“When you grow up in a developing country like India, as I did, you instinctively learn to get more value from limited resources, and find creative ways to use what you already have.” — Navi Radjou
Navi Rajou, a strategy consultant and author of “Jugaad Innovation,” has met and studied with hundreds of entrepreneurs throughout the world. The interesting thing about these entrepreneurs, however, is that most didn’t have a formal education. According to Rajou, those he interviewed didn’t have access to many of the basic resources we often take for granted, such as healthcare, education and energy.
So how did they succeed?
To Rajou, the answer lies in a concept called Jugaad. With Jugaad, Rajou explains, “When external resources are scarce, you have to go within yourself to tap the most abundant resource, human ingenuity, and use that ingenuity to find clever ways to solve problems with limited resources.”
This is what many of the entrepreneurs Rajou has studied have tapped into. They are “frugal innovators.”
In your health club business, you may also be strapped with limited resources, whether it’s a small staff, tight income, etc. So, how can you tap into your inner Jugaad? Here are Rajou’s three principles for frugal innovators:
“The first principle is: Keep it simple. Don’t create solutions to impress customers. Make them easy enough to use and widely accessible.”
“Second principle: Do not reinvent the wheel. Try to leverage existing resources and assets that are widely available, like using mobile technology to offer clean energy or mom-and-pop stores to offer banking services.”
“Third principle is: Think and act horizontally. Companies tend to scale up vertically by centralizing operations in big factories and warehouses, but if you want to be agile and deal with immense customer diversity, you need to scale out horizontally using a distributed supply chain with smaller manufacturing and distribution units.”
How have you been a frugal innovator in your business?
View Rajou’s TED Talk on the Jugaad Innovation here.
