Reverse Innovation: GE aims to disrupt glocal capitalism

John Elkington

October 21, 2009

In the same way that Volans argues that mainstream business leaders have much to learn from social and environmental entrepreneurs, so the netrepreneurs need to keep track of the leading edge of mainstream business thinking. This simple thought was very much in my mind as I read the October issue of Harvard Business Review – and specifically the article ‘How GE is disrupting itself‘ by GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Professor Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

The key idea in the piece is that the period of glocalization – in which R&D and innovation done in the developed world was rolled out successively less developed markets – is being paralleled (and potentially overtaken) by a new trend of reverse innovation. In this new era, companies like GE will innovate wherever it makes sense to do so, for example in countries like China and India, and then roll the resulting products and services back into the developed world.

This fundamental sea-change holds huge potential for those who are seeking to help major companies connect with emerging market mindsets, solutions, business models and talent that are erupting in areas of the world that are outside the normal spotlight.