Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of their Evolution

Here are some of the more salient quotes from Geoffrey Moore’s book Dealing with Darwin, which deals with innovation strategy and management–particularly disruptive innovation. Its a classic in some respects in that space. It does focus on major companies (versus early stage companies) for examples–but creates principles relevant to product driven innovation and as well as innovation in professional service firms like consultancies and executive coaching firms.

“The economic argument in favor of innovation focus on pricing power. Without innovation, offerings become more and more like each other. They commoditize. As they do so, customers are able to play off one vendor against the next to get a lower price.”
Geoffrey Moore, Dealing with Darwin, p. 5

“The fundamental objective is to establish intimacy with an exclusive community within which your company is the only vendor to penetrate the inner circle.”
Geoffrey Moore, Dealing with Darwin, p. 129

“Relationship marketing takes along time to come to fruition. Early returns are not impressive because trust is something that builds exponentially over time.”
Geoffrey Moore, Dealing with Darwin, p. 131

“The key leverage comes from outsourcing and specialization, each element of the chain focusing its financial and human capital on its core value-adding capacity and leaving the rest of the value-chain tasks to other companies.”
Geoffrey Moore, Dealing with Darwin, p. 140

Five Levers Model: (p.216):

Centralize
Standardize
Modularize
Optimize
Outsource

Core Concepts

Tech Adoption Curve
Fractal Markets (***)
Four Innovation Zones
Types of Innovation
Customer Intimacy Zone
Managing Innovation
Case Studies

Related Concepts

Competitive Advantage Gap
Competitive Advantage Grid (***)
Core/Context Analysis (***)
Nine Point Checklist
Process Innovation
Segmentation
Sectoring
Value Disciplines

Geoffrey Moore Resources

TCG Advisors Resources
Innovation Speech by Geoffrey Moore at Stanford (2005)
Reach Your Escape Velocity Geoffrey Moore at Stanford (2011)

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