Frugal innovation

About: Frugal innovation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 472 publications have been published within this topic receiving 9290 citations.

Toward a process theory of it-enabled frugal innovation: the role of organizational bricolage in koufu singapore

Abstract: As firms seek to innovate, they must undertake a bricoleur’s mindset, one that allows them to make do with the resource constraints they have in order to enact their innovation frugally. This mindset allows for the identification of resources that can be recombined and repurposed in the interest of efficiency and effectiveness. This case study of Koufu, one of Singapore’s largest food and beverage operators, seeks to explore how the underlying processes of frugal innovation can be through enacting organisational bricolage. With its findings, this research-in-progress paper hopes to present an empirically substantive stage-wise model that complements frugal innovation at the organisational level, providing practitioners with a useful source for harnessing the potential of frugal innovation. Being able to do more with less is an invaluable tool that will allow for firms to witness rapid growth, and allowing them to bring their organisational goals to life.

Dealing with non-trade-offs for frugal design

Abstract: The frugal innovation approach takes place in developing countries to develop simple but essential products for low-income population. This approach asks for careful trade-offs to target a just-enough between cost reduction and essential value of the product. In this paper, we aim at understanding how the essential value of a product is defined during early design phases, and how it guides the  just-enough between affordability and performance. Our study of five frugal products in India shows three strategies that define differently the essential values and their associated just-enough: design by aggregation, design by extension, and design by focalization. Design by focalization seems to answer frugal design issues, as it isolates the essential value in order to reduce drastically the overall cost. The introduction of the concept of Non-Trade-Offs (NTO), meaning the non-negotiable elements that guide design choices, helps understanding how to separate this essential value from additional functionalities. Our study gives new directions for both practionners and researchers towards a design for essential value, in developing countries but also in westerns countries.

Analysing frugal innovation incubation programmes: a case study from the water sector

Abstract: Perceived positive impacts of frugal innovation for sustainable global development have triggered a variety of programmes to foster such innovation. To increase the impact of these programmes, it is important to understand how they function. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for the analysis of interventions that foster frugal innovations through incubation. Drawing on relevant theories and concepts in the field of innovation and related literature, the framework is based on two major categories of factors influencing the nature and outcome of frugal innovation incubation. The first category relates to the incubation process, the second to the innovation environment. The proposed framework is applied to the case study of VIA Water, a Dutch programme to foster water innovation in African cities. The framework and the case study presented in this paper demonstrate the complexity of a frugal innovation incubation process and thus the need to take a holistic approach when designing and/or analysing related interventions. We conclude that frugal innovation incubation programmes should consider that the innovation capabilities of potential frugal innovators tend to be weaker in developing than in developed countries. Therefore, incubation programmes should devise strategies that present frugal innovators possessing local knowledge and creative ideas with a realistic chance of competing.