Meet Jugaad – the secret weapon that’s swinging it for Emerging Markets

When those with Dutch Disease meet those employing Jugaad, the winner is obvious. He who is hungrier, has shining eyes and burning ambition will invariably triumph against the over-confident and over-resourced. Malcolm Gladwell's latest masterpiece, David and Goliath, offers a string of examples. And in this blog, Wits commerce student Kuvanya Pillay shares her introduction to Jugaad – and explains the workings of this unappreciated secret weapon of a billion Indians itching to compete in the globalised world. – AH    

By Kavanya Pillay*

In December 2012, I was on a student exchange programme in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I went over with a close friend of mine and classmate. The programme was to assist with an HIV/Aids awareness campaign, and university students from all over the world were part of it. It was during this trip, that I first came across the word "Jugaad". (Pronounced; "Jugaard" in Hindi.)

There were three boys studying business degrees from India participating in the same exchange programme. These boys had unfortunately been locked outside their dormitory. This had happened at about 10pm that evening and all the locksmiths were closed. Their luggage was in the room and they were stuck outside. The three of them stood outside the door, speaking to each other in rapid Hindi interspersed with even more rapid head shaking.

It was a tragic comedy, really. They would have no beds or clean clothes that evening if the door didn't open (the tragic part). They were blaming it on the poor guy who had closed the door; accusing him of locking the door from the inside and forgetting the key on the bed. The accused was denying this so profusely, with all the head inclinations, hand gestures and exasperations that I'd once seen in older Bollywood movies (this was the comedy part).

We were all standing outside watching this tragic comedy: First they tried forcing the handle open, next bashing the door open with their shoulders (like in FBI movies.) After both of these efforts one of the boys asked my friend for her hair grip.

She handed it over confused. After a few minutes of watching the boys tinker with the lock and hair grip, I finally said; "I don't think that is working out too well."

To which one of the boys said in English; "Ignore her, she wouldn't understand jugaad".

Later, once the problem had been solved, the boys explained what "Jugaad" meant: "To find a solution, without having the usual tools."

Jugaad reminded me of the Afrikaans saying; "Boer maak a plan" and I didn't think much of it, until I heard it mentioned in "The India Outlook" at Davos this year. Jugaad means resourcefulness, it's finding a solution with limited resources, and as Nikesh Arora, (Senior Vice-President and Chief Business Officer, Google, USA) said, when he was explaining Jugaad, "We (Indians) are used to solving problems with a lot of constraints and that requires a lot of resourcefulness. And what's fascinating is, if you talk to people in Silicon Valley they will tell you, that you get the best amount of innovation when there's a lot of a constraint. If you have unlimited access to resources, you're unlikely to solve the problem quickly and prioritize the right answer, because you have unlimited resources, you're going to spend a lot of time."

I contacted one of the Indian boys (Shikhar Goyal, 20), who I'd met in Malaysia, to find out more about "Jugaad".

According to Shikhar; "Jugaad is even more Indian than the holy cow is sacred to India." He grew up with the concept of jugaad, and can't recall when he was introduced to it, because it was always there.

Jugaad is obviously more common in the villages and slums of India, as this is where the most constraints exist. It involves thinking unconventionally and taking a risk with how to solve a problem. Shikhar was quick to point out that; "The poorer people here have nothing to lose, sometimes jugaad works for them but sometimes it fails, they just have to use what they have to try and better their lives. Whereas the wealthier Indians use jugaad less frequently, and more for small domestic solutions, (like lock picking with a hair grip) whereas illiterate villagers would apply jugaad when for example; inventing a means to pump water to their village or build a motorcycle from a bicycle."

Jugaad is now being used as a business model internationally. In an increasingly competitive world, innovation using the least resources to solve problems is where it's at. Not to mention, with global warming being a very serious threat, minimizing our exploitation of the Earth's resources and still being profitable is a challenge many companies face.

The authors of the book "Jugaad Innovation" list companies such as; 3M, GE, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Renault-Nissan, Facebook, Google and Siemens all using "Jugaad" in business as a way to solve problems quickly and efficiently. They've done this by reducing their research and development budgets and employing creative problem solvers. You can find out more about "Jugaad" and how the rest of the world is embracing it by clicking here.

Oh, and next time you "fix" the broken remote cover or leak in the hosepipe with duct tape, take comfort that you too are applying jugaad (and of course that's not being lazy, it's simply a solution using minimal resources.)

* Kuvanya Pillay is currently completing her Accounting honours at the University of the Witwatersrand, an amateur world traveller who has a keen interest in sustainability, humanity and numbers.