Reverse Innovation: Create Far from Home, Win Everywhere

Much of American business has focused—successfully—on exporting the same popular products they sell in the States. But that won’t be good enough for long; it’s time to implement reverse innovation, the ability to innovate new products and strategies specifically for emerging markets, argue Govindarajan and Trimble, professors at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and coauthors of The Other Side of Innovation. There’s a chasm between rich- and poor-country needs, and success will depend on the ability to reach the developing world. In an engaging voice, the authors discuss the rising importance of such countries as India and China, and present case studies of companies like Nokia, Proctor & Gamble, GE Healthcare, and PepsiCo, and their efforts to address this challenge. Though reverse innovation clearly has great profit potential, it’s also an instrument for solving vexing social problems in the developing world and improving standards of living. This insightful book makes a compelling case for the developing world supplying the strongest emerging market of the new century. (Apr.)