Teaching Sales for an Innovation's Success?

From a letter in Financial Times of Feb 3rd 2011:

"During my own executive MBA at Imperial College Business School (2008-10) there was the six-month IED (innovation, entrepreneurship and design) module – the idea behind it was to take a product or service from “just” an idea to the business plan stage. Interestingly (especially as Imperial College is in the FT top 10 for “entrepreneurship”) there was not one lesson on sales. I suggested to the course director that students should pick a product or service and during one weekend go out on the streets of London and sell as much as possible – the students would keep the money they made and the highest grades would be awarded to those who made the most money. I am yet to receive a reply."

See the article referenced here.

Ease of Doing Business and GDP growth

I previously wrote about the World Bank's "Doing Business" here. Their new report is out, the overview can be downloaded directly here. The Economist sites a study that is important to note:

"... in poor countries, a ten-day reduction in the time it takes to start a business can lead to an increase of 0.4 percentage points in GDP growth. Another shows that people who have a formal title to their property invest as much as 47% more in their businesses."

Green and Sustainable While Creating and Conducting Business

Learn From Dwellers of Dharavi (Asia's Biggest Slum) Who Know How To

I was involved in innovation related to sustainability in products and services with a hard green focus in Denmark in 2006 and early 2007 with Ms. Frederrike Kroon of MCS. Ms. Kroon's organization has developed fundamental breakthroughs in how to think about sustainability, see examples here. I can say with confidence that the Danish represent the highest level of thinking, acting and living sustainably in comparison to anywhere else in the world. Don't take my word for it, visit Denmark yourself!

Yet, due to the recent barge of the West in asking and trying to teach the East about green and living in harmony with nature, recycling, etc. including many of my friends, MBA students I have lectured, etc. I started to look back through my experiences in South Asia - to discover whether South Asia does or does not know how to recycle, to live while maximizing the value of manufactured products and returning them for reuse in new formats, etc.

Low and behold - the West, specifically the USA has a lot to learn from the East.

I would like to introduce Asia's biggest slum - Dharavi, ~430 acres in the suburbs of Mumbai, India. See details on Wikipedia here.

An article in the Economist "A Soul-Searching Business" here claims "The slum-dwellers of Dharavi are green". A quote from the article:

"Like Hindu souls, disposable plastic cups are many times reborn in Dharavi. In a spiralling continuum, they are discarded and gathered in, melted down to their polypropylene essence, and re-moulded in some new plastic form. Recycling is one of the slum's biggest industries. Thousands of tonnes of scrap plastic, metals, paper, cotton, soap and glass revolve through Dharavi each day."

See a dedicated to Dharavi website - showcasing all the small communities and commercial efforts here.

Dharavi is one example of similar communities spread across the South Asia that are hubs of innovation in business and recycling. See an excellent documentary on business there below.

I have stated before and I truly believe that "Satiated People Do Not Innovate". This has been the experience of my life. See an article from the Economist on the residents of Asia's biggest slum Dharavi thriving and creating new business out of hardship here. The article states:

"At 7am the early shift begins in Dharavi's 15,000 hutment factories. Typically, they consist of one or two jerry-built storeys, stuffed with boys and men sewing cotton, melting plastic, hammering iron and moulding clay. Indeed, it is for its industry, not its size, that Dharavi is most distinctive. The clothes, pots, toys and recycled materials its residents produce earn them millions of dollars in annual exports alone. As the sun climbs over Dharavi, a rising timpani of metal on metal, a whirring of small machinery, indicate that the working-day has begun."

See my previous post on alternate fuel based automotive in Pakistan here.