G Santhosh Kumar

Cochin University

Innovation – More from Less for More

What is innovation?

The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay

Source: http://www.businessdictionary.com/

Mahatma Gandhi at the microscope observing leprosy germs at Satyagraha Ashram, Sevagram, c. 1940

Mycobacterium leprae Plasmodium sporozoite

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Giardia lamblia

mic

rob

ial d

isea

ses

Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2014

Eric Betzig, USA Stefan W. Hell, Germany William E. Moerner, USA

Abbe’s diffraction limit [1873]

nanoscope

Important Question

There are millions of deaths per year due to microbial diseases and

more than billion people to be tested

Is the diagnostic scalable?

Foldscope

Foldscope is an origami-based print-and-fold optical microscope that can be assembled from a flat sheet of paper

Conventional thinking of B-Schools- Striving for bigger margins

facts

• Billions of first-time customers (middle class) in China & India can afford only inexpensive / value-for-money products

• Developed and the developing worlds demanding environment-friendly products and services

Major Driving factors

• Affordability

• Sustainability

• not premium pricing and abundance

Companies can respond to the challenge bydeveloping strategies that allow them to create more products with fewer resources and sell them cheaply

Innovators dream

• Companies should respond by developing strategies that allow them to create more products with fewer resources and sell them cheaply

• The search for lower manufacturing costs and fresh sources of talent will increase pressure on them to globalize, leading to more-complex knowledge chains, supply chains, and cross-border interdependencies

Dream: Learning to do more with less for more people

Indian tradition of jugaad

Jugaad – Indian style ingenuity; a can-do attitude driven by necessity

Credit: http://www.travelmaxwellscott.com

Quality??

But the term “jugaad” has the connotation of compromising on quality.

Mahatma’s tenets

“I would prize every invention of science made for the benefit of all”

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

Gandhi’s charkha is "a perfect low-cost concentration improvement device”

Three Kinds of Gandhian Innovation

• Disrupting business models

• Modifying organizational capabilities

• Creating or sourcing new capabilities

Disrupting business models

• Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, and HCL use off-the-shelf hardware, but they deploy newtalent-based business models to be globallycompetitive

• They have crafted methodologies forpartitioning work so that much of it can bedone off-site, which allows them to enjoy thelower costs of talented engineers in India.

Outsourcing

Outsourcers worldwide account for only about 6% of the global software business, but they have changed the industry’s dynamics

Modifying organizational capabilities

• Indian companies have synthesized severaltechnologies and, as a result, altered theircapabilities—such as design skills or speedydeployment of resources on a large scale

CRL is one of the first organizations to offer supercomputing as a service; 40 companies, such as Boeing and Tata Motors, rent Eka’sservices every year

Creating or sourcing new capabilities

Tata nano

• TATA worked with several companies to develop components that would fit the Nano’sspecifications

nanovation

• Germany’s Bosch for a new engine-management system

• Italy’s I.DE.A. Institute and Trilix for styling and exterior design

• India’s Sona Koyo for lightweight steering shafts

• America’s Johnson Controls for the seating system

• Japan’s Toyo for the engine-cooling Module

• Germany’s Behr for the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system

• Madras Rubber Factory for tougher-thannormal rear tires

Chandrayaan

MOM is one of the cheapest interplanetary missions ever undertaken

India's Mars orbiter$74mCost of India's Mangalyaan mission$671mCost of Nasa's Maven Mars missionLaunched on 5 Nov 2013Weighs 1,350kgClosest point to Mars 366km

Innovations That Change Business Dynamics

Innovation by Bharti

• Bharti Airtel would generate large revenues if it got millions, rather than thousands, of consumers to sign up

• grow with-out worrying about financial resources in a capital-intensive industry– Outsourced IT services to IBM

– Equipments to Ericsson & Nokia

– Shopkeepers sell plans (prepaid & postpaid)

– Created Airtel Open Developer Community • Got many apps developed at low cost

– Collaborates with competitors to setup infrastructure

108

PPP Model

“More than One million lives saved over 22,000 Emergencies served every day.”

http://www.emri.in/

world’s largest emergency-management entity

Inclusive innovation

“Inclusive innovation is any innovation thatleads to affordable access of qualitygoods and services creating livelihoodopportunities for the excludedpopulation, primarily at the base of thepyramid and on a long term sustainablebasis with a significant outreach”

Inclusive innovation

Getting More ( performance )

For less ( cost )

For More ( people )

Inclusive innovation

Inclusive Innovation is not about …

Stripping products and services to make

them cheap, somehow

Inclusive Innovation is about ……

Giving high quality at affordable prices!

Inclusive innovation

True inclusion of 2.6 billion will demand

Not just “low cost” but “ultra low cost”

This means

Not minor redesigning

But radical rethinking

And creative reinventing

Inclusive Innovation is achieved through:

• Technological Innovation

• Business Process Innovation

• Workflow Innovation

• Delivery System Innovation

• Research Process Innovation

• Organizational Innovation

• Grassroots Innovation

• Public Policy Innovation

Question

Why are 90% of the worlds product and services designed for 10% of worlds population?

10 commandments

• Inclusive innovation is the key to attaining accelerated and sustainable inclusive growth for the world – it is a true win-win for all!

• Combination of scarcity and aspiration should continue to be the driver for game changing inclusive innovations.

• True inclusion of 2.6 billion BOP population will require radical rethinking, bold redesigning and astute reinventing

10 commandments

• Non-technological innovations have proven be as game changing as technological, when it comes to inclusive innovation. So drive them with vigour

• To fulfill the rising aspirations of millions the agenda has to be on delivering ‘more from less’ and not ‘less from less’

10 commandments

• The agenda for firms should change from ‘doing well and doing good’ to ‘doing well by doing good’

• The best global resources, especially the best minds in the world, need to be engaged in inclusive innovation.

• The Governments around the world have to be a major catalysts, strong facilitators and passionate champions of inclusive innovation

Getting Innovation Right

• Develop a deep commitment to serving the unserved

• Articulate and embrace a clear vision

• Set very ambitious goals to foster an entrepreneurial spirit

• Accept that constraints will always exist, and creatively operate within them.

• Focus on people, not just shareholder wealth and profits.

Thanks!

san@cusat.ac.in

Acknowledgements

• Most of the ideas are from

– C.K. Prahalad and R.A. Mashelkar, Innovation’s Holy Grail, Harvad Business Review, 2010

– http://www.theglobalresearchalliance.org/

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZWWuEbQqGg