Bottom Of The Pyramid And Reverse Innovation: An Exploration In The Food Indutry

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the current situation of innovation flows in the global economy, underlying the present development and providing a picture of the future evolution of innovation. The reasons behind this dissertation is the interest in the fast changing global economic environment due to globalization and the increasing importance of emerging countries. Firstly, we point out the role of the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) as a highly profitable market of emerging economies; then, we move towards innovation flows involving developing countries as originators rather than only addressee of innovations. As a matter of fact, we underline the increasing relevance of reverse innovation flows and the reasons behind this development. Moreover, we focus on the process and the organizational requirements needed for a multinational enterprise to successfully introduce products from emerging to developed countries. Second, we point out empirical evidences about traditional and reverse diffusion types of innovations regarding two categories of the food industry:bakery and baby food. In this framework, we investigate the features of reverse innovations in comparison to trickle down flows in terms of speed of diffusion and price positioning. Particularly, we empirically verify that reverse innovations diffuse faster than traditional innovations and that products trickling down have a higher price positioning than those flowing uphill. Lastly, by speculating on the fact that in emerging economies a major need of adaptation of marketing strategies is required, we provide evidences that reverse innovations diffuse in an easier way than traditional innovations.