Venture capitalists are increasingly interested in emerging markets, and in working with local funds based in those markets (despite the fact that reverse innovation in venture capital seems counterintuitive). The reason for the interest in in part because the industry has suffered from poor returns on investment over the last decade; indeed, some sectors, including biotechnology, report negative aggregate returns. China and India, in particular, offer attractive liquidity and investment opportunities VCs haven't seen for a while.

Read the entire post >>

Posted by Vijay Govindarajan at 12:00 AM | Permalink

I was a panelist on a session on Reverse Innovation during the recently concluded World Economic Forum at Davos. The session attracted over 125 CEOs and senior executives. The conventional wisdom is that innovations originate in rich countries and the resulting products are sold horizontally in other developed countries and then sent downhill to developing countries. After all, aren't developed nations such as the U.S. and Germany the richest and most technologically advanced nations in the world? The U.S. and Germany, for instance, have well over 300 Nobel Prize winners in science and technology whereas India and China have a combined total of less than 10. Doesn't it, therefore, stand to reason that developed countries will be the first to adopt the next wave of innovations? Won't the developing world adopts those innovations only when they have "caught up" economically? No. Not really.

Read the post >>

Posted by Vijay Govindarajan at 10:11 AM | Permalink

GE's Susan Peters and I have just written a short piece on leadership and innovation in Bloomberg Businessweek titled: Embedding Innovation in Leadership >>

Let us know what you think!

Posted by Vijay Govindarajan at 9:03 AM | Permalink