costs to move downmarket profitably. This creates a vacuum that draws in new entrants with technologies suited to low-end competition.
Minimills, which use electric arc furnaces, are a disruptive technology in steelmaking. They are much less expensive to build than traditional integrated steel mills.
Minimills first entered the market making low quality rebar steel from scrap. They gradually moved upmarket, taking over more of the steel market.
Integrated mills focused on high-end sheet steel and improving quality/efficiency. They ceded the rebar, bar, rod, and beam markets to minimills and were pleased because these were low margin products.
While integrated mills were focused on high-end markets, minimills developed thin-slab casting technology. This allowed minimills to produce sheet steel at much lower capital costs than integrated mills.
Integrated mills evaluated adopting thin-slab casting but decided against it, believing it would undermine their existing mills. Minimills seized the opportunity instead.
The summary illustrates how an incumbent company focused on sustaining innovations can be disrupted by a new entrant using a disruptive innovation to enter a low-end market and move upmarket.

Here is a summary of the key points about thin-slab casting technology in the steel industry:

Thin-slab casting was a disruptive technology that produced lower quality steel at first, appealing only to low-end customers who prioritized price over quality.
Integrated steel mills, focused on their most profitable high-end customers, saw little incentive to invest in thin-slab casting which served less profitable low-end segments.
Instead, integrated mills invested in improving their existing thick-slab casting to better serve high-end customers.
Minimill Nucor Steel saw the opportunity thin-slab casting presented and built the first thin-slab casting facilities, capturing increasing market share in the low-end.
Nucor steadily improved the quality of its thin-slab casting technology to move upmarket and compete for the integrated mills’ customers.
The integrated mills’ focus on high-end customers and existing technologies, rather than the disruptive thin-slab casting tech, contributed to their loss of market leadership.

In summary, the integrated steel mills missed the opportunity that the disruptive innovation of thin-slab casting presented, allowing minimill Nucor to gain market share with a technology the integrated mills initially saw as only useful for low-end, low-margin customers.

The theory of resource dependence posits that companies are constrained in their actions by the need to satisfy customers and investors who provide necessary resources. Firms that don’t meet these needs will not survive.
This theory suggests that managers have little power to change their firms against what customers want. It is forces outside the organization that dictate its course.
Evidence from the disk drive industry supports resource dependence theory - companies readily invested in risky technologies when customers needed them, but struggled to invest in simpler disruptive technologies when existing customers did not want them.
When facing a disruptive technology not wanted by current customers, managers have two options: 1) Try to convince everyone to pursue it despite customer rejection, or 2) Create an independent organization embedded among emerging customers who need the technology.
The evidence suggests the second option has a higher probability of success, as it harnesses rather than fights against the tendency of customers to control resource allocation. Managers who align with this tendency are more likely to succeed.
Resource allocation processes in companies are designed to identify and fund proposals for products that customers want. This helps ensure the company invests in profitable products.
Resource allocation involves decision-making at many levels, not just top management. Lower-level managers decide which proposals to send to senior management for approval.
After approval, mid-level managers prioritize projects competing for resources. Their decisions are based on understanding profitable customers and products.
Individuals make resource allocation decisions partly based on how it will affect their careers - they want to back profitable innovations. This means customers heavily influence resource allocation.
However, some companies have succeeded with disruptive technologies by spinning off independent units or through forceful management focus, overcoming customer resource dependence.
But in general, customer demands heavily shape resource allocation and innovation patterns in most companies. Managers find it very difficult to divert resources away from existing customers’ needs.

Here is a summary of the key points regarding dependence theorists and managers:

The introduction discusses how attempts at flying failed until people understood and harnessed natural laws like gravity and lift. Similarly, companies like Quantum and Control Data succeeded by embedding independent organizations within a different value network, making them dependent on the right customers.
The CEO of Micropolis fought these forces but achieved a rare and costly victory. Disruptive technologies have impacted many industries beyond disk drives.
In computers, leading mainframe makers ignored minicomputers, allowing new entrants to dominate. The same happened with PCs and portables. DEC failed to adapt.
IBM succeeded in PCs by creating an autonomous organization separate from headquarters. Straddling two cost structures in one company is difficult.
In retailing, discounters like Korvette’s used a different business model than department stores to earn profits. They moved upmarket just as minimills did in steel.
Kresge and Woolworth failed in discounting. It required a different cost structure and way of doing business they could not adopt from within.
The evidence suggests companies rarely succeed at disruptive technology while remaining competitive in mainstream markets. Separate organizations embedded in the appropriate value networks are needed. Managers who try to straddle both mostly fail.
Discount retailers like Kmart gained market share from traditional retailers at a stunning rate in the 1960s, going from 10% of revenues in 1960 to 40% by 1966.
Leading traditional retailers like Kresge (Kmart) and Dayton Hudson (Target) saw the threat coming and invested early in discount retailing, creating focused independent organizations. This allowed them to succeed.
Woolworth failed in its discount venture Woolco because it tried to launch it from within the existing variety store business. Woolco had to earn money by the same rules, so it couldn’t achieve the cost structure needed to compete.
HP succeeded with disruptive inkjet technology by creating an independent printer division rather than trying to launch it from within the existing laser jet business. This let the inkjet business develop the right cost structure and profit model.
Had HP not set up inkjet as a separate organization, it likely would have languished within the laser jet division. Instead, inkjet is disrupting laser jet from below, even though its quality is inferior.
Leadership is more critical when dealing with disruptive technologies than sustaining ones. IBM led in introducing thin-film head technology, a sustaining innovation, but other firms like Fujitsu and Hitachi waited much longer before adopting it and suffered little competitive disadvantage.
With disruptive technologies, established firms often fail because the technologies underperform compared to existing solutions, and the new markets they enable are too small to be interesting. Small entrant firms, however, value the new performance parameters and can gain a foothold in the emerging market.
As successful firms grow larger, they need larger chunks of revenue growth each year to maintain their desired growth rate. So they become less able to enter small, emerging markets enabled by disruptive technologies.
To successfully commercialize disruptive technologies, established firms should incubate projects in autonomous organizations that are small enough to be excited by the small size of the emerging markets. This allows the disruptive innovation to take root without being stifled by the pressures and incentives of the larger mainstream business.
Creating new markets with disruptive technologies is less risky and more rewarding than fighting established competitors in existing markets. But successful firms find it increasingly difficult to enter emerging markets early enough. Setting up independent organizations on a regular basis allows large firms to continue tapping into disruptive innovations.
Leaders in adopting sustaining technologies did not gain significant competitive advantage over followers. Pioneering firms in thin-film disk drive technology did not attain higher market share or density levels compared to later adopters. This was true for other sustaining technologies in the disk drive industry as well.
In contrast, leadership in disruptive technologies created enormous value. Firms that entered new value networks enabled by disruptive technologies within 2 years of introduction were 6 times more likely to succeed than later entrants.
Firms that led in launching disruptive products logged $62 billion in revenues between 1976-1994, while later entrants only logged $3.3 billion. Leaders in disruptive innovation generated average cumulative revenues of $1.9 billion per firm, compared to only $64.5 million for later entrants.
Larger, successful firms find it difficult to enter emerging disruptive markets early, even though that is crucial for success. Growth rate pressures and the mathematics of large vs. small firms makes it hard for big companies to place bets in small, uncertain markets.
Big companies need to find large amounts of new revenue each year to sustain growth, but emerging disruptive markets are initially small and can’t provide that. This is a key challenge.
Apple tried to accelerate growth of the PDA market with the Newton, investing heavily in development and marketing. But the market was still too small to significantly impact Apple’s growth needs.
Some companies wait until emerging markets are big enough before entering. But early entrants often gain capabilities attuned to the new market that are hard for later entrants to replicate, as seen with Priam vs Seagate in disk drives.
Placing responsibility for commercializing disruptive innovations in small internal organizations is another approach. Their performance can be meaningfully impacted by the small revenues/profits from the disruptive business in early years. This has challenges too but shows promise.
In general, small emerging markets can’t satisfy near-term growth needs of large companies. Pushing growth, waiting too long to enter, or using small internal organizations are different approaches, each with pros and cons.

Here is a summary of the key points from the examples in the passage:

Control Data Corporation successfully commercialized the disruptive 5.25-inch disk drive by establishing a separate organization in Oklahoma City, removed from its mainstream disk drive business. This allowed the project to get excited about small orders rather than needing large orders to get attention.
Allen-Bradley was able to successfully transition from electromechanical to electronic motor controls, unlike competitors, by acquiring a small startup focused on electronic controls and keeping it separate from its mainstream electromechanical division. This allowed it to develop capabilities in the new technology without being constrained by mainstream customers’ needs.
Johnson & Johnson has dealt with disruptive technologies by having over 160 autonomous operating companies, ranging from large pharmaceuticals to small startups. This organizational structure allows J&J to incubate disruptive innovations in small organizations that are motivated by small opportunities, without being rejected by the larger mainstream organizations.

In summary, large companies can improve their chances of succeeding with disruptive innovations by structurally separating them into autonomous organizations that are sized to match the small opportunity size in emerging markets. This avoids rejection by the mainstream business while allowing focus on capabilities needed for the disruption.

Small companies with annual revenues under $20 million are ideal for launching products based on disruptive technologies.
Johnson & Johnson acquires these small companies to take advantage of their size and focus in developing disruptive innovations.
Large, successful companies face challenges in pursuing disruptive innovations due to their existing customers and revenue needs.
Small emerging markets enabled by disruptive technologies don’t solve the near-term growth needs of large companies.
Small organizations view disruptive innovation projects as critical to their growth, rather than a distraction.
There are advantages to smallness and independence in pursuing disruptive innovations. Johnson & Johnson leverages this through acquiring small companies focused on disruptive technologies.
Disk/Trend has a remarkable track record in forecasting markets for sustaining disk drive technologies, but has struggled to accurately predict the size of markets enabled by disruptive technologies.
Disk/Trend’s forecasts for sustaining 14-inch Winchester and 2.5-inch drives were very accurate (within 7-8% of actual), but its forecasts for the disruptive 5.25-inch, 3.5-inch, and 1.8-inch drives were off by 265%, 35%, and 550% respectively.
Forecasting techniques like interviewing experts and trend analysis work well for sustaining innovations but fail for disruptive ones where markets don’t yet exist.
HP struggled to identify the market for its disruptive 1.3-inch Kittyhawk drive, relying on market research and customer relationships that confirmed a big market in palm-top computers. But this market failed to materialize as expected.
Identifying markets for disruptive technologies is challenging because the markets are unknowable in advance. Suppliers and customers must discover them together through trial-and-error learning.
Managers should plan for learning and discovery rather than execution when dealing with disruptive innovation. Applying processes suited for sustaining innovation typically fails.
Honda initially tried and failed to enter the North American motorcycle market with large, powerful bikes designed for highway driving. The engines had problems and warranty costs were high.
By chance, Honda executives started recreational dirt biking in the hills near Los Angeles using their small 50cc Supercub bikes from Japan. This led to increasing demand from people who saw them and wanted their own.
Honda was eventually convinced by its U.S. team to pursue this new off-road recreational market niche rather than continuing to focus on highways bikes. The Supercub was well-suited for this market.
Honda struggled to find dealers willing to sell these small bikes. Eventually some sporting goods dealers agreed to carry them and had success promoting them.
With no money for advertising, a UCLA student created a catchy “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” campaign that captured the recreational, friendly spirit of owning a Honda bike.
Honda built sales through winning the loyalty of recreational riders and then leveraged its manufacturing scale and efficiency to keep lowering prices, which drove further growth.
Rather than a story of strategic brilliance, Honda stumbled into this disruptive new motorcycle market niche and then capitalized on it successfully.
Honda entered the North American motorcycle market with small, inexpensive 50cc motorbikes that were disruptive relative to large, expensive bikes from Harley-Davidson and others. Honda used innovative manufacturing and continued moving upmarket, gaining share.
Intel originally focused on DRAM memory chips but then almost accidentally discovered the microprocessor market when it sold some early microprocessors to a Japanese calculator maker. As DRAM margins fell, more resources shifted to the higher-margin microprocessors.
Intel management didn’t foresee the huge microprocessor market enabled by personal computers. Markets for disruptive technologies are unpredictable, so initial strategies will generally be wrong.
Most successful companies adapt and change their initial business strategies for disruptive technologies based on what they learn in the market. Conserving resources to pivot is more important than correctly guessing the initial strategy.
Established firms often fail at disruptive technologies because their values and cost structure lock them into their existing customer base and markets. Their resources and processes make it hard to change direction flexibly.
In large companies, individual managers are often afraid to champion projects that might fail, as failures can hurt their careers. But some failure is inevitable when searching for the right markets for disruptive technologies.
When demand is assured, as with sustaining technologies, established firms can make big bets. But with disruptive tech where demand is uncertain, they struggle to make even small bets.
With disruptive situations, action must come before detailed plans. Plans should be about learning, not implementation. Discovery-driven planning forces managers to test assumptions before major commitments.
Management philosophies often focus attention on closing gaps between plans and results. But disruptive tech successes often come from unanticipated areas, so managers need to watch for this.
With disruptive tech, managers need to take an “agnostic marketing” approach where they don’t assume they know how products will be used. They need to create knowledge about new markets and customers through real-world experimentation.
Organizations have capabilities and disabilities that affect what they can and cannot do successfully. These organizational capabilities arise from three classes of factors: resources, processes, and values.
Resources are the tangible assets like people, equipment, brands, etc. Processes are the patterns of interaction and coordination that transform resources into products/services. Values are the standards and criteria for decision-making and prioritization.
Processes define how work gets done, so efficient processes for certain tasks may be inefficient for different tasks. Processes resist change, so they often hinder an organization’s ability to adapt.
Values reflect an organization’s cost structure and business model. They shape decisions about priorities and resource allocation. Successful companies evolve values that favor higher-margin products/services and existing customers over new customers.
Therefore, processes and values that define an organization’s capabilities in its mainstream business often create disabilities when adapting to new technologies or opportunities that require different processes and values. Good managers assess capabilities and disabilities before assigning innovation tasks.
Successful companies often increase overhead costs as they move into premium market tiers, which can erode margins that were once attractive. Toyota is an example - it entered the North American market with low-cost models but eventually developed more upscale vehicles, improving margins but also increasing costs.
Companies need bigger opportunities to sustain growth rates as they get larger. A $40 million company needs $10 million in new business for 25% growth; a $40 billion company needs $10 billion. Small opportunities excite small firms but bore large ones.
In managing innovation, companies must ensure their processes and values, not just resources, fit the problem. Leaders excelled at sustaining innovations but failed at disruptive ones. Their processes and values fit sustaining innovations but were mismatched for disruptive ones.
Startups succeed through resources (people), but over time capabilities shift to processes and values. Avid Technology lacked processes to consistently develop new products after initial success. McKinsey’s processes and values enable quality work despite employee turnover.
Founders strongly influence early process and value formation. If methods are flawed the company may fail, but if they are useful employees validate them through experience.
As companies mature, processes and values that were consciously decided early on gradually become assumed and embedded in the company’s culture. This culture enables employees to act consistently and autonomously, but it can also become a disability when problems facing the company change.
Digital Equipment Corporation provides an example. It had the resources to succeed in personal computers, but its processes and values were tailored to the minicomputer business. Its long design cycles, proprietary manufacturing, and focus on high margins made it incapable of competing in the fast-changing, low-margin PC business.
To create new capabilities, managers have three options: acquire a company with suitable processes/values, try to change current processes/values, or separate out an independent organization and develop new processes/values there.
In acquiring companies, critical to assess whether value comes from resources or processes/values. If the latter, best not to integrate acquisitions but rather infuse acquirer’s resources into acquiree’s processes.
DaimlerChrysler merger demonstrates peril of integrating two companies when key value is in acquiree’s processes. Integrating risks vaporizing the capabilities that made acquisition attractive.
Companies often struggle to create new capabilities needed to address disruptive changes. Three mechanisms for developing new capabilities are 1) acquiring another company, 2) creating new capabilities internally, and 3) spinning out an independent organization.
Acquiring another company only works if the acquirer values the processes and values of the acquired company, not just its resources. IBM’s acquisition of Rolm failed because IBM tried to integrate Rolm into its existing processes optimized for high-margin businesses, which destroyed Rolm’s capabilities. In contrast, Cisco and Johnson & Johnson have succeeded with acquisitions by allowing acquired companies to stand alone and infusing them with resources.
Creating new capabilities internally is difficult because existing processes and values often prevent the necessary changes. Managers need to draw new boundaries around groups to facilitate new patterns of working. But existing processes are inflexible and not meant to change. When disruptive change appears, managers need new teams with different processes before the old processes reach crisis.
Spinning out an independent organization is required when the mainstream organization’s values would prevent it from allocating necessary resources to the innovation. The innovation cannot be forced to compete for resources with mainstream projects. Physical separation is less important than independence from resource allocation. Success requires the CEO’s personal oversight, as only the CEO can ensure the spin-out gets the required resources and freedom to create appropriate new processes and values.
Managers need to assess whether their organization has the appropriate processes and values to support an innovation, not just the resources. Existing processes and values are capabilities but also disabilities.
If an innovation requires new ways of working, heavyweight teams should be created that act with autonomy. If existing processes suffice, lightweight teams can coordinate work within functional groups.
If an innovation fits the organization’s values, it can be developed internally (Region A or B). If values conflict, spin out an autonomous unit (Region C).
What is sustaining innovation for one firm may be disruptive for another, depending on existing processes and values.
Understanding whether processes and values fit is crucial. Wishful thinking can frustrate innovation teams. Capable people need to work in capable organizations.
The framework helps managers tailor organizational structures and locations to the needs of each innovation project.
Performance oversupply occurs when the performance provided by a product exceeds what the market demands or can absorb. This happened with disk drives - by 1988, capacity supplied surpassed capacity demanded in the PC market.
Performance oversupply triggers a change in the basis of competition and rank-ordering of criteria for product choice. With disk drives, once capacity needs were satisfied, small size became more valued by PC makers over other attributes.
Customers indicate satiation with an attribute by being less willing to pay a premium for improvements. For disk drives, once size needs were met, reliability became more valued. When reliability was satisfied, intense price competition followed.
The changing basis of competition signals transitions from one phase to the next in the product life cycle. The interplay between performance supplied and demanded drives these phases.
When performance supplied exceeds market demands, the most valued attribute measured on the vertical axis of performance maps changes. For disk drives it went from capacity to size to reliability.
Commoditization happens when performance oversupply occurs across all attributes buyers value. Disk drives became commoditized as capacity, size, and reliability needs were oversupplied.
By around 1988, the 5.25-inch disk drive had become a commodity in the desktop PC market, with price as the main basis of competition. Meanwhile, the 3.5-inch drive was still commanding a premium price.
The 5.25-inch drive was also achieving price premiums in higher-tier markets relative to 8-inch drives, even as it was a desktop commodity. This explains why established firms aggressively pursued upmarket opportunities.
A product becomes a commodity when market needs on key dimensions of performance have been fully satisfied by multiple products. Performance oversupply drives the transition from differentiation to commoditization.
Disruptive technologies typically undergo an evolution in their basis of competition - from functionality, to reliability, convenience, and finally price. Performance oversupply enables these transitions.
Disruptive technologies are often simpler, cheaper, more reliable and convenient than established products. Their weaknesses in mainstream markets become strengths in new markets.
Successful disruptive innovation often starts by finding a market that values the attributes of the disruptive technology, rather than trying to improve it for the mainstream market.
In the construction equipment industry, hydraulic excavators outpaced cable-actuated models because they provided adequate bucket capacity and were more reliable, even though cable-actuated had potential for higher capacity. Established companies tend to overload disruptive products with unnecessary features.
Intuit’s QuickBooks accounting software disrupted the small business accounting software market by focusing on convenience and ease of use rather than comprehensive functionality. It captured 70% market share within 2 years by targeting non-accountant small business owners.
In insulin, Eli Lilly invested heavily to develop a highly purified human insulin, exceeding what most customers demanded. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk developed more convenient insulin pens that commanded a premium price. Lilly overshot with an over-performing product while Novo disrupted with convenience.
Overshooting demand with over-designed products is a common mistake. Market research doesn’t always reveal it. Disruption often comes from focusing on ease of use and convenience rather than max performance. Established firms tend to overload disruptive products with unneeded features.
Ces (companies) focused on diabetes care are the leading customers in the insulin business. Their most important patients are those with the most advanced and difficult to treat forms of diabetes, like insulin resistance.
Therefore, when Lilly’s marketers asked these leading doctor customers how to improve insulin products, they were likely told to focus on making insulins purer and more advanced.
The power and influence of these leading customers is a major reason why companies like Lilly overshoot the demands of mainstream diabetes patients with their product development.
Lilly’s culture and history focused on purity as the definition of a better insulin product for over 50 years. This made it unlikely marketing managers would think to ask if 100% pure insulin exceeded market needs.
Three general strategies for dealing with performance oversupply are: 1) move to higher tiers of the market, abandoning lower tiers where disruption emerges; 2) match performance improvements to each tier of the market; 3) use marketing to increase demand slopes to match technology supply slopes.
There is no one best strategy - all three can be successful if executed consciously based on understanding customer need trajectories and technology capability trajectories.

Here is a summary of the key points about managing disruptive technological change:

To assess if a technology is disruptive, chart its trajectory of improvement against market demands. If the technology improves faster than market needs, it is potentially disruptive.
Electric vehicles currently underperform mainstream cars in range, acceleration, and options. But they are improving faster than market needs, suggesting disruption potential.
To harness disruption, identify new markets where the technology meets needs despite deficiencies. Don’t compete head-on initially.
For electric cars, target niche city uses. Gain foothold market to improve technology. Later expand as performance improves.
Disruption theory suggests when to enter mainstream market. Do so only after technology has improved enough to meet mainstream demands.
Manage disruptive and sustaining innovation as separate units with different processes, metrics, priorities. Integrate at higher levels.
Creating new markets is key. Focus disruptive teams on commercializing for new applications, not beating sustaining products.

The key is to identify disruptiveness early, then nurture in new markets rather than fighting incumbents head-on right away. This path allows the technology time to improve to mainstream standards.

Here are the key points from the passage:

Electric vehicles are a potentially disruptive technology for the automobile industry.
Mainstream automakers doubt there is a market for electric vehicles because they cannot yet match the performance of gasoline-powered cars. This is a symptom of disruptive innovation, where established firms struggle to see the value in a new technology.
The right marketing strategy is critical. Electric vehicles will likely find an initial market where their weaknesses (slow acceleration, limited range) are seen as strengths. Market research will not reveal this market - it must be found through trial and error.
Current automaker efforts to market electric vehicles to mainstream customers are problematic, as they position electric against gas vehicles on metrics like acceleration and range where electric will fall short.
Possible early markets could be high schoolers or urban delivery vehicles where limited range and speed are acceptable. The key is finding a market where electric vehicles’ particular attributes have value.

In summary: electric vehicles represent a disruptive technology, but will only succeed if marketed appropriately to non-traditional customers who value their specific capabilities over those of traditional gas autos. Established automakers are struggling to see this new value network.

Mainstream auto companies like Chrysler view electric vehicles as unable to meet consumer needs without a major breakthrough in battery technology. They are trying to position electric cars as sustaining innovations for the mainstream market.
But the principles of disruptive innovation suggest electric vehicles should start as simpler, more convenient options in an emerging value network, not directly in the mainstream market.
The winning electric vehicle design will likely be simple, reliable, convenient, customizable, and low cost. It should use existing technology in a novel architecture.
Breakthroughs in battery technology are unlikely to come from mainstream companies pushing electric vehicles upstream. They will more likely come from new entrants starting in an emerging value network and then moving upmarket.
Distribution strategy should focus on selling electric vehicles into non-mainstream networks that value their simplicity and convenience, not trying to force-fit them as sustaining innovations in the mainstream market.

In summary, the recommendations are to leverage disruptive innovation strategies of entering with a simple, low-cost electric vehicle in an emerging value network first, rather than pushing for a breakthrough battery to compete in the mainstream market immediately.

Disruptive products often redefine dominant distribution channels because existing dealers’ business models are shaped by the mainstream value network. Sony’s transistor radios disrupted appliance stores, and Honda’s motorbikes were rejected by mainstream motorcycle dealers.
Creating an independent organization helps commercialize disruptive innovations, as it allows employees to focus without being pulled back to serve existing customers. Small wins in a new organization generate enthusiasm, while they would create skepticism in the mainstream business.
Spinning off an autonomous unit also allows appropriate attitudes toward risk-taking and failure, since the mainstream organization rightfully is more conservative with sustaining innovations.
The electric vehicle is a disruptive innovation requiring massive reconfiguration across the value chain. It needs to be managed in an independent organization that accounts for the principles of disruptive innovation, not fights them.

Here is a summary of key points from the book passages:

Established companies often fail to successfully commercialize disruptive innovations, even when they have developed the technology themselves. This is because they try to force the disruptive technology to compete in their existing mainstream markets rather than finding a new market that values the different attributes of the disruptive technology.
Disruptive technologies are initially simpler, cheaper, and lower performing compared to existing solutions. They tend to be dismissed by incumbent companies because their traditional customers don’t want them.
Successful companies are skilled at developing and marketing sustaining innovations, which improve profitability in mainstream markets. But these same capabilities become disabilities when dealing with disruptive innovations and new markets.
Disruptive innovations need to be launched in markets where the existing solution is over-designed in terms of functionality and reliability. This allows the disruptive technology to get a foothold, improve, and eventually move upmarket.
Business plans for disruptive innovations should focus on learning and experimentation rather than executing a pre-determined strategy. Markets for disruptive innovations are uncertain, so companies need to flexibly adapt.
Finding the right customers and markets is key for successfully developing disruptive innovations. Rather than forcing the technology onto existing customers, companies need to find the customers that already value the unique attributes offered by the disruptive innovation.

In summary, established companies often fail at disruptive innovations, not because of bad management, but because the capabilities that make them successful with sustaining innovations are actually counterproductive for disruptive technologies. Companies need to adopt different processes and values when dealing with disruptive innovations.

Here is a summary of the key points and some suggested discussion questions for a book group on The Innovator’s Dilemma:

Thesis:

Well-managed companies often fail because the very practices that made them successful with sustaining innovations blind them to the potential of disruptive innovations.
Sustaining innovations improve existing products for existing customers. Disruptive innovations create new markets by offering a different value proposition from incumbent offerings.
Incumbents miss disruptive innovations because they start out underperforming established products in mainstream markets and often serve niche segments.

Discussion Questions:

Can you think of examples of disruptive innovations from the past 20 years? How did they upset established leaders?
Why do disruptive innovations initially underperform along traditional metrics? How does this blind incumbents?
What capabilities and processes do incumbents over-invest in that leave them vulnerable? What new capabilities must they develop?
How could an incumbent best respond when facing a disruptive innovation? What strategic options do they have?
How do the dynamics for sustaining and disruptive innovation differ? How should firms organize to handle both?
What lessons from the book apply most to the industry or company you work in? How might the theory help explain past failures or guide future strategy?

Let me know if you would like me to expand on any of these points or propose additional questions!

Here is a summary of the key points about disruptive technologies from The Innovator’s Dilemma:

Disruptive technologies are initially cheaper, simpler, and lower performing than existing technologies. They tend to promise lower margins, not higher profits.
Leading firms’ most profitable customers generally can’t use and don’t want disruptive technologies initially.
Disruptive technologies are first commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets.
Companies depend on customers and investors for resources, so they are inclined to kill ideas that their current customers don’t want. This makes it hard for them to invest in disruptive innovations.
Large companies need growth, so they focus on large markets rather than small disruptive markets destined to become large.
Companies struggle to analyze markets that don’t yet exist for disruptive technologies.
The pace of technological progress often exceeds customer demand, so disruptive techs can eventually compete in the mainstream.
Trying to overcome the principles of disruptive innovation leads to failure. Understanding the dynamics of disruption leads to success.
Give disruptive techs to organizations whose customers need them. Set up a separate small organization for them. Plan for failure initially. Find the emerging market. Don’t wait for breakthroughs, find the early market.

Here is a summary of the key points from The Innovator’s Dilemma regarding why well-managed companies often fail to adapt to disruptive technologies:

Well-managed companies listen closely to their customers and invest in staying ahead in their core markets. This leads them to overlook emerging disruptive technologies that don’t initially meet their customers’ needs or target their existing markets.
Disruptive technologies tend to underperform existing technologies at first. So well-managed companies dismiss them as not meeting their standards for investment and improvement.
The very practices that make companies successful - listening to customers, investing in core markets, and focusing on near-term financial targets - cause them to miss disruptive innovations that could threaten their leadership.
“Good management” may need to evolve to spot disruptive threats early and be willing to invest in small emerging markets even if it impacts near-term targets.
Companies may need different processes and metrics for disruptive versus sustaining innovations. More autonomy, longer timelines, and patience around profitability may suit disruptive efforts.
There likely is no one-size-fits-all system. Combining the advantages of mature and emerging business units may allow established companies to sense threats early while executing well in core markets. The key is finding a balanced approach.

#book-summary

The Innovator's Dilemma - josip