India among lowest ranked countries in creation of innovative technologies
1 Nov 2008, 1422 Hrs

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Washington, November 1 India is lagging far behind many countries when it comes to creating new innovative products and technologies, according to a new study.

It figures among the nations with lowest ranks in a new list of the world's most innovative countries, based on the time it takes for new technologies and products to take-off.

Deepa Chandrasekaran, assistant professor of marketing at Lehigh University, and Gerard J. Tellis, a professor of Marketing at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, prepared the list was prepared on the basis of a major study that evaluated 31 countries.

They analysed 16 different product categories over a time span of 50 years.

"The changing dynamics of the global marketplace are redefining the concept of innovativeness. More products are being introduced at a quick rate, and the ability of a nation to embrace those changes is a true indicator of how innovative it has become," said Chandrasekaran.

The researchers said that Japan, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, and Denmark rounded out the top five.

On the other hand, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and China were ranked lowest.

Reporting their findings in the journal Marketing Science, the researchers revealed that Japan and the U.S. were the best countries for managers who wished to launch new products in innovative and larger markets.

They further said that the Nordic countries, along with Switzerland and Austria, were found to offer smaller but highly innovative test markets.

Their findings suggest that South Korea has a relatively short time-to-takeoff of new products, and leads the world in penetration of Broadband and 3G technologies.

The authors count culture, wealth, product class, product vintage, and prior takeoffs among factors that drive takeoffs.

According to them, "time-to-takeoff" is shortening over time and converging across developed countries.

"What we're learning is that culture plays a significant role in influencing how quickly a country is willing to embrace new products and technology, but it's not an exclusive indicator. Differences in wealth are also contributing factors. Taken together, we can get a pretty clear snapshot of a nation's innovativeness and its ability to adapt to the changing environment," says Tellis.

Chandrasekaran and Tellis noticed that products used for information or entertainment like cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, broadband, etc. took significantly shorter time to take off as compared to technologies used only for work-essentially household appliances like microwave ovens, dishwashers, freezers, tumble dryers and washing machines. (ANI)