The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

by Clayton M. Christensen

Experts’ forecasts will always be wrong. It is simply impossible to predict with any useful degree of precision how disruptive products will be used or how large their markets will be. An important corollary is that, because markets for disruptive technologies are unpredictable, companies’ initial strategies for entering these markets will generally be wrong.

The dominant difference between successful ventures and failed ones, generally, is not the astuteness of their original strategy. Guessing the right strategy at the outset isn’t nearly as important to success as conserving enough resources (or having the relationships with trusting backers or investors) so that new business initiatives get a second or third stab at getting it right. Those that run out of resources or credibility before they can iterate toward a viable strategy are the ones that fail.

functionality, reliability, convenience, and price.

components built around proven technologies and put together in a novel product architecture that offers the customer a set of attributes never before available.

many of life’s most useful insights are often quite simple. In

matching the market to the technology is another.

Disruptive technology should be framed as a marketing challenge, not a technological one.

capabilities of most organizations are far more specialized and context-specific than most managers are inclined to believe.

Managers who don’t bet the farm on their first idea, who leave room to try, fail, learn quickly, and try again, can succeed at developing the understanding of customers, markets, and technology