The Innovator's Solution, by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor, is not an "easy read," at least for someone without a business background like myself. Despite my inability to understand everything they were saying, the business principles described by the book were compelling.

The goal of the book is to figure out how to create and sustain growth in a business. Much of the book is written for large, established, publicly traded companies with senior management teams, middle management, etc. Of course, smaller, newer, or privately owned companies should also benefit from the book; in fact, the book describes how these companies have some innate advantages over the larger companies when it comes to sustaining growth.

The premise of the book is that established companies can often accomplish "sustaining innovation," which improves products for existing customers, but have a more difficult time with "disruptive innovations," which target "low-end" consumers for which existing products are too complex or expensive, or target "non-consumers" who don't see a need for existing products at all. The book provides many examples of disruptive innovations; for example, "power tools" were too expensive for do-it-yourself homeowners until Black & Decker started selling power tools with plastic cases and short life spans for far less money.

New companies can accomplish disruptive innovations because they are their only chance to get into a market where there are established competitors. New companies that try to complete directly with those competitors tend to fail, because established companies are already good at sustaining innovation for their existing customers.

Established companies tend to continue sustaining innovation in response to new competitors with disruptive innovations because the latter often represents the least desirable segments of the market with the lowest profits. So the companies gladly give up that portion of the market so that they can focus more intently on the high-end market, where they can make great profits -- until the high-end products become better than they need to be. With no where else to go, the "low-end" competitors slowly make their way up to the high end, eventually eating up the market of the established company.

To counter this tendency, established companies can attempt disruptive innovations, but it tends to be difficult, primarily because of high expectations for growth. These expectations lead companies to pump money into these innovations to force them to grow as quickly as possible, at the expense of short-term profits, but fast growth is not generally possible for disruptive innovations. Established companies are better served if they create a separate group for the disruptive innovation. Management should be patient for growth but impatient for profit, as profit helps verify that the innovation is a good idea that will produce growth and profit in the long-term.

The book is really all about how established companies can successfully create and exploit disruptive innovations sooner and better than new competitors. I can't begin to list all of the theories and suggestions contained therein; any business would benefit from its management team reading and discussing this book.