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India's Indigenous
Genius: Jugaad, Part 2
By DEVITA SARAF
[Editor's note: This is the second of two articles]
The comments on Part 1 of this article highlighted a variety
of innovations by Indians that many of us, myself included,
were not even aware of. Such is the brilliance and breadth
of India's innovation!
[Devita Saraf]
Sadly, a large number of our innovations don't become more
widely known because the exposure for smart innovations
centers around Western and Japanese inventions. Our simple,
everyday innovations [or jugaad – an interesting word with
various connotations] are something we must find a way to
capitalize on. The current pitiful economic state is an
opportunity for that.
So what are the missing ingredients for Indians to take our
innovative ideas and products to the world?
For it to happen on a sustainable basis and to attract
development investment, it needs to have a profit motive. We
already know that profitable models do exist, but there
isn't yet a thriving venture capital industry around this
here as there is in the U.S. around the technology industry.
The problem is not lack of capital or brilliant people --
the problem is the lack of deeper understanding. We don't
know and appreciate the opportunities that are in front of
us. This lack of deeper understanding appears at the level
of businessmen and entrepreneurs who have largely looked to
the West for viable business models and have been content
creating an "Indian version." And it appears at the level of
investment firms, capital markets, and venture funds who do
not realize or are sometimes downright skeptical of Indian
innovation opportunities. Why so?
“Among business leaders, we need to allow for an
"experimentation fund" within our companies.”
For a very simple reason: The people who work in these funds
(be it fund managers or analysts) have studied case studies
of western companies in their MBA classes but would have
never looked at Amul as an example of sheer creative genius
in decentralized manufacturing.
The lack of general awareness about such examples is
widespread especially among students and the younger
workforce of the country – take a poll of those who want to
join Coca-Cola, IBM, McKinsey after their graduation
compared to working for a potential Indian startup company
creating innovative products. (Full disclosure: At Vu, we
just hired five product design graduates from IIT who want
to be part of a smaller company and contribute to its
innovation.)
Innovation is a product of entrepreneurship, passion and
experimentation. We can't blame the government for letting
us down in this arena as we normally do in others. Rather,
our minds and hearts need to fundamentally change. Among
business leaders, we need to allow for an "experimentation
fund" within our companies and involve ourselves deeply in
getting new ideas to market.
Previous Column
* India's Indigenous Genius: Jugaad, Part 1
Let's work with an example. How many of us know that the
Jaipur Rugs Company has built a very successful
enterprise by making entrepreneurs out of 40,000 carpet
weavers and artisans? It is now a world class business which
exports carpets, durries, and mats to countries the world
over in their "own brand."
Within our secondary education and business schools, instead
of students reading up on case studies about "Coke vs Pepsi"
and having summer internships at Sony, we must attempt to
have students study the Aravind Netralaya model and intern
at Amul and Jaipur Rugs.
This will create a pool of talent which then understands the
vast business opportunity in "constraint-based innovation"
and creates the investment and management talent to make
this opportunity a reality.
Within our media, we need to regularly lionize efforts like
the Tata Nano and plenty of others so that more Indians know
about the kind of great innovation work that happens in our
country. Lastly, among ourselves, we must learn to give
Indian products and innovation its respect and its price
rather than automatically assuming that something coming
from an American or Japanese company is automatically
superior. Remember, a country that does not respect its
heroes is soon left with none.
—Devita Saraf is CEO of Vu Technologies and Executive
Director of Zenith Computers in Mumbai.
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