A business model nurtured in the western world is not necessarily a good model for the emerging countries. The Business Week article India Inc.: A Lesson in Business Design talks about how India is trying to radically reinvent the business models to suit the special conditions in its local markets.

Rule of 10% -delivering goods and services at 10% of the cost in western countries- is one of them. (I have actually read about this before in CK Prahlad’s book). Arvind Eye hospital is a good example of this business model.

Broader platforms for collaboration. ISRO recently launched EDUSAT – a space satellite dedicated to education, knowledge sharing and research collaboration- to promote wider cooperation across India on research initiatives. Definitely a good start.

Use of technology for the masses. e-choupal sets up internet kiosks in remote villages for the farmets. THe kiosks provide weather updates, better price discovery and access to wider markets. Today more than 40,000 villages and 4 million farmers use the e-choupal system. I heard they can even see track prices of commodities on NYMEX and CME.

Rethink the education model: Excellent training system pioneered by IT and R&D companies to back fill the skills that were never taught in the India’s educational system. A student with average grades in the college can learn those specialized skills to perform a specific task exceedingly well. It has its own merits and issues, but the system works.

It will be interesting to learn something about China and their business models for domestic markets.