Types of Innovation: The 4P's

According to Bressant and Tidd’s 4P’s model, innovation has four main stages or considerations.

1.      Product Innovation.

The most common form of product innovation is that which improves a current product that is already offered to the user. In publishing an obvious example of this would be the digital reader; an innovated version of the traditional book.

2.      Process Innovation.

This form of innovation takes into consideration the way in which products are created and/or delivered to the user. Again, digital publishing would be an excellent example of this, with books being instantly purchased and downloaded with such processes as ‘one-click’ buying on Amazon, which then automatically downloads the title to the user’s Kindle.

3.      Position Innovation.

This involves relocation of the user’s perception about a certain product. For example, when Jane Austen wrote Sense and Sensibility this was just another good book. Now, this text is perceived as not only a good book, but a great classic...essential literary reading, which is how it is now advertised.

4.      Paradigm Innovation.

This relates to the mental models, which define what a certain business is all about. Within the publishing world at the moment, an example of this would be the discussion of; is the publisher still necessary? If it was declared that the publisher is now obsolete, this would be an example of paradigm innovation as the business of publishing would be redefined.

Bressant, J. And Tidd, J. (2011) “The Innovation Imperative,” Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2^nd ed., Chichester, UK: Wiley and Sons, pp. 2 - 52

(2009) “Types of Innovation: The 4P’s <http://www.humanitarianinnovation.org/innovation/types> [Accessed 30^th January 2012)