Economic Recovery Inspires Innovation and Frustration

As innovation revives, companies struggle to make it boost profitable growth. GE, Tata Motors, Marvel, and Virgin Galactic offer diverse models

BusinessWeek, November 16, 2009 — While they continue to slog through the longest economic downturn in decades, companies are no longer making cost-cutting their primary focus. Innovation is now front and center on the corporate agenda, according to a global survey we recently conducted with 65 senior executives from diverse industries. Executives are adding more breakthrough innovations and business model changes to their portfolio to fuel the growth engine for the recovery.

Yet our survey reveals that companies by and large are having trouble making innovation efforts work

The Case for 'Reverse Innovation' Now

A sophisticated emerging-market strategy is not optional for companies that want to survive and thrive in the 21st century

BusinessWeek, October 26, 2009 — Is it possible that the most important innovations of the future will be adopted first in the developing world? In a recent Harvard Business Review article General Electric (GE) CEO Jeff Immelt and I argued that this phenomenon, "reverse innovation," will be increasingly common. Since then, the most common question we've been asked is "why now?"

We can answer this question by analyzing how American companies became global and why a new approach is needed going forward.

Indian Firms Shift Focus to the Poor†

Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009 — Indian companies, long dependent on hand-me-down technology from developed nations, are becoming cutting-edge innovators as they target one of the world's last untapped markets: the poor.

How GE Is Disrupting Itself†

For decades, GE has sold modified Western products to emerging markets. Now, to preempt the emerging giants, it’s trying the reverse.

Harvard Business Review, October 1, 2009 — In May 2009, General Electric announced that over the next six years it would spend $3 billion to create at least 100 health-care innovations that would substantially lower costs, increase access, and improve quality. Two products it highlighted at the time—a $1,000 handheld electrocardiogram device and a portable, PC-based ultrasound machine that sells for as little as $15,000—are revolutionary, and not just because of their small size and low price. They’re also extraordinary because they originally were developed for markets in emerging economies (the ECG device for rural India and the ultrasound machine for rural China) and are now being sold in the United States, where they’re pioneering new uses for such machines.

We call the process used... continue reading