Ha ha. Good one Nayan.
-----Original Message----- From: Nayan Mapani <[email protected]> Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 11:21:16 To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Jugaad Hi Sujil, Thanks for your info, short cut mein kaam khatam kar na yaar, what is Jugaad? Dont have the patience to read the article yaar. ________________________________ From: Sujil Pingulkar <[email protected]> To: Vani Vidayalay Vani <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, 9 December, 2009 3:37:04 AM Subject: Jugaad Some of you might have already read this article in Business Week. "Jugaad" for most of us its a work around commonly used as a local language slang. Maybe there is more to it than it sounds .... see article below. Innovation December 2, 2009, 3:51PM EST text size: TT >India's Next Global Export: Innovation >Called jugaad, India's improvisational style of invention focuses on being >fast and cheap—attributes just right for these times >By Reena Jana >On a November afternoon, a dozen executives from companies including >investment banks Rothschild and Goldman Sachs (GS) and tech research firm >Gartner (IT) ringed a conference table in a brownstone on New York's Upper >East Side. They were there to learn how U.S. businesses could develop products >more cheaply and quickly by borrowing strategies from India. Speaker Navi >Radjou, who heads the recently formed Centre for India & Global Business at >England's Cambridge University, summed up his advice in one word: jugaad. >>A Hindi slang word, jugaad (pronounced "joo-gaardh") translates to an >>improvisational style of innovation that's driven by scarce resources and >>attention to a customer's immediate needs, not their lifestyle wants. It >>captures how Tata Group, Infosys Technologies (INFY), and other Indian >>corporations have gained international stature. The term seems likely to >>enter the lexicon of management consultants, mingling with Six Sigma, total >>quality, lean, and kaizen, the Japanese term for continuous improvement. >>Like previous management concepts, Indian-style innovation could be a fad. >>Moreover, because jugaad essentially means inexpensive invention on the fly, >>it can imply cutting corners, disregarding safety, or providing shoddy >>service. "Jugaad means 'Somehow, get it done,' even if it involves >>corruption," cautions M.S. Krishnan, a Ross business school professor. >>"Companies have to be careful. They have to pursue jugaad with regulations >>and ethics in mind." > >More than a Fad? >The rise of jugaad raises another question: Do companies really need to pay >someone to tell them something that's as elementary as keep it simple? "Having >a consulting industry built around jugaad is almost anathema to the word >itself," says Robert C. Wolcott, executive director of Northwestern >University's Kellogg Innovation Network. "I'm not sure how this is different >from old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity." >>Nonetheless, jugaad seems aligned with the times. Recession-slammed >>corporations no longer have money to burn on research and development. >>Likewise, U.S. consumers are trading down to good-enough products and >>services. Meantime, the Indian economy continues to plow ahead despite the >>global recession—it grew at a 7.9% clip in the third quarter—suggesting its >>executives have a winning strategy. >>Already, companies as varied as Best Buy (BBY), Cisco Systems (CSCO) , and >>Oracle (ORCL) are employing jugaad as they create products and services that >>are more economical both for supplier and consumer. "In today's challenging >>times, American companies are forced to learn to operate with Plan Bs," notes >>Radjou. "But Indian engineers have long known how to invent with a whole >>alphabet soup of options that work, are cheap, and can be rolled out >>instantly. That is jugaad." > >Spreading the Word >At the same time, a cottage industry has popped up to offer jugaad >instruction. Prasad Kaipa, a former manager at Apple's (AAPL) in-house >training university, uses jugaad in the courses he's teaching at Hyderabad's >Indian School of Business. The University of Michigan's Ross School of >Business, where high-profile Indian-born professor C.K. Prahalad teaches, has >opened a research office near Infosys' headquarters in India so faculty >members can observe how Indian software companies come up with ideas. McKinsey >consultants have begun talking up jugaad principles with clients, too. >Jugaad has been a colloquialism for decades throughout India. Sandeep Vij, >vice-president and general manager of Cisco Systems in Bangalore who heads a >new unit that makes energy-monitoring systems, says a good example is an >Indian villager who constructs a vehicle to transport goats and cattle by >turning an irrigation hand pump into a makeshift diesel engine for a wooden >cart. >>Its application also can be seen in Tata Motors' (TTM) much-hyped Nano, a >>bare-bones subcompact car that the Indian company sells for the equivalent of >>$2,500 to so-called bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers who had been priced out >>of the auto market. "At Tata Group, we're used to thinking like this," says >>Ananth Krishnan, chief technology officer of Tata Consultancy Services. "The >>jugaad mindset is crucial. It's not just jargon." > >Putting Jugaad into Practice >U.S. companies are starting to put jugaad into practice. At Best Buy's >headquarters, in Richfield, Minn., Kalendu Patel, the retailer's executive >vice-president for emerging business, is holding jugaad workshops to help >store personnel and managers come up with new products or services that could >be added easily and inexpensively to generate more sales per store. Among the >ideas: home health-care equipment. >>Top executives at Cisco, which opened what the San Jose (Calif.) company >>calls a second global headquarters in Bangalore in 2007, are importing the >>Indian mindset as they meld teams of U.S. engineers with Indian supervisors. >>"The innovation agenda in India is affordability and scale," says Wim >>Elfrink, Cisco's chief globalization officer, who moved from San Jose to >>Bangalore in 2007. "People are masters of managing costs down, but not >>creativity. If Indian engineers find out an executive has an MBA, they will >>say, 'Unlearn, and observe.' " >>The effort is beginning to show up in the marketplace. Last January, Cisco >>acquired Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence, a 21-year-old company whose >>software measures a building's energy usage through wall sensors and displays >>it via the Web. Although Richards-Zeta still is headquartered in Goleta, >>Calif., it has been managed from Bangalore, where Cisco's emerging >>technologies group researches real estate and energy-related software. >>The Bangalore staff approaches its work with a different set of assumptions >>than Americans typically do: that power supplies are unreliable and that >>demand is surging as urban populations expand. Sensing a broader market for >>the Richards-Zeta technology, the Indian-led teams have, in just a few >>months, come up with products such as software that allows companies to >>monitor energy consumption across all buildings on a campus or even >>internationally. Clients include Google (GOOG), which is using the program at >>its Mountain View (Calif.) headquarters, and data-storage company NetApp >>(NTAP), which uses it at all its properties, from Sunnyvale, Calif., to >>Amsterdam. >>Other jugaad proponents such as Kaipa of the Indian School of Business say >>companies are adopting India-style innovation without even knowing it. The >>ex-Apple researcher points out that the iPhone maker is a champ at >>repurposing existing ideas and technologies in simple ways which enables it >>to reduce R&D outlays and produce high-margin products. "Jugaad is an Indian >>philosophy, but it's not unique to India," Kaipa says. "Companies in all >>parts of the world can learn from it and make it work for them, too." > >Jana is the Innovation Dept. editor for BusinessWeek. > > ________________________________ > ________________________________ Chat with Messenger straight from your Hotmail inbox. Check it out The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! 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