Emerging markets

Fast-growing economies often provide poor soil for profits. The cause? A lack of specialized intermediary firms and regulatory systems on which multinational companies depend. Successful businesses look for those institutional voids and work around them.

It's weakest on measures of inclusion.

Over the past 20 years, waves of liberalization have all but washed away protectionist barriers in developing countries. As multinational corporations...

Demonetization was only the start.

When the business community supports an idea, change can happen fast. HBR’s annual ideas collection, compiled in cooperation with the World Economic Forum, offers 10 fresh solutions we believe would make the world better. Ranging from productivity boosting to nation building, from health care to hacking, any of the ideas presented in the following pages […]

The combination of the gigantic American trade deficit and the price of oil at more than $125 per barrel (at press time) has created an attendant pool...

A young American businessman in a developing country discovers that nothing gets done unless palms are greased. Should he play the game by his personal ethics—or the local rules?

A good narrative can override the data.

A framework for understanding economic potential in the region.

In many countries, diversified business groups substitute for the institutions that support effective markets in capital, labor, and goods and services. Their capacity for doing this must be strengthened through restructuring, not destroyed through dismantling.

On February 16, 2012, Barclays of U.K. launched Pingit, a service that lets people send and receive money using a smartphone. But this isn’t the first big innovation in mobile banking. These innovations are already happening in developing countries. Poor countries are jumping ahead of rich ones by building a 21st century infrastructure (because they […]

When India opened its economy to the global marketplace in the early 1990s, many multinational corporations rushed in to pursue its middle-class consumers—an estimated 200 million people—only to confront low incomes, social and political conservatism, and resistance to change. It turned out that the Indian consumer was a tough one to figure out and win […]

Start with developing markets, and then work your way backward.

You'll learn lessons you'd otherwise miss.

What companies need to know.

A channel manager.

Multinational companies have to localize customer-facing operations but integrate their back-end processes globally to reap the full potential of emerging markets. That isn’t easy.

What multinationals need to know.

To attract and retain well-educated, highly ambitious women in developing economies, companies must understand the societal challenges those women face.

Because of growing commitments of their companies in developing countries, large numbers of American and European managers have entered negotiations with government officials in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Also, with emerging nationalism, these negotiations have become increasingly frustrating. Sometimes misunderstandings have been so great that they have led to a breakdown in negotiations that […]

In early 2017, 15 years after being launched, DMart was India's second-largest and most profitable food and grocery retailer. To achieve its stellar growth,...

!Xaus Lodge is a community owned tourism facility in the Kagaladi Transfrontier Park, built to settle post-apartheid claims related to land seizures....

Introduces Khalid Awan, co-founder of TCS, an entrepreneurial air-express company in Pakistan. Awan has succeeded in building a sizeable company despite...

Examines an acquisition in the highly competitive outdoor media advertising industry in China in late 2005. The transaction leads to eventual consolidation...

This is a three-part case on India's largest consumer goods company, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), a subsidiary of Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational...

This case sets the stage for the 2012 case study "Constructing a Base-of-the-Pyramid Business in a Multinational Corporation: CEMEX's Patrimonio Hoy Looks...

Anand Piramal and his team sought to "democratize healthcare" in India through the development of a new service delivery model. If Henry Ford could build...

In March 2016, Wilder Jr., CMO at ESSEN, Argentina's leading aluminum cookware manufacturer, with a direct selling scheme and a 70% household penetration,...

This a role play supplement to Competing for Development (A): Fuel Efficient Stoves for Darfur, product # 908M61. The role plays feature additional background,...

In 2013, Nokia sold its Device and Services business to Microsoft for €5.4 billion. For decades Nokia had led the telecommunications (telecom) industry...

During the summer of 2014, Alan Knight, General Manager of Corporate Responsibility at the integrated steel and mining company ArcelorMittal, observed...

The (A) case focuses on the development of a Smart Village in Mori, Andhra Pradesh (AP), India. The Chief Minister of the state, N. Chandrababu Naidu,...

Follows the decision by ICICI (one of India's largest banks) to expand internationally in June 2001.

This case tells the story of Azza Al Qubaisi, a female Emirati role-model entrepreneur - how she successfully developed a novel business idea, established...

Supplement to case IMD752. This two-part case series is about the largest equity-raising deal in history - the Petrobras seasoned equity offering (SEO)...

Patrimonio Hoy is a program targeting the housing needs of the low-income population by CEMEX, a major Mexican company and a leading global cement producer....

The partners at Innova Capital, a leading mid-market private equity investor in Poland, must negotiate a transition of power between the two ex-patriate...

Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) is a global initiative integrating Unilever's commercial and sustainability-related agenda. In this context, Unilever...

This a role play supplement to Competing for Development (A): Fuel Efficient Stoves for Darfur, product # 908M61. The role plays feature additional background,...

The executives of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, Ltd., one of the largest brokerages in India, are considering an IPO on the Indian markets. The company...

Fast-growing economies often provide poor soil for profits. The cause? A lack of specialized intermediary firms and regulatory systems on which multinational companies depend. Successful businesses look for those institutional voids and work around them.

In early 2017, 15 years after being launched, DMart was India's second-largest and most profitable food and grocery retailer. To achieve its stellar growth,...

!Xaus Lodge is a community owned tourism facility in the Kagaladi Transfrontier Park, built to settle post-apartheid claims related to land seizures....

Introduces Khalid Awan, co-founder of TCS, an entrepreneurial air-express company in Pakistan. Awan has succeeded in building a sizeable company despite...

Examines an acquisition in the highly competitive outdoor media advertising industry in China in late 2005. The transaction leads to eventual consolidation...

This is a three-part case on India's largest consumer goods company, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), a subsidiary of Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational...

This case sets the stage for the 2012 case study "Constructing a Base-of-the-Pyramid Business in a Multinational Corporation: CEMEX's Patrimonio Hoy Looks...

It's weakest on measures of inclusion.

Over the past 20 years, waves of liberalization have all but washed away protectionist barriers in developing countries. As multinational corporations...

Anand Piramal and his team sought to "democratize healthcare" in India through the development of a new service delivery model. If Henry Ford could build...