Over the past two years, interest in emerging markets has exploded as a new source of customer, capital and, not least, innovative ideas. A special report in The Economist published last year profiled affordable new products from the Tata Nano automobile to the GE Healthcare MAC800 electrocardiogram, arising from the inherent scarcities of emerging markets. The applicability of such products in mature markets in the United States and Europe is a phenomenon that Vijay Govindarajan at Tuck (Dartmouth) has coined “reverse innovation.”
While the question of whether products with innovative features can be sourced and developed in emerging markets has been resolved, the more provocative question is whether the developed world can learn how to accelerate the innovation process itself?
To read the full, original article click on this link: Part #1: What Canadian venture capitalists can learn from emerging markets – MaRS: Building Canada's next generation of growth companies
Author: Justin Chakma
