B. Bowonder’s research while affiliated with Administrative Staff College of India and other places

Innovation strategy helps a company in three ways: exciting its customers, outperforming competitors, and building a new product portfolio. The literature describes many frameworks for innovation strategy but offers little detail about how to implement them. This paper identifies 12 ways of visualizing innovation strategies: platform offering, co-creation, cycle time reduction, brand value enhancement, technology leveraging, future-proofing, lean development, partnering, innovation mutation, creative destruction, market segmentation, and acquisition. These strategies allow 100 leading global companies to dominate their markets and outperform the competition through innovation.

This article analyses energy consumption in India. It explains the dynamics of the changes in energy flow by studying four different time periods between 1953 and 1976. Unlike earlier studies, which concentrated only on commercial fuels, this study attempts to develop an integrated source-sector flow model comprising both commercial and non-commercial fuels. The patterns of change in the energy flow are used to derive major macro-economic energy linkages for the country. The article also examines the relationship between energy consumption, economic growth and investment. Cet article analyse la consommation énergétique en Inde. Il étudie la dynamique des variations du flux d'énergie pendant quatre périodes différentes comprises entre 1953 et 1976. Contrairement à des études précédentes qui ne se sont occupées que des produits pétroliers commerciaux, cette étude tente de construire un modèle integrant la source d'énergie et le secteur de consommation à la fois des produits pétroliers commerciaux et non-commerciaux. Les variations du flux d'énergie sont utilisées pour mettre en évidence les principales relations macroéconomiques du secteur énergétique du pays. De plus, l'article étudie les rapports existant entre la consommation énergétique, la croissance économique et l'investissement. Este artículo analiza el consumo de energía en la India y explica la dinámica de los cambios en los flujos de energía al estudiar cuatro périodes diferentes entre 1953 y 1976. A diferencia de estudios anteriores que se concentran en combustibles comerciales, este estudio trata de desarrollar un modelo integrado que incluye combustibles comerciales y no comerciales. Las tendencias de los cambios en los flujos energéticos son usados para derivar las principales interrelaciones macroeconómicas en el país. El artículo examine también la relación entre consumo de energía, crecimiento económico e inversión.

The various models of Japanese corporate innovation management reported in literature are reviewed to identify the major elements of the innovation process. An integrated model is presented examining the recent examples. The Japanese corporate innovation process is highly interactive and involves comprehensive organizational intelligence, quick organizational learning, rapid technology diffusion, horizontal information flow systems, fusion of different technologies to obtain innovations quickly, concurrent engineering and quick utilization of core competence for new business development. The innovation system is quick to respond to competition and concentrates on developing core competence that is used for commercializing new products quickly.

Managing innovation in Japanese corporations has received considerable international attention. The case example reports the diversification of Nippon Steel Corporation, which is the largest steel manufacturing firm in the world; into electronics; information technology; biotechnology; new materials; and high-tech oriented services, using documents provided by the organization. The case reveals an important example of managing innovation in the emerging era of global technological competition.

R&D spending by the top 320 companies in 2004 was US$ 331 billion. The R&D intensity of these global firms has decreased marginally, as there was a decrease in R&D spending by pharmaceutical firms. R&D spending as a percentage of sales is the highest in the biotechnology industry, followed by pharmaceuticals and network communications. At the same time, more firms are seeking to acquire intellectual assets from external sources. Managing intellectual assets will require competence to integrate external and internal knowledge assets so that innovation efficiency can go up while idea-to-market time goes down and product pipelines get richer.

The carpet industry is one of the most rapidly growing traditional industries in India. This is a handicraft and cottage industry that provides jobs right on the doorstep of more than 100,000 workers, belonging to economically backward class of society. In the global carpet scenerio, the market share of Indian carpets is expanding rapidly. Jaipur and its adjacent districts are the major manufacturing clusters in Rajasthan that share a substantial part (15%) of total carpet manufacturing from India. In fact Rajasthan carpets industry is more quality sensitive hence designs are one of the critical elements of competitiveness. Rajasthan carpet Industry grew till 1995, but saturation in designs and increasing cost made it difficult to compete. Results of technology implementation were remarkable in terms of revenue and other operational aspects. In a short period of four years, revenue grew more than five fold. Enhancing the competitiveness has been the major positive effect of ICT adoption in the Rajasthan carpet industry. Both the software creator and the government agencies played a catalysing role in supporting the technology adoption process

India is vast country and traditionally an agrarian economy. Nearly 70% of India's population still resides in the villages. The penetration level of the new telecommunication tools is low in the rural areas as compared to the urban sector. New technologies and ICT platforms are evolving, featuring collaboration between the development agencies, academia and the local government. This case-study analyzes, how the technology incubated in the labs of IIT-Madras was transferred to the rural areas. Factors responsible for the success are cost effectiveness of technology, provision of value-added services, and commitment from the governmental authorities, and entrepreneurial orientation. Such initiatives along with private participation which help in bridging the technological divide and creating an opportunity for divide convergence.

The rural population has limited access to communication. The cost of communication has been high as the incremental cost of extending communication has been high. Using a new wireless option, an ICT platform was conceptualised and implemented. This platform was extended to cover a large number of villages. This is an example of a successful public–private partnership. Systematic skill development has been the critical success factor that facilitated easy adoption and rapid diffusion of the ICT platform. Entrepreneurs helped create the infrastructure and build trust among the rural community that sustained the operation of the platform. The ICT platform has been used for a variety of innovative applications. Public–private partnerships can be a major form of institutional arrangement that could be used for reducing the digital divide, where large-scale investments are essential.