PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to assess India's potential as a lead market for cost‐effective frugal innovations. This is of special interest since lead markets have traditionally existed in economically highly developed countries, whereas developing countries have faced negative country‐of‐origin effects. In the case of India a reversal of this trend may be observed, for some time. The paper aims to identify factors which are impacting India's emerging role as a fountainhead of frugal innovations. The research will have implications for locational decisions in setting up global innovation/ research and development (R&D) activities.Design/methodology/approachThe study crystallizes the inherent characteristics of frugal innovations, their development process and market success in the domestic and overseas markets by undertaking in‐depth analysis of four successful product innovations from India from multiple industries. The obtained results can be treated as critical success factors for frugal innovations. These factors are then incorporated in the “Lead market” model so that propositions about India's potential as a lead market can be formulated.FindingsWhereas frugal innovations were so far driven primarily by affordability for the consumer and economies of scale for the manufacturer, a shift towards value proposition was discovered. Intensifying competition and growing customer aspirations are changing the character of frugal innovations and the customer is looking for factors such as attractive designs. Better‐designed products, in turn, have positive impact on the lead market potential, creating a virtuous cycle. The study also discovered that frugal innovations are increasingly taking place in “open global innovation” networks and are no more a purely national or “Jugaad” affair.Practical implicationsLead markets are a critical consideration while setting up R&D/innovation labs. Our research gives multinational corporations (MNCs) a useful instrument to assess India's lead market potential for their respective field of business. Both domestic and foreign firms can employ the model also to identify interesting adopter markets for their respective products.Social implicationThe research confirms that frugal innovations can benefit end‐consumers and firms, simultaneously. It may encourage more firms to tap markets at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Intensifying competition would potentially bring even better products for the consumers.Originality/valueLead markets have been traditionally regarded to exist ‐ almost by default ‐ only in highly developed economies. Innovations emanating from developing countries, especially from their domestic firms, have been considered to be of inferior quality. This mindset caused country‐of‐origin barriers for non‐commodity, technology‐intensive exports from developing economies. This research demonstrates that lead markets can exist even in developing economies, frugal innovations can have high technological quality, and frugal innovations are increasingly cr...

India has emerged as a vibrant and versatile source for cost effective, "disruptive innovations" of various varieties. Price-sensitive consumers in a large and growing market keep inducing firms to apply "frugal engineering" for creating affordable products and services without compromising excessively on quality. Because, as The Economist asserts: "Frugal does not mean second-rate". Such innovations are characterized by high affordability, robustness, and "good enough" quality in a volume-driven market. Resource constraints motivate firms and entrepreneurs to think out-of-thebox. The trick lies in creating solutions that are able to circumvent given environmental constraints in a cost effective way. India's large and enormously young population faced with limited budgets, but well-endowed with high aspirations, provides an ideal experiment ground for many firms. Solutions created for the Indian market are often suitable for other developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that frequently face similar socio-economic conditions. In some instances they succeed even in developed country markets by enabling significant cost reductions. This emergence as a hub for "frugal innovations" possibly suggests a "lead market" role for India.On the other hand, lead markets, as understood today, are characterized by high per capita income, great customer sophistication and high quality infrastructure. Such assumptions imply that lead markets, almost by default, can only exist in economically developed countries because only they can finance the development effort. Using two anchor-cases of product innovations aimed at pricesensitive segments in India we generate preliminary evidence to challenge some of the core assumptions of the "lead market" theory and propose that lead markets can emerge in developing countries too because market attractiveness (e.g. volume of demand, export possibilities) and technological capabilities are able to offset many other deficiencies. The supposed absence of customer sophistication is channelized into a challenge for supplier-side sophistication to design cost effective, "good enough" solutions ("low-cost, thin-margin") that can meet the aspirations of consumers in a highly competitive market. In order to master this challenge companies need access to a competent and sufficiently large technical base with first-hand knowledge of the ground situation of targeted customer groups ("social capital").

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SummaryRecent years have seen the emergence of low-cost innovations targeted at economically weaker sections of the society, seeking to align business with social welfare. In many instances, results on the ground have been, however, rather sobering as firms have generally (probably justifiably) worried that "good quality, low price" products may cannibalize into their regular business. At the same time those very customers that were intended to benefit from the new approach have tended to shy away fearing low quality and social stigma of using cheap products. Using multiple case studies of successful affordability-driven innovations ("frugal innovations") from India we investigate how firms can effectively reduce market and technology uncertainty of product innovations targeted at price-sensitive customers. The key criteria to success seem to lie in reducing the overall cost of ownership and enhancing customer perception of quality and image. The case studies reveal that affordability-driven innovations are especially successful when firms seek recourse to "open global innovation networks" (OGINs) for collaborative development in all phases of the innovation value chain.

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