Free translation of executive summary from The Innovator's Solution book on the innovator's dilemma and its possible solution
A free translation of the executive summary from The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen book on the innovator's dilemma and its possible solution, 13 points.
- Never say “yes” to a strategy aimed at consumers and markets that look attractive to a developed competitor . Continue to send the team to the previous design step, until they identify a niche that a developed competitor will be happy to ignore or be happy to leave at all. If you create such asymmetric motivation, your competitors will help you win.
- If your team is targeting consumers who ALREADY use fairly good products, send them to the previous step so that they try to find an opportunity to compete with “non-consumption”. If your customers are delighted with the opportunity to have a simple, inexpensive product because they have never consumed such products before, then all the methods of customer satisfaction that you have learned in the basics of marketing will work simply and inexpensively. It is also much easier in comparison with the alternative in the form of massive investments necessary for consumers to switch to breakthrough technology from an already existing developed technology (with which they are already comfortable enough).
- If there is no “non-consumption”, ask your team to explore the possibility of a breakthrough in the “lower” segment. They must develop a business model that will help to extract attractive profits at discounted prices required to attract consumers from the “lower” market segment, consumers who cannot use all the functionality for which they currently have to pay. If it is impossible to find such an option, then don’t invest or at least don’t invest with the expectation that such an investment will create a fast-growing business.
') - If the project leader uses the phrase “if we could only force the consumer ...” - stop the conversation. Send the team to the previous step to find how to help the consumer to make what they are already trying to do convenient and cheap. Dreamy competition with clear consumer priorities has ruined the careers of some fairly good people.
- If the product team or marketing plan focuses on the market segments reflecting the area (market) of your organization or if the target market is segmented by parameters for which there is already data (by type of product, by price, by demography), send the command back. Ask them to segment the market so that the segmentation reflects the “work” that consumers are trying to do.
- If the improvement plan created by the product team implies that the main vector of competition will not change, and that improvements bringing good profits in the past will bring it and in the future - pay attention to the “lower” segment. Often there you can find the opportunity to change the main vector of competition.
- If your “breakthrough” product or service is still not good enough and your team admires industry standards and related outsourcing and partner deals, put up a big STOP sign. If you implement modularity and open standards too early, or if you keep the architecture closed while the main competition vector is changing, you will have to fight hard for success. It is better to develop competencies where money will be made in the future, rather than clinging to the skills that have made you successful in the past.
- If your team assures you that the project will be successful as the new project coincides with the core competence of your company, tell them that you cannot deal with vague notions. Ask to answer the following three questions:
- - Do we have the resources to succeed?
- - Will our processes and approaches, which we have learned successfully working together in existing businesses, to contribute to what needs to be done to succeed in a new project?
- - Will the set of existing values ​​or criteria, which employees now use to determine the priority of some things over others, allow it to receive the necessary priority compared to other initiatives that also claim time, money and talent?
Use the answers to these questions to select the appropriate organizational structure and the appropriate parent organization for this project. - Also ask these three questions about each company that owns the channels used in the new project. Not only do you matter. The processes and values ​​of these companies, their methods and motivation can lead to the fact that your project will go off the rails or rise even without leaving the station.
- Unfortunately, you may have to stop trusting managers who you have already learned to trust. Those managers in your organization who have been most consistent in achieving results in the past may be the least suitable for achieving success in new growing businesses. When choosing a management team for a new project, do not look at the skills that may be needed for new growing projects, do not look at the amount of responsibility assumed in the past. Look in their summary of the problems that they tried to solve and compare with the problems that the new project should face.
- Make sure that in the first years after the launch of the project, the development team remains convinced that they are not sure which strategy is best (in terms of products, consumers and applications). Insist that the team give you a plan to speed up the emergence of a viable strategy. Stop the implementation of decisive plans for the implementation of any strategy while there is no evidence that it (this strategy) works.
- Be impatient in anticipation of profit. When someone tells you, as a leading manager, that you have to endure years of constant losses before a new business becomes large and profitable, this signals a plan to “squeeze” breakthrough technology into the “established” technology in the formed market. Some investments in “established” technology with deep dependencies and connections along the entire value chain can undoubtedly require years of massive investment. Let established competitors do this. Under the conditions of “breakthrough”, patient waiting for several years of losses as a rule only allows the team to implement the wrong strategy for a long time.
- Continue to grow the parent company so you can be patient in anticipation of the growth of the new project. A “breakthrough” and, in particular, competition with “non-consumption” requires a long “acceleration” before a steep take-off is possible. If the growth of the main company slows down and you click on a new business so that it starts to take off faster, then you click on management to make fatal mistakes. The other side of this question is also important. If you plan to lead a new project and corporate management says that your project needs to grow very large and very quickly, then in fact they tell you that they will force you to “squeeze” your “breakthrough” technology into the formed market. When you feel this, do not touch the project. Most likely you will not succeed.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/188022/
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