Today business environment is characterized by a competitive

· Updated on December 11, 2025

Today's business environment is characterized by a competitive intensity that requires innovative thinking and strategic decision-making competencies. As a business professional, it is essential that you apply the principles of strategic decision-making and design thinking to positively influence the effectiveness of a business in its markets.

In this task, you will act as a consultant for the company in the given scenario. As you complete the task, think about the materials you encountered in the course or past projects you have worked on that required innovative thinking and effective, strategic decision-making. You will be required to provide a market entry overview for the hypothetical company in the following scenario. As part of this market entry overview, you will

•   assess the internal factors and aspects of the company,

•   explain how elements of the emerging market influence the design of the company's product, and

•   apply the results of your analysis to the market entry strategy.

Paper For Above Instructions

Design Thinking for Smart Market Entry in Emerging Economies

https://www.orthoworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Illustration_emerging-markets.png

In this overview, I will act as a consultant to a hypothetical mid-sized U.S. company, AquaPure Labs, which sells smart home water-purification devices. AquaPure is profitable in North America and Europe and is considering entry into India, a large, fast-growing emerging market with significant water-quality challenges and a rapidly digitizing consumer base. I will:

  1. Assess AquaPure’s internal factors.

  2. Explain how characteristics of the emerging market should shape product design.

  3. Apply these insights to propose a market-entry strategy grounded in strategic decision-making and design thinking.

1. Internal Assessment: Capabilities, Constraints, and Strategic Fit

A good market-entry strategy starts with a clear view of what the firm actually brings to the table. The resource-based view (RBV) and VRIO frameworks help identify which internal resources can underpin a sustainable advantage abroad (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Organized). eBooks INFLIBNET+2Open Oregon State+2

Key internal strengths

  • Proprietary filtration technology and IoT connectivity that monitor filter life and water quality in real time. These are valuable and somewhat rare capabilities; they can support premium positioning if adapted to local needs. Kamyar Shah COO CMO+1

  • Strong design-thinking culture. AquaPure already uses iterative user research, rapid prototyping, and cross-functional innovation teams. Design thinking, when integrated into strategy, helps firms gain deep customer insight and reshape business models, not just products. Warwick Business School+1

  • Lean, flexible manufacturing network with contract manufacturers in Asia that can reconfigure for lower-cost variants. This supports “frugal innovation” – stripping products to essential features while maintaining quality. MDPI+3ScienceDirect+3ResearchGate+3

  • Digital marketing and D2C capabilities from existing e-commerce channels, useful in mobile-first markets.

Key internal weaknesses / risks

  • Limited emerging-market experience. The leadership team has little exposure to India; cultural, regulatory, and channel understanding are weak.

  • Cost structure designed for affluent markets. Current products are priced for high incomes and may be unaffordable for most Indian households without major redesign. Frugal innovation research shows that simply “stripping down” rich-country products often fails; solutions must be re-engineered from the ground up for radically different constraints. ScienceDirect+1

  • Brand awareness. AquaPure is unknown in India; it cannot rely on brand equity to command a price premium at entry.

From a VRIO lens, AquaPure’s technology + design culture + flexible manufacturing are its most strategic assets. The entry strategy should exploit and stretch these, while partnering to compensate for gaps in local knowledge and distribution.

2. How Emerging-Market Conditions Should Shape Product Design

Emerging markets like India are not just “poorer versions” of developed markets; they differ in infrastructure, institutions, income dispersion, and digital behavior. Semantic Scholar+2IMD Business School+2 These differences must directly inform product and service design.

a. Income constraints and value perceptions

Most Indian households are extremely price-sensitive and prefer low upfront cost even if lifetime operating costs are higher. This pushes AquaPure toward:

  • Tiered product architecture – a basic, robust “good enough” purifier at very low cost, plus higher-end smart models for the urban middle class.

  • Exploring subscription models (small monthly payments including filters) to reduce upfront barriers, aligning with research on innovative business models for market entry. thejourneyplatform.com+2Shopify+2

b. Infrastructure and usage conditions

Intermittent electricity and highly variable water quality (hardness, particulates, microbes) mean the product must be:

  • Energy-efficient and resilient (e.g., gravity-based or battery-backed filtration options).

  • Designed for variable input quality and easy on-site maintenance, a classic frugal innovation requirement. IMD Business School+2MDPI+2

c. Distribution and trust

Many consumers buy appliances from local retail shops or informal distributors, not just online. Trust in foreign brands develops slowly. Design thinking implies prototyping the whole experience, not just the device: packaging, installation, low-literacy instructions, and after-sales service. Warwick Business School+1

d. Digital leapfrogging

India has high smartphone penetration and rapid growth in e-commerce and digital payments. AquaPure can embed:

  • A mobile app for filter status and service booking, but also USSD/SMS options for lower-tech users.

  • Data analytics to refine offerings and marketing – similar to how leading firms use digital experimentation to drive emerging-market growth. Reuters+1

Using design-thinking steps—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test—AquaPure should conduct ethnographic research in diverse Indian households, co-create prototypes with local users, test service models in a few cities, and iterate quickly before scaling.

3. Applying the Analysis: Market Entry Strategy

Bringing the internal and external analyses together, we can outline a coherent entry strategy.

a. Choice of entry mode

Literature on foreign market entry highlights a spectrum from low-commitment exporting to high-control wholly owned subsidiaries, plus hybrids like joint ventures and strategic alliances. All Commerce Journal+3Open Text WSU+3Wikipedia+3

Given AquaPure’s:

  • lack of local market experience,

  • need for deep distribution and service networks, and

  • desire to protect its technology,

a joint venture or strategic alliance with a reputable Indian appliance or consumer-goods company is attractive. This offers:

  • Local regulatory and channel expertise,

  • Access to established retail and service networks, and

  • Shared risk and investment.

Initial product shipments could come from existing Asian contract manufacturers, with the option of localizing production later if volume grows.

b. Positioning and value proposition

AquaPure should avoid a purely “premium foreign brand” posture, which targets only a thin affluent segment, and instead frame its offer as “safe water for every family, smartly and affordably.”

Key elements:

  • A frugal core product priced to compete with local brands, emphasizing reliability and easy maintenance.

  • A smart, connected variant for aspirational urban consumers, leveraging its IoT strengths as a differentiator.

  • Storytelling around health, safety, and trust, supported by certifications, local endorsements, and transparent testing.

c. Go-to-market and experimentation

Drawing on design-thinking and market-entry guidance, AquaPure should treat its first 12–18 months as a learning launch rather than a full-scale rollout. Warwick Business School+2Consultport+2

Concrete steps:

  1. Pilot in 2–3 urban regions (e.g., Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune) with high middle-class concentration and strong retail/e-commerce ecosystems.

  2. Use omnichannel distribution: large electronics/appliance retailers, neighborhood dealers, and major online marketplaces.

  3. Run controlled experiments on price points, financing options (subscriptions, pay-per-use kiosks), and service bundles.

  4. Build a local service network trained to use a simple diagnostic app and standard parts to keep maintenance costs down.

  5. Continuously gather customer feedback via in-home visits, app data, and call centers; feed this back into rapid product and process iterations.

d. Strategic metrics and governance

A robust entry strategy also defines how success will be measured and governed. Recommended KPIs include:

  • Customer acquisition cost and lifetime value in each segment.

  • Product reliability metrics (failure/repair rates).

  • Net promoter scores and online reviews.

  • Unit economics at pilot scale and projected at national scale.

A cross-border “emerging markets innovation council” should oversee decisions, ensuring that local insights can challenge headquarters’ assumptions—critical for avoiding ethnocentric product misfits. MDPI+1

Conclusion

In a hyper-competitive world, effective emerging-market entry demands more than porting a successful home-market product. For AquaPure Labs, a thoughtful internal assessment (via RBV/VRIO), combined with a design-thinking-driven understanding of India’s unique conditions, points to a strategy built on frugal, locally adapted product design, partnership-based entry, and experiment-led scaling.

By leveraging its core capabilities—filtration technology, design thinking, flexible manufacturing—while co-creating solutions with Indian partners and consumers, AquaPure can move beyond opportunistic export to build a resilient, value-creating presence in one of the world’s most important emerging markets.

References (APA 7th ed.)

Barney, J. B. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120.

Consultport. (2024). How to craft an effective market entry strategy. Consultport

GeeksforGeeks. (2025). Modes of entry into international business. GeeksforGeeks

Jurevicius, O. (2025). VRIO framework explained. Strategic Management Insight. Strategic Management Insight

Kamyar, S. (2025). Internal analysis models explained: VRIO, resource-based view and beyond [PDF]. Kamyar Shah COO CMO

Sengura, J. D., & Mbizi, R. (2024). Towards frugal innovation capability in emerging markets. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, 19(3), 1–15. MDPI

Warwick Business School. (2024). Four practices to integrate design thinking into strategy. Warwick Business School

Winkler, T. (2020). Frugal innovation in developed markets – Adaptation of a criteria-based evaluation model. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 5(4), 1–10. ScienceDirect

WSU Open Text. (n.d.). 7.1 International entry modes – Core principles of international marketing. Open Text WSU

VT Pressbooks. (2019). 4.3 Resource-based view & 9.6 Options for competing in international markets. In Strategic management. Pressbooks at Virginia Tech+1

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