Businesses in India are faced with grim head-winds on many fronts – roller coaster economies, slower sales growth rates, credit crunch, rising costs, thin margins, increasing competition and shorter product life cycles.  In such a challenging environment, innovation is the need of the hour to achieve profitable growth, as organisations are being forced to make complex choices about where to focus their resources in order to deliver tangible results faster.

It was, therefore, timely that the Singapore Management University and the Confederation of India Industry (CII) came together to jointly design and organise a seminar to share leading best practice techniques, and rigorous frameworks for value creation and value capture in Innovation.

Themed “Innovating Practices in Turbulent Times”, the Inclusive Innovation Summit 2013 that took place on 28 October 2013 in Mumbai, India, was opened by Mr Jayant Kumar Banthia, Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra, India.  The one-day event, which featured thought leaders and entrepreneurs, attracted close to 150 participants, including representatives of businesses, entrepreneurs and business school students.

[Photo: The Inclusive Innovation Summit attracted 150 businesses representatives, entrepreneurs and business school students]

During the first session on ‘Leveraging the Asian Innovation Environment’, the participants engaged with SMU’s President, Professor Arnoud De Meyer, and Professor Peter Williamson from Jesus College Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, through video conference.  The dialogue focussed on the growing importance of innovation in Asia and the possibilities for companies, large and small, to take advantage of the highly dynamic innovation environment, using China as a case study.

[Photo: SMU President Professor Arnoud De Meyer, and Professor Peter Williamson from the University of Cambridge, sharing their insights and expertise with the Summit participants in Mumbai through a video conference from Singapore]

In the course of the Summit, the speakers spoke on a broad range of issues relating to the importance of innovation to the industry and the public.  These included focusing on inclusive innovation and taking world class products and services to the common man; challenges to achieving big breakthroughs or game changing innovations; key lessons for Indian companies from companies in East Asia which have made significant progress in the innovation field; emphasis on and approaches to research and development; and the importance of business model innovation as opposed to technological innovation.  Several success stories in product and business model innovations in India were also presented during the event.

One of the participants, Mr Manish Bansal, Chief Executive Officer, SME Value Advisors, India, commented, “The seminar is indeed important and timely in the face of the current economic challenges.  Innovation is now the buzz-word for companies wanting to forge ahead.  The academic and industry speakers provided ample examples of current innovative practices and practical approaches to innovation that Indian companies can try to adopt.”

[Photo: SMU's Professor of Marketing, Dr Srinivas K. Reddy, moderating a session at the Inclusive Innovation Summit]

[Feature Photo: SMU Provost, Professor Rajendra K Srivastava, speaking at the Inclusive Innovation Summit 2013, held in Mumbai, India]