Inspire global business leaders to reinvent new strategies in emerging markets

 

 

Target Audience

This Major is open to all Executive MBA participants. The goal of the major is to inspire the next generation of global business leaders with the next best practices and provide them with concrete tools to implement strategies that can help them to open new markets and foster creativity, sustainability and innovation in their organizations.

Locations and academic partners

Two one-week sessions: CapeTown, South Africa (May) and Bangalore, India (October)
Academic partner: The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (India) and The University of Cape Town, Graduate Business School (South Africa)

Context

More than 4 billion people live with less than 10 dollars a day in poor and emerging countries. While they represent the vast majority of the world’s population, they are often neglected by traditional business and relegated to the informal sector. The “Base of the Pyramid” (BoP), as are often depicted these low-income markets are nevertheless a great source of business opportunities and innovation.
Far from philanthropy, an increasing number of enterprises are therefore seeking to design new business models to better serve this largely untapped market. Understanding the preferences of lower-income consumers and imagining new business models that will be able to both include the next billion consumers and integrate local capabilities are one the greatest challenges of the next decades for any companies.

Objectives

This Major aims to achieve the following:

•  Understand new ways of innovation that can resonate both in emerging and developed countries for multinational as well as entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized,
  enterprises,
• Provide an in-depth analysis of these new strategies in emerging markets, and concrete tools to build new value propositions to better meet the needs of emerging markets’
  consumers,
• Design new business models designed for low income consumers can contribute to poverty alleviation.

Content (Subject to changes)

Identifying New Business Opportunities

While many multinational companies have opened R&D centers in emerging markets to tap into local customer needs, they tend in fact to solely focus on affluent urban buyers. But the very vast majority of emerging economies’ consumers lives with less than 8 dollars per day. The example of the mobile industry in emerging markets will show how serving the entire market can be highly profitable.

Fostering Innovation and Designing New Business Models

These emerging strategies are a learning lab for conventional business model innovation. New business leaders will indeed sustain competitive advantage by enhancing a culture of strategic innovation. This innovation is twofold: Frugal innovation and Reverse innovation.

Ensuring Social License to Operate

The environmental and social challenges in the global economy associated with the perception of business’ growing influence are putting corporations at the heart of the public debate. Public expectations towards business are indeed rising.  Many corporations have been launching philanthropic programs to meet these expectations. But there are more ambitious answers: integrating social issues into core business and build models that can be both financially sustainable and socially impactful.

Enhancing Employee’s Motivation

These strategies can have a strong impact on employees’ motivation. Enhancing a culture of strategic innovation is a very powerful tool to foster leadership. Leveraging business acumen and expertise, beyond philanthropy to provide a better access to goods and service to the majority of the world’s population is strongly federating employees around a common goal.

Faculty

David Menasce is the Academic Director of the Major. David has been teaching at HEC since 2007 and is the managing director of Azao, a consulting company specialized on social business. He has also founded BOPOBS, a think tank working on “strategies of the Base of the Pyramid".

Your contact

More information on this Major, Roxana Popa popa@hec.fr +33 (0) 1 55 65 59 87