Markides, Constantinos C.; Geroski, Paul A.

Fast Second : How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation to Enter and Dominate New Markets

First movers into a new market have the edge, right? Not necessarily! In this compelling book, international strategy experts Constantinos Markides and Paul Geroski show that pioneers who have created markets through radical innovation are almost never the companies that scale these markets up and conquer them. There is a very good reason for this: the skills, mind sets, and attitudes requested for creating a radically new market not only differ from those needed to grow and consolidate the market but also conflict with one another. Firms that are good at creation are unlikely to be good at scaling up. What is more, big, established companies do not have the skills and mind sets needed for creating radically new markets, nor can they easily develop those skills and mind sets because they conflict with those they have and need in their existing businesses. However, these corporations do have the skills and mind sets that are needed for taking new market niches developed by others and scaling them up into mass markets. Established corporations should therefore subcontract the creation of new, radical products to start up firms and concentrate their efforts on consolidating the markets. This is a model that is widely used in creative industries such as book publishing, theater, galleries, and movie making, where companies live and die on their ability to continuously bring creative new products to the market. Fast Second draws from a rich body of academic research on radical innovation and cites illustrative examples of successful fast second firms such as Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Amazon, Canon, JVC, Heinz, and many others to propose a radical new innovation model for companies that aspire to create radically new markets.