Core77

Ferdinand 'Nani' Beccalli-Falco, President and CEO, GE International

So what is the view from the top of a major global corporation? Beccalli-Falco refers to himself as the self appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs at GE, and has a long view of things with a 35 year career in GE.

A career in which he has seen what he described as 3 waves of globalisation:

- in 1975 the company was very much an East Coast US company with small operations in Canada/ the UK/ Latin America, 'safe' markets

- the second wave saw an exploration of new markets but with a similar approach (w europe, japan)

- the third phase was to move into areas that are very different. Which is where new techniques are needed: applying techniques appropriate to 1980s US will not earn a huge market share in India today

And he introduced their concept of reverse innovation. With huge R&D centres in India and China (R&D being the one area unaffected by post-financial crisis cost-cutting), they are developping products for the Indian market which can be reinserted into developped markets with great success. Like a pocket-sized ultra sound scanner (pictured above).

He ended by saying he thinks we're being too gloomy in the West. In the emerging nations 'you breathe a different air', things are apparently much more positive, are 'on the way up'. But then, as Vijay pointed out, they didn't go down quite as far in the first place.

[Blogged live from The Economist's Big Rethink Conference]