Why books are undergoing disruption Research Paper

Why books are undergoing disruption - Research Paper Example Talking in a detailed manner, the development of the internet powered communication technology along with the factor of rapid rise and faster acceptance of various kinds of technological gadgets has resulted in the process of a massive global technological revolution. As a result of this revolution, the world has been automatically transformed into a single well connected global entity. It needs special highlighting of the fact that the technological revolution that has affected both the developed as well as the developing markets has brought a tremendous change in the nature and behaviour of the masses around the world. The masses of the present day increasingly prefer to live a dual life. This dual life promotes physical presence in the real world as well as virtual presence in the internet connected world. In order to stay connected to their virtual selves in the virtual world, the masses prefer to acquire various smart technology devices like Smartphones, I-pads, tablets. These t echnological devices besides helping the masses to stay connected to the virtual world, also comprises of a number of technology powered applications. These applications automatically results in bringing a change in the behaviour of the masses. In this tech savvy era, it has become a common trend of the masses to use the technological gadgets as much as possible for the accomplishment of daily work as well as even gaining access to knowledge and related resources. Thus this has automatically given the base for the rise in demand for books in the electronic medium. The Innovation factor in EBooks The rise in demand for e-books automatically represents that the books in the physical medium is getting obsolete in nature. In order to understand the nature of change that is happening in the book arena, the focus has to be given on innovation. The nature of innovation can be incremental as well as disruptive. Incremental innovation represents the process of adding and increasing the value of the existing products in a step by step manner (Shavinina, 2003, p. 120). On the other hand, disruptive innovation means a sudden surge in value as compared to the already existing model of product. This sudden and massive increase in value might result in the process of making the previously existing product look outdated in nature. However, a disruptive innovation takes a longer time to gain stability as compared to the incremental innovation (Kelley, 2010, p. 32). A very important feature of disruptive innovation is that it ends up creating a new market for a new segment of customers (Bjarnason, 2013). In case of eBooks, a very similar kind of pattern can be identified. Before eBooks emerged into existence, there was no market for this kind of a product and the customers preferred to read and gather information from the physical book form. However, the evolution of eBooks resulted in the development of a new market where customers preferred to take the enjoyment of book readi ng from the technology enabled media and gadgets. a. In this particular case, it needs to be highlighted that the company that is dealing with eBooks has a first mover advantage. Now, in case of a company, that have a first mover advantage with eBooks, it simply represents that the company is trying to promote and stabilize the market as well as create a demand for eBooks, a product which has been developed on the lines of disruptive innovation. However, it is important to mention that the product might fail despite having a first mover adv