Praise for The Innovator’s Solution

Media coverage and accolades

Management books tend to be a bag of business anecdotes loosely strung together on a clothesline of the author's devising, invoking some inspiring episode at Sony or Schwab or Dell. Not that long ago, every management author had a chapter on how Enron was brilliantly transforming water into wine. Tribal tales are O.K. as far as they go, but '''for example' ain't proof,'' as a street-corner cynic once observed… The last time he was at bat, Professor Christensen hit a home run. His 1997 book, ''The Innovator's Dilemma,'' has a strong claim as the best business book of the 90's…Now he is out with an absorbing new book, ''The Innovator's Solution,'' written with a Harvard colleague, Michael E. Raynor, a strategic thinker at Deloitte Research, part of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the consulting firm.

New York Times – "First the Dilemma, Now the Solution"

Six years ago Harvard Business School professor Christensen riveted the business world with The Innovator's Dilemma, which described how big companies flounder when confronted with "disruptive" innovations. Now he's back with a sequel that purports to answer our most burning question What can we big-company types do about it? Lots of things, contend Christensen and co-author Raynor, a consultant. Ignore old advice about sticking to core competencies; do whatever your customers value. Find low-cost alternatives to existing products. Nurture your innovations in separate organizations that can escape the company's established way of doing things. Such principles, they say, have been relied upon by companies like Sony, Johnson & Johnson, and Hewlett-Packard--all of which have launched disruptive innovations more than once.

Fortune — "Feed Your Head"

Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen sent many executives and managers at established companies into a funk with his 1997 book, The Innovator's Dilemma. He showed that an upstart with an innovation that disrupts existing business models can beat out big guys nearly every time -- be it Intel Corp. with the microprocessor in the 1970s or steel mill Nucor Corp. with a way to reuse scrap in the 1990s. What's more, he said, venerable companies seal their doom by doing just what they're supposed to do pleasing their most valuable customers. There seemed no way out. Christensen's accessible and rigorous new book, written with Deloitte Research Director Michael E. Raynor, provides a survival manual for corporate managers. The Innovator's Solution makes a credible case that established companies can defy the odds after all, provided they offer disruptive new products of their own. By channeling innovation into fast-growing new areas, posit Christensen and Raynor, businesses will be able to reel in new customers, time after time.

Business Week — "Innovate or Die"

Top 10 and Best Strategy Book...

"The Innovator's Solution" has also been named on several "top 10" lists and has even been named the Best Strategy Book of the Year by Booz Allen Hamilton. Among the key accolade

In his 1997 The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen described how innovation in the hands of an upstart can roil an entire industry and doom venerable companies. Now, however, Christensen and Michael E. Raynor of Deloitte Consulting have penned a defensive strategy for the Establishment. The Innovator’s Solution Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Harvard Business School) makes a case that the big guys can defy the odds provided they offer disruptive new products of their own. This is less a how-to book than a how-to-think book, noted reviewer Robert D. Hof The authors offer approaches for treating innovations in a new way -- transforming ideas or technologies into products that completely change the game, capturing customers, and yielding higher growth. "Its clear-eyed advice comes at just the right moment for an economy still struggling to recover," Hof observed.

Business Week — "The Year's Best Business Books"

Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor’s The Innovator’s Solution Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Harvard Business School Press, 2003) is the most analytical approach to growth, grounding actionable insights in a sound theory of industry dynamics. It’s also our pick as the best strategy book of the year.

Booz Allen Hamilton – strategy and business
"Best Business Books 2003 Strategy"

With its unique combination of practical advice and counterintuitive insight, this landmark book, sure to become a classic in the field of corporate strategy, demonstrates that today's companies must nurture and harness the power of disruptive innovation if they wish to achieve sustainable, long-term growth. Richly deserving of reading and rereading, this is simply and indisputably a great book.

Barnes & Noble – Best Books of 2003/No. 1 Staff Pick

Business leader comments

“In The Innovator's Solution, Christensen and Raynor address the holy grail of all organizations: how to generate growth and sustain it over long periods. Avoiding the temptation to provide simplistic formulas, they guide the reader through carefully constructed frameworks that teach how to think about the issues that limit - and provide - growth to organizations.”

Dr. Andrew S. Grove, Chairman of the Board, Intel

“A good business book makes managers stop and think. A great business book teaches managers how to stop and think. This is a great book. It is hard to imagine an executive team that would not benefit from devoting an entire day to discussing it.”

Geoffrey Moore, Chairman and Founder, TCG Advisors, and author, Crossing the Chasm and Living on the Fault Line

“Christensen and Raynor have done a superb job of creating a framework for helping to understand industry dynamics and for planning your own growth alternatives.”

Pekka Ala-Pietilä, President, Nokia Corporation

"The Innovator's Solution goes directly to the heart of why large companies have failed to sustain innovation. Christensen and Raynor have a deep insight into the challenges that innovative companies face, and they propose practical, realistic solutions to the dilemmas of innovation. This book will be extremely useful to all managers who are committed to using innovation to sustain their growth.”

Bill George, former Chairman and CEO, Medtronic, Inc.

"Singapore, as a small nation, needs to be innovative and sensitive to disruptive changes more than other countries. Christensen and Raynor have provided an excellent framework to reduce the randomness of the innovation process. This framework will help in our effort to nurture an environment conducive for enterprises to create and capitalize on disruptive innovations."

Teo Ming Kian, Chairman, Singapore Economic Development Board