Mobile reverse innovation
– posted October 9th, 2009 by Belen Barros No comments
Thanks to C. Sharma for including this post in the Carnival of the Mobilists #195 at Always on Real Time Access
I went yesterday to Navi Radjou’s talk in the Science Gallery, which is part of the Innovation Interface series.
Ex-Forrester and working now for Cambridge University, Mr. Radjou came across as very smart, very articulate, and gave a good talk on lots of interesting topics, even though (unfortunately) there was not enough time to go into detail.
Reverse Innovation
One of the most interesting topics of the evening was reverse innovation. Radjou explained that traditionally, new technologies and gadgets were produced in the developed world, and then exported and adapted to developing markets. Now, that is changing. Because the growth potential for lots of industries is now in developing countries such as India and China, innovation is shifting: new things are now invented for developing markets, and then imported and adapted to the quirks of developed nations.
Radjou used GE as an example to explain the reverse innovation phenomenon. When he explained the concept, the first thing that came into my head was… mobile, of course.
The Indian model
In their special report ‘A world of connections,’ The Economist talks about how Indian mobile operators outsource network maintenance to save costs. This “Indian model” is being watched closely by our own telcos, who wouldn’t mind forgetting the pipe–all that money spent building and maintaining their wireless networks, which diverts their attention from their revenue source–to focus solely on their subscribers.
But developing nations are also ahead on mobile services adoption. Look at mobile banking in Kenya, or recruitment in India, or the Mobile Camps in Africa.
So, if you are in the business of mobile services or mobile applications, you shouldn’t be looking at the UK, Finland or the US. Africa and the far East are more likely to be your source of inspiration.
Digg this post Submit to del.icio.us Submit to technorati
Categories Life outside iQ, Technology
