Do Better with Less: Frugal Innovation to Sustainable Growth

The Synergia Foundation hosted a Harvard Business School Club of India conversation with Prof. Jaideep Prabhu and Navi Radjou on April 16, 2019. Also in attendance were Sajju Jain - Founder of Impact+Efficacy; Harsha Mutt - Mentor at NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore; Bhanu Prasad - Impact Innovation Coach at TCS Foundation; Ajay Nanavati - Chairman of Syndicate Bank; Venu Madhav - CEO of Cafe Coffee Day; Prabhakar C - Director of Gopalan Enterprises; Soumitra Sharma - Head of Corporate and Business Development at Achira Labs; Harish HV - Partner, Indian Leadership Team at Grant Thornton and Rajesh Naik IFS - Ministry of External Affairs. The objective was to discuss how India could take advantage of its ability to innovate products in a simple, affordable and accessible manner by augmenting it with the aspirational attributes of quality, desirability and sustainability.

Background

The roundtable was chaired by Prof. Jaideep Prabhu, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Business and Enterprise at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and Navi Radjou, Silicon Valley innovation, leadership strategist and Fellow at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. They co-authored Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth, and are currently promoting their upcoming book Frugal Innovation: How to do More with Less.

Analysis

The co-authors used the term Jugaad (hack; a flexible approach to problem-solving that uses limited resources in an innovative way) to characterise the nature of Indian innovation. This resilient, frugal and socially inclusive ability of India has recently become the focus of Western markets driven by the quest for sustainability.

Sustainability has led to a new breed of consumers - “the prosumer” - who are actively involved in the economic process through a sharing economy, that is socially conscious, and a makers market (Do-It-Yourself). Using examples such as the Raspberry Pi customisable computer system, the co-authors touted the benefits of frugal innovation that permits the producer and consumer to interact locally, while networking globally. Frugal innovation can be adapted, the co-authors believe, to larger, more traditional company hierarchies as well.

The co-authors present six principles of frugal innovation that any organisation can adapt in order to gain from the sustainable, socially conscious technologies created by the start-up culture. As explicated in their upcoming book, the following principles work together to create a circular economy in which innovation is fostered:-

1.            ‘Engage and iterate’ - allowing larger companies to mimic what startups do;

2.            'Flex your assets’ - permitting larger companies to be flexible while utilising their resources;

3.            ‘Create sustainable solutions’ aimed at long-term changes;

4.            ‘Shape consumer behaviour’ in order to effect the most profound long-term changes;

5.            ‘Co-create value with producers’ to boost employee morale and productivity;

6.            ‘Make innovative friends’ that cultivate a home-grown culture.

The experts at the roundtable opined that the greatest challenge to adapting the model to India lies in the last-mile scalability of innovations to the consumer. Here, the experts believed it vital to continuously improve existing solutions to problems, instead of counting excessively on a ‘Eureka’ moment. Also of concern for India is the lack of skill-sets within the Indian labour market; the experts believe that developing a talent pool with a complementary skill-sets is essential in building the national ecosystem. Finally, the Roundtable discussed a critical ecosystem differentiator between India and the West; the ability of universities to facilitate innovation in the West. In India, the experts proposed, academic architecture is not conducive to innovation despite the evident hunger of its students. Instead, that job has largely been the government’s, and because of its failure (save for exceptional cases like ISRO and BAARC), it has, in turn, fallen on the private sector.

Assessment

Our assessment is that India, as pioneers in frugal innovation, presents a tremendous opportunity in building a world in line with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals; India’s capacity to become sustainable accounts for 50% the total outcome of the goals. However, we believe that in order to capitalise on this potential, the products of India’s innovation needs to inculcate aspirational attributes of quality, desirability and sustainability. In terms of business opportunities in India, it is important to remember the plethora of stakeholders in building a scalable business model; the ability to draw upon grassroots efforts while developing complementary labour skillsets is vital in cultivating India’s innovation ecosystem. Given the rudimentary position of India’s education institutions in facilitating innovation, we believe it falls upon the private sector to foster such transformation.

Synergia Intervention

At Synergia, we have successfully patented an innovative platform in nanotechnology targeted towards a cure of diseases related to the central nervous system. Our pragmatic approach enables us to deliver sustainable economics by reverse engineering and retrofitting existing molecules to provide additional benefits to both the community and the patients. Our translational model involves working with the best of the three worlds- the US for its fundamental research; Europe for its applied research; Asia, for its affordable drug development capacity.