Customer Reviews

Breakthroughs!

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This was an excellent book about innovations that are common today but were thought to be failures as originally conceived. The stories cover Post-It Notes, the JVC/Sony VHS vs. Beta battle, the Sony Walkman and others.

Don't do as I did and loan it out; you'll never get it back!

This is the story about the people and companies behind fourteen of the most successful 20th century commercial breakthroughs: the VCR, the Post-it note, ChemLawn, Tagamet, the Walkman, The CAT Scanner, the microwave oven, Toyota manufacturing system, Nike, Nautilus, propylene, Federal Express, Club Med, and the compact disk.]

The authors, who were consultants with Arthur D. Little at the time, wanted to find out if these successes could help them develop a magic "how to" formula for others to follow. Strangely enough for consultants, they admit that there is no such universal formula. Instead, they offer us many highly valuable myths and instructive lessons.

Each of these fourteen fascinating stories is a case study that shows innovation at work. But through these stories we build the idea that a commercial breakthrough is less about the invention of the product itself and more about how market visionaries and savvy business people transform inventions into commercial breakthroughs. All major breakthroughs were indeed the results of great teamwork between the key techical, visionary, and business players. Seldom are these skills and interests present in a single individual.

The book is also an illustration that breakthroughs happened not because of what management does but in spite of it. It takes people of courage to fight the tape and it takes great companies to allow them to do it.

The book is out of print; so the only way to get iy is to buy a used one. I hope the publisher could bring a new edition because there is no other books that cover so much in a single volume.

Highly recommended.