Book Review: Innovators Solution

Innovators' Solution, by Clayton Christensen

Clayton Christensen wrote the most definitive guide to disruptive innovation in his books - “Innovator’s Dilemma” and “Innovator’s Solution”. Professor Christensen was also on the innovation advisory board at TCS and our approach to Innovation is significantly shaped by him. This week, we lost him and this week's book review is a homage to him.

What’s The Book About: 

As with Christensen’s other writing, this book is about disruptive innovation. One of Christensen’s long-standing ideas is about the pattern of disruptive innovation, and the reason why large businesses are challenged in this area. Large companies retract from less profitable or unattractive market segments when challenged by innovative or low-cost new entrants, seemingly securing their position in the more robust parts of their markets. But the disruptors keep improving and moving up the market, ultimately cornering the incumbent and taking over the market. 

Why Should You Read It: 

Every large company today lives with the fear of irrelevance. Call it ubersisation or disruptive innovation, there is a reason why large companies acting perfectly rationally don’t invest deeply, consistently, or adequately into disruptive innovation, even though they may well be supporting plenty of sustaining innovation. Understanding these patterns is critical because it arms you with ways of countering this behaviour. Christensen talks about asymmetric motivation, which is key to answering how we move from sustaining to disruptive innovation. 

One Thing I Learnt from the Book: 

In early-stage, ‘less mature’ markets, integrated solutions do better. The logic of this is perfectly clear - buyers don’t have the wherewithal or the experience to know how to solve the problem with the component parts, so they prefer a complete solution that somebody can own and solve. As markets mature, buyers are able to source the components and construct solutions themselves. At this point, the value moves to specialist ‘parts providers’.  

Link to the book on Amazon