Innovation Approaches For Old Products Revitalisation After Technological Change: The Rise Of Technology Reverse

Incumbent companies sometimes innovate and attempt to revitalise old technology-based products, in decline after technological change, by improvements of their technical performance and/or extensions of their lifetime into the market. The name of this innovation approach is "sailing ship effect," the acceleration of innovation in the old technology in response to the threat from the new. However, in theory firms could achieve revitalisation even by an alternative innovation approach based on the development of completely new products. The article reports an illustrative case study: the innovation approach of some of the main incumbent organisations in photography industry after the emergence of digital cameras. In this case, incumbent companies developed and launched film scanners, new technology-based products aimed at supporting users of old analog cameras after the rise of digital imaging. The article contributes to the extant literature about innovation approaches for old products' revitalisation by analysing how established firms can achieve this goal with completely new technological products. The approach of technology reverse is proposed.