Companies that invest heavily in R&D are often torn between emerging technologies, wondering which will win in the market and is therefore the one to develop. (The classic example is VHS versus Betamax video recorders.) Conventional wisdom suggests that they pay dearly for getting it wrong. But my research shows that betting on a losing technology and then switching to the winner can position a company to come out ahead of competitors that were on the right track all along.
A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review.