Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The challenge of India

Innovation Forum @ IIM Bengaluru
11th March 2010

Background: Prof. Rishikesha T .Krishnan spoke on his book “Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge of India”. India is on the centrestage with China making headlines world over in all sectors. Innovation is also on the radar, but sadly there are not much of results. The statistics are not very interesting as far as practical innovations are concerned. There may have been numerous incremental innovations that are genuine to the sub-continent but there have been no significant breakthrough innovations that would impact the world.

Question by a participant: Do Indian organizations need to follow innovation techniques that have been formulated by international organizations? India has been adopting systems left by the colonial rulers and these systems are seemingly unsuitable. Similarly, instead of blindly adopting systems framed by others, will customized Innovation techniques based on the strong holds of Indian talent render more quantifiable results?

Answer by Prof. Rishikesha: Probably yes. But unfortunately there have been no instances where a different (Indian) innovation technique has been adopted and experimented. Probably such localized plans will certainly lead to better results among innovators. Even today Indians talk about “zero” and “aryabhata”, trump cards as far as innovation is concerned. Systematic Innovation is still waiting to happen in India.

Thought-provoking topic: “Should organizations think beyond the existing Innovation techniques and focus on customizing systems to the prevailing work-talent environments??”