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Solving the problem of innovation in business. Clayton Christensen Clayton Christensen

Clayton M. Christensen (April 6, 1952) is an American academic and entrepreneur and professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. He is best known for researching innovation in commercial enterprises.

Christensen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah); He was the second of 8 children. In 1975, Clayton graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in economics; in 1977, Clayton completed a master's degree in applied econometrics and economics in developing countries at Oxford University. Two years later, in 1979, Clayton received an MBA from Harvard Business School; later, in 1992, Christensen became a doctor of business management at the same Harvard Business School.

Before joining the teaching staff at Harvard Business School, Christensen worked briefly for the Boston Consulting Group; later he received the position of chairman and president of the "Ceramics Process Systems Corporation" founded by him (in company with a number of American professors).

In 2000, Christensen founded Innosight LLC; this company was engaged in consulting and training of personnel, additionally specializing in the generation of new ideas and various strategic decisions.

In 2005, Clayton and several of his colleagues at Innosight launched the venture project Innosight Ventures; This company specialized in investments in India (India).

In 2007, Christensen created another project - "Rose Park Advisors LLC" carefully thought over by him over the past 6 years. This organization also dealt with investments, but here Christensen had more control and more opportunities to use the investment strategies he developed.

At Harvard Business School, Clayton Christensen currently teaches a course on Building and Maintaining a Successful Enterprise; as part of this course, he teaches students how to build strong companies (and rebuild existing companies in the right way).

In 2010, for his teaching activities, Christensen received a special award "Outstanding teacher" ("Extraordinary Teaching Award").

Best of the day

Christensen owns 5 bestsellers; his first really successful book was The Innovator's Dilemma, published in 1997. The Innovator's Solution, published in 2003, and What's Next, published in 2004, enjoyed considerable success. ("Seeing What's Next").

Recently, Christensen has been actively studying the impact of innovations on public institutions like education or healthcare; He was also interested in questions of the class struggle. In the new books of Clayton, his new interests were reflected quite clearly - which, however, did not diminish their popularity in the least.

At the moment, Christensen lives in Belmont, Massachusetts (Belmont, Massachusetts) with his wife Christine (Christine); they have five children. Christensen is a member of the Latter Day Saints; Clayton is not satisfied with just the role of an ordinary adept - from 1971 to 1973 he served as a missionary in Korea (Korea). Subsequently, Christensen held quite important posts in the local branch of the church - up to the episcopal one.

In February 2010, Christensen announced that doctors had discovered he had follicular lymphoma; in July 2010, the scientist suffered an ischemic stroke. Now Clayton has already returned to teaching and writing new books; his latest works were published in 2011.

How to measure life?

Clayton Christensen

Before my release In The Innovator's Dilemma, I received a call from Andrew Grove, then chairman of Intel. He had read one of my early articles on disruptive technologies and wanted me to speak to his direct reports and present my research and its possible applicability to Intel. I joyfully flew to Silicon Valley and showed up at Grove's exactly at the appointed time - only to hear: “You know, something happened here. We have no more than ten minutes for you. Tell us what your disruptive technology model means to Intel." I replied that I could not - I needed all thirty minutes to explain the model in detail, because any specific considerations about Intel would only make sense in this case. After ten minutes of my explanation, Grove interrupted me: “So, I understand the model. Now just tell me what this means for Intel."

I kept insisting that I needed another ten minutes to explain the process of disruption using an example from a completely different industry - steelmaking. I described how Nucor and other small steel mills began by attacking the bottom end of the market, steel rebar, and then gradually moved up, knocking down prices and undermining the position of larger enterprises.

When I finished the story, Grove said, “OK, I get it. For Intel, this means that…” and voiced the prospects for the company's new strategy to move to the lower market sector to launch the Celeron processor.

Since then, I've thought about it a million times. If I tried to explain to Andy Grove how he should imagine the production and sale of microprocessors, I would simply be killed. But instead of telling him what he should think, I taught him how to think - and then he was able to make the right decision on his own.

This story had a very strong influence on me. When someone asks me what I think they should do, I rarely answer the question directly. Instead, I look at the issue through the lens of one of my models. I am describing how things happen in some other industry. After that, as a rule, they say to me: “Yes, yes, I understood everything,” and they themselves answer their own question better than I could answer.

My course at Harvard Business School is designed to help students understand what the theory of good governance is and what it is based on. To this skeleton, I attach various models or theories that help students understand all sorts of aspects of being a director of innovation and growth. In each session, we look at one company through the prism of these theories, using them to explain how the company got into this situation and try to understand what management actions should produce the desired result.

On the last day of class, I ask my students to look at themselves in the same way and answer three questions. First, how do you ensure that you enjoy your career? Secondly, how to make relationships with a life partner and family become a constant source of happiness? And, thirdly, what to do in order not to go to jail? The last question may sound funny, but it really isn't. Two of the 32 people in our Oxford group of Rhodes Scholars ended up behind bars. Jeff Skilling from Enron studied with me at HBS. They were good guys - but one day something made them go the wrong way.

Idea in a nutshell

Christensen teaches Harvard Business School students how to use management and innovation theories to build strong companies. But he also believes that these models can help people improve their lives. In this article, he explains his idea by exploring the questions everyone should ask themselves. How to be satisfied with your career? How to make family life become a constant source of happiness? And how to live life honestly? The answer to the first question follows from Frederick Herzberg's assertion that money is not the most powerful stimulus. The main thing is opportunities for learning, professional growth, making a contribution to a common cause and gaining recognition. That is why the job of a manager, if done well, can be the most noble of occupations; no other activity offers so many ways to find these opportunities. Management is not about buying, selling and investing, as many people think. The principles of resource allocation can help a person achieve happiness in his personal life. If you illiterately manage the process of allocating resources in a company, the result will not be at all what the management strategy envisaged. The same is true in human life: if you don't have a clear vision of purpose, then you're more likely to waste time and energy on achieving the most visible and short-term signs of success rather than what's really important to you. And just as focusing too much on marginal cost can cause bad corporate decisions, it can also lead a person astray. The marginal cost of doing something “once” wrong can seem deceptively low. But you don't know where this path may lead you. You must clearly articulate your own principles and not risk your life and the lives of those close to you by violating these principles.

As students begin to discuss the answers to these questions, I expose them to my own life as an example, showing them how the theories in our course can be used to make life-changing decisions.

One of the theories that helps to answer the first question - about enjoying a career - belongs to Frederick Herzberg, who argues that the most powerful stimulus in our lives is by no means money; these are opportunities for learning, professional growth, helping others and recognizing achievements. I describe to students pictures from my past when I ran a company. I imagine one of my managers driving to work in the morning with a fairly high self-esteem. And then - how ten hours later she drives back home, feeling disappointed, underestimated, unrecognized and humiliated. I imagine how her low self-esteem affects her communication with children. Then my inner eye focuses on another day when the same employee drives home with higher self-esteem—feeling that she has learned a lot, that her achievements have been recognized, and that she has been instrumental in some initiative that benefits the company. It is easy to imagine that such a mood will positively affect her as a spouse and parent. Conclusion: management is the most noble of professions, if done correctly. No other activity offers more opportunities to help others grow and learn, to take responsibility and be recognized for their accomplishments, and to contribute to the team's success. More and more people who want to get an MBA degree come to study, thinking that a business career is about buying, selling and investing. Alas. Closing deals doesn't give you that deep sense of satisfaction that you get when you help other people become better people.

I strive to ensure that my students leave the classroom knowing this.

Develop a Life Strategy

A theory that can help answer the second question - how do I make relationships with my family a constant source of happiness for me? - based on the definition of a strategy and its application in practice. Its essence lies in the fact that the company's strategy is determined by the types of innovations in which management is ready to invest. If the company's resource allocation process is not managed professionally enough, its results may turn out to be completely different from what was expected. The decision-making system in companies often works in such a way that the main investments are directed to those initiatives that give the most tangible and quick results, while those associated with long-term strategies are deprived of the necessary support.

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Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. How strong companies die because of new technologies ”is today a classic literature on strategic thinking. It talks about the fact that many companies fail because they strive to do everything right. They can be guided by consumer opinion, invest in promising innovations, and follow the footsteps of successful companies, but still fail.

The information presented in the book is excellent material for reflection, because is mainly theoretical in nature, and is aimed at familiarizing the reader with the problem. Be that as it may, anyone who reads the book's idea of how to run a modern business will change radically.

About Clayton Christensen

Clayton Christensen is a business consultant, entrepreneur, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and an innovation theorist. He is considered one of the world's top experts in innovation and organizational growth, and his ideas have been implemented in many companies around the world. Today, Clayton Christensen, along with partners, runs the consulting firm Innosight and several other organizations. In 2011, he became the most influential thinker in the business world.

About the book “The Dilemma of the Innovator. How powerful companies die because of new technologies

The book brought to your attention consists of an acknowledgment section, an introduction, and two large parts, which include eleven chapters in total. The final section is devoted to the personality of the author. Below we would like to introduce you to some of the most interesting, in our opinion, features of the book.

Introduction

Any company today must be in a state of constant development, because. without it, there can be neither profit nor desirable market positions. But to move along the path of development, it is necessary to use innovations and new technologies. The result of this process is able to meet the needs of customers.

In the course of the organization's activities, not everything goes according to the planned scheme, and even a seemingly well-thought-out modification of production can lead to defeat. It is in this case that innovation is an extremely negative phenomenon. To understand this, it should be said that innovations can be of two types:

Supportive innovations are characteristic of large market players; aimed at maintaining the market position, attracting new and retaining existing customers
Disruptive innovations are characteristic of newcomers who are prone to risk and action in conditions of uncertainty; large companies often do not pay attention to such innovations, which in the future may go sideways for them

Our task is to understand why large companies fail when interacting with innovations, and also to understand how they can be managed.

Innovator's Dilemma #1: Relying on Consumer and Investor Opinion

The desire of companies to engage in the production and marketing of a product in demand is quite natural. But this traps them in the captivity of stakeholders - investors and consumers. This dependence also prevents the company from accepting market challenges, since the whole inside of the company is subordinated to the behavior of stakeholders.

The company's resources are distributed in specific areas set by the market. Hence, the value is created based on the desires of consumers, solving the financial issue in their favor. If there is a great demand for some service, then there will be a desire to receive from it.

But it is not resources alone that can slow down responses to innovation. The procedures adopted in the organization also play a significant role here - they are designed to limit the access of persons who, to a common base of alternative solutions.

Among other things, the investors already mentioned are an obstacle to the financing and commercialization of disruptive innovations. they involve a lot of risk. In addition to this, they serve as the reason for the emergence of a new line of business.

To avoid clashing what is profitable with what is promising, effective managers implement disruptive innovations for which there is a consumer, apply values and procedures from the main organization, assign low-cost resources to disruptive innovations, and take the disruptive project to neighboring markets where their technical characteristics can be evaluated.

Innovator's Dilemma #2: Desire to enter the "higher" market

A successful company is always guided by its principles in the process of creating a value chain. The main strategy here is continuous growth. Based on this, management increasingly decides to move up - to enter larger markets. From this it turns out that the sales schedule is built in ascending order. Disruptive innovation appears at the lower levels, and is able to direct the entire organization along a new path.

There are three main factors that characterize the desire of large companies to rise to the top: they expect higher incomes, they increase the quality of life of consumers, and they use economies of scale for their intended purpose. It is also important to say that there are factors why the "lower" markets do not suit large companies: for example, they are not able to meet the need for development.

Innovator's Dilemma #3: Too Much Quality

Despite the apparent obviousness, if the product is of better quality, this does not mean that it is better. According to the peculiarities of the demand curve known from economic theory, if the quality of the product improves excessively, the manufacturer can jeopardize his profits.

In such situations, the risk cannot be justified, based on the following reasons:

The consumer does not want to buy higher quality products at higher prices if he is satisfied with the previous quality.
The manufacturer does not take into account the stages of the product life cycle, accelerating the process of its "death"

Quality should be understood as a complex of product properties related to each other. A serious change in one property is reflected in another, thereby increasing the value of the goods. In order not to make a mistake, the manager must, firstly, conduct a theoretical analysis of the situation and insist on his own, interacting with company members, and secondly, create a test version of the product in order to show in practice the weight of his arguments.

Innovator's Dilemma #4: Analyzing the Non-Existent

From one point of view, an effective manager is engaged in detailed market research and action planning, but on the other hand, this can become an obstacle to becoming a company initiator of serious changes in the market.

Companies may be afraid of disruptive innovation due to the lack of specific quantitative returns, the lack of a clear presentation of the financial features of the issue, and the lack of control capacity due to the budget.

In such situations, you should resort to the use of agnostic marketing, because. It is assumed that the organization operates in conditions of complete uncertainty. But you must remember that here the failure of an idea should not be equated with the failure of the company, just as the capabilities of the employees should not be considered the capabilities of the organization.

Agnostic marketing involves answering the following questions:

How will the project fit in with company procedures?
How will the project align with the organization's values?
Is it possible to create a separate unit based on resources?

Having answered these questions, you can proceed to the definition of command types by structure.

Conclusion

To solve the problem of innovation, it is not necessary to strive for better management, more working hours and more. Practical research has shown that all effective companies have hard-working leaders and mistakes have always occurred. So you need to choose the right reaction without blaming anyone, and draw the right conclusions. Do not think that you will instantly make a certain leap; you just need to immediately bring your product to the market and see what happens.

You will learn about other important features of working with innovations in Clayton Christensen's book The Innovator's Dilemma. How strong companies die because of new technologies. We recommend it to businessmen, executives, managers and people who are interested in doing business and introducing innovations.

Clayton Magleby Christensen (April 6, 1952) is an American academic, educator, author, business consultant, and religious leader.

Clayton Christensen, Robert and Jane Sizik Award winner, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; teaches at the Faculty of Technology and Operations Management, as well as at the Faculty of General Management.

Christensen's research and teaching interests are primarily the management of technological innovation and the search for new markets for the implementation of high-tech products. Prior to becoming a faculty member at Harvard Business School, Christensen served as chairman and president of CPS Corporation, a science-intensive materials firm. Christensen founded this corporation with several professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Christensen also served in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a member of the Boston Consulting Group.

Christensen has published many works, including the famous books "The Innovator's Dilemma" and "The Solution to the Problem of Innovation in Business". Christensen advises many of the world's leading corporations. Christensen is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and serves to the best of his ability.

Christensen received a bachelor's degree in economics from Brigham Young University, and a master's degree in economics from Oxford (where he received a nominal Rhodes scholarship). Christensen received an MBA and a DBA from Harvard Business School.

Clayton Christensen and his wife Christina have five children.

Books (7)

The Innovator's Dilemma: How New Technologies Kill Strong Companies

In his book The Innovator's Dilemma, Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen attempts to answer the question of why the best companies—with competent leaders and powerful resources—lose market leadership. Despite the scientific approach, the book is written in an accessible language, and the search for an answer is no less exciting than a detective investigation.

The book is intended for professionals working in the field of business consulting, top and middle managers, entrepreneurs, students and teachers of economic universities.

The Law of Successful Innovation: Why the customer "hires" your product and how knowing about it helps new developments

Usually, all product changes occur through trial and error: functionality is added, the appearance is modified, and then one can only hope that it will work. In fact, innovation can be much more predictable, and much more profitable.

In his book The Law of Successful Innovation, Clayton Christensen explains that one thing is essential to success: understanding what motivates customers to make their choice. You will learn how to understand customer challenges and be able to accurately predict the success of your innovations.

Personal efficiency

Management is not about buying, selling and investing, as many people think. The principles of resource allocation can help a person achieve happiness in his personal life.

If you illiterately manage the process of allocating resources in a company, the result will not be at all what the management strategy envisaged. The same is true in human life: if you don't have a clear vision of purpose, then you're more likely to waste time and energy on achieving the most visible and short-term signs of success rather than what's really important to you. And just as focusing too much on marginal cost can cause bad corporate decisions, it can also lead a person astray. The marginal cost of doing something “once” wrong can seem deceptively low. But you don't know where this path may lead you. You must clearly articulate your own principles and not risk your life and the lives of those close to you by violating these principles.

Solving the problem of innovation in business

How to create a growing business and successfully support its growth.

To be successful in creating a new growing business, the leader must master the theory well and, as the idea of a disruptive product turns into a business plan, think through every decision and act in accordance with the conditions in which the company implements its strategy. In each chapter, the authors present a theory designed to help leaders make decisions that are key to the success of innovative businesses.

Become an innovator. 5 habits of leaders that change the world

How to generate fresh ideas? How to start thinking outside the box? The ability to innovate is the secret sauce for business success.

It contains tools and cases of world companies for developing 5 skills of breakthrough leadership. You will learn what common features can be found among innovators from different countries and how to become an innovator yourself.

life strategy

Why so often the pursuit of positions and salaries does not bring happiness? Why don't our loved ones understand us? Why do the goals we strive for often bring nothing but disappointment?

These and many other questions arose from management guru Clayton Christensen after several Harvard Business School alumni meetings. He found that behind the trappings of success, most of his colleagues were deeply unhappy. But why didn't these smart people who develop the strategies of huge corporations manage to master the strategy of their lives?

Instead of giving ready-made advice, Christensen and his co-authors suggest that we use well-known management theories that are very easy to project into our lives. Using well-known companies as examples, the book shows what mistakes we make when we misallocate our resources. The authors consider all aspects of life on which our happiness depends.

What's next? Innovation Theory as a Tool for Predicting Industry Changes

The book by K. Christensen and his colleagues gives a detailed answer to the question: “How to recognize innovations that will become “disruptive”?”.

The analytical tools proposed in the book allow you to evaluate the strategic decisions of companies; determine who will win in the upcoming competitive battle; anticipate changes in the industry. The authors show how to use this toolkit using five industries as examples: aviation, education, semiconductor manufacturing, healthcare, and telecommunications.

The book is intended for business leaders, industry analysts, investors - for everyone whose success depends on the ability to make forecasts.

Clayton M. Christensen

innovator

THE INNOVATOR'S DILEMMA

When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

Clayton M. Christensen

Harvard Business School Press

Boston, Massachusetts

INNOVATOR

How powerful companies die because of new technologies

Clayton M. Christensen

Translation from English

UDC 65.011 BBK 65.290-2 K 82

Scientific editor E. Auzan

Translation from English by T. Ovseneva

Christensen Clayton M.

K 82 The Innovator's Dilemma/Clayton M. Christensen; Per. from English. - M.: Alpina Business Books, 2004. - 239 p.

ISBN 5-9614-0073-5

The book is intended for professionals working in the field of business consulting, top and middle managers, entrepreneurs, students and teachers of economic universities.

UDC 65.011 BBK 65.290-2

ISBN 5-9614-0101-4 (Russian) ISBN 0-87584-585-1 (English)

Published by arrangement with Harvard Business School Press.

PART ONE
WHY DO STRONG COMPANIES FAIL?
		Why do strong companies fail?
		Hard drive manufacturing: an inside look..................................................
		Value networks and incentives for innovation...............................................
		Disruptive technological innovation
		in the production of mechanical excavators..................................................
		Stairway leading up only ..................................................................
PART TWO
MANAGEMENT OF "DISPUTATIVE"
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES ..................................................................
		Responsibility for “disruptive” technologies ..............................................
		Correspondence between the size of the organization and the market ..............................
		Opening up new and emerging markets ..............................................
		Assessing the capabilities and limitations of the organization
		Product quality, their life cycle
		and market needs ...............................................................................
		Management of "disruptive" technological
		changes: examples from life..................................................................
		Dilemmas of innovation: a summary ..............................................................
The Innovator's Dilemma: Seminar Handbook ..............................................

WITH THANKS

Although there is only one author on the cover of this book, in fact its main ideas were expressed or developed by many of my colleagues, people who are extremely insightful and unselfish. Work on the book began in 1989, when professors Kim Clark, Joseph Bauer, Jay Light, and John McArcthur took over the organization and funding of the middle-aged doctoral program at Harvard Business School. Professors Richard Rosenbloom, Howard Stevenson, Dorothy Leonard, Richard Walton, Bob Hayes, Steve Wheelwright, and Kent Bowen have also helped me sharpen my thoughts as I research, achieve evidence-based conclusions, and contribute to the common treasury of knowledge. They gave me much more of their valuable time than they should have as teachers,

And I will always be grateful to them for everything they taught me.

I I owe a lot to the executives and employees of hard drive companies who shared their memories with me and provided me with records when I needed to understand what exactly made them make certain decisions in certain circumstances. I especially want to acknowledge James Porter, publisher of Disk/Trend Report, for allowing me to use his amazing archive. That's the only reason I've been able to study the history of the hard drive industry so deeply. The model of industry evolution and revolution that all these people helped me to create formed the theoretical basis of my book. I hope that this model will be useful to them when analyzing the past.

And decision making in the future.

During my tenure at Harvard Business School, I was constantly helped by colleagues to refine the ideas for this book. I was especially helped by professors Rebecca Henderson and James Utterback from MIT,

8 THE INNOVATOR'S DILEMMA

Robert Burgelman of Stanford; and David Garvin, Gary Pisano, and Marco Iansiti of Harvard Business School. Research assistants Rebecca Voorhuis, Greg Rogers, Bret Bayerd, Jeremy Dunn, Tara Donovan, and Michael Overdorf, publishers Marjorie Williams, Steve Prokesh, and Barbara Feinberg, and assistants Cheryl Druckenmiller, Meredith Anderson, and Marguerite Dole also helped me by sharing their research data, advice, and ideas.

I am grateful to my students with whom I discussed the book. Almost every time I left the classroom, I wondered why I get paid, and students pay for their studies, because our discussions give me the most. Every year they receive diplomas and travel around the world, not even realizing how much they have taught their teachers. I love them, and I hope that those of them who fall into the hands of my book will understand that with their questions, comments, and criticism, they helped bring it to light.

My deepest gratitude to the family: wife Christina and our children Matthew, Ann, Michael, Spencer and Katherine. They have always believed in me and supported me so that I can fulfill my dream of teaching and still be close to my family. My research on disruptive technology was a real test of their love for me, considering how much time I spent on it and how much I was away. My wife Christina is the smartest and most patient person in the world. Often, when I came home, many of the ideas presented in this book were still quite raw, but the next day, after discussing them with Christina, I returned to Harvard with finished concepts. She is a great friend, colleague and collaborator. I dedicate this book to my wife and our children.

Clayton M. Christensen Harvard Business School Boston, Massachusetts April 1997

INTRODUCTION

This book is about how companies lose their position as industry leaders when they enter new markets or when new technologies enter the market. It's not just about failures: we look at the failures of only strong companies, those that were admired and emulated by everyone, we explore the history of companies known for their willingness to innovate and competent leadership. The development of a company can stop for many reasons. Because of the bureaucratic management structure, ignorance, lack of new people in leadership, poor planning, short-sighted investment, incompetence, lack of resources and, in the end, bad luck. But this book is not about companies with such problems - it is about well-managed companies. They knew their competitors well, were sensitive to consumer sentiment, invested in the development of new technologies, and yet lost their dominant position in the market.

Such seemingly unforeseen failures occur both quickly and

V slowly developing industries - in electronics, chemistry and mechanics,

V manufacturing and service industries. For example, Sears Roebuck has been considered for decades to be the world's leading retailer with impeccable management. At its zenith, Sears controlled more than 2% of all US markets. It was she who introduced several of the most important innovations for the modern market: chain stores, their trademarks, sales by catalogs and credit cards. The respect that Sears Roebuck commanded is best illustrated by a quote from Fortune magazine: “How does Sears do it? Still, the most fascinating thing in the history of her success is the naturalness of what is happening. Sears won't open magician's box and won't start-

10 THE INNOVATOR'S DILEMMA

there are fireworks. It’s just that everyone in the company does their job in their place and, moreover, it’s always good. And together they make the company strong.

However, no one talks like that about Sears today. Somehow, she was completely lost in the background of discounters and department stores. The modern boom in catalog sales has driven Sears out of this market, and even the viability of the company has been called into question. One observer noted that “The Sears Merchandise Group lost $1.3 billion [in 1992] before spending $1.7 billion on the reorganization. It is striking that Sears does not react in any way to the fundamental changes taking place in the American market, this shows its arrogance and shortsightedness. Another writer adds: “Sears has disappointed investors who are watching its stock price steadily decline and the company fails to deliver on its reorganization promise. The outdated Sears concept - an extensive package of goods and services at average prices - does not stand up to competition. To be sure, all of this undermined the credibility of Sears management in financial and commercial circles.

It's amazing that Sears earned its reputation just at the time - in the mid-1960s - when it simply did not notice the rapid development of discount stores and malls, the emergence of cheaper brand-name marketing schemes, which ultimately deprived Sears of its main advantages. Sears' leadership was recognized as one of the best in the world just at a time when many companies in the retail industry were already using Visa and MasterCard credit cards with might and main, and Sears allowed these companies to overtake themselves.

According to the same scheme, the loss of primacy has repeatedly occurred in other industries. Consider the history of the computer industry. IBM dominated the mainframe computer market but missed the advent of technologically much simpler minicomputers. In fact, none of the largest mainframe computer companies has taken a significant place in the minicomputer industry. The minicomputer market was created by Digital Equipment Corporation and joined by Data General, Prime, Wang, Hewlett-Packard, and Nixdorf. But all these companies, in turn, did not appreciate the possibilities of the personal computer market. It went to Apple Computer along with Commodore, Tandy, and IBM's standalone PC division. At the same time, Apple has occupied a separate niche by developing a unique standard for a computer with a user-friendly interface. However, both Apple and IBM were five years late in entering the portable computer market. The same thing happened in the workstation market: its founders, Apollo, Sun and Silicon Graphics, were newcomers to the industry.

However, as with Sears, many of these leading computer manufacturers were among the world's best-run companies, and were cited in management schools and journalistic reviews as