?Innovation has to happen across all levels within the organisation to make sure that ideas do not remain just on paper but are successfully implemented,? said Ravi Kant, MD, Tata Motors, at a panel discussion, at the UK Trade and Investment Awards function in Mumbai on Tuesday. Kant said that a product like the Nano would not have come out of the Tata Motors stable, if the idea was not market driven. With the acquisition of the Jaguar and Land Rover, the marquee brands from Ford, the company has been able to move half a step ahead of competition.
?The seed for the innovation of the Nano came from Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata?s observation of people, in families, traveling precariously on motorcycles and scooters in rural areas of India. That was just the idea,? said Kant. ?The real opportunity opened up when the price was pegged in such a way to attract the lower rungs of the society. The vehicle is the result of innovation of ideas, product, price and most importantly, people,? he added.
Kiran Majumdar Shaw, chairman, Biocon, said that the thrust in India is on ?affordable innovation?. Stressing that innovation cannot be attributed to certain countries or companies, Shaw said that in pharma, one could witness ?risk-associated innovation.? ?India makes risk affordable,? she said, adding that the partnership between India and the UK makes venturing into innovations more exciting.
?Cost cutting has become a way of life for us,? said Kant, when asked what efforts the company is taking internally and externally to keep costs under control. Shaw said that innovation in the pharma industry has to address unmet medical needs of the country.
Creative maestro Ian Livingstone, the man behind the gun-totting, whip cracking adventuress Lara Croft, said that what is most important when it comes to putting ideas into practice is the availability of funds. ?When it comes to making games, the UK is the most expensive place to be in,? he added. Alpesh Patel, UK Trade & Investment Dealmaker for India, said that Indian entrepreneurs have begun looking seriously at investing in the UK, and are not just using that country as a stepping stone to further their interest in the US.
Asked for his views on the state of innovation in the country, Vijay Mallya, chairman of the UB Group, said that the idea of innovation varies from issue to issue and place to place. ?There is no one solution that suits everyone,? he said. KV Kamath, MD & CEO of ICICI Bank said the real innovation would be to bring the vast majority into the ambit of banking, while Deepak Parekh, chairman, HDFC agreed that innovation would lead to growth in the banking sector.