Two of the most influential books in the innovation field are "The Innovator's 
Dilemma" and the "The Innovator's Solution." "Dilemma" outlined the sometimes counter-intuitive conundrum of innovation and "Solution" provided ideas for how to handle the complexities of innovation.
Michael Raynor, co-author of "The Innovator's Solution" with Clayton Christensen is a keynote speaker at "Unblocking Innovation," the 11th annual Convergence of people, ideas and great practices related to innovation to be held in Minneapolis, September 21-23.
After observing numerous successful and unsuccessful companies, Raynor and his co-author, Clayton Christensen, theorized that innovation is a process that can best be realized in a four-step approach:
1. Identify overshoot: When an industry-leading product enters the mature phase of its lifecycle, it reaches a point where it improves past the expectations and needs of consumers. Unwilling to pay the extra money for extra features they don’t need, customers are open to cheaper or easier-to-use products ... the problem is, these products don’t exist.
2. Find a foothold: Once slivers of the market’s needs are unfulfilled, a disruptive company comes up with something to fill that hole. In "low-end disruption," this can be a cheaper, inferior product targeted at the current incumbent’s lower-end consumers who are willing to pay less money for less quality. In "new market disruption," this means altering a product to better suit a new market that is not being addressed by the current incumbent.
3. Improve what matters: As the new product begins its lifecycle, it has to get better while keeping in mind the needs of its consumers. This usually means improving quality while keeping costs low.
4. Catch up with the needs of mainstream consumers: Eventually, a disruptive company develops until it reaches a point of contention with the product leader. Its disruptive business model gives the new company the power to surpass the old one.
A brilliant and galvanizing speaker, Raynor is a uniquely qualified expert on creating and sustaining business growth. In addition to his work with Christensen, he is a director for Deloitte, the global profesional services firm, and part of Deloitte Research, the thought leadership arm of Deloitte. He has a great depth of experience and theoretical understanding of the innovation field and will share best practices from around the world with Convergence participants.
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