Presents

INDOVATION
How India Is Driving Global Innovation

S
Organised by
MART & University of Cambridge
Date: 17th November 2010

Venue: Bristol Hotel, Gurgaon Time: 4.00 pm to 6.30 pm

Background

The world is confronting a period of dramatic change. The lingering

‘Innovate’: recession, combined with the growing scarcity of resources, has made
change customers worldwide at once more frugal and ecologically-aware.
something These demanding customers – empowered by Social Computing
technologies like blogs, Wikis, and Facebook – are compelling
established
enterprises to radically rethink their innovation strategies and business
by models. Business executives are being forced to conceive new
introducing business value propositions that appeal to these parsimonious and

new methods, environmentally-conscious customers globally. In particular, firms are

being forced to learn new ways to generate more value for less cost
ideas or for more people—be they customers or citizens—in the face of
products – rapidly-aging demographics and the growing scarcity of healthcare,
derivative: natural and financial resources (see “Innovation’s Holy Grail,” C.K.
Prahalad and R.A. Mashelkar, Harvard Business Review, July-August
‘innovation’
2010).
(Oxford
To effectively deliver this new business value proposition, companies
English
will need to drastically reinvent their products, services, processes,
Dictionary) and business models by embracing a radically different approach that
encapsulates frugality, inclusiveness, sustainability, and collaboration.
‘Indovation’: Regrettably, current R&D and innovation strategies and business
A new frugal models aren’t of much help as they are primarily structured to help
and design, produce, and commercialize products and services for affluent
markets—and presuppose the permanent availability of abundant
sustainable
financial and natural resources. We believe that India provides a great
approach to source of inspiration for driving affordable and sustainable business
innovation, innovation enabled by open, collaborative partnerships.

born out of Why India? Indeed, India is already a microcosm of the world of
necessity on scarcity, diversity, liberty and connectivity that will be the future of all

the Indian nations. In effect, more than any other country in the world, India—
with a population of 1.15 billion which keeps growing at 1.5% a year—
subcontinent faces scarcity on a grand scale across the board: from water and
with a food to oil and gas to primary education and basic healthcare. Due
strong to its inherent environmental and social constraints, India is a place
where the need to get more value for less cost has been felt for a
human and
long while now—and this need is often a matter of sheer survival.
global Increasingly, this scarcity has combined with India’s mind-boggling
dimension diversity (of religions, languages, and cultures), its relative liberty (India
is the world’s largest democracy with a rapidly-expanding free market-
(Wikipedia)
economy) and growing connectivity (India is adding 15 million cell
phone subscribers each month) to turn it into a large-scale, living
laboratory where a large number of people across the social spectrum
are daily coming up with inventions – or Indovations -- that are both
affordable and sustainable. These “Indovations” have relevance not
only within the Indian context, but also in other global markets.
 As a result, world-class companies like Microsoft, PepsiCo, IBM, Cisco,
Nokia, and GE are now using India as their R&D base to pilot next-
generation business models and organizational structures and develop
affordable and sustainable solutions which can then be marketed on a
global scale. In doing so, these firms are synergistically integrating
their India R&D operations into their global innovation networks.

Innovation has been largely product centric and not much thought has
been applied to innovating business, marketing and delivery processes
to deliver superior benefits to consumers. Project Shakti co-created by
Unilever and MART and e-choupal of ITC are examples of innovative
delivery and procurement models.

Purpose of the Event

We believe the time is ripe for initiating academic-industry

collaboration between India and the West towards identifying radically
new innovation strategies and cutting-edge business models that
provide corporations new frameworks and practical methods for
systematically designing, producing, and delivering affordable and
sustainable offerings for a larger user community using fewer
resources. This is exactly what this event will set out to accomplish by
acting as an engagement platform for corporations, policy-makers,
donors, and academics from the UK and India to identify, define and
share new best practices for driving socially-relevant business
innovations that are both affordable and sustainable.

We will discuss three cutting-edge emerging business paradigms which

are complementary in helping firms effectively leverage India as an
eminent source of frugal and sustainable innovations:

1. Reverse innovation: Reverse innovation (or trickle-up innovation) is a term referring to an innovation seen
first or likely to be used first, in the developing world before spreading to the industrialized world. The
term was introduced by Dartmouth professors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble and GE's CEO Jeffrey R.
Immelt in an Harvard Business Review article in August 2009 (Source: Wikipedia)
2. Polycentric innovation: This emerging business paradigm – conceptualized by Navi Radjou and Jaideep
Prabhu at Cambridge Judge Business School – designates the global integration of specialized R&D
capabilities across multiple regions to co-create novel solutions that no single region could have completely
developed on its own. Polycentric innovation encapsulates the synergistic global collaboration formula of
“1+1=11” (Source: Authors)
3. Process Innovation: Business models for effective and efficient delivery of social programs of the
government and delivery of goods and services by companies to rural markets.
 He is presently the Executive Director of the Centre
for India & Global Business at the University of
Cambridge’s Judge Business School. He is also a
strategy consultant to leading organizations worldwide.
Previously, Navi was a long time VP/analyst at
Forrester Research in Boston and San Francisco. He
has been featured in The Wall Street Journal,
Bloomberg Business Week, The Economist, The
Financial Times, Le Monde, and Nikkei Shimbun. Navi
is a regular columnist on HarvardBusinessReview.org.
Navi is a sought-after speaker by the World Economic
Forum, Council on Foreign Relations, The Conference
Arun Maira (tentative confirmation) is a Member of the
Board, Milken Institute, Harvard University, MIT, and
Planning Commission chaired by the Prime Minister of
Asia Society. A prolific writer, Navi has coined and
India. In this ministerial level position, he is responsible
popularized several business concepts such as
for facilitating the shaping of policies and programs
‘Polycentric Innovation’ and ‘Indovation’. An Indian-born
relating to industrialization and urbanization in the
French national, Navi earned his MS degree in
country, and tourism. He is also a member of the
information systems from Ecole Centrale Paris, and
National Innovation Council. He is a frequent speaker
also attended the Yale School of Management. Follow
at international forums on the future of India. He
writes regularly in the Economic Times in India and him on Twitter @NaviRadjou.

other management and business journals. He is the

author of several books, which include "Shaping The
Future: Aspirational Leadership in India and Beyond"
by John Wiley's & Sons in 2001, “Remaking India: One
Country, One Destiny” by Response Books in 2004,
“Discordant Democrats: Five Steps to Consensus” by
Penguin Books in 2007, and “Transforming Capitalism:
Business Leadership to Improve the World for
Everyone” by Nimby Books in 2008.

Arun Maira has advised clients across a wide variety of

industries and in many countries on issues of strategy
and organization. He has worked with clients in North
America, Europe, South America and Asia in industries
ranging from automobiles, steel, and oil, to
pharmaceuticals, and financial services. Ravi Malladi is currently the Technology Leader –
GE India responsible to identify and bridge the
Prior to his appointment on the Planning Commission, technology, and localization gaps across GE’s
he has served on the boards of several large Indian Energy, Infrastructure, Enterprise Solutions, and
companies, including companies in the Tata, Birla, Healthcare businesses. Before GE, he spent a
Godrej, Hero, and Mahindra Groups. decade at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, UC Berkeley developing schemes,
algorithms, and code base for a large variety of
image analysis applications. He has over 55
published papers in journals, and conference
proceedings, has delivered over 65 invited talks and
his work has over 2500 citations in the scientific
literature. Ravi holds Masters and Doctoral degrees
from University of Florida and MSc (Physics) and BE
(Electrical Engg.) from BITS, Pilani.

Navi Radjou is an internationally-recognized voice of

business strategy and innovation.
 Jaideep Prabhu (moderator) is Jawaharlal Nehru
Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise and
Director of the Centre for India and Global Business at
the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He
has a BTech degree from the Indian Institute of
Technology, New Delhi, and a PhD from the University
of Southern California. Jaideep’s research interests are
in marketing, innovation, strategy and international
business. His most recent research is on the role of
firm culture in driving innovation in firms across
Pradeep Kashyap is known as the father of rural nations.
marketing in India. He is recognized as a thought
leader and is a regular speaker at CEO forums in India He has consulted for the UK Government's Department
and abroad. In 1993 he started MART as a transparent, of Trade and Industry for whom he co-wrote a white
team based, non-hierarchical, flat organization based on paper on innovation, and has taught and consulted
ethical and spiritual principles. MART has emerged as with executives from ABN Amro, Bertelsmann AG, British
India’s leading rural consultancy organisation. He has Telecom, EDS, Egg, ING Bank, Nokia, Oce Copiers,
been Marketing Advisor to Ministry of Rural Philips, Roche, Shell, Vodafone and Xerox among other
Development and has served on Prime Minister Office companies, in Colombia, Finland, Germany, Netherlands,
and Chief Minister Committees on rural development. He Portugal, Switzerland, UK and US. He has recently been
is a World Bank and United Nations consultant. awarded a mid-career fellowship from the UK’s
Advanced Institute for Management Research (AIM) to
His primary focus in innovation has been on processes. work on a large project on the innovation activities in
He co-created Project Shakti with Hindustan Unilever to India and China of the world’s largest multinationals.
make brands available in unreached villages. He has His work has been profiled in Business Week, MIT Sloan
pioneered another low cost, last mile rural distribution Management Review, The Times, The Financial Times,
model using village volunteers on bicycles for Colgate, The Economic Times and Exec Digital among other
Heinz and others. He has advised many Fortune 500 publications in India, the UK, US and elsewhere.
companies including GE, Intel, Unilever, Shell, BP,
DuPont and others on rural strategy. He is a recipient
of the Indian Merchant Chamber of Commerce Award
1991. His marketing career spans 40 years. He is
President, Rural Marketing Association of India.