Professor Jaideep Prabhu, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise at Cambridge Judge Business School, has taken part in a radio programme with the BBC World Service, broadcast on 11 March 2012, focusing on frugal innovation.
Talking to Peter Day on Global Business, Professor Prabhu discussed the concept of ‘jugaad’ innovation – an improvised solution to a problem using scarce resources. Jugaad, Professor Prabhu says, is the dominant approach to innovation in emerging markets like India, and one that contrasts in many ways with the more structured and expensive approach to innovation that is dominant in the West. In the interview, Professor Prabhu elaborates on the uniquely frugal and flexible mindset that underpins the Jugaad approach and discusses how the West, especially large Western corporations, can benefit from adopting such an approach to innovation. He also gives examples of such innovation, in particular a fridge made out of clay that doesn’t need electricity, but uses the cooling properties of water to keep fruit and vegetables fresh for three to five days at a stretch.
Professor Prabhu is also the Director of the Centre for India & Global Business (CIGB) at the School and is a co-author of Jugaad Innovation, a book that advocates a frugal and flexible approach to innovation in the 21st century.