Emerging market strategy: innovating both products and delivery systems
Purpose ‐ Low customer purchasing power and lack of adequate infrastructure are two difficulties that restrict opportunities in any emerging market. This paper seeks to describe how to overcome these hurdles.
Design/methodology/approach ‐ The paper
blends two different perspectives on emerging markets: unearthing opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid, and coping with institutional voids, to offer a unified framework and illustrate it with examples.
Findings ‐ In order to fully leverage the opportunities afforded
by emerging markets, companies need both product and business-system innovations. The former is needed to serve customers at price points that they can afford and the latter to reach them in the market and to offer them additional services that have the potential to justify a price premium
or at the very least will build brand loyalty.
Research limitations/implications ‐ The proposed strategy has its own risks. But there are potential payoffs as well. Further research is needed to assess these tradeoffs.
Practical applications ‐ The
article explains how companies that learn to offer combinations of product and business-system innovations can dominate the emerging markets they enter.
Originality/value ‐ The article provides a model showing how companies can fully leverage the opportunities afforded
by emerging markets,
Keywords: Bottom of the pyramid; Business system innovation; Developing countries; Emerging markets; Innovation; Low-cost strategy; Marketing strategy; Problematic infrastructure; Product innovation
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 30 December 2011
- Previously published as The Antidote
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