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Vortragsfolien zum Symposium “Hidden Champions” (IWH 2013)

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India Week Hamburg 2013Jetzt haben wir die Vortragsfolien zum Symposium “Indien als Herausforderung für ‘Hidden Champions’: Erfolgsfaktoren der Marktbearbeitung für deutsche Mittelständler” (10. Sept. 2013, Handelskammer Hamburg) online zur Verfügung gestellt. Das Symposium fand im Rahmen der India Week Hamburg 2013 statt und wurde vom Institut für Technologie- und Innovationsmanagement der TU Hamburg-Harburg, dem German-Indian Round Table Hamburg, und der Handelskammer Hamburg gemeinsam organisiert.

Bei Rückfragen oder Anmerkungen wenden Sie sich bitte an Dr. Stephan Buse oder Dr. Rajnish Tiwari.

“Cheap razor made after P&G watches Indians shave”

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A report of the Associate Press appearing on the Internet site of India’s NDTV.com (October 6, 2013), says:

File pic: A man gets during the annual cattle fair in Pushkar, Rajasthan

File pic: A man gets during the annual cattle fair in Pushkar, Rajasthan. Photo: Associated Press. Coutsey: NDTV.com

New York: Procter & Gamble executives say it was striking the first time they witnessed a man shave while sitting barefoot on the floor in a tiny hut in India.

He had no electricity, no running water and no mirror.

The 20 US-based executives observed the man in 2008 during one of 300 visits they made to homes in rural India. The goal? To gain insights they could use to develop a new razor for India.

“That, for me, was a big ‘a-ha,'” said Alberto Carvalho, vice president, global Gillette, a unit of P&G. “I had never seen people shaving like that.”

The visits kicked off the 18 months it took to develop Gillette Guard, a low-cost razor designed for India and other emerging markets. Introduced three years ago, Guard quickly gained market share and today represents two out of every three razors sold in India. The story of how Guard came to be illustrates the balance companies must strike when creating products for emerging markets: It’s not as simple as slapping a foreign label on an American product. […]

This report also underlines the “lead market” function of India for frugal innovations that has been researched by our team and has been dealt with in greater detail in our forthcoming book “Aiming Big with Small Cars: Emergence of a Lead Market in India” (Springer). We are organizing a symposium on frugal innovations to cover upcoming key questions on global growth in both emerging as well as developed markets through affordable and good-enough solutions and to disseminate the results of our research. Meanwhile interested readers might like to read our article “Assessing India’s lead market potential for cost-effective innovations“, published in the Journal of Indian Business Research.

Report: “7 companies with over-average rural exposure fare better in stock market”

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According to a report appearing the Economic Times (Mumbai, Oct. 4, 2013), “India Inc’s rural champions have probably never had it so good.” A good monsoon is seen as having “kindled hopes of a turnaround in demand for key products”.

A Hero SPLENDOR-NXG

A Hero SPLENDOR-NXG. Photo courtsey: Hero Motocorp

The ET report citing an unnamed study by the Deutsche Bank says: “At a time when the rest of India Inc is either groaning under heavy debt or struggling to sell in a sluggish market, companies with heavy rural focus are literally licking their lips in anticipation of a surge in demand in India’s villages and towns. Already, two-wheeler sales are inching up, tractor sales are booming and banks are hiring employees in far-flung regions, hoping to benefit from a monsoon that has increased the kharif area by 5% and water reservoir levels by 15%.”

The 7 firms examined in the study are Hero Motocorp, Emami, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, M&M Fin Services, and ITC. All of these companies can be regarded as champions in having mastered the “frugal challenge“.

Symposium Announcement: “Mastering the Frugal Challenge”

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Center for Frugal Innovation @ TIM/TUHHWe at the Center for Frugal Innovation are organizing a symposium on the feasibility and implementation of frugal innovations in firms. The symposium with the title “Mastering the Frugal Challenge: Innovating for Global Growth through Affordable Solutions” will take place on 19th November 2013 in Hamburg. A detailed programme agenda and the registration modalities can be found here. The symposium will be preceded by a research seminar with invited guests from universities and research institutions on the 18th November in Hamburg.

In the meantime for any enquiry please contact: frugal.innovation@tuhh.de, and/or our team.

Telephone contact:
Dr. Stephan Buse (+49 40 42878 3829)
Dr. Rajnish Tiwari (+49 40 42878 3776)

BBC report: “A novel use for mosquito nets”

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In this report BBC reporter Anna Lacey looks into how “the most low-tech methods can produce good medical results” and dwells on how mosquito nets are now being used to repair hernias.

According to the report, an Indian surgeon, Dr. Ravi Tongaonkar, came up with the idea of “using sterilised mosquito mesh as a low-cost substitute for the expensive commercial meshes currently in use.” “His mosquito meshes work out around 4,000 times cheaper than imported mesh and he has used them to fix 591 hernias”, says the report.

And, apparently, they are performing quite well. “The only difference is the polymer used to make them,” says Dr Sanders, “but it makes no difference clinically.”

Apparently, India too is performing quite well as a lead market for frugal innovations….

Read the full report at bbc.co.uk…..