Creating Value Via Sustainable Business Models and Reverse Innovation

Abstract

This paper focuses on the perspective of commercialising innovation in the quest to create sustainable value. Against a background of a growing societal awareness of global sustainability challenges, which both threaten mankind’s prospects for long-term survival while simultaneously presenting huge potential to create new economic opportunity, it systematically examines a selection of key concepts related to New Business Models (NBM) and Reverse Innovation (RI) via a qualitative, theoretical approach. Linking corporate responsibility with organisational value creation structures and processes at the interface between business and society, the authors critically examine the potential effects of RI as a mechanism for enabling pathways and solutions to achieve sustainable value creation (SVC). By defining the relevant key terms, conceptualising the RI process which derives from a Base of the Pyramid (BoP) context, and by presenting case study examples of RI in action, the authors investigate the characteristics and critical success factors of successful NBMs. This highlights the prospects of NBMs and RI for optimally leveraging organisations as catalysts for positive change in society. They tentatively conclude, that this theoretical study of the SVC potential of RI strategies, furnishes initial evidence to indicate that RI can play a valuable role within a NBM context.