Innovation Revolution: Harnessing India's Diversity

Abstract

Diversity in India gives rise to different challenges that can be met by offering diverse solutions in terms of products, services and their delivery systems. Businesses are using this diversity to develop products, services and supply chains that leverage the diversity of talents and capabilities in a virtuous cycle of innovation. One of the key factors of an innovative society is the diversity of  its capabilities and talents. India has plenty of that. All it requires is the harnessing of this asset with a clear vision and a missionary zeal.It is argued that solutions to India’s problems need to be developed indigenously keeping in mind the diversity and abundance of India’s resources, people’s aspiration levels and the ecological limitations of nature. Persistence of several economic and social problems needs to be examined and factored in. To be specific, there is a need to examine the linkages between the geographic, social and economic diversity of India and the socio-economic problems that the country is facing. In general, there is an argument that diversity leads to conflict. However, it is argued in this paper that there is a positive relationship between diversity and innovation, provided the governance systems recognize and support this linkage. The present paper therefore, proposes a framework linking diversity to innovation.