V. J. Govindarajan and his book "Reverse innovation: create far from home, win everywhere"

More great experts and litrature recomendations from the SKOLKOVO business school library managers! This week let us introduce you #3 from Thinkers 50 ranking - V. J. Govindarajan, an expert in international business, strategy and innovation, and his book!

“If a business can be destroyed, then it eventually will be destroyed. It is only a matter of whether you do it to yourself or a rival does it to you.”
 “Strategy used to be about protecting existing competitive advantage, but not any more. Today it is about finding the next advantage.”

 Reverse innovation: create far from home, win everywhere
Vijay and Chris Trimble
Harvard Business School Press, 2012
256 pages
ISBN: 9781422157640

Instead of developing products in rich countries and then trying to export them worldwide, maybe with scaled down features, reverse innovation is about products first adopted in the developing world. Surprisingly often these innovations defy gravity and flow uphill. Reverse innovation combines a global strategy with an intense focus on local needs and preferences. This book shows how, counter intuitively, there are many circumstances when business models and products developed in emerging markets can provide new opportunities in rich economies also. Three key points for multinationals:
- to capture growth in emerging markets it is necessary to innovate, not just export

 - leverage opportunities to export innovation from emerging markets to other similar economies and eventually to the mainstream
- keep watch on the emerging giants, the rapidly growing native companies