“Innovation – whether it’s high-tech, low-tech or no tech – is really sweeping the emerging markets,” said Jerry Haar, clinical professor in the Department of Management & International Business in the College of Business at Florida International University (FIU).
In his newly-released book, Innovation in Emerging Markets, Haar and co-author Ricardo Ernst discuss the forces and drivers that shape innovation through analysis and case studies. Haar and Ernst, professor of Operations and Global Logistics at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, will present their work at a book-signing at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Avenue in Coral Gables, at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 20, 2016. It is Haar’s 16th book.
“This book should be of interest to business practitioners, academics, government officials, policy analysists, students and the public at large, especially because it’s written in a very accessible and practical way,” said Haar, who also is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. and a Research Affiliate of Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
Innovation in Emerging Markets, available in hardcover and soon in softcover, presents examples of innovation such as Grace Choi, a 32-year-old Harvard Business School graduate, born to Korean immigrant parents and raised in Brooklyn. Her company, Mink, hopes to use an innovative application of 3D printing technology to decentralize the cosmetic industry. “She as the ability to place the power to define beauty back in the hands of the consumer,” said Haar. “On the way, she’ll be disrupting a $55 billion market.”
Another example: Chotukool, a storage container that keeps things cool by using a chip. Chotukool is the brainchild of Gopalan Sunderraman, executive vice president of a 100-year-old manufacturing company in Mumbai, India. This product is an innovative approach to tackling the problem of food storage in India, where an estimated 80 percent of households do not have a refrigerator.
“Innovation is and will continue to be the prime driver of sustainable competitiveness among nations, industries and individual companies, and emerging markets will be major players,” Haar said.
