Cover Story

Apple integrated music offering...
The iPod's continued success goes far beyond the product to encompass multiple types of innovation that helped to create and over time defend the sources of value.

Innovation: Creating and defending new sources of value
To harness the potential of innovation, companies need to understand that innovation is a discipline, and one that - while integrative - still has specific and robust elements that can be embedded within organizations and practiced routinely.
How innovation really works
It's not just about launching new products. It's about executing path-breaking models that are both disruptive and sustainable. A look at the innovators who changed the rules of the game.
From Mandi to Market
The e-Choupal model of ITC has continuously evolved over the past decade, and today is a boon not just for farmers but for the consumer goods business of the tobacco major as well.
Reforming governance and society at one go
India's biggest social welfare scheme has its share of problems, but innovations in its design and delivery hold out promise.
Made in India, for the world
India emerges a hotbed for emerging market innovations and new business ideas as the world looks for frugal solutions.
Hinterland heroes
Grassroot innovations that haven't taken place in the fancy laboratories of big corporations and research institutions are ready to change the life of people in India-and abroad.
Rural recipe
Marketing communications firms are working out innovative ways to allow upcountry consumers to develop an appetite for branded products and services.
Weaving scale into handicrafts
How do you turn thousands of artisans into suppliers to a commercial, for-profit retail chain? Make them shareholders in community-owned companies that can supply in bulk.
No-frills learning
Gyan Shala educates a child at a fraction of the cost of a government school-and strives to ensure that the quality of learning doesn't suffer.
Taking on piracy, profitably
It added content to its blank CD/DVDs to make home viewing affordable.
Banking in the backwaters
TCS finds a viable route to the unbanked Indian in the country's villages with the help of cloud computing.
Mobility for rural wallets
At a time when mobile phones in Indian villages were a rarity, Airtel found a way to capture the market successfully.
From campus to the village
What started as class projects in US universities are now scalable tech innovations in rural India.
Customised from day one
Before launching its Gujarati daily, it took feedback from over 1.2 million homes to understand what prospective readers wanted. And then it gave them just that.

2010-05-30

Digital

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Editors note

From the Editor

Is everything new innovation? Is every innovation a success? Is every successful innovation also a good business proposition? Answers to these questions separate Business Today's approach to innovation from those of others.

Letters

Coffee Houses and Food Biz Sizzle

The combination of challenges and opportunities in the Indian food business is producing a fizzing cocktail of creativity (India's Coffee King, BT cover, May 16).

Leadership Spotlight

Leaderspeak: Preetha Reddy

Here are excerpts of a small Q&A with Preetha Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise.

Utility

How to fly smart

Here's how to get the most out of your business travel.

People, places and products

Here is a look at people, places and products doing the round these days.

Technology

Office Reloaded

Use Microsoft Office at work or home? That's not a duh question. For if you do, here's the biggest overhaul of the productivity suite.

Money

Making employees money-wise

Increasingly, companies are seeing virtue in the financial well-being of their employees. And so they are giving them training in personal money management.

Event

Of pars and high rollers

The winners of the 2010 Business Today-Honda Pro-Am of Champions lived it up at The Venetian Macao, as potent a symbol as any of Asia's economic emergence.

Jobs

83,000 jobs await you

Education is offering an assortment of opportunities.

Features

Back on a roll

Demand for computers and tech gear goes into an overdrive in India, catching vendors such as Dell and Acer by surprise. That happy state is here to stay as government ramps up spending like never before.

Focus

Debts of the giants

Overburdened with debt, the public finances of advanced countries are in a terrible shape, probably at their worst if you ignore wartime periods.

In search of another cash cow

Goldman talks dirty

Words have exact meanings, wrote Ayn Rand, the high priestess of capitalism. Looks like Goldman Sachs employees read Rand and called a spade a spade.

Dharavi dumped

What has happened to the Maharashtra government's plan to redevelop Dharavi, India's largest slum?

Sashimi vs Sushi

Both sashimi and sushi are Japanese fish dishes. Confuse one with the other at your own risk.

Indian Depository Receipts

Standard Chartered's IDRs are likely to list in June. Here's a primer on the first such issue in India.

Review and Technology

We test a product that helps you exercise smarter and a car, that is well, top of its class.

BT-Carma CEO watch

India's and the world's most talked-about CEOs in April.

Satyam probe in the sickbay

If the Satyam Computer case is to be solved and the accused named and punished, it is important that the man who knows it all, stays healthy.

Well Said

Some people call it DUI, somebody calls it IUD and so forth. So it was getting a little difficult to explain all the various permutations and combinations of this acronym.

"We need to reverse the process of Local Governance"

The massive infrastructure spending by the Delhi Government for the Commonwealth Games has transformed Delhi's landscape, but the city is still nowhere close to a London or Dubai.

"India is set for strong growth in 2010"

John Hourican, 39, Chief Executive of Global Banking and Markets (GBM), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), recently delivered his division's first profits since the 2008 global financial crisis left the bank reeling under losses.

Can you see the light?

Corporate results prove growth is back, although margins are under pressure and likely to stay that way.

More votes for India

The World Bank undertakes voting reforms, offers more voting rights to India and China. How was this done and what does it mean for India? Here's a quick look.

Nitin Nohria at HBS helm

The first foreign-born Dean of Harvard Business School shares his thoughts on his new role, business education and ethics for managers.

BT-TAM Most-watched Ads in April 2010

The Rin ad, featuring actress Kajol, was the most watched in April, stacking up 1,136 Gross Rating Points (GRPs). Complan with 1,070 GRPs was second.

Corporate