Emerging market strategy: innovating both products and delivery systems
Abstract
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
Citation
Chakravarthy, B. and Coughlan, S. (2012), "Emerging market strategy: innovating both products and delivery systems", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 27-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878571211191675
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited