Jugaad - A Wonderful Book

Few months ago, during a casual visit to a leading book store in Bangalore, a book titled 'Jugaad' caught my attention in the 'New Arrivals' section.  Though I have come across the term 'Jugaad' (a term used to describe frugal innovation), and read few articles on the same, I had not read any book on the topic.  In the first glance itself, I could conclude that the book was a well researched one.  Moreover, the book starts with a mention of the authors' interactions with Prof. Anil Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad.  I am a big admirer of Prof. Gupta and his work on grass-root level innovations.  So, I picked up the book immediately.  Recently, I finished reading it and let me tell you my first impression was completely right.

Written by Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu and Simone Ahuja, it is a wonderful book that takes the readers through various aspects of frugal innovation.  To quote the authors, "Jugaad is a colloquial Hindi word that roughly translates as 'an innovative fix; an improvised solution born from ingenuity and cleverness'.  Juggad is quite simple, a unique way of thinking and acting in response to challenges; it is the gusty art of spotting opportunities in the most adverse circumstances and resourcefully improvising solutions using simple means" (Chapter 1, page.4).  The book is full of various stories of frugal innovation, drawn mainly from developing countries like India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Argentina etc.  In Chapter 9, quoting Paul Polak, the author of 'Out of Poverty', the authors write: '90 percent of the world's products and services are designed for 10 percent of the world's population - to meet the desires, rather than actual needs, of the richest people on earth'.  This is where the significance of Juggad lies.  It plays a crucial role in designing products to address the actual needs of the people at, what Prof. C K Prahalad calls, 'the bottom of the pyramid'.  The book identifies six principles of Jugaad and explains each one with many real life examples. The six principles are:

1. Seek opportunity in adversity
2. Do more with less
3. Think and act flexibly
4. Keep it simple
5. Include the margins
6. Follow Your Heart

In a world, where billions of dollars are spent on research and development for creating products and services aimed at the elite class or the upper middle class, Jugaad is the need of the hour.  The authors have explained the concept in the most interesting manner through simple, yet attractive style of writing.  Lot of research has gone into this book and I strongly recommend this book to all my students and friends.