Making BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATIONS Happen

By Porus Munshi

• Thinking of an innovative company, no Indian name comes to our mind. Is it because there are no innovations taking place here? Or it is because we don’t know them? Or it is because we are too critical of ourselves and in awe of the developed nations?
• Are we merely going to be the land of Jugaad? Or we can take this intrinsic ability to improvise and convert it into a national advantage.
• Focuses on the thought processes which inspired some of the greatest breakthroughs on Indian soil.
• Innovating legacy mind sets :  Established industries are populated with old and rigid people, leading to a disease of sameness. We should always challenge ourselves and go beyond the existing paradigms.
• Innovating to take on giants :  In many companies, there is awe and fear of giants, defence towards giants. Fear is that, if we take on the giants, they will come after us and we cant take them. We are too small.
• R&D and technology–led innovation cant only happen in large organisations, but by proper insight and belief an entrepreneurial organisation can be better at innovating.
• Innovating for underserved markets :  Many people earn 2 to 5 dollars per day in India, or even less. So this forms a huge underserved market and organisations should want to tap into it. They don’t want a poor man’s Citibank, they want a Grameen Bank.
• Software yes, BPO yes, low-cost man power yes, but product innovation No. New products come usually out of US, Japan, South Korea, and even Taiwan and Brazil. But still products like Tata Nano and Titan Edge have shown that innovation can happen here also which others will try to follow.
• In case of Police and City corporation, it’s the lack of leadership that is making India slow. Everything else is almost fine.
• There is a pattern to make orbit shifting to happen. Orbit shifters begin with almost an impossible challenge that engages the heart rather than anything else. Then they should have a cutting-edge insight to find ways to reach that challenge. Then they should enrol the stakeholders, members, influencers etc who can make the mission. Not just enrol but infect them such that they become champions of the mission.
• Come out of your comfort zone and this may bring the best in you. No one has ever learnt, staying in his comfort zone. E.g- Denmark based Arla foods. They dreamt of making milk based diets for astronauts. In the process, they developed products that can be used on earth as well. Like a yoghurt that needs no refrigeration and has a shelf life of two years.
• Dainik Bhaskar -  They were the radical innovators who completely imbalanced the market. Most organizations think they have an outstanding strategy and based on that they work out for the future projections. Dainik Bhaskar did the reverse. They first had a dream, an impossible aspiration and then work back from there.
• When they were preparing to expand into Rajasthan, suddenly in a meeting their Chairman Mr.Agrawal stood up and said, “It sounds as if your aspiration is to reach heaven.” His sons said, “Yes.” Then, “do you know what you have to do to reach heaven?”…… “Die! Are you willing to die for this aspiration?” … “If not, we would better stay here in MP.”
• They were number one News paper daily in Rajasthn, Gujurat and Punjab starting from the very first day of launch.
• If you are a number 1 or 2, that is a very comfortable position. But sooner or later comes along a wide-eyed orbit shifter who refuses to play by the rules. And suddenly all rules are re-written. The barriers which we thought had concrete foundations, tumble like a house of cards. So we should always focus on in-depth understanding of our domain, be open for innovations and changes.
• Incremental innovators focus on trying to grab market share from the competition and fight within the existing market space. But radical innovators go a step further. They create a brand new space for themselves and bring buyers from both fields : existing and brand new.
• You should always instil the self-belief that you can do it. No matter how hard the target is.
• Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai :  They treat 2.4million patients and 286000 cataract surgeries every year. That to only 30% people pay, rest 70% get free treatment with hard work, we can really do well.
• Su-Kam – created an industry, by making inverters and now are the largest player in India and some other countries. The founder Mr.Kunwer started by thinking that “if the product wont work properly, then the market can’t grow.”
• Transformation of Surat from a plague ridden city to India’s 2^nd cleanest, led by an IAS City Corporation head.
• Shantha Biotech : New venture made vaccine of hepatitis at Rs.50, where it was earlier sold at Rs.750
• Titan :  Making of the world’s slimmest watch “Titan EDGE”, a watch which the pros like Swiss even laughed of saying it couldn’t be made.
• Chola Escape Buttons :   He said, in radical innovation, inspiring people and creating aspirations come first, then getting idea comes second.
• Tirchy Police :  A city of 24 lakhs population, was controlled by only 260 constables. Headed by the SP Mr. Tripathy, now everything runs smooth. His thinking was that, for violence and protests to stop, we should have intelligence about its possible origin, so that we stop it.
• Bosch India :  They thought out of the box and rather than making major and expensive engine modifications to enable it to interact with high pressure pump, they thought of modifying the pump itself to enable it to interact with the existing engine. This plan of their was then followed by the global Bosch teams.
• ITC :  They threw their existing agricultural field’s business model and started afresh to compete with bigger giants globally, without much funds.
• CavinKare :  How do you make billionaire giants blink, when you have some thousands of funds to play with. The founder, Mr. CK Ranganathan says, “You level the playing field. And a great insight is one of the greatest levellers.” He introduced the first shampoo sachets in India. Then left his family business and started Chic shampoo.