Innovating for the bottom of the pyramid

THE QUALITY CONUNDRUM

How Indian Industry is managing quality?

A major objective of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Mission for Innovation in Manufacturing is to sensitise the business community to look at the bottom of the pyramid, where innovations are really required. For the upper and middle sections of the society innovative products will always be available from the West.

However, these products can not be and will not be used by the bottom of the pyramid. To ensure the participation of this section in economic activities and the growth of the country, Indians must themselves innovate. Today's column focuses on one such innovation.

Cosmos Ignite Innovations is one of the most innovative Indian companies I have come across. The company has not only brought out an innovative product but has also established a highly innovative business model. Mighty Light is a disruptive product targeted to meet a social need; at the same time, the company is modelled to function not as a charity, but like any other business organisation "" with an eye on the bottomline.

Amit Chugh and his team at Cosmos Ignite have worked relentlessly to develop an innovative product that will help solve the electricity problems of millions of people "" not only Indians living below the poverty line in the remotest corners of the country but also the poor of developing countries facing the problem of inaccessibility of power.

Mighty Light uses the latest LED technology combined with solar energy and is designed to be a waterproof, shockproof and multiple-function lamp that can be used as a room light, reading lamp or flashlight.

It uses a best-in-class 1-watt super-bright white LED bulb to illuminate and is capable of holding an eight-hour charge and designed to last an extraordinary 100,000 hours (up to 30 years on use of eight hours daily). It is cost-effective as it uses solar power to recharge and provides light enough to illuminate any room, especially helping the poor forced to use dangerous, polluting and expensive kerosene oil lamps.

While solar energy has been around for a long time, what is innovative is its use in combination with the revolutionary LED technology in Mighty Light, suddenly opening up a whole new market to more than 1.6 billion people without regular lighting around the world. Moreover, this is being done in a "green" manner, contributing to climate change control.

Further, the company consciously chose to be a profit-oriented venture to make the project sustainable in its aim to effect social change. This philosophy is based on the belief that capitalism, not charity, leads to sustainable growth.

Never before has a start-up organisation tried to make social impact its business. Companies undertake social projects as a part of their corporate social responsibility, but they don't usually make it the nucleus of their business. Cosmos Ignite likes to call this business model Social Entrepreneurship and works "for profit", but not "profit maximisation".

In arriving at this business model, Chugh faced numerous challenges such as those related to new technology and market, entrepreneurial organisation and running an international operation with a cross-cultural team "" the design from the US, manufacturing in India, and marketing around the world. But he never gave up and continued to provide full support to his team.

The light is also energy efficient and environment friendly and could provide the foundations for the developing world to "leap frog" development to the next generation of lighting, even more efficient than both incandescent as well as CFL bulbs, while avoiding the pitfalls of dangerous mercury vapour in these bulbs.

Following a "design-based approach", the company studied consumer behaviour as well as the consumer need and tried to come up with a product that would fit these consumer needs. Chugh understood the need gap and that this need gap could be met only by a disruptive change.

Thus, the company developed a product that was not technology- or state-dictated, but was driven by customer needs. Mighty Light provides "off-the-grid" electricity using a source that is distributed (solar power) and is close to the customer. The team listened to the "voice of the customer" and developed a product to meet the need.

Today, Mighty Light is in use in India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Panama, Guyana, Colombia and has become integrated into numerous international projects by NGOs, the UN, World Bank, with commercial distribution now underway.

I would like to conclude by highlighting some principles of visionary leadership that drive innovation:

A visionary leader must be noble -minded.

The leader must never give up.

He should be emotionally attached to the idea.

Listening to the voice of the customer is the key to success.

Innovation opportunities are all around us. We need to prepare ourselves to identify and capture these when they present themselves "" "chance favours the prepared mind".

Dr Surinder Kapur is chairman, CII Mission for Manufacturing Innovation, and chairman and managing director, Sona Koyo Steering Systems