Rogério de Paula is a research manager at IBM Research, Brazil, where he leads the Social Enterprise Technologies Group, an interdisciplinary group that explores the new frontiers of social, smart technologies in the context of large-scale organizations.

Designing for the
‘Emerged’ Markets

March + April 2013

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In the past 10 years or so, emerging markets have become the growth engine of major North American and European multinational organizations. Going after the untapped consumer market created by the “base of the pyramid” (referring to low-income populations), these organizations established local research labs, product teams, and design groups; shifted management oversees; and reallocated resources to best address the needs and desires of these populations.

While we can list a number of
successful products that cropped
up from these efforts (in particu-
lar, those that were able to “trickle
up” to the mature markets), I
believe we have yet to fully real-
ize the potential for innovation
and novelty that these regions
offer. This is because we have yet
to fully grasp how to appreciate
the ways in which these popula-
tions are emerging. In this col-
umn, I offer a few personal takes
on how companies have misread
these groups and the opportuni-
ties they present. I will draw upon
my own experiences as a design
ethnographer who worked for a
large corporation in Brazil to dis-
cuss what I consider to be a few
major misinterpretations. These
center on the following themes:
• Emerging markets as a develop-
ment problem.

• Local solutions in global-scale businesses.

• “They are just like us.”
Let me start by tracing the arc
of my research career. After an
extended stay in the U.S., I returned
to Brazil seven years ago as an
“embedded researcher” (an allu-
sion to embedded journalism), an
ethnographic researcher working
within a product group with the
mission of unveiling new business
opportunities and the wonders of
the “emerging markets.” Together
with colleagues stationed across
the hitherto invisible markets
of China, India, Latin America,
and the Middle East, we set out
to explore, investigate, design,
and document the latent growth
opportunities in these regions. For
the most part, that meant design-
ing new products to address such
emerging-market opportunities.