Innovate or Perish!
An interview with Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan on the sidelines of the NASSCOM Engineering Summit 2013
Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan is a faculty member of the Corporate Strategy & Policy area at IIMB. He has a Doctorate from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he won the outstanding thesis proposal award instituted by the Industrial Finance Corporation of India. He has a Master of Science in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur; and an MS in Engineering-Economic Systems (now Management Science & Engineering) from Stanford University. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. His current interests are Strategy & Innovation; National Innovation Systems & Competitiveness; Strategy Implementation.
He received the coveted Thinkers50 distinction this year. Along with Vinay Dabholkar, he has co-authored book titled '8 Steps to Innovation: Going from Jugaad to Excellence'. The book offers a unique eight-step process for creating a systematic innovation capability, which can be transplanted across the board to any business or region. The book received encouraging feedback and heartwarming reviews. Prior to this, his book 'From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India', published in February 2010, identified the challenges faced by Indians in enhancing industrial innovation and proposed an agenda to enhance innovation output.
Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan spoke to Govindraj Ethiraj of PING Network on the sidelines of the NASSCOM Engineering Summit 2013. Edited excerpts:
How do you see conversion of 'jugaad' as a thought to systematic and sustaining?
It is not about conversion but of building 'jugaad' to create a more systematic innovation capability. The way I look at 'jugaad' is more about creative improvisation. This is an important skill in India where we have lots of resource constraints. But, a look at customer expectation and aspirations today (shows) there is much more than what can be fulfilled by 'jugaad'. Jugaad has a tendency to be a more make-shift, quick-fix kind of a solution but today's customers want engineers (and) want well-engineered and well-designed products.
'Jugaad' is normally a post-productive improvisation; can 'jugaad' also be used in pre-product creation?
There is a lot of 'jugaad' going on when they are doing things within. We need to address a big problem i.e. how do you make innovation more predictable, sustainable and move away from it being a chance event? We do not want to depend on one guy, who does 'jugaad'. We want companies, on a regular basis and systematic basis, to drive innovations.
Explain to us where companies have used - as a chance event - 'jugaad' in the past, and how they could do it in a more sustained way?
I will give you examples of companies in India, which have managed to bring in systematic innovation capabilities. (In) Titan Industries, India's largest jeweler and watch manufacturers, there is an innovation in branding, marketing, advertising, product design, and manufacturing. They have done this by focusing on a few elements; (they have) encouraged everyone to be a part of innovation and democratized the whole process. The philosophy is very simple: all of us have the potential to be creative and innovative and it is up to the organization to harness that. How do we do that? Start by training people. Titan runs a lot of training programs on creative problem solving, where the employees develop systematic creative problem solving skills. This is right from shop floor to managerial level. The skills are practiced and improved when working on projects. Almost 10% off work time is allotted to the trainees to work on these challenges. So, it is a partly an issue of training, believing in people's innovation and setting the right kind of challenges. It is running these innovation campaigns - year after year, on different themes, - which drives innovation.
Is this the new way of looking at innovation for companies like BMW?
The 'jugaad' part is, in India, almost inherently, we have improvisation skills to survive. The main aspect here is, how do we take these basic skills, add more systematic creative problem solving skills and direct them towards the problems that companies need to solve? Develop systematic skills but at the same time not lose the inherent surviving skills, we as Indians possess.
Improvisation skills plus ability to handle chaos, it is actually a killer combination....
Plus to solve a problem through creative problem solving technique to find a solution in a new way!
What is your favourite example of 'jugaad' in the way you interpret it?
I think the challenge is to move away from 'jugaad', dealing in a systematic way.
Give us another example of a company which adopted systematic innovation capability.
Cognizant, about 5-6 years ago, started the Manage Innovation program. They realised that they had many ideas and plenty of talent floating around, but they needed to direct those to customer solutions. As we know, IT service is driven largely by customer requirements. Congnizant re-defined innovation as using skills to create additional benefits for the customer. They have an elaborate program to measure innovation right from individual to team to mangers to company level. They give rewards to employees at different levels for innovations they create. Cognizant has, 'one idea, per person, per year'. They are tracking a lot of ideas to build capabilities in a systematic way.
(Video courtesy: PING Network)
Innovate or Perish!
An interview with Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan on the sidelines of the NASSCOM Engineering Summit 2013
Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan is a faculty member of the Corporate Strategy & Policy area at IIMB. He has a Doctorate from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he won the outstanding thesis proposal award instituted by the Industrial Finance Corporation of India. He has a Master of Science in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur; and an MS in Engineering-Economic Systems (now Management Science & Engineering) from Stanford University. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. His current interests are Strategy & Innovation; National Innovation Systems & Competitiveness; Strategy Implementation.
He received the coveted Thinkers50 distinction this year. Along with Vinay Dabholkar, he has co-authored book titled '8 Steps to Innovation: Going from Jugaad to Excellence'. The book offers a unique eight-step process for creating a systematic innovation capability, which can be transplanted across the board to any business or region. The book received encouraging feedback and heartwarming reviews. Prior to this, his book 'From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India', published in February 2010, identified the challenges faced by Indians in enhancing industrial innovation and proposed an agenda to enhance innovation output.
Professor Rishikesha T Krishnan spoke to Govindraj Ethiraj of PING Network on the sidelines of the NASSCOM Engineering Summit 2013. Edited excerpts:
How do you see conversion of 'jugaad' as a thought to systematic and sustaining?
It is not about conversion but of building 'jugaad' to create a more systematic innovation capability. The way I look at 'jugaad' is more about creative improvisation. This is an important skill in India where we have lots of resource constraints. But, a look at customer expectation and aspirations today (shows) there is much more than what can be fulfilled by 'jugaad'. Jugaad has a tendency to be a more make-shift, quick-fix kind of a solution but today's customers want engineers (and) want well-engineered and well-designed products.
'Jugaad' is normally a post-productive improvisation; can 'jugaad' also be used in pre-product creation?
There is a lot of 'jugaad' going on when they are doing things within. We need to address a big problem i.e. how do you make innovation more predictable, sustainable and move away from it being a chance event? We do not want to depend on one guy, who does 'jugaad'. We want companies, on a regular basis and systematic basis, to drive innovations.
Explain to us where companies have used - as a chance event - 'jugaad' in the past, and how they could do it in a more sustained way?
I will give you examples of companies in India, which have managed to bring in systematic innovation capabilities. (In) Titan Industries, India's largest jeweler and watch manufacturers, there is an innovation in branding, marketing, advertising, product design, and manufacturing. They have done this by focusing on a few elements; (they have) encouraged everyone to be a part of innovation and democratized the whole process. The philosophy is very simple: all of us have the potential to be creative and innovative and it is up to the organization to harness that. How do we do that? Start by training people. Titan runs a lot of training programs on creative problem solving, where the employees develop systematic creative problem solving skills. This is right from shop floor to managerial level. The skills are practiced and improved when working on projects. Almost 10% off work time is allotted to the trainees to work on these challenges. So, it is a partly an issue of training, believing in people's innovation and setting the right kind of challenges. It is running these innovation campaigns - year after year, on different themes, - which drives innovation.
Is this the new way of looking at innovation for companies like BMW?
The 'jugaad' part is, in India, almost inherently, we have improvisation skills to survive. The main aspect here is, how do we take these basic skills, add more systematic creative problem solving skills and direct them towards the problems that companies need to solve? Develop systematic skills but at the same time not lose the inherent surviving skills, we as Indians possess.
Improvisation skills plus ability to handle chaos, it is actually a killer combination....
Plus to solve a problem through creative problem solving technique to find a solution in a new way!
What is your favourite example of 'jugaad' in the way you interpret it?
I think the challenge is to move away from 'jugaad', dealing in a systematic way.
Give us another example of a company which adopted systematic innovation capability.
Cognizant, about 5-6 years ago, started the Manage Innovation program. They realised that they had many ideas and plenty of talent floating around, but they needed to direct those to customer solutions. As we know, IT service is driven largely by customer requirements. Congnizant re-defined innovation as using skills to create additional benefits for the customer. They have an elaborate program to measure innovation right from individual to team to mangers to company level. They give rewards to employees at different levels for innovations they create. Cognizant has, 'one idea, per person, per year'. They are tracking a lot of ideas to build capabilities in a systematic way.
(Video courtesy: PING Network)