Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

How can great companies do everything right - identify real customer needs, deliver excellent innovations, beat their competitors to market - and still fail?

The sad truth is that many companies fail because they focus too intensely on their own innovations, and then neglect the innovation ecosystems on which their success depends. In our increasingly interdependent world, winning requires more than just delivering on your own promises. It means ensuring that a host of partners -some visible, some hidden- deliver on their promises, too.

In The Wide Lens , innovation expert Ron Adner draws on over a decade of research and field testing to take you on far ranging journeys from Kenya to California, from transport to telecommunications, to reveal the hidden structure of success in a world of interdependence.

A riveting study that offers a new perspective on triumphs like Amazon's e-book strategy and Apple's path to market dominance; monumental failures like Michelin with run-flat tires and Pfizer with inhalable insulin; and still unresolved issues like electric cars and electronic health records, The Wide Lens offers a powerful new set of frameworks and tools that will multiply your odds of innovation success.

The Wide Lens will change the way you see, the way you think - and the way you win.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Innovation, from conception to product to consumer acceptance, is key for business success, but many great ideas have failed to have their anticipated impact on the consumer and the bottom line. Starting with an analysis of some great failures, Adner, a strategy professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, finds that the weakness was neither innovative nor corporate; rather, it was in the ecosystem. Knowledge of the ecosystem-interrelationships between the parts of the chain from innovation to consumer-is often overlooked. Adner shows how to map out the terrain of this ecosystem before suggesting practical steps that can be implemented to resolve problems and create a functional, proper ecosystem. A plethora of case studies allows for a clear analysis of numerous scenarios, both failures and success, with a depth rarely found in pragmatically-tinged books. Adner's evaluation of the early-mover advantage as compared to the ecosystem, and his discussion of Adoption Chains (highlighting the fact that the onus is usually not on the positives, but rather on reducing the negatives) are but two of the book's many gems. Anyone involved in moving a product from conception to adoption will not want to let this book pass them by. Agent: Edmond Harmsworth, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

Strategic management and business ecosystems are well documented in the prevailing literature. However, Adner (Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth) gives readers the tools, the unique vocabulary, and the conceptual framework to understand and manage strategy more proactively. The strength of the conceptual value permeates the entire text. Worthy of high praise are the rich case illustrations and the wealth of the conceptual materials. Each illustration provides the reader with a new perspective on decision making and the art of moving innovation forward proactively. It is quite apparent that this volume is the result of the author's extensive labor and dedication. Those who have spent years studying organizations and management strategy can benefit from spending some serious reading time with Adner's thoughtful presentation. This reviewer gives the author high marks and high praise for a job well done. The Wide Lens is a critical piece of literature for business/management curricula and a great resource for academic libraries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduate students through professionals. J. B. Kashner emeritus, College of the Southwest

Kirkus Book Review

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