It doesn’t matter where scientific discoveries and breakthrough technologies originate – for national prosperity, the important thing is who commercializes them. This summarizes the first and last chapters of Amar Bhide’s latest book “The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World”. In his essay in The McKinsey Quarterly, this Lawrence D. Glaubinger Professor of Business at Columbia University argues that the United States is miles ahead of every other country in the world when it comes to commercialization and go to market. Citing the examples of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, who lag behind the US on commercialization after 150 years despite massive progress they’ve made in industry, educational system and military in the past few decades, Bhide attributes America’s lead to a “great and diverse team, which takes a very long time to build.” He concludes with the following assertion: “China and India aren’t close to catching up with the United States in the ability to develop and use technological innovations.”
In my opinion, which has been recently published in The McKinsey Quarterly, the present lead enjoyed by the US has little to do with time or team. An updated version of my letter to the editor is given below.
I’ve always believed that go-to-market is what separates a great idea from blockbuster revenues, so I agree with Amar Bhide’s views that commercialization is key to national prosperity. When I used to live in Germany, I used to get exasperated by those https://www.ja-newyork.com/xanax-online/ picturesque shops he refers to shutting down every Sunday, which was the only day in the week when I had time for shopping. As a result, I’m not surprised to hear Bhide’s contention that American retailers absorbed German inventory-reduction technologies more eagerly than local German ones did.
But my views deviate from Bhide’s when it comes to the reasons. In my opinion, it’s attitude and mindset, not team or time.
An average German citizen believes that it’s unfair to make store employees work on Sundays or beyond 6PM on Saturdays (yes, they actually keep saying this in numerous opinion polls held periodically by retailers seeking to build a case for keeping stores open on Sundays, not to mention for extended hours on weekdays and Saturdays). That’s why German shops stay shut longer than American ones, and that’s why they’re inefficient. In India, even today, many Indians use the words “crass” and “commercialization” in the same sentence. It takes an economic downturn like the present one for many Indians to understand the importance of concepts like commercialization / go-to-market. In many parts of the world including India, invention for the sake of invention is considered noble, whereas profiting from it is perceived as greed.
It’s this attitude and mindset among many countries that has given the US a default lead in its commercialization and go to market capabilities. This lead can vanish if other countries undergo a change of attitude. While that could admittedly take longer than 150 years, it could also happen much faster.