At a time of growing scarcity of resources, more frugal and ecologically aware customers are forcing enterprises to radically rethink their innovation strategies
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘innovation’ as the phenomenon of change through the introduction of new methods, ideas or products, to which Wikipedia adds that ‘Indovation’ is “the unique process by which innovations are developed in India to serve a large number of people affordably and sustainably in response to conditions of scarcity and diversity.”
In the World Economic Forum’s report — Using Information and Communication Technologies to Boost India’s Competitiveness — released on November 11, Navi Radjou and Jaideep Prabhu of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, write about the importance of ‘Indovation’ in a box item.
The two write that in the aftermath of recession, and at a time of growing scarcity of resources, more frugal and more ecologically aware customers are forcing enterprises to radically rethink their innovation strategies and business models. Business executives are being compelled to develop new value propositions that generate more value for less cost for more people.
To effectively deliver this new value proposition, companies need to drastically reinvent their products, services, and business models by embracing a radically different approach that is frugal, inclusive, sustainable and collaborative. Current innovation strategies and business models are primarily structured to cater for affluent markets — and presuppose the permanent availability of abundant financial and natural resources.
“We believe that India provides a great source of inspiration for driving affordable and sustainable business innovation enabled by open, collaborative partnerships,” say Radjou and Prabhu.
India is already a microcosm of the world of scarcity, diversity, liberty, and connectivity that will be the future of all nations. The country, with its large and growing population, faces scarcity on a grand scale across the board: from water and food to oil and gas to primary education and basic healthcare.
Because of its inherent environmental and social constraints, India is a place where the need to get more value for less cost has been felt for a long while now. Increasingly, this scarcity has combined with India’s diversity, its relative liberty and growing mobile phone connectivity to turn it into a large-scale laboratory where social entrepreneurs and for-profit corporations are coming up with inventions — or indovations — that are both affordable and sustainable. These indovations have relevance not only within the Indian context, but also in other global markets.
Many such indovations leverage the power of information and communication technologies (ICT) — especially mobile connectivity, given the fact that India is home to 670 million mobile phone subscribers — to deliver more value at less cost for more people. Unlike in the West, where ICT applications are typically first adopted by businesses before entering the consumer domain, many ICT solutions developed in India are squarely aimed at the masses.
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