The rise of emerging markets has fundamentally altered the global marketplace. Actually, it has created a global marketplace, a vast, wired network of manufacturers, programmers, and designers who can be anywhere. But consumers and users are always local. And when it comes to developing successful products and services for these users, there is an almost infinite number of ways to get it wrong.

Less than half of companies competing in emerging markets have been very successful in meeting their goals, according to one recent study. Bringing a new product to an emerging and possibly untapped market is seductive. But operational investments to enter the market are steep, and failure to launch can be very, very costly.

The Washing Machine That Ate My Sari—Mistakes in Cross-Cultural Design (PDF, 1.3 mb)