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About What Global Medtech
Manufacturers Need To Copy From India and China
Gone are the days when European or
U.S. manufacturers would simply take products designed for use in
high-end markets, reduce the features and, consequently, make them
cheaper for emerging markets.
This kind of minor adaptation is not
working any more. Instead Western Companies need to rethink
products with local conditions in mind.
Chinese and Indian companies have
understood the opportunities in their markets and have been
innovating for this segment building “good enough” solutions for
down to 10% of the costs of western products. The core of this
frugal innovation is to limit a product to essential features and
use of off-the-shelf components whenever possible. Rather than
pushing a technology to the market, western companies need to
“work backwards” from the market, producing only devices the
customers are able to pay for.
GE’s John H. Welch Technology center
in Bangalore, for instance, developed an electrocardiogram (ECG)
device for the local market costing less than a tenth of a similar
device in developed countries. “Traditionally they would build it
in-house, develop all the technology from scratch with high
quality standards. Instead, they copied domestic competitors using
off-the-shelf components, The device needed a Printer, for
example, so researchers used a bus ticket printer. For the keypad
they used a component from a telephone.”
But the benefit doesn’t end with the
emerging market, thanks to reverse innovation. After being
developed for India, the device now has FDA approval and is used
in the U.S. for emergency applications. There are already products
succeeding in Western markets that were originally developed for
emerging countries.
(Based On Interview given by Prof.
Jaideep Prabhu, Cambridge Centre for India and Global Business, to
EMDT; Ref. link :
http://www.emdt.co.uk/daily-buzz/reverseinnovation-what-medtech-manufacturers-need-copy-chinese-and-indiancompanies
)
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