India Stands 66th on Global Innovative Index: Dr Rishikesha T Krishnan, Professor – Corporate Strategy & Policy, IIM-Bangalore

In the last 40 years Toyota generated 20 million Ideas; Cognizant, an Indian IT company employees contributed 1.34 lakh ideas in the year 2012

INDIACSR News Network

HYDERABAD: FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO), a national body of women entrepreneurs organised two Talks here in city on Monday. Dr. Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Professor—Corporate Strategy & Policy, IIM Bangalore and who has served on a number of committees set up by the Government of India, NASSCOM and CII spoke about Innovation and going beyond Jugaad.

Addressing the 200 plus gathering, he said India stands 66th on Global Innovative Index. In fact we have last two places in the last year he said. Speaking about problem with Jugaad, he said it is not scalable, based on individuals ingenuity, difficult to solve complex problems.

Speaking about Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India, which is also title of his latest book he asked to build a pipeline by laying the foundation, spread flow of ideas, create a system to generate ideas and build a people participation. Ideas need to come on regular basis.

He also gave examples of how Toyota generated 20 million ideas in 40 years time from its employees. In the year 1986 alone, 2.6 ideas were generated from their employees.  Almost 95 per cent of their employees given their ideas and each one contributing 48 ideas in a year, he said

He also gave example of Indian IT major Cognizant which has generated 1.34 lakh ideas in the year 2012 alone.  Nearly 37% of their employees contributed their ideas. He also gave examples of how every aspect of business in Titan are innovated.  The always gave importance to training to help their employees in creativity he said.

In developing ideas, it is equally important to identify the problem and big problem or important problem. Then only we can develop ideas and creative solutions to solve problems within limited budgets.  To identify the right problem he said one has to feel the pain, sense the wave or trend and see the waste, he said.

As far as innovation in India concerned, majority of the companies at Level 2 where only 10 per cent of companies participate in Innovation process.

“Rishikesha Krishnan is doubtlessly among India’s foremost chroniclers of the innovation journey. His book is a great account of the history of innovation in the post-industrial area. He has his pulse on issues that hold Indians from going to the next level.

Professor Krishnan said the objective of writing this book was to facilitate a discussion and debate as to how the industrial innovation output of India can be enhanced. He also expressed concern over poor state of innovation in India as compared to China.

According to Professor Krishnan, India has the potential to be a much better performer in Industrial innovation, but several systemic, cultural and social obstacles need to be overcome to achieve this potential. This is the message he tries to communicate to the community through the medium of From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India’.

Immediately after his talk there an another session on ‘Harnessing the Power of Play into Learning’ by Madhumita Halder, Founder of MadRat Games, creators of the World’s first Indian Language word game – Aksharit.

The sessions organised today are part of a series of such sessions organized exclusively for FLO members so as to enable them to get insights on different subjects from the experts in various fields, informed Ms. Jyotsna Angara, Chairperson FLO Hyderabad Chapter.