Frugal innovation

[13] Spotlighted in a 2010 article in The Economist,[14] the roots of this concept may lie in the appropriate technology movement of the 1950s,[12] although profits may have been first wrung from underserved consumers in the 1980s when multinational companies like Unilever began selling single-use-sized toiletries in developing countries.

[2] Frugal innovation today is not solely the domain of large, multinational corporations: small, local firms have themselves chalked up a number of homegrown solutions.

[15] While General Electric may win plaudits for its US$800 EKG machines, cheap cell phones made by local, no-name companies,[11][15] and prosthetic legs fashioned from irrigation piping,[16] are also examples of frugal innovation.

[1][17] The US Department of Commerce has singled out this nation for its innovative achievements, saying in 2012, "there are many Indian firms that have learned to conduct R&D in highly resource-constrained environments and who have found ways to use locally appropriate technology..."[18] In the process of the COVID-19 crisis, frugal strategies have been adopted by Western companies for the handling of increased uncertainty.

[19] Frugal innovation is not limited to durable goods such as the GE US$800 EKG machine, Reliance Jio's JioPhone or the US$100 One Laptop Per Child but also includes services such as 1-cent-per-minute phone calls, mobile banking, off-grid electricity, and microfinance.