Managing at light speed

Faced with the relentless pace of technological progress, businesses today need a blueprint for strategically implementing and exploiting new technologies. In The Innovator's Dilemma (Harvard Business School Press, 1997) Clayton M. Christensen sketches the broad outlines of this blueprint when he categorizes technology as either disruptive or sustaining. A disruptive technology is one that changes or replaces the accepted way of doing things. A sustaining technology, on the other hand, enhances an existing product or service by refining it or making its creation and delivery more efficient. Unfortunately, the larger and more successful a company grows, the more inimical its culture becomes to the flexibility and inventiveness that innovation requires. To achieve long-term success in today's business environment, managers must learn how to accommodate the very different requirements of disruptive and sustaining technologies