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        Lab to the Market: Scaling up Innovations
 
 An innovation 
        effectively means translating an idea or invention into a good or 
        service which creates value for the customers. The mandate of the 
        Development Alternatives (DA) Group is to innovate and incubate scalable 
        solutions, models and businesses to deliver triple bottom line benefits. What is a Successful Innovation? To be called a successful innovation, Development 
        Alternatives believes that the idea must be replicable at an economical 
        cost and satisfy a particular expressed need i.e. must be demand based. 
        Innovations of course help businesses cater to a market demand but in a 
        broader social context, they help create methods for collaborations, 
        joint venturing and creation of buyers’ purchasing powers1. There is an increasingly popular viewpoint in the 
        innovation world that behaviour is the unknown variable that determines 
        the success of an innovation. We are at the end of an era that focused 
        entirely on innovations of products and services and transitioning to an 
        era that focuses on ‘behavioural business models’2. 
        eBay has changed online auctioning to a community experience, Google has 
        changed our interactions with the internet through its search engines 
        and developing energy programmes for economic development is changing 
        the face of rural electrification. This new era is focusing on the why 
        of the innovation as opposed to what we can make cheaper/better/faster3. 
        And the question of why is always tied to the question of how markets 
        behave. Where do Good Innovations go? Ideally, good innovations go from the lab to the 
        market i.e. a good innovation sees movement from a prototype to a pilot 
        to a scalable, revenue-generating model. This movement happens when 
        organisations have the flexibility to depart quickly from their planned 
        trajectory, jump onto new opportunities that take an active role in 
        introducing new behaviours where there were none previously. Innovative 
        organisations are the ones with the know-how to facilitate this 
        movement.  They develop collaborative models that ultimately 
        integrate the market into the process of innovation and where the market 
        feedback is regularly taken into account. This however does not mean 
        that organisations are held hostage by their customers. It just means 
        that the organisations push the envelope based on market behaviour to 
        know where innovations can add value in unexpected ways. The current innovative environment is developing so 
        rapidly that while technology and behaviours might change incrementally 
        on the margins for long periods of time, leading innovators from around 
        the world are approaching breakthroughs that are disrupting established 
        players. This is seen in the telecommunications sector in India, in 
        energy markets around the world and in e-commerce. The rise of wireless 
        technology fundamentally altered tele-communications. Water ATMs have 
        cropped up changing the role that private players can play in rural 
        service provision4. Going from the Lab to the Market: A Tale of Impacts, 
        Money and Change The motivation for taking innovations from the lab to 
        the market i.e. commercialisation goes beyond just generating revenue 
        and making profit. Innovative solutions in this article are primarily 
        looking to resolve global sustainability challenges. They are 
        cost-effective alternatives that will benefit vulnerable populations and 
        the environment without requiring long-term public or philanthropic 
        support; that have sound business plans and potential to generate 
        sustainable profits. The scalability of such solutions then demonstrates 
        explicitly their impacts and effectiveness5. In order to integrate the market feedback with an 
        organisation’s innovation process, creating a robust system is 
        necessary. An example of this is DA’s Innovation-Incubation Engine 
        (In2E)©. The In2E is crucial to the organisation’s mandate of creating 
        scalable solutions to deliver triple bottom line benefits, as it takes 
        innovations through a fairly rigorous process of checks, balances and 
        proof of viability to demonstrate a sound business potential. Commercialisation of innovations – be at a nascent 
        stage of establishing intent or at a later stage of scaling up for 
        impacts – should have an institutionalised process within an 
        organisation. A process that is complimented by human resources, 
        functional management and facilities and has been designed to streamline 
        the process from the development of a technology to large scale 
        dissemination. The process starts with development of market-based 
        solutions and models by focusing on desired technical performance 
        targets and ends with the incubating entity which ensures faster 
        delivery of solutions through robust mechanisms, local value chain and 
        feedback loops.  The scaling-up eco-system also applies a 
        multi-stakeholder approach to commercialisation of eco-solutions through 
        working with partners and experts at different stages and levels. This 
        multi-stakeholder approach also helps with risk management where 
        technology, environmental and social risks can be identified at an early 
        stage through brainstorming sessions. Experts from various fields 
        critically analyse risks that can cause an innovation or a business 
        model to fail.  Case Study – Building for Sustainability
         One of the innovations adapted and successfully 
        scaled up by the DA group is the TARA EcoKiln. The EcoKiln was promoted 
        as a small capacity, flexible technology which was an energy efficient 
        option for greening the brick industry. TARA EcoKiln in India was 
        launched in 1995 by DA and the Swiss Agency for Development and 
        Cooperation (SDC) to introduce sustainable production systems for 
        building materials. It was demonstrated in Datia, Central India after 
        customising a technology package from neighbouring countries to suit the 
        local conditions. The pilot EcoKiln catered to the evolving needs of the 
        local brick industry. In order for any innovation to be viewed 
        positively, the target audience – in this case the local entrepreneurs – 
        had to visualise a strong market potential. Apart from reduced 
        emissions, profitability of around 20% from reduced coal and labour 
        savings was also achieved. Entrepreneurs were interested in adopting the 
        same due to enhanced profits and compliance with environmental 
        standards. Regulatory agencies have been interested in enforcing the 
        same since environmental compliance is maintained with. The successful 
        demonstration created significant interest amongst all the major 
        stakeholders in the brick industry.  With the technology validated with a pilot 
        demonstration while achieving performance, a financial analysis done 
        after running the kiln for a few months proved the technology to be 
        better than the established traditional clamps. A technology package was 
        created around the EcoKiln to make it replicable across various 
        geographies. The technology package used local resources for hardware, 
        raw material, specialised material, construction and commissioning; 
        local human resources for maintenance and operation certification. This 
        use of local resources throughout the supply chain and understanding of 
        the local market helped in the smooth functioning of the existing pilot 
        units as well as scaling up of new ones. Since 1995, the TARA EcoKiln technology package has 
        been replicated in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Indonesia 
        and Malawi. Within a span of 12 years (2000-2012), more than 150 
        EcoKilns have been established in a commercial mode producing premium 
        quality bricks across India. 
        q Rowena Mathewrmathew@devalt.org
 Saksham Nijhawansnijhawan@devalt.org
 Endnotes 1 The Business Dictionary
 2 INSEAD. 2014.
 3 Koulopoulos. 2012. "Cloud Surfing: A New Way to Think about Risk, 
        Innovation, Scale and Success"
 4 McKinsey & Co. 2012. "10 disruptive technologies"
 5 Global Innovation Fund
 
          
        
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