The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth

“The Innovator’s Solution” extends the insights and theories of Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and addresses how companies can achieve sustained growth and offers advice on how existing companies can innovate successfully to overcome competition from disruptive businesses.

Now with a foreword by Scott Anthony, Senior Advisor, Innosight, Professor, Dartmouth College.​

Key insights include:​

Disruptive Innovation: Established companies need to distinguish between sustaining innovations, which improve existing products, and disruptive innovations, which target overlooked segments and offer simpler, more affordable alternatives that eventually dominate an industry. The authors explain how established companies can create or respond to disruptive innovations that redefine markets.​

Job to Be Done: The book introduces the concept of the “job to be done” framework, arguing that customers “hire” products to do specific jobs. Understanding the job for which consumers hire a product or service helps companies innovate in ways that truly meet customer needs.​

Value Networks and the Integration Strategy: How can companies decide to integrate or outsource based on the maturity of the market? In less mature markets, integration helps control performance-defining subsystems, whereas in mature markets, modular architectures prevail and outsourcing becomes more viable.​

Disruptive Growth: For existing companies to drive disruptive growth, they should set up autonomous units that have separate resources and processes, allowing them to create products that initially may not appeal to their current customers.​

Emergent Strategies: Successful strategies often emerge over time through a process of trial, error, and adjustment, rather than being fully formed from the start. Companies should be flexible in their strategic planning to respond to unexpected opportunities.​

Financial and Market Metrics: Traditional financial metrics can be misleading in the context of innovation. There are different ways to measure success that are more aligned with the long-term growth and sustainability of disruptive innovations.​

The “Innovator’s Solution” is an important playbook for business leaders, strategists, and managers, blending theory and practical advice on how to navigate the challenges of innovation in a competitive business environment.​