Innovation

According to Bessant and Tidd, we have 4 types of innovation: product, process, position and paradigm innovation. The world of business works most of the time by the rule: do what we do but better than others. If we look at the media industry, companies are trying to innovate in order to survive and grow in the market. The main players like Amazon and Apple have raised the challenge. They use technology as a crucial tool for innovation, hence, they perfectly suit the 4Ps model. They produce new devices (i.e. Kindle Fire) and have a range of new services (i.e. the multimedia iBooks2 app by Apple). They modernise the way of delivering their products constantly in order to open up new markets for new customers, by lowering prices and shifting the way people behave Bezos admitted that for him Kindle is not just a device but a media service (Podcast), for that reason, it has to be customer-focused, placing the customer first and fulfilling his/her needs. With this, cheap products and fast delivery with one click became essential. Amazon and Apple are able to shift the rules of the game and they have already changed the business model. The former operates on the policy of making losses in one field (e.g. on sales of devices) in order to gain profits on the other (broaden the list of end-users.) (Horne 2011: 25). Although changes to this environment do not happen every day, it is happening now and it is influencing the whole industry. Each type of innovation triggers a race between major players in order to establish who is better, faster or who can add more value and at the same time, challenges a traditional market. On the one hand it requires some radical steps i.e. closing of traditional book shops, but on the other, it is a spur for further innovation. Nowadays, nobody can afford to ignore changes either connected with new technology/content or with new customers needs.

Horne, A. “The Future of Publishing: a report on innovation and the future of the book”. 2011. Web. 4 Jan. 2012 <http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/files/extranet/docs/FOA/mediafutures.pdf>