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Innovation = Invention + Insight (Part II)

Prologue: Starting a series post is a risky business – if you do not get time to post the sequel fast enough, the original post conveys an incomplete meaning and starts receiving unfavorable comments. That is what happened to my previous post. Anyway – better late than never – here is the second and concluding part of Innovation = ......

As I argued in the previous post, without innovation, it is not possible to reach the echelons of global trade and difficult to oust competition. Going further, not just international competition, even domestic trade and indigenous industry is unlikely to prosper without innovation. Any new innovation, fuels a chain of many other parallel mini-innovations to be done around the central theme. For example, the 1-lakh-small-car by Tata Motors requires new initiatives in each of its ancillaries – from upholstery makers to tire makers. On the other hand, how much internal business does an Oracle implementation in the U.S. generate back home in India?

One could argue that this is actually a difference between a software and manufacturing business. Hence to clarify – consider a new product developed and launched in the Indian markets by an Indian company. This would generate jobs for consultants, developers and marketing personnel alike. In the present day set-up all these jobs would get generated only when SAP AG injects new innovations in its product. Thus we are still dependent on factors outside this country for speedy development.

Finally, apart from the economic sense that innovation makes – it in general also helps build a positive national sentiment and helps further spur entrepreneurship. This requires that innovation not be mere slogans and statements given from boardrooms but translate to actual acts of novelty on ground. In words of Rahul Bajaj
[Innovation] means you have to do things differently, and not just for the sake of being different. It has to be in a very relevant, purposeful and productive and beneficial way… It is very easy to talk about innovation, it is very hard to do and we set up a simple framework for ourselves. We liked the definition of “Innovation is nothing but invention plus insight”.

Epilogue: When I started this series, the plan was to fill in a lot of numbers to support the hypothesis which would have made it less ‘Gas’ and more meat. Unfortunately I haven’t found enough time and hence I am posting this gassed version rather than delaying further.

Comments

  1. yo...man feels gud to see ur posts...chkin the blogs after a loooong time;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. your second post makes more sense to the topic :)

    rahul bajaj's quote is very apt... be it any field of business/ industry.

    ReplyDelete

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