The

Importance of 'Jugaad' Innovation Approach in Indian managerial practices

Question:

Discuss about the Jugaad Innovation Technique and Practice.

The following paper discusses about the application of the Indian term ‘jugaad’ in the managerial practice and the matter of innovation in the workplaces. This term signifies the importance of implying the innovation process in the workplaces. This helps the organizations to be innovative in their working zones and inspires them to bring in the changes that will be elemental for their success. The managerial practice of innovation will be very much important in the Indian managerial context and it will be very significant if these approaches to innovation are applied to the managerial practice of Australia. It is obvious that the organizational culture is entirely different between that of India and Australia. The chosen organization for the paper is the Adani Group that is located in India and is a huge organization in the global context. The concept of ‘jugaad’ or innovation approach has to be integrated into the business practice of Australia so that the organizations can innovate new things and progress in their relevant industries.

The concept of ‘jugaad’ is a very important one in the Indian managerial practices. This certainly means the approaches to innovation (Radjou, Prabhu & Ahuja, 2012).  This is a Hindi word and this reflects how the innovation practices could lead to the success of the organizations. In India, the workplaces are totally constrained with the diverse workforces (Radjou et al., 2012). The harsh problematic situations should be overcome by the innovative approaches within the organization and effective solutions should be addressed despite having very limited resources. There have been all kinds of lacks in India regarding the resources, proper workforce, training of the employees and many other things. However, the services cannot be stopped in spite of these problems. The interconnectivity among the customers and the service providers is a very important issue to be sorted out in this manner (Radjou, Prabhu & Ahuja, 2012).

The resources are limited but the growth has to be achieved. In these circumstances, jugaad innovators will be looking to apply such methods by which the organizations can optimize their profits and lead the organizations towards their growth (Radjou et al., 2012). The organizations must be having a proper sustainability in India because the business conditions are not proper and helpful for the organizations to grow. The corporate organizations should prepare products that will be appropriate according to the needs of the market. The adversities in the organizations should be looked into with a deeper sense and the solutions should be addressed within a cheaper rate as per the economy of India. The jugaad innovators do not rely on the costly R&D processes, pre-planned techniques that are time consuming as well (Schiederig, Tietze & Herstatt, 2012).  They depend on approaching the customers with the probable solutions of the matters and ask feedbacks from them. They focus on the relative features of the products and the innovators must approach the customers in real time.

Challenges and adversities faced by organizations

The jugaad innovators are very much frugal in nature. They do not use the R&D technologies in their working fields but they innovate new technologies that will build on the already existing infrastructures (Radjou et al., 2012). The infrastructures and the assets of the organization are used extensively to that will save their operation costs as well as making them successful in their quests as well. The jugaad innovators always innovate faster and cheaper in many ways that helps the organizations to grow and stretch forward with a lot of profits. It is a burning fact the jugaad innovators have found that the customers of the emerging firms do not earn huge money but they are high yearners. The jugaad innovators try to satisfy the desires of the customers by providing them with the best solutions that will cater to their earning levels. The low earning customers will be satisfied by the innovative patterns of the jugaad innovators (Bhatti, 2013).

The Adani Group is a globally established integrated organization whose headquarter is situated at Ahmadabad in India ("Adani Group | Global Integrated Infrastructure Company", 2017). The Chairman of the organization is Gautam Adani. They conduct many types of businesses that include resources, dealings in the energy sector, logistics and others as well. They are the makers of the Fortune Oil that is India’s largest used edible oil. The organization began its journey in the year 1988 ("Adani Group | Global Integrated Infrastructure Company", 2017).

The organizational culture of the organization is a very well organized and the employees share a very good relationship with each other (Alvesson, 2012). In their vision they have stated to be the global leaders in their respective industry ("Adani Group | Global Integrated Infrastructure Company", 2017). As their business industry is regarded to the integrated business infrastructure, they aim to be the leaders in the process of nation making. The ambition levels of the organization are very high and they have executed their plans in a great manner and they will be looking to address the situations in a positive way (Alvesson, 2012). Their operation quality is much superior to their rivals as well. This is why they have succeeded in the global business operations in a shorter time span. They have some certain values that they have incorporated within their business operations. They like to innovate new ideas within the organizational operations that help them to stay a step ahead always. They have a great amount of trust and faith in their employees and the stakeholders. The employees return the favor with the same kind of trust as well (Anitha, 2014). The promises they have made to their stakeholders and they will keep those promises. They are engaged to maintain a high grade of business operations ("Adani Group | Global Integrated Infrastructure Company", 2017).

Sustainability practices and why Jugaad innovators are more successful

They are much dedicated to their working efficacies and bringing the success to the organizations. This dedication has always yielded good results for the. They have been very efficient in carrying out their operations and achieving the desired objectives of the organization. They have been working across various functions that would help them to create synergies in their working arenas. These various types of businesses would help them to stay connected with their employees and innovate new ideas to be successful. They are relentlessly working hard to achieve their goals. They are always looking to create new opportunities for development through various cost-effective ways. The Indian firms like Adani have forced its way to employ the ‘jugaad’ method in the working fields and apply them to push the innovation process to a greater limit (Amit & Zott, 2012).  It is very important to understand the problems of the customers and only then those problems could be solved by the organizations in a better way. These problems should be solved by a way that the cost of the solution should be at the minimum and the satisfaction of the customers can be achieved as well.

It has to be understood that the relationship between innovation and creativity is a deep one but the basic difference is creativity is about giving a new idea for betterment and innovation is about execution of that idea (Webber, 2016). The resource allocations have to be chosen well along with building the right team for execution of the plan. The new products have to be launched into the market by executing the best plans available in the market. The target people have to be reached in order to understand what kind of products they want within what sort of price range. The firms in the emerging markets should plan to reach the target markets particularly to satisfy the needs of the customers (Best, 2012).

The management pundits have viewed the matter of jugaad from many angles and they have been singing the praise of this innovation technique to be imported into the managerial practice of the Australian firms. The jugaad innovation technique has been very successful in the Indian organizations. This can be incorporated in the Australian organizations as well. If the Western companies can adopt this jugaad innovation in their organizational operations they will be very much benefitted from various angles (Krasnikov & Jayachandran, 2013). As this is a very competitive business world and so many variables available in the market, the customers want the products that can fit into their usage profile perfectly within their desired price range. This will be a boon for them and the companies, who can arrange for this, would see the profits in their organizations. There is a term in the Australian managerial practice as ‘bodge’ that means same as that of jugaad (Radjou, 2012). Still, there is a huge chance for the Australian organizations to introduce the jugaad innovation into their works by which they would be able to make much profit by serving more number of customers and reducing the operation costs.

Organizational culture of Adani Group and its vision

India has improved its economy by focusing on the cost-cutting and corner-cutting processes. This has been very interesting thing in the modern business contexts. The Australian organizations should look to improvise all the business matter and understand the demands of their customers positively. This will drive them to address the situations in a better way than the present. In this scenario, the organizations will be looking to implement the changes within the business context of Australia. The information technology services of Australia should be improved if they imply the technological innovations within the business firms of Australia (Holtshouse, 2013).  The strategic jugaad innovation techniques have helped the business organizations in India to gain the market dominance and made them famous within a short span of time. This will be the most important fact for the Australian organizations as well. The organizations like Woolworths, Coles, Commonwealth Bank and other IT firms should try to incorporate the jugaad innovation process within their working zones and meet the demands of their customers effectively. This will reduce their operation costs as well (Agnihotri, 2015).  

Conclusion

This paper can be concluded by saying that the jugaad innovation technique in india has been very successful and the implementation of this innovation technique has been very fruitful as well. This matter gives more focus on the fact that they should be wandering on how to meet the customers’ problems within a given time period and doing it by cutting down the costs. The innovation system should be such unique that the customers can be attracted towards it. The firms like Adani group in India have implemented this innovation technique in an effective manner so that it can develop the interests of their target audience. Through this process, the organizations will be keen to get more profits and this process can be implemented in the Western organizations as well. The Australian organizations can benefit from this if they want to understand the customers’ problems and solve their problems in an effective manner.

References

Adani Group | Global Integrated Infrastructure Company. (2017). Adani.com. Retrieved 24 October 2017, from https://www.adani.com/

Agnihotri, A. (2015). Low-cost innovation in emerging markets. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 23(5), 399-411.

Alvesson, M. (2012). Understanding organizational culture. Sage.

Amit, R., & Zott, C. (2012). Creating value through business model innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(3), 41.

Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International journal of productivity and performance management.

Best, R. (2012). Market-based management. Pearson Higher Ed.

Bhatti, Y. (2013). Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth. South Asian Journal of Global Business Research.

Holtshouse, D. K. (2013). Information technology for knowledge management. Springer Science & Business Media.

Krasnikov, A., & Jayachandran, S. (2013, May). The relative impact of marketing, research-and-development, and operations capabilities on firm performance. American Marketing Association.

Radjou, N. (2012). Jugaad Innovation: A frugal and flexible approach to innovation for the 21st century. Random House India.

Radjou, N., Prabhu, J., & Ahuja, S. (2012). Jugaad innovation: Think frugal, be flexible, generate breakthrough growth. John Wiley & Sons.

Radjou, N., Prabhu, J., Ahuja, S., & Roberts, K. (2012). Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal. Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth, San Francisco.

Schiederig, T., Tietze, F., & Herstatt, C. (2012). Green innovation in technology and innovation management–an exploratory literature review. R&d Management, 42(2), 180-192.

Weber, M. B. (2016). Creativity and Innovation. Library Resources & Technical Services, 60(3), 138-139.