Frugal Innovation: How to Do Better with Less
Frugal innovation takes the bottom up approach involving the geeks' next door, or people habituated with Do ItYourself (DIY) stuff for co creating innovative products, solutions, or services for the start ups as well as big corporations. In a globalized knowledge economy, frugal innovation is projected as a new model for the business success, where entrepreneurs are encouraging co production by consumers, who have become 'prosumers' As the sub title of the book suggests, the frugal innovation is a result of the ability to do more and better with fewer resources. In the book, the authors suggest a measurement of the intensity of frugal innovation. Intensity can be measured in terms of a simple formula: "Greater Value (for customers, shareholders, and society) Fewer Resources (natural resources, capital, time)" The communitydriven innovation ecosystem primarily addresses the societal needs, sustainability, and cost efficiency. Other business considerations come much later. Innovation is made a key constituent in the 2030 Global Development Agenda, while Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are set to achieve by the year 2030 as envisaged the member countries of the United Nations. Goal 9 (SDG9) is set to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. In this context, frugal innovation helps in achieving the mandate of fostering innovation in developing countries. Post 2008 (post recession or the time of austerity) the corporations were pushed to achieve cost efficiency without compromising the products' quality, affordability, and comfortability of the end users. Thus, the key consideration of the book is that how resources constrained corporations could turn around ensuring the bottom line innovations are taking place in their backyards. At a central stage, the community participation is really essential for engaging its members in collaborative innovation development processes. The knowledge economy nurtures the innovation frameworks across the board while encouraging the collaborative development of the innovation ecosystem in the country by establishing an array of the innovation clusters, national systems of innovation, and sectoral systems of innovation across the states. The ecosystem is put in place with special concessions are given to the actors in an innovation system, such as the start ups, entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs in terms of extending the ease of doing business.
J. Sci. Res.