Reverse innovation and Bangladesh

Photo: AP

Reverse innovation is an innovation that is adopted first in the developing world. Our country has three interesting examples of reverse innovation. One is the Gatorade energy drink. As Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble of Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business explain, the drink's origin can be traced to Bangladesh, where people have used liquid concoctions of carbohydrates, sugar and salt to quickly hydrate patients. US doctors who travelled to Bangladesh during cholera outbreaks in the early 1960s wrote about its efficacy. And a doctor at the University of Florida read their report and realised that it could also work for dehydrated football players. Another example is micro-financing, which was started by Dr. Muhammad Yunus. He made micro loans available to poor customers who would never be able to get a conventional bank loan. In 2006, he won the Nobel Prize for his efforts. The last example is social business. Dr. Yunus first defined the term thus: “Social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social objective within the highly regulated marketplace of today”. He is relentlessly travelling to different parts of the world to encourage people to invest more in social business. Now developed countries are using the concept of social business.