The Four Types Of Incremental Innovation

Incremental innovation can be described as a series of small improvements or upgrades made to a company’s existing processes, services, methods or products (Globerman & Lybecker , 2014). The changes featured in incremental innovation normally focus on improving an existing product’s development efficiency, competitive differentiation and productivity (Techtarget , 2017). In most organizations, incremental innovation is used to maintain or even improve a product’s market position. A good example of incremental innovation lies in Samsung’s trend of releasing improved mobile phone under the product line- the galaxy. It has in fact become a common tactic in the consumer technology industry as organizations strive to regularly improve personal devices with customer friendly features. That said, the innovation matrix suggests that there are four types of innovation related to incremental innovation. These include: breakthrough, sustaining, new market and disruptive innovation. The paper outlines the 4 types of innovation, but highlights incremental innovation.

Breakthrough innovation can be described as a large, bold change in the value offered to the consumers and the performance technology. As a matter of fact, breakthrough innovation is what comes to mind when most individuals think of innovation. Normally, a breakthrough product would often combine the functionality of a number of different products into a single product (Wind & Mahajan, 1997). A good example of breakthrough