case study on innovation in india

• Subscribers

Innovation in Indian Businesses: Case Studies of Disruptive Ideas

- Advertisement -

Innovation lies at the heart of every successful business, and the Indian subcontinent has witnessed a surge of disruptive ideas that have reshaped industries and transformed the way we live and work. From technology-driven breakthroughs to novel business models, Indian entrepreneurs have demonstrated remarkable ingenuity and foresight. In this article, we delve into case studies of innovation in Indian businesses, highlighting the transformative power of disruptive ideas and their impact on various sectors in the region.

Flipkart: Revolutionizing E-commerce

Case Study: Flipkart, founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, pioneered the e-commerce landscape in India. By introducing the concept of online shopping and offering a vast range of products at competitive prices, Flipkart disrupted traditional retail and quickly gained widespread popularity. The company’s customer-centric approach, innovative supply chain management, and introduction of Cash on Delivery (COD) revolutionised the way Indians shop.

Paytm: Transforming Digital Payments

Case Study: Paytm, founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, revolutionised digital payments in India. Initially launched as a mobile recharge platform, Paytm evolved into a full-fledged digital wallet and payment gateway. Through its user-friendly interface, secure transactions, and attractive cashback offers, Paytm played a crucial role in promoting digital transactions and financial inclusion in the country.

Oyo: Disrupting the Hospitality Industry

Case Study: Ritesh Agarwal’s Oyo disrupted the hospitality industry by offering standardised, budget-friendly accommodation options. Through its technology-driven approach, Oyo transformed budget hotels into a consistent and reliable option for travellers across India. The company’s aggressive expansion and franchising model have led to its rapid growth and global presence.

BYJU’S: Revolutionising Education

Case Study: BYJU’S, founded by Byju Raveendran, revolutionised the education sector by providing personalised, interactive learning experiences through its e-learning platform. BYJU leverages technology and data analytics to cater to the individual learning needs of students, making education engaging and effective.

Zomato: Redefining Food Delivery

Case Study: Zomato, co-founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, redefined food delivery and restaurant discovery in India. Through its user-friendly app, Zomato enabled users to browse restaurant menus, read reviews, and place orders conveniently. Zomato’s innovative business model and strategic acquisitions have solidified its position as a leading food-tech company.

The Rise of EdTech Startups: Bridging the Education Gap in…

Amrita Pritam: A Pioneer in Punjabi Literature

Leveraging Data Analytics for Informed Business…

Ather Energy: Revolutionising Electric Vehicles

Case Study: Ather Energy, founded by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, disrupted the electric vehicle market with its smart electric scooters. The company’s focus on technology, performance, and design made electric vehicles more appealing and accessible to Indian consumers. Ather Energy’s innovative subscription-based model and efficient charging infrastructure have set new benchmarks in the industry.

PharmEasy: Revolutionising Healthcare

Case Study: PharmEasy, founded by Dharmil Sheth and Dhaval Shah, transformed the way Indians access healthcare services. Through its online pharmacy platform, PharmEasy provides convenient access to medicines and diagnostic tests, making healthcare more accessible and affordable for millions.

Razorpay: Streamlining Online Payments

Case Study: Razorpay, co-founded by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, revolutionised online payments by offering seamless payment solutions to businesses. Its innovative technology and user-friendly interface simplify the payment process for merchants and customers alike, contributing to the growth of the digital economy in India.

Swiggy: Disrupting Food Delivery

Case Study: Swiggy, founded by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, and Rahul Jaimini, disrupted the food delivery industry with its efficient logistics and fast delivery model. Swiggy’s innovative approach to last-mile delivery and its wide restaurant network has made it a leading player in the food delivery space.

Unacademy: Transforming Online Education

Case Study: Unacademy, founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh, revolutionised online education by providing free and paid courses taught by experienced educators. The platform’s interactive approach, live classes, and comprehensive course offerings have made quality education accessible to millions of learners across India.

The case studies of innovation in Indian businesses underscore the transformative power of disruptive ideas. Visionary entrepreneurs have leveraged technology, customer-centricity, and innovative business models to reshape industries, improve lives, and drive economic growth. These success stories serve as an inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs and highlight the importance of embracing innovation to stay ahead in the competitive business landscape of the Indian subcontinent. As the region continues to evolve, the spirit of innovation will play a pivotal role in shaping a brighter and more prosperous future for India and beyond.

Women Leaders Shaping the Business Landscape in India

The Rise of Social Entrepreneurship: Making a Positive Impact in India

Nitin Gadkari: Pioneering Indian Infrastructure Renaissance

Alexandra Daddario: A Hollywood Star Illuminating the Silver Screen

Armaan Malik: A Global Melodic Virtuoso Redefining Musical Boundaries

Tom Cruise: A Legendary Journey in Hollywood

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Indian…

Robert De Niro: A Maestro of Method Acting

Exploring Investment Opportunities in the Indian Market

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More

Safalta Exam Preparation Online

Top 10 case studies on entrepreneurship in india.

• Whatsapp Channel

Vanshika Jakhar

She is an English content writer and works on providing vast information regarding digital marketing and other informative content for constructive career growth.

Source: Safalta

Free Demo Classes

Register here for Free Demo Classes

Waw! Just one step away to get free demo classes.

Download Now:  Free digital marketing e-books [Get your downloaded e-book now]  

Table of Content Top 10 Case Studies on Entrepreneurship in India

Top 10 Case Studies on Entrepreneurship in India

Flipkart: revolutionizing e-commerce.

Founders : Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal

Year Founded : 2007

Flipkart's journey from an online bookstore to one of India's largest e-commerce platforms is a testament to the potential of Indian entrepreneurship. The Bansal duo started with limited resources and faced intense competition but persevered. Their innovative strategies, including Cash on Delivery and a customer-centric approach, transformed the e-commerce landscape in India.

Key Takeaway : Customer focus and innovation can disrupt traditional industries and lead to exceptional growth.  

Upgrade your skills with this digital marketing course:  Click here for Details

OYO: Disrupting the Hotel Industry

Founder : Ritesh Agarwal

Year Founded : 2013

Ritesh Agarwal's story is a prime example of young entrepreneurship in India. OYO, which began as a budget hotel aggregator, has expanded globally, becoming one of the world's largest hospitality chains. Ritesh's vision is backed by a robust technology platform, and streamlined and standardized hotel operations, offering affordable, quality stays.

Key Takeaway : Identifying a market gap and using technology to address it can lead to rapid business expansion.

Read more:  Top 12 Examples of AI Case Studies in Content Marketing

Byju's: Changing the Face of Education

Founder : Byju Raveendran

Year Founded : 2011

Byju, the edtech unicorn, was born from Byju Raveendran's vision to make learning engaging and accessible. He built a unique platform offering interactive online classes for students across India. Byju's became one of the world's most valuable edtech companies, catering to millions of students.

Key Takeaway : Leveraging technology for education can create substantial opportunities and impact a wide audience.  

Paytm: A Digital Payment Pioneer

Founder : Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Year Founded : 2010

Paytm, initially a mobile recharge and bill payment platform, became a pioneer in digital payments in India. Vijay Shekhar Sharma's journey from a small town in Uttar Pradesh to building a fintech empire is an inspiration. The company's success can be attributed to its innovative approach and the ability to adapt to evolving market needs.

Key Takeaway : Flexibility and adaptability are crucial in the ever-evolving fintech industry.

Zomato: From a Restaurant Guide to a Food Delivery Giant

Founders : Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah

Year Founded : 2008

Zomato began as a restaurant discovery platform but swiftly evolved to include food delivery services. The founders, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, navigated challenges like fierce competition and the logistical complexity of food delivery. Their ability to pivot and cater to diverse customer needs allowed them to expand globally.

Key Takeaway : Adapting to changing market demands and diversifying offerings can lead to substantial growth.

Related article:  Top 10 Ways to Achieve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategies

MakeMyTrip: Trailblazing in Online Travel

Founders : Deep Kalra

Year Founded : 2000

Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip at a time when e-commerce was in its nascent stage in India. Over the years, the company transformed the way Indians booked travel. With continuous innovation and expansion, MakeMyTrip is now a leading online travel company in the country.

Key Takeaway : Identifying an untapped niche and being a pioneer can result in long-term success.

Nykaa: Redefining Beauty Retail

Founder : Falguni Nayar

Year Founded : 2012

Falguni Nayar, a former investment banker, ventured into the beauty and cosmetics industry with Nykaa. The e-commerce platform revolutionized the beauty retail sector by offering a vast range of products, including both luxury and affordable brands. The company's success underscores the importance of understanding consumer preferences and delivering a seamless online shopping experience.

Key Takeaway : Customer-centricity and a diverse product range can lead to rapid growth in e-commerce.

Suggested:  Nykaa Case Study on Digital Marketing Strategies 2023

Freshworks: SaaS Unicorn from India

Founders : Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy

Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy co-founded Freshworks with the aim of creating a customer engagement software company. The company's suite of SaaS products has gained global recognition. Their approach to building a robust software platform with a focus on customer satisfaction exemplifies their journey from a Chennai-based startup to a SaaS unicorn.

Key Takeaway : A strong product and customer-centric approach can drive international success in the SaaS industry.

Lenskart: Redefining Eyewear Retail

Founder : Peyush Bansal

Peyush Bansal recognized the need for a reliable and convenient way to purchase eyewear in India. Lenskart introduced an online platform for buying eyeglasses and contact lenses. By integrating technology, Lenskart streamlined the purchase process, offering a wide range of eyewear and personalized services.

Key Takeaway : Identifying gaps in the market and providing innovative solutions can create new business opportunities.  

Rivigo: Revolutionizing Logistics

Founders : Deepak Garg

Year Founded : 2014

Deepak Garg's Rivigo introduced an innovative approach to logistics and transportation in India. Their relay model and tech-enabled trucking system optimized supply chain operations, reduced transit times, and enhanced efficiency. Rivigo's success in a traditional industry showcases the power of technology-driven solutions.

Key Takeaway : Applying technology to traditional sectors can lead to significant improvements and growth.

These 10 case studies on entrepreneurship in India provide a diverse range of success stories, demonstrating the versatility, resilience, and innovative spirit of Indian entrepreneurs. Each of these entrepreneurs identified market gaps, harnessed technology, and adapted to changing dynamics to build successful businesses. Their journeys serve as inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs and underscore the limitless possibilities that await those willing to take risks and pursue their visions in the Indian business landscape.

What is entrepreneurship?

Who is an entrepreneur, what qualities make a successful entrepreneur, what is a business plan, and why is it important for entrepreneurship, what is "bootstrapping" in entrepreneurship, what is a business model.

Start Learning & Earning

• Digital Marketing
• Job Ready Courses
• Graphic Designing
• Advance Excel

Trending Courses

Professional Certification Programme in Digital Marketing (Batch-11)

Now at just ₹ 89999 ₹ 110000 18% off

Advanced Certification in Digital Marketing Online Programme (Batch-29)

Now at just ₹ 49999 ₹ 60000 17% off

Advanced Certification in Digital Marketing Classroom Programme (Batch-3)

Now at just ₹ 29999 ₹ 99999 70% off

Latest Web Stories

अपनी वेबसाइट पर हम डाटा संग्रह टूल्स, जैसे की कुकीज के माध्यम से आपकी जानकारी एकत्र करते हैं ताकि आपको बेहतर अनुभव प्रदान कर सकें, वेबसाइट के ट्रैफिक का विश्लेषण कर सकें, कॉन्टेंट व्यक्तिगत तरीके से पेश कर सकें और हमारे पार्टनर्स, जैसे की Google, और सोशल मीडिया साइट्स, जैसे की Facebook, के साथ लक्षित विज्ञापन पेश करने के लिए उपयोग कर सकें। साथ ही, अगर आप साइन-अप करते हैं, तो हम आपका ईमेल पता, फोन नंबर और अन्य विवरण पूरी तरह सुरक्षित तरीके से स्टोर करते हैं। आप कुकीज नीति पृष्ठ से अपनी कुकीज हटा सकते है और रजिस्टर्ड यूजर अपने प्रोफाइल पेज से अपना व्यक्तिगत डाटा हटा या एक्सपोर्ट कर सकते हैं। हमारी Cookies Policy , Privacy Policy और Terms & Conditions के बारे में पढ़ें और अपनी सहमति देने के लिए Agree पर क्लिक करें।

Download App for Live stream

Live stream is currently not available on web. Kindly download our app.

Popular Searches

• Current Affairs

Most Popular Exams

• CBSE Term 2

You have awarded with Avid Reader-3 for reading 50 ebooks on safalta.com. Keep learning and earn coins and badges.

• Screen Reader
• Skip to main content
• Text Size A
• Language: English
• Case Studies
• EXIM Procedure

Media & Events

• Image Gallery
• Media Coverage

Other Links

• Discover India
• GI of India
• Experience India
• Indian Trend Fair 2022
• India Organic Biofach 2022
• Gulfood Dubai 2023

Driving Progress Innovation and Expansion in the Indian Railways System

Recent case studies.

Indian Railways, the fourth-largest national railway system in the world, plays a pivotal role in India's transportation, infrastructure, and economic growth. As of April 2024, this vast system covers 132,310 kilometres of tracks, of which 58,074 kilometres are electrified. It is a lifeline which connects people and goods across the nation. More than 23 million passengers use this railroad system daily, making it the only mode of conveyance for millions of people. Besides, the Indian Railways provide jobs to more than 1.2 million people, standing as the tenth largest employer in the world. The Indian railways system also largely contributes to the GDP by acting as the backbone for sectors like defence, manufacturing and tourism.

The importance of modernisation within Indian Railways cannot be undermined, especially considering the growing demand for efficient transportation solutions to cater to India's expanding population and economy. Recent initiatives include "Make in India", under which indigenous projects such as the Vande Bharat Express have been developed and the fabrication of 800 such trains is on course to be completed by 2030. The Indian Railways is on target with its first hydrogen train scheduled to be called into service by the end of this year, reflecting their commitment toward sustainability and innovation. New models of funding and public-private partnerships are also being considered by the government as ways to attract private investment in high-profile projects, such as the Chenab River Railway Bridge, which is expected to be the highest single-arch railway bridge in the world. These changes signify strong intent by Indian Railways to keep the wheels of progress oiled through technological advancements and the expansion of infrastructure, contributing to national growth.

Innovations in the Indian Railways System

To enhance passenger experience, the Indian Railways is rolling out innovative services that emphasise comfort and convenience. For instance, the food-on-demand feature allows passengers to request meals directly to their seats via a mobile application, ensuring a customised dining experience. The "Doctor on Call" service is another significant addition, providing travellers with access to medical help when needed, with trained personnel available to manage health issues during their trip. Furthermore, paperless ticketing has made the boarding process efficient, enabling passengers to use digital tickets on their devices, reducing the dependency on physical tickets while supporting the green initiatives. These initiatives enrich the travel experience and highlight Indian Railways' commitment to evolving its services to meet customer expectations.

Integration of technology

The Indian Railways is at the forefront of integrating advanced technology into its operations, enhancing efficiency and customer experience. Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT, and automation have already replaced many layers of railway management. AI can predict equipment failure before it happens, thus reducing downtime and enabling smoother operations.

IoT devices deployed over the network observe real-time performance of the trains, track and environmental conditions for data-driven decisions. Digital ticketing platforms revolutionised customer service by proving to be an easy avenue for passengers to book tickets, check schedules and get real-time updates about their journey. Supported by mobile applications, self-service kiosks further fine-tuned the ticketing process by reducing waiting times. These changes improve operational efficiency and enhance the overall travel experience of millions of passengers.

In FY24, the average number of mobile ticket bookings reached 635,000 per day, with the IRCTC mobile app achieving a remarkable 12.20 crore downloads and daily logins totalling 5.17 million. Over this period, more than 23.22 million tickets were booked through the mobile app, compared to 20.42 million tickets in FY23. The IRCTC Rail Connect Mobile App is one of the highest-rated mobile applications in India on the Google Play Store.

Source - IRCTC annual report

• High-speed rail projects

High-speed rail projects constitute a giant leap toward modernisation in India's emergent transportation and rail network landscape. The introduction of the Vande Bharat Express trains exemplifies this commitment, with Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi flagging off six new trains on September 15, 2024, extending the fleet from 54 train sets to 60, enabling 120 daily trips. The project aims to cross over 280 districts across 24 states and union territories.

New additions to their routes include Tatanagar-Patna, Brahmapur-Tatanagar, Rourkela-Howrah, Deoghar-Varanasi, Bhagalpur-Howrah, and Gaya-Howrah. This is proof of the railway's effort to improve accessibility across regions. These trains offer more than just speed; they are equipped with advanced safety features, including the Kavach system, which enhances train control to prevent accidents. The Vande Bharat 2.0 model features innovative onboard amenities such as antiviral technology, Wi-Fi, 32-inch LCD TVs, Maximum speed of 180 km/h, and more.

The Vande Bharat trains, as a flagship project for 'Make in India', symbolise India's ambition: a modern, efficient, world-class rail system. Since its first journey on February 15, 2019, the program has become a demonstration of India's capability to deliver the latest in rail technology. It is a further commitment to high-speed rail projects, reflecting the general vision of modern transportation infrastructure responsive to the needs of a rapidly growing economy. Since their introduction, Vande Bharat trains have undertaken approximately 36,000 trips and carried over 3.17 crore passengers as of September 14, 2024, highlighting their popularity and efficiency.

Work is in progress on the development of enhanced rail corridors exclusively meant for high-speed trains and fast movement of freight. These corridors will contribute to economic growth by providing better connectivity and stimulating the local economy. The impact of these projects goes beyond mere speed; they will contribute to the development of regions like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

• Safety and security innovation

For the Indian Railways, safety is the priority. Over the years, innovations have reinforced security on the network. Advanced signalling systems were introduced to make train operations less risky. Trains are fitted with monitoring mechanisms to avoid collisions and facilitate safe travel. Meanwhile, drones and monitoring technology have transformed track and station security. Drones are deployed for aerial surveillance, offering real-time monitoring of railway infrastructure and quick identification of issues. This proactive safety ensures all anomalies are dealt with in advance to reduce risk to passengers and operations.

Another major stride is the introduction of the Kavach system, a safety technology certified at Safety Integrity Level 4 at an economical cost.

The Kavach system is designed to prevent train collisions by automatically applying brakes if a driver does not respond promptly to signals. It uses RFID tags along the tracks to monitor train positions and provides important signal information, even in poor visibility. The Indian Railways plans to implement Kavach across 44,000 kilometres of track in the next five years, enhancing safety on major routes like Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah.

Kavach trials have been successfully conducted, and implementation plans are underway for an extensive network of 34,000 kms. Kavach upgrades train control and safety, making rail travel safer.

• Start-up collaborations and innovation policy

The Indian Railways have been engaging with start-ups actively because of their clearly laid down innovation policy, which encourages co-creation and co-innovation. From June 2022 to July 2024, the railways have sanctioned funding of about Rs. 43.87 crore (US$ 5.27 million) to support 23 projects related to service improvement under this policy. These projects include lightweight wagons, a rail stress monitoring system, advanced track inspection techniques, and more. The initiative calls upon startups to provide solutions to real-time problems and work on those ideas for incorporation and better functionality.

For the same, an innovation portal was launched. It engages emerging entrepreneurs by presenting over 423 proposals addressing challenges. This approach fosters innovation among startups and accelerates the integration of creative solutions into the railway system. In summary, the Indian Railways is undergoing a transformative phase characterised by the integration of advanced technology, development of high-speed rail projects and a strong focus on safety.

Infrastructure expansion

The Indian Railways is undergoing significant infrastructure expansion aimed at enhancing connectivity, improving freight efficiency, and modernising existing facilities. Below are the key components of this expansion:

• New railway lines and routes

Indian Railways is focusing on the extension of new railway routes, especially in underdeveloped areas, and is striving for better connectivity along with providing a boost to economic development. This includes laying a new line from Pandurangapuram (Visakhapatnam) to Bhadrachalam (Telangana) to Malkangiri (Odisha) and is being taken up as a high-priority endeavour. The estimated cost of the project is Rs. 7,383 crore (US$ 885 million) for a route length of 290 km. This is part of a higher sanctioning involving eight projects across the country with estimated costs of Rs. 24,657 crore (US$ 2.96 billion). This new line, when materialised, will offer an alternative route between Asansol and Warangal to facilitate quick access to the southern states' thermal power plants and aluminium and iron ore industries. It is expected to increase connectivity to the tribal-dominated districts fostering socio-economic development in the extremism-affected areas.

Furthermore, the expansion incorporates the construction of six new rail lines in Odisha at over Rs. 15,000 crore (US$ 1.80 billion) as part of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi’s Purvodaya vision. These lines will shorten the travel time between Rayagada, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Malkangiri, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj and facilitate the construction of 64 stations to cover 510 villages, benefiting a population of approximately 40 lakhs. The projects will provide vital routes for transporting commodities like agricultural products, coal, iron ore and cement, while improving mobility and service reliability for the Indian Railways. This expansion is expected to massively increase freight-handling capacity and spur economic growth across the region.

Source - Indian railways annual report

• Upgrading existing infrastructure

The Indian railway system is set to undergo a significant upgrade of its existing infrastructure, aiming to enhance passenger experience and operational efficiency. As part of the Budget 2024-25, Union Finance Minister Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman announced that approximately 2,000 mail and express trains would be revamped to meet Vande Bharat standards, which includes upgrading 40,000 existing bogies with improved acceleration, deceleration, braking systems and other essential components. This initiative will enhance passenger amenities, with improvements to interiors, toilets, couplers, CCTV systems, and berths, elevating the overall travel experience.

In addition to upgrading existing trains, the Indian Railways plans to introduce sleeper facilities for Vande Bharat trains, with the first prototype expected to be ready soon. The goal is to expand the fleet to 75 Vande Bharat trains with seating facilities and 500 with sleeper facilities over the next four years (2024-2028). To fund these upgrades, the Indian Railways has committed to investing Rs. 7 lakh crore (US$ 83.91 billion) over the next decade to lay 50,000 kilometres of new tracks. This initiative is part of the Vision 2047 document, which aims to modernise the network and accommodate high-speed trains like Vande Bharat. The target is to maintain a pace of laying 5,200 kilometres of new tracks annually, focusing on replacing old tracks to ensure a robust infrastructure capable of supporting modern high-speed transportation systems.

Financially, the Indian Railways expects continued support from the central government, with a gross budgetary support (GBS) of Rs. 2,40,200 crore (US$ 29.79 billion) allocated for 2023-24. This support is crucial for financing the capital expenditure aimed at expanding and upgrading the railway network. All new lines are be designed to accommodate high- and semi-high-speed trains, ensuring the infrastructure can manage speeds of up to 180 km/h, in line with the capabilities of the Vande Bharat trains. These initiatives reflect a commitment to modernise and enhance the efficiency of the rail transport system, improving passenger safety, comfort, and operational efficiency.

• Logistics and freight

In a strategic move to elevate its freight capabilities, the railways plan to increase freight traffic from 1.2 billion tonnes in 2019 to 3.3 billion tonnes by 2030. This ambitious goal will be supported by the introduction of Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), designed to optimise cargo transport efficiency and bolster the overall logistics framework. In support, the Indian Railways awarded a contract for the supply of 4,000 BOXNS wagons, valued at Rs. 1,617 crore (US$ 193 billion), aimed at improving freight capacity. BOXNS wagons feature an axle load capacity of 25 tonnes as compared to 22.9 tonnes in BOBRN wagons, and a load capacity of 81.25 tonnes as compared to 80.00 tonnes, enhancing the freight capacity of the existing fleet. This advancement marks a significant step in Indian Railways' strategy to elevate its freight traffic share from 27% to 45% by 2030.

In addition to expanding wagon capacity, the railways is also implementing initiatives to improve cargo transport efficiency. This includes the introduction of the Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT) policy, which encourages investment in additional terminals for handling rail cargo. The policy allows for the construction of terminals on railway and non-railway land, facilitating better aggregation and dispersal of cargo. The Railways also relaxed block rake movement rules, permitted mini rakes, and introduced private freight terminals (PFTs) to enhance flexibility and accessibility for customers. By fostering partnerships with freight operators and encouraging private wagon investment, the Indian Railways is streamlining operations, increasing its share in the bulk cargo market, addressing infrastructural challenges and ensuring sustainable growth in the freight sector.

As the Indian Railways sets its sights on the ambitious Vision 2030, significant strides are made toward high-speed rail expansion and the complete electrification of its network. The government aims to operationalise 4,500 Vande Bharat trains by 2047, with plans for the introduction of 50 Amrit Bharat trains in the 2024-25 fiscal year to enhance passenger experiences. The National High-Speed Rail Corridor Limited's bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad exemplifies this commitment, with increased funding to ensure its timely completion. The electrification initiative, currently at 93.83%, aims for 100% electrification, drastically reducing the reliance on fossil fuels and positioning Indian Railways as a leader in sustainable transportation. These efforts are underpinned by advanced technology, including AI-driven automation for predictive maintenance and the integration of smart rail systems, which will enhance operational efficiency.

In conclusion, the Indian Railways stands as a symbol of national growth and resilience, with its modernisation efforts significantly impacting India's global standing. The integration of cutting-edge technology, expansion of high-speed rail services and a strong commitment to sustainability through electrification and solar energy initiatives reflect a transformative phase for the railway system. As the backbone of India's economy, the railways facilitate connectivity across vast regions and stimulate local economies and job creation. With a focus on continuous innovation and infrastructure development, Indian Railways is poised to redefine the future of transport in India, ensuring it remains a vital component of the nation's growth story for decades to come.

Click here for more information.

Not a member

A Systems View Across Time and Space

• Open access
• Published: 22 April 2015

User innovation and entrepreneurship: case studies from rural India

• Vanita Yadav 1 &
• Preeti Goyal 2  

Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship volume  4 , Article number:  5 ( 2015 ) Cite this article

41k Accesses

13 Citations

2 Altmetric

Metrics details

Innovation research has abundant literature on technologically advanced innovations and entrepreneurship. However, literature from a rural innovator and entrepreneur perspective is sparse. Therefore, we explore rural user innovation and entrepreneurship in a developing country, India. Using multiple case study research method, we study cases of five rural user innovations in detail. These rural innovators innovated to alleviate the drudgery of their lives and to fulfill their need for a low-cost local solution to a widespread rural problem. They often face a resource void for commercializing their innovations and we find that external actors can play an enabling role in filling this void. The findings of our study help propose a framework for enabling rural innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries like India. Further, in addition to poverty alleviation, we found that there was a positive social impact on the lives of rural entrepreneurs and their community.

User innovation and entrepreneurship is an important phenomenon, which competes with and may displace producer innovation in many areas (Baldwin and Von Hippel 2011 ). There is a growing interest in this field and we know very little about its applicability in the developing economies.

Research on user innovation and entrepreneurship to date has focused almost entirely on developed economy settings (Enos 1962 ; Knight 1963 ; Freeman 1968 ; von Hippel 1988 , 2005 ; Shah and Tripas 2007 ). The phenomenon is understudied from the developing economy's perspective. Gupta ( 2006 ) reports numerous examples of rural innovations occurring in India. However, his study does not examine these rural innovations from the user innovation perspective.

Bruton et al. ( 2008 ) suggest that there is a need to examine the applicability of existing innovation and entrepreneurship theories in a developing economy context to advance our theoretical understanding of this field. This context is quite different from that pertaining in developed economies. For example, institutional arrangements supporting markets are either absent or weak in developing economies resulting in institutional voids (Mair and Marti 2009 ). This is impedes entrepreneurial activities in developing countries like Bangladesh (Mair et al. 2012 ) and India (Khanna and Palepu 2010 ).

In this paper we address this gap in the literature by examining rural innovation and entrepreneurship in India using the user innovation theoretical lens. Specifically, we ask the following research questions: (1) Why do rural users innovate? (2) How do they innovate? (3) How do they commercialize their products to become user entrepreneurs? (4) What is its impact on the individual rural user entrepreneur? (5) What is the impact of rural user entrepreneurship on the society or local community?

The paper proceeds as follows: First, we present a theoretical overview of user innovation theory and highlight the gap in literature. Next, we discuss the findings from our case studies and present a cross-case analysis. Then, we summarize our findings and discuss the implications of our study.

Theoretical overview

User innovation theory.

von Hippel's ( 1988 ) work on sources of innovation reveals that users (both individuals and user firms) have developed some of the most important products and processes for their own use. He defines user innovators as a firm or individual that creates an innovation to use it. Examples of user innovation can include a surgeon inventing a new medical device for his/her use or a sports enthusiast creating new sports equipment for his/her own use.

Studies in many fields have documented the importance of user innovation. For example, in oil refining, user firms developed nearly all of the important innovations (Enos 1962 ). Users developed nearly 80% of the important scientific instruments (von Hippel 1976 ). Users also developed majority of the major innovations in semiconductor processing (von Hippel 1988 ) and in sports equipment (Hienerth 2006 ). In British firms, considerable fractions of inventions were for in-house usage (Pavitt 1984 ). Literature on user innovation reports empirical evidences from various countries like USA, UK, Canada, and Netherlands. Empirical studies reveal that users ranging from 6% to 40% develop and modify products (Baldwin and Von Hippel 2011 ). All this highlights the fact that users are developers of a significant number of innovations that exist in the world today. Baldwin and von Hippel ( 2011 ) argue that we are now witnessing a paradigm shift from the traditional producer innovation model to a user and open collaborative innovation model. von Hippel ( 1986 ) also suggests that needs of user innovators can be idiosyncratic or can reflect the needs of a larger population.

User entrepreneurship

We define user entrepreneurs as firms or individuals that initially create an innovation for their own use and then later commercialize the innovation for sale in the marketplace. The conventional understanding of entrepreneurship suggests that recognition of a commercial marketplace opportunity precedes prototype development (Venkataraman 1997 ). In contrast, the emerging literature on user innovation and entrepreneurship suggests that the process can be reverse. That is, user entrepreneurs first develop prototypes and subsequently recognize the commercialization potential of their product or service (Shah and Tripsas 2007 ; Haefliger et al. 2010 ). User innovators develop this insight into commercial potential by using and gaining experience with the product or service they have developed for their own use (Haefliger et al. 2010 ).

Shah and Tripsas ( 2007 ) pp. 124 define user entrepreneurship as ‘the commercialization of a new product or service by an individual or group of individuals who are also users of that product or service.’ They further classify user entrepreneurs as professional-user entrepreneurs and end-user entrepreneurs. Professional-user entrepreneurs are those individuals who use a product/service in their professional lives while remaining embedded in the organization. And end-user entrepreneurs are those individuals who use a product/service in their daily life and then commercialize it. Professional-user entrepreneurs have been studied in the ice-harvesting industry (Utterback 1994 ) and in probe microscopy (Mody 2006 ). End-user entrepreneurs have been studied in rodeo kayaking (Baldwin et al. 2006 ), mountain bicycle (Luthje et al. 2005 ), and automobile industries (Franz 2005 ), among others.

Research also highlights that user entrepreneurs are different from other entrepreneurs due to their direct experience with the need and prototype solutions. Although the importance of users as sources of innovations is well established in the existing literature on innovation studies (von Hippel 2005 ), the importance of users as a source of entrepreneurial activity is a relatively understudied area (Shah and Tripsas 2007 ). Shah and Tripsas ( 2007 ) argue that even though users innovate, commercialization of their innovations will be rare. Using the case of juvenile products, they suggest that users are most likely to be ‘accidental entrepreneurs’ and that accidental community interactions play a key role in their entrepreneurial pursuit.

User entrepreneurs derive benefits from the feedback and contributions through a collective social process. Using the example of firms founded by users of video games, Haefliger et al. ( 2010 ) suggest that user entrepreneurs derive their designs from existing products or technologies. Using the case history of rodeo kayaking, Baldwin et al. ( 2006 ) discuss how the level of entrepreneurial activity changes with changing economics of manufacturing. This is because subsequent user innovations and investment in production technology changes the nature of products and its demand.

At the macro level, Saemundsson and von Hippel ( 2010 ) study the level of user entrepreneurship in a country and how user entrepreneurs differ from other entrepreneurs in their attitudes and aspirations. Chandra and Coviello ( 2010 ) present a four-part typology of ‘consumers as international entrepreneurs.’ Shah et al. ( 2006 ) posit that the likelihood of users engaging in entrepreneurship is highest during the early phases of an industry lifecycle and declines rapidly over time. Furthermore, Shah and Tripsas ( 2007 ) posit that user entrepreneurship is likely to exist in industries where usage of the product or service provides enjoyment as opposed to pure economic benefits.

Paucity of user innovation and entrepreneurship literature from India

The existing literature on user entrepreneurs employs case studies from sports (Baldwin et al. 2006 ), specialized technology (Haefliger et al. 2010 ), and juvenile products (Shah and Tripsas 2007 ) - all examples of innovations from developed economies. There is a paucity of literature from developing economies. We carried out an extensive search in the online available databases like Proquest, EBSCO, JSTOR, and Google scholar to look for studies from rural areas in developing countries. To search, we used combinations of keywords like ‘user innovation + rural/grassroots/developing country/developing economy/India,’ ‘user entrepreneurship + rural/grassroots/developing country/developing economy/India’ and searched for words in title or author supplied keywords or abstract. The search results either displayed no papers or put forward a few papers that were not relevant for our search criterion. To decide on relevance, we read the abstracts of these papers and then dropped those papers that were not studies of Indian user innovation or user entrepreneurship. As a result, our search yielded no papers on user innovation or user entrepreneurship from India. Our search was restricted to papers published in journals and we did not search working and conference papers. Thus, our study is an important stepping stone to theory building from a developing country perspective in the area of user innovation and entrepreneurship.

Results and discussion

We began our research by looking for evidence of user innovation and user entrepreneurship occurring in rural India. We focused primarily on rural India because 70% of the Indian population lives in rural areas (PTI Press Trust of India 2011 ). The next step was to understand the phenomenon in detail and examine the unique manifestations of 150 user innovation theory in the Indian context. This could be feasible only through qualitative research design, and case study emerged as the logical research method. This section discusses the findings from our case studies. We first provide a brief description of the individual cases (see Table 1 for comparative descriptions). Then, we discuss the cross-case analysis in the light of our research questions.

Brief case summaries

Innovation case 1: cotton stripper.

In India, the traditional process of separating cotton lint from its shell is manual and involves separating by hand the firmly attached lint from the inner side of the cotton shell. Mansukhbhai Patel, a farmer, says that mainly women and children are employed to do this. In this process, cotton dust is emitted in the air, which is a serious health hazard. It has been found that workers exposed to an environment laden with cotton dust can become patients of byssinosis, a lung disease (Kumar 2008 ). Patel well understood the pain of the manual process as he was employed for cotton stripping in his childhood days.

I have seen the manual and tedious work. It was time consuming, it would take months and the rains would come and there would be huge losses for the farmers… Women and children had to do this backbreaking work and school going children were also employed in this job. I was also allocated this task. Studying or going to school was last priority. Father - mother said, ‘this much work has to be done and then study or go to school’. - Patel (translated from personal interviews)

Since then, he felt that he should do something to alleviate this drudgery. He dropped from school after 9th grade due to poverty and continued to work in his cotton field. He also did many odd jobs and picked up mechanical skills by working as an electrician and mechanic in cotton mills. In 1991 to 1992, he developed a machine that could mechanically strip cotton from its shell by borrowing money from his family and friends. He tested the machine in his farm and built many prototypes before it operated as per his satisfaction. Patel finally achieved a workable commercial solution with the seventh prototype and GIAN helped in mobilizing the technical support from premier education institutions like National Institute of Design (NID) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). He also obtained intellectual property rights protection for his product in India and in the USA with the help of NIF. Patel now owns five small firms with a turnover of over US$ 0.3 million.

Innovation case 2: mitticool (innovative clay products)

Clay pottery was the traditional business of Mansukhbhai Prajapati's family living in a small village in rural India. Prajapati failed in 10th grade and dropped out of school. Due to meager financial returns, Prajapati gave up pottery. He ended up earning his livelihood by doing odd jobs at various places like running a small tea stall or working in a factory for 4 years. While working for a brick roof tiles factory, he was inspired to build a machine to make clay products with high efficiency. So, he returned back to his family occupation - pottery. The clay used for this is somewhat different than the clay used for hand pottery and it took him some time to master this clay composition. He began by making earthen clay pots and hot plates in 1988. Most people in rural India use clay pots to store drinking water and hot plates or tawa for cooking flat wheat bread. In rural areas, the earthen pots are a natural way of keeping drinking water cool in summers. In January 2001, an earthquake registering 7.9 on the Richter scale devastated the Indian state of Gujarat and all earthen pots of Prajapati were broken.

A photographer took pictures of my broken clay pots and published in the newspaper with a headline ‘Garib Ka Fridge Tut Gaya’ (Refrigerator of the Poor has Broken). I thought; he is calling my pot a fridge. We also want a fridge but do not have money to purchase one… so…why don’t I make a clay fridge for myself… and I started experimenting with clay to make a clay refrigerator that did not need electricity to cool. In 2005, my wife wanted a nonstick pan for cooking and when I went to the market to buy one, I saw the cost was INR 450 (US$8). It was very expensive for me and I thought- can’t I do something to my clay hotplates to make them nonstick. I worked on it for 1.5 years… - Prajapati (translated from personal interviews)

Prajapati created many innovative clay products like the Mitticool clay refrigerator, the nonstick clay tawa (hot plate) and the clay pressure cooker. The name of the refrigerator ‘Mitticool’ comes from the Hindi word mitti , which in means ‘clay.’ The clay refrigerator can be used to store cold water, food, fruits, and vegetables without any electricity or any artificial form of energy. It works on the simple principal of cooling by evaporation. Water from the upper chambers drips down the sides and evaporates, which leaves the inner chamber cool. It can be good alternative for people living in rural areas where electricity is not available or for those who are poor and cannot afford the conventional refrigerator. Financially, Prajapati has been able to move out of poverty and he received 25 awards including one from the President of India.

Innovation case 3: Bullet Santi (motorcycle-driven ploughing machine)

In 1994, the region of Amreli in the western part of India faced severe drought. The cost of manual labor was high and tilling the dry farmland became difficult. There was also shortage of cattle fodder and Mansukhbhai Jagani could no longer afford to use his cattle for tilling his farm. These difficult conditions compelled Jagani to sell his bullocks and his farming suffered. He started thinking of ways by which he could come out of this misery.

With no money and bullocks, I had no choice but to think of an alternative way to plough our 20 bighas of land. I got this idea of developing a ‘Bullet Santi’ from ‘Chhakdas’, the common mode of three-wheeler transport in Saurashtra. - Jagani (translated from personal interview)

Jagani had also worked as a farm mechanic repairing diesel engines and farming equipment. He borrowed his friend's Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle and tried attaching a tiller to it. He created attachments using cheap and used components from foundries. The idea seemed to work and he further experimented with different ploughing attachments that could be fixed behind the motorcycle for farming. Jagani replaced the rear wheel with a set two smaller wheels and attached a metal plough behind the bike. He began using it for ploughing in his farm. It eliminated the need of bullocks or laborers for ploughing and Jagani named it ‘Bullet Santi,’ where Santi means ‘plough.’ The motorcycle had a 5.5 horsepower diesel engine and with the attachments it could be used as a multipurpose machine for ploughing, sowing, interculturing, spraying insecticides, or a small goods carrier. Other farmers also saw value in his invention and started approaching him for similar solutions.

The machine worked as a faster alternative to the traditional farming method that uses bullocks and as a cheaper alternative to modern farming methods that use tractors. In 1994, Jagani had developed the first prototype. Subsequently, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Lab in India helped Jagani improve the product design, and NIF and GIAN helped in its commercialization. His product got a patent in India and in the USA. Jagani has been able to move out of poverty and also received national level awards by NIF.

Innovation case 4: biomass gasifier

While other children went to school, Rai Singh Dahiya worked and helped his parents in their farm in rural India. He would weed and water the plants, look after the cattle, and do other jobs. They lived in a temporary or kutcha house made of mud and clay. Water would often come inside the house during rains and having a good meal was a luxury. Even though he could not attend school due to poverty, he had a keen desire to learn and was a regular listener of BBC radio for Science called Gyan - Vigyan . Dahiya had an inquisitive mind and he would often experiment with things. He would dismantle and again assemble anything that he could lay his hands on, for example, watches, clocks, radio, or farm machinery. He would often make models with mud and felt that he understood the language of machines.

In 1982, he started a brick kiln in which bricks are baked by burning the agriculture waste. He noticed that burning of biowaste in the kiln was producing gas. He thought whether he could store this gas and explore what it could be used for. Later in 1991, he opened a small workshop to repair tractors and farm equipment because he found machines fascinating and enjoyed identifying and solving problems. During that time, the fuel prices were going up and Dahiya felt that he must find some cheaper alternative to fuel.

LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) was becoming expensive, diesel was becoming expensive. I thought let me try to use the gas produced in my kiln to run the engine… this gas can also replace our cooking fuel and can be very cheap. - Dahiya (translated from personal interviews)

Dahiya thought about making an engine that could run on gas from farm waste or even cow dung. He made product designs using bricks and contemplated how he could make them using iron, other metal and old diesel engines. After years of experimenting, in 2001, he succeeded in running a diesel engine on biofuel by converting biomass into producer gas.

I faced lot of problems in the process. The engine would run for some time and then would stop. I had to open it, clean it, and then run again. I had no idea about filtration then… I thought about it and worked on it… Finally, in 2002, I made a fan filter and the engine ran successfully. - Dahiya (translated from personal interviews)

The unit consisted of a gasifier, which was conical in shape surrounded by a water jacket. The gasifier generated producer gas from biowaste and Dahiya used it to run diesel engines. Dahiya did not even know what to call his invention. In 2001, NIF scouted him and provided commercialization support. He has sold over 80 units of varied capacity and the latest version of the biomass gasifier is made of steel. It has the capacity to produce 1 kilowatt power to run an engine for 1 h from 1 kg of biowaste.

Dahiya has come a long way from extreme poverty to now owning property, which is a three-story building having his shops on the ground floor. He himself is illiterate and worked hard to ensure that his three children get education.

My eldest daughter is doing PhD. My younger daughter has completed MBA and my son is doing BBA. - Dahiya (translated from personal interviews)

Innovation case 5: multipurpose processing machine

Dharamveer Kamboj hails from a poor farmer family in the northern part of rural India. He studied in school until the 10th grade and then started assisting his father. Overburdened with loans, he decided to go to the nearby metropolitan city Delhi and work as a rickshaw puller to earn some money. He worked there for 2 years but had to return back to his village after meeting with an accident. He was bedridden for months and his family faced severe hardships. After recovering, he thought about growing medicinal herbs in his farm and visited the horticulture department in a small city called Ajmer in India. He had heard that there was a need for herbal plants during his stay in Delhi. Kamboj started with plants like aloe vera and stilia and built a small nursery.

Then came the problem of processing these herbal plants. He knew that there was a demand for aloe vera gel and he could make money by extracting and processing the aloe vera gel. But Kamboj did not have the money to buy the expensive machines existing in the market. Additionally, these machines could not carry out multiple functions that he wanted. Kamboj thought about building a processing machine something on the lines of a food processer which would not only extract pulp or juice from the plants that he was growing but also convert them into powder form. He borrowed money and struggled for 8 months in designing and building the machine. In 2005, he was able to build the first prototype. He took help of a local factory for fabrication and welding.

NIF scouted and helped commercialize his product. GIAN assisted Kamboj in product design improvement. Kamboj has made several changes in product design and the latest version is capable of extracting oil and juice from various herbs, fruits and vegetables. It can also work as pulp extractor, dry grinder, boiler, or sterilizer. It can be used to boil rice, make ketchup or puree from tomatoes, or make dry powder from spices or fruits. It can also be used to extract ripe mango pulp without breaking the seeds. Kamboj now earns a decent income per month that enables him to live comfortably and provide education to his children. He also provides employment to more than 25 people from the village in his manufacturing unit.

Cross-case analysis

Rq1: why do rural users innovate.

The common aspect found in all the five case studies was that the user innovators were poor and professionally dissatisfied. They had experienced hardships due to poverty in their lives. In case studies of Patel, Jagani, and Kamboj, we find that they innovated to automate a manual process that was time-consuming and laborious. Four case studies also reveal that the users innovated to fulfill a necessity for a low-cost solution as compared to the existing products in the market. For instance, Dahiya innovated a biofuel because the diesel was expensive, Jagni innovated a motorcycle-driven plough because tractors were very expensive, Prajapati innovated a mitticool fridge because existing market refrigerator unaffordable, and Kamboj innovated the multipurpose machine because the existing machines were expensive and offered limited functionality. However, Patel's need to innovate was driven by desire to alleviate drudgery of the manual cotton stripping process.

RQ2: how did the rural users innovate?

In this question, we tried to study the process of rural user innovation. We find that the users were well aware of their local need and the constraints of their environment. This drives them to develop an idea of a product. For example, Patel got an idea to build a machine for stripping cotton, Prajapati got an idea to build a clay-based refrigerator, Jagni got an idea to attach ploughing implements to a motorcycle, Dahiya thought of using the gas produced in his kiln, and Kamboj got an idea to build a machine on the lines of a food processor. The next step in the innovation process was to seek financial help to build the product, as all of them were poor. They primarily relied on informal means of obtaining finance either from family members or friends. All of them had little or no educational backgrounds and were not conversant with the process of obtaining financial support from financial institutions. Additionally, they had no collateral to submit to banks. After acquiring financial support from informal sources, they built an initial working prototype.

RQ3: how did rural users commercialize their products and become entrepreneurs?

The rural user innovators initially developed the product to meet their individual need but also thought about its commercial viability mainly to earn some money. They start using their product and show its use to other people living in their rural community. The rural innovators also tried to sell their product but were not able to successfully participate in the market and experienced a chasm. They tried to pick up business skills while on-the-job primarily through experiential learning. External organizations like NIF helped these rural innovators and they received financial support, without collateral, from NIF's Micro Venture Fund. They also receive marketing, intellectual property rights (IPR), and business development support through NIF and its partner organizations like GIAN, SRISTI, and Honey Bee network. Four rural user innovators, namely, Patel, Jagani, Dahiya, and Kamboj, received product design and development support from premier educational institutions in India with the help of NIF. As a result, they are able to improve their products and build technologically better commercial prototypes. With support from external institutions, they are able to sell the final product to more number of customers from different geographic locations in India. Some user entrepreneurs also sell their products in international markets like Dahiya received queries for his biomass gasifier from Africa, Germany, Singapore, and Pakistan. Prajapati has exported his mitticool refrigerator to Nairobi in Africa. Kamboj has exported his multipurpose processing machine to Kenya and has queries from Ethiopia.

RQ4: what is the impact on the individual rural entrepreneur?

We find that the five rural user entrepreneurs not only experience economic but also social gains. All the five rural entrepreneurs are able to generate livelihood for themselves and earn money by selling their products. All of them report that by becoming an entrepreneur they have been able to move out of poverty. In four cases, we also see increased productivity and efficiency of work. For instance, Patel reported his cotton stripper brought down cotton stripping cost from US$ 0.02 per kg to US$ 0.02 per 20 kg. All the five user entrepreneurs state that their entrepreneurial career has impacted them at a personal level. It has helped build self-confidence and has instilled a sense of self-respect. They proudly report that their community also respects them now as they have received national level recognition through awards and media coverage. All of them report that their standard of living has improved and they are now able to provide school and college education to their children.

RQ5: what is the impact of rural entrepreneurship on society or local community?

Through this research question we tried to explore whether there was any spillover effect of their entrepreneurial career on the society at large. We find that the creation of entrepreneurs, in our case rural user entrepreneurs, offers economic, social, and environmental gains for the society. Specifically, we find that customers get access to low-cost products like the mitticool refrigerator or the motorcycle-driven plough or low-cost biofuel. Two user entrepreneurs, namely, Patel and Kamboj, report their customers have experienced economic gains as reduced cost of production after using their machines. After analyzing the interview data of user entrepreneurs and the NIF chairman, we find that there is also a society-level impact like employment generation, improving quality of life for the poor, health benefits, and building a sense of pride in the community of the user entrepreneur. For example, Kamboj provides employment to 25 rural villagers in his small factory. Further, many rural women who bought Kamboj's machine have generated employment for themselves by processing and selling herbal products from their homes. Mitticool refrigerators offer cold water and food storage options to the poor. The cotton stripper offers health benefits by eliminating the harmful manual procedure traditionally used for cotton stripping.

All the five user entrepreneurs state that there has been a development of social pride within their communities. In one case, we find that the user entrepreneur has brought about change in their community, for instance, Kamboj states that there has been a parivartan ki lahar meaning ‘a wave of change’ that has enabled self-employment in whichever village his machine has reached. Finally, two case studies also reveal environmental benefits in the form of ecofriendly products like biofuel and clay-based natural refrigerators.

Towards a framework of rural user innovation and entrepreneurship in India

In this section, we discuss the findings of our study in the light of literature on user innovation theory and posit a framework of rural user innovation and entrepreneurship in India (see Figure  1 ). As discussed earlier, prior literature suggests that user innovation is driven by in-house use benefits (von Hippel 1988 , 2005 ). Prior literature also indicates that innovators develop their innovation using primarily the information and resources they have (Luthje et al. 2005 ). Prior literature on user entrepreneurship indicates that users innovate for their own use and only later discover the commercial possibilities in their products (Shah and Tripsas 2007 ). Finally, prior literature indicates that ‘lead’ users - those ahead of an important market trend - will tend to innovate (von Hippel 1986 ).

Results summary: framework of rural user innovation and entrepreneurship in India.

In our case studies, we observed that these factors hold in the case of rural innovators in India. The innovators' need for a low-cost solution or alleviating drudgery of their lives was their key driver for innovation. In other words, necessity is indeed the mother of invention in the case of rural user innovators. These are proposed as antecedent conditions/factors for rural user innovation in our model of rural user innovation and entrepreneurship in India (see Figure  1 ).

Driven by these antecedent factors, the rural user innovates and develops a product. His understanding of the local environment and its constraints shapes the product development process. Most of the rural innovators did not have any formal education or training; yet, it is this familiarity with their environment that enabled them to develop local solutions. They understand the needs as well as the constraints of the communities and its environment. This is in concurrence with the finding of Lujthe et al. ( 2005 ) where they suggest that user innovators mostly use ‘local’ information both for determining the need for and for developing solutions for their innovations. Lujthe and von Hippel (2006) define local information as knowledge already in possession of the innovators or the innovators themselves have generated it.

Next, we find that some of these innovations are built on existing products that are meant for purposes other than what the original product was meant for, like Jagni modified a motorcycle for use as a farm ploughing machine. This transformation is not unique to rural user innovations as prior literature also reports transformations in other cases of user innovation. The shooting films in video games (Haefliger et al. 2010 ) and the transformation of a phonograph turntable from a playback device into a musical instrument (Faulkner and Runde 2009 ) in its own right are examples of similar innovations with technological transformations.

The antecedent factors drive the user to conceptualize the idea for an innovative solution and the user now initiates the process of developing the user innovation (Figure  1 ). The process of rural user innovation is an interplay of local knowledge and innovative transformations in order to seek solutions for local problems and alleviate drudgery. The rural user tries to overcome his constraints by seeking financial and moral support from family and friends. This is represented as enabling factors for rural user innovation in the model. It is import to note that at this stage, the rural user is dependent only on his informal network for support. His low educational background, poor financial conditions, and limited knowledge on how to seek finance from financial institutions limit him to reach out to only his informal network for innovation development support.

In our five cases, the innovators were lead users with respect to the important general trend - driven by ‘bottom of the pyramid’ demand - for extremely low-cost solutions. In each case we studied, expensive solutions existed in the marketplace for the needs each experienced - but in each case, the rural innovators were too poor to purchase these solutions. In addition, given their poverty, the solutions were not appropriately designed to suit their needs. Thus, commercial tractors did exist which could perform the same task as the Jagni-modified motorcycle, which he developed as a farm ploughing machine. Similarly, commercial gas and electric refrigerators do exist which could perform the same task as Prajapati's evaporative cooling clay refrigerator. The innovations that these five entrepreneurs developed performed the functions of existing products - but filled a leading-edge marketplace demand in the sense of being well ahead on the dimension of low cost.

Going forward, having a good and useful innovation does not necessarily translate into an entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship literature suggests that to be an entrepreneurial individual, one needs to possess certain core human attributes (Shane 2003 ) like willingness to bear uncertainty (Kihlstrom and Laffont 1979 ), tolerance for ambiguity (Schere 1982 ), or need for achievement (McClelland 1961 ). We find in our case studies that the rural user innovators kept on trying despite their difficult living and working conditions. They all wanted to alleviate drudgery of their lives by innovating. In other words, as an individual, they all were willing to take risk and face uncertainty. They kept on trying even after losing money or their personal belongings like their house as seen in the case of Prajapati.

Further, if we look at the traditional model of new product development, we find that it is a process that starts with the generation of ideas, which undergoes a number of iterations and finally lead to the commercial launch of new products (Cooper and Kleinschmidt 1993 ; Cooper 1996 ; Fox et al. 1998 ). This is in line with the findings from all our case studies. We find that the rural user develops an idea and initiates the process of user innovation by building a prototype or initial product, which undergoes a series of changes before it could be commercialized. The cotton stripper was modified seven times over a period of 10 years. The motorcycle-driven plough, biomass gasifier, mitticool refrigerator, and multicrop thresher were all modified multiple times during the commercialization process.

Our case studies also reveal that rural innovators had poor understanding of obtaining formal finance from financial institutions, little exposure to the world at large, and limited technical know-how to make advanced product design modifications. As a result, there existed a chasm, which they had to overcome in order to bring their product to market and achieve profitable sales. This chasm or void was filled by the external organizations who not only provide financial support but also other forms of support, which is required to commercialize a product. Our finding is contrary to the finding of Lettl et al. ( 2006 ) where they report that users of medical equipment technology are not only inventors but also codevelopers. These advanced users play an entrepreneurial role and themselves organize the required innovation networks to commercialize their products. In our case studies, we find that the rural users are able to organize only informal innovation networks for seeking finance and resources to build their initial product. Due to their educational and financial backgrounds, they are unable to organize formal innovation networks to grow and achieve sales in markets outside their immediate community/village. Thus, a void or a chasm impedes their market participation and some form of external institutional support is required to enable participation in larger markets.

The literature on institutional voids also suggests that in many developing economies, formal institutional arrangements that support markets are absent, weak, or fail to achieve stated goals (Mair and Marti 2009 ). The biggest challenge for developing economies like India is to enable participation of the poor in markets. Puffer et al. ( 2010 ) used institutional theory to study entrepreneurship in China and Russia. They report slow development of efficient and legitimate formal institutions in Russia and China resulting in institutional voids. These entrepreneurs mainly relied on informal institutional arrangements of their trusted networks to fill the void of formal institutions. In our case studies, we also find that the rural users sought help from their informal network of family and friends. This is clearly different from the case of entrepreneurs from developed economies who operate with relatively higher certainty under effective formal institutions.

We find that external actors played an enabling role in product commercialization in our case studies. All the five rural user innovators took help from external organizations such as NIF, GIAN, SRISTI, and educational institutions in India such as IIT and others. Specifically, they got financial support, marketing and business development support, and IPR-related services from these external organizations. Therefore, in our model, we posit that the support provided by external actors like the government, non-government organizations, educational institutions, and private sector organizations act as critical enabling factors that can help the rural user entrepreneur cross the chasm by acquiring the required resources and skills to commercialize their product. This is a two-way interaction wherein the rural user entrepreneur primarily seeks financial support, but these external actors like NIF scout the rural innovator and extend not only financial but also marketing, business development, and legal support. We also posit that the rural user innovator is able to commercialize his product and become a user entrepreneur only when he possesses some individual level entrepreneurial traits like bearing risk and trying to build product prototypes despite all constrains (Figure  1 ).

After the commercialization of an innovation, the economic benefits for the entrepreneur are well documented (Wennekers and Thurik 1999 ; Van Praag and Versloot 2008 ). We found this to be true in our cases as they all were able to move out of poverty. In addition to the economic benefits, we found that there was a positive social impact on the lives of these rural user entrepreneurs. The user entrepreneurs enjoyed social recognition and also experienced greater self-esteem, social respect, and acceptability. For example, Patel's social acceptability took a dramatic turn with the success of his entrepreneurial venture. He was initially critiqued as a failure but after his entrepreneurial pursuit he became the ‘pride of his community.’ Furthermore, coverage of such stories by television channels like Discovery or NDTV increased confidence and self-esteem in rural user entrepreneurs.

In addition to the impact at an individual level, rural user entrepreneurship is likely to make a significant impact at the society or community level. The products innovated and commercialized for the rural level improve the users' quality of life by having access to products that are usually considered as basic necessities in developed economies. In addition, the commercialization of innovated products may also provide health benefits in the form of reduced harmful impacts as seen in the case of cotton stripper machine and the nonstick clay tawa . The use of cotton stripper increased the production and improved the quality of cotton ready for ginning, which increased profitability. This suggests that the increased efficiency and productivity with the use of the product also leads to the economic prosperity of its users. Instances of such cross-pollination would be in line with the suggestions of World Bank's published research (Dutz 2007 ) on increasing India's innovation potential. The report suggests that supporting networks and institutions like NIF and others can promote grassroots level rural innovations, which are likely to assist in poverty alleviation and sustainable development (Utz and Dahlman 2007 ).

As seen in the case of Prajapati, individuals who may have been considered ordinary on becoming successful can be a ‘source of pride’ for their community. On the whole, this sense of social pride is likely to lead to a feeling of well-being in communities. Furthermore, the products of rural user entrepreneurs can also offer environmental benefits and can possibly offer sustainable solutions for future generations. The case study of Prajapati's mitticool clay products and Dahiya's biomass gasifier discussed earlier is an example of environmental friendly products.

To conclude, in our framework, we suggest that antecedent conditions motivate rural users to initiate the process of rural user innovation. This rural user innovator is likely to commercialize his products and become a rural user entrepreneur with the help of enabling factors. Moving forward, rural user entrepreneurship is likely to have an individual level as well as societal/community level impact.

Conclusions

Implications for research, practice, and policy.

Innovation is seen as crucial vehicle for increasing India's growth and helping reduce poverty and rising living standards (Dutz 2007 ). Nearly 90% of India's workforce is employed in the informal sector, which is typically characterized by low productivity and low-skill activities, and about 60% is employed in the informal agriculture sector. India would benefit from encouraging rural level innovation by promoting creative efforts by the poor (Utz and Dahlman 2007 ). To overcome institutional voids in developing countries like India, there is a need to create and strengthen formal institutional arrangements that can support rural level innovation and entrepreneurship.

We studied cases of five rural user entrepreneurs using the case study research method. From our findings and cross-case analysis, we posit a framework which suggests that rural user innovation is likely to occur when there is a strong desire to alleviate drudgery and a need to fulfill a necessity for a low-cost local solution. Further, we suggest that rural users experience a chasm/void and the commercialization of their product is more likely to occur with the help of enabling factors, such as individuals (like friends and family) and external institutions (like the government and non-government organizations, educational institutions, and private sector organizations).

In addition to the economic benefits to the entrepreneur, we also found that there was a positive social impact on the lives of the rural user entrepreneurs. The rural user entrepreneurs enjoyed social recognition, experienced greater self-esteem, social respect, and acceptability. Further, rural user innovation and entrepreneurship is likely to make an impact at the community/society level also. The increased efficiency and productivity with the use of the product is likely to lead to the economic prosperity for its user community. The users of such products are likely to experience improved quality of life by gaining access to affordable low-cost products meeting their local needs. Further, some of these products can also offer health benefits in the form of reduced harmful impacts of existing products/methods as seen in the case of Patel's cotton stripping machine.

Overall, our study contributes to the growing area of user innovation and entrepreneurship. It extends the applicability of user innovation theory in the context of developing economies like India. However, our findings need to be supplemented with large-scale quantitative studies to draw generalizations. In particular, policymakers can help promote entrepreneurship in rural areas by creating innovative mechanisms and institutional arrangements that facilitate rural entrepreneur's participation in markets.

We followed Yin ( 2003 ) for our case research design and Miles and Huberman ( 1994 ) for analyzing the qualitative data.

Sample and data collection

We began our study with an online search for data on user innovation and entrepreneurship in rural India. This led us to online databases and websites of four nodal organizations for rural innovations in India, namely, National Innovation Foundation (NIF), Honeybee Network, Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI), and Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN). We crosschecked the applicability of these databases for our study with four academic experts in India.

We found that these organizations maintain a database of grassroots innovations and related activities. As part of the documentation, the members of Honey Bee network go on shodh yatras , which is a ‘journey of exploration’ to scout for innovations from rural India (Gupta 2006 ). They meet villagers, farmers, and artisans individually and prepare a report on their experiences. Finally, they create a documentation of the scouted innovation, which is maintained in an electronic database.

For data collection, first we used the online databases of NIF, SRISTI, Honey Bee, and GIAN to create our sampling frame, as they have an exhaustive list of rural innovations listed in its database since year 2000. Some examples of these rural innovations include agricultural machinery, food-processing machinery, bamboo-processing machinery, dairy machinery, handlooms and textile-related devices, and herbal products. NIF has tried to file over 550 patents on behalf of its listed innovators. Out of this, 35 patents have been granted in India and 4 have been granted in USA. NIF has Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF), which has provided capital to 178 projects.

Next, we searched for cases of rural innovators who had turned into entrepreneurs. Using the user innovation theory, our selection criterion for a case of user innovation and entrepreneurship was whether the fundamental definition of user innovator was applicable to that case. In other words, we checked whether the rural user entrepreneur initially invented the product for his or her own use and then commercialized the product. We selected five entrepreneurs who had received commercialization support from NIF and/or GIAN. Our sampling was purposive and we do acknowledge that there could be other instances of rural user entrepreneurs in India. Our sample, even though purposive, had a potential to offer rich insights to lay the foundation for future research in this area.

Our unit of analysis or the ‘case’ was an individual user entrepreneur, and we used the multiple-case design (Yin 2003 , pp. 41). We conducted total 11 personal interviews. Eight in-depth personal interviews were conducted in the Indian national language ‘Hindi’ as the respondents were not conversant in English. Two in-depth interviews were conducted in a regional language ‘Gujarati’ with the help of a translator. The final interview with the NIF chairman was conducted in English. Before starting the interview process, we created an interview guide based on our research questions. The sub-questions and supporting probes were also written in the interview guide to facilitate the flow of the interview. The interview guide was translated in the local language wherever required. The interviews were tape-recorded. They were later translated and transcribed in English.

Each case of the rural user entrepreneur was used to understand why he invented the X product, how he invented the X product, how he commercialized the X product and became an entrepreneur (with probes on understanding the process and enabling factors), what was its impact on him at a personal level, and was there an impact of his entrepreneurial work on the society/his local community. The interview guide used for interview with the chairman of NIF was modified to understand the larger picture of rural innovation and entrepreneurship in India. For instance, the question ‘How did you commercialize the X product?’ was modified to ‘How did the innovators listed in NIF database commercialize their products? What was the role of NIF and other organizations in this process?’ These questions explored the impact and outcome of NIF's work at a national level.

Data reduction and coding

To begin with, we created high-level categories or codes deductively from user innovation and entrepreneurship theory to explore our research questions wherein codes were developed for user background, user innovation, enablers for innovation, user entrepreneurship, enablers for user entrepreneurship, and outcome of user entrepreneurship. These codes were further refined inductively using the data collected through personal interviews. The list of codes with few examples from translated interview transcripts is included in Table 2 of the paper.

Multiple sources of data and triangulation

Yin ( 2003 ) emphasizes that the strength of case study is in using a variety of evidence ranging from documents, reports, interviews, and observations. To strengthen our case study, we used a variety of evidence for data triangulation, which helped validate information from the interviews (Maxwell 1996 ). Our study includes primary data from personal interviews and secondary data from various sources like national level databases, company documents, reports, newspapers, and Internet sources (see Table 3 ). After each interview, we created individual case memos summarizing the interview. The primary data for each interview was triangulated with secondary data available from different sources listed in Table 3 . Finally, we then created individual case summaries from the triangulated data.

Baldwin, C, & Von Hippel, E. (2011). Modeling a paradigm shift: from producer innovation to user and open collaborative innovation. Organization Science, 22 (6), 1399–1417.

Article   Google Scholar  

Baldwin, C, Hienerth, C, & von Hippel, E. (2006). How user innovations become commercial products: a theoretical investigation and case study. Research Policy, 35 (9), 1291–1313.

Bruton, GD, Ahlstrom, D, & Obloj, K. (2008). Entrepreneurship in emerging economies: where are we today and where should the research go in the future. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 32 (1), 1–14.

Chandra, Y, & Coviello, N. (2010). Broadening the concept of international entrepreneurship: ‘consumers as international entrepreneurs’. Journal of World Business, 45 (3), 228–236.

Cooper, RG. (1996). Overhauling the new product process. Industrial Marketing Management, 25 (6), 465–482.

Cooper, RG, & Kleinschmidt, EJ. (1993). Screening new products for potential winners. Long Range Planning, 26 (6), 74–82.

Dutz, MA (Ed). (2007). Unleashing India's innovation: toward sustainable and inclusive growth . Washington D.C.: World Bank Publications.

Enos, JL. (1962). Petroleum progress and profits: a history of process innovation . Cambridge: MIT Press.

Google Scholar  

Faulkner, P, & Runde, J. (2009). On the identity of technological objects and user innovations in function. Academy of Management Review, 34 (3), 442–462.

Fox, J, Gann, R, Shur, A, von Glahn, L, & Zaas, B. (1998). Process uncertainty: a new dimension for new product development. Engineering Management Journal, 10 (3), 19–27.

Franz, K. (2005). Tinkering: consumers reinvent the early automobile : Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Freeman, C. (1968). Chemical process plant: innovation and the world market. National Institute Economic Review, 45 (August), 29–51.

Gupta, AK. (2006). From sink to source: the Honey Bee Network documents indigenous knowledge and innovations in India. Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 1 (3), 49–66.

Haefliger, S, Jager, P, & Von Krogh, G. (2010). Under the radar: industry entry by user entrepreneurs. Research Policy, 39 (9), 1198–1213.

Hienerth, C. (2006). The commercialization of user innovations: the development of the rodeo kayak industry. R&D Management, 36 (3), 273–294.

Khanna, T, & Palepu, KG. (2010). Winning in emerging markets: a road map for strategy and execution . Cambridge MA: Harvard Business Press.

Kihlstrom, RE, Laffont, JJ. (1979). A general equilibrium entrepreneurial theory of firm formation based on risk aversion. The Journal of Political Economy , 719–748.

Knight, KE. (1963). A fast sort of country: a study of technological innovation: the evolution of digital computers. Graduate School of Industrial Administration . Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute of Technology.

Kumar, S. (2008). Cotton dust - impact on human health and environment in the textile industry. Textile Magazine, January. http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/9/831/cotton-dust-impact-on-human-health-and-environment-in-the-textile-industry2.asp . Accessed 8 June 2012.

Lettl, C, Herstatt, C, & Gemuenden, HG. (2006). Users' contributions to radical innovation: evidence from four cases in the field of medical equipment technology. R&D Management, 36 (3), 251–272.

Luthje, C, Herstatt, C, & von Hippel, E. (2005). User-innovators and ‘local’ information: the case of mountain biking. Research Policy, 34 (6), 951–965.

Mair, J, & Marti, I. (2009). Entrepreneurship in and around institutional voids: a case study from Bangladesh. Journal of Business Venturing, 24 (5), 419–435.

Mair, J, Marti, I, & Ventresca, MJ. (2012). Building inclusive markets in rural Bangladesh: how intermediaries work institutional voids. Academy of Management Journal, 55 (4), 819–850.

Maxwell, JA. (1996). Qualitative research design: an interactive approach . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

McClelland, D. (1961). The achieving society . New York: The Free Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Miles, MB, Huberman, AM. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook . Sage

Mody, CCM. (2006). Corporations, universities, and instrumental communities: commercializing probe microscopy, 1981–1996. Technology and Culture, 47 (1), 56–80.

Pavitt, K. (1984). Sectoral patterns of technical change: towards a taxonomy and a theory. Research Policy, 13 (6), 343–373.

PTI (Press Trust of India). (2011). 70% Indians live in rural areas: census. Business Standard . http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/70-indians-live-in-rural-areas-census/141379/on . Accessed 15 March 2012

Puffer, SM, McCarthy, DJ, & Boisot, M. (2010). Entrepreneurship in Russia and China: the impact of formal institutional voids. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 34 (3), 441–467.

Saemundsson, R, & von Hippel, E. (2010). Entrepreneurship by user-innovators: how prevalent is it and how do their attitudes and aspirations differ from other entrepreneurs? (interactive paper). Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 30 (6), Article 20.

Schere, J. (1982). Tolerance of ambiguity as a discriminating variable between entrepreneurs and managers. Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, 42 , 404–408.

Shah, SK, & Tripsas, M. (2007). The accidental entrepreneur: the emergent and collective process of user entrepreneurship. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1 , 123–140.

Shah, S, Agarwal, R, & Audretsch, D. (2006). The knowledge context & the entrepreneurial process: Academic, user, and employee entrepreneurship. Working Papers .

Shane, SA. (2003). A general theory of entrepreneurship: the individual-opportunity nexus : Edward Elgar Pub.

Utterback, JM. (1994). Mastering the dynamics of innovation : Harvard Business Press.

Utz, A, & Dahlman, C. (2007). Promoting inclusive innovation. In MA Dutz (Ed.), Unleashing India's innovation: toward sustainable and inclusive growth (p. 105). Washington, DC: World Bank.

Van Praag, M, & Versloot, P. (2008). The economic benefits and costs of entrepreneurship: a review of the research. Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 4 (2), 65–154.

Venkataraman, S. (1997). The distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research. Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, 3 (1), 119–138.

von Hippel, E. (1976). The dominant role of users in the scientific instrument innovation process. Research Policy, 5 (3), 212–239.

von Hippel, E. (1986). Lead users: a source of novel product concepts. Management Science, 32 (7), 791–805.

von Hippel, E. (1988). The sources of innovation . New York: Oxford University Press.

von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing Innovation : the MIT Press.

Wennekers, S, & Thurik, R. (1999). Linking entrepreneurship and economic growth. Small Business Economics, 13 (1), 27–56.

Yin, RK. (2003). Case study research: design and methods . Sage.

Download references

Acknowledgements

We greatly acknowledge the support provided by the Fulbright Foundation -USIEF, Prof. Iqbal Z. Quadir and MIT's Legatum Center for conducting this study. We are thankful to Prof. Eric von Hippel and Prof. Susan Silbey of MIT for their review and continuous guidance while writing this paper. We would like to thank all the respondents - Mr. Patel, Mr. Prajapati, Mr. Jagani, Mr. Dahiya, and Mr. Kamboj for their participation in our research study. We are also thankful to Dr. R.A. Mashelkar and Prof. Anil Gupta for their support and input.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Strategy and Policy Area, IRMA, Anand, Gujarat, 388001, India

Vanita Yadav

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Shankar Chowk Road, Gurgaon, Haryana, 122002, India

Preeti Goyal

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vanita Yadav .

Additional information

Competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributions

VY conceived the research and worked on it during a Fulbright funded research fellowship year at MIT. Both VY and PG together worked on the paper, PG collected primary data from innovators, and VY collected primary data from chairman. Both VY and PG collected secondary data and analysed the primary and secondary data. Both drafted and coordinated the paper. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 ), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Yadav, V., Goyal, P. User innovation and entrepreneurship: case studies from rural India. J Innov Entrep 4 , 5 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13731-015-0018-4

Download citation

Received : 29 October 2014

Accepted : 03 February 2015

Published : 22 April 2015

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13731-015-0018-4

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• User innovation
• Entrepreneurship
• Rural innovation
• Developing country

June 12, 2020

• Innovations in a Self-Reliant India

• ARTICLES & BLOGS

COVID-19 is having an unprecedented impact on the economy, disrupting various sectors and business units. To help the economy recover, strengthen supply chains across industries, and promote domestic production, the government has announced an INR 20 lakh crore economic package under the Aatmnirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. The mission is to make India self-reliant in key economic sectors and improve resilience to future geo-economic shocks. While the package targets a wide array of sectors, a few key ones especially lend themselves to innovations and widespread participation by the MSME and startup ecosystem of the country . 

•  Healthcare

COVID-19 has acquainted India to the fact that domestic innovators can develop high quality healthcare solutions at par with global competitors. Moreover, these solutions are usually adapted for local conditions and are significantly more affordable. 

Indian innovators felt a strong pull effect due to the need to fulfill a nationwide demand for high quality and affordable healthcare solutions spanning Diagnostics/ Tests, Personnel Protective Equipment, Critical Care Equipment/ Ventilators, Cold Storage for Transportation, and Recuperative/ Assistive devices to fight the pandemic. This urgent pull effect coupled with the lack of global supplies due to restrictions and lockdowns, and nimble action by stakeholders ranging from regulatory authorities (ICMR and CDSCO), venture capital ecosystem (100 crore ACT Grants Fund), institutions (Invest India, Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India) and innovators (startups, researchers) enabled a rapid launch of products and services for use by citizens. In fact, the record expansion of the PPE manufacturing industry in India, from almost non-existent local production to now the world’s 2nd largest producer, producing more than 5 lakh PPEs per day, is a clear indication of India’s untapped potential. 

The COVID-19 pandemic should be taken as a template to streamline operational processes and build preparedness for such future pandemics. For an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India), the government is focusing on primary healthcare and improved facilities at grassroots health institutions. Steps are also being discussed to enable preparedness for future pandemics such as separate hospital blocks for infectious diseases and stronger and integrated lab networks. The blueprint for the National Digital Health Mission will be expedited for a better use of technology in the healthcare services. This creates prospects for R&D, and the opportunity for India to become a leader in digital health services globally . 

Apart from telemedicine and digital hospital/ patient management, some other areas of opportunity include early stage detection and monitoring of diseases, AI/ ML for testing, triaging and monitoring patients, medical robotics, low cost medical equipment transportation for bio-specimen, and mental health support. 

•  Agriculture/ Food Processing  

A large proportion of the Indian population is dependent on agriculture , the majority of which is made up of small and medium farmers. There is tremendous potential for agri-tech startups to enhance rural livelihoods and reduce costs associated with climatic uncertainties and traditional farming practices. To enable this, financial credits/ concessional loans have been provided as a part of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan to boost crop management, repayment, efficiency of rural banks, and infrastructure development. Advancements in technologies which can improve the quality of agricultural produce such as IOT/ analytics/ blockchain for climate intelligence, forecasting solutions, machine learning to identify crop stages, artificial intelligence to reduce crop wastage, soil health monitoring, plant image recognition, geospatial tracking, and sustainable packing, can help achieve this goal. 

Moreover, an Agricultural Infrastructure Fund of INR 1 lakh crore has also been set up for cold chain and post-harvest management infrastructure. This presents opportunities for innovative solutions for cold chain storage and supply chain management for pre- and post-harvest crops.

Furthermore, to enable serving of the increasing demand for organic products in urban areas with people willing to pay a premium for quality-assured food, a separate INR 10,000 crore scheme has been set up to support Micro Food Enterprises (MFEs) attain FSSAI food standards, build brands, and integrate with retail markets. This will further help India reach untapped export markets.  

Even animal husbandry has been targeted for improvement wherein the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund of INR 15,000 crore for private dairy processing and management presents opportunities for innovations targeted at cattle disease management and intelligent livestock tracking. An additional INR 20,000 crore has been allocated for fishermen with an aim to increase fish production, employment, and export. This will enable fledgling startups working on innovations for water quality testing, water treatment, AI monitoring of aquafauna to flourish.  

The Cabinet’s decision to allow formers to sell directly through e-trading platforms to entities of their choice instead of being confined to state mandis is another gamechanger. This will enable contract farming and inter-state trade. However, breakthroughs are needed in areas of transportation, logistics, and digital access and payments to enable widespread prosperity. Thus, focus must be on production, distribution, and management of food i.e., the complete agricultural value chain.

 •  Education

The pandemic has caused educational institutions to suspend attendance, delay examinations and hurriedly identify online learning tools since students are restricted to their homes. To enable innovation, the National Education Policy is announced to be modified to be more technology oriented. The government has also launched the PM e-Vidya Program with the objective of educating students through digital platforms. Some highlights include Diksha platform for e-content and QR coded energized book for all the classes, TV channel for classes 1st to 12th, radio podcasts/ special e-content for virtually and hearing impaired, and permission to top 100 universities to start online courses from May 30, 2020 onwards.  Digital learning has tremendous scope otherwise as well and has been gaining popularity over the years, to augment regular educational channels. The current pandemic has only accelerated the pace of technology adoption in this sector. 

The focus on virtual education creates opportunities for AR/ VR for customized learning, systems for conducting remote exams, innovative tools for attendance monitoring, gamification, adaptive learning, low cost hardware for distance learning, mental health support for teachers and students, and upgradation of teachers’ skills to adapt to digital education.  

While most private institutions across the globe are being able to conduct classes and examinations online, India is facing issues due to a digital divide. Although India is the 2nd largest online market in the world, students belonging to rural areas, remote districts and economically backward families lack the resources to a fast-digital world. Thus, this not only highlights the role of telecom services in the education sector but also underlines the most crucial sector for India– Infrastructure.

•  Infrastructure 

To meet the target of $ 5 Trillion economy by 2025, be self-sufficient, become a global manufacturing hub , growth of infrastructure is key.

The National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) is a major step with investments over INR 100 lakh crore to be made by the government to build world-class infrastructural facilities. With 65 per cent of India’s population residing in rural areas, rural infrastructure needs to be upgraded to ensure basic amenities to rural population. Seeing the plight of migrant workers, the state governments have been permitted to use the state disaster response fund, funded by the Centre, for setting up shelters for migrants and providing them with food and water. Further, Cluster Upgradation Scheme (IIUS) is to be implemented in states for industrial cluster upgradation of common infrastructure facilities and connectivity. 

Infrastructure ranging from physical structures to digital highways attract innovations in a wide range of areas– construction materials for roads and railways, green buildings, smart energy meters, building management system, waste and water treatment, predictive maintenance/ IOT, telecommunications, sensors, security solutions for airports, consignment tracking for shipments, AI for work-flow management, and drone surveillance. It is critical to implement these and other solutions at-scale to mitigate the nation’s infrastructure deficiencies and enable other sectors of the economy to flourish.

Innovation will have a major role in accelerating India’s growth story. The uncertainty created by the pandemic and the allocation of the relief package for an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, presents opportunities for innovative disruptions across sectors. However, the nation can leverage its existing skill and innovation base in Healthcare, Agriculture, Education, and Infrastructure, to help fast-track the creation of a resilient, self-sufficient ‘New India’.

#Covid_19  

We are India's national investment facilitation agency.

For further queries on this subject, please get in touch with us @Invest India. Raise your query