Indian Innovation & End Game
“What is the calculus of innovation? The calculus of innovation is really quite simple: Knowledge drives innovation, innovation drives productivity, productivity drives economic growth.”
Innovation has always been a high funda word that lures us all. It makes people go crazy. This is especially evident after the pandemic effect on the globe by slowing down the economy of almost all the countries that are visible on the map. The industrial leaders, peace makers, government organisations and NGO’s of the world have called upon the people to sustain and increase the innovation in order to thrive after the ending of this pandemic.Why is this so important to innovate?
Reality Check for Indian Innovation
Indian Innovation rank (ranked by GII) as seen a good increase of 4 ranks from 52 to 48 in terms of innovation activity that has been carried out in this nation consistently over the last few years. However it doesn’t seem to be suffice for the population growth that the country has been seeing in this past few years. The Indian country has a share of workforce of around 18% of the globe yet the global output of the country as a whole has only a share of 4.7% of the world. For reference, China which is the world’s most populous country has a GII rank of 14. The Dragon country’s share of workforce too has been similar to that of Indian counterparts’ i.e, 19–20% of the global workforce. However, their share in the global GDP also has a similar output with them raking up a 19% share. The story is same with other fellow top GDP countries where there has been a less share of the workforce yet there has been a high contribution to GDP of the world.
Even when these top GDP countries are not considered, we are behind the countries which has traditionally seen a lesser support and awareness in terms of innovativeness. For example, In the Lower middle income economies (29 in total), Vietnam(42) and Ukraine (45) has a higher rank in terms of innovation when compared to India. Especially in the sub-segments of innovation which includes Human Capital & Research, Infrastructure, Market and Business sophistication and creative outputs, India has shown a not so good performance in terms of Infrastructure for innovation where it ranks a below average rank of 75. This is also backed by the evidence that India doesn’t have a company in the Top 25 brands of the globe (in terms of value) whereas even countries like Netherlands have one (23rd ranked Shell).
Future to Behold
With this reality check upon our innovation hitting us hard, it would be good to have a change in approach in terms of enhancing the innovation in all the sectors and streams.So, How do we go about this ? How does this competitive advantage of companies occur in order to compete with the world?
According Michael Porter, a pioneer in defining strategy, the competitive advantage of a company can occur in two ways, one is the product differentiation and another is the competitive pricing or lowering of the prices. In general, the foreign companies gain advantage by investing more in their R&D and differentiate the product by adding a feature that may not have been existed previously. Indian companies, in general, due to increased competition have been adhering more towards affording competitive prices. This might help in the survival for the short term, however, in the long term it might adversely affect the brand value and growth. This also adds to the fact that undercutting the prices boils down purely on the operational efficiency of the company which can be unsustainable at times and the undercutting of prices cannot go beyond a specific limit.
This also extrudes the sense of approach of a environment ( read as a country) towards the innovation factor. For example consider the case of the corn(maize). Corn as we all know is one of the most important crop and food for humans. But what we do not know (at least for majority if not for all) is the use case varies and its one of the most diversely used crop on the planet. Corn has its uses by being one of the raw material of the manufacturing plastics. Corn starch finds its use in the batteries too. Matchsticks too are made of corn starch to make it burn brighter. Even consumables like crayons and lipsticks owes a part of its manufacturing towards it. If you aren’t still surprised yet, even glue sticks, candies too are a output from the cornstarch. Infact it has been estimated that almost 1/4th of the groceries that you find in a normal store has a part of its existence owing to the presence of corn. This comes as a no surprise owing to the truth that US has the highest production of maize in the world. And due to high amount of substantial existence of the corn which was leftover after feeding their community, the Americans invested plenty in terms of innovation in order to make sure that this corn finds its place of usage in many industries than food. This has resulted in a situation where the maize has its usage of only 40% in food industries and other industries consume 60% of the corn.
All in all, the onus is upon us to positively take up all the resources that are readily available at our disposal to enhance the productivity there by raising the living standards for all our younger generations to come. And my friends, this is where the art of innovation will play its crucial role in the upbringing of the human society as a whole. Its all about the mindset people !
“Because of their courage, their lack of fear, they (creative people) are willing to make silly mistakes. The truly creative person is one who can think crazy; such a person knows full well that many of his great ideas will prove to be worthless. The creative person is flexible; he is able to change as the situation changes, to break habits, to face indecision and changes in conditions without undue stress. He is not threatened by the unexpected as rigid, inflexible people are.”
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