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