In the bustling world of social entrepreneurship, Shenzhen Power Solution (SPS) stands out as a remarkable success story.

Business can and should be a force for good – and this, in part, calls for effective partnering.

Recently, a number of marketers and academics have expressed concern that brands are increasingly losing their appeal and that consumers are becoming less and less brand loyal. Havas, a European international communications agency recently reported that:

In recent years there has been rising interest in the contribution that startups make in providing goods and services, promoting innovation and generating employment.

Innovation is crucial to practically all companies as they strive to remain successful and relevant in a hyper-competitive global business landscape.

When gauged by market share, WeChat is certainly monopolising the Chinese market for social media.

Innovation is the key to success. Innovate or die. Innovation, not emulation. Phrases like these are repeated daily in boardrooms, news broadcasts and articles across the world. The importance of innovation in today’s interconnected global economy is emphasised so strongly and widely that it has almost become an accepted truism. And, yet, it turns out that not everyone believes that they need to innovate to succeed – or even to survive.

There is no doubt that China has made remarkable progress in becoming an innovation-driven economy. The Global Innovation Index 2016 ranked China 25th in the world and first among upper-middle income economies. In this respect, China is once again a role model for emerging economies on how to effectively formulate policies and allocate resources to achieve national goals. As Chinese companies strive to climb higher up the innovation ladder, they should think about engaging more deeply with India in order to leverage its huge talent pool, as their Western counterparts have done for a long time.

A new research study co-authored by Director of the CEIBS Centre for Innovations in Supply Chains & Services Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management Zhao Xiande identifies the five key factors for implementing innovation projects in large organizations. The research received the 2015 Best Paper Award from the European Decision Sciences Institute (EDSI) at its annual conference.