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The Thinkers50 has been scanning, ranking, and sharing management ideas since 2001. Thinkers50 <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> too shares our passion for and is the driving force of the power and importance of ideas. Ideas are the vital fuel of <keyword id="94495" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="80" keywordseo="Innovation">innovation</keyword>, and few in business or elsewhere would argue against the fact that innovation matters now more than ever. 
 <keyword id="6407546" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="CEOs">CEOs</keyword>, academics and politicians can be heard waxing lyrical about the need for innovation in this or that company, industry or even national economy. But why does innovation matter so much in today’s business world? The answer is surprisingly simple. Innovation is where the worlds of business and creativity meet to create new value. It really is as simple as that. 
 
Indeed, one definition of innovation is “the creation of new value.” The word innovate first appears in the mid-sixteenth century. It comes from the latin “innovat” meaning “renewed, altered,” from the verb “innovare” – from in (into) and novare (make new). In other words, innovation is all about finding new ways to change things. What makes this all the more relevant today is that we live in a world where we are constantly demanding new value from the products and services we consume. 
 
Think about it. When did you last buy a new phone that boasted “the same old tried and tested technology,” or a car that proclaimed itself “just as good as before”. The fact is that our ancestors might have been persuaded with claims of constancy and old-fashioned consistency, but we demand more. Blame it on fickle consumers if you will, or blame it on progress, but there is a continuous ramping up of our expectations, and this has led to a heightening of our expectations of innovation. 
 
Companies are in the front line. And it isn’t just that the competition might add a new feature or button to an existing product. Commercial life can be positively Hobbesian, Nasty, Brutish. And, increasingly, short. Entire product categories can disappear overnight. Remember the VHS player? Remember the cassette recorder? Remember buying film for your camera? One of the biggest innovation challenges is dealing with discontinuous innovation. When technologies shift, or new markets emerge, or the regulatory rules of the game change, or someone introduces a new business model, many formerly successful organizations suddenly become vulnerable, some are soon consigned to history. 
 
A key part of the problem is that dealing with discontinuity requires a very different set of capabilities. Organizing and managing discontinuous innovation requires searching in unlikely places, building links to new partners, allocating resources to high risk ventures, and exploring new ways of looking at the business. These are very different to the conventional and traditional approach to innovation. 
 
Historically, a company simply hired some very smart people, put them in an R&amp;D lab, and let them get on with it. That approach is no longer sufficient. After the Japanese company Fujitsu was acknowledged as having developed the world’s fastest supercomputer, we spent time talking to those involved with its development to learn more about the reality of innovation. The computer was nicknamed K, a play on the Japanese word ‘kei’ for the number 10 to the power of 16. It is a big number and a big build with a $1 billion development budget and over 1,000 people involved. Development began in 2007 and ended in 2012 with the K being celebrated as the “fastest of the fastest”. 
 We met with the managers and leaders involved in this huge project. We were struck by two things. First, the down-to-earth nature of those involved. The Fujitsu team were not classic <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword> material. They were neither hip nor cool. There were no jeans, not even chinos. No casual wear; in fact nothing casual at all about them. Indeed, when we met the overall project manager, he looked like a typical middle-aged Japanese corporate man wearing a suit with a waistcoat to stave off the Tokyo winter chill. Ordinary people involved in an extraordinary project. 
 The second thing that struck us was that despite their quiet and contained outward demeanour, these were men and women with a mission. We talked with Aiichirou <keyword id="314086" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Inoue">Inoue</keyword>, President of Fujitsu’s Next Generation Technical computing unit. When we spoke it was nearing the end of the project. The pressure was on. Inoue had been the driving force behind the company’s mainframe computer business for 27 years. Given his long service, Inoue could perhaps have been forgiven an air of ennui. In reality, he was a ball of creative energy, excited and under pressure in equal measure. 
 
 “In my previous roles, I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do. I wanted to build something by myself, not just to use it, but to build it,” he explained. It was clear talking to Inoue and his colleagues that the innovative and groundbreaking K computer wasn’t an end in itself. There were many more important and motivational forces at work. 
 
 “I want the young engineers working on this project to be excited and to enjoy their work,” said Inoue. “But, let’s be clear: the K computer will make the future for Fujitsu, Japan, and for human beings. It will give us the ability to look at the weather of the future; and there are a huge number of healthcare uses. That’s what I mean about its power to change humanity. A computer is just a big box; what’s interesting is to see it as a tool to help mankind and societies around the world.” 
 
We walked away from the Fujitsu team and started thinking again about innovation. What we had encountered challenged our easily held stereotypes and assumptions. We learned that innovation is not practiced in isolation. Nor is it the work of supermen and women, though much of what they accomplish is superbly world changing. Innovation is ordinary, but the results are extraordinary. Innovation changes reality, but is built from aspirations, dreams, ambitions, and visions. Innovation is vital. 
 
(The authors are Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove. Stuart Crainer is editor of the award-winning magazine <keyword id="2816434" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Business-Strategy-Review">Business Strategy Review</keyword> and co-founder of the Thinkers50. Des Dearlove is co-founder of the Thinkers50 and an adjunct professor at IE Business School, an associate fellow of Said Business School at <keyword id="30725" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Oxford-university">Oxford University</keyword> and the author of a bestselling study of the leadership style of <keyword id="58954" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Richard-Branson">Richard Branson</keyword>. 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>)

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: The Power of Ideas

<keyword id="2038187" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thinkers50">Thinkers50</keyword> India released the definitive list of most influential management thinkers from India for the year 2015, who created, expanded and enhanced thought leadership in India. 
 
Among the Thinkers50 include Nirmalya Kumar, Ravi Venkatesan, Tarun Khanna, Gurcharan Das. 
 
Nirmalya Kumar of Tata Sons contributed to the theory and practice of management include authoring six books in the domain of marketing strategy and publishing extensively in the Journal of Marketing Research and Harvard Business Review. 
 
Venkatesan of Social Venture Partners has had powerful bearing in recent years on management thinking especially for multinationals by publishing the much acclaimed book on how to succeed in Indian context and drawing lessons for markets elsewhere. 
 
Other thinkers on the list include dons from Harvard Business School, Kellogg School of Management and the all important Indian Institute of Management system and ISB, etc. 
 Among professors, Prof. Tarun Khanna, expert in the areas of innovation and <keyword id="107737" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Entrepreneurship">entrepreneurship</keyword> in emerging markets, Prof. Rakesh Khurana, forefront of organizational theory and leadership development, were also named. 
 
Prof. TT Ram Mohan from IIM Ahmedabad and Prof. R. Vaidyanathan, similarly are known for their work in the areas of finance, banking and capital markets. Their seminal work has led to considerable developments in the areas of banking and finance in India. 
 
Dr. Amit Kapoor, Editor-in-Chief, Thinkers and Curator of Thinkers50 India said, “India has always been at the forefront of thought leadership in the domain of management. But the challenge has been in recognizing management thinking and practice. Thinkers 50 India list 2015 is an embodiment of this spirit and I hope in the coming years several pathbreaking ideas in the domain of management come from Indian Thinkers.” 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

The definitive list of 50 of India’s best Management Minds!

(Tharoor is an Indian politician and writer who has been twice elected <keyword id="5509" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Member-of-Parliament">Member of Parliament</keyword> (Lok Sabha) from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. In this speech, made at a Thinkers (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a>) gathering, he praises Indian management thinkers for playing a key role in redefining <keyword id="1707051" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Modern-management">modern management</keyword> thought and action.)

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Shashi Tharoor says Indian management thinkers are leading India’s growth story

(Srivatsa Krishna is an IAS officer, Secretary IT, Karnataka. In this speech, made at a <keyword id="497556" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thinkers">Thinkers</keyword> (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a>) gathering, he talks about how some "babus" do rise to the occasion and are able to make an impact greater than far many in the corporate sector.Thinkers, a quarterly thought leadership magazine 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>)

Thinkers/Thinkers50:Indian bureaucrats and their vision is driving India's growth

You often hear people confer over India divided into two factions – ‘Do Bharat’ – but I always maintain that India has three parts; yesterday, today and tomorrow. 
 
As a child, back in my village in Odisha, I saw my father and his generation struggle every day. We barely managed two meals a day for the entire family. There would be major calculations and second thoughts at every level, every decision, whether it was the marriage of my two sisters, or our education. I remember my father making a lot of tough choices, selling off land, my mother’s jewellery and what not, to make ends meet. But it is during tough times, when we have to make tough choices that we come face to face with who we truly are. And I like who we were back then. 
 
There was a rawness about us, an unabashed goodness and vulnerability that I miss today. We were people of small means, but I believe we had the judgment to know the important things in life. I’m not sure I can say the same about our present. 
 
We knew how to value things and people, resources– water, food, land – the earth, our environment, relationships. Today, we seem to be going off in a different direction. Not just wandering, but ostensibly lost. 
 
Joint families back then were a blessing. They might not have seemed like one, of course there were fights and altercations, but what it gave us was a sense of family, of belonging, a set of values instilled in us from day one. In fact, not just families, there was a sense of community among neighbours. Whether in our village or in small towns or even in small societies in the cities, there was a support system that helped us grow as individuals not in isolation, but together, as one. Now that is a country I can call my own – Unity in Diversity, isn’t that how our great leaders envisioned India post- independence? 
 
When one talks of Indian values and heritage, I believe this is what they mean. But alas, today, we are so far away from it that it seems like a mythical and strange, quite like stories from Mahabharata or Ramayana would seem to our future generations. When I tell my nine-year-old son stories from my village as a kid, he doesn’t believe them and you can’t blame him, because we have rid ourselves of even the faintest footprints of the past. That glorious India has disappeared within a span of the last 10-15 years, not even two decades. 
 Whatever I have managed to make of myself today, an independent filmmaker, <keyword id="55" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="social-activist">social activist</keyword>, entrepreneur, I have seen a lot of change in my immediate surroundings, and I can see for myself how my son cannot possibly relate to my childhood in this day and age. It becomes very conflicting for me to see everything we valued at the time, become redundant and obsolete like archiving old photographs in an album, rather than actually living those values. I guess even I have come so far, that a part of me cannot recognize my roots anymore. These changes are what make me wonder today, about what our country could become tomorrow. Of course, development is a natural process, but is that what you would call this? An unprecedented influx of new money and no value system to call our own, is this the idea behind ‘India Shining’ or ‘Bharat Nirmaan’? Who are Indians – who are we? More than two-third of the population that lives in abject poverty, compared with the 100-150 corporations that run this country? 
 
The ‘philanthropic’ bureaucrats and politicians, compared with the ‘altruistic’ urban elite artists and celebrities? It is this schizophrenic identity of India that continues to cause disintegration of our borders as well as our people. Are newer states and further fragmentation of our people the only answer we are left with? I doubt this is what our Constitution means when it says ‘Unity in Diversity’. 
 
Till date, there exists a fierce struggle for every basic human need, whether food, water or shelter. Yet another need that has cropped up in recent times, and is sure to increase over the next years, is the lack of farmland. There is neither enough green cover, nor enough fertile land to do anything about it, in this race to industrialize and privatize all resources. This is going to soon lead to a nationwide food crisis, in addition to the existing water crisis, both man-made. We are simply paying for our exploitation all these years. 
 
Imagine a country that was once known for its beauty and treasures, even called the ‘Golden Bird’ for its heritage and wealth, has been brought to utter ruin, first at the hands of colonialism, and ever since, at the hands of our very own people. What we continue to do, without fail, is depend on Westerners for all advice and counsel, instead of looking back at our own legacy. Look at our fashion, for example. We live in a country where every 100 kilometres, colour changes, landscape changes, people change, clothes change, but does any of that reflect in our fashion trends? It is a miserable state of affairs that we choose to look outward, towards the West once again, instead of inward for inspiration. 
 
It is true that India has developed by leaps and bounds as far as communication is concerned. We have come a long way in a short span of time, but once again, the implementation of that technology is disastrous. Today, there are more mobile phones than people in India. Isn’t that an interesting fact about a country with close to 300 million people going without food? India, the hunger capital of the world, home to about one-third of the world’s hungry poor. 
 
The world is laughing at us. Growing at a rate of 1.4 percent per year, India will soon beat China to become the country with the largest population in the world. But it is like somebody said – population is an asset. Look at how China has used it as a tool to create some of the largest manufacturing industries and production plants in existence, making the rest of the world completely dependent on their products. Look at some of the European countries – they are tired of giving retirement salary to its citizens. What India needs to realize is the power of its youth; a young population automatically means a more productive country, both intellectually and otherwise. What we need to concentrate on is giving them the right healthcare, the right education, and the right opportunities, and then nothing can stop this country from flourishing. 
 And of course, as mentioned before, the right value system. Like former President of India, Dr. APJ <keyword id="5141" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Abdul-Kalam">Abdul Kalam</keyword> always maintains, we have become nuclearized living in this nuclear family structure; each person has become nuclearized from their own selves. A very dark issue that is born out of this indifference is child labour, which I have researched and worked on extensively. Findings prove that India will never be able to get out of this stranglehold, not because of desperate circumstances or poverty, but solely due to habit, clubbed with indifference. One, there is a hangover of oppression in our veins, we as a nation are too used to being on either side of it, it has become something we cannot do without anymore. Two, there is a major lack of respect for any human life in India, especially the two ends of the spectrum – children and old people. 
 
When we talk of our future, the dream of a new India, it is only our children who can make that dream come true. It is not about money or power or politics, but about going back to that value system that we once had and cherished from ancient times. As an Indian, what are we doing for our country? 
 Going further down India’s schizophrenic lanes, we are a country of extremes. The richest man constructs one of the tallest buildings in the country to reside in the same city that houses one of the largest slums in the world. Both Delhi and Mumbai have become two of the richest cities with increasingly fast property rates that are at par with property rates in New York and <keyword id="6369186" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Manhattan">Manhattan</keyword>. All these statistics and facts have resulted in an India that is a living paradox for the world to watch, and maybe take down notes on ‘how not to do things’. 
 It is the feudalistic system that we need to get rid of. Overcoming this great imbalance between the rich and the poor should be our first and foremost priority, and not the biggest brands like <keyword id="6377922" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Starbucks">Starbucks</keyword>, or the biggest chain like <keyword id="80487" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="walmart">Walmart</keyword>, or the biggest <keyword id="44528" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="FDI">FDI</keyword> like <keyword id="46932" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="POSCO">POSCO</keyword> coming to the country. We need to realize the value of a person, a human life, and respect ourselves, be proud of our heritage, and not ape outsiders. Follow our own ancestors’ footsteps instead of others. Else, we will soon be heading towards a recession similar to the one experienced by the West, where we can see entire nations collapsing economically, through disasters, natural and man-made, in addition to constant wars outside and inside.

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: The concept of ‘Unity in Diversity’ has lost meaning in India

(Professor <keyword id="2845782" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Arvind-Rangaswamy">Arvind Rangaswamy</keyword> joined Penn State in 1993. He has previously been a faculty member at the Wharton School, <keyword id="83492" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="University-of-pennsylvania">University of Pennsylvania</keyword> and at the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. In this speech, made to an audience of like-minded individuals at a <keyword id="497556" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thinkers">Thinkers</keyword> (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a>) gathering, he speaks about the state of <keyword id="715520" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Higher-education-in-India">higher education in India</keyword> and the role teachers play in inspiring us during all phases of our life.)

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: The state of higher education in India needs a complete rehaul says Arvind Rangaswamy

<keyword id="606365" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sachin-Garg">Sachin Garg</keyword> is an author and an <keyword id="6359301" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Entrepreneur">entrepreneur</keyword>. He is known for his novels: I’m not Twenty Four….I’ve been Nineteen for Five Years, It’s First Love, Never Let Me Go and "Come on, inner peace. I don't have all day". In this speech, made to an audience of like-minded individuals at a <keyword id="497556" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thinkers">Thinkers</keyword> (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a>) gathering, he speaks honestly about his entrepreneurial journey in India and the challenges and opportunities the country presents to entrepreneurs as himself.

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: What is it really like to do business in India, Sachin Garg explains!

<keyword id="28127" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vineet-Nayar">Vineet Nayar</keyword> is Former CEO, <keyword id="30331" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="HCL-Technologies">HCL Technologies</keyword>. In this speech, made at a <keyword id="497556" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thinkers">Thinkers</keyword> (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a> &lt;<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">http://www.thinkers.in</a>&gt; ) gathering, Vineet speaks about all issues plaguing the country and highlights measures to rid the country of the current rot. Thinkers, a quarterly thought leadership magazine 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> &lt;<a href="http://www.thinkers.in/">http://www.thinkers.in/</a>&gt;)

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Vineet Nayar, ex CEO, HCL, talks tough on the state of the country!

<keyword id="219890" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Anurag-Batra">Anurag Batra</keyword> is Chairman - <keyword id="2817673" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="GBN-Media">GBN Media</keyword> and Chairman &amp; Editor-in-Chief of exchange4Media Group. In this speech, made at a <keyword id="497556" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thinkers">Thinkers</keyword> (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a> &lt;<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">http://www.thinkers.in</a>&gt; ) gathering, Anurag wittily highlights some of the things media is doing right in India. He also roots here for the Singapore model that focuses on impact and accountability. Thinkers, a quarterly thought leadership magazine 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> &lt;<a href="http://www.thinkers.in/">http://www.thinkers.in/</a>&gt;)

Thinkers/Thinkers 50:Anurag Batra says the Indian media is doing many things right for the country today.

In the land that gave birth to the great Buddha and <keyword id="1373219" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Aryabhata">Aryabhata</keyword>, it is baffling to see the paucity and lack of acceptance of <keyword id="497556" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Thinkers">thinkers</keyword>, who in fact have the capability to endow and enrich the fabric of our society. 
 
“You and I are not what we eat; we are what we think”, said Walter Anderson in The Confidence Course, 1997. When I was in business school almost 20 years ago, there was this saying or shall I say quip, “Those who can do, do and become managers and entrepreneurs, those who cannot do become teachers, and those who cannot do and cannot teach become consultants .” Can we say the same about thinkers ? 
 
What are the similarities between thinkers and consultants ? When I was part of the management consulting team of my business school, the joke about consultants was, consultants are people whom when you ask the time, they look at your watch, tell you the time and take the watch away. Thinkers are not the same. Thinkers are original. Thinkers contribute a fresh angle or a fresh perspective or a never-thought-of before approach to fundamental aspects of our lives and humanity. Thinkers, dare I say, change the world. 
 We in <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> do not encourage thinkers and the <keyword id="38321" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="thinking">thinking</keyword> culture because to sustain thinkers we need to give them an environment where they can blossom by challenging existing paradigms; where they are left alone and allowed to experiment. Thinkers are like <keyword id="6369738" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="RD">R&amp;D</keyword> heads at pharma companies; sometimes it takes them a lot of time to find their eureka moments. 
 
When you think of a thinker, you think of an erudite person, with a beard, sipping tea and reclining in his chair or leaning forward on his table and in a “thought mudra”. India is facing so many dilemmas; only sustained, systematic thinking followed by action can make sure India and Indians realise their dreams. The words of Voltaire have never rung more true, than they do today: No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. 
 
The Indian government and our great institutions have to encourage the thinking culture. What is a thinking culture? In my view the thinking culture is where very exceptionally talented professionals from various walks of life are left to do their own thing without expecting much. It’s like drug discovery. 
 
The thinking culture nurtures contrarian and sometimes impractical ideas. The thinking culture encourages individuals to think of ideas that may not be practical at first glance. Let’s do a reality check. How many think tanks exist in India? Do we institutionally provide funding to think tanks? The answers to both will be bleak at best. 
 
We have to stop looking at think tanks and thinkers as irritants or people challenging the status quo. We have to make thinkers the starting point of our plans, our ideation, and our futuristic goals. When will that happen in India? In the land of Buddha and the land of Aryabhata, whichever way you look at it, we need more thinkers in India. When I think of thinkers, I think of the following words: “...the thoughtful excitement of lonely rambles, of gardening, and of other like occupations, where the mind has leisure to must during the healthful activity of the body, with the fresh and wakeful breezes blowing round it...” said Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827. 
 
Are institutions and authorities afraid of thinkers in India? In my view involving thinkers in governance would lead to better governance. “Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man,” said Bertrand Russell. 
 
Some of the thinkers quoted were great doers also, they visualised and they achieved. It is said, “Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and the doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary of the talkers who talk”. The Thinkers50 is a celebration of ideas, of action led movements, and individuals whose thoughts will shape the future of India. 
 
(The author, Anurag Batra, is Chairman - GBN Media and Chairman &amp; Editor-in-Chief of exchange4Media Group. 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>)

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: India needs a thinking culture

“” 
 Pramath Raj Sinha, <keyword id="1535570" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="founder-and-managing-director">founder and managing director</keyword> <keyword id="2777251" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="9-9-Media">9.9 Media</keyword>, makes an engaging speech to a group of like minded individuals brought together by <keyword id="497556" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Thinkers">Thinkers</keyword> (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a>) on what it takes to build world-class <keyword id="6375224" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="higher-education">higher education</keyword> institutes in India and offers nuggets of wisdom from his personal experience building <keyword id="6357275" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Indian-School-of-Business">Indian School of Business</keyword> and <keyword id="1089889" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ashoka-University">Ashoka University</keyword>.

How to create world-class higher education centres in India

Three months on the road, promoting my new book in America, Singapore and Europe have been an extraordinarily eye-opening experience. In this book, called “Conquering the Chaos; Win in India, Win Everywhere”, I look at why most <keyword id="6409042" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="MNCs">MNCs</keyword> have failed to make India an important market and what might be the consequences of this. Most MNCs in India are part of a “1 percent club” where India contributes an irrelevant 1% or less of their global profits. They tend to blame this on the challenges of doing business in India. A key point in the book is that chaotic India is in fact highly representative of most emerging markets. Corruption, bureaucracy, policy uncertainty and volatility, harassment by the taxman, inadequate protection for IP, poor infrastructure etc. are not unique to India alone; they are characteristics 
 
of all emerging markets and MNCs can’t escape this chaos in Brazil, Indonesia or Nigeria as well. Companies that have done spectacularly well in India such as Suzuki, Unilever, JCB, Cummins, Nokia, Standard Chartered, Hyundai or Schneider Electric have learned to thrive in the midst of chaos and having succeeded in India, they find that they have developed the capabilities, mindset, talent and innovative products and business models that help them succeed elsewhere. This is why the subtitle of the book is “Win in India, win everywhere”. These companies are not waiting for India to get better or look like a more developed market; they are instead adapting themselves and their business model to the realities of India and being richly rewarded for this. I contrast their approach with that of companies like Apple or Caterpillar who hesitate to commit to India until things get better allowing competitors like Samsung or JCB to eat their lunch. While India is a very challenging market, the bigger challenge for many MNCs is their own headquarters mindset. Such companies will find the going to be tough not just in India but all emerging markets. 
 
Since our economy is in such dire straits and our reputation as a rising nation so tarnished, I was fully prepared for a lot of pushback and criticism of my rather contrarian views. In fact, I was surprised by the fairly ready acceptance of my thesis. The only pushback I got was, “Are you letting the government of India off the hook too easily?” 
 
It is certainly true that India is one of the toughest places in the world for a business (ranked 132 out of 200 countries according to the World Bank). If the government wants to jump start the economy and attract FDI, it certainly needs to make India a less hostile place. But my point is that even in a 
 
tough market and a slowing economy, it is possible at the firm level to carve out a very successful business. And this is what companies like Samsung have shown. However I wasn’t prepared for one question which really flummoxed me; it came from a wise former US Ambassador to India. “So what you are saying in effect is that India will continue to be a lower middle income country, like much 
 
of Africa and South America instead of someday catching up with Europe or even China; isn’t that a rather tragic scenario for a country with such amazing potential?”, he asked. 
 
The question stopped me in my tracks and has rankled ever since. It’s fine to dish out advice to companies on how to prosper despite the chaos but what about India itself? As an Indian, I had sort 
 
of come to believe the rhetoric of Incredible India. I had come to believe that despite all our many challenges we would stumble our way forward-if not to great power status, at least to the status of a developed nation. Rather naively, I had thought this might happen even in my lifetime, but as I reflected on the question and on the events playing out in our country, it struck me that the good Ambassador had in fact asked the most relevant question. It’s not about our potential but rather how much of it we are likely to realize. 
 
As a CEO who has run large companies, I have learned that sustained performance has less to do with ambition, opportunities, or resources; long term performance is in fact the outcome of strategic choices, organizational capabilities, company culture, and above all, leadership. Over time, I have realized that this is true not just for a company, but for any organization and perhaps even for a country. And this framework highlights India’s problems. 
 
For a start, we cannot agree on ideas let alone strategies for anything. What should our policy be towards Pakistan? Towards China? Towards America? What is our strategy for economic development? How are we going to balance growth and the need for more equitable distribution? Is globalization positive for India or not? Are we going to welcome foreign companies and the investments, technology, and jobs that they bring or are we going to remain distrustful of them? Indeed are we going to be welcoming of businessmen and entrepreneurs or go back to Nehruvian distrust that crushed our economic potential? How are basic healthcare and education going to be delivered? How much should be left to the private sector? How are we going to improve our infrastructure? On any number of fundamental questions, there isn’t coherent thinking; we simply muddle along. 
 
The issue of institutional capabilities is even more troubling. We could have all the ambition and even strategic clarity but without strong institutional capabilities, nothing can happen. “It’s like trying to go to the moon on a bullock cart; no matter how much you flog the bulls, you won’t get there.” says spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev. We have to upgrade our capability from bullock cart to spacecraft. Many of our institutions are still in the 19t century; perhaps some like the ICS were stronger then than today. Harvard economist Lant Pritchett points to rampant absenteeism, indifference, incompetence and corruption in many of our institutions and suggests India is a ‘flailing state”. How can we reasonably expect anything to be implemented when our implementation capabilities are so compromised? Historian Ram Guha points to the deliberate and systematic erosion of many of our critical institutions–law enforcement, judiciary–and posits that instability may be India’s destiny. 
 
How about culture? It is easy to blame the current situation on politicians and babus, but what about us? While there are indeed incredible aspects to our culture, there are some things that are truly shameful. Even Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the father of our Constitution, recognized that we are a fundamentally undemocratic and amoral culture. Take corruption. It’s very easy to blame the person asking for the bribe, but what about the person paying it? Why pay a fine for running a traffic light when you can get away by offering Rs 100? Why suffer a delay of some months getting a property transaction registered when you can pay a bribe and get it done today? Most of us have become so used to corruption that we fail to see much wrong with it. The whole pond has now got poisoned and it is hard to find a single sphere of activity that isn’t highly corrupt-business, civil society, education, even religion. No act is now so brazen as to be truly 
 
shocking. Lack of concern for the commons, evident from the condition of our public spaces, for instance, is another striking feature. I couldn’t help but notice that in New York City, every little public space has a small little garden or flower patch tended by volunteers. In India, every one of those would likely be a garbage dump. What about dodging taxes? In a country of nearly 100 official billionaires and zooming luxury car sales, is it not egregious that only 40,000 people, almost all of whom are professionals with tax deducted at source, have a declared income of over INR 1 crore? After visiting Europe many times, I cannot but be impressed by the extent to which European society focuses on the rights and needs of its weakest and most marginalized members of society. Yet we dismiss them as weak society in terminal decline even as we shrug indifferently at the death of children in Bihar who were fed a poisoned midday meal or at the countless daily acts of violence against women. Which is the better society? Where would you rather live? 
 
This brings me to the matter of leadership. Human nature is not fundamentally different around the world. If people in Singapore or Switzerland follow the rules diligently, pay taxes, and don’t litter, it isn’t because they are different or better. It’s because these countries have rules, regulations, and laws and swift and equal consequences for violating them. This happens because they have built strong institutions and a strong culture which in turn are a product of good governance and good leadership. The ultimate failure in our country is one of leadership and governance. It is impossible for India to make any progress on any front when self-interest trumps national interest every time. We have gradually allowed our country and our society to be hijacked by people who are criminals at worst and self-serving at best. For the most part, those at the helm of affairs today have little interest in India’s development. 30% of Lok Sabha members are criminals; 369 MPs and MLAs have been convicted of crimes against women. 100% of our parliamentarians under the age of 30 are children of politicians; so are 2/3rds of those under the age of 40. These aren’t the people focused on the country’s development. This extraordinary corruption and selfishness is true not just in politics and not just in the civil services or judiciary. It is equally true in business where much of the prosperity has been created more by crony capitalism than real entrepreneurship. And to an extent it applies to all of us, the urban middle class, who have chosen to stay disengaged and simply feather our own nests. 
 
I cannot claim to have a good solution but it does strike me that we have a few choices. Some of us can emigrate-as many did in the seventies and eighties. Others can erect stronger moats around our gated communities and try to keep the chaos 
 
at bay. We could turn to religion and pray for things to get better. We can pray for a savior like Mahatma Gandhi to arise and lead us to a better future. Or at least a benevolent strongman like Lee Kwan Yew though India seems much too complex to be led by a strongman. Or more of us could step up and demonstrate greater public spirit and leadership and try to reclaim India’s future. We could start by being good citizens-law abiding, paying taxes, voting in elections, refusing to pay bribes. We could join hands and protest strongly, publicly, peacefully against injustice-the suspension or transfer of an honest civil servant for instance. Activism matters more than we might think; Jessica Lal’s murderer would still be free if it weren’t for activism. India would not have an antirape Act if it weren’t for activism. We could donate generously and support the small number of individuals and non-profit organizations who are fighting courageously for better governance. And finally, handful of us could muster up the courage to jump into politics and tip the balance in favour of good. 
 
Progress has always hinged on the forces of good being stronger than the dark forces. Once we make a decision to be a force for good, we are limited only by our imagination. It is the educated middle class that ultimately determines the future of a society. It is time for us to step up. 
 
(Venkatesan is a Director on the Boards of Infosys and AB Volvo, and a Fellow of the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership, Boston. He is an advisor to several family businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. 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> )

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Former Microsoft India CEO says India has to work on its image to grow better

(<keyword id="1664347" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kevin-Stolarick">Kevin Stolarick</keyword> is director at <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> Institute of Competitiveness and Chief Discovery Officer at Catalytix. In this speech made at a Thinkers (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in">www.thinkers.in</a>) gathering, he talks about his idea of India and what in his opinion makes regions prosperous and successful. )

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Know what is the secret behind prosperity of certain regions in India

We are all familiar with the challenges for <keyword id="6375224" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="higher-education">higher education</keyword> in India. Not enough capacity – the danger that we will not be able to cope with sheer numbers and provide direly needed education to the majority of our young in the years to come, turning our so called <keyword id="576921" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="demographic-dividend">demographic dividend</keyword> into a disaster. Very poor quality – our existing institutions are in decline and the quality of new institutions are generally sub-par. Obsession with specialisation – in a society hankering for employment the emphasis on studying engineering, management, law, medicine, commerce, etc., is creating legions of trained manpower rather than problem-solvers and leaders. The government is making tremendous efforts to expand capacity by creating greenfield institutions, but there is only so much the government can do. It needs to be given a leg up by the private sector, but deplorably the regulatory <keyword id="6356826" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="environment">environment</keyword> remains constraining even for legitimate private players to set up institutions – most private institutions tend to be perceived as money-making rackets, with little or no concern for their students. In this context, much has been written and said about how to solve India’s higher education mess. Let me suggest three ideas that could radically change our country’s trajectory. While these ideas may seem far-fetched, I believe we, other than any country, have the opportunity to innovate in higher education and, in fact, have no choice but to do so. 
 
• Create education SEZs 
• Offer surplus land within existing public institutions to new public or private institutions 
• Rapidly expand Massive Open Online Courses) (MOOCs ) 
 
Creating SedZs Creating <keyword id="776571" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Special-education">Special education</keyword> Zones (SedZs) akin to the industrial Special economic Zones (SeZs) can transform access to and the quality of higher education in this country. every year hundreds of thousands of our bright young students have no choice but to go abroad for higher studies. They spend billions of dollars and thousands of crores to get this education. What is worse, a simple demand-supply analysis of higher education suggests that these numbers will continue to grow, and grow exponentially. We are, in effect, outsourcing higher education to the US, UK, Australia and <keyword id="22501" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="New-Zealand">New Zealand</keyword>. Recently, one of my employees sent her son to study dentistry in <keyword id="6358826" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Russia">Russia</keyword> even though she could ill-afford it. The new craze is “twinning programmes” where you study in an Indian university for 2 years and then complete your graduation and get a degree in the foreign university. <keyword id="6356662" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Singapore">Singapore</keyword> and <keyword id="6354539" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Dubai">Dubai</keyword> are ostensibly building education hubs for Asia, but the reality is that it is Indian students hungry for a good education who are swarming new institutions in these locations. The tragedy is that home-grown public and private institutions are now setting up campuses in neighbouring and far-away foreign locations to escape overpowering local regulatory constraints. In effect, even though we can ill-afford to, as a country, we are outsourcing, and increasingly so, our higher education to the west. Given that both the supply of students and the demand for college graduates are right here in India, why not replicate the “overseas and higher-quality” experience in India by creating SedZs along the lines of the manufacturing SeZs. Interestingly, the concept of SeZs for education first seemed to have surfaced in 2004. In a then oped, the <keyword id="2776992" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="erstwhile-commerce-Secretary">erstwhile commerce Secretary</keyword> <keyword id="2776991" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="P-P-Prabhu">P.P. Prabhu</keyword> had made a case vigorously for SedZs saying, “The Special education Zone (SedZ) institution should be treated as though it is deemed to have been established in a foreign enclave, and, therefore, freed from all domestic controls and restrictions. An SedZ institution...should not be required to seek any approvals for its courses; it would need to be allowed to charge any fees, follow its own admission criteria and award its own degrees, and so on. However, if an SedZ institution wants recognition of its degrees and diplomas in our country, it would be required to meet the standards and conditions of affiliation and recognition.” 
 
Leveraging surplus land in existing institutions 
I have recently been part of an effort to build a new private university in India. With our poor infrastructure it is impossible to build a high-quality institution away from a large urban centre in India. Faculty are unwilling to teach and live in a place that does not offer employment opportunities for their spouses and an excellent school for their children. A case in point are the new IITs and IIMs, several of which, established in far-flung areas of the country on vast tracts of land in isolated settings, are struggling to attract faculty for the lack of adequate social infrastructure around their campuses. Clearly, for new institutions, urban or suburban locations make most sense. Urban and suburban locations make sense also because of the emerging trend of inner-city university campuses that are tightly integrated with their host cities. As <keyword id="2776994" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Kerstin-Hoeger">Kerstin Hoeger</keyword>, full <keyword id="2776990" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="professor-of-architecture">professor of architecture</keyword> and urban design at Norwegian university of Science and Technology points out, “worldwide, universities and their host cities are evolving into ‘knowledge cities’.” She and others in the field argue that the erstwhile ideal of a mono-functional and isolated greenfield campus removed from the city, providing academics and students the distance to reflect on humanity, is fast becoming obsolete in the context of modern knowledge societies, and is giving way instead to open campuses that share a close relationship with their host city. In fact, when seen today many of the top 50 universities of the world – for instance, <keyword id="54274" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="MIT">MIT</keyword>, LSE, <keyword id="53675" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="harvard">Harvard</keyword> and TU Berlin to name a few – are embedded in such ‘knowledge ecosystems’ enabling them to perform better. However, the model demands tracts of centrally located urban or semi-urban land that are increasingly hard to come by and come at exorbitant prices. For a new university to incur the high cost of land acquisition in its early stages is crippling – most new institutions end up investing large amounts in <keyword id="6354553" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="real-estate">real estate</keyword> even before they get started, unless they get subsidized and free land from the Government. Even so, most urban centres do not have unutilised land that the Government can allot for higher education. By contrast several central universities and institutes have vast tracts of land within urban areas that are underutilised. As an example, the <keyword id="58265" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Jawaharlal-Nehru-University">Jawaharlal Nehru University</keyword> (JNU) in Delhi has a 1000-acre campus that is largely unused. <keyword id="105777" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Osmania-University-in-Hyderabad">Osmania University in Hyderabad</keyword> has a 2000-acre campus. Why not allow new institutions to co-build and co-habit campuses for a fee and ensure more efficient utilisation of scarce and precious space. The “rentals” for the land will help supplement and improve the <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="80" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword> of existing institutions and not needing to spend their initial capital on land acquisition will help the new institution, in addition to giving them an attractive location to launch from. At the very least, the government should expand capacity and diversify areas of study in its central and public universities and institutes of national importance situated in central urban locations and built on vast tracts of land. 
 
Rapidly scaling up Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) India has no option but to <keyword id="819920" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="embrace">embrace</keyword> online education in a big way. This is because MOOCs are capable of solving two of India’s most pressing constraints at once – access and quality. It is near impossible for the country to provide a high-quality university education to the millions of deserving students with the existing numbers and quality of faculty. Current faculty-student ratios will just not get us there. The only way to fundamentally shift that ratio is to have “massive” classes made possible by the new MOOCs. In online education, unlike in traditional education, a few high-quality professors can reach manifold students. Of course, people will get into a debate whether this has the potential to replace teachers but we have also seen developments like Kindle and music players which have redefined usage patterns. There is also the classic intellectual debate about whether online education will work in isolation, in the absence of a classroom full of students, peers and teachers, but new theories show that self-learning is a new model whose time has come. But more importantly, we need to ask ourselves if we can afford to engage in such debates. India seemingly has no choice! Unlike in the West, where online education only adds to what already exists (more like education for the educated), in India it has the potential to be the first port of call for millions of students who are currently left out of the higher education system, or are having to settle for lower quality alternatives. Even if this model is the second or third choice for developed countries, it is a luxury for India to spurn it out of hand. In fact, many young Indians are already taking to MOOCs in a big way. At roughly 10%, Indian students form the second-largest group on Coursera, the biggest US-based MOOC, which has 4.3 million enrolments from over 190 countries. On Udacity and EdX, the other top-3 MOOCs, Indians represent equally large proportions. Clearly, innumerable Indian students see great value in MOOCs since the demand for education, particularly high-quality education, is way higher than supply and availability. At the very least, online education provides another chance to students who cannot understand or clear a course in the first attempt, and acts as a great democratiser. Agreed that distance or online learning is not the newest idea on the block – it has been around for a while. There are 176 institutes in India that offer distance learning programmes and 26% students are enrolled in them. However, there is a need to deregulate and scale up the distance/online learning model to be much larger than what it currently is. If we are ever to achieve quality with access, there is also a need to mainstream this sort of learning. The ideal solution has to be a blend where online education plays an important role in mainstream education. 
 
(The <keyword id="842" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="author">author</keyword>, Pramath Raj Sinha, is <keyword id="1535570" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="founder-and-managing-director">founder and managing director</keyword> 9.9 Media. He has also served as the founding <keyword id="6548521" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="dean">dean</keyword> of the <keyword id="6357275" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Indian-School-of-Business">Indian School of Business</keyword>. 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> )

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: 3 big ideas that will reform India's ailing higher education system

At <keyword id="824043" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Business-Insider">Business Insider</keyword> India, we kick-start our association with the 'Thinkers 50' <keyword id="23897" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="forum">forum</keyword> with the interview of <keyword id="49090" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Stuart-Hart">Stuart Hart</keyword>, Founder and <keyword id="2540" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="President">President</keyword> of Enterprise for a Sustainable World, and one of the foremost thinkers in the world. In his interview to the <keyword id="6364480" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Chairman">Chairman</keyword> of the <keyword id="188563" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Indian-Council">Indian Council</keyword> of Competitiveness, <keyword id="209438" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Amit-Kapoor">Amit Kapoor</keyword>, Mr Hart shares his views on poverty and how <keyword id="107737" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Entrepreneurship">entrepreneurship</keyword> and mirofinance can play key roles in its alleviation. In addition to the academic positions at <keyword id="2767405" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="University-of-Vermont-Business-School">University of Vermont Business School</keyword> and <keyword id="31781" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Cornell-University">Cornell University</keyword>'s Johnson <keyword id="191757" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="School-of-Management">School of Management</keyword>, Mr Hart is also founder of the Base of the Pyramid Global Network and <keyword id="170488" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="co-founder">co-founder</keyword> of the <keyword id="2767406" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Emergent-Institute-in-Bangalore">Emergent Institute in Bangalore</keyword>. 
 
What is your view on poverty and how can it be tackled? 
Poverty is a big idea like sustainability or strategy. The default position that most people hear is income poverty, which is related to lack of money and there is no doubt that money is a significant part of poverty. Poverty is a multidimensional term– income and quality of life is a function of many things and most of them are to do with opportunities and capabilities. So, this is why entrepreneurial process is an important source of poverty alleviation. At the end of day it’s really about building capabilities, and creating opportunities. The root cause of poverty is capability deprivation and lack of opportunity. From there money follows; simply giving money does not solve the problem. Only education, capacity building, and creation of opportunity will address it in the long run. 
 
Why do you think ‘poverty is a multidimensional term’. Can one say it is about making available health, sanitation, and opportunities? Certainly it’s all of the above. Compare the following scenarios. “Community A” where the average per capita income is $8 a day but the agricultural soil is washed away, water quality is terrible, food is expensive, families have torn apart due to migration and the incomes have gone up as people have migrated and taken big jobs; but the quality of community life, quality of <keyword id="6356826" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="environment">environment</keyword> has degraded significantly.“Community B” where incomes may be lower, i.e., $2 per capita, but there is still a dynamic community life, families are still connected together, it’s still possible to farm and grow food and the environment is not degraded to a significant extent. To describe which community is poor is debatable. 
 
How can India kick-start the process of building capabilities and creating entrepreneurs? The ideal market base solution would be when the government plays a significant role in creating the conditions that enable this, but often it does not happen as effectively. So, I think of entrepreneurship and market based solutions as the best next option and it does not actually require too many pre-conditions. The crucial ones being the base line level of education, understanding, and capability. The idea of BOP business is two-ways. Often it is thought of as selling cheap stuff to poor people but that is not so. To be effective BOP business one can certainly serve the communities, which are under served and devise business models that enable better service, engage with the local population and provide learning, capability and skill development. At the same time the extreme side would be– where we work with corporate entrepreneurs and also with local entrepreneurs. The traditional notion about <keyword id="113684" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="microfinance">microfinance</keyword> or even social entrepreneurship is <keyword id="134585" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Micro-Finance">micro finance</keyword> is about providing credit to local people to do more of what they already know how to do. This can generate increased livelihood. To shift the game in a significant way requires 2 things – one is something 
coming in from the outside or the significant leveraging of certain local skills and capabilities or both. People in the local community would have to learn how to deal with work and play with those coming in from the outside. That doesn’t mean that you are fundamentally looking to shift the underlying culture of the local community but it does mean building the capacity of some key people in the local community. 
 
"We worked with a company called“Head Held High”. It is a group of entrepreneurs who have devised a low cost education platform in villages. They can take the 18 year old that is functionally illiterate, who can’t read or speak English and has no computer skills to the point of reading and speaking English and being functional in terms of email, MS office, and learning the culture of business and being punctual. They become job ready in a span of 14 months. We have been working with them because the people that go through that program simply want a regular job and to get a decent wage, which helps them support their family. But all those people who go through this program (say 5%) are not satisfied when they come out of the other side." 
 There is big difference between necessity based entrepreneurship and big entrepreneurship. Necessity based entrepreneurs want to start their own company, and they would do anything in their power to make their business successful. We want to work with such people though it requires some additional skill and capability on top of what they have had at “ <keyword id="6411847" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="head">head</keyword> held high”. But it requires additional level of scaffolding to get to the point that they are able to deal with people whom we think as entrepreneurs. We would want to connect with people in companies, connect with other entrepreneurs, connect with key people in the eco system including financers, technology providers who can work them with the local entrepreneurs and can build the business from ground up. 
 So, it’s a combination of introducing technology, financing, and variety of other things from the outside well at the same time growing bottom up skills and capabilities of the people in the community itself. And I am convinced that most of the BOP enterprises that have been purely outside in we have inner entrepreneurs from outside or corporations coming from low cost operations haven’t really been very successful. At the same time purely microfinanced <keyword id="6359222" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="small-business">small business</keyword> at the local level isn’t going to be a game changer in the long run. It will incrementally increase local income but it is not going to shift the game. The only way we are going to shift the game towards a more sustainable and prosperous world is to connect the 2 pieces together. That 2 pieces being the technologies of the future and those long that come from outside (although some would be <keyword id="6500558" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="80" keywordseo="Indigenous">indigenous</keyword> technologies like the honey bee <keyword id="50752" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Networks">networks</keyword>) and app up local indigenous technologies, business skill and financing coming from the outside. At the same growing the capacity and capability of the locally embedded people to become part of the entrepreneurial team. It’s only in that way we can actually create value proposition and a business model that is really embedded, growing the internal skill in the community itself while you serve it at the same time. 
 
You said poor and entrepreneurs is a mythology. How do we get out of this cycle of self defeating thinking that we actually have? 
Saying the poor are entrepreneurs sounds as though we have significant equality, that inspite of a poverty problem the poor are not trapped as there is a way out of it, as poor are natural entrepreneurs. I don’t think people in communities are capable of updating themselves on their own. With microfinance there is an incremental improvement in their living conditions. But they are not going to differentiate themselves and would not be able to get to the next level. So, there is the need for transformational development and not just incremental increase in incomes. Certainly we can learn from ancient indigenous technologies and local farming practices and embed the practices in the business that we are talking about. But at the same time it is going to take technology coming in from the outside as well. We have to blend the 2 things together – indigenous knowledge and practices and technology and financing coming in from outside. The business skills are generally going to come from the outside. We could learn from the local business people and vendors but to be really successful as entrepreneurs there is going to be a healthy dose of new perspective coming from the outside. 
 
The true entrepreneurial process is about creating new ventures that are eventually going to employ 000’s of people and have the aspiration of creating something big. Necessary entrepreneurship is about how to make a better life for my immediate family. But that is not going to be transformative and sustainable in the long run. It would be smaller numbers of entrepreneurs and ventures that can create transformational enterprises that leapfrog us to the future technologically and also create employment for the future. Ventures that became large – 21st century entrepreneurial corporations as opposed to just millions and millions of small mom and pop ventures. The improvement of the mom and pops is important but it can’t be the whole story. 
 
How many types of business organizations exist? 
Business organizations empirically are of 3 types. 
Craft businesses:They are the vast majority businesses in the world – mom and pop ventures that are interested in providing for immediate needs usually of family. They represent 90% of businesses in the world. 
Administrative businesses: They are craft business that become extraordinarily successful. So, rather than staying at 2-5-10 people they grow to be 100-150-200 people and require formal systems of business.They generally stay local or regional and that is the extent of what they do. 
Promotional enterprises: These are the tiny minorities of all the businesses in the world but they are founded by people who have an aspiration of becoming very large, successful, to scale geographically and to dramatically change the world. These are very small percentage of enterprise compared to craft or administrative. 
 I am convinced it is important to grow craft businesses and micro <keyword id="25455" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="finance">finance</keyword> can help do that and to give business assistance to administrative businesses so they can employ 10’s and 100’s of people but it would be the promotional enterprises that really shift the game in the world. When I think of BOP business I am most interested in figuring out how do we form, help, generate, the promotion of enterprises of the future that are based upon inherent clean and sustainable technology and that can lift capacity and build up an employee who has been underserved.

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Micro Finance and entrepreneurship to help alleviate poverty in India: Stuart Hart

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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