“Emerging Markets: From Copycats to Innovators

Introduction
Some of us are aware, especially those who are tech geek like I am, that, Tech companies are notorious for copying each other’s products and services, essentially “stealing” ideas. While some consumers get frustrated with companies releasing copycat products, the reality is that this game of one-upmanship results in better services for the consumer. Just to cite a few examples, according to P. Baumgartner (2008). “Don’t knock copy-cat innovation, it fuels the real stuff” at ventureburn.com, “Google wanted a more networking-friendly Facebook, so it created Google+. Apple’s team wanted its own navigation app, so it onced tried Google Maps. Facebook didn’t want to miss out on Snapchat-sized success, so it created Poke”.
The bottomline is competition. While companies squable to get to to the top spot, they have to generate fresh, dynamic ideas to get the consumer’s attention. In competition, copying, repackaging, or rebranding, innovating or recreating is part of the game. The good news is that they all wind up, somehow to taking their costs down and subsequently their prices down as well. The winner is that company who have low cost input who could do mass production and move its inventory faster than the other. While companies battle head to head for the top spot, the ultimate winner is watching, waiting for that product of top quality and gives great value to the pocket – the customers like you and me.

The purpose of this paper is to show how companies are consciously or unconsciously get into the business traps of wearing the copycat mask in the name of innovation, creativity, and ultimately winning the hearts of buyers or consumers. To thrive in the industry’s landscape, and survive in the business jungle, emerging multinationals from emerging economies and from developed economies will think of ideas that will attract buyers first and foremost. Sometimes, the strategies, product features may have to be similar with another company who have the same goals ending up copying each other, not for he copying sake, but to thrive.
In this paper, we shall talk about the core resources and capabilities of emerging multinationals from emerging economies. We shall also look into the core resources and capabilities of most multinationals from developed economies? In the latter part of this paper, we shall take into consideration comes an event that a CEO of a company finds out in the copycat dilemma, a violation of propertIn the latter part of this paper, we shall take into consideration comes an event that a CEO of a company finds out in the copycat dilemma, intellectual propery rights is violated.

Unit Two Case Analysis
What are the core resources and capabilities of emerging multinationals from emerging economies?
Companies such as Acer, Lenovo, HTC and Goldwind, among others take advantage of proven track record, effective business models and organizational cultures of the emerging multinationals from developed economies. According to Peng in his ebook Global Strategy, 3rd Edition, It’s like in kung-fu movie,you will remember that a new champion cannot merely be an excellent student—at some point, the student will have to be a master himself byinnovating some fancy moves. These moves are not likely to create head-to-head competition against existing masters. Rather, these innovators are likely to leverage theirintimate knowledge of the needs and wants of customers in lower-income markets and package it with their learning from world-class competitors.They need not to reinvent the wheel. They learn from the masters, like in Kungfu. They are branded copycat or imitators, but they actually just have to learn and apply what they see from the bigger companies as these are the open secret formula for success.

What are the core resources and capabilities of most multinationals from developed economies?
On the other hand, companies such as IBM, GE and Apple, at least the company that I know of, have greatly capitalized on maintaining focus on the areas they are good at and innovation so they can be competitive and able to stay “afloat” alongside competition if not above them.
Some of the copycat strategies embraced by emerging multinationals have violated the intellectual property rights of their rivals in developed economies. As a new CEO of an emerging multinational brought from the outside, you have just discovered this issue at your new employer. What are you going to do about it?
As a new CEO of an emerging multinational company, upon learning about the violation on the intellectual property rights of a rival company, I shall conduct a thorough investigation to make sure that there is violation, what is the extent and was this done by accident or maliciously. I will also find out if the owner or board of directors ar aware about this. If they are aware about this, I shall find out if this was done accidentally or maliciously. It’s also important to know how long has it been happening. Start the transition from which areas it’s been violated until the violation is fixed and legally undo it or remove it from the systems.
When ready, It’s ethical to inform the rival about it through an exclusive meeting and let them know that it’s not your company’s intention to violate their property rights. It’s very important to point out that you have fixed the issue soon as you found it out to keep both company’s integrity. Tell them, as well that for whatever penalties they might have to take care of, they are willing to submit themselves into. Depending on agreement, it could be i the form of fines, product withdrawals, public apology or similar. More likely than not, the other company will feel its sincerity and would consider just to maybe go for a public apology when necessary. This action will not just keep the business sportsmanship prevail, but also will impress the public that my compay is indeed sincere about the mistake, immediately fixed the issue, met with the other party and apologized in public. This will somehow be another strategy to gain respect from public who are our consumers as well.

Conclusion
There’s a lot of property right violation cases that have been happening right now in any industry. What’s been publicly visible is the phone wars usually between Apple, Inc and Samsung. In the end the public benefits, companies are becoming more careful about violation of property rights as this involves fines. In the other hand, however, practical consumers would patronize what is generally helpful to make their lives easier, much practical, readily available, and of course inexpensive.
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Lessons Learned
In today’s business environment, the call for innovation is loud and clear. And the call is not always coming from the market, but also from the companies themselves as well. In the other hand emerging companies will have to learn from what worked in the strategies of the successful ones ahead of the race. In the process, however, learning and innovations should not be taken to extreme cases which is the point of violating intellectual property rights. While it is tempting to learn and copy what is used to be working and attractive for consumers, violation of the copyright should be watched for. Emerging companies should graduate from the copycat stage to innovative stage. References

Peter Baumgartner (2008). “Don’t knock copy-cat innovation, it fuels the real stuff” http://ventureburn.com/2013/10/dont-knock-copy-cat-innovation-it-fuels-the-real-stuff

Peng (2014) Global Strategy, 3rd Edition eTextbook