The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss

Why do many innovations fail? It is a question that baffles the best of us and keeps many a corporate executive awake at night. This anxiety is not unwarranted. Despite having a brilliant idea based on true customer insight and needs implemented with flawless execution, many innovations simply fail to meet the expectations set of them by their creators and by the market for which they were created. The Wide Lens by Ron Adner is a must read to gain insight into why that might be the case. In his thought provoking book, Adner explains how most innovation initiatives focus solely on managing the "execution" risk i.e. ensuring that a valid customer need exists, vetting the idea, and ensuring appropriate leadership and implementation. Adner explains that this "narrow lens" view is a root cause of why these innovators are blind sighted by failure. A "wide lens" view reveals two other major risks that need to be mitigated for success:1. Co-innovation Risk - This risk represents the extent to which the successful commercialization of an innovation depends on the successful commercialization of other innovations.2. Adoption Chain Risk - This risk represents the extent to which partners and others will need to adopt the innovation before the end customer can reap the full benefit of the value proposition.Adner illustrates these risks very clearly in explaining how Michelin's big innovation in tires - the PAX System, which was designed to run for 125 miles after a blowout - failed to take off, despite the backing of major automakers, because the company failed to foresee the need for a robust network of service centers to repair these run-flat tires before going to market. The inability to service PAX tires and the resulting additional expenses incurred by consumers who had to buy new tires led to mass consumer backlash and even lawsuits that ultimately turned automakers off of these truly innovative tires. The PAX system falied because Michelin had failed to mitigate the adoption chain risk.As Adner explains, co-innovation and adoption chain risks lurk in the blind spots of traditional strategy. They remain dormant as long as an innovation follows established lines (such as Michelin's successful introduction of Radial tires in the 1946). However, as soon as an innovation goes beyond being incremental in nature (such as the PAX tires), ecosystem challenges arise, which can only be addressed with a wide angle lens.History is replete with examples of innovation failures that occurred despite brilliant execution. Nokia spent millions to be first to market with a 3G handset, but failed to profit because critical partners in its ecosystem did not complete their innovations in time. By the time customized video streaming, location based services, and automated payment systems were finally ready, so was the competition. Phillips suffered a similar fate as it tried to introduce HDTVs in the 1980s. And we are observing a similar dynamic with 3D TVs today. All of these are examples of failures stemming from the lack of "co-innovations" that need to happen for consumers to be able to realize the full benefits of an innovation's value proposition.The Michelin story above illustrated an innovation's failure due to non adoption by a critical player in the ecosystem. Pfizer's suffered a similar disastrous fate with its miraculous inhalable insulin, Exubera, which was approved by the FDA, hailed by Wall Street analysts, and launched with huge fanfare. The $2.8 billion write-off, widely acknowledged as one of the biggest failures in the history of the pharmaceutical industry, can be traced directly to endocrinologists not embracing the requirement of lung function testing imposed by the FDA.Contrast the above examples of failure with two innovations that have been successful. Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) is an example of a consortium of movie studios coming together in a unique way to overcome the cost of adopting digital film within the theater value chain. In essence, they subsidized and shared the cost of capital investment in smaller theater chains to ensure that digital film would enjoy the broad distribution and availability critical to its growth. It was a direct result of this innovation that director James Cameron was able to regale us with his 2009 blockbuster movie "Avatar". Amazon's success in the e-reader market with its Kindle product is also an example where Amazon overcame publisher reluctance by subsidizing their participation in addition to robust digital rights management both of which Sony was unable to accomplish and therefore failed despite having a technically superior e-reader.Finally, Adner provides insight into a topic that is near and dear to my heart - "The First Mover Advantage." In my recent book, Living in the Innovation Age, I talk about the fallacy of thinking that "only the first to market" reaps the benefits of innovation. Rather, there are many cases of second, third, and subsequent movers being successful where the first mover failed. Adner sheds further light on this matter by presenting a framework that one can use to determine whether they should even try to be the "first mover". Per this framework, it only pays to be the first mover if your innovation has very little dependency on the ecosystem. The more complex your innovation becomes and the more it depends on co-innovations and adoption, the less beneficial it is to be a first mover (i.e. the risk of moving first goes up significantly). In such cases, it is much more prudent to be a smart mover as Amazon was with its Kindle and Apple was with its iPod.The Bottom LineI highly recommend The Wide Lens to anyone involved in innovation strategies, commercialization and new business development. Its unique approach to analyzing that factors that contribute to the success and failure of complex innovations and the supporting tools (value blueprints, leadership prism, first mover matrix, supply chain reconfiguration levers, and minimum value footprint) are sure to, as Adner summarizes in his last chapter, "multiply your odds of success."

Like a lot of business books, the main idea of the book could have been stated in a few pages but this books does a great job of recounting stories of success and failures. It leans a bit heavy on Apple and the success it has had but there are lots of good stories about where companies had superior products that just weren't right for the market at the time. I found it a useful book and some great tips to help make my business better.

I must say, I have been perplexed at why so many smart and so-called innovative technologies, people, companies and countries have failed at the Alternative Green Energy and Electric Automobile sectors. Seems like the need and consumer demand is in place, so why haven't they succeeded? Without getting into the Geopolitical side of the discussion, after reading Mr. Adner's book, The Wide Lens, A New Strategy for Innovation it became crystal clear to me why they are not only failing, but why they will continue to struggle until an ecosystem leader emerges and embraces the full understanding and nature of what ecosystems require in order to be succesful. When I watch these new Chevy Volt commercials, I am reminded that our country isn't creating enough Wide Lens thinking leaders in positions of authority - clearly group think and naive wishful thinking is dominating the landscape.Mr. Adner's insights should be mandatory reading at every business school in America. His spot on clarity alone of Apple's iOS ecosystem is reason enough to read and own this book, however, there is so much more on every turn of the page. This is not your ordinary business book read - he doesn't just make a point, he dives into the details in a manner that few authors choose to do that gave me a deep appreciation into the mechanics of why many fail and why understanding your ecosystem matters. Now that I understand Apple's ecosystem strategy - I can fully understand why they have yet to enter the television market - after this read, you will see why, and when they will enter and oh, yes, they will enter it - its not a question about "a matter of time" - its about the readiness of the ecosystem and all its parts aligning their mutual success interests. The puzzle parts haven't come together, but they will and more importantly you will understand what it takes and why Apple will not anytime soon be displaced as the leader in phones, tablets and nexgen televisions. Its not about having the best phone, the greatest features - its about the entire experience, and understanding how their ecosystem delivers this complete experience.Attention to ecosystem details is equally as important as attention to execution details, after reading his book, you will be a smarter investor as well, because you will clearly see why Amazon and Apple will continue to dominate their markets and why companies like Groupon, Facebook, Google, Sony and GM will be on the rocks until they fully embrace the care and feeding of their ecosystem.His book goes so far beyond trendy business thinking. He lays out a blueprint that will guide any size company or organization to fully appreciate the value of looking at your business from multiple angles and insuring that others success must come before yours. Understanding clearly the needs of complimenters and who are the co innovators is literally the difference between success and failure.If you like fast reads, and real actionable game changing insights you can implement the minute you finish reading, then this book is for you. Once you begin to ask yourself what can be added, what can be subtracted, what can be relocated, what can be combined you will find yourself reviewing all your current strategies and thinking about how to approach existing and new markets with a Wider Lens.Get the Kindle version - you will want to reference this book many times over - I promise you.

Once innovation shifts from products to integrated systems, you add co-innovation risk and adoption-chain risks to your execution risk. You cannot rely on your execution excellence anymore but have to multiply all ecosystem partner’s risks. The relative benefit must exceed the total cost, all value chain intermediaries must be positive.“Everyone agrees to follow only if everyone else wins.”Ron Adner starts explaining why innovation goes wrong when you do everything right, he explains co-innovation and adoption-chain risks before he introduces the mapping of eco-systems in the value blueprints where you identify all relevant players from users to complementors. Followed by roles and relationships discussion when to lead and when to follow, when to utilize first mover advantage and when to opt out when Chapter 7 is dedicated to the right place and the right time. We move on with reconfiguring the ecosystem to work for you. The goal is not to eliminate all risk but to shift risk to locations where it can be managed most effectively. Finally, when sequencing success we learn about Minimum Viable Ecosystems which differ remarkably from Minimum Viable Products.One of the very best books about innovation I’ve read! Must-Read for everyone who want to transform business models.

Just go for it.

Bel libro, molto intressante e ben strutturato

この本には優れた翻訳書があるが、自分の論文の中で引用に正確を期したい箇所があったため、原著を購入した。こういう暫く前に刊行された原著を早期に入手できるようになったことは、学界に対するAmazonの大きな貢献だと思う。本書は実務家向けに書かれた本だが、その内容は過去四半世紀のイノベーション研究の成果の中で最も重要な意義を持っている。そのことは、エコシステムの中でしかイノベーションを実現できなくなった状況が厳しさを増すほどに明らかになるだろう。

Great book on economy