Managing Imitation Strategies

By Steven P. Schnaars

Book Overview

Pioneers -- those innovative "first movers" who enter markets before competitors - are often deified as engines of economic growth while imitators are generally scorned as copycats and shameful... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029281059
• ISBN13: 9780029281055
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Analysis You Need not Gee Whiz to Entertain You

The question of why some companies innovate and prosper, becoming industry giants while others innovate and then watch the creation gobbled up to add profits to an existing larger firm has been answered in Professor Schnaars' book.Most other books that deal with the innovation/imitation questions have a strong emotional bias toward innovation as the preferred task. It simply bothers them not to put a GeeWhiz flair to their writings. While everyone respects the inventor, it is the organization that gets the working and consistent product to the final customer that creates the value.Unlike the GeeWhiz books, Professor Schnaars give a brief overview of the other studies of innovation and imitation strategies and then presents 28 cases of pre-empted innovators ranging from ball point pens to paperback books. In these cases, he shows the weaknesses of first movers, the range of mistakes and misfortunes that can put the innovator in a weaker position to the imitator.Like his book Megamistakes, there is little chortling over the mistakes of the failed efforts. He does not cast them as fools who failed to keep some list, some Schnaars' Fifteen Rules of Innovators (there is some discussion at the end of the book on strategy, but no guarantees), he demonstrates that the first mover, the innovator, is in a very weak position and that it takes good fortune, good management and good market position to grab that industry leader position and hold it.The book has been invaluable in my work in the electronics industry. I have been able to resist the siren call of promising, but weak, investments in firms that had "the" new product. From Professor Schnaars' work, I knew that even if the product worked, there was guarantee that the firm could keep the profit from the great idea.Anyone looking to invest or work with firms building their future on innovation should read this book. It will pull the rose-tinted glasses and blinders off your face. At less then $30, Professor Schnaars has not priced this book to its value, the insights are worth thousands to those willing to listen.