As Vijay Govindarajan, GE’s chief innovation consultant, described in his GEreports post on Wednesday, the rise of emerging markets such as India and China mark a new phase of globalization. A key component of meeting this challenge is making products “scalable” — which is all about taking locally innovated products to other emerging markets as well as to developed ones. With its launch in the US in the second quarter of this year, GE Healthcare’s portable electrocardiogram, the MAC 800, is just such an example of scalability in action.
On the move: Based on cell phone technology, the device weighs under seven pounds, can go anywhere, and saves space by relying on texting rather than typing on a full keyboard.
The MAC 800 was originally developed in China, for China in 2008. But as BusinessWeek writes in its new story, the “machine will be pitched to a new set of medical professionals — primary-care doctors, rural clinics, and visiting nurses — who need a device they can easily tote or simply can’t afford the pricier models.”
John Rice, CEO of GE’s Technology Infrastructure group, tells the magazine: “Often, the trap is thinking that innovation is about making the next iPod or BlackBerry. But maybe it’s a simpler, lower-cost version of those. The innovation in all of our businesses now is bringing costs down.”
Read BusinessWeek’s story “Innovation Trickles in a New Direction” and watch their video.
Watch a video of GE’s Mike Barber, GE Healthcare’s chief technology officer.
Learn more about GE’s globalization strategy from Vijay Govindarajan, Professor at the Tuck School at Dartmouth and Chief Innovation Consultant at GE.
Learn more about GE’s MAC 800.
