The most recent issue of The Economist ran a wonderful survey of
innovation in emerging markets (see Special
Report on Innovation in Emerging Markets). The collection of
articles discusses how innovation is helping developing countries catch
up with their developed country counterparts, and how emerging market
multinationals, through internal innovation and acquisition, are
becoming formidable global competitors.
Developing countries are becoming hotbeds of business innovation in much the same way as Japan did from the 1950s onwards. They are coming up with new products and services that are dramatically cheaper than their Western equivalents: $3,000 cars, $300 computers and $30 mobile phones that provide nationwide service for just 2 cents a minute. They are reinventing systems of production and distribution, and they are experimenting with entirely new business models.
Emerging-market champions have not only proved highly competitive in their own backyards, they are also going global themselves.
The United Nations World Investment Report calculates that there are now around 21,500 multinationals based in the emerging world. The best of these…are as good as anybody in the world. The number of companies from Brazil, India, China or Russia on the Financial Times 500 list more than quadrupled in 2006-08, from 15 to 62. Brazilian top 20 multinationals more than doubled their foreign assets in a single year, 2006.
To read the full, original article click on this link: The Emergence Of Emerging Market Innovation | iStockAnalyst.com
Author: Robert Salomon
