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Fast Second: How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation to Enter and Dominate New Markets (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)
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Sales rank 712,907
Customers rating (based on 14 reviews)
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Discover why being a "fast second" is often more financially rewarding than being at the cutting edge. If you get there first, you'll lead the pack, right? Not necessarily! The skill-sets of most established companies, say strategy experts Constantinos Markides and Paul Geroski, are far better suited to scaling up newly created markets pioneered by others (in other words, being "fast seconds") than to creating these markets from scratch. In Fast Second, they explore the characteristics of new markets, describe the skills needed to create and compete in them, and show how these skills match up with different types of companies. Drawing on examples of successful fast-second firms such as Microsoft, Amazon, Canon, JVC, Heinz, and many others, they illustrate how to determine which new markets have the potential to be successful and how to move into them before the competition does, when to make a move into a new market, how to scale up a market, where to position a company in the market, and whether to be a colonizer or a consolidator. Order your copy today!
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| Publisher | Jossey-Bass | | Release date | 10/2004 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Hardcover |
| | List price | $32.95 | | Our price | $21.75 (you save 33.99%) | | Used price | from $3.64 |
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 Positioning innovation strategies for maximum profit
Constantinos C. Markides and Paul A. Geroski face a curious challenge: They have a lot of data to support their claim that the way to make big profits, if you're quick enough, is to be the second company to take an innovation to market. However, the myth of the first mover - the idea that being first to market is the way to make money - is pervasive enough that they have to spend a lot of time convincingly debunking it. They also show the challenges and risks of trying to become a successful "fast second." The authors explain the complicated, almost organic, interaction among innovators, competitors, markets and consumer demands that tug at the marketplace. They do a fine job of documenting the collective act of creation. getAbstract recommends this book to those who want to rethink their strategies for innovating or entering new markets. The possibilities of being a second mover will appeal to anyone who is interested in innovation, planning, new product marketing, or social and economic change.
 Easy read for someone who want to get into new markets
This book primarily focuses on the concept of Radical Innovation. As mentioned in the book, the questions that get answered are:
- should the companies create these radical markets or get them created
- when to enter radical new market
- how to scale it and how to position.
Chapter about where do radical innovations come from is quite interesting.
Another concept that I come to learn is the difference between Colonists and Consolidators.
The section "Further Reading" is a good chapter-by-chapter breakdown of various sources that the authors tapped into. Lot of good stuff in here.
It is one of the required readings for MBA capstone project at Babson College.
In short, recommend this book.
Analytical. Good academic support for the relevant strategy
The main theme of the book is:- "Established corporations should subcontract the creation of new, radical products to start up firms and concentrate their efforts on consolidating the markets because the skills, mindsets, and attitudes required for creating a radically new market not only differ from those needed to grow and consolidate the market but also conflict with one another." If you buy in the above, you will be satisfied with the tons of well written samples and analysis which can be helpful to support any relevant strategic proposals to the board in real life. However, I am obliged to warn passionate readers of the need to remain skeptical of the suggestions of the authors to put their strategy into real practice. No matter what, recommended as a good business read!
Fast Second Review
I believed this book was excellent. Anyone that is in the business industry should read this book especially finance career bound individuals. The author breaks down and analyzes what pioneers of certain products have done wrong to lose the market to a "fast second" company. Some reviews of this book claim the author has gone into way to much detail on his examples. In fact, the details will help you further understand the point. One chapter is devoted to what characteristics firms have that are the inventors of the product and what character tics firms have that dominant the market. Additionally, the author lists several companies that have the substantial market share of everyday products we use and you will be shocked to find out who the actual creator is. However, he claims that very rarely do companies become both the inventor and the dominant producer of the product. After reading the book I do believe it would be difficult to do both, but with research ahead of time, as many of the companies discussed in book have failed to do, companies can invent and become the dominant producer of the product.
Demythologizing Radical Innovation
In his previously published All the Right Moves (1999), Constantinos Markides asserts that "superior strategy is all about finding and exploiting a unique strategy in the company's business while at the same time searching for new strategic positions on a continuing basis." First he explains how to create and execute such a strategy and then locate its most favorable position; then he explains how to prepare for strategic innovation which will strengthen that position. In the final chapter, he concedes that "designing a successful strategy is a never-ending quest. Even the most successful companies must continually question the basis of their business and the assumptions underlying their 'formula for success.' (In fact, in one way or another, this is what most successful companies have done to get where they are.) New who/what/how positions are constantly popping up around the mass market, and established companies must be on the lookout for them. Like a modern-day Christopher Columbus, each company must set out to explore its industry's evolving terrain, searching for new and unexploited strategic positions."
In this his newest book, Markides and co-author Paul Geroski explain what a "fast second" strategy is and how to formulate it as well as how "smart companies" using that strategy have been able to bypass radical innovation to enter and dominate new markets. They identify and then examine four quite different types of innovation: Major, Radical, Incremental, and Strategic. "Our thesis is that it is impossible to offer proper advice on how to create or colonize new markets without first understanding where new markets come from, what they look like, and what it takes to succeed in them." They focus on demand and supply-side influences, arguing that, in the main, "most radical new technologies are pushed onto the market from the supply side." Therefore, radical innovations are by nature disruptive. For both customers and producers. Moreover, radical new markets are rarely created because of demand or customer needs. "Instead, they are created in a haphazard manner when a new technology gets pushed onto the market."
Others have their own reasons for why they admire this book so much. Here are two of mine. First, Markides and Geroski (in effect) call for a "Time Out!" on initiatives to create or respond to disruptive technologies, suggesting that less heat and more light are needed insofar as assumptions about such technologies are concerned. In this book, as noted, they identify four types of innovation and explain the significant differences between and among them. Each requires different strategies and tactics. This is especially important before decision-makers "set sail" in search of what Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne characterize as "blue oceans" (i.e. uncontested market space). Without really understanding the nature of the given technology and market, decision-makers will be victimized by what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton characterize as the Doing-Knowing Gap." This book will be invaluable to those who struggle to get appropriate align of strategy and market.
I also admire what Markides and Geroski share because their insights challenge another durable but questionable assertion: that larger, established organizations can become more "entrepreneurial" by developing cultures and structures of much smaller, start-up firms. This challenge will, I hope, require decision-makers to re-evaluate their own assumptions about pioneering, creating new products and/or services for new markets, the proper role of internal R&D, etc. With all due respect to Markides and Geroski's material, however, I think it would be a fool's errand to implement, without rigorous scrutiny, all of their opinions and recommendations.
It remains for each reader and her or his associates to formulate what Markides and Geroski refer to as a "dominant design," one which lays the groundwork for the rapid expansion of the given market and which not only shapes the nature of the near-term competition in that market but will be a significant influence on market competition thereafter.
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