Case Study: Paperight

Founded in 2008 with the vision to increase access to books in Africa, Paperight is now the largest network with print-on-demand books to stores in the world with over 200 outlets (Paperight, 2013a). This innovation earned them first place at the Frankfurt Book Fair Contec Startup Showcase in Germany in October 2013 (Mulgrew, 2013).

Publishers, authors, or right brokers register on the website, www.paperight.com, to sell print licences to businesses-copy shops, schools, among others. They choose their rights fee per copy in dollars, usually between 5-15% of their conventional publication’s RRP. Paperight keeps 20% of that amount with no other fees charged. Customers pay a licence fee and the outlet’s printing charge  (Paperight, 2013b).

The four P’s of innovation

Product: changes in the products or services that an organisation offers.

The innovation of Paperight offers products to two groups of consumers. It sells licences to copy shops, schools etc. to print books on demand and it sells new markets to publishers and authors.

Process: changes in the way in which these products or services are created and distributed.

It is relatively cheaper to purchase a book printed from a Paperight outlet than to purchase it from a bookshop. Titles printed from the internet are usually more liable to copyright violation. In order to downgrade this, Paperight uses social DRM by way of watermarking to personalize each book with the author(s) and end user’s name. This enables Paperight conduct spot checks on its outlets to make sure the system is used correctly (Anderson, 2013).

Delivery is also relatively cheaper. There are no delivery charges with Paperight products.

Position: changes in the context or market in which the products or services are introduced.

Titles published which may have initially been restricted to certain markets due to limitations in delivery now have a wider market through Paperight.

Paradigm: changes in the fundamentals of the models which structure what the company does. 

Publishers and authors usually sell their books in bookshops, online stores etc. However, the innovation of Paperight provides a radical alternative for the sales and distribution of books.

The Paperight innovation clearly demonstrates the utilization of knowledge and technology to produce novelty products and services ( Tidd & Bressant, 2009). According to research gathered, Paperight has no competitors in the same vein of its production.