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As individuals, Indians are resourceful, creative and smart. In a supportive context, such as <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword> they have shown that they can play critical roles in the most innovative companies. But, here in <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword>, our innovation output is significantly below our potential. My work on innovation has focused on identifying the barriers to innovation in India, and seeking pathways at the level of both the nation and the firm to channelize our creative potential into a more systematic and sustainable innovation output. 
 
The Big Picture 
International comparative studies of innovation consistently place India far below the top of the innovation charts. In the latest INSEAD-WIPO Global Innovation Index (2013), India ranks #66. Rather than going up the ladder, India is actually sliding down – we slipped two positions in the last year and, this is in spite of the Government of India declaring this the decade of innovation! 
 
A simple way of understanding innovation output is to think in terms of supply side factors, processes and capabilities, and demand side factors. At the national level, since liberalization began over two decade ago, the demand for innovation has grown. Disposable incomes are up, the government is looking for low cost solutions to knotty public problems, and the legal systems for protection of inventors’ rights, are now better aligned with those in rest of the world. But India still faces challenges on the supply side, and in the capabilities of organizations to use the inputs available for innovative outcomes. 
 
Supply side issues include the failure of the education system to rise up to the challenge of building a well-trained work force that can undertake creative problem-solving, lack of adequate seed capital to take ideas to prototypes, and the absence of a supportive infrastructure for innovation. But, perhaps the biggest supply side problem is India’s poor research base – a recent study commissioned by India’s Department of Science &amp; Technology shows that India’s research output is not cited at a level above the global average in a single academic discipline. 
 The main agent of innovation in a capitalist <keyword id="34412" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="economy">economy</keyword> is the firm. This is the entity that links ideas with the market. Unfortunately, firms in India have been slow to develop systematic innovation capabilities, preferring to rely on traditional methods of creative improvisation such as jugaad. While jugaad may be attractive to large multinational firms whose processes have become too rigid and inflexible, Indian firms (with a few notable exceptions) face the opposite challenge – their innovation processes are too fluid and under-developed to facilitate the transformation of the creative energies of their employees into a steady stream of innovative products and services. Unfortunately, while multinational R&amp;D and engineering subsidiaries in India have the potential to do more innovative work, their innovation tends to be circumscribed by the roles mandated by their parents. 
 Why don’t Indian organizations spend more effort in developing better innovation capabilities? Family ownership appears to be a barrier, unless the family members involved in the business have a penchant for innovation (e.g. Dr. <keyword id="253203" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Anji-Reddy">Anji Reddy</keyword> and Dr. <keyword id="76415" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Parvinder-Singh">Parvinder Singh</keyword> at DRL and Ranbaxy respectively). More traditional family owners lack a deep understanding of either technology or customer needs, two of the key starting points for innovation. 
 
But there are also social and cultural forces at work that impede the creation of systematic innovation capabilities within firms. Research on management in India has shown that Indian companies’ efforts at innovation are impeded by poor teamwork; the enduring importance of upward hierarchical progression in a traditional society that leads to individuals moving out of individual contributor roles too early; a “brahminical attitude” that gives brainwork a superior position over physical work and results in ideation being lionised but experimentation looked down upon. Additionally, a weak systems and strategic orientation that results in the absence of appropriate change paradigms; a low tolerance of failure; a lack of confidence in innovation capabilities; a failure to positively reinforce innovation efforts; and a strong need for control that comes in the way of joint working with other organisations, all are impediments to innovation in India. 
 
Accelerating the Pace of Change 
Some of these factors are changing over time, but the change is slow. What can India do to accelerate the pace of change? 
I believe there are four priorities starting with a focus on the creation of a critical mass of new generation firms, started by young entrepreneurs. These youngsters would be relatively free of the baggage of our past and therefore more inclined to take on the challenge of genuine innovation. These firms need to be in sectors and application areas that go well beyond our traditional strengths like IT and services. 
The second priority is to provide the right incentives for institutions of higher education to change to become more research-oriented and more practice-oriented. 
 
The third priority is to change the nature of government’s support for research and development. The traditional model of government- owned, financed, and run research institutions needs to be replaced by competitive government grants to support R&amp;D in private institutions and small firms. The feasibility of this has already been proven by the schemes and programmes of the Department of Biotechnology, such as SBIRI and BIRAC. Such an approach needs to be extended to other sectors as well. 
 
The last but certainly not the least priority is to move India towards being a more knowledge-driven and science-intensive society. The solution to this problem lies as much with individuals as with the government. The next time your child has a project from school, get her to do it rather than doing it for her. Don’t accept superstitions and baseless rituals. Embrace the scientific method. 
 
Building Innovation Capabilities: The 8 Steps Approach The other part of the puzzle is building strong organizational innovation capabilities. Some Indian companies have already shown how this can be done. <keyword id="1643686" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vinay-Dabholkar">Vinay Dabholkar</keyword> and I have captured the essence of these practices in our 8 Steps to Innovation framework. 
 
In our interaction with Indian companies, we learnt that they faced three major problems in making innovation a sustained activity. The first is what we call the pipeline problem – the absence of a steady stream of ideas that can drive their innovation engine. Some companies told us that they have managed to create a stream of ideas, but that many of the ideas seem to get lost in the system – this is the source of a second problem that we call the velocity problem. A set of companies more mature in the innovation process told us that their challenge is different – this is the third problem that we call the batting average problem, i.e., the absence of adequate business impact of innovation. 
 
Our 8 step framework seeks to address these three big problems. Building a pipeline involves getting more people across the organization to see innovation as a part of their job and to make it easy for them to share their ideas with the company. To facilitate this, we advocate 3 steps. The first is to lay the foundation for innovation. This is achieved by designing an idea management system that is aligned with the company’s culture, conducting periodic campaigns that create excitement and involvement around innovation, and training people in creative problem solving methods to help them unleash their creative potential. The second step is to create a “challenge book” – identify the problems on which the company should focus its innovation efforts. The third step is to encourage participation in innovation. Some of the ways of achieving this are identification and recognition of innovation role models; forming communities of practice; identifying and training innovation catalysts who can help people with ideas take these ideas forward; and judicious use of rewards and recognition to get people involved. 
 
Ideas don’t move forward because they remain untried and untested. The solution to this is to encourage and support quick, low-cost experimentation to test assumptions related to need, technology, production, and commercialization. Once a proof-of-concept has been established, the barrier often shifts to the resources needed to take the innovation forward. Champions provide credibility and support and help overcome this barrier. Moving towards commercialization is helped by applying the principles of experimentation to the business model as well. 
 
Getting a bigger bang out of innovation – or enhancing the batting average as we call it – depends on two sets of actions. The first set is related to making the innovation successful, and consists of the use of innovation sandbox approaches to do intense experimentation within the tight expectations of the market; the use of platform approaches to help capture value from one innovation across multiple application areas; and sourcing ideas from outside the company (open innovation) to complement the company’s ideas and complete the innovation process. The second set relates to managing risk. Understanding the history of similar innovations, awareness of the baseline success rate of such innovations, and doing a premortem are some useful ways of managing the risk involved. Other approaches include a portfolio orientation and having a vigorous pipeline to avoid over-dependence on a single innovation. 
 We found successful Indian companies practising several of the approaches we have described above. <keyword id="6359783" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bajaj-Auto">Bajaj Auto</keyword> has been very effective at defining the right challenge book leading to market-dominating products such as the Pulsar. <keyword id="10899" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Titan-Industries">Titan Industries</keyword> has been a leader in training employees to participate in the innovation process and launching annual campaigns. Cognizant Technology Solutions has also been strong on participation, and has trained an impressive “army” of catalysts. <keyword id="42747" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tata-Motors">Tata Motors</keyword> has used innovation sandboxes effectively, <keyword id="6354512" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword> has a portfolio of effective innovation platforms, and Eureka Forbes has used open innovation to its advantage. Clearly where there is a will, Indian companies have found a way to build their innovative capabilities. 
 
(The author of this article is Rishikesh T. Krishnan. His main areas of interest are strategy and innovation. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania (Fall 2008), and at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad (2011-12). This article was contributed to Thinkers, a quarterly thought leadership magazine that features the brightest thinkers in the areas of economics and governance, philosophy and literature, science and technology, and management. To learn more about the magazine, please visit: <a href="http://www.thinkers.in/">www.thinkers.in</a> ) 
 
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Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Going beyond Jugaad, can India build a systematic innovation capability?

<ul><li><keyword id="1603355" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="murali-divi" source="Orion">Murali Divi</keyword> is the founder of <keyword id="1515398" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="divi" source="Orion">Divi</keyword>’s Labs, one of the top three manufacturers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API).</li><li>Divi went to the US with $7 in his hands and came back with $40,000, while earning $65,000 a year working as a pharmacist.</li><li>In the last one year, Divi’s wealth has surged by more than two times to over $10 billion.</li><li>Find out what the future holds for Murali Divi and his company, Divi’s Labs.</li></ul>From the small town of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh to founding a company with a market capitalisation of nearly ₹1.3 lakh crore (over $17 billion), Murali Divi has come a long way to find himself on the Hurun India Rich List 2021. According to the latest update to the Hurun list, Murali Divi with a wealth of ₹79,000 crore is the 14th richest person in India, leaving behind the old money magnates like the Wadias, Mistrys, Godrejs and Agarwals. What makes it even better is the fact that Divi’s father managed the family of 14 on a meagre pension of ₹10,000 per month. Indeed, nothing quite describes the emergence of small-town India as one of the drivers of the country’s growth as the stories of people like Murali Divi or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/meet-girish-mathrubootham-founder-and-ceo-of-freshworks/articleshow/86453777.cms">Girish Mathrubootham</a>, whose father was a bank officer. <div type="image" title="Divi&amp;#39;s" msid="86750084" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Divi&amp;#39;s Labs was founded in 1990 and it went public in 2003&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> Today, Divi’s Labs commands a market capitalisation of ₹1.28 lakh crore – almost three times of what it was on March 23, 2020, when India went into a nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On October 4, the stock added another 10% to its value after it was chosen as the authorised manufacturer for Merck and Ridgeback’s oral antiviral Molnupiravir, which is under trial, and the results so far show that it can reduce the need for hospitalisation for patients with <a href="https://www.merck.com/news/merck-and-ridgebacks-investigational-oral-antiviral-molnupiravir-reduced-the-risk-of-hospitalization-or-death-by-approximately-50-percent-compared-to-placebo-for-patients-with-mild-or-moderat/">a mild or moderate case of COVID-19</a>. <div type="image" title="Divi&amp;#39;s Labs 23_03_20 to 04_10_21." msid="86749896" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Divi&amp;#39;s Labs share price since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in India&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> What sent the share price of Divi’s Labs in another orbit compared to other companies is its effective utilisation of capital and expanding supply of APIs to US pharma companies in 2020, even as the world struggled to cope up with China shutting off the supply chain for the pharma sector. Since the pandemic, Murali Divi has seen his wealth more than double, from a little under $4 billion at the beginning of 2020 to over $10 billion now. But what does the future hold for this billionaire scientist’s company, Divi’s Labs? Here’s a quick look at the risks for the company and what its strengths are: <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Pressure on drug prices in US" comment="subhead" text="Pressure on drug prices in US">Pressure on drug prices in US</cmsannotation> <div type="image" title="Divi&amp;#39;s research" msid="86750068" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Divi&amp;#39;s Labs&amp;#39; research centre&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> The US government has been forcing prices of medicines down for a few years now by approving more generic versions. This is likely to continue and may even get worse, according to analysts at Ambit Capital. But that is not a problem unique to Divi’s. Other companies like Sun Pharma, Lupin, Dr Reddy’s etc. have also been facing similar pricing pressure. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Resumption of physical inspections of plants" comment="subhead" text="Resumption of physical inspections of plants">Resumption of physical inspections of plants</cmsannotation> The US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) had eased its watch on the quality of drugs exported from India in the wake of the pandemic. However, the hawks at the USFDA may return to their old ways of surprise inspections at manufacturing plants and that’s a risk for all companies. The increased compliance burden could prove to be a double-edged sword for pharma companies, including Divi’s Labs, according to Ambit Capital. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Proactive capacity scale-up and technology upgrades" comment="subhead" text="Proactive capacity scale-up and technology upgrades">Proactive capacity scale-up and technology upgrades</cmsannotation> <div type="image" title="Divi&amp;#39;s lab" msid="86750058" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Divi&amp;#39;s Labs&amp;#39; research and development centre&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> One of the secrets of Divi’s rise to be the second biggest drug maker in the country, by market capitalisation, is its ability to scale up capacity and cut costs using technology. “It is still supplying legacy products, showing both its strength and continuing demand in these products. Its next leg of growth is expected to come from 16 new molecules it is currently working on,” said Motilal Oswal in its September report, which said that the shares of Divi’s Labs could go up to ₹5,750, another 10%, in the next one year. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Strong partnerships with innovators" comment="subhead" text="Strong partnerships with innovators">Strong partnerships with innovators</cmsannotation> The report further adds that Divi’s Labs has a strong relationship with big pharma companies, including six out of the top ten innovators including Merck, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline. “Divi can supply both clinical quantities and at large commercial scale, thus supporting innovators from API research to commercial manufacturing,” says the report. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="The scientist behind the billionaire" comment="subhead" text="The scientist behind the billionaire">The scientist behind the billionaire</cmsannotation> To make things worse, Divi failed his intermediate exams (the equivalent of higher secondary) twice due to weak English. However, instead of giving up and resigning himself to his failures, Divi doubled down and grabbed the opportunity to go to the US as a pharmacist instead of becoming a chemist like his elder brothers. <div type="image" title="Murali Divi" msid="86750146" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Murali Divi&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> When Divi left India for the states in 1976, he was 25 years old with $7 in his hands, according to <a href="https://www.forbesindia.com/article/india-rich-list-2014/murali-divi-the-accidental-chemist/38771/1">Forbes India</a>. From there, he went on to draw a salary of $65,000 a year at US companies like Trinity Chemical and Fike Chemical. He would soon come back to India with his wife and children with $40,000 and no plans for the future. He went with the flow and in 1984, teamed up with Kallam Anji Reddy to build Cheminor, which would later (in 2000) be merged with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, also co-founded by Reddy. Six years later, Divi founded Divi’s Laboratories, his own pharma company. Headquartered in Hyderabad, the company makes active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and intermediates. APIs are the key inputs that go into making a drug. From nowhere in 1990, Divi’s Labs is now one of the top three API manufacturers in the world. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/meet-girish-mathrubootham-founder-and-ceo-of-freshworks/articleshow/86453777.cms">Girish Mathrubootham, the son of a retired bank officer who built a $13 billion company in just 10 years</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/anil-ambani-sachin-tendulkar-kiran-shaw-and-other-indians-named-in-the-pandora-papers-leak/articleshow/86745435.cms">Anil Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar, Kiran Shaw and other Indians named in the Pandora Papers leak</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/byjus-has-raised-1-3-billion-this-year-to-so-far-in-pursuit-of-its-american-dream/articleshow/86745427.cms">Byju’s has raised $1.3 billion this year to so far in pursuit of its American dream</a>

Murali Divi, the billionaire scientist behind Divi’s Labs, is richer by $6 billion, and counting, since the pandemic

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Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Going beyond Jugaad, can India build a systematic innovation capability?

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Murali Divi, the billionaire scientist behind Divi’s Labs, is richer by $6 billion, and counting, since the pandemic

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