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Multidisciplinary Studies Volume 3, Issue 6, June 2015

Book Review Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians pulled off
the impossible, By- Porus Munshi

Pravin Mane1, Ashok Ranade2

1
Assistant Professor, Bharati Vidyapeeth
Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship Development, Pune.
2
Professor, Bharati Vidyapeeth
Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship Development, Pune.

The letter I in India stands for Innovation and not
the word Impossible has been rightly proved in the
book Making Break Through Innovation by
Porus Munshi. It is very correctly said by A.P.J
Abdul Kalam- In a knowledge society, we have to
make innovations continuously. Innovation can
start anywhere from a fishermans hamlet or a
farmers household or a classroom to a lab or an
industry or an R n D centre.
Innovation is an orbit shifting challenge which has
been taken up by ordinary people who have gone to
do extraordinary things. The book reveals the
feeling of not only that we can do it but that we
can do it in our own Indian ways. It explains us
the stories of passionate people which found their
ways of creating something different which others
thought was impossible. It inspires us through the
practical experiences of people that defined
conventional wisdom.
Innovation 1: Danik Bhaskar: No 1 from day
one
You can have the greatest idea of the world but that
wont make you innovative. The starting point of
break through innovation is to develop an orbit
shifting challenge. By that I mean is to have a
force, a driving motivational factor or passion to
achieve something which others believe impossible
and that is what was done by Danik Bhaskar when
they decided to expand, they didnt required ideas
but a challenge to be leader from day one in every
city of launch. In all there launches they did the
same and within the short span of time they became
one of the largest newspapers group in India in
terms of circulation.
Danik Bhaskar focused on their strategy where the
customer was made the king. There was a group of
people chosen by the company who interacted with
lakhs of customers. They enquired regarding
customers expectations, the medium and news
they would prefer and then went on for
subscription for a year with them. With pricing as
low and a large of number of subscription and
giving customers the main preference made them
no.1 at the day 1 of their launch in Jaipur, Madhya
Pradesh, Chandigarh (launching Hinglish
newspaper), Haryana, Ahmadabad, Gujarat and
Punjab.
Today the Bhaskar Group has come up a long way
from being no.1 in Madhya Pradesh to becoming
the largest read newspaper group in the country. It
now has 8 Titles in 3 languages across 9states. The
reason behind their success was setting of target
and having the conviction of doing it in the best
way. They expanded the market and went a step
further of creating a brand new space for
themselves and bring in buyers. They had a dream
an impossible aspiration and then they work back
from there, making a strategy that can deliver on
that dream.
Innovation 2: Aravind Eye Hospital: Making a
dent in Global Blindness
Aravind eye hospital was started by Dr Govindappa
Venkataswamy; treating unnecessary blindness
became passion for him. There are nearly 24
million blind in the world and nearly 1/3rd of them
are unnecessarily blind which means they dont
have to stay blind, through treatment they can see
the world but in most cases they have to undergo a
surgery which cannot be afforded by all people.
Aravind decided to find out ways to cope with this
problem and found out that the cost can be reduced
by increasing surgeons productivity through
assembly line technique of productivity that
increased this productivity by a factor of 10. It also
developed such a cost effective revenue model that
thousands of blind poor can be operated for free or
nearly free.
Whats remarkable about Aravind is that only
30%of patients pay and that too less amount and
rest 70% are treated for almost free. It has
expanded itself in such a wonderful manner that
now it earns 35% operating profit, treats 2.4million
outpatients and does2,86,000 cataract surgeries
every year. He didnt had money to start up neither

Available online at www.ajms.co.in 187

Book Review Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians pulled off the impossible, By- Porus Munshi.
had a perfect team but says The right time is to
start up now and the best team is the one you
already have. Everything else is an excuse to put
off the important.
Innovation 3: Cavin Kare: Giving Giants Cold
Cavin Kare, a small firm started with just Rs15000
by C.K.Ranganathan in 1983 was famous for
giving FMCG giants a cold. It has rewritten the
rules of game in FMCG market by forcing the
biggest industry players to follow suit and make
products affordable to the smallest customer. The
product he launched was Chik Shampoo. He didnt
had sufficient amount to start up as he had to pay
off Rs250 as advance of Rs 1000 and Rs300 for
factory space against an advance of Rs 1200. He
then bought a shampoo packing machine for
Rs3000. He faced many problems for getting the
bank loan cleared because he didnt had any
collateral but one particular bank gave him loan of
Rs25000 which he rotated as Rs 15lakh.
Next he did was to carefully rotate his capital in the
business and by winning the trust of suppliers was
one of his fundamentals which helped him a lot in
succeeding. He hired those people who were
freshers so that he can mould them accordingly
and he didnt cared about experience because what
was required was passion to do something. Initially
in 1983 Chik India earned an annual turnover of
Rs5 lakh but in 1986 things stabilised for them as
its average turnover was Rs 2.5 to 3 lakh per
month. The strategy that made the difference was
thinking out of the box. He gave a sachet of Chik
shampoo free for every four empty sachets of any
shampoo and later changing it to four empty sachet
of Chik shampoo which made loyal and permanent
customer for them. It proved to be a huge success
for them and bring storms to the market as the sales
went up heavily from just 3lakhs a month to
12lakhs in a month.
By 1992, Chik became the largest selling shampoo
in Tamil Nadu with a turnover of Rs8crores and by
1993 it was ready to go national. He later
introduced sachet for 50paise in 1998 and even
introduced bottles at much cheaper rates which lead
on to an additional 5%market share. Today Cavin
Kare is 750 crore company and its not the growth
thats only the interesting part but the new and
innovative ideas through which you can beat even
the giants.
Innovation 4: ITC-IBD: Blowing up the business
model
It all started in 1999 by Y.C.Deveshwar, the
chairman of ITC and S.Shivakumar the head of
IBD came together for a new business model
known as E-Choupal. A model which was focused
on farmers and supply chain initiative. ITC could
benefit by getting the quantity and quality it desired
from farmers and the farmers could benefit by
getting value they deserved as well as by having
the incentive to grow high quality crops. Through
Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(6) June, 2015
these 6500 e-coupals 4million farmers are
connected in 38000villages and the intent is to
reach 1,00,000 villages in 15states over next few
years.
The impact on ITC-IBD can be seen through its
turnover. It has grown from Rs300 crore to Rs3000
crore and profits that can be earned from these
coupals can be more than the turnover of ITC in
coming years.
Innovation 5: Bosch India: Innovation Blow
Back Into Europe
The team from Bosch India took a challenge rather
than making major and expensive engine
modifications to enable it to interact with the high
pressure pump why not to make modifications to
the pump to enable it to interact with the existing
engine and then give same results. There were
many challenges that had to be faced first of all to
create a high end pressure bars and that can
withstand high pressures while reducing the cost
for diesel world. All those challenges were to be
tackled altogether. The mind set shifted from we
are just applicators for Boschs Germany products
to we create technology that nobody in the world
has done.
Innovation 6: Trichy Police: Shifting policing
paradigms
Trichy is a place in Tamil Nadu were the crime rate
dropped by 40% were a team of 260 constables,
highly trained commandos which had no corruption
record, no bad habits and with a track record of
effectiveness were selected. This group have to
report to commissioner against the actions
prevailing in the society. A transformation was
required in the minds of citizens of Trichy so that
they could trust these constables and on the other
hand a shift in police mindset was required while
they deal in crime. The trust was made through few
major steps such as complain boxes were set up
people have to put their complaints against society
in the specific box and that box will be opened by
commissioner directly. There was no third party
involved in between. They took up social problems
as well such as helping them in making ration
cards, making up of street lights, helping them with
public utilities like telephones and electricity.
Police performance improved in terms of crime
detection increased from 78% in 1999 to 86% in
2000 reaching a peak of 95% in 2004. Similarly,
the recovery of stolen properties rose from 41%in
1999 to 74% in 2000 and 90% in 2005. Clearly,
Trichy is a safe place today.
Innovation 7: Chola Vehicle Finance: Removing
Escape Buttons
Chola Vehicle Finance was a small company of
around Rs140 crore where as its competitors both
Banks and NBFCs were of more than Rs1000
crore. Vasudevan knew that if Chola that to survive
they have to grow fast and with innovations and
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Book Review Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians pulled off the impossible, By- Porus Munshi.
expansions. Vasudevan called up branch meetings
explained them the real situations and allowed
them to set their own growth targets. Another thing
he did was he called up the press meet and made a
public commitment of Cholas new growth targets
for coming fiscal. Now he and his team had to
perform under the risk of losing credibility. There
was no going back on the targets all escape buttons
were removed. The result was 12 out of 21
branches achieved their targets and Chola
registered a decent growth of 21% in 1st yr and
grew from a turnover of Rs140 crore in 1997-98 to
Rs900 crore by 2001-2002. They also came up with
Tractor financing business in which rate of interest
was fixed by branches according to the risk
involved in customer profile.
Innovation 8: Titan Edge: Beating Deference
In 1994, when Titan Watch Industries wanted to
create the slimmest water-resistance watch in the
world, it was headed by managing director, Xerxes
Desai and Dwarakanath helped him through. The
slimmest watch meant that it should be maximum
of 3.5mm thick- as thick as edge of floppy disk-
and water resistant boot. The masters in of watch
making Swiss said it impossible either a watch can
be ultra slim or water resistance. It couldnt be
both. But the Titan team said if Swiss couldnt do it
they would and they did. It took them 4 years to
do the impossible but finally launched it in 2000 as
Titan Edge.
It wasnt easy to make it happen numbers of
challenges were being involved and the top
challenge included the self belief that they could
do it followed by the sheer engineering challenge:
the design, manufacturing and tooling challenge of
the case. Every challenge was overcome and today
the success story for titan is a global recognition.
The single brand contributes to 6% of the watches
turnover. A team that believed it didnt have any
competency did it and it all started with an orbit
shifting challenge.
Innovation 9: Shantha Biotech: Unleashing
Biotechnology in India
In 1991, nearly 3, 40,000 people were dying of
Hepatitis B in India and because the cost of vaccine
was at Rs 750 per dose and for an entire course it
amounted to Rs 2250 therefore vast majority of
Indians were not able to afford it. One man,
Varaprasad wanted to crash the price of vaccine
from Rs750 to Rs50 so that the common people
could afford it. But how to do it was a major
question? Varaprasad Reddy was neither a person
of biotech neither he knew which way to go but he
got furious when he felt insulted by western
countries. Varaprasad believed so passionately and
deeply in his cause that he was able to inspire other
believe in it with him.
Producing the vaccine was not a big game as
compared to marketing them was. From the big
suppliers to doctors to retailers every one asked for
Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(6) June, 2015
a big margin in selling it to the customers. It again
made no difference if they had to make 3000%
profit by selling it at Rs519. Varaprasad said no to
them and look out for new ways of marketing the
vaccine by making a tie up with Indian Medical
Association and setting up of camps for common
people. Shantha Biotech earned revenues of Rs8
crore in first 6months and 23 crore at end of first
year.
Innovation 10: The Surat Transformation:
Urban Renewal
When S.R.Rao took charge as Surats municipal
commissioner in May 1995, he inherited a 400year
old city that had been afflicted by a disease of
plague. When he took the charge he decided to
transform this city of plague into city known for
cleanliness. In an overnight span of time he made
11 commissioners which acted as functional heads
for regional departments in Surat who had the same
financial and administrative powers as him.
Without prior approval all projects was given Rs 2,
00,000 - this was empowerment in truest sense.
Rao held daily review meeting with his top teams.
He made a list of complaints that have to be
handled within 24hrs, 48hrs and in 7 days. All
commissioners would spend compulsorily at least
5hrs a day on field. All discipline was forced at top
level first. Rewards for good work were being
given in non monetary forms while on the other
hand he took disciplinary actions against 1200
employees ranging from sweepers to officers. The
press supported him, the judiciary supported him
and the people supported him.
Innovation 11: Su- Kam: Creating an Industry
Kunwer created an industry which doesnt exist.
He spotted an opportunity created a different
product, created a place for it in the market through
different marketing techniques and kept on making
it better through more innovations. In 1198 they
made a inverter which was of reduced size, thereby
reducing the cost and improving efficiency and
enabling them to use one battery instead of two. He
created a network by telling the competitors that he
will be changing his technology every year to make
the product better thereby leaving the
manufacturers with only two options either to
match him or to join him as distributors. He
converted the manufacturers into distributors and
battery guy into dealers and created a network.
His guiding principle was change the market
before it changes you. He makes new product in a
better way and kills his old product so as to keep an
edge over the competitors. They launched in 2002,
the plastic body inverters which was the worlds
first inverter with a plastic that could bear
temperatures up to 120 degrees. He found a
company which supplied him the plastic and rest
Su-Kam did it. Customers loved it and competitors
went crazy. They tried to copy it but their plastic
melted and thereby resulting them into losses.
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Book Review Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians pulled off the impossible, By- Porus Munshi.

It is very correctly said that it requires an Orbit
Shifting Challenge. Nothing will work without a
clear vision and passion to be different. Whether
its the elimination of blindness or being No1
from Day 1 or creating an Edge. One needs an
unreasonable challenge to break out the boundaries
of the industrys thinking. There is nothing in the
world known as impossible it all depends about
how you shift the orbit and take up the challenge to
achieve your respective missions.

Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The

Book:
Impossible

Author: Porus Munshi

ISBN: 817223774X

ISBN-13: 9788172237745, 978-8172237745

Binding: Hardcover

Publishing Date: 2009

Publisher: Harper Collins India

Edition: 1stEdition

Number of Pages: 256

Language: English

Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(6) June, 2015 190