The term emerging markets encompasses a plethora of countries with more than half the world’s population, an enormous variety of cultures, climates and levels of development, from the BRICs to Sub-Saharan Africa. After decades and even centuries of lackluster economic performance, they are now the fastest growing markets in the world. Every relevant player in the business world is striving to capture this growth. Defining a strategy for where, when and how to invest is a major challenge in the complex and fast moving world of emerging markets.

This course is about improving the odds of placing winning bets in emerging markets, by thinking strategically about the waves of opportunities that arise as countries develop. The underlying theory for this course is that, in spite of the many apparent differences, emerging markets develop by following common patterns that result from similar priorities, needs and wants of consumers. As a result, development tends to follow certain predictable paths. Understanding these patterns gives foresight of which opportunities are ready to be fostered, or are likely to emerge, in which markets.

The objective of this class is to develop capabilities to think strategically about capturing growth in emerging markets. The aim is to combine the development of a conceptual framework with real life consulting projects that will define a strategy in an emerging market for a specific client opportunity. An additional benefit of this class is to gain some basic consulting skills, including framing and defining the scope of the strategic opportunity to be analyzed; developing hypothesis and defining the analysis to address them; gathering the right data and information; synthesizing information to drive key conclusions; and presenting well structured recommendations and conclusions.

Rajeev Kohli

Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Business

Rajeev Kohli is the Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. His research interests are in mathematical models of non-compensatory choice, product design and recommendation systems. He has published papers in leading journals in marketing, operations research, discrete mathematics and mathematical psychology. He has also served on the editorial boards of leading journals  including Management Science

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Alonso Martinez

Senior Lecturer

Professor Martinez is a Senior Lecturer at Columbia Business School. He combines teaching and research with extensive global experience doing strategy consulting, with particular expertise in emerging markets. He gives the Catching Growth Waves in Emerging Markets course in both the MBA and EMBA programs and the Defining and Developing wining Strategic Capabilities course to the MBAs.  He has also given the EMBA...

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