The top innovative companies in India

I believe Innovation and creativity are the most important facets of a company to stay afloat, especially during the troubled times like the one we are experiencing right now.

Most Innovative Companies don’t do different things, they just do things differently !

So which ones are the most innovative Indian companies ?

To find the answer, Business Today and Monitor Group jointly surveyed more than 75 senior executives across sectors (nearly half of them through in-depth interviews) on their innovation related attitudes, beliefs and practices. Based on which the the survey tried to find the top innovative companies in India.

Top innovative companies in India

(not necessarily in order)

• Air Deccan:  If India’s first low- cost carrier Air Deccan shook up the organized players of the Indian skies, the chief reason was not its scale of operations, but the way it executed it.
• Mahindra & Mahindra:  Be it a soft-top, 10-seater rural transport vehicle (Commander), an urban utility vehicle (Armada), or a stylish and contemporary sports utility vehicle (Scorpio), Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) has been innovating its way up in the auto industry.
• Jet Airways: For two years, as the airline worked on its award-winning first-class cabin on its long-haul routes, there was one man paying close attention to the details: Jet Airways’ Chairman Naresh Goyal. “I am rarely satisfied, but I think with this new first-class suite, we will have many satisfied customers,” a beaming Goyal told reporters at the launch.
• Tata Motors: Because a promise is a promise”. With those words Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata gave India its newest ‘people’s car’ and rewrote global automotive history.
• Maruti-Suzuki India: As the market leader, Maruti has continuously innovated to stay ahead of the other car makers, which is still has the largest share in Indian auto market.
• Citibank India: Sure, subprime is a problem for Citi, but in India, the banking giant has been at the forefront of innovation among other foreign banks.
• HDFC Bank: It is India’s best bank (for the fifth consecutive year, according to a BT-KPMG ranking of banks) for a simple reason: it hasn’t let its rapid growth affect the quality of its assets or its profitability.
• ICICI Bank: How does one go from being a lumbering development financial institution to a private sector market leader in a matter of six years? By making innovation one’s way of life !
• Philips Electronics: It invented the X-ray tube, audio tape, VCR, audio CD, DVD and even the HDTV, over its 100-year journey. After teetering a bit globally and in India, Philips has repositioned itself in the consumer lifestyle, healthcare and lighting space, and (under its new India CEO Murali Sivaraman) is innovating with a vengeance.
• Samsung Electronics India: One size doesn’t fit all, and no one knows that better than the South Korean giant Samsung Electronics. Almost five years ago, it tied up with IIT Delhi to set up a “usability lab” where all its products—no matter how hi-tech—are studied for customization for India, which has made is a frontrunner in Indian electronics market pie.
• ITC: If what was once a thriving but persecuted tobacco company is today a conglomerate with a booming FMCG business, it’s because of ITC’s ability to constantly reinvent itself.
• Dabur India: Not too long ago, when the head honchos at Dabur sat down to draw up their four year plan until 2010, they ended up resting their future strategy on three pillars: Expansion, acquisition and innovation.
• LG ELECTRONCS INDIA: About 10 years ago, LG India had revenues of Rs 125 crore. Last year, that figure stood at Rs 9,500 crore, making LG the #1 consumer durables player in the country.
• Marico: You are an FMCG company, and a manufacturer of laser hair removal equipment approaches you for distribution. You: a) laugh at the proposal and turn it down, b) strike a deal to distribute the machine, or c) spot an opportunity to create an entirely new line of business – and thats what Marico did very successfully.
• Apollo Hospitals: Where is one of the world’s biggest telemedicine hubs based? It is in Hyderabad, courtesy Apollo Health City, an integrated healthcare facility that offers “totality of wellness”.
• Aravind Eye Care: It’s the Toyota of eye care. Despite treating seven out of 10 patients for free or at minimal charges (it screens 2 million patients and performs 2.7 lakh surgeries a year), Aravind Eye Care System operates on a 40 per cent profit margin. How? Thanks to big and small innovations.
• Narayana Hrudayalaya: If Aravind eye is the Toyota of eye care, then Narayana Hrudayalaya is the Wal-Mart of cardiac care. The Dr Dev Shetty-founded hospital performs 23-25 heart surgeries a day—one of the largest in Asia—simply because it has restricted the surgeon’s job only to surgery and not the entire patient process.
• SRL Ranbaxy: God forbid, should the bird flu ever strike Delhi, the capital’s best chance of detecting and responding to it may start from the testing labs of SRL Ranbaxy.
• Infosys Technologies: Innovation and improvement are constantly at work at India’s best-known IT services company Infosys, right from designs for its new buildings at its 80-acre HQ in Bangalore to new solutions meant to enhance employee efficiency.
• Wipro Technologies: Successful innovative ideas at Wipro are usually spun off into centres of excellence. Wipro also has a mash-up portal, iGrid (innovation grid), to create a collaborative environment for innovation.
• TCS: It’s a company that virtually invented the IT services industry in India and continues to be its flag-bearer and offcourse the largest Software services company in India having more than 1 lakh employees.
• IBM Daksh: Never mind that it has a parent who spends $6 billion annually on R&D and files the largest number of patents every year, IBM Daksh believes in innovating ground up.
• TCS BPO: In an industry where the buzzwords are processes and repeatability, TCS BPO believes that there is a lot of scope for innovation. For starters, TCS has set up its BPO business by industry verticals.
• Wipro BPO: From fixing a struggling business model to finding ways to enhance employee efficiency and using technology (Second Life) to give prospective employees an inside look at their future workplace, Wipro BPO has used innovation in different places to stay relevant.
• Dr Reddy’s Laboratories: Our business is innovation, be it NCES (new drugs) or generics (copy-cat drugs),” declares G.V. Prasad, Vice Chairman and MD. “To create value in the generics business, you also need to be innovative, else you cannot do it,” he adds.
• Sun Pharmaceutical: It’s not the biggest, but it is the industry’s most valuable. That in short explains how the Dilip Shanghvi-promoted Sun Pharmaceutical has been able to stand out and create superior value in a crowded industry.
• Ranbaxy Laboratories: Decades before the process patent regime ended in India, Ranbaxy’s visionary builder Parvinder Singh was already thinking basic re- search.
• Airtel: Just as Tata Motors’ small car Nano set a new benchmark in cost for the global car industry, Bharti Airtel’s “least-cost business model”, where just about every activity from network operation to IT is outsourced, has got the global cellular phone operators sitting up and taking note.