1. The Innovator’s Dilemna
WDYK
Melbourne
2013-04-04
@lenidot

2. The book
Clayton Christensen, 1997
RRP $18
Still relevant!

3. It’s about…
The failure of great companies to stay on top…
Despite doing everything right, like listening to
customers, investing aggressively etc…
In the face of disruptive changes in technology
and market structure…

4. The disk drive industry
A new product appears – low performance
But with attributes valued by some other
(smaller) market
Time passes … the new product becomes
competitive in what was the larger market and
eventually displaces the incumbent

5. Desktop  Portable drives
OEM manufacturers:
1. Design
2. Build
3. Sell
Conner:
1. Sell
2. Design
3. Build

6. Vacuum vs Transistor radios

7. An example that is playing out now
mongoDBvsMySQL

8. MongoDB
MongoDB is a popular open source NoSQL
database.
Intel Capital and Red Hat have invested in
MongoDB, bringing the total raised by the parent
company to $81 million.

9. What MongoDB users think…

10. What paying MySQL customers think…

11. What David Axmark, MySQL co-founder thinks…

12. The dilemna
• External customers drive internal resourcing
• Small markets don’t solve the growth needs of
large companies
• Markets that don’t exist can’t be analysed

13. Why is this interesting?
If you’re looking for opportunity, this is fertile
ground.
You work at a company that faces disruptive
change.